Let us get one thing straight. Atheism is defined as "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or Gods." Being atheist does not mean you worship the Devil. It does not mean you hate God. It does not mean that you hate Christians and it most definitely does not mean that you automatically think people are stupid for having a particular belief in such.
A person who is Atheist just does not believe or lacks the belief in deities. I find it strange that some people tend to be somewhat rude when asked why they do not believe in a God. Perhaps they feel like they are being attacked.
This past Spring I was attending Radford University. The move to the school was difficult and very irritating, as was my time there. I was not happy at all while attending; reason being is that I probably transferred for the wrong reasons, but that is neither here nor there. It was a very unpleasant experience altogether. I started to slip away from reality. I slept half the day and started losing track of my studies. I had not felt this alone in a very long time, so what did I do? I prayed. And prayed. And prayed. The thing is, my situation did not get better. I started to lose faith. I became somewhat distraught and felt even more alone. I was lying in bed one night thinking about where my life was heading until I realized that I did not need a "God" to dictate my life anymore. I did not need someone to rely on in such a fashion. Get mad or call me crazy, but I did not need it. I did not want to live that way, so I renounced my faith. The funny thing is, things got better after.
Before this offends anyone, even though I'm not sure I would care if it did, I am in no way saying that me not believing anymore is the reason for the fact that my life took a turn for the better. All I know is that ever since I stopped relying on the words "God has a plan for everyone," my life has gotten exponentially better. I made things happen with the help and support of my friends and family. If someone disagrees with that statement, then well that is okay.
The thing is, I have lived in the area of the country known as "The Bible Belt" all of my life. I am from the small town of Big Stone Gap, located in the Southwest Virginia area. Everybody knows everybody in most cases. There are a good amount of churches in the area, and a large amount of the population attend on a regular basis. Prayer is not allowed in the schools, but you would be being dishonest with yourself to say that it does not still happen. I do not have a problem with that at all. My problem is the backlash people get when they decide not to pray. From my understanding, the Christian faith is suppose to incorporate love, kindness, and acceptance. So my question is, why is it okay to act in those ways towards a person or group of people only when they share the same beliefs as the persecutor?
The people in this area let me down on a daily basis. I believe that being close-minded is a disease. I see people say "I will be praying for you" a lot, but how many times is that said in a positive fashion? How many times is that said when the person being prayed for is not being attacked for his or her beliefs? For example, I was on Facebook about a month ago and there was an argument about abortion. A girl from my old high school basically said that she was for abortion under certain circumstances. She was hit with a barrage of very nasty comments on her post. What got me is that a good amount of these grotesque comments were made by people posting bible verses! Now how does that work? For a religion that is supposed to be so very loving, I tend to see quite a bit of hate. That's not how it should work.
When gay marriage was legalized, the response was horrible. People were saying that "the world was ending," "America was doomed," "God would be back soon," "Obama sucks," and so many other awful things. For the first time in American history, marriage was seen as a constitutional right, not a privilege for straight people. That is beautiful. People want to say this country was founded upon religious freedom, but all I seem to see is quite a bit of persecution. Apparently, Kim Davis has been giving quite a few lessons in the name of Christianity.
Basically, what I want to be understood is that I do not think anyone is stupid or ridiculous for believing in a God. I just do not believe. I do not believe in Jesus, Zeus, Allah, Amun-Ra, none of them. I just do not. I feel as humans, we should come to terms with the fact that there are over 7 billion people on this planet, each with different beliefs and mindsets. Fighting over such things are, in my opinion, incredibly ignorant and detrimental to the health of our entire planet. I want to grow old and I cannot do that if the world ends. Stop being selfish.
I appreciate the fact that I was able to grow up in such an enclosed area. I am glad I was able to make friends with people love me regardless, as I have told most of my friends of my beliefs (or lack there of). I am glad my mother raised me to be accepting of all, regardless of their views. She taught me never to be disrespectful to another person just because we do not agree on the same ideals. I am glad I was able to open my mind, while others could not. I feel like the whole world should be like that. I feel like the entire world should learn to accept one another. The one unifying factor on our planet is love, but most of the time it seems to be nonexistent.
Stop fighting over something you cannot see and start loving the people that you can. I do not believe in God, but I still love all of my beautiful, Christian friends. I hope that they can still love me.
