How and Why (and When) I became an Atheist

Hey there. if you’re reading this then I finally got enough courage to go public with my stance on god and religion. I am not going to lie, I was (and still am) afraid of what friends and family would think about my decision, and with good reason. I grew up in a very religious family and setting, a Christian one. I was an Anglican and at some point my father was the pastor of a church.

Just like many other religious people in the world today, I was born into my religion and didn’t have the choice to oppose or deny it. It was painted as perfect and all I had to do was follow. I never ever questioned it or it’s authenticity even once, not until I was about 11, afterwhich I always tried to silence the “crazy” thoughts I was getting. Everything about god just didn’t add up. I eventually pushed these thoughts away since whenever I asked my mom about them she would say, “when we get to heaven we’ll ask god!”.

Fast forward to four years later, I recently completed high school. My cousin, (we went to high school together) came open as an atheist. It was totally shocking, disappointing, unbelievable, etc. Every one was so discriminatory of him (myself included). You’d usually hear people say he was on his way to hell. He was unflinching about his decision to be an atheist. Although I wasn’t changed by his actions. I didn’t expect it from him and I started asking the question “why”? why would he risk it? Why not just live as a Christian? what did he have to lose? What did he hear or see? It became a mission to find out for myself why he did it and if it was worth doing and I did find out.

By late 2017, I got into the university for a BSc in Computer Science. As expected, I started going to a church on campus. This church was very different from the ones I was used to. I spent the first 3 to 4 months being devoted but as time passed, I couldn’t help the sad feeling of being a fraud. My devotion started diminishing and during the second semester holidays (late 2018) I had it up to my neck. I was deep in questions about god but this time I didn’t push them away I actually tried to answer them myself. I took out a sheet of paper and on one side I wrote god, on the other I wrote Ben. The scores after my questioning would decide who I would worship and stay loyal to. Each one I got an answer to went in the god section while the rest went in the Ben section. At the end of the exercise, there were 2 counts under the god section while there were 14+ counts under the Ben section. I kept these at the back of my mind and decided to spend the next few months (up till about March 2019) keeping an open mind about god. I went to church, I spoke in tongues, I basically did church stuff…

By March, I took a break from church. It just wasn’t working out. Deep down in me, I had no reason to believe there was a god, so why should I act like I did. This was when I resolved to live as if he didn’t exist. I couldn’t disprove his existence but I still couldn’t prove that he existed so I chose to sit on the right side of reasoning, just like my cousin. I got a lot of visits from church trying to rescue the “backsliden” brother. But my mind was made up.

It’s December and I still haven’t found a reason to believe god exists. All I’ve figured out so far is that in the world today there are 5000+ religions and its totally insane to believe that just one out of all is right and it’s even more ridiculous to think that it’s yours. Why? because if you were born into an Indian home, then you’ll most likely be a servant of Krishna and if it was a Greek home you’ll be a servant of Zeus and if it was a Jewish home then you wouldn’t even believe in Jesus.

It’s sad but it’s the truth about religion, it’s bias.

What do I have to lose by being a Christian? well everything. I lose the chance to be a rational human who contributes to society. For example, I used to believe in eternal life after death. I don’t know for others but my mind was always set on eternity and how I would live in all glory and majesty with god. This made me not care about this mortal life. I always maintained a “heavenly” mindset and how this life is worthless. The problem with this kind of ideology is that it creates societal menaces who do not care about their society and its wellbeing. A practical example is how the least developed countries are the most religious ones.

I also lose the chance to be inquisitive about life. Religion claims to have an answer to everything unexplained by science(called the god of the gaps — attributing the unexplained to a god or some deity) . Science on the other hand starts out at a position of ignorance and seeks a solution through guided research and experimentation.

Have I read the Bible enough? No. I haven’t read it enough but from what I have read there is no reason to believe god exists. All the Bible has shown me is that the god it depicts is racist, homophobic and genocidal. Also a dictator. I don’t totally discredit the Bible and if you can show that god exists from it I’ll be more than happy to indulge.

Just to be clear I am not saying that god doesn’t exist or does exist, I’m only saying that since I can’t prove he does exist, I’ll live like he doesn’t and if he decides to punish me for asking honest questions then… although I highly doubt he can.

One more thing, remember that for believing in one god, you automatically don’t believe in the other 5000+ gods, so basically the difference between atheists and religious people is that we don’t believe in the number of gods you don’t believe in plus one more. (read that again).

On that note I would like to go public as an atheist. I don’t know how this plays out but I’m taking the step anyway.

thanks for reading this. if you would like to discuss this personally with me, I am on Twitter at i_ambenkay