I don’t believe in God/s. I have no religion.
I was brought up Church of England or Anglican but my family is not religious or spiritual. [ETA: this sentence doesn’t make sense. I guess I was born into a CoE family?] That’s not to say that they don’t cling to Judeo Christian tenets. When I told them I was atheist they asked me with panic in their voices just where I thought I’d go when I died? Just where do I get my morals from?
I replied that when I die I will lose consciousness, my brain will die and my body will cease to move. I told them that I would return to the earth. I asked them if they equated values with morals, and if they thought the latter was more important than the former. I said that morals, in my life, had done a lot of damage to me. People have shamed me for being human, for being a woman, and they call that moral behaviour? If that’s the case, I cried, I reject that. I prefer to treat other living creatures and myself well and to contribute to an equitable society. Those are values that are common in most humans and in a lot of animals too. We don’t need morals that make us forget we are animals and control us with shame.