From Cozy Firewood to Atheism: Fireside Reflections 🪵💭

The evening turned out to be pleasant, despite the chill outside. But inside, it’s warm, with birch firewood crackling in the stove. The flames cast whimsical reflections on the walls through the slightly open stove door. A faint scent of birch smoke fills the room.

A picture instantly pops up in my memory: I am little, lying in bed, and my grandmother is working her magic in the kitchen. Wood is crackling in the Russian stove, smelling of birch smoke. That means in a couple of hours, the pies will be ready.

Forty years have passed since then. The old folks are gone, and only memory keeps this alive. And so, sometimes you pull out these memories, triggered by an external impulse similar to what was captured long ago. The atmosphere invites me to dive into memories of those who are no longer with us and never will be again.

Some believe that loved ones haven't died completely and are up there in heaven, watching over us and supposedly meeting us after death. Well, many dreamers from the world of esotericism tell us about this from the pages of their works of varying degrees of craziness or from YouTube channels. I don't believe in any of this: no gods, no demons, no spirits. For me, all this is just fairy tales — sometimes interesting, sometimes not, but nothing more.

Since childhood, after yet another, let's say, prank, my mother tried to discipline me and bring me to my senses by putting me on my knees in the corner on peas. A notable punishment, I must say! At the same time, I had to recite the Lord's Prayer. I haven't liked prayers since then, and for me, they are perceived more as a punishment. Peas are an excellent medieval execution; anyone who has tried it will confirm. At first glance, it's not a beating, but it causes no less pain, and sometimes, if you stand on it for a long time, even more.

Ha-ha-ha, that was my introduction to religion, so to speak.

Later, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was older, and some Krishnaite neophytes came to us, trying to agitate my parents into their faith. Ha, useless — by that time they had already been agitated by alcohol. They left a book, the "Bhagavad Gita". I found the book quite interesting. Naturally, I didn't believe in Krishna, but I read the book. When the Internet appeared, I read the entire "Mahabharata". As an avid bookworm, I love that kind of stuff.

Somewhere around the same time, a well-known Japanese sect (I won't mention it, it's probably banned) started broadcasting its propaganda on the Mayak radio station. They were broadcasting some hardcore nonsense to the whole country.

In general, the religious and near-religious constantly surrounds us. And even in speech and everyday life, if you look closely, something that is rooted in religion crawls out everywhere. This is natural, because it actually participated in the formation of language and directly influenced everyday life.

Once, about 13 years ago, I decided to dive into this topic and finally understand what's what: is there actually any real evidence about religion or not? The Internet had just appeared and opened up access to everything needed. Oh, it's a bottomless pit in which the beliefs and myths of a huge number of authors are intertwined! I thought I'd figure it out in a couple of months. Ha-ha-ha!

I won't tell you what's what, otherwise it will be a giant post on pseudo-theology by a talentless hack. But I made my own conclusions for myself and became established in my atheistic worldview. Materialism is a reasonable point of view for me personally. I am not campaigning for anything, everyone decides for themselves.

Actually, this topic is huge, but I think it just won't be interesting to anyone but me.

Have a successful, pleasant time of day, everyone!