My Story

[ShaylaCakes]

Hi, everyone. I'm a 27-year-old atheist, born and raised in Texas. I'm going to share my story, and I don't blame you if you don't read it. Here goes...

My mother's side of my family is not openly religious (to this day I don't know what anyone on that side believes/doesn't believe), but my father's side are Baptists. My paternal grandmother is especially religious. She told me, probably from the day I was born, that the bible is god's word, and anyone who doesn't believe it's god's word is going directly to this place called "hell." There was a time when I believed her. Then, I turned 6. That's how old I was when I had my first doubt. My grandmother and I were sitting in the truck, waiting for grandpa to come drive us to church. She was telling me that the bible was written by god. I was a kid, so I took that literally. I said something along the lines of, "So, how did god deliver the bible? Did he leave it on a rock somewhere?" She said, "No, men wrote it." I didn't say anything else, but I was secretly thinking how stupid that was. This woman was ALWAYS coaching me to not trust people, yet she was entrusting her soul to some mortal men she'd never met? The next time I saw a huge red flag was 2 or 3 years later. I asked why she kept putting money in that plate. She told me that money was for god. I asked why he needed money, and how it was delivered to him. She told me that by "god," she meant the church. At that point, it was over. I mean, I was 8 or 9 years old at that point, and I saw what was going on. What's wrong with everyone else?! None of it makes sense, and someone is making money off of it. Hmmm.....

After all that, I went through a period where I tried like hell to keep believing. Maybe it was fear that hell might be real, or a desire to please my family. Whatever it was, it didn't work. I've been an atheist for a long time now. I haven't told my family that, though.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. I probably won't be able to contribute much to the discussions on this site, but I will definitely be reading, at least.

[StupidWiz]

Welcome to the forum. Lurking is fine, I lurk all the time. :P

[Mr.Obvious]

Welcome to our merry band of heathens

[Jason78]

Welcome to the forum

[aitm]

greetings. welcome

[stromboli]

Welcome.

[DunkleSeele]

Welcome to the shark tank, Shayla!

[pioteir]

Welcome to the forum. Lurking is fine, I lurk all the time. :P

huh? So that's why I felt like I was being watched! Oh You lurker You! :)

Welcome Shayla.

[Naru]

Welcome to the forums

[ShaylaCakes]

Thanks, everyone. Happy to be here!

[SGOS]

Welcome.  That was an interesting story and something I can relate to all too well.

[hrdlr110]

Welcome. I guess I'm considered a lurker as I've been here for 5 years and am still under 300 posts. FYI: Got reamed by aitm for requesting an artificial inflation of my post count, so don't even think about it!
Anyhow, yeah, believing isn't one of those things you can just choose to do - it chooses you. I've tried, albeit not very hard because I found early on it was no use.

[Shol'va]

I keep spotting you fellow Texans in the intro page. Perhaps, if we live reasonably close enough, we should have a meet-up.

[Lao Tou]

ShaylaCakes,

You wrote" I probably won't be able to contribute much to the discussions on this site, but I will definitely be reading, at least."

Don't underestimate yourself. You might be a prolific contributor in the future. Welcome, and know that many of us have similar backgrounds. I really tried to believe that crap, so I was in my late 40s before I broke free (about 10 years ago). You figured it out sooner. Maybe we are evolving as a species.

[the_antithesis]

I was led to believe there would be cake...