Introduction and History

"The existence of a world without God seems to me less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell." [Armand Salacrou, "Certitudes et incertitudes," 1943]

Hello, I am an atheist. I wasn't always an atheist. It was a long journey to arrive at this much-maligned belief (or lack of belief?). When I was a child, I was in a cult until I was 11 years old. Then my family turned to Catholicism, which I did not. I turned to alcohol.
At age 19, I got sober through a Twelve-Step organization. A month later, I became a "born-again" Christian.
It was easy to get involved in the church since I had a friend there who introduced me to others. I threw my whole heart into belief. As Carl Jung has described, I focused on the things that upheld my beliefs and ignored those that did not.
I sampled several types of Christianity-I've been involved with a fundamentalist church, I have cast out "demons", I have believed in prophesies, I studied the Bible and prayed earnestly, trusting (as a child would-that's the ideal, right?) that God was in control.
I discussed Christianity with my family and boyfriend (later to be my husband), wanting them to believe as I did, wanting them to go to heaven rather than hell.
Original sin made sense to me. Bad things that happened to me were God's will to discipline me or the fault of the devil.
This went on for twenty years.
Then I began to see things differently.