March 14 | 365 Days of Writing Prompts

180 degrees: Tell us about a time you did a 180 — changed your views on something, reversed a decision, or acted in a way you ordinarily don’t.

As far as I can remember I was never a believer. During the primary school I had “religion and moral” classes, but at that time it was almost mandatory. I had several friends that would attend school church, go the church on Sundays and so on. I was never keen on it.

Although both my parents came from a religious “education” (one Catholic and one Protestant), they never imposed any religion on us. We were not baptized. We did not celebrate holidays in any religious way, we celebrate as “normal” families, Christmas is a family day to give presents and eat well with all family.

Despite the almost secular education, in our country (which is secular) most of the people are Roman Catholics. Therefore, there is an “aura” of Catholicism everywhere, or at least was — as I mentioned in a public school there were some classes of religion, only the kids that belonged to a different religion would not attend. Otherwise, my and other parents didn’t saw any problem in those classes.

I don’t know exactly why but I was never quite impressed by all the theory, I would say that at that time I was an agnostic. I think was missing was curiosity.

I cannot remember all the details of my steps to atheism, but a surely remember that I was a non-believer for some time when in despair I’ve tried to talk with God for the last time in my life. It was before my grandfather died. He had cancer, at that time I think he still was in our home. I was lying in bed, asking for a last prove that he was real and answer me why my grandfather was sick. Obviously, the story did not end well.

From that day on, I become an atheist by conviction. Later I started to do some (curiosity) research on religion, sciences and reading other atheists. Suddenly I was an atheist by consequence of knowing the scientific method, analyzing proofs, logical arguments, and History. After religion, it came all belief systems.