(marked for later reference)

The Early Days of a Better Nation
Ken MacLeod is my favorite SF writer currently, and his blog is a refreshing change from typically incestous daisy chain of links one finds in the Blogosphere. This is just a segment of one of his latest rants on his blog
Once again you might expect that - given that my father was one of these Presbyterian ministers - I grew up with strong religious feelings and convictions and once again I have to say, not a bit of it. I heard every word of the Bible and I believed every word of it but it had no spiritual effect whatsoever. I learned all the theology from the Westminster Confession and the Shorter Catechism and I believed it to be true but I couldn't see any reason why anyone would want it to be true. In my late teens I remember reading lots of bad apologetics put out by the Inter-Varsity Press and other evangelical publishers and they would argue that the only alternative to Christianity was some sort of brutal free-for-all - you know, the three bad N's, Nietzsche, Nihilism and Nazism - and it suddenly struck me that the Greeks and Romans and Chinese had managed perfectly well in that respect of values and morals and so on without Christianity. And the fever left me. Now I should say in courtesy to those of you who are Christians that I now well recognise the intellectual and emotional appeal of the Christian religion but I have to say the version of it that I was taught may be a little different from the one you believe in. I should also say that this rather uncompromising version of the religion produces some truly admirable people and I am not one of them.

Do yourself a favor and check his Blog and his novels. I recommend The Stone Canals as a good introduction. Oh and by the by I just saw that his novel Learning the World was nominated for a 2006 Hugo Award. Cheers to you Ken!