the young skeptics

atheistlady:

1. At what point did you know you were an atheist? Why did you become one, what were the factors leading up to the decision, if you weren’t always one?

I think the first time I actually, consciously realized that I didn’t believe in God or the religion my parents did was at about 12 or 13. I remember very vividly sitting next to them in church, the preacher was talking about when Abraham almost killed his son for God. I’d heard this story before obviously, but while he was talking about how much faith Abraham had, the only thing I could think of was that woman I heard about on the news before who drove her car into a lake and killed her children because ‘Jesus’ told her to. And I thought to myself, if there was an Abraham today doing this, I would think he was batshit and call the cops.

And then it hit me. This story is bullshit.

I had been doubting the whole thing for a little bit anyway, and thats when I finally fell to the other side of the fence. For awhile I tried the whole, ‘I believe in God just not the Bible,’ thing but I quickly realized, the two really can’t be seperated. I then used the term ‘higher power’ and ‘supernatural force’ until I finally came to the terms with the fact that I was fine without a deity, or creator, or wizard man in the sky. It was just something I’d been so used to all my life, and I have to admit it was weird to think of my life without it at first, but through research and reading and learning I finally detoxed myself of Christianity or want/need of any other religion, and I’ve never looked back.

I didn’t use the word ‘atheist’ until I was about 17 because growing up in a religious family, it sounded SO taboo to me. I still don’t really like the term, more because I think some people almost use atheism in the place of religion, and I don’t really want to be associated with that. 

(via atheistlady-deactivated20110703)