I get asked the same question very often. More often than I would think. A lot of people ask me "Why are you an atheist?" This is my attempt to answer that question. This is my first attempt at what I would call a blog so excuse me if I don't always stay on point.

Why am I an atheist? Well, the short answer is, I don't have any reason not to be. For example, you could ask, why am I not a muslim? The answer is always going to be the same regardless of what religion you decide to plug into the equation. I have been an atheist since I was about twelve years old, although I didn't realize it at the time. I always questioned my beliefs that were taught to me by my family and the church that we would occasionally attend. I was one of those kids that was interested in science. I was like most boys growing up who liked to figure out how things worked. If I asked a question and the answer didn't make sense logically to me, then I would never be truly satisfied with the answer. If I had to pick a moment that I truly separated myself from my childhood beliefs it would probably be when I was twelve.

I remember that summer at my grandparents house. I was watching television in the basement and a talk show was on. I don't remember exactly which one but that's not important. The premise of the show was miracles. I recall a man telling a story about how he was electrocuted while working on someones electrical box in their back yard. He proceeded to say how he was snipping some wires when all of a sudden he was knocked unconscious. When he regained consciousness, he realized that he had lost his vision. This incident happened about twenty years prior to him coming on this talk show. The story ended with him saying that twenty years later he had a very bad headache and all of a sudden his vision returned. He said "it was only through the grace of god that I can see again" I thought to myself, why was he graced with vision? There was a little girl that lived down the street that was blind and why isn't she being graced? Then my mind started thinking about all the other people around the world who were suffering from disabilities and they weren't being graced. None of this made sense to me.

I asked these questions of family and friends and even at church. Every answer I received was not satisfying to me. All of them were sort of like "the lord works in mysterious ways", "god has a plan for everything", "god only gives us as much as we can handle". Again, none of these answers satisfied me logically. I truly wanted to know. What I finally realized as I got older was, there really isn't a good logical answer to any of those questions. Accidents happen and sometimes people recover and sometimes they don't. Some people are stronger than others and are able to overcome more. Some people are born with defects, some are not. There is no reason for this outside of science. That's why I loved science so much growing up, because it answered my questions logically and backed up it's theories with evidence. This story doesn't describe why I am an atheist, it simply describes an event that opened my mind and freed me from the beliefs that were taught to me since I was very young. You could say it was the first day of my life that I truly began to think for myself.

Even after this event. I knew I didn't believe most or all the fairy tales that were taught to me since I was very young, but I was scared to say anything. I wouldn't even admit that I was an atheist to my friends or family. I guess you could say I was a closet atheist. I thought people would look at me in a negative way or think that I was a bad person. When you're an adolescent the most important thing usually is to fit in. Keep in mind, my grandfather was a minister, my uncle was a minister, my mom was a practicing catholic. At least, she claimed to be. This was not an easy conversation to have with these people. To this day, my mom won't discuss it with me. She gets very upset and angry when the conversation comes up. I still occasionally will get a voicemail from her telling me "I need to find god". My point is, I didn't wake up one day and decide to be an atheist. I'm not trying to go against the system and be rebellious. I am an atheist because I have to be. I can't help it, my brain doesn't' allow me to be anything else. I tried to believe in god and the bible but it's impossible. If I said I believed in it I would be no more than a fraud.

Speaking of the bible and belief in god. I have read the bible cover to cover. Old and new testament. In reading these books it only pushed me away more. I have debates often with christians and I often have to correct them on their biblical knowledge. If you really read these books, there is no way you can say the god of the bible is an all knowing, all loving god. What strikes me odd is that christians will say that parts of the bible are not to be taken literally. How do you decide what parts to take literally and what parts not to? Again, this does not stand up to logic and reason. We use logic and reason everyday in our lives. You could say that you couldn't get through life without it. Why do we decide to wall off that part of our brain when we discuss god and the bible? It's because if you apply logic and reason all of those beliefs start to crumble.

That's enough for now. I have only scratched the surface but I wanted to at least share a few of my thoughts. That's what a blog is for right? I will expand on this at another time. Thanks for reading.

Wow your story is so similar to mine. Nice work.

Thanks for posting your story, Shawn.

If anyone else wants to chime in with their own story, feel free...