Be afraid of religious people. They have a god that forgives them anything.

Disclaimer: I know all generalizations are false, and the statement above in no way represents all religious people, merely a certain vocal minority.

I wasn’t born an atheist. Or at least, there is no recorded evidence of a pre-one-year-old me screaming “There is no God!!11” with a Timothy Dalton spit.

In my childhood, I was influenced by my great-grandmother, who was a fundamentalist to the point of absurdity. (My grandmother is more of a liberal Christian, and my parents are basically non-religious but not strong atheists like me—more like “meh, maybe God, maybe not”.) I was baptized in really early childhood, early enough that I have a very vague recollection of the event. I remember there being a church where we went by car, inscriptions on donation boxes in a Church Slavonic font, and a crowd of people crossing before a priest, including myself. I crossed with my left hand at first, being left-handed, before being told that it’s “wrong”—followed by my immediate question why.

I’ve been a questioner ever since my childhood, as long as I remember, to the point that my grandma affectionately nicknamed me “Why-er”. I guess it left an imprint on my early religious experience. I questioned what exactly made holy water different from regular water, and how exactly it was made “holy”. (Reading about the ritual involving River Jordan did little to clarify matters in regard to a backwater church on the outskirts of Novosibirsk.) I was given a cross to wear on my neck by my great-grandmother, and I was bought a prayer book. I used to read adaptations of the New Testament back then, more out of curiosity than anything.

And yes, I actually prayed as a child. Silently, though. The prayer book was preceded by short instructions, which began with, “Imagine yourself standing in front of the all-seeing God.” And that was just what I did, because my logic told me, “If God is all-seeing, surely he would notice my praying even without spoken words?” And so I began mentally reading from the book, In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen…—but it was all in my head, because I thought that praying aloud at home would be just weird.

Then, however, came kindergarten, and I started reading popular science books—and questioning. I saw contradictions between the Book of Genesis and the Big Bang, I couldn’t bring myself to literally believe in the miracles Jesus was described to perform, and was quick to seek plausible explanations for them as illusionist tricks or something. And with my habit to chew things back then, I chewed my cross regularly until first its paint came off, and then eventually I bit its strap off. My great-grandmother gave me another one, and I bit it too, but not quite so seriously. I just wore a partially-chewn cross on my neck. It wasn’t some kind of protest, I actually believed back then—but I was a five-to-six-year-old kid and felt the urge to engage my teeth…

Eventually I just abandoned faith altogether. I didn’t know it was called atheism, I just poked Christian beliefs with self-invented logical arguments (which I later discovered were common atheist arguments—among them were the cosmological argument and the argument from many religions) until I arrived to the conclusion that there would be no sense in there being a God, and ultimately this concept is not needed to describe the world around me, nor did I need an external source of morality, which I could just derive from common sense. My cross ended up hanging on my desk lamp for years, until I finally threw it away during a routine cleanup of my room.

So, when I look back at my early years, I can’t help but wonder: could I be called a Christian when I prayed and wore a cross? Probably not; I was always a closet atheist. True believers don’t question, they just believe. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that; it’s their path, I just chose a different one.

Thank Elune I’m an atheist.

No matter who (if anyone) is correct in their beliefs about a deity or deities and the nature of any afterlife that may or may not exist, at least two-thirds of humanity is wrong. At the very least. The actual number of people who are wrong in their beliefs about such things may well be significantly closer to 100% than that. At any rate, no matter what the afterlife is (or is not), it’s going to be acutely embarrassing for most of humanity.

~ Irregular Webcomic!

What follows below is my response to Mark Thomas, the author of the Why Atheism? article, abridged.

The article is fascinating. It’s well-written, insightful, and written in a “popular science” way that I’ve come to adore. I’ll definitely link it to different people—not to convince them to “convert” to atheism (above all, I’m not a preacher and I respect their freedom to believe in whatever they want to), but to help them understand what thought processes can make one an atheist in the first place, because many believers seem to believe that most atheists arrive at their mindset not through reasoning but because of some incident that caused them to abandon faith in the past (and sadly, this stereotype is reinforced by popular culture all too often).

Not to mention it’s a goldmine of quotes. The line “Evolution actually explains love very simply,” in particular, struck me as funny, insightful, and heartwarming at the same time. Not to mention the part about atheists just believing in one fewer god than monotheists.

I arrived at atheism as a child, starting with basic schoolbook facts about evolution, astronomy, and the Big Bang theory, as well as the argument from multiplicity of religions. And from there, by my late teens, I developed a set of social beliefs and moral principles that was basically secular humanism in all but name—until I learned the name. Since then, I’ve learned that many people came to the same conclusions also independently. I think this says something about the nature of those beliefs – they form naturally in a skeptical, critical, unpolluted human mind armed with the knowledge of the world we have now (as opposed to a primitive society), without the external influence necessary for religious to acquire more followers. And this is what gives me hope that eventually, as reasoning and critical thinking prevail, religion could be discarded entirely—humanity would simply “outgrow” it.

This page contains hundreds of parody “proofs” of God’s existence. However, as exaggerated as they are, I run into them surprisingly often.

I’ll list my favorite picks.

3. ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (I)
(1) I define God to be X.
(2) Since I can conceive of X, X must exist.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

17. ARGUMENT FROM INTIMIDATION
(1) See this bonfire?
(2) Therefore, God exists.

79. ARGUMENT FROM PERSONAL SANITY
(1) I’ve had religious experiences that can’t be explained unless I’m insane or God exists.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

92. ARGUMENT FROM FORTUITOUS COINCIDENCE
(1) What are the odds of that happening?
(2) Pretty long, I’ll bet.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

97. ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN (I), a.k.a. PALEY‘S ARGUMENT, a.k.a. DESIGN/TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (III)
(1) If there is a designer, then God must exist.
(2) If I find a watch in a forest, there must be a designer.
(3) [Throws watch into forest.]
(4) Therefore, God exists.

99. ARGUMENT FROM OFFENSE
(1) God exists.
(2) [Atheist makes counterarguments.]
(3) You know what? I am offended.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

110. ARGUMENT FROM ANECDOTAL EXPERIENCE (I)
(1) I once experienced something I can’t explain.
(2) [Atheists offer several possible, natural explanations.]
(3) You’re just guessing! I was there.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

137. ARGUMENT FROM POSITIVE OUTCOME
(1) Even if God doesn’t exist, it would be better if people believed He did.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

176. ARGUMENT FROM PRAYER
(1) When I pray, either it comes true or God has a better plan.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

187. METACROCK‘S ARGUMENT FOR GOD (I)
(1) I Have a philosophy degree.
(2) Your knowledge in philosophy is paltry in comparison to mine.
(3) Therefore you are unable to comprehend my intense philosophical proofs of God’s existence.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

222. ARGUMENT FROM ABUSING THE BODY
(1) One time, I fasted for three days straight, prayed on my knees for hours, and didn’t sleep, either.
(2) At the end of that time, God answered me.
(3) You see, you just have to mortify the flesh and accept the things of the spirit in order to meet God.
(4) No, there is no possibility that it was a hallucination!
(5) Therefore, God exists.

241. ARGUMENT FROM SEVERABILITY, a.k.a. THE TRUE SCOTSMAN ARGUMENT
(1) Lots of ridiculous statements are made by people who only claim is to be Real Christians.
(2) They just give Real Christians a bad name.
(3) Real Christians don’t believe is literally true.
(4) But that doesn’t mean the Bible isn’t still mostly true.
(5) And the Bible is the Word of God.
(6) Therefore, God exists.

258. ARGUMENT FROM MYTHOLOGY
(1) The old religions were wrong.
(2) The old religions didn’t believe in the same god as me.
(3) Therefore, I must be right.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

306. ARGUMENT FROM INDIGENOUS FOLKS
(1) Most indigenous folks all over the world started believing in gods independently.
(2) Belief in God is thus natural.
(3) Atheist: Many indigenous folks started eating each other, also independently.
(4) The Christian god forbids eating our fellow humans.
(5) Therefore, God exists.

352. ARGUMENT FROM RIGHT AND WRONG (I)
(1) Without God, there is no no ultimate right and wrong.
(2) I want there to be ultimate right and wrong, so I don’t have to decide.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

354. ARGUMENT FROM DESTINY
(1) Without God, there is no no ultimate destiny and my destiny is dust.
(2) I can’t accept that because I want more.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

392. ARGUMENT FROM ALIENS
(1) Everyone knows that aliens don’t exist.
(2) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
(3) Oh, but God’s different!
(4) Therefore, God exists.

417. ARGUMENT FROM EXPERIENCE
(1) You’re too young.
(2) You haven’t yet experienced life’s absurdity.
(3) You’ll grow up.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

418. ARGUMENT FROM UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
(1) Life is full of important questions.
(2) I need God to answer them.
(3) No, I’m NOT jumping on the first bogus answer people have been feeding me with!
(4) Therefore, God exists.

494. ARGUMENT FROM COMPLEXITY (II), a.k.a. DESIGN/TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (XI)
(1) The human body is too complex to have happened by chance.
(2) So it must have been designed.
(3) [Atheist: Well, wouldn’t God be even more complex? So does he have a designer?]
(4) See previous argument.
(5) Therefore, God exists.

507. ARGUMENT FROM INDIA (ASYMMETRIC)
(1) Mother Theresa’s compassion and voluntary poverty prove that her Christianity is the true religion.
(2) No, Gandhi’s compassion and voluntary poverty do NOT prove that his Hinduism is the true religion.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

553. ARGUMENT FROM CLOTHING
(1) Fundie: “Why do you wear clothes?”
(2) Atheist: “It is cold, I like having pockets for stuff, my body isn’t too neat to look at, and most of all, I would be arrested and forced to clothe myself anyway.”
(3) Fundie: “No. You wear clothes because Adam and Eve sinned and were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and made ashamed of their nakedness.”
(4) Atheist: “What about primitive societies where the natives go bare-assed without embarrassment?”
(5) Fundie: “The word of God hasn’t reached them.”
(6) Therefore, God exists.

For a serious article, however, see this.

I find this entry on the TV Tropes Wiki quite insightful and an interesting read for both atheists and non-atheists.