Frivology

So today is Darwin Day, and I’ve been mulling over in my head for the past couple of weeks just what I wanted to say in this post.  I’m not a scientist by any means, and my understanding of Darwin goes as far back as high school, wich is around 15 years ago.  I’m reading ‘Why Evolution is True‘, but I don’t have a whole lot of time to read these days, being busy with work and a few other hobbies.  So, I stumbled along with idea after idea until something finally dawned on me… it’s something I’m sort of working slowly up to in my Losing My Religion series here at Frivology.  The series is about all of the different religions I hopped in and out of before I finally found peace in no religion and no belief, but the underlying theme to it is a personal bit of anecdotal evidence that there are certain people in this world who are hard-wired to be atheists.  Natural born atheists, so to speak… and I have to wonder, are human beings evolving into disbelief? 

About a year ago, I listened to Julia Sweeney’s ‘Letting Go of God’.  It moved me because Julia described all of the different beliefs she went through before she allowed herself to stop believing.  I did much the same thing.  Also like her, I wanted desperately to be a part of the moving ritual and beauty that religion can offer the world.  I, however, was cognitive enough of my own disbelief that I spent a great deal of time lying about what I felt.  I lied and said that I was wounded and needed Christianity to heal me.  I lied and said that I felt the warmth of God.  I lied and said that I felt the love of the Goddess… so on and so forth.  Some part of me knew I was lying, yet I craved the companionship, warmth and peace that so many “believers” seemed to have.  For me, though, I didn’t get that peace until I finally completely let go and admitted that I didn’t believe.  From the beginning, I never believed - couldn’t believe.  I was always meant to be an atheist.  It dawned on me, then, that I probably wasn’t alone.  Whatever made other people believe just wasn’t part of me. 

(continue reading…)