Losing Faith: My Introduction

This is going to be a series posts for several reasons. One: this is a huge topic, and I want to do my best to cover it thoroughly. Two: I still haven't had the chance to buy a new charger for my laptop, so I'm running low on battery. Two sensible reasons, yes? I consider myself a very practical person--which is really what gave me the material for these posts in the first place.

I recently told my mom I was an atheist. She cried. I felt horrible about it, but I expected that she would. What I didn't expect was the question she then asked me.

"Joe, how do you stop believing in God?"

For a moment, I didn't know what to tell her. I would compare the conversation to a kid telling his mother that he outgrew believing in Santa Claus. Except his mother never did.

Don't misunderstand me; I'm not trying to belittle or make fun of people with religious beliefs. If your religion or belief system works for you, then pursue it with everything you have. This isn't going to turn into an argument against religion. I may save that for another post, perhaps on a night when I'm feeling particularly argumentative. In this series of posts, I just want to talk about my experience with religion, and my eventual realization that I didn't buy into it.

I think a better way to approach the question would be to ask "How do you start believing in God?" Because the answer to both questions are directly related, at least in my experience. In this series, I want to address my entire journey, from childhood indoctrination to adult sceptic.

But those are posts for other days. (More specifically, tomorrow--my battery is minutes away from dying.) I just wanted to address the topic briefly tonight, and to tell you what I'll be writing about over the next couple days. Or however long it takes to discuss it to my satisfaction.

Also, I would like to say thank you to everyone who has told me that they read this. The only way a writer improves is by writing for an audience. Thank you.