I don't believe in gods because I experienced disappointment in almost every kind of ideology that exists in the world and had my worldview broadened the hard way. I gradually discovered the grain of similarity in every homogenous doctrine and falseness was part of that similarity.

I come from a poor family of blue-collar and agricultural workers. My grandmother was the only really god-fearing person in the family, a devout Roman Catholic, but even she has learned to accept me (together with my homosexuality) at the very end of her life. I was never religious in the narrow sense of the word, but my political persuasions were remarkably religion-like. I idolized my leaders as gods. I believed in ideologies as holy rules. I started out with an all-consuming interest in World War II when I was in kindergarten. (Learned to read at three from Fortune Wheel.) This interest led to a persuasion: I became a Nazi. It may sound weird, and it indeed does to me with my present knowledge and experience, but I was completely believing in Hitler's cause and was fascinated by the orderliness of his thinking. Then, after lots of punishment from adults, I 'converted' to Communism. The same orderliness, just different exclusion principles. Then I grew and developed, and by the second year of high school my affiliation gradually 'mildened' to Liberal - in the sense of 'activist of the Hungarian party called Alliance of Free Democrats'. They were the only party left for me when I discovered my homosexuality. But then certain things happened, and it became obvious that even they won't make my country a safe and comfortable place for LGBT people.

That set me off to a complete void. I was lost. Worse than that, I was turning 18. That's voting age here, and I was not sure who to vote for because I have seen the evil at the core of all parties. So I cut the threads and burned the bridges, and began saving money for emigration. That is still in progress though, as we're still a quite poor family and my income is just beginning to exist. But I never want to get involved in any ideological battle again, unless I can have my own alternative, which has unique insights added and does not conform to a pre-set, straightjacketed view. (As Dr. Kevorkian said, 'A party is just like a religion. It straightjackets your mind.')

Parallel to this journey other disillusionments took place: discovery of the dynamics of parent-child relationships (where George Orwell's 1984 and my interest in ethology meant a great help); discovery of the fact that I am not able to have a romantic relationship (took three rejections to realize); the hard path of an autistic learning the meaning of lies and unwritten rules; and basically all the horizon-expanding experiences stemming from typical Asperger-like information-addiction. Step by step I became certain that the scientific method is the way for collecting answers, and firsthand knowledge is always more reliable than other people's opinions and convictions. (I just blogged about this firsthand knowledge vs. communication thing.)

Recently I've found that I'm not alone with this kind of 'paranoia', though everybody around me seemed to be indoctrinated with something or another; I came across Richard Dawkins' work by accident and now he occupies the top few of my reading list. Reading The God Delusion I'm going backwards on my journey, remembering what it meant to be bound by a belief system so much that I could not notice anything else, so strongly that I beat up people because they believed in something else (or nothing at all). It's exhilarating. I'm sending it to all my religious friends so they can open their eyes as well.

Lesbian, aspie, dyscalculic. Currently working as a freelance translator and firstyear of English & American Studies at ELTE, but preparing to abandon Humanities altogether to pursue interests in biology (neuroscience perhaps?). Other interests include human rights, science fiction, body art and transhumanism.