"What do you believe?"

Never has a question so simple polarized the world to such an extreme degree. Religious beliefs are common in the world, and the United States houses a multitude of religions and philosophical belief systems. In the United States it is undeniable that Christianity is the most popular religion. According to a 2014 study by Pew Research Center, 70.6 percent of the population identifies as Christian. The South is the stronghold of Christianity in the United States, and it's a common expression that there's a church on every street corner. With the apparent popularity of Christianity, how would one go about living in a fundamentally religious location and not believe in a God?

I personally identify as being an agnostic atheist, but if you know my background, this might be surprising. I grew up and went to a Christian school for 13 years, attended church regularly for 12, and self identified as a Christian for many of my younger years, but something wasn't right. I wouldn't say that I lost my faith in a God, but that I never had it. At the age of six I decided to "accept" God into my heart and identified as a Christian from that point forward, but I don't think I ever believed the same way that my parents and many of my friends did. I accepted Christianity for fear of hell. No six year old can possibly understand the full ramifications of being part of a religion, but they do understand fear of pain and suffering. I accepted to prevent those bad things from happening. From that point until my sophomore year of high school I had doubts, but never really questioned what I was feeling.

I believe that in order to be a well rounded person that you have to have a healthy amount of skepticism for everything. The problem here is that the belief system that I followed when I was younger didn't have room for any sort of questions. There was an authoritarian command to never question The Bible, Christianity, and God. If you questioned those things, then you risked losing friends, and losing respect from people that supposedly cared about you. After being involved in a very bad car accident I started to seriously question my core principles. I'm extremely grateful to say that I grew up in a family environment that did not ostracize or disavow me for thinking differently. Both of my parents still accept me and love me and have made clear that nothing can change the fact that I'm their son, which means the world to me. Sadly, the people that I called friends did not look at me in the same light as before.

Many people I knew looked at me as someone to be pitied, as if I was too stupid to understand the supposed punishments I would have in eternity that they would skip out on. I'm of the personal opinion that to look at your fellow human being in that light and to go about your day with a clear conscience when you think of them burning in hell is worse than not believing in a God. Thankfully once I got to college I was able to expand my horizons and the people I associated with. In order to better understand why religious people believe what they do, you have to look at the world we live in and the universe around us. There's death, destruction, chaos, and cruelty. Many people see these things and hope for higher meaning and a structured plan. To admit the disorder is to admit there is no control, and to have no control means there is no purpose in their minds. When there's a reason someone dies or a reason bad things happen, it relieves discomfort. There lies one of my issues and why I don't think I could ever be religious. It fundamentally takes away the ability of people to grow emotionally and intelligently. This isn't me saying all religious people are stupid, but this is me saying that I believe religious people restrict themselves. When you question, feel pain and suffering, and experience hardship and overcome it you grow. When something supposedly takes care of all of your problems for you, what is your purpose besides subservience to a being that's only account of existence is a collection of stories which can't be validated?

I'm also not saying that science and disbelief has all the answers, but science is one of if not the only thing in the world that has empirical evidence that doesn't need to be relayed through storytelling. Science is observable and testable, which means it is not on the same playing field as religion. It certainly doesn't have every answer, but it's always asking what the answers are and uncovering new ones. I'm comfortable not having all of the answers now that I have the freedom to choose for myself. My destiny isn't predetermined, I'm not an inherently evil person, and I have the fundamental right to question anything. Disbelief welcomes skepticism, and that's something I can't live without.