you said we could e-mail and tell our 'stories' so i have decided to take your offer, however 'interesting' this may turn out *8)

i have been raised in a christian family although have never gone to church with them. for a time, i prayed almost every night and had a pretty strong belief in the christian god. as time wore on, however, i started straying from that belief, and never realized it until late one night. suddenly my thoughts had turned to religion and i realized 'i don't believe in god'. i was in shock. in that one sentence i had lost the only protector i had ever and would ever have. and i cried. that was years ago, probably late 6th grade.

junior high was hell for me when it came to religion. all of my friends were religious. i was insecure about myself anyway, apart from believing in something no one else i knew did. i thought i was completely alone. but things turned around as a freshman in high school. i was no longer the insecure person i was before. i still had never told anyone about my lack of belief in deities..........until matt. he was my best friend... well, i told him about my atheism (and i then knew the name for what i was) and our friendship ended there. he couldn't handle it; being friends with someone who was 'going to hell' (i don't know if he ever realized that his favorite retaliation about going to hell held little merit with me since i don't believe there is a hell!)

after that, i stopped being discrete (not a bad thing). i mean, what more could i lose? whenever religion came up, i had no problem speaking my views, i never held the truth about myself from anyone. i felt wonderful.

it wasn't all good, though. one sleep-over comes to mind............it was with my closest friends. ashley (who has a big problem with exaggeration and dramatization) was feeling sorry for herself again for 'all that she's been through' (which isn't much at all) and the topic switched to religion. i hadn't known that some of my friends didn't know i was atheist. well, now they did! i got 'it's just a phase', 'you really do believe, you just don't know what religion', 'but if you don't worship God, you're going to hell!'. the worst was 'i pray for you every night to find your way'. that cut it. i couldn't believe that my FRIENDS were saying these things to me! they didn't respect my beliefs like i did theirs. i have never felt the same way towards them since.

i am currently a sophomore in high school. my religion is a past drama now. i feel, like most regardless of their religion, that i am right. i feel that atheism is the most truthful belief. we don't take information for granted and have the ability to create our own morals. what no one who is not atheist is likely to realize, is that atheism, i think, makes one stronger. there is no god to fall back on. when friends, family, and people in general die, you don't think they went to some marvelous place. i do not find any meaning to life, no reason to be here other than experiencing the 'emotion' humans call 'happiness'. and what other reason is there to live than to experience emotion for your own selfish reasons and kill society by reproducing, like the lowest life forms do, more humans to live and follow the exact same pattern that we did? i am not a manic-depressive or anything. but i realize a harsh truth (or maybe my own inventive delusion) that i cannot do anything of significance because humanity, civilization, the universe is unimportant. i am nothing. no one is watching out for me and no one cares about me. atheists are as alone as people can get.

but! atheists are their own people! for this one and only life, we do not follow anyone's rules but our own. i think it's the best way to live and i wouldn't ever, even for the ability to believe in heaven again, be anything but atheist.

well, that's my story. i'm glad i have told it to people who care (or maybe not...) but at least told it to people who might understand. i always love talking to other atheists so if you're feeling like talking to someone, my screen name is BridgSocr or Eternalkis (i'm online a lot) and my e-mail address is Marki00@juno.com

~bridgett

p.s. i welcome debates on religion or lack thereof (although i confess to being very ignorant about the bible, etc) but if you are going to bitch at me about how christianity is right without listening to me, you should know this; i would NEVER be christian if i had to be some religion and if i do go to hell, i'll fuck the devil when i'm there. :^) thank you