Hi, my name is Zach. I live in Kentucky. I currently go to a Christian school for reasons that I will elaborate on later. I've never posted anything like this before aside from comments on youtube. I don't even have a facebook page. I am posting this because I would like to express myself a little. Forgive me if I ramble on, I just have some things that I would like like-minded people to see.
With that said, here is how I came to be an atheist. I was raised to be a baptist, but I do not have a redneck accent if that is what you are thinking.My mother is Catholic and my father is Baptist. I was never very religious. As a kid going to church I often tried to go to sleep, not remembering anything from the sermons. The only things I really did remember were from Sunday school. The cute stories about Bible characters and the songs. Now I can't believe how horrific these "kids stories" really are, but we'll get to that later.
I only went to public middle school for about five weeks because I absolutely hated it. The teachers, the other students, it just flat-out SUCKED. I decided to be home-schooled instead. My mother and I mainly used Christian home-school books, but not because she was trying to indoctrinate me but because we couldn't really find anything else. I don't remember much about them other than they talked about God a lot.
Now my home-schooling is really where my doubts about God started creeping in. At this time I was in puberty and starting to have... thoughts. I'm straight, but the fact that I was having these desires period, made me feel that I was dissappointing God. I may not have been very devout, but that was still in the back of my mind. Not only that, I also began to question God himself. I actually told my mother that I thought that God abused His power when He sent the Flood. She told me that God is always right and that I shouldn't be saying things like that. Its not like she gasped and called shame on the very idea of my questioning of God's judgement, but still.
As I was nearing the end of middle school, I realized that was missing human companionship, because for the last three years it had basically been me and my mother. Public school was out of the question, because even though I hated public middle school, my sister told me that our local high school was even worse, and I wasn't going to take the chance. I considered private school, but there was only one nearby, a Christian Academy that I will not name. Remember what I said about having doubts about God? Well, before I found out about the school, I had watched two Christian videos each about Muslim men who converted to Christianity after God did some "miracle" in their lives. I now realize that these stories are probably fake, or at best overly exaggerated. Me being the gullible fool I was, bought into these videos and started having a new faith in God. And with that, I felt that I was Christian enough, to go to a Christian academy.
I was nervous my first day going to this new school, would the people be friendly, would they like me? I admit that I am not very good with new people and am a bit socially awkward. But, after a while, I started to be more comfortable with my environment. But, about a month in, I started to notice something, the doubts were coming back. I now think it was probably the insane shit that they teach that I had never really heard before. At one point the doubting had taken so much root, I actually typed into google, "is there a god?". So far, that was the best decision I have ever made in my life. I did a little browsing before I came upon the site, "Godisimaginary.com" (if you are on the fence about your religion and your reading this, please go to this site!). Now before my own deconversion, I was not the biggest fan of atheists. Being a Glenn Beck/Alex Jones brainwashee, I thought that they were just snobby little ass holes who thought that they were better than everyone else. Boy did I have it backwards. Anyway, I expected the usual arguments of, "Why does God allow evil to exist", or, "Why does God let children die every day." While these arguments should have been enough to get me to question my own religion, they were not what hooked me. Instead, it was when they actually quoted the Bible that the mental handcuffs began to come off. As I looked through the section titled, "The Bible is repulsive" I could not believe what I was seeing. I knew about the Flood and the Egyptian plagues, but I had absolutely no idea about this other stuff. In its pages I saw that the Bible condones murder, rape, slavery, and even genocide. I even looked in my Bible just to check to make sure that they weren't just making this up. But to my horror, it was true. For the next week I tried to reconcile my faith with my recent revelation, but I just couldn't. I felt betrayed by God. How could He, an all-loving being, commit or command these types of things, He just couldn't, and why have I never heard about these things, or seen them questioned? Why God, why!?
I took my concerns, though not revealing my doubts or sources, to the school hoping to get some answers to my predicament. I asked my Bible study teacher about one of the verses that I had found. She basically told me that Satan was trying to deceive me. Did Satan write what I found in the Bible, I think not. I also looked online trying to find answers, but all I found was apologetics that outright tried to justify what these verses said. By the end of the week, I had given up hope. I began to realize that the all-loving God that had been presented to me throughout my youth, was nothing like the cruel and wrathful God that was actually in the Bible. In that period is when I officially became an atheist.
I told my mother that I had been having doubts again. She wondered what I was going to do since I was going to a Christian school. We agreed that I would pretend to be a Christian since I wanted to have friends and did not want to be home-schooled again (public school was out of the question). Now in terms of rules, my school is very lenient. The dress code isn't very strict, and we can even say words like, "crap" or "douchebag" in front of some of the teachers. In all honesty, I like most of my teachers. There're very warped because of their religion, but at least there're good people. Most of the other students also don't talk about religion much and are actually very typical teenagers. The only person I really don't get along with is hated by pretty much everyone else because he is the most self-righteous prick that I have ever met. But then there is the teaching. Any science course either consists of "exploring creation" or Bob Jones books. I swear I hate whoever writes my current book, "Exploring Creation with Biology". For one its boring, two the drawings are crap, and three it calls evolution a hypothesis, a hypothesis! Now, I have always believed in evolution, even when I was a Christian and it is not one of the reasons I stopped being one. But when I came to this school, I discovered the mind-numbing idiocy that is creationism. On one of my other subjects, we were taught that America is a Christian nation and that atheists blow and blah blah blah, bullshit bullshit bullshit, you know the rest. Math is pretty standard since we use saxon so no indoctrination there. Lastly, grammar was just grammar except with Christian brainwashing sprinkled in.
Well, I'm going to start wrapping up now since this is getting ridiculously long and I'm probably starting to bore you. This is my last year at this school and I am very excited to get back to reality. What I am scared of however, is breaking the news to my father that I am an atheist. You see, while he is a baptist, it is more the fact that he is very right-wing that scares me to tell him. Hes always making ignorant comments and thinks hes right about everything. My brother is agnostic and whenever they get into discussions like his lack of religion, dad will use Pascal's wager on him without realizing it. Also he pretty much hates Muslims and while he probably dose not think it, he is racist against black people. Hes sixty, so what do you expect.'
Well, that's my journey of how I became an atheist. If you managed to read up to this point, thank you and kudos to you. I hope to have a bright future here on atheist forum. Thank you for your patience, and have a great day.
With that said, here is how I came to be an atheist. I was raised to be a baptist, but I do not have a redneck accent if that is what you are thinking.My mother is Catholic and my father is Baptist. I was never very religious. As a kid going to church I often tried to go to sleep, not remembering anything from the sermons. The only things I really did remember were from Sunday school. The cute stories about Bible characters and the songs. Now I can't believe how horrific these "kids stories" really are, but we'll get to that later.
I only went to public middle school for about five weeks because I absolutely hated it. The teachers, the other students, it just flat-out SUCKED. I decided to be home-schooled instead. My mother and I mainly used Christian home-school books, but not because she was trying to indoctrinate me but because we couldn't really find anything else. I don't remember much about them other than they talked about God a lot.
Now my home-schooling is really where my doubts about God started creeping in. At this time I was in puberty and starting to have... thoughts. I'm straight, but the fact that I was having these desires period, made me feel that I was dissappointing God. I may not have been very devout, but that was still in the back of my mind. Not only that, I also began to question God himself. I actually told my mother that I thought that God abused His power when He sent the Flood. She told me that God is always right and that I shouldn't be saying things like that. Its not like she gasped and called shame on the very idea of my questioning of God's judgement, but still.
As I was nearing the end of middle school, I realized that was missing human companionship, because for the last three years it had basically been me and my mother. Public school was out of the question, because even though I hated public middle school, my sister told me that our local high school was even worse, and I wasn't going to take the chance. I considered private school, but there was only one nearby, a Christian Academy that I will not name. Remember what I said about having doubts about God? Well, before I found out about the school, I had watched two Christian videos each about Muslim men who converted to Christianity after God did some "miracle" in their lives. I now realize that these stories are probably fake, or at best overly exaggerated. Me being the gullible fool I was, bought into these videos and started having a new faith in God. And with that, I felt that I was Christian enough, to go to a Christian academy.
I was nervous my first day going to this new school, would the people be friendly, would they like me? I admit that I am not very good with new people and am a bit socially awkward. But, after a while, I started to be more comfortable with my environment. But, about a month in, I started to notice something, the doubts were coming back. I now think it was probably the insane shit that they teach that I had never really heard before. At one point the doubting had taken so much root, I actually typed into google, "is there a god?". So far, that was the best decision I have ever made in my life. I did a little browsing before I came upon the site, "Godisimaginary.com" (if you are on the fence about your religion and your reading this, please go to this site!). Now before my own deconversion, I was not the biggest fan of atheists. Being a Glenn Beck/Alex Jones brainwashee, I thought that they were just snobby little ass holes who thought that they were better than everyone else. Boy did I have it backwards. Anyway, I expected the usual arguments of, "Why does God allow evil to exist", or, "Why does God let children die every day." While these arguments should have been enough to get me to question my own religion, they were not what hooked me. Instead, it was when they actually quoted the Bible that the mental handcuffs began to come off. As I looked through the section titled, "The Bible is repulsive" I could not believe what I was seeing. I knew about the Flood and the Egyptian plagues, but I had absolutely no idea about this other stuff. In its pages I saw that the Bible condones murder, rape, slavery, and even genocide. I even looked in my Bible just to check to make sure that they weren't just making this up. But to my horror, it was true. For the next week I tried to reconcile my faith with my recent revelation, but I just couldn't. I felt betrayed by God. How could He, an all-loving being, commit or command these types of things, He just couldn't, and why have I never heard about these things, or seen them questioned? Why God, why!?
I took my concerns, though not revealing my doubts or sources, to the school hoping to get some answers to my predicament. I asked my Bible study teacher about one of the verses that I had found. She basically told me that Satan was trying to deceive me. Did Satan write what I found in the Bible, I think not. I also looked online trying to find answers, but all I found was apologetics that outright tried to justify what these verses said. By the end of the week, I had given up hope. I began to realize that the all-loving God that had been presented to me throughout my youth, was nothing like the cruel and wrathful God that was actually in the Bible. In that period is when I officially became an atheist.
I told my mother that I had been having doubts again. She wondered what I was going to do since I was going to a Christian school. We agreed that I would pretend to be a Christian since I wanted to have friends and did not want to be home-schooled again (public school was out of the question). Now in terms of rules, my school is very lenient. The dress code isn't very strict, and we can even say words like, "crap" or "douchebag" in front of some of the teachers. In all honesty, I like most of my teachers. There're very warped because of their religion, but at least there're good people. Most of the other students also don't talk about religion much and are actually very typical teenagers. The only person I really don't get along with is hated by pretty much everyone else because he is the most self-righteous prick that I have ever met. But then there is the teaching. Any science course either consists of "exploring creation" or Bob Jones books. I swear I hate whoever writes my current book, "Exploring Creation with Biology". For one its boring, two the drawings are crap, and three it calls evolution a hypothesis, a hypothesis! Now, I have always believed in evolution, even when I was a Christian and it is not one of the reasons I stopped being one. But when I came to this school, I discovered the mind-numbing idiocy that is creationism. On one of my other subjects, we were taught that America is a Christian nation and that atheists blow and blah blah blah, bullshit bullshit bullshit, you know the rest. Math is pretty standard since we use saxon so no indoctrination there. Lastly, grammar was just grammar except with Christian brainwashing sprinkled in.
Well, I'm going to start wrapping up now since this is getting ridiculously long and I'm probably starting to bore you. This is my last year at this school and I am very excited to get back to reality. What I am scared of however, is breaking the news to my father that I am an atheist. You see, while he is a baptist, it is more the fact that he is very right-wing that scares me to tell him. Hes always making ignorant comments and thinks hes right about everything. My brother is agnostic and whenever they get into discussions like his lack of religion, dad will use Pascal's wager on him without realizing it. Also he pretty much hates Muslims and while he probably dose not think it, he is racist against black people. Hes sixty, so what do you expect.'
Well, that's my journey of how I became an atheist. If you managed to read up to this point, thank you and kudos to you. I hope to have a bright future here on atheist forum. Thank you for your patience, and have a great day.
