My parents were both raised Christian, and by the time they were in their mid-teens, had rejected god and faith and the church as something that they did not need nor want. I know there are many reasons why they both walked away from their families’ religion, but it really all boils down to one, very simple reason: they did not believe in a higher being, be it a man or a spirit or a son. Feeling it was a waste of time to praise something they did not feel nor see, did not find represented in many of the people around them, and in the end did not want to follow, they were happy to leave it behind them.
As I grew up and my parents did not have my brother or me baptized, there was a noticeable amount of tension. One grandmother was sure we would be damned for all time, the other was sure that it was one of the main reasons we were such an unhappy group. I remember so many of my extended family trying to get us to go to church, to pray, or saying they would pray for us. Perhaps it was because they belonged to somewhat fundamental faiths, but I always found this annoying, especially when I got to an age where I knew what was going, and was beginning to form my own opinion. (If only the problems of my early years would have been made better by prayer or reading the bible!)
Mom and Dad, though, always made it extremely clear that we were to find our own way. They wanted us to search, to study as many religions as we could, learn the different forms of spirituality people practiced. I’ve taken classes, gone to bible study groups, read numerous books, and contemplated a lot.
Following my parents to Atheism
In the end, I find I have followed my parents on the road to atheism. Yes, I have studied biology and astronomy and other sciences, and find it hard to comprehend how someone who’s studied these same subjects still believe in the Judeo-Christian god, but I realize many do and I accept that. Also, I find many of the things done in the name of god or a religion to be not only sad disgusting, but completely opposite of what I’ve been told that god or those religions stand for. Between the hypocrisy, the violence, the contradictory nature within many of the followers I’ve encountered, if I didn’t already not believe, I’d be tempted to walk away much like my parents did.
It all comes down to not needing to believe in a higher power.
I don’t need this crutch of god or the bible or Satan. I don’t have it in my to devote a part of my being to something that seems to be an excuse for the good and the bad that happens to people and our world. And this isn’t to say I don’t feel I’m missing something in this life. I’m single, I live alone, I’m scraping by most of the time, and all number of things I have yet to experience in this world that so many have. But I don’t feel and never have felt a presence other than myself, I have never been through something that I came out on the other side and said, “I didn’t get through that alone.”
I also don’t necessarily want to believe. Why believe in one being that there are literally millions of different interpretations of? I love sitting back and thinking of something a co-worker said about one particular subject, than turning on the television and hearing the exact opposite interpretation from someone apparently of the same faith as my co-worker.
We’re atheists and we have reasons
Atheists don’t have that. We have different reasons we’re atheists, but you aren’t really going to find contradictions in our beliefs and outlooks on life. Listening to people go on about god and his son and dying for our sins or wanting to lynch a woman for naming a teddy bear the wrong name makes me feel better about being an atheist. At the same time, it also makes me feel sorry for our race if so many people still believe in this stuff. 
I could be wrong, though, and I do believe that. Which, yes, sounds almost contradictory in itself. There could be something out there somewhere that created all of this. I just don’t happen to think there is, and I really don’t think that thing/being cares about us a whole hell of a lot. Have you seen the state of this planet recently?
