Part 2:
At one point I became more convinced of my atheism and even a militant defender of it. It all started with music, more specifically, the music of Creed. Around 1998/1999 the internet dawned upon me and with the help of a friend I had started a website about modern (rock-oriented) music (still maintain it
http://RalphyS.tripod.com) and for it I wrote CD reviews and one of the CD’s I reviewed was Creed’s “Human clay”. I really loved that album and I went to their official website to look up some stuff and also found a forum there. As we probably all know their music is very spiritually oriented and on that forum was also a Faith/Religion Forum. First I started reading stuff about how the band was supposedly a Christian band or not, but eventually I started vending out my own opinions against the death penalty, weapon restrictions and about my disbelief in God. I got the usual fundie reactions as well as some more moderate ones from more liberal Christians, but most amazing I found the discussions between atheists and theists. The logical reasoning of some atheists (I especially admired a guy called SanDiegoSciFiGuy) crushed the theology of the believers and some of them would react in a very angry and mean manor. Tolerance wasn’t big on that board, nonetheless I really loved the discussions and I became kind of an addict to these discussions. The closed-mindedness of the theists on that board, you know the basic ‘faith is better than logic’-crap, made me angry and especially afraid. I mean if people like this get the upperhand in the most powerful country in the world and impose all of their morals that are coming from an ancient fairytale book on us the world would be much the poorer for it.
Since than I have been confirmed that the atheist-view I had was the right one, I discarded the belief in reincarnation, and am now a full fledge militant atheist. Not that I go out in the streets and throw protest flags in people’s faces, in this highly secular society I would be considered some kind of (anti-)religious nut, but when it comes up I discuss the reasons why I don’t believe and around here were religion is more tradition than an actual act of faith, people sometimes listen with an open mind and even agree on a lot of things. For instance my mother always says it is very hard to believe that an all-loving God could let all these bad things happen in the world, not that she now is a non-believer, but a bit of doubt is spread. But I’ve been most active spreading the word of reason on several bulletin boards over the internet, challenging the absolutists, the conservatives, the fundies, to an open discussion, others read along and are sometimes influenced or at least I hope so, to throw away their sheep-status of following the herd without question. And this is were I am now in my life.
Happy with my status as non-believer, but terribly afraid that the religious right will come to power (even more than with the already very frightening Dubya) in the only remaining superpower nation and hoping to reason against that.