“I’m an atheist.” Even now, after being an atheist for several years, those words are still difficult to say. Everything I was taught was that atheists were evil. Atheists hated God, hated Christians, and were knowingly following the devil. Satan was their God!
“I’m an atheist.” In a lot of ways, I was very, very lucky. I have friends who grew up in a similar circle as I did, and were subjected to horrific abuse. The only difference between me and them was my mother, who managed to avoid caving to the “beatings will continue until morale improves” crowd. And make no mistake, that school of thought was there, all around me. Books I was given at my private Christian school espoused the same teachings as the Gothards, Duggars, and Jeubs. I am convinced that people that I went to high school with were given regular beatings. I myself was spanked growing up, though I was lucky enough to come through it without being abused. I know others were not so lucky. I was steeped in patriarchy. I was even told by one person, after my stepfather died, “You’re the man of the house now, you have to take care of your mother.” I was 10. And everyone knows that 10-year-old boys pre-empt mothers when it comes to “ruling the house.”
And even though I was spanked, and at this point, I disagree with the entire philosophy behind spanking, I don’t feel I was abused. I was never isolated or put down. I was never beaten until I stopped crying. In short, I was very, very lucky, because I could have easily been another horror story from inside evangelical Christianity.
“I’m an atheist.” The first cracks in my Christianity started to appear when I was 16. I’d gotten my first job at the Wendy’s in Woodland Park, which was super exciting. Since I did not have a car, I got a ride into town with my stepfather, three hours before my shift started. Fortunately, there was a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in the same shopping center as the Wendy’s, so I waited there to begin my shift.
My mind was blown from the people I met there. All my life, I had been told that non-Christians hated Christians, that they would shun me, that they would try to get me to turn to the devil. None of it was true – in fact, the people I met at the coffee shop treated me way better than I’d ever been treated by my Christian friends. I kept expecting the other shoe to drop, and for them to reveal they’d been lying the whole time, but they never did. And not one of them ever judged me for not being exactly like them. In contrast, I’d been judged by every Christian I’d ever met for one thing or another: liking sci-fi, liking fantasy, even being better at memorizing verses. These atheists, pagans, Buddhists and others never said any negative thing about or to me, even though they knew I believed they were going to hell and told them so. In other words, they payed my hatefulness with kindness. They acted more like Jesus than any of my other Christian friends.
“I’m an atheist.” After I moved out on my own, I stayed with the Christian faith. I even attended and graduated from a local Bible school (calling it a college would be vastly overstating).But the cracks were starting to deepen, and I desperately wanted my doubts to cease. So I papered over the cracks by doubling down on all the things I knew to be true: gay people were going to hell, everyone hated Christians, and I was a member of a persocuted minority. I turned into the very worst sort of Christian: I spewed hatefulness under the guise of “loving people.” I was miserable, and I hurt a lot of people.
“I am an atheist.” Despite the long build-up to becoming an atheist, there was not really one huge moment when I realized I was an atheist. I just eventually realized I hadn’t believe in God for quite a while. It was very anti-climactic. What wasn’t climactic was when I started to realize how much my religious upbringing had skewed my ethics and morals. Without “approved by God” and “Not approved by God” boxes, I had no idea how someone came up with a moral code. Of course, that was only because I’d been taught that those boxes were the only way to divide actions. Eventually I learned how to have an ethical framework and stick to it because it works, rather than because I’ll be struck down by a psychopath in the sky.
“I am an atheist.”
Aaron K Collett 
What I love about this is that when I first met you, you called yourself an agnostic, but explained you were leaning toward atheism. I hope that despite the way you were treated at my parents’ house and by other more conservative people, you’re more secure than ever in your identity as an atheist.
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Yeah, it really was a growth process – there was no lightning bolt of realization, which is kind of what you’d expect when going from the whole “fundagelical” world into atheism. I feel like I’m odd that way.
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