by Eric L. Haschert

Created on: July 21, 2009   Last Updated: June 28, 2011

I beg to differ. I believed in Atheism because I was surrounded by members of another religion. This religion shared my gods but in name only. They claimed to own my god and and have often used my friendship as proof that their religion was superior to my non- existant one because I wanted to be friends with them.  In their hubris they thought that should mean that I should join their religion because their's proved superior because they practiced their's while I did not mine.  Now I have always known I am not a part of their religion and I have always known my rights in this matter because they were given to me as a child.  While they pointed out that children had no rights under the law which was a falsehood.  I had the same unalienable human rights that they did which they used to persecute me and I was told that I could choose my own religion when I grew up.  My parents were agnostic and did not beleive in organized religion so therefore my family did not go to church.  That did not mean that they did not beleive in god but I myself became disillsuioned with god because of those of that other religion.  Because I was dumb enough to believe their lies.  Those of that religion had many times used peer pressure and gossip to force me to conform to or feel what they wanted me to feel. Atheism saved me from that type of persecution. I understand that to follow a religion is to know what persecution is, NOW, after studying the Christian religion.

I as an atheist have always been curious about religion. Why? Because I became an atheist to protect my rights under the U.S. constitution. I was in school and had no one to protect me from the mob but the teachers and the only way I could do that was to prove religious persecution or choose atheism to get away from the dispute. I had no formal or informal training about religion. When I asked those of the Conforming faith about it they either were sarcastic or misleading about what they believed. They labeled me a bigot, a sinner and an atheist and lied to me about anything I asked them when it came to their religion because it was supposedly none of my business. Basically they used their belief and membership into their religion politically to give me the run around because they knew I was ignorant of religion and how it worked.

I grew up putting up with hypocrisy and elitism from those of that conforming faith and if you didn't conform then you were ostracized.

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