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by Robert Borneman

With an estimated 81% of American adults identifying with one religion or another, it's an understatement to say that being an Atheist is not a popular position. Like many Atheists, I come from an intensely religious Christian family, making my realization of the lack of a God even more difficult. However, the fact that there is no "higher power" is so painfully obvious that I simply cannot pretend the evidence does not exist.

Many people who claim to be religious say that while there is no hard evidence that God exists, there is also no hard evidence to prove he does not exist. This is false.

The evidence against Christianity in particular is overwhelming. Evolution is proven fact. We can watch it happen before our eyes. We know that many of the stories of the Bible: Jonah and the Whale, Noah's Ark, almost everything that happened to Moses (a talking, burning bush, parting the red sea, leading the exodus of Jews from Egypt, more...), Jesus rising from the dead, walking on water, and more, are not even theoretically possible. We simply know that these could not have really happened. Many of these stories occur in the old testament, proving that the Jewish religion believes in the same, obviously false, stories as well.

Another piece of evidence is that less than a century after Jesus' apparent death, theologians were already arguing about whether or not Jesus even existed. There is no independent historical record of the plagues inflicted on Egypt by God. This is during a time when historical events definitely were being recorded by scholars, and something as Earth-shaking as the plagues never would have gone unrecorded. Isn't it odd that none of these stories can be historically confirmed in any document other than the Bible; Much of which was written centuries after the events apparently happened?

Another subject that altogether defeats religion is the science of the universe itself. Most religions claim that God is the creator of Earth and the sun and moon. They fail to mention the vast, incomprehensible expanses of space, which contains hundreds of billions of galaxies. There are an estimated 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000 stars in the universe, many of which may have their own solar system, with planets. Why do almost all religions neglect to mention the creation of any of this? Doesn't that seem significant?

There are so many outs for religious people to use against the evidence against their beliefs. For instance, if you see God or even hear his voice, you immediately die. Or, God tests your faith by making bad things happen. "God works in mysterious ways." Or the belief that having blind faith is the only way to get into heaven. Teaching children that if they don't believe in God they will burn in hell, forever. These are all ways that religious groups reject logic in order to their proliferate beliefs.

On the other hand, there is no historical or scientific evidence to suggest that any of these religious beliefs are actually true. If religion and scientific facts were put on a see-saw, science would fling religion off into the sky. It's like a housefly against a blue whale.

Having been a Christian for most of my life, the gradual realization of all these facts was a difficult thing to accept. However, once I got over the Christian guilt that had been ingrained in my brain, I realized that it's better to live life to it's fullest and take advantage of the time you are here on Earth, because it's the only time you've got. Don't waste your life feeling guilty for sinning against rules that have no bearing on real life. There is no punishment when you die, you're just dirt.

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