well i just recently said outloud that i am an atheist, i have been there done that with methodist,baptist,and listened to others. well i thought i was alone and that i had a messed up way of thinking but i now am learning that im not and that is so awesome. hope i can voice my opinion on alot of things i have kept to myself..

I am very happy to hear that you are no longer feeling alone in your beliefs! There are many, many atheists out there — and many of us would be happy to hear from you!

Hey there, I just want to say, I appreciate what you’re doing, this my first time viewing your blog, and i’m really impressed. I love how it’s simply your point of view, no preaching, converting, or otherwise downing other people. I can’t imagine how sometimes frustrating it must be to get all that hate mail. I personally wouldn’t say i’m an atheist, nor an agnostic. Honestly, I just don’t know, I live life, and then see what happens. I think the term Atheist is viewed as a highly negative term in these times, and I think that’s pretty upsetting. Well, continue to do what you do, and i’ll be stopping by many more times.

Thanks for reading.

(PS. I thought i’d just let you know i’m a fourteen year-old freshman, in case you wanted to see where i’m coming from, so to speak.)

There’s nothing wrong with not labeling yourself atheist, agnostic, etc., particularly if you are still considering your beliefs. I agree that for many people “atheist” has negative connotations, and that is unfortunate. To me, anyone who doesn’t believe in God is an atheist, and I’m trying to “recapture” the word so that people don’t think that atheists all say God absolutely doesn’t exist (since I wouldn’t make such an unprovable statement).

Thanks for writing!

Originally, I had been a strong Xian with faith in the Xian God. I was told to pray to God and repent to my sins, or I was going to spend eternal afterlife in Hell, suffering unimaginable torture. Imagine how that looks to a kid in elementary school. After discovering the wonders of the Internet, I wandered through different forums until I came across one that led me to a friend. He was an atheist, and since I had no knowledge of what that was, I asked my mother and she told me. Fortunately, by this time, my mother was a more New Age person than anything else, but I was still being raised that there was an almighty “God” out there. After having discussions with this friend, I realized that perhaps there wasn’t a God [gods, etc.]. The idea had never occured to me previously. Several meaningful discussions later, I realized that my friend was right, and that Xian beliefs were so nonsensical, I couldn’t believe I had listened to their faux preachings in the first place.

I was just glad that my early Xian upraising hadn’t completely closed my mind.

Glad to hear you had an open mind — and I hope it has stayed open, even after you became an atheist. I was also raised religious, but my parents encouraged me to think for myself and, for me, that was the road to atheism.

Please set me straight then. Because I just would rather not be here. I’m tired.

I know how this looks, re posting my own desperate pitiful comments for someone to notice, but I don’t care. I guess I need someone to notice. First let me make something clear, while I am depressed, and considering a way to disappear, which I have never considered more seriously than now, I would not want to give the wrong impression to the theists out there. My dispare has nothing to do with the fact that I do not believe in any religions god. I was raised Mormon, but I have come to my senses. It has been more than 4 yrs since I learned the Mormon church is not true and I could not be happier about it. After I was convinced of that, I looked deeper into religion in general and found that it is all manmade. Since then it seems I have been using this new quest for knowledge as a kind of distraction from my life, I have been on a constant search for more information. Now, I do not discount the possibility of some kind of creator, but I find it highly unlikely at this point in my research and I completely agree with evolution and science, it makes the most sense to me.

I will get back to the reason I posted in the first place. I have struggled with depression for about 10 yrs. I have tried numerous drugs and herbal remedies, I either had terrible side effects or they did nothing for me and I still suffer. I tried losing weight and exercising, lost 75 lbs and ate right and took vitamins and even went organic, this seemed like it was helping a little, but the bad days kept coming back. Before I became atheist, I would go through my bouts of wanting to disappear but believed I would have to remain in this world unless I died accidentally, I was taught that committing suicide would send me to an eternal hell of the same torture I was going through on earth. I was afraid of death and what punishment was waiting for me because of my ungrateful unhappiness. How could I be so unhappy when I had a loving family, kids and a home, it did not makes sense to me. Why could other people be fine and seem to cope when my world was secretly falling apart?

It was not fair. I still do not understand. I am tired. There is too much to do, to many people relying on me, I cant do it. Now that I know there is no hell, no eternal punishment or “outer darkness” as the Mormons like to call it, I am no longer afraid of death. This is at the same time liberating and scary to me because actually going through with it is now an option in my mind. I struggle with the thought of leaving behind my family knowing how terrible it would be for them, but I can also toss those worries aside knowing that I will cease to exist and be oblivious to it all. I know how selfish that sounds. I know how angry that will make most people to read, but they do not understand… I hurt, I hurt so deep down and immensely I can feel actual pain, it makes my stomach hurt, gives me headaches and muscle pain and I am not allowed to show it, I have to go on with my day to day life trying to smile for my kids and go to work like everything is ok, but its not. I don’t want to do it anymore, I don’t want to be responsible for everyone more, I don’t want this burden, I cant take it. Yes they will hurt, but they wouldn’t be the first people to have to deal with death and their lives will change but they will be ok. Some days are worse than others but even the good days aren’t that good. A person should not have to force themselves to fake enjoyment of the simple things like watching their kids play, or a good movie, or anything! Why do I not feel anything good? I find myself trying to think of a way to make it look like an accident so they would not think it was their fault, because it is not. I do not know if I will ever go through with it, but it is always in my thoughts. I hear it running through my mind, “I just want to disappear”.

Yours is the most starkly serious correspondence I’ve received through this site. I’m not a counselor or psychiatrist or any such thing, so I don’t know how much help I can be. All I can do is share my thoughts.

I guess the obvious thing to do would be to say that you should live because your dying would harm those around you. But that would just be putting more responsibility on your shoulders, wouldn’t it? So let’s just think about you for the moment.

You’re right that you shouldn’t have to pretend to be happy. Hiding your real feelings will eat at you and only make things worse — I assume you’ve already discovered this. So don’t hide it. Don’t pretend. I don’t mean that you should lose control, but don’t put on a play for the benefit of your family. Let it out. Let them help. Do things for you. Do what you want. Get what you need. And make your family part of the process. If there is no God then all we have is each other. You’ve got to use what you have.

And you can do more. You’re not the only person who feels like you do. Maybe, by moving forward, you could help some of these others. Writing to me, letting me put your feelings on my blog, may be a step in that direction.

Your writing is excellent; you convey your feelings well in print. Could you do more of that? Could you blog anonymously about your feelings; let things out through a keyboard? Don’t ask for comments. Don’t pay attention to how much you are read. Just put it all down. Show the world that you can survive in the face of this seemingly insurmountable obstacle. At some point in time you will be read by someone — or many someones — who feel that they are alone, and you may inspire them to push through or get help. You may even be able to warn them away from dark paths that you have taken and treatments you found ineffective. You will make the world a better place.

If not a blog, then what about some kind of group counseling? Or online forums? Or even letters to the newspaper? Share what you have. Use what you have. Help others while helping yourself. But keep in mind that, when you get right down to it, this is about making you feel better.

Remember this: you are the only “you” that there is. Nobody could ever take your place. When you are gone, there will be a hole left behind, and it is up to you to decide what that hole will be filled with. You could leave it unfilled, a gap in the world, an empty thing. Or you could leave it filled with light, something that will brighten the world around it for years to come. I guarantee that suicide, no matter how well planned, can leave nothing but emptiness behind.

[Personal note deleted for blog posting]

I’ll be thinking about you.

I am 14 years old and I am an atheist, for roughly four years. I was recently thinking that more religious things are coming to be around me and they are making me feel uncomfortable. I want to tell my family that I am an atheist which might make me feel better. I have been very true to myself in my atheism. I haven’t prayed, thought about the existence of any form of gods or god, or felt down on myself for betraying my family. I just wanted to know, do you think that I should tell my family that I am an atheist, or should I still keep it under wraps? I don’t know how I should confront this situation. Thanks.

I am flattered that you would write to me with these questions. Two quick points:

1) You don’t have to worry about being “true to yourself” in atheism by not praying, etc. If you still have emotions born from your religious upbringing, you don’t need to feel guilty about them (if that is what you are doing). Even if you were to, for example, say a prayer for a gravely sick friend because it made you feel better, so long as you understand what you are doing, you’re still an atheist.

2) Along the same lines, go ahead and think about the existence of deities if you want to. Thinking about such things can’t hurt.

The important question, though, is whether you should talk to you your family. I don’t know what your family situation is like, but I think that in general it is better to be up front about such things. Keeping your atheism to yourself is going to lead to the feeling that you are living a lie, and not being honest with your parents isn’t going to help your relationship with them.

This doesn’t work for everyone, but if your parents aren’t aware that you have been questioning religion I usually recommend that you don’t just sit them down and tell them you are an atheist. Instead, ask questions about why they believe, see what their reasons are, and be honest about why you disagree. This way your parents will see a bit of how you came to atheism and won’t be surprised by what might, to them, seem like a sudden change. At some point, you will feel comfortable saying to them that you are an atheist, but by then they may have already figured it out.

By the way, you are at a good time in your life to bring this up to your parents. If you wait until you are in college, your parents may be inclined to believe that atheism is something you picked up at school rather than something you reasoned out for yourself.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to write again, if you so desire, and let me know how it goes.

Hey there, I love your site!!! I hope you’re still maintaining it. It cracked me up to no end when I found it one day and I’ve showed as many people as I can. Most folks laugh (probably because I’m discerning about who I show it to…).

Here’s an idea I had as I was reading your informative articles and correspondence: how many of the people who have contributed to the debate on this have lived in a country that was not primarily Christian?

I was raised Christian and then during high school I felt the “calling” and went off the deep end (in hindsight), then in college I was a missionary of the nth degree. I was trying to convert anyone I came into contact with until I had a near-conversion experience: I fell in love. And the object of my affection wasn’t Christian. Suddenly things were different, especially the way my Christian friends treated me! I started examining my feelings and thoughts. It was crazy! My friends said I was going to hell, that I wasn’t the same person they knew, that Jesus was the only thing that made us friends so we could no longer maintain a relationship. I dropped out of the Christian group, I moved out of my dorm room, I continued to date the non-Christian, and I was in depression and denial! Luckily I graduated soon after that and was able to take a step away from the situation.

Basically, up to this point, I was acting on emotion, as you’ve pointed out in your site. I was emotional as a Christian and I was emotional in my denial of my faith. You know what I did? I moved to Japan. I went over to teach English and to escape my situation, and I’ve never made a better move in my life!

While there, I was able to see a nation of people who do good things for each other because they just do, without any hocus pocus about an afterlife (granted, there are societal pressures, but that’s in the here and now and it’s very tangible). I’ve also seen people do some pretty shitty things, but that too was calculated and they had to deal with it instead of claiming forgiveness and redemption from a deity. I think I was in the exact right place in my life at exactly the right time for me because I was able to look at things rationally, make educated decisions about my life and my faith. Granted, I was still concerned about going to hell if I didn’t believe in Jesus and claim him as my personal savior, but one day all that residual guilt melted away. How? I read a poem one day in a classroom.

It was a Buddhist poem actually, written by a Japanese monk named Mitsuo Aida. One poem, very short, more like art really, not even a haiku, just said: “you see beauty reflected in your beautiful heart” (my translation. It’s really: anata no kokoro ga kirei da kara nan demo kirei ni mieru n da na). I had been so bitter up till that point and was projecting that bitterness on the world around me, when all along it was my heart. If I could “clean up” my heart, I could be happy and see the world as a better place. This was my first step to my true conversion experience.

Then I read a book. A beautiful book by a beautiful man: Bertrand Russell. He wrote many books about happiness and thinking and having a full life. The one I read that was so helpful was called “Why I’m not a christian” which is admittedly an inflammatory title. But it was a title of one lecture he gave among this compilation of lectures and vignettes. In it he refuted Christianity in ways that spoke so strongly to me, finally freeing me from my chains of guilt and fear.

After years I was free! Now I could start being mean to people and then regretting it and apologizing for my bad behavior. I could be nice just because I wanted to not because anyone told me I had to. I could appreciate people for who they were and circumstances for what they were instead of constantly trying to “see God” in things and attribute to him the goodness in the world around me.

I’ve since returned to America (with a Japanese spouse of all things!) where we’re happy to be atheists and paying our taxes and living our lives. I’m so thankful for my time out of my comfort zone in a place where I could see people living their lives and paying their taxes — without a single mention of Christianity.

Incidentally, my spouse says I should tell people I’m now Buddhist since I “married into” that religion. I’ve thought about it, but it would be more for reactions than anything, especially to get my relatives off my case about not going to church.

I guess my point in all of this is that I think a lot more people need to go to other places and recognize the good in the differences. Everyone does not want to be like the West, everyone does not need to be capitalist or socialist or communist. We can coexist, but we need to first understand and respect the differences in the world.

Since becoming an atheist, I think I have more faith in humanity than I used to when I had faith in a god. Now I look to people to be good and kind in situations that demand social justice, as a teacher I want my students to learn virtues that are universal and not dependent on any one religion. Faith in humanity not in god, that seems to be my new motto.

Thanks for your time and thanks so much for your website! It’s fabulous to have “community” among atheists, it’s the biggest thing I miss about Christianity. Thank you thank you thank you.

What an excellent letter. I appreciate your sharing your journey with me and my readers.

I think one important point here is that humanity is better thought of as “we” than of “us and them.” Your Christian friends caused you needless harm when they made you an outsider, and did no good for their own cause.

I think it’s interesting that your spouse suggests you call yourself Buddhist. If you’re an atheist, I wouldn’t (even though it’s technically true) because it could lead people to incorrect conclusions about your beliefs. I can certainly understand wanting to get relatives “off your case,” though!

By the way, I am also a great fan of Bertrand Russell. He was my first big atheist-philosophy read and had quite an impact.

I am an agnostic, for the time being, and trying to convince myself to go atheist. the problem is I was raised Christian (and not just the practice-easter-egg-hunts type of Christian- I went to a Christian school, my dad was an elder, and I held a high place in my youth group…) and am having a hard time “quitting”, as it were. My church is still the closest thing I have to an extended family, and my immediate family is still Christian (and not thrilled about my denouncement of God). I live in the Bible belt, where praying before lunch is common, even at school, and being Godless is a bit like not listening to music. My point is, I am immersed in Christianity. Even though I cannot think about God as real, I find myself actively participating in praise and worship, and youth group type activities. My question is should I stop? Can I call myself an atheist, and still like christian rock?

You can be an atheist and enjoy activities with your Christian friends. You can be an atheist and still like Christian rock (for the record, my favorite modern musical is Jesus Christ Superstar if that counts). But, I’d say that as a moral atheist, what you can’t do is be deceptive about it. You can respectfully lower your eyes while others pray before a meal, but don’t lead a religious prayer.

If there’s a group that’s exclusively for Christians, you should ideally either not participate or ask for permission to participate (perhaps they will let you participate in the hope that your mind will be changed). But, particularly because you are young and in a difficult position, I wouldn’t demand this of you. I would suggest that you answer honestly and politely when asked about your beliefs.

Being the only atheist around stinks big time. I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t. But remember, you may be the only atheist these people know, so you have an opportunity to teach them that there’s nothing evil or immoral or in-your-face about atheism. You might also try looking around online for atheist groups, or perhaps even other atheists in your area. Nobody likes being alone.

Best of luck.

Sorry for the spelling mistakes. Its late here. Just wanted to let you know that I love your site. I am agnostic. Because I was raised by my parents and they took me to church. I can’t do the whole bible god thing. But its hard to pull away from what my parents and church have taught me. But there is no proof to it at all and it is all faith based. I came to that realization when I was 9. But there is no evidence proving that there is a god. From what I have read on the net there is more evidence for evoluiton than there is god. And my dad told me that if I prayed that god would help me to belive. Well beliving my father I prayed. And guess what nothing happend. I am still an agnostic but I am leaning towards atheist. Again I really like your site. Please keep up the good work and best regards to you.

Umm.. I’ve been an atheist for a while. (I like the smaller “a” as opposed to the capped “A”.. I’m not real fond of labels) And I outed myself in the local paper. Some in my family have since black-listed me. Now that I’ve outed myself again.. will I have to put up with even more black-listing? (Please say “No”)

Very sorry to hear about the reaction of some in your family. I went through a bit of this myself, where some relatives wanted to know why I had “turned my back on the church” and such things. At least in my case, it took a while before my family understood that I wasn’t rejecting or reacting to or turning my back on anything. I had just come to a different set of beliefs.

Be patient. Keep being a good person. Hopefully, your good nature will shine through and end the blacklisting.

I was raised in a catholic home. Here in Mexico it is very common that you “must” belong to the “official” religion, which is catholicism. At the age of 16 I started to question the authority of the church, and the established truth that it managed to exploit. Despite my being a part of a catholic family I saw myself questioning and questioning that what they taught me to believe as I grew older. It came gradually and not as a shock. One fine day, I decided that I didn’t needed to believe in a god to be happy, or to feel “complete” as they put it. (whatever that means)

My family, fortunately, accepted my atheism without questioning my motives. They taught me to embrace a religion, but they taught me also to think by myself. I know it sounds contradictory, but it is as I put it. Eventually I started to talk a lot about and against the official church and the religion in which I was educated. The only thing they asked of me is to respect the others believes.

I think, and I’ve told them this over and over, that only people deserves respect, but not their ideas. If all ideas deserve respect, then we should respect even the ideals that people like Hitler lived upon. This short phrase usually helps to end any argument. Sometimes it does not. But the important thing, is that now, and after several arguments over the years, my parents, my brothers and most of my friends start to question some of the very foundation of the religion and the church that they grew attached to. The pope is no longer the infallible messenger from god, and I have seen or heard my parents watching some nonsense about religion on TV and start to say “Aw, come on! that’s ridiculous!

It is then, when I think that there is still some hope. That some fine day, maybe, we will eventually have the maturity to disregard the very existence of celestial fathers, and start taking the life and the responsibility that comes along with the territory and that we have the right to. and the obligation to embrace.

You are an excellent example for atheists in religious situations. It is far better to light a candle and help someone read than to try and take away the book.

I think you will find that the long, slow road to freedom from superstition is both the kindest and the most effective. Best of luck, and thank you so much for writing!