I am 16 and a junior in high school. I was brought up in a Catholic family and for a long time I really believed in god and the Christian religion. When started high school, I started questioning my beliefs. I realized I had no good reason for believing what I did. I had always accepted the Christian religion, always taken it for granted because it was what I had always been taught. I finally understood that I was a Christian because I had been born in a certain country to certain parents, not because it was right. I couldn't keep believing something that I had been assigned to by luck-of-the-draw, in hopes that out of all the beliefs out there it was right.
It wasn't easy at first, to just stop believing something that had been indoctrinated into me my whole life, but I couldn't accept that there was a higher power. It's still not easy, being an atheist, when almost everyone I know is a Christian. I've been told that I'm going to burn in hell, just because I believe in evolution and not the preposterous idea that we are all descended from two people who were put on earth a scant 6000 years ago. This doesn't frighten me since I don't believe in hell, but it bothers me that people are not more accepting of other's beliefs. Most of my friends are Christians and a lot of them have a hard time with my atheism. Fortunately, I do have one atheist friend who I can discuss my beliefs with. I still haven't told my parents, and I'm supposed to be confirmed in the Catholic church in a few months. Part of me wants to tell them now, and risk major tension at home, and part of me thinks I should wait a year and a half till I'm in college. I will probably wait, but it is hard pretending I'm something I'm not.
In the last two years, my atheism has only gotten stronger. At first I had a lot of lingering doubts, but now I'm sure of myself and my beliefs. I'm taking a lot of science classes in school, and the more I learn about science, the more convinced I am that religion just doesn't make sense. Still, though, it's hard to be an atheist in a Christian society, and I am eagerly awaiting the time when I leave home and go to college, where there's more diversity and tolerance.
--Sarah