Living in the South, fundamentalist Christians are all around me. The city council of a neighboring town with a population of about 10,000 decided to do away with Christian prayers before every meeting. When word got out that this was going on over 6,000 angry protesters marched through the streets demanding that Christian prayers be allowed at council meetings.

A good friend of mine is a Christian fundamentalist. He and I have been friends since we were kids living in the old neighborhood forty years ago. But since I have become an atheist, it's harder for me to be around him. It's difficult to hear him say things like, " Satan is in control of the world." So now I find myself coming up with excuses for not dropping by to see him.

Lucky for me my brother and my nextdoor neighbor are also atheists so at least I'm not alone. Still, I'm having trouble dealing with my irrational self talk that "Christian fundamentalists are idiots and they MUST stop believing absurd nonsense!"

I'm finding that it helps to remember why I used to believe all the nonsense too. When I was a Christian I never read much of the Bible. I just went along with what everybody else believed. When everybody else around you believes something to be true it's very easy to believe it too.

Here's why I believed:

1. Everybody else believes it so it must be true. My family, my friends, my co-workers, my relatives, my neighbors all believe in God and Jesus and heaven. They all can't be wrong so there's got to be something to it.

2. I'm afraid that if I don't believe then I could end up being tortured forever in hell. That would be awful. I don't want that to happen. Hell is very frightening. I can't end up there so I better believe.

3. I want to live forever. And I want to go to heaven where life is way better than life here on earth. That's going to be so cool. I don't want to die and I can't handle the thoughts of my life ending when I die.

4. I want to see my friends and family members again who have already died. I loved them and I want to see them again and party like we used to. I can't stand the thoughts of never seeing them again.

5. There has got to be a god, otherwise how did we get here? Where did everything come from if there's no god? I need answers for why I'm here and the idea of a god makes sense.

6. It feels good to know that there's sombody looking after me. I feel safer knowing that God is in control and that all I have to do is pray and he'll take care of everything. If he doesn't then that only means he has other plans for me.

7. Those who don't believe or believe in something else are wrong. I don't need to listen to their side because they're wrong. They're all going to hell and they'll have only themselves to blame.

8. If I fuck up all I have to do is ask Jesus for forgiveness and it will be okay. As long as I never deny the Holy Spirit I'll get into heaven.

So when I look at how I used to believe, it makes it a lot easier to see why the bullshit is so easy to believe. It seems to help me deal with those around me who still believe it. Sometimes I wonder if life would be easier if I just went back to believing the bullshit. Except for one thing.

It's bullshit. Life's isn't a test. Earth is not a waiting room. There's no evidence that I'll get another life after this one or that a torture chamber awaits me.

Now that I know that, the world looks a lot different to me. I know that my days are numbered so I better enjoy as much of the good stuff while I can. As long as that enjoyment doesn't involve taking advantage of other people or shorten my life or land me in prison then I'll feel pretty good about being here.

That is, as long as I can find a way to reasonably deal with the irrationalities of others. Just talking about it helps. And that is the reason for this post.

Rick