After years of religious non-involvement of any kind, I have changed.

Here’s how everything has come to pass. I was born and baptised a Catholic, and attended Mass for the first six years of my life. For one reason or another, we didn’t go one week, and never went again. I didn’t mind at the time; I was six, and not going to church was one less sermon and boring few hours of my life each week. I was thrilled.

I didn’t think about this much for a long time after, probably another six or seven years. It just wasn’t anything that interested me. I didn’t go to church, still thought of myself as Christian, still marginally believed in God and Jesus and such, and still celebrated holidays. Come to think of it, I still do celebrate holidays.

When I was in middle school, I confronted this lack of religion head-on. I can’t remember the circumstances which lead to this confrontation, or anything even remotely connected to it, but for one reason another I found myself wanting and trying to re-connect with God, Christianity, Catholicism, and the works. I started reading the Bible, talking openly about religion with friends, peers, and adults, and began really researching science, religion, and their conflicts and agreements.

Three months later, I emerged an atheist. Once again, it left my head.

It has been six years, more or less since that day. Perhaps I’m supposed to go through this every six years, perhaps I’m not. Either way, I found myself at another spiritual crossroads of sorts. If anything, it’s another anti-crossroads, but it is significant nonetheless. Here’s how it happened:

I was sitting around this morning, killing time as usual, using the wonderful “random page” feature on Wikipedia. I do this often; it’s a great way to kill time and pick up useless trivia. Today, one of the first few articles that came up was the one on Ned Flanders (of The Simpsons fame). I read through casually, not finding much that I hadn’t already known, except for a little note at the bottom: “Brianists use the term ’Ned’ to refer to Christians . . . ” I’d never heard of Brianists, but fortunately there was a link. Within minutes, I’d found my new religion.

Think of it as organised religion without the Hullabaloo. Brianism rejects many of the things that make organized religion religion, instead focusing on many of the principles of my once-atheism. Their “holy book” is the Book of Brian, a series of directives based on living a Brianist life. This focuses mainly on the seven pillars: Intelligence, Rationality, Propagation, Environment, Evolution, Knowledge, and Heritage.

Full info is available at the British official site linked to above; feel free to check it out if you are so inclined. Unfortunately, there is nothing resembling official Brianism in the States, but officiality is hardly a requirement to fulfill the Prime Directive.