I grew up in a home with two parents who were both Christians. They never went to church that often but at their insistence as well as the religious basis of our education system my brother and I were both altar boys in a Catholic denominated church. As far as I can tell the only reason that I went to church and ‘believed’ when I was young was because of the fear of my own mortality and eternal damnation.

Because my ‘faith’ was really based on something I feared it no real roots - as a result my commitment to the church and the process of being a believer was not sustainable. As I got older I also thought about my mortality less and less and the church really just became a nuisance.

The trouble was that in our conservative society it wasn’t even a consideration to say that I doubted, we had teachers that preached hell and damnation and many friends that would have distanced themselves from me for any admission of being less than a good and committed Christian.

Subsequently I shelved those doubts and carried on with life avoiding conversations around spirituality, religion or god.

When I was 30 my younger brother died really suddenly of meningitis. We’d been best friends, business partners and the closest thing that I’ve ever experienced to what I guess people refer to as a soul mate. I was like a rudderless ship caught at sea in a tropical storm and my personal behaviour reflected that turmoil. Two or three years after his death I found myself in a rehabilitation centre because I’d been abusing prescription tranquilisers. The program I was on lasted a duration of 5 months and was based on the 12 step program.

I was lost, afraid and broken and for the first time  I made a conscious decision to find god.

I was baptised in a swimming pool on a sweltering hot day in a desert town in the middle of no-where. I prayed every day and I sang with fellow believers - all people who were battling various forms of addiction.

I’d finally found god with one slight issue – I hadn’t, what I’d found was a crutch to replace the pills.

When I left the program the bible was once again relegated to a dusty shelf in a room that was never used and life carried on.

I then met someone who changed my life forever. There was a guy that I worked with who was a staunch Atheist; he would argue science vs religion at any given opportunity. For the first time in my life I’d met someone who was both vocal and passionate about not believing. His conviction gave me courage to look at god and religion critically for the first time in my life. I very quickly migrated from quite doubter to passionate non-believer.

The one thing I realised that was despite being mildly agnostic before the religious believe system and behaviour set that accompanied that believe system had truly blinded me to the realities of the state of this world.

Despite being a follower of world news, science and politics my entrenched religious believe system had made me truly blind to the truth that faced me every day. God and religion are systematically destroying our planet. There is no war, no dictator, no disease or natural disaster that can come close to killing and destroying as much as what organised religion has – I bet it’s safe to say that people’s believe in god has killed more people than all the other things combined.

Something in that realization severed the bounds of my upbringing and for the first time I was comfortable saying ‘No, I don’t believe’ that quite admission has morphed into an open god deviant voice that advocates free thinking and freedom from the religious chains that constrain millions of people on our planet.

The time has come for non-believers to encourage people start questioning the antiquated and repressive believe systems and start exploring the truth for themselves.

Because like me I’m sure many of them will find that not finding god will truly set them free.

Duncan D’Ewes