When I was in my teens and younger I aways had an interest in philosophical issues. My parents said that I asked questions like “who was I before I was born” and “where did everything come from” at an early age. My parents, not being particularly philosophical or religious did their best to answer these with nominally protestant answers.

Since these questions continued to both me, I jumped at the chance to go to church services with friends. Baptist, Methodists and the mainline protestants just were not that interesting to me so I didn’t attend church regularly until I found the Pentecostal.

My parents didn’t like the Pentecostals because they thought it sounded like a cult but to me it was like a getting a completely new family. Unlike my family, these people were warm and openly loving towards one another, they were not reserved with their emotions and they would sing and be very expressive at church.

At 16, I became very involved in the church completely at my own initiative. Soon I was in the church band, played in a Christian Rock band, attended every service available and completely changed my life around the church and new faith. All my time was spent at church or with my band mates, or with my new girlfriend I found at church.

I threw myself into studying the bible and read it many times. I carried a bible with me everywhere and wrote sermons for my youth group and I had visions of becoming a minister.

During this time I encountered some problems with the faith. My youth minister discouraged me asking too many questions about the bible and its history. She strongly discouraged me from studying any outside philosophers saying, “Philosophy is for the weak minded.” I was also I little uncomfortable with the more ‘magical’ beliefs of the Pentecostals, such as speaking in tongues, faith healing and fainting/religious ecstasy.

In senior year of high school, I went on a weekend retreat at Oral Roberts University for potential students, with the hope of becoming a minister, however I believed my grades would not be good enough to get in to the school. With college out of my reach, I decided to join the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman (medic). I figured I would be able to help people in this role without fighting, I was a big Walt Whitman fan (one of those crazy philosophers).

So right out of high school, at 17 years old, I left home for the Navy. In boot camp I met lots of people of different religions, I worked as the ‘religious petty officer’ for my boot camp group and generally was cut off from my religious support system. At this point my religious ideology was overwhelmed with the much stronger brainwashing of military training. The deprogramming / reprogramming continued with Hospital Corpsman school where I was exposed to medical and science issues, even more diverse people and their religious beliefs. At this time I was too busy and was not interested in attending the bland military religious services.

The subsequent years of living in California, I was exposed to Eastern religions, mysticism, new-age, and other crazy ideas that seem to make a lot more sense than Christianity ever did. These people didn’t try to control what I read or call philosophers “weak minded,” they actually encouraged reading and study.

After leaving the military, I stayed in California and started college. I was a perfect student, received very good grads and went on to university (UCSB) where I earned degrees in Math, Physics and (a minor in) philosophy.

I discovered the atheist movement at this time (1998) and found that there were MANY people like myself who could not reconcile religious belief, religious texts with reality. These were not zealots who ‘hated god’ or religion. Most of them started losing their faith by studying the bible just like me, many were experts in the bible and philosophy and very far from weak minded.

Years later, I looked back a little ashamed that I was so easily deluded in my teens but instead of anger or resentment, I feel compassion towards people struggling between their unsustainable faith and reality. It has become an issue of Harm Reduction rather than one of antagonism; I see religious belief as fundamentally harmful to the believer.

I guess that I have always felt godless. It was the pressure of family and friends that kept me in the belief system in which I was raised. It has been a long journey to where I am now. It includes spending time as: Episcoplian, Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, Southern Baptist, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, and my final godless status.

I was born and raised in a fundamentalist Baptist christian family. I attended Sunday School as a child and even as a teenager, never questioned my beliefs. I used to deeply believe in heaven, hell, the literal interpretation of the Bible, Jesus, virgin birth, creation, etc. I was extremely fearful of hell and thus would accept Jesus into my heart every opportunity I got. The first time I did so, I was only four years old. After attending two years of university education studying criminal justice, sociology and psychology and becoming friends with many atheists, I started to question my beliefs and felt the obligation to learn more about Christianity and atheism. After reading extensively into my beliefs, I came to the discovery that I really wasn’t a fundamentalist Christian. I became very skeptical about religious claims and came to strongly value the scientific method, reason, logic and critical thinking (freethought). To this day, my parents and family are unaware of my true beliefs. My friends at university know, but that’s it. If my mother knew that I was not a Christian, she would be devastated, hurt and deeply disappointed. I do not want to cause tension within the family, so its best for me to keep it a secret. I hope someday I will become confident enough to expose the truth about my beliefs. In the meantime though, I still attend weekly church services with my parents to please them. I actually enjoy going to church sometimes as I find it entertaining to critique the sermons from a skeptical atheist perspective. To understand that it is okay to not have the answers to everything in this world, due to the lack of scientific knowledge, is liberating and empowering. To know that I can fulfill my desires and dreams without adhering to a strict code of conduct, morality, laws and commandments is liberating. To know that I when I do good works for the betterment of society, I am doing it because I genuinely care as opposed to doing it in hopes for a better reward in heaven, is also liberating. I am a new atheist/agnostic but proud of my beliefs!

My first day in a Southern Baptist church was 2 weeks after I was born. I was always a bit shaken when I saw how emotional people got at certain times, but I was always bit more calm than anyone else. I stopped going to any services when I left home – I always had something more important to do. I went to my old church for my best friend’s wedding, and all my great uncle (a deacon) said to me was that I needed to cut my long hair. I never went back. When my sister started studying Wicca, I tried to find a religion that was internally self-consistent – the closest I came was Buddhism, which I found as more of a philosophy than a religion. I got bored of staring at walls (meditating) so I forgot the whole thing. I wanted to find a Wiccan get-together, as I have heard they have some wild parties, then I found the Jacksonville Atheist Meetup and went and found I was an atheist and among friends. :)

my ascent to a humanist perspective has been a very slow and painful journey. raised independent fundamentalist baptist (IFB), i very deeply believed in heaven, hell, jesus, literal creation, virgin birth… if it was in the christian scripture, i soaked it in. i was baptized at 7, led my first convert to christ at 10, and attended bible college at 18.

after bible college, it made sense to me to learn about scriptures from the jewish perspective; so i enrolled in the judaic studies program at UCF.

to avoid deceit, i must confess that a big part of the draw was to learn how to better convert jews. don’t listen to what other evangelicals may tell you, we totally get extra points for the chosen people.

instead of finding a community of people lost and empty in their own self-deceit, everyone seemed totally normal. what’s more, a lot of them were atheists, and no one seemed to have a problem with that.

i had been brought up to believe that “humanists” and “atheists” were under literal demonic influence and part of a vast evil plot by satan to destroy humanity.

imagine my surprise when the exorcisms failed.

so i’ll spare you the details of my lengthy discussions with professors, rabbis, pastors, physicists, and my cosmically important friendship with a reformed jew turned atheist.

intellectually, the evidence was clear. A fundamentalist view of the world stops working the minute you look beyond the few resources approved by your tiny sect.

emotionally, this was all very hard to accept. in order to give myself the freedom to objectively assess the situation, i had to take the chance that this was all some elaborate scheme of satan’s to deceive me.

in the end, it seemed to me that a religion worth believing in should stand up to a little objective scrutiny.

from beginning to end, it took me 5 years to drag myself out of fundamentalism completely… and another 2 years to tell anyone about it.

i was 27 when my mother found out. she cried, fumed, prayed, and kept my atheism as her shameful secret. i led a double life to save face for her.

the election in November changed everything. for the first time in a long time, i cared about something. i liked that feeling and decided it shouldn’t stop.

i refuse to feel like an outcast because i’m no longer religious, and i refuse to be quiet about gay rights, stem cell research, evolution, abortion, or anything else i’m passionate about because it may offend someone else’s beliefs.

it seems to me that there’s some unspoken rule i had agreed to. that because i don’t have a g-d or imaginary elf associated with my beliefs, they’re somehow less important. that’s simply not true.

i do not need a g-d to validate me. i do not need a hell to scare me into being a good person. i handle that all on my own. i’m out, and i’m proud.

I wasn’t actually raised an atheist. Both of my parents technically professed a religion. Dad was Methodist, Mom was southern Baptist. However they never went to church or talked about God or the Bible. Religion was strictly a label and not a very frequently worn one.

I figured out early on that my friends believed in God. At first I didn’t really see it. I went to Sunday school with them sometimes and it was fun but it never occurred to me that anybody actually believed it. When I figured that out I though it was weird and silly. I soon learned to keep that opinion to myself.

I was about fourteen when I finally “came out” I was in a rebellious stage anyway, and I just stopped keeping quiet about it. At first I got a little flack about it. This was particularly funny coming from friends with pentacles on their jackets and Slayer tapes in their stereos. However it didn’t take long before people just accepted it.

No one really seemed to care. It has only been in the last few years that my atheism has been an issue with anyone. Lately people have started to ask questions, sometimes positively other times less so. Recently I have become a “Militant Anti-Theist” I blog about atheism, argue with Christians, belong to atheist groups. For the first time in my life I am seeing it as a part of my identity as well as just a lack of belief. I can’t say if it is good or bad, but I know I am not ashamed of being Godless I embrace it.

Atheism is very much a part of who I am. I join with other atheists in many venues. I used to follow what the Baptist church told me to follow—no questions asked. In my late teens, my closest friend taught me how to question. He and I didn’t agree on many things philosophically, but we did question each other and others.

I believe it’s important to help others in many ways. I currently volunteer in about a dozen projects, either daily, weekly, monthly, or annually. There is no god who will help the ones asking for help. We must be the ones. If a homeless child needs help with education because he misses a lot of school, it’s my responsibility to make sure he gets that help. If a senior needs to get out from in front of the TV, I’m responsible for taking her out for a walk. If a stretch of a street needs a regular litter pick-up, I am the one to do it. God won’t do those things.

While I don’t throw my atheism in anyone’s face, when the subject comes up, I’m very proud to announce my belief.

One thing I do throw in people’s face is skepticism. I am quick to point out the dangers in following “psychics,” astrologers, and other such charlatans. Some say there’s no harm in getting a tarot card reading or some such. Au contraire. These people prey on the emotions and the pocketbook of the vulnerable. They must be stopped!

There is little that I can do. But I can do something. It is important that I do what I can. If you do what you can, together, we’ll make a difference.

My parents were, and still are, fervent Baptists, and so I was raised in the Church from birth. I was something of a sceptic as a child (my mother still recounts how, aged 3, I announced that I no longer believed in Father Christmas because, “there are too many children for him to visit in one night”. Admittedly, this doubt was quickly quashed by the realisation that no Santa meant no presents…) but I was nonetheless so heavily indoctrinated that I happily accepted as truth the stories, with their accompanying pretty pictures, in my Children’s Illustrated Bible. After all, Mummy and Daddy said it was true, and so did the pastor at our church, and so did my teachers, and my friends, so what was to question?

My friends and I were regularly dispatched to various Scripture Union holiday camps – the basic premise should be familiar to anyone who has watched “Jesus Camp” – and it was at one of these that I became “born again”. Aged about 10, I sat down one evening with one of the youth leaders and announced that I was giving my life to Christ. I have to confess, I don’t remember much about the conversation – there were a number of pamphlets to be read, and a prayer I had to recite, although I don’t recall the specifics – but I do remember the youth leader asking me how I felt at the end of the process. My reply was, “I feel sort of… lighter.”

But I didn’t. In fact, I felt nothing, save for a vague sense of silliness. Suddenly it seemed a bit ridiculous to be sitting in that room, surrounded by Christian literature, looking into the beaming face of the youth leader as I asked a long-dead Palestinian to make me a better person. Nonetheless, I pushed this mild feeling of discomfort aside, and, beatific smile firmly in place, went to rejoin my friends, all of whom had been through a similar process in the preceding years. Their support, I rationalised, would help me through this moment of doubt. It did. I was baptized the following year, and spent the next half-decade or so raising my hands in church services, speaking in tongues and generally getting over-emotional in the cause of religion. I proselytised to my long-suffering atheist/agnostic schoolfriends, on one occasion giving a memorably incoherent rendition of Behe’s “irreducible complexity” argument to my evolution-subscribing friend on the bus home. It should have suggested something to me that I, a member of the debating society and widely-regarded as one of the smartest kids in a highly selective school, should have had my argument so thoroughly demolished by a boy who had got into said school on a hockey scholarship. But I was a believer…

The vague sense of silliness had stuck with me though. I always felt a bit self-conscious praying aloud, or speaking in tongues (it didn’t feel particularly divine, and I never seemed to be able to speak in French or German, or even Latin, which would at least have had some practical applications – just “bagahabfalamalabollifilliblahashmaz etc”. If that’s the language of Heaven, it’s no wonder God has a hard time making himself understood…). Things came to a head when a visiting pastor to our church (can’t recall his name – he was from Singapore, I think) held a real humdinger of a fire-and-brimstone service. Lots of people were “slain in the spirit” (ie. got over-emotional and fainted), but the high point was when one member of the congregation, whose name I shall keep anonymous to preserve his dignity, went up to the front of the church and announced that, owing to the demonically-inspired TV programmes he had watched as a child, he was possessed by the spirit of He-Man.

That’s right, He-Man. Not Beelzebub, or Azazael, or Mephisto. He-Man, the Most Powerful Man In The Universe. Unfazed entirely by the fact that He-Man is A FICTIONAL CHARACTER*, the visiting pastor proceeded to “cast out” this evil spirit; a process of much shouting and wailing, culminating in the possessed man raising a hand and shouting, “By the power of Grayskull!”

Weirdest. Thing. Ever.

After that, I found it impossible to take church seriously anymore. I started to be the lone voice of dissent in the Youth Group – having actually read the Bible in its entirety, I was in a much better position than any of the other members (or the leaders!) to qualify my arguments. I took particular issue with St Paul, who, to my teenage mind, had perverted the original teachings of Jesus and created a Church entirely out of step with its original premises, and had great fun debating with the rest of the group. In retrospect, I think they had rather less fun than me. Finally, I stopped going to church altogether, and by the time I went to University you would have been hard pressed to recognise a modicum of Christianity in my personality.

The departure of Christianity from my life had left a large, God-shaped hole in my psyche, however, and I was ready and willing to fill it. For a while, hard-left political ideology served as temporary Polyfilla of the soul, but eventually I had to admit that the other Socialist Workers scared the crap out of me. Through my newfound practice of t’ai chi ch’uan, though, I discovered Taoism. Now here was a religion I could get behind! No actual god as such, just a vague, undefined and nebulous “force of nature”. No dogma save “follow the Tao”. No priests and catechisms, no evangelising, no afterlife to aspire to or live in fear of. I have of course, since learned that Taoism has all of these things, but even now, I retain a soft spot for the most basic “Tao of Pooh” form that I originally encountered.

The problem with the sort of New-Age spirituality that I gleaned from Taoism, though, is that it comes with a lot of baggage. As a t’ai chi practitioner (and later instructor) I was encouraged to believe in the “chi” energy that Taoists say infuses the universe. This led on to Reiki (I’m a fully qualified Reiki Master, y’know – meaning that I paid a few hundred quid to hold my hands above some equally deluded hopeful for half an afternoon), crystal healing, kinesiology, dowsing, naturopathy, and a whole slew of others. (To be fair, my personal jury is still out on a couple of these: acupuncture, for instance, seems to work even if only as a placebo, and t’ai chi is still one of the best martial arts and forms of physical exercise that I’ve encountered). The irony was that I nonetheless looked down my nose at practitioners of those esoteric arts to which I hadn’t subscribed. Homeopathy came in for serious criticism (it’s WATER, FFS!), as did iridology, astrology and palmistry, and don’t even get me started on yogic flying… but I failed to realise the hypocrisy of my position for quite a while. When enlightenment came, it came slowly – but my trusty inner cynic won through in the end. I think the final straw was quite recent; an online debate with a very old and dear friend (whose personal journey had paralleled mine, but resulted in quite a different outlook – he’s a very devoted churchgoer) on the reason for our diametrically opposed views prompted me to re-read The God Delusion et al. I sat down, took a look at my thinking, and changed my religion on my Facebook profile to “Atheist” – you don’t get a more sincere declaration of nonbelief than that!

*re-reading this, I see now how that wouldn’t have been a problem.

I was raised Christian. My parents started out as good Baptists, ‘heard’ from God to move from England to Australia, became Pentecostals, ‘heard’ again to move from Australia to Canada and left the organized church. I pretty much bought into all of it.

I wound up on an ‘End time farm’, involved in the ‘Move of god’. The end times were here and god was going to make us his chosen people.

So what happened to make me an Atheist?

As a young married couple my wife and I found ourselves rebelling against the authority of the eldership at the communal farm. We left but still attended meetings of the Move cult. As we lost interest in this we started attending more mainline churches. We more or less lost interest in those too.

I suppose I was a backslidden christian for the next 20 years or so. I didn’t hate god but quit praying. I more or less just didn’t care.

And then … Our younger son came out to us. He is gay. He told us how he went to church as a kid and prayed to god that he could be normal and not be attracted to other boys. (God didn’t help much there.) Anyway, one of the things he told us was: Either god created him as he is, god screwed up and he turned out gay or ‘I am what I am’ and there is no god. My original understanding was the first option but it started me thinking. He is what he is and there is no god.

Wow! It has been a journey since then and has taken a few years to really start to get my feelings together. I am using reasoning and reading as much as I can. I don’t believe. Prove me wrong and I will listen. Just don’t quote the bible.

I was an “active” member of our fading Southern Baptist Church back in the 1970′s. It pleased my mom to no end that I attended Sunday service (twice) and Wednesday night service. As I said the church was fading, very few young people and about 200 old people (mostly women). I kept my nose clean, mumbled along with others, played piano for some of the Sunday school classes, and just tried to fit in (and stand out, as I am an outgoing person). I was interested in cults (still am)and never ever heard of someone not being a believer in God in some way or form.

As I got older I started to question why I did not seem to feel the same euphoria and blessings that others did. I prayed all the time asking Jesus to show me a sign that he was listening to me. I pretended to hear God talk to me, and even got Baptized (never had it done all these long years). I was SURE that after the Baptism I would “feel” something, but nothing ever happened. I had no thoughts of skepticism, or Atheism or actually anything but wanting to experience what everyone else was experiencing.

It came to a head when our pastor asked everyone to wear these little buttons that said, “I’ve Found It!” (I think they were green). I did not want to wear it because I had not “found it” I was still looking for it (check behind the couch I can hear you yelling). I found all kinds of excuses for not wearing it, my pastor kept asking me why I kept forgetting it or losing it, finally after he had given me several I just knew something was wrong with me. The program finally faded and they stopped wearing them, but it had already forced me to face the reality that I was having trouble believing.

I wish I could remember where I heard about Atheism, I must have been about 17, but it was profound. The idea that people did not believe! Wow! I could not discuss this with my mother (My dad was an nonpracticing Catholic, and we never talked about religion). We did not have that kind of relationship. I wish now I had gone to my Dad, he used to read the Bible and my mom told me much later that she feared he was a non-believer. One of my mom’s greatest fears when my dad was alive was that he was going to hell, as a teenager I had serious problems with this, and did not like this option for my dad who seemed to be a “moral” person.

Anyway, somehow I got a hold of the word Atheist, I do remember looking it up in the Encyclopedia (we didn’t have the Internet back then folks) I went to the library and found Madeline Murry’s book “Why I am an Atheist”. That was jaw-dropping in my world. I checked that book out several times (always sneaking it between other books I was checking out so the library staff didn’t notice). Thankfully my sister had moved out by this time so I had a room to myself, imagine me sneaking this book into my room, hiding it in my closet. Then sneaking peeks at in while still in the closet, I was afraid my mom would find it if I left it in my bed. I have no doubt that it would have been horrible for me if found, I can’t imagine my mom finding porn or having to chose between the two as the most horrible. I guess I could have said that the Atheist book was for a school project, but if she didn’t believe me I would have been in big trouble (I don’t even want to think about it).

Somehow I grew up and managed to get a hold of other writings, and selected the term “Agnostic” to reflect my beliefs. I didn’t want to make waves, and this sounded so much better, also most people didn’t know what it meant. I started trying out my new beliefs on select people, and did okay. Much later I came out as an Atheist. My mom found out somehow, I was a mother and living with my then husband at the time, independent of her. I talked to her about some of the problems with the Bible, and she got upset for attacking her and her religion (its never okay to do that, but always okay to attack Atheists in their mind). In fairness to her, she had never had her beliefs challenged (I suppose) everyone was always a Christian or a non-Christian never a non-believer.

As a new mom I toyed with the idea of making my kids more “moral” and sending them to Church. My non-religious husband who never took a stand on anything said that he had turned out okay, so why make our children attend church. Very good decision. My sons are now 20 and 17, very much atheists. I read whatever I want now, and my kids and I discuss all kinds of topics.

I became friends with my mom about 6 years ago, we spent quite a lot of time together, never best friends, just her closest friend. We never discuss religion, but avoid that topic. One year at a fair she went up to a booth for Women’s Right to Choice and told them, “good job” and bought a button from them. I was so proud I had no idea how she felt about that issue.

The last 3 years my mom’s health is fading, I moved her into my home, and took over her care. Her quality of life improved a lot (socially) and she was the queen of our household. Today, she is 85 and dying at a rest home. She had been in and out of the hospital and rest home, we always hoped she would come back to us, but the doctor said to prepare ourselves. Her body is just giving up, she was so active and alive. But I am not sad, I know I did the right thing in giving her these last few years.

My siblings may experience guilt after she dies (for not spending enough quality time with her) but I don’t. I made YouTube videos of her, and put her in our family Christmas photos, we even had a neighborhood Christmas party at my home last year so she could socialize with everyone. If my kids do the same for me when the time comes I will be very happy. My best friend, (a Creationist Christian) has told me on two occasions that she thinks I’m one of the moralist people she knows. She even told all her church friends that she can’t understand how I can be an Atheist. “Too bad”, she says that “I’m still going to hell”. Fine with me, at least I can hang out with my dad.

Now I find myself planning her religious funeral, am in the process of talking to Pastors, and writing her obit. Her church friends (probably don’t know) that I’m a foaming at the mouth Atheist, I will not disrespect them and her by making my feelings known. But I bet I will get some interesting comments on my Christian attributes once they pay their respects in a few weeks.

I have not read any of the other “coming-out” stories yet. Wanted to get mine in before being influenced by other stories. Looking forward to reading them today