Coming Out of the God Closet

Hello blogverse. Today I am coming out of the closet. No, I’m not gay. I belong to a group that is slightly more hated and feared than gay people. I am an atheist. I really am, I changed my Facebook profile today. You can stop reading now if that makes you feel uncomfortable. Many of you are probably wishing me a nice eternal vacation to hell-fire. But if you would like to hear a little bit about why I am an atheist and what that means for my soul, please keep reading.

First of all let’s define Atheism. According to Wikipedia Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.  Many people would say that this means a disbelief of the Christian God, but Atheists also don’t believe in the Hindu gods, the Greek gods, the Chinese gods, or any other gods. I’m not trying to be disrespectful to anybody, I just don’t believe in them. I would say I reject gods for the same reason I reject unicorns or dragons. There isn’t any evidence. And isn’t everybody a little bit Atheist? A Christian for example rejects the gods of other religions.  As Stephen F Roberts said “I just believe in one less god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

I hope I have not angered anyone so far. In my defense I do not choose the things I believe and the things I don’t believe. I would argue that Atheism is not so strange. Certainly all human beings are born Atheists. Babies certainly don’t believe in gods. The concept is not something they can understand. Yet babies are certainly capable of learning. They are little mischievous scientists, constantly testing things and trying things. As they grow, adults teach them what is wrong and right, what is true and false. When they are old enough to understand a concept of gods or a God, adults will teach them about that and children will believe and not question. That’s what they are programed to do. As they grow older some of them might question what they were taught.

So now I’m grown. And I’ve questioned what I was taught. And I have found the evidence lacking. That’s why I am here. Well, that’s not exactly why I am here. I am here because I want to talk about my experience. As I said before when I started this post, Atheists are only slightly more hated and feared than gay people 
(I am using this and similar polls as evidence-  http://www.gallup.com/poll/155285/atheists-muslims-bias-presidential-candidates.aspx)

So what am I to make of this? I am a nice enough person, but if people found out that I didn’t believe in their specific god or gods they might hate me. Through this Blog I will examine my experience as an Atheist and maybe it will help clear up some misconceptions about who Atheists are (I.E. we don’t eat babies)

So if you’d like to take a walk in my shoes, stick around, come back soon, and keep thinking!

“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” – Douglas Adams