Atheism: The Ultimate Guide (COMPLETED)

3. How I Became an Atheist

My family is not religious and they never have been. Therefore, my parents never told me anything about religion. 

My parents believed their children should have the right to choose whatever beliefs they wanted. Therefore, they never told us what was "right" religion-wise.

That is the best way to parent, in my personal opinion. Allow your children to decide their personal beliefs without coercive tactics or involuntary indoctrination. 

My whole extended family is religious. Therefore, I had a lot of religious influence growing up, despite my immediate family's lack thereof. 

My grandma tried to take me to Sunday school on several occasions. The students there were completely cruel to me, telling me I'd rot in Hell and I shouldn't be there. After that, I never went to church again. 

Before that awful experience, my grandma would try and tell me about Christianity. I always thought she was telling me a fairytale. A magical man in the sky that created everything? A talking snake? A scary villain? All of it fit the pieces of a fairytale, and I couldn't even fathom it as something people believed.

When I was five, my parents enrolled me in a Christian preschool. They did this because the school had a good program and was near our house, not because of religious values.

I spent the whole year being taught about God and Christianity. It was then that I began to think it was all real. Before I was enrolled in school, I couldn't believe this fairytale, but I began to believe it once I entered a school that taught all about it.

After preschool, I moved to a public school for kindergarten and onwards. I lost all of my religious influence in the school atmosphere. 

Since I didn't have any more religious influence, I dropped my beliefs and forgot about them.

I never picked them back up. As I got older I began to love science. Understandably, science does not love religion.

My life as an atheist hasn't been as bad as some others I know. The worst I got was mocked by some of my friends in seventh grade because I believe in the theory of evolution by natural selection.

However, I've been stereotyped. When people assume my religion, they assume I'm a Christian because I'm a nice goody-two-shoes who excels in academics. When I tell people I'm not religious, they're always shocked.

They say things like, "you can't be an atheist, you're too nice!" This a complete and utter misconception about atheists. 

That's my story.