(Via L. Stevenson)

Let me start this by saying that it’s always been my belief that you should always be true to yourself, to stay honest to your core values as a person, to be open to life’s experiences and lessons, and to love yourself for who you are. No one has the right to damn you for being you, or to tell you what to believe or how to live your life.

I was raised by christian parents. I remember going to church as a small child, and my best friend at the time was the preacher’s daughter. We often played in the church, but I was afraid of the baptismal tub which sat behind the pulpit. But church was more of an annoyance for me at that age because I was forced to dress up and sit still and be quiet. (I was a rambunctious child.) I was 6 when my parents stopped going to church because they felt the members were often rude to them if we happened to miss a Sunday. My parents remained christian, but denounced the idea of “organized religion”.

My parents often talked of god and jesus, but I never took what they said seriously. Growing up, I tended to equate god and jesus as the same line as the easter bunny or santa. Things that are spoken of, but never actually seen. It was just a word, an idea, something I was too young to understand if I couldn’t see or hold it. I don’t remember being all that interested in the stories, and as I grew older, I grew less patient with them.

But I still I thought I was a christian.

When I was 16, I was a really unhappy kid. I was bullied and picked on at school for being different, and had been treated that way for many years. I had few friends, and my own sister had repeatedly emotionally abused me growing up. I realize now that I went back to christianity because I thought that it would make me feel better about my life.

I thought I needed it.

But by then, I couldn’t do it without asking a lot of questions first. I asked A LOT of questions. I prayed, I talked to my friends, I even have a religious poem somewhere. I had to search and figure it all out. I don’t know why I didn’t go in just full of religious faith, but I didn’t. I HAD to ask.

After six months of this, I woke up one morning with the BRILLIANT realization that I had NEVER believed in any of it, which was why it clicked with me. It had never meant anything more to me than just stories.

God had become the distant relative that’s talked about at family get-togethers without ever actually meeting them. You know the name, you know some attributes, but you live your life not thinking about it.

I was never meant to be christian or a god believer and finally having that knowledge was very freeing.

I hid my atheism for two years.

My mom was a teacher at one point in her life, and at times she still acts like it. I knew that at age 16, I was still a minor and therefore, subject to my parents’ authority. I didn’t want to be pressured or forced into going to church and I know my mom would have assigned Bible study. I knew what my life would have been like had they known and I didn’t want to experience it. I felt I didn’t have a choice but to hide it from them.

I came out when I was 18. It’s the best thing I did for myself up to that point. They weren’t happy. But I didn’t expect them to be.

My family thought it was a phase. They expected me to outgrow the idea of atheism or to become bored with it.

Almost 13 years later, and they know now that it wasn’t a phase. I am open about what I believe with everyone in my life.

My mom has said she considers herself to be a failure as a parent because two of her three children are not christian. This saddens me greatly, because I believe the greatest gift she has given to me as a parent was comfort in asking questions, never being afraid to ask, and to be comfortable with who I am as a person. It’s because of her telling me it’s okay to be different that I am me, that I am an atheist when being christian would surely have been the easy way to fit in, to make friends instead of fighting my way through life, being reliable on myself to solve my problems instead of expecting a god to fix everything.

For her, for that freedom to think and question and be true to myself, I am glad I’m an atheist!