by Eric Abent

Created on: August 30, 2009

I am an atheist, and I belong to one of the most hated minorities in America. For whatever reason, people of faith seem to have a huge problem with the fact that I don't, and never will, believe there is a God who is responsible for everything that surrounds me. I have had many people in the past attempt to lead me to Jesus, completely ignoring the nature of my dissenting opinion and refusal to budge from said opinion. When I say that nothing short of God himself opening up the clouds and telling me he exists would get me to believe, so often is it the case that I am suddenly attacking their beliefs and their God. Which, of course, I'm not; conventional wisdom dictates that I would need to believe something exists in order to effectively attack it.

This is the kind of broken logic I run into all too frequently when discussing religion, as well as the part of religion I have the biggest problem with. It should be noted, before anything further is said, that most of believers out there are people I have absolutely no problem with. The kind of religious person that keeps their beliefs to themselves, does not force their opinions on others, and understands that there will always be others that disagree with them do not bother me. Furthermore, when it comes to most of the various (and often confusing) sects of religion, my particular credence tends to be "live and let live."

However, that doesn't mean that I don't think religion on the whole is detrimental to the progression of America. It confuses me to no end that we are surrounded by such advanced and impressive technology, and yet, the majority of the population is still living in the bronze age - at least as far as where we came from is concerned. What is even more disturbing is that some of the people I talk to refuse to take actual scientific evidence into account, instead believing that the story out of a 2,000 year old book (written by man, not God, no less) is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but it.

Yes, I'm talking about creationists. When I think about why I am an atheist, and what exactly displeases me about religion, the blame, more often than not, falls on the creationists.

Let's get one thing straight here: I have absolutely no intention of being civil when speaking on the topic of creationists. I'm sure that most of them are great people; however, I'm also sure that most of them would not treat me with any higher level of civility.

I think that most of my disgust with the state of religion

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