Oh, goody! There was no way I was going to start this thread, but now that it's here . . .
I'm an atheist with the good fortune of being raised with a Catholic family who doesn't think their god is the type who would let me burn just because I was capable of critical thinking, researching, and coming to my own conclusions. It's best to know that, no matter who you run into in life, you always have family and friends who understand and support you. I do have friends who were kicked out of their family because they could not honestly accept the religious views of their parents, and that just tears my heart to pieces. My own grandfather was disowned by his Baptist family for converting to Catholicism and marrying a Catholic. I can't imagine how that hurt him, but he is so much happier for following his own path.
Over the years I've also discovered some relatives and friends who are also atheist or agnostic, but who, for various reasons, decided it was simpler to keep that information to themselves. Those discoveries convinced me that I'm probably surrounded by like minded individuals who are either too scared or too polite to ever bring the subject up, and I don't feel alone in it at all now.
I'll tell you what's hard though . . . thinking you're the only atheist in the world, and feeling like you can't tell anyone. Maybe it was worse for me, being in Texas, but it was lonely. It was nice, growing up and finding out that you aren't the taboo minority that you've been led to believe. I somehow managed to find one to marry, in fact, which was a shocker . . . and we have other similarities, as well.
What was even more of a shocker was when my mother, who took the news of my atheism harder than the rest of my family (to the point of forcing me to go to therapy with a priest and threatening to not allow me to participate in Christmas or Easter events), gradually decided she believed in God and Jesus but wouldn't affiliate with any religion, and then went and married another atheist.
He is a wonderful man, and I'm happy they found each other, but I never thought I'd see such solid proof from my mother that she accepted atheism as more than temporary insanity.
For me, it was easier to be a good person once I decided there was no compelling evidence for a god. At that point, I was free to be good for the sake of being good, instead of just being good because of promises of certain destinations in the afterlife. It was then that my calculating side took a backseat, and my empathy and sense of right and wrong began to truly develop. I don't think I can ever convey the feeling I had when I realized I didn't have to believe . . . like a weight had been lifted off of me, and this new sense of responsibility rushing into my head, in a good way. I knew I was in control of everything, that my accomplishments were mine and my failures mine as well, and so from then on it was my duty to do right by
me by being a good person. I have been asked by religious folk how I can be good without a god in my life, and I just can't help but look at them and wonder how it feels to not know whether you're actually a good person, or whether you're just doing good for brownie points to get into a heaven.
I must admit I've often wondered how many chicken lovers were also either agnostic, atheist, or simply spiritual, ever since someone told me chicken tending was a very Christian thing to do. I figure it also has to be a non-religious thing to do, because I'm not religious, and clearly, I do it.
Chickens uniting the world yet again . . . is there anything they can't do?
Fun Facts:
I quit believing in a god before I quit believing in Santa Claus, for this simple reason . . . whenever I watched the news, there was always a map on Christmas Eve that showed them charting his route during the night. At that age I hadn't realized newspeople could possibly be a questionable source for evidence of a fact, so . . . yeah.
In the third grade I was firmly convinced the bible had it wrong, and that it wasn't people, but earthworms that were created in the Lord's image. It made sense to me that a true god would have both male and female reproductive parts, and that it would be able to eat garbage and poop out dirt. It's hard to argue with that logic.
My FIL believes that our idea of "god" is probably just an alien species so advanced that we simply cannot distinguish their technological advances from godlike qualities. If I do find myself faced with compelling evidence for a god or gods, I do think this will be the first theory I land on. It's a pretty sound idea, especially based on humankind's track record with more primitive people coming in contact with more advanced. Plus, I love the Star Trek quality of the whole concept.
