Thinking about God
Been thinking about religion a lot lately.

I identify myself as a staunch atheist but, oddly, it doesn't feel to me like a decision; rather, it feels like a factor of my DNA.

I was raised by my grandmother who was religious, but in a strange, tribal way. It was almost like an animism, no formal worship of any kind, but velvet tapestries and plaster crosses everywhere. It was fascinating to me, but fascinating in the same way that a Hopi spirit doll is fascinating. Quaint.

There were periods in my very unhappy adolescence when I tried to find some meaning in faith, but it was much like my grandmother's superstition, with more Kalahari bushman than C.S. Lewis to it...all about saying special words to get results, praying for rain.

Recently, I came into contact again with both my mother and my father - I haven't spoken with my father since I was 16 and haven't actually met him since I was 8 or so. My mother and I parted ways about 16 years ago and continued to live in the same town, never speaking.

They are both very, very sick. My mother is a third stage renal patient and my father is being treated for colon cancer.

The part that strikes me as relates to where we started, to god belief? They are both atheists as well. My father wouldn't use that word, but it applies. They are in the foxhole, so to speak, and they remain resistant to faith.

I often feel as if I am missing the part of my brain that makes religion work, that carves some sort of sense out of faith. Maybe it's genetic.