What is being an Atheist like?

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Hi, I'm Connie, I'm new to these forums and atheism in general. I actually am Christian, and have been raised that way my whole life (baptist denomination). Being in the church is hard for me since I'm transgender, but I'm not leaving yet, because I still believe in God. However, I am willing to get some insight on to what atheism is like, from atheist themselves. I'm, how should I put it...educating myself on atheism. So, wooo!

My questions:

1.) Why are you an atheist?

I too grew up Southern Baptist, in a very devout (mother just retired, as a department head, from being a professor at a private Southern Baptist university) fundamentalist/evangelical household... so much so that we were not allowed to watch "worldly" television. So I read a lot of books. Because I was very smart, my church taught me about apologetics, defense of my own scriptures/theology against the scriptures and theologies of other religions. I was very good at proving other faiths wrong, in discussions, but always assumed mine was The Right Answer™. When I was about to become a senior in HS, an evangelist came to talk about "why evolution is false" at my church, and he made several assertions that even I knew, at age 17, were blatantly wrong about what science is and what it claims. For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that maybe all I learned in church wasn't necessarily true. From that realization, I began to examine my own beliefs, and it was not long before I became effectively an agnostic, philosophically, and so I remain. Five years later I realized I was actually an atheist by opinion, since it appears to me that all the god-stories I've heard are clearly the product of human imaginations and psychological projection.

2.) What is life like for an atheist?

I'm not really sure what you mean by this, with all due respect. I mean, we don't have church services or an automatic social circle of like-minded individuals, ready-made and pre-packaged for us to be accepted into, so it can be a little bit lonely sometimes, depending on where we live. In university towns and bigger cities, it's easier to find people who have high education levels or a wide base of knowledge, and they tend to be accepting of atheists/agnostics, if not atheist/agnostic themselves. Other than these factors, we're really like anyone else. We have jerks and heroes, morons and geniuses, and lots of average people. We do tend to focus on learning about the world as it is, which means reading about science and history and philosophy, since we don't have a prepackaged worldview ready-made to swallow. In that respect, it's a lot more work! But on the other hand, I've never felt more free-- I don't have to hate or judge anyone, except based upon how kind, thoughtful, and decent that person is.

3.) There is no God. How do you cope with that? How do you find purpose and meaning in your life?

God makes purpose? Wow. I didn't know that. I find my purpose and meaning in studying science, learning as much as I can, and being as good to my fellow human beings as I can be. Actually, I find a great deal of pleasure in being good, despite commonly being told I cannot be good by religious bigots who seem to willfully seek to label us wrongly for their own purposes, an act I consider deeply immoral. As you will see me point out in many debates on here, I consider myself to be significantly more moral than the God described in the Bible (you, too, have made this same point, I saw... a rare accomplishment for a Believer still "on the inside", so to speak, since I consider religion to be a prison for the mind), and I am quote content with my life. I love my mate, our son, and our soon-to-be-born new child, and try to make the world a better place, especially for them.

4.) What are your thoughts on death?

I'm kind of surprised we get asked this so much. I suppose my perspective is skewed by the fact that I'm a biologist, but when I hear this question, it makes me think "why in the world does this person think that we humans are special?" Is it arrogance? Fear? We are clearly mammals, clearly bipedal primates, clearly the same stuff as every other living animal on earth. And yet nobody thinks that animals "go somewhere" after they die... at least, not anybody over the age of ten. I am quite comfortable facing the prospect of my own death, which is something I've been face-to-face with more than a few times in my younger days, including a bout with cancer. (I was 31; I'm now 39.) I actually like the tought of being a part of this planet's biosphere, with the same interconnected purpose and destiny as every other thing that lived and died, or will live and die, here.

5.) Has being an atheist changed your life in any way? If so, how?

Oh, gosh. I couldn't even begin to count the ways, mainly because I lived such a sheltered life, growing up, and was taught so many things that were demonstrably false, upon honest examination. It meant I had to build up a new system of moral thinking and intellectual reasoning essentially from scratch, in the days before the internet was widespread, and when atheism groups were all but unheard of! I find my life to be infinitely more free than when I shackled my brain and tried desperately to keep "certain types" of knowledge, what we called "The World" or "man's knowledge" from entering the parts of my brain in which I sheltered my comfortable ignorance. Once I recognized it for what it was, and expunged it from my mentality, I have felt freer and more happy with my decision every year, since. As a biker all my adult life, I often run into Christian Motorcyclist Association (CMA) evangelists, who like to ask if I want to pray... I tell them, "Ohh no thanks! I am a recovering Christoholic... 22 years, Jesus-free!"

All jokes aside, I think I am a better person in every measurable way since giving up religion, even if I don't fit the narrow definition of "proper" to which our heavily-religion-influenced culture says I should conform.  I cannot emphasize enough how happy it has made me to realize my place in this world not based on a narrow perspective, but on the widest one I could hold.