I am an atheist because I cannot see any logical reason to be otherwise.

I was raised new age/pagan and used karma to explain why my life was such a mess as I became a heavy drug user and drinker.

I always enjoyed laughing at silly Christian beliefs, but once I gave up drugs and cleared my mind I started to turn that same skeptical eye on to my own beliefs, and found them just as laughable, if not more so.

Despite the 12 step program telling the world the only way to get clean is through god, I found that without drugs clouding my senses god became irrelevant.

Leela Moses
New Zealand

I finally stopped praying, begging and pleading and said, “Fuck you God!” and it literally saved my life.

Growing up, I was subtly aware the way in which I observed the world was somehow off. Everything was just too loud or frightening or difficult. My daily life was filled with intangible despair and angst and the most mundane activities became an existential nightmare: Keirkegaard for kids. I was often too intimidated or lethargic to go outside, the thought of tomorrow was unnerving enough to deprive me of meaningful sleep, and what should have been good times were filled with internalized anguish that often brought me to tears. Looking back I can say that it felt like I was living in a dank subterranean realm looking up at the world, slowly being buried alive and dismembered while everyone else managed their lives and left me behind. But this was alright because I was praying to “God” and asking for “His” help and I knew eventually if I kept at it, I’d be saved.

Begging for help is a more apt description; day after day, year after year. I thought if I went to church I would be saved or at least not be punished more. I sought help from a truly compassionate, yet misguided priest and counselor who indicated I should seek solace in faith. Years went by and my symptoms ebbed and flowed. My high school years of debilitating apathy and fear were spent with very high doses self-medication (i.e., vodka for breakfast). My feigned attempt at college was met with truancy, very real suicide attempts and hospitalizations. And yet, I prayed.

At this point however, the cognitive dissonance was becoming all too apparent. So much of my life had been spent seeking help in this invisible being, yet to no avail and to the persistence of very tangible pain. Finally, after years of delusion, something clicked and I punched myself with some brutal honesty and the fear turned into anger. A subservient to this “God” is what I had been, begging and fearing for a life that was barely worth living. That night, the “Fuck you God!” night, shed my life of the false safety net that was actually enslaving me. It was perhaps the most liberating experience of my life. While still trepidatious, it gave me the kick in the ass necessary to save me. I sought professionals who based their conclusions on the rigors of scientific process. Meeting the criteria for multiple, severe mental illnesses and after years of fine-tuning management techniques, my life is virtually asymptomatic.

Even though it took me seven tumultuous years to finish my Bachelor’s, I have worked four years professionally with success I never thought possible. I’ve even started a part-time Master’s in Earth Science due to my unbounded love for anything scientific; a direct result of my deconversion and the inspiration instilled from the science-based doctors who helped save my life. When I think of the countless, cumulative, backbreaking hours spent in labs and pouring over data, hours that define entire lives that were only seeking the truth, truth that ultimately saved my life… I cry… I am so grateful. I am not of great mind and I’m not going to be known in the scientific community, but in some form, no matter how small, I’d like to contribute to the science that saved me.

I no longer direct my anger toward God because 1) I’m no longer angry and 2) there is no God. I am an atheist because in one sense it was my only choice, but it goes much deeper than that. I am an atheist because I am a truth seeker. I am an atheist because living a finite life allows me to create motivation, meaning and love – through the help of my amazing wife and family – in such a way that isn’t constrained by a “safety net.” At any rate, for old times’ sake, “Fuck you God!”

Jake
United States

I suppose my journey to atheism started with spirituality. When I was a kid, I attended a Unitarian Universalist church in Seattle. We had both a Solstice and a Christmas pageant, celebrated Easter and the Equinox. My parents sought not to force an ideology upon me, but to expose me to many traditions so that I could piece together my own collage of beliefs. I remember one day, standing in my living room, when someone inquired as to my religion. Bewildered, I said “I don’t know…” and turned to my mother, who replied “Good.” When my sisters were born, though, our house and traditions were suddenly too small.

We moved to a cohousing community about half an hour away when I was nine or ten, and my father moved back to Seattle soon afterward. He was and is a very scientifically minded person, fascinated with the acquisition of any kind of knowledge he can get his hands on, and I believe his transition to atheism came soon after my parents split. I began attending a New Thought church with my mother (and later my stepfather). In this place, I was taught that god is just a word for some spiritual thingy that makes up everything, a person’s natural state is perfection, that our thoughts affect what happens to us, and that heaven and hell are merely states of mind. After a while, though, I became disenchanted with that fat box of joy. They started asking people to tithe after every service. They acquired a new TV spot, associated themselves with Deepak Chopra, and built a new “celebration hall” with the money they constantly milked their audience for…. The average wealth of the people attending rose visibly, and not because the church was making anyone richer. Our old holding-hands-during songs tradition was abolished without a word. Not to mention the fact that we were building ugly new buildings instead of, say, helping people through devastating world crises. Attached to my previous participation in the music program and to the friends I’d made there, I dangled on for a little while before I gave up.

As I began my college career last year, I discovered my fascination with anthropology and psychology; the reasons people are how we are, and how we perceive the world around us. And in the light of my recent split from the New Thought movement, and the insight I was being given into humanity, I turned my questioning nature upon my own beliefs. I’d read Pharyngula before, and was already better versed in biology and the scientific method than most people my age, but had held tightly to my vague, earthy spirituality. Under closer scrutiny, I was shocked at my conclusion:

None of the important values I was holding onto and associated with spirituality- self-fulfilling prophecy (a well-known psychological phenomenon), respect for life, empathy, getting to know oneself- needed to be assigned to any sort of supernatural being or force. There was just no reason I had to believe something quite frankly silly to be a whole, happy person living on a fascinating speck in a vast and astounding universe.

So I did. And now I’m an atheist.

Natasha Krasle
United States