Hey! (Pirigo98)

[pirigo98]

Hello everybody!
My name is Ludo, and I live in Brazil. This means I'm surrounded constantly by a swarm of close-minded christian people which make my day a living nightmare. I' m 15 years old, and it isn't easy for me.
The thing is, few people at my school and community know that I'm an atheist. It's an incredibly hard thing to keep for yourself. Most of my friends in our "group" are christians and although they know I am so, I never get the chance to talk to them against it, which would be great, because being surrounded by daily prayers and cross-signs and groupings kills me inside. Why do I saw against it? Well, obviously, I want to let them know what I think about them having this futile faith. It would give me an immense amount of satisfaction, but it's hard to do so without jeopardizing my friendship with them, which does mean alot to me.
I also play football for a club whose ideals are 100% christian. Before every game, my teammates conduct a prayer to their god, and I'm forced to huddle around them. When asked why I don't recite this prayer which was supposed to be taught to you in your first years of kindergarten, I answer "I don't know it in Portuguese" (I'm Italian, by the way). Luckily they haven't asked me to do it in my native language, and I'm not prepared to answer to that. The coaches would see it as lack of respect and I'm sure my teammates wouldn't appreciate it either.
I became an Atheist recently actually, and I must say it was thanks to all of this I just mentioned, mostly. Twitter was also a great tool for reading about what it means to not believe in a God, something I had always thought about my whole life, which luckily never included some imaginary hero. My parents never indoctrinated me with this garbage that they were forced to believe in as kids. I thank them all the time. I also read dozens of articles, blogs, books and heard speeches about what being an atheist meant and I was lifted off my feet by it all. The conviction and clarity in which it was all stated outstanded me, and I chose to give my name the title of Atheist, and now the only problem is spreading it without hurting my relationships with others.
Now I joined this forum to share my experiences, and hope to recieve as much open-thought as possible, freeing me for a while about this god-infested country I live in. Thank you.

[wolf39us]

Split, and welcome to the forum!

[stromboli]

Welcome.

[Plu]

Welcome to the forums :)

[PickelledEggs]

Welcome!  :-D

[MrsSassyPants]

I am always amazed at how young some atheists are!!  I wish I would have realized how stupid religion was when I was that young.  Welcome!!  Life is much better post religion.