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2002-11-02 - 1:25 p.m.

At 19, in “the red sweet wine of youth,” I was not unlike other children of the late 60s: struggling with my own identity and my place in the grand scheme of things and challenging mainstream culture and morality. Although I was living somewhere right of the far left and hadn’t joined Ken Kesey on his new adventure into the psychedelic world, I was following my own road map to independence.

Much of my trip involved questioning established values and beliefs, and I found myself clashing with the idea of God and organized religion. I was so single-minded (isn’t that a quality of idealistic youth, whether a 60’s youth or youth today?) in my pursuit of the truth and in my desire to prove my atheistic beliefs were the correct beliefs I declared philosophy and religion my minor area of study in college.

My Baptist family wasn’t particularly religious. Though not a devout regular, I attended Sunday School, and my presence in the little classroom seemed to satisfy the need for religion in my life. I went along with it, and one day Mrs. Peterson, my Sunday school teacher, arrived at the house to talk with my mother. The next Sunday I was all frilled out in a little white dress and Dad even accompanied Mom and me to the church. Following our Bible lessons I was herded down the aisle with other spit-polished kids and awaited my turn for a dunk in a large tank. I went along with it, not realizing this was a baptism.

I continued attending Sunday school for a time in my pre-teens, but it was more routine than testament of faith. Eventually, I stopped attending Sunday morning classes.

Years later I declared war on the baptismal ritual and the hypocrisy of the church, especially those impostors professing themselves to be “good Christians.” I came to believe--probably as a result of my study of psychology--a fanatical belief in religion was a crutch for the neurotic.

Though my objections to organized religion have mellowed through the years, I am not religious. I follow no religious rituals, and have not been able to bring myself to accept prayer as beneficial.

I try to avoid arguments (not always successfully) of free will versus determinism in a context of religion when it comes to explaining behaviors and good versus evil. A part of me wants to think all people are good, yet the existence of Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer and others like them elicits questions. I don’t seek answers to those questions through religion; I seek answers through psychological evaluation.

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