My family has never understood my contempt for religion. Mostly they can’t distinguish religion from God and like most people, believe that to subscribe to a religion automatically means belief in God and righteousness. I despise all religion yet I don’t despise the notion of God. My acceptance of the existence of God comes from the incomprehensibility of the cosmos and sheer wonder of nature. The bible means nothing to me, as would the Koran or Talmud, should I ever read these works, which I never will.

The background to my strident view of religion comes from my childhood. I don’t blame my parents, they were only doing what they thought was right. They were decent people, misled by equally decent people. From the age of about nine, starting with my convalescence from rheumatic fever and for the next two years, I was confined to home and consequently spent many of my formative childhood years in the company of adults. I was exposed to adult conversation and ultimately my parents involved me in a new sect that they had just joined.  The teachings of this sect were as insidious as all other such sects and it crept up on me, and brain washed me, as it did my mother, father and two Aunts.  My Aunt Dot, my mother’s sister, nearly 80, and my cousin Jill, on my father’s side, now over 60, are still members of this sect and have been for over 50 years.

This sect differentiated themselves by claiming no name; they wanted to simply be called Christians. However they did assume names such as “The Way”. This name implicitly condemned all other religions. They taught that unless you were one of them, there would be no place in heaven for you. This condemned all of mankind, except them, to eternal damnation.

The women were not allowed to cut their hair and wore it in large buns. They were not allowed to expose their arms or legs so they wore long dresses with full sleeves, not matter how hot it was. Radio was not allowed in the home and no one was permitted to attend a movie or go to a circus. Certainly smoking and drinking were forbidden. My Aunt Bobbie, my father’s sister, remained a member of the sect all her life and attended the meetings religiously. She kept a radio in her house, under cover. I know that her husband secretly had a smoke when no one was looking!

The faithful were kept under control by the preachers who went from home to home in two’s. It was always two women or two men and in many cases they were partners of 20 years or more. They were called workers, even though they never did a day’s work in their lives. They were the ultimate fun police. They ensured that the hair was kept long, that there were no radios to be seen and that nobody experienced any fun or enjoyment whatsoever. They were the Taliban of the 60s and they had me entrapped.

My father eventually saw the light and withdrew and I was quickly able to follow suit. I was free. I was thirteen and there was still some time left for a normal childhood. I had spent nearly three years in this sect, during which time, I never saw a movie, attended a circus, or listened to a radio, other than secretly. I spent these years attending meetings in our home and other homes on Sunday mornings and evenings and Wednesday evenings.  I had nothing in common I could share with my friends.
Once a year, we attended a convention which lasted for a week, along with hundreds of members from all over the country. The meetings went on all day, interrupted thankfully by tea, lunch and dinner.  For seven days we were preached at by workers, their sermons going on interminably. I know I daydreamed through most of them.

Somehow this all seem perfectly reasonable to me at the time but over the years, leading into early adulthood, I increasingly saw the absurdity of it all. During my early adult years I began to see this absurdity mirrored in every religion. Every religion has rules which serve no purpose in furthering the worship of God, yet people mindlessly pursue these rules, even to their deaths.

I mention below a few of the absurdities that I have observed over the years.

South Africa’s government and state church, the Dutch Reformed Church, justified apartheid based on Christianity.  The state airline, flying only white passengers, always had bibles prominently secured to each bulkhead, presumably for the devout Christians in the plane to read up on apartheid. You could not be a real Christian if you were black, it seems. If you are a Muslim, then everybody else is an infidel!

The Catholics believe in the infallibility of the Pope. It is impossible to ascribe infallibility to the leader of the Catholic Church, when you look back on the monumental mistakes made this religion over the years, all with the blessing of the same infallible Pope. Infallibility means never having to say sorry!

Muslims on the other hand seem to think that the murder of innocents can justified by objectives of their religion. Those that execute these crimes are little worse than those Muslims who commit no such crimes, yet stay silent! They all stand condemned by their religion.

This is different only in degree to the Catholic and Anglican leaders who knowingly hid paedophiles in the church leadership. Yet these same religions condemn gay people who commit no crime and even if by some stretch of the imagination, you decide that this is a crime, and then it is, at the very worst, a victimless crime.

How much worse is it to condone the abuse of a child, by a person placed in a position of absolute trust? If you can’t trust a man of God, then who can you trust?

The Israelis and Hezbollah kill innocent people and both of them do this in the name of God. Surely they can see that the God to which they both ascribe infinite benevolence, would not countenance the murder of innocents or otherwise. Surely they can see that they both can’t be right. Surely they can see that if they both believe in the infinite benevolence of God, that they must both be wrong. But of course they can’t!

Buddhist’s are not involved in wars, abuse and don’t enforce their teachings on others.  Buddhists believe that you should kill no living creature and this is an admirable philosophy. Yet they eat meat. Their reasoning behind this is that the person eating the meat does not kill the animal.

Lest I stand condemned by those that follow me for these views, let me add that I despise religion, not God or the people that worship God through these religions. For these people I have only compassion, for all people need meaning in their lives and need structure and tradition against which they can measure their worth. To the extent that religion serves these ends, it is good. To the extent that it serves the ends of its leaders and founders, then it is not good.

If there is a God, these leaders of the church will face him, as will I, to justify the deceit and the wrongdoings committed in his name during our lifetimes. I expect however to face a benevolent God, who will see my misdeeds in the context of my life and my ability to comprehend and interpret, as will he those billions of people less fortunate than me. He will disregard the religion they pursued, evaluating only their life and deeds.

By Roger McDougall a happy atheist