Evil Atheists?

[Eilonnwy]

My memory of childhood is extremely fuzzy but there are certain things I do remember clearly and more often than not it has to do with religion (or lack there of)

I remember distinctly being in class, I can't clearly remember if I was in 8th grade or 7th grade. Despite the fact I know exactly who the teacher was, our school did a teacher swap thing. (I never figured out why, maybe to get you used to High School) but essentially 3rd and 4th grade swapped teachers for an hour, 5th and 6th, and 7th and 8th. The swap usually encompassed a different subject that your regular teacher didn't cover. Anyway, so that's why I can't precisely say what grade. I don't know why I explained that, it's kind of irrelevant, oh well.

Anyway, back to the point. I attended a Catholic school and I remember Mrs Sprague giving a lecture and she started talking about Athiests. "Imagine there are people out there who actually don't believe in anything." The look of fear was evident on her face. "There are people out there who think nothing happens to you when you die!" as if it was the most horrible and absurd idea ever. "And what's even scarier is more and more people are becoming athiests."

This same teacher ended up leaving mid 8th grade year. (We were never told why. Rumors said things from she never got along with the Principal to a brain tumor.) The last time I saw this woman she asked me, and only me, to stay after school. I had no idea why, here I am thinking I did something wrong. She started packing her stuff and looked at me with tears in my eyes telling me to always be true to myself and be good. That I was smart and she kept on repeating I needed to stay true. She never told me why she was saying this I had no clue she was saying goodbye until the next day. I have never seen her since.

I've always wondered to this day what she would think of me now if she knew I was an athiest. The power of her lecture stayed with me for a long time. When I started to doubt my beliefs it scared me at first. Obviously I got over it and looking back I can see her statements about atheism for what they truly are, a grave misunderstanding of what an atheist really is. I know this really didn't add much to the discussion side of it, but I can't help it. Whenever the "evilness" of an athiest comes up, that memory always comes back to me.