Normalizing Atheism

I think it is very important to normalize atheism and I want to share why I feel that way and share some of the misconceptions I heard growing up. I am writing this in hopes that if someone who is reading this is struggling with what they believe in, they don't feel alone like I did. 

I grew up in a very religious home, southern baptist to be exact. My parents and people from my church would spew all kinds of negative things about atheists. "They just hate god" "They're angry" "They want to live in sin" "No one actually doesn't believe in god, because they say 'oh my god' or 'goddamn' all the time" "they think the world came from nothing" "if they're on the brink of death, they're going to be praying for god to save them" "they worship themselves" blah blah blah. 

Despite moments of skepticism throughout parts of my childhood, I believed in god. I believed he would make my life better, that all the bad things happening to me would somehow be for a greater good for me. I believed all this until I was about 22 years old. 

I was no longer living with my parents anymore by this point, and skepticism really started to take over. I no longer really knew what I believed in. I wanted to explore other options, and briefly got into wicca, and decided to try to learn about other gods that people believe in or have believed in. After a while, I realized it was all bullshit. It was absurd. 

I then went back to christianity, but I just couldn't get past my skepticism anymore. I wanted to believe, and I wanted answers to my questions. I got asked to leave so many churches of various denominations because I "asked too many questions". All I wanted to do, was make sense of all the questions I had, I got no answers other than to pray. 

And I did pray, I cried, I fought, argued, and cried some more. I wanted to believe so bad. I even went through trying to force myself to believe. I began to feel like everyone has everything figured out but me. I'm all alone in how I feel. All my life I had been filled with these misconceptions about atheists, and based on what I (thought I) knew, I was "definitely not an atheist", besides, I didn't KNOW there wasn't a god, I just couldn't make myself believe. 

I felt that way for years, alone. I felt like I was the only one who didn't believe in god but didn't know. I felt like if there was a god I was abandoned by it. It was a dark place to be. 

I was starting to accept that there probably wasn't a god, but one big question that would haunt me was "If god didn't create the world, how did we get here, and if god did create the world, how did he get here?" I didn't believe in god, but I didn't think I was an atheist because I didn't believe we came from nothing. I know it probably sounds dumb, but it is what it is. 

One night, as I was thinking about the universe, and all the possible causes (god, aliens, it's always been here). I could keep asking the same questions for every answer that popped into my head "how'd that get there?" "what caused it?" I then asked myself "why am I keeping myself awake with this nonsense? It doesn't really fucking matter. Just because we'll never fucking know how the universe got here, doesn't mean some kind of god made it. Science will get us closer to that answer anyway." 

I didn't really think about it again for a while, but when it popped up in my mind again, I finally came to the conclusion that I might be an atheist. The first person I told was my therapist. We talked extensively about why I thought that, and it felt good. 

I have been much happier now that I have accepted that I am an atheist. I know that I'm not alone in how I feel. I know I still have some religious trauma to work through, but I feel like I am a much better person for leaving religion. 

I still haven't told very many of my friends or family, but it is something I will share at some point. I just don't want to deal with all the "we'll pray for you" and arguing that I know will happen.

Although this blog is kind of long, it has been just a small amount of my deconversion story. I hope to tell the full story, but it will be a long, hard write. But, in summary, it is important to normalize atheism because you never know who out there is struggling with what they believe, and is hesitant to accept that there is no god because they are convinced that is not an option. 

Thanks for reading. If you’ve enjoyed this, don’t forget to like and comment,  and follow me on Facebook, or help me buy more books to read, and remember; question everything and never stop learning.