"I spent every Sunday... sitting in a medieval torture chamber listening to a bloke bang on about his imaginary friend who did magic tricks."

Hilariously awesome.

Red hot enlightenment led me to believe in one fewer god | theage.com.au:

"...I don't give a stuff what people believe in, but it won't stop me poking at it or prodding it. Why should religion be any exemption?

...I spent every Sunday for the first 18 years of my life sitting in a medieval torture chamber listening to a bloke bang on about his imaginary friend who did magic tricks. Then the next 20 years massaging, editing and pruning the brainwashing into something that fit until suddenly I woke up one day and realised I was an atheist.

...I question some of my progressive, believing mates about if they believe in Noah's ark, the Immaculate Conception, Adam and Eve, the Resurrection, even heaven, and they squirm a little and try to change the subject. They get vague, defensive and then start muttering something about faith and mystery and a power of love that unites us all.

Sure, it would be easy to torture them, but they're adults and it's their life. I just can't see why it's so difficult to have a rigorous discussion about it. I feel no need to convert them. I just want them to know that if you are brave enough to place your hand through the invisible electric fence there's a bigger world beyond.

It's been a revelation to me a year since my "epiphany". I feel as if I'm walking through life with the blinkers off. Suddenly all the religious mumbo-jumbo jumps out as so bonkers. Wearing certain things, eating certain things, mumbling certain things at certain times so some imaginary friend will let you into a club in the sky when you die. I want to do my living now, thanks. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of never having lived.

...I don't care what people believe in, but I do care that religion impacts on political discourse, public policy and that it stunts the ability of people to think for themselves and question. And that it kills people and causes suffering. But most of all I care that the invisible electric fences that are wired in the minds of children brainwashed by religion are difficult to remove. And impossible if you don't even know they're there..."