I have never believed in a higher power. At least I don't think so. When you're a kid and your mother tells you something, you accept it as fact. That's not really faith is it? If it is, I lost my faith at age eight (at least I think I was eight, it could have been earlier). I still remember the moment pretty clearly, surprisingly.

My family never went to church, but my mother is very religious. She read me Bible stories and tried to teach me the way of Christianity. One night we got to the story about God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, and at the moment he was about to do so, called the whole thing off. I asked my mom why God did that and she said that God was testing his faith.

That was all it took.

My mind started making connections. God is omnipotent and omniscient right? He knows all and sees all. He should know whether Abraham is faithful enough shouldn't he? Also, if God loves us, why would he do something so mean?! I decided this story wasn't true. There was some mistake. But I kept thinking and came to the conclusion that, if this story was so obviously flawed, how could I trust any of the stories? Clearly I could not. It occurred to me that the children's Christian books my mom read from weren't that much different from any of the other books. They all had pictures and stories. Maybe people just started believing it, not knowing that it was just a story? I decided to go with that, and didn't really think much of it for a few years, but I never believed any of those stories my mom read me again.

Fast forward a few years (again, I can't remember exactly when this was... some point in early adolescence). My best friend invited me to church, so I started going with him. I still didn't buy it, I just wanted to hang out with my friend. But that's where the trouble started. It seemed like every youth group meeting on Wednesday nights, someone new had accepted Jesus as their savior. I felt like something was wrong with me! I now wanted to accept Jesus, but I thought that I should feel something, and know that it was what I should do. Since I never felt that, I began to feel like there was something wrong with me.

For years after this, I would go through phases.

Phase 1: Actively pursuing faith. I would read the Bible (not just for academic purposes), I would pray. Ultimately, I would realize that I was getting nowhere closer to believing, and that my prayers were never answered.

Phase 2: Totally rejecting faith. I would come back to not believing and not caring. The whole thing was stupid right? Why should I bother?

Phase 3: Doubt. I would begin to doubt myself, doubt my quality as a person, since I was obviously missing something.

Repeat.

Eventually 1 and 3 became less serious, and as I learned more about other religions (and that millions don't believe at all), I accepted what I had known all along: God does not exist. This was about 10th grade.

After my realization, I became very vocal about my lack of faith. It didn't go so well most of the time. I had no clue people could be so uneducated! When I would say that I don't believe in God, the most common response was always "You're a Satan worshipper?!" This leap of logic is exasperating! If I don't believe in God, why should I believe in Satan? Isn't God necessary for Satan's existence?

I became quite angry with the entire institution of religion. I frequented chat rooms with a friend who had also recently lost his faith, and we would just start attacking religion, regardless of the topic at hand. Believe me, I got into more arguments than I can count, but a few times I actually changed some minds. It helps when you know more about the Bible than the people defending it.

From what I can tell, most people have this disillusionment and anger. I never felt remorse for it until a few years later. I cooled off.

Fast forward another few years-- the past six months or less. It occurs to me that, while my methods were crude at best, unacceptable at worst, perhaps I wasn't wrong to actively try to change minds. We seem to be at an important time in the battle between science vs. religion. It shouldn't be a battle, but we play with the cards we're dealt. If gone unchecked, the US could turn to a Christian nation. The ten commandments could become law. Maybe it's a little far fetched, but it IS conceivable.

Thus, this blog was born. I hope to help spread a greater understanding of atheists, non-theists, agnostics, anyone with a naturalistic world view. We aren't immoral, we aren't evil, and we certainly don't worship Satan. In fact, the atheists that I know are some of the most moral people I know!

We're becoming a persecuted minority, and we can't sit back and take it.