JRRZZ Blog

Fellow ACP contributor Waldheri has left a comment on this blog asking me to participate in one of the blogosphere’s more social activities, a meme. It’s basically a number of questions that need to be answered with the more-or-less obligation to spread the meme to other blogs in the blogosphere.

I accept. Not an unexpected reaction from the keeper of one of the most unvisited parts of the interwebs. Anyway, let’s go and answer the questions, shall we?

Can You Remember The Day That You Officially Became An Atheist?

Why is this the only question Entirely Written In Camel Case? It Just Doesn’t Make Any Sense. Ah, I haven’t even started yet and I’m already off topic.

I’ve never considered myself an official Atheist. The best way to explain this rather vague statement is to tell the whole story.

My mother used to be a Catholic nun. My upbringing has been rather Catholic because of that. I went through all of the rites that were expected of God fearing Catholic school boys. Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation and even some church choir stuff. The rite of Confirmation is usually held at a person’s entry into adulthood. As an afterthought, I was eleven, twelve years old or so, which might explain the “other” activities at that age within certain Catholic churches. Anyway, the teachers at primary school and the church volunteers tried to explain this wasn’t just the age of adulthood, but even more the age of reason. We twelve year olds should be enlightened (read: indoctrinated) enough to accept God into our hearts and take the pledge of loyalty to the church. Luckily I interpreted “reason” and “enlightenment” as a motivation to start learning more about my newly pledged faith. I started reading the Bible. This is where things started falling apart.

As I progressed through the linguistical hardships that came with reading the Bible, a horrific and staggering amount of bloodshed and cruelty became apparent. This wasn’t the loving God everyone was talking about. This God had all the characteristics of a vile dictator. He broke his promises, massacred entire civilizations in fear of losing power and didn’t care about a few thousand lives more or less. This discovery enraged me greatly. I went to the pastor for answers, but he essentially waved my arguments away as a futile attempt to undermine his own faith. This unfriendly encounter with my personal church representative left me determined to find out what was really going on.

After a few mislead and futile attempts to salvage what was left of my, once unquestionable, faith I turned my back on Catholicism. So where does an enraged ex-Catholic kid with a huge Death Metal collection go to? Exactly, Satan. Gradually this anger-lead misconception made way for real reason. During the years in college I discovered the scientific method, philosophy and logic. I’ve never completely left Satan. I still had my pentagram and deep down the rage still existed. From my newly found love for philosophy I set out to find the meaning behind this Satan figure, which didn’t mean anything but anti-Catholicism to me. The Satanic Bible by LaVey introduced a whole new chapter in my life.

The last four or five years I went back and forth between LaVeyan Satanism and modern Luciferianism. Right now I consider myself a LaVeyan Satanist. I’m still no real Atheist, since I still believe in “a” god. This god of mine is created by me in my own image. Just like the Catholic one, but they don’t want to admit it. My god is a representation of me and there’s nothing supernatural about it. I worship my god by, essentially, having fun. As long as I’m happy, my god’s happy. See, this god is merely a way to describe the epitome of my life. It’s no entity on it’s own. You may call me an Atheist if you wish, I won’t be offended. Satan still is the representation of my hatred toward the Catholic upbringing I had to endure. I don’t see Satan as a god, more as an iconic symbol. Next to my disbelief of a supreme being Satanism encompasses a whole bunch of other interesting concepts. Since this isn’t part of the question I won’t bother you with the nifty little details.

Do you remember the day you officially became an agnostic?

I only discovered there was such a thing as agnosticism when I was already convinced God didn’t exist. When I look back on the events that lead to the disbelief, there’s no gradual path through agnosticism. My disbelief came quite abrupt in the form of protest against the wrongdoings of my Catholic scholars.

How about the last time you spoke or prayed to God with actual thought that someone was listening?

That must have been during the salvage attempts. There’s a little chapel I used to frequent not far from where I live. I think I’ve made my final attempt to communicate with God there.

Did anger towards God or religion help cause you to be an atheist or agnostic?

Oh yes. Yes it did. And it still does. With a nice Morbid Angel tune playing on the background I can’t wait to set some churches on fire.

Here is a good one: Were you agnostic towards ghosts, even after you became an atheist?

I’ve never believed in ghosts. The ghost folklore was part of my upbringing though. I guess I’ve always been convinced ghosts were part of the very same category as vampires and werewolves. I’m quite comfortable in a graveyard at night. I grew up next to a graveyard dating from the 15th century. Hell, I used to play there as a kid. If there was such a thing as ghosts I’m sure one of the graveyard’s inhabitants would have tried to communicate. Until now they’ve played dead.

Do you want to be wrong?

Of course I want to be wrong. That’s the only way to learn anything. But I guess the question is about being wrong about the almighty slayer of unbelievers. Yeah, I’d like to be wrong. I can take him. Easily. Apparently he has lost all of his power during the renaissance, so I must be able to kick him out of heaven and claim it as my own. It’s the perfect place to shoot angels from. If I’m wrong it’ll be raining dead angels after I die. I promise.

The final part to make this meme continue: the invitations. Since my blogroll doesn’t contain a large number of Atheist bloggers I have to use ACP’s blogroll. I’ll invite two people.

• Chimera
• Blue Linchpin