Testimonial of an Unbeliever

I am an 18-year-old who recently chose to forsake my belief in a ‘God’ in favor of reason and logical thought. In fact, as I write this, I’ve "officially" been an atheist for only three days. That is not, of course, to say that my decision has been made in haste. For years now, I’ve doubted. Some could even say that the past few years have been they way they have for me as a way of testing my faith; if that is so, then I have clearly failed. The last five years of my life have indeed been hard; it started with the divorce of my mother and my stepfather, who ruined Mother’s credit, making the search for a new house extremely difficult. No one would trust her with a loan; we spent two years living with friends. Like many who have chosen to get away from Christianity, my life experiences are what pushed me away from faith in ‘Him.’

Many people look to the heavens and ask the question, "Why?" The answer has always been that it is not our purpose to understand ‘Him,’ but this is an unacceptable answer to me. The ‘God’ of the Bible is supposedly a merciful, loving deity, yet also a vengeful and hateful one. Refer even to the early stories of the ‘Tower of Babel,’ the ‘Great Flood,’ the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt for so long, and others. (I apologize in advance; I’m quite rusty as far as the Bible is concerned – like many Christians, I have never read it from cover to cover.) If ‘God’ is supposed to be merciful and loving, why then is he at the same time so vengeful? It is not a matter of my not being able to understand; that is just an excuse by Christian apologists. It seems perfectly clear to me; a merciful and loving ‘God’ would not allow such hate in the world, however powerful ‘Satan’ is.

‘Satan’ is another matter. The Bible claims that he is an archangel who fell from grace; yet an archangel, despite being high in the Angelic hierarchy, is still supposed to be significantly less powerful than ‘God.’ Why, then, did ‘God’ simply not strike him down for good, instead of allowing him to influence the world as the other Christian Apologist excuse states?

Another striking problem to me is this whole concept of salvation. It’s supposedly very simple; accept ‘Jesus’ into your heart and be saved from an eternity of damnation. What about those who had the misfortune of being born into the wrong family, country, or what-have-you? What happens to those children who die at an age so young that they have not yet had the opportunity to accept ‘Jesus’ as their ‘savior’? They’re damned, according to the Bible. Men, women, and children who died having lived perfectly good, kind, loving lives, but who have not accepted the beliefs of Christianity, are supposedly burning in Hell as I type this.

Men like Hitler and Mussolini were Christian, but could even be called evil. Besides asking the obvious – why would ‘God’ allow the merciless and bloody slaughter of his own people – another question immediately arises. Hitler was a Christian; he may not have been a good person, but surely, because he believed in ‘Christ,’ he is in Heaven, right?

If he is, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be, according to the Bible, then that alone should be enough for me to refuse to worship such a ‘God.’ The Biblical concept of salvation is quite arbitrary and cruel; there is no reason why a loving, humane person who was ‘unlucky’ enough to be born into the wrong religion should be burning in Hell, while evil men like Hitler enjoy blissful paradise in Heaven!

Am I afraid now of being damned to an eternity in Hell? Hardly. After all, if I did, I would not be an Atheist. Surely if there is indeed a ‘God,’ and I am wrong, and if ‘God’ is merciful and loving, then he will accept reason and logic over blind faith, and good works over blind loyalty and ignorance? If not, I will burn in Hell, along with great men like Thomas Jefferson, one of the first Americans to acknowledge the evil of slavery, Albert Einstein, and Anne Frank. Either way, the thought of the existence of a ‘God’ in this world now seems every bit as preposterous to me as the thought of the existence of the tooth fairy or the ‘Easter’ bunny.

Many people look around at nature and think to themselves that something had to have created it, and that the world around us is proof enough that a ‘God’ must surely exist. Ask those people who would say such a thing about whether someone or something created ‘God,’ and they’ll answer back informing you of the "obvious fact," that ‘God’ was always there. Surely I am not the only person who sees the absurdity of this? Now you can see another reason for my abandonment of ‘God’ and Christianity.

Science has helped me to see how the mechanisms of life work and to see how life may have come about. Microbiology has shown me that there is nothing magical about life; the cell is simply a collection of different combinations of several key elements. Biology doesn’t need a ‘God’ to explain the way things are. Physics and Chemistry also are Godless science…pure factual information that requires no faith to believe. Science, now, more than ever, doesn’t require the individual to accept without question; anyone with the resources and intellect can challenge a theory, provided that they have the factual evidence to support their claims. This is not so for Christianity. For example, if evolution is wrong, so be it; some other theory will be there to replace it.

As I see it, religion has three main purposes:

• The first purpose is to simply give the people an explanation for the way things work in the world around them. Science provides answers to the questions, now. Religion’s purpose here is obsolete.
• The second purpose is to provide people with a reason for living. Religion’s purpose here is not obsolete, and will never be, but I don’t feel that I need religion to continue living. Personally, I have chosen the quest for acceptance and tolerance for all to fill that void.
• The third and final purpose is to provide people with a reason for having morals. Here, too, religion’s purpose is not obsolete, though this concept is heavily misused. I refer to the "Holy War" that has been called down upon America by radical Islamic peoples, the Crusades, slavery in the South here in America, and countless other cruelties and sins that have been justified by religious texts or leaders. Again, I don’t need religion to tell me that I should be kind to people, to never do that which might cause harm, and to help when at all possible. Atheism is not immoral; as many will tell those who would claim that it is evil and satanic.

I am content in knowing that I am no longer a part of an organized religion that has for two millennia used its beliefs to provide itself a reason to push those beliefs on others and to persecute those who refuse to accept it. I have always been an advocate for all civil rights, but never before have I found myself as part of the minority whose rights should be defended. Americans fear and hate atheism more than they do homosexuality; this needs to change. We will not tolerate bigotry, and you can check your evangelism at the door.

Dave Gevert