I don't believe in God.

(Via Doug Matthews)

I don't believe in God.

Not only am I an atheist; I'm also a free thinker, an independent, a philosopher, a truth seeker, and a pragmatic constituent of veracity. I don't need a magical space wizard to tell me how to conduct my life. I don't need the stress and worry of making sure that my every word, thought, or action is going to be added to an already huge list of moral discrepancies. I'm not referring to social discrepancies; I'm talking about the inconsistencies with my life and the life I would be following as a Christian in accordance to the all-powerful, ill-conceived, contradictory laws of the Bible.

For 22 years, I lived in fear. I was raised in a Christian home. My father was a pastor, his father was a pastor, his father was a pastor, and so on. I had big dreams to get into the “church business” and make a name for myself. Throughout my teen years, a lot of my freedom was stripped through religion and the forcefulness of my parents. I don't blame them; they were raised the same way I was. I do, however, wish that they had the same free thought and will power that I had and could see through the mud like I did. Sometimes I was in church as much as three times per week serving for the Lord; sealing my guarantee that I would enter an eternal paradise upon my uneventful death. I sponsored youth events, converted several people from atheism and agnosticism to Christianity, I prayed several times per day, I made sure that I erased any sin as soon as I committed it. I was living the true Christian life and subconsciously hated it.

I always had doubt though. I can still remember telling myself in my younger years that there was no God, and this was prior to all the knowledge I have now. It always felt more natural to me, more in my comfort zone than believing in the Christian non-sense. Sure, I can claim several times in my Christian walk where I thought God touched my life. I can cite supposed miracles, unexplainable things and feelings. However, I can also cite and convey a lot of negative, and unanswered prayers, more bad than good. Looking back, I now know that those “miracles” were simply general statistical phenomenon or coincidences, if you will. To be even more concise, I can probably explain all the ways that God touched my life using simple science and pure common sense.

Why won't God heal amputees? Why does God allow innocent children to be raped and murdered? Why doesn't God just abolish Satan now? Why won't God show his face or prove to mankind that he is real? Why are we supposed to live in harmony with ancient manuscripts, written by men who were obviously just trying to explain and justify their environment? Why don't modern day Christians stone homosexuals as they are told to do in Leviticus 20:13? I could go on…

As millions of other legitimate Christians all over the world deal with their subconscious tendencies to negate the Christian dogma, I am proud to say that I've faced my fear and stepped outside of the box. I'm an American Atheist, one of forty-eight million.