FreeThinkingAtheist.com

Introduction

My name is Billy. I’m 23 years old and attend the University of South Florida, pursuing a degree in Computer Science and Engineering. I have many hobbies, including web design. I’m known to spend hours a day on the Internet just reading and learning about everything in this world. Knowledge is power. I am an Atheist, and there are quite a few variations of Atheism. I am mostly of the scientific type, but I have many philosophical beliefs regarding Atheism. I wasn’t always an Atheist however..

Growing Up

I was brought up as a Christian (which isn’t a big surprise in the U.S.) My mother did a great job raising me, and did an even greater job teaching me morality. That’s right, an Atheist with morals. Most Atheists have them. Atheists tend to be humanists, and hence, have good morals. I am one of them. I have better morals than most Christians I meet. To this day, my mother is still a Christian. She brought me up attending a local Church, on and off. I have always believed in God up until I started becoming more and more skeptical about his existence. I still even had my doubts as a kid, but nothing too serious. It’s more or less like I just didn’t understand everything. I’ve always embraced science.

Dinosaurs always fascinated me. Dinosaurs are something you never here Christians talk seriously about. I always wandered why not. Of course now I know. I didn’t know at the time because I didn’t have access to the scientific information about dinosaurs, nor the objective views on religion. I did not know Christianity’s bitter history. I did not know thousands of religions have existed. I did not know a lot of Christians did NOT believe in Evolution, or that they even deny the existence of dinosaurs. I did not know much about the Bible. Everything is all so clear to me now though. In fact, it seems that the more I read the Bible even now, the further and further I move away from Christianity. I honestly don’t see how people can thoroughly read the Bible, and walk away still believing in God (unless they either aren’t educated or didn’t understand what they read).

Pondering Death 

I didn’t have many cares as a child (like most), I spent most of my time riding bikes, playing games, playing music and all that stuff. I sometimes wandered about death when I was a kid. I would think about what it means to die, and to not exist. It was a scary thought then, and when you sit down in a quiet room, and really think about it, it IS pretty scary. It’s hard to imagine that you will no longer exist one day. It doesn’t scare me at all really anymore. It makes sense. You die, and don’t exist anymore, and the world moves on while you’re gone forever. It’s like falling asleep forever. When you fall asleep, you lose the ability to know what’s going on around you, you lose memory, you lose everything. It’s like you die for 7 hours every night when you go to sleep, only to return when you wake up. These are my views on death.

Change

I grew up going to local churches, but wasn’t too serious with it when I was a kid. I had better things to worry about, but I did still believe in God (I remember wandering if God existed once when I was a kid, and then was terrified after thinking about it, thinking that God probably knew what I was thinking and punish me with Hell). My faith really picked up in the beginning of high school, when my mother and I started attending a Catholic Church (She fell on very tough times with a divorce after 23 years of marriage). I took it very seriously, whole-heartedly. I read the Bible, idolized the priests in what they were preaching, and even took the old rosary for a couple of swings, quite a few times. Later on down the road, probably a year later, I started attending my friend’s Lutheran Church, it was a much more liberal atmosphere, and more modern. I still believed in God. After months of this Church I found myself doubting more and more. I found myself doing a lot of thinking, even sitting right there in church.

I found myself later going to church, not believe in God’s existence. I kept going for my friend. I eventually had stopped going, and told him about my beliefs. What’s scary is that my beliefs were formed with no outside influence, or information even. I just had serious doubts about God’s existence, along with a limited knowledge of religion in general. I didn’t even know of the term Atheism, and thought of myself as some sort of outcast. I still believed in myself though, and not in God. Looking back, I’m definitely proud of myself for that, because not many people think for themselves, especially when it comes to religious opposition and even more especially at that age. My mother was very upset and even crying the first morning I told her I didn’t want to go to church, and that I didn’t believe in God. I felt bad, but I also felt right.

Now

I’ve seen my sister go in and out of God-enthusiasm. I’m not necessarily opposed to it, because I’ve seen how much it helps my sister. It gives her meaning of life. Theism helps my mother (although not to the same degree as my sister) in that she seems more upbeat like she feels more secure “knowing” that death isn’t the end. She seems less religion-influenced now a day. She’s more upbeat then she’s ever been, and she’s not reading the bible, nor is she attending church. For once, she’s relying on the people around her, her family, and her friends at work to bring her happiness. She is seizing the day, and living it to the fullest. She’s always smiling.

Although she’s not an Atheist, this is what Atheism is all about. For me, it’s about knowing that I’m going to die one day, and not exist after. Atheists KNOW what they have. They appreciate what they’ve got, and they appreciate their existence. I know I certainly do. I spend my life being a positive person about most things, always smiling and laughing, I have a good sense of humor, I live for myself instead of giving the church 10% of my check just to tell me that I should fear God and model my life around him. I’m glad I’m an Atheist, and I’m an Atheist for life.

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