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It is said that everyone has “a skeleton in their closet” - that everyone has something in their past that they are ashamed of. It might be an embarrassing memory of one’s former dress sense, or of treating a former girlfriend badly, or of some outrageous beliefs that one used to hold. If you can call this ‘a skeleton in my closet’, it means that you have recognized your mistake and mended your ways. Nevertheless, this is a ’skeleton’ and that suggests there is still a sense of shame attached to it.

I was brought up in a christian environment - church every Sunday, sometimes twice on Sunday, and at least once more a week as well, I pretty much knew the whole bible back to front. All of this I inherited from my deeply-loving parents - they passed on to me what they fervently believed was The Truth. As you can probably imagine, it took quite a struggle to find my own independent view on the world and I missed out on the chance to discuss ideas freely within the family.

I gave up religion officially when I got to university, though I had been biding my time for some years until then - partly because I didn’t want to upset my parents at a time when they were sacrificing so much for me and my education. One turning point for me was a christian Summer event called ‘Love Europe’. This was a project to spread christianity in Europe by sending young christians from many different nations to different cities in Europe with the aim of drawing new converts ‘into the fold’.

It was during this month-long experience that I finally became absolutely convinced of the arbitrariness of doctrine, the downright weirdness of basing your whole life on the writings of one book and the moral narrow-mindedness of most christians. The whole experience was an assault on my senses because, even if I still believed to a certain extent, I just didn’t feel any desire to go out and try to make other people believe the same thing - probably because I didn’t really understand what and why I was believing exactly in the first place. It all seemed very far from a quest for truth. When an acquaintance I met there came out as a homosexual, he was shamed and forced into renouncing his sexuality - the devout leaders who gathered around him to ‘exorcise’ his ‘moral deformity’ looked so foolish, I shall never forget the scene.

While it sheltered me from reality while I was a child, christianity numbs the intellect and stunts young people’s growth as individuals. I believe it is time to recognize that religion is a bizarre sideshow of freakiness that feeds on the weak and confused in society and, more often than not, (I stick my neck out here) HARMS YOUR CHILDREN.

So, there you have it, that’s probably my biggest skeleton. I know some people will take offense at my attitude to religion. People usually have many deep and good reasons for holding to their religious beliefs, but I suspect that they could just as easily espouse a humanist type outlook without compromising their moral standards and, more importantly, without contributing to one of the most nefarious forces in the modern world.