Becoming an Atheist

Becoming an Atheist

I first learned the word atheist when I was in the eighth grade of middle school (junior high school). Before one of my classes started, another student randomly asked me, “Are you atheist?” My reply was, “What’s that?” He said, “It means you don’t believe in God. XXX is atheist. I think she’s stupid.” I told him that I wasn’t atheist, and that I was unaware it was possible not to believe in God and that a word existed for such a non-belief. At the same time, I thought to myself, “Good for her. I takes guts to be open about what you believe in like that.”

Three years later, I had taken on this point of view myself. Granted, three years is a long time for a teenager, but not so long in the context of an entire human life in a developed country.

Let me backtrack a bit. When I was sixteen years old, a friend of mine let me borrow his copy of Tao te Ching translated by Stephen Mitchell. At first I read it simply because I was curious, but the apparent pantheistic nature of it immediately appealed to me. It also appeared to provide guidance that was of much higher quality, in my opinion at the time, than the Christian Ten Commandments, New Testament, and other important pillars of Christian doctrine. I soon bought my own copy of the book, and secretly considered myself Taoist for a month or two.

It wasn’t long, however, before my philosophical leanings became more deistic. Soon thereafter, they became a form of naturalism and essentially atheist. I was terrified of being socially ostracized and isolated for thinking this way, and so was a closet non-theist for about four years.

When I was 20, I was taking an SSRI to treat double depression. I strongly believe that one of the several side effects I experienced was SSRI induced mania, along with aggression. In a period of less than six months, I moved out of my parents’ house, strained my relationship with several family members, came out as an atheist to friends and family, and almost got arrested.

I do not recommend coming out to friends and family the way I did. I still suffered from dysthymia, but since I no longer suffered from clinical depression, I gradually stopped taking Zoloft. I was openly atheist from that point on. I did in fact experience the social isolation that I had previously feared. Being an atheist can be a large impediment to the love life of someone looking for female dates in a white, suburban, and mostly Protestant southern state in the United States. I joined one of the larger national atheist organizations with the hope that it would allow me to connect with local atheists. There was indeed a South Carolina division of the organization, but it was based in another part of the state and wasn’t actively having meetings at the time.

After a few years of relative social isolation, I came up with a plan. I would work hard and become a well known scholar, then later I would use my clout to write about atheism and act as an advocate for social change. I would go into philosophy, or possibly evolutionary biology or psychology. I would again take up the cause of atheism like Bertrand Russell did in the United States.

Sound familiar?

Well, since Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens (and others) beat me to it, why not start now? And while I’m at it, why not create an atheist organization that we an all be proud of and that will provide both a national and international voice, as well as social support for local atheists?