After a lifelong struggle to avoid putting a religious label on myself, today I've come to realize that I am an Atheist. Just because I hope that God is real & I know in my heart that he isn't, still means I'm an atheist. While driving to pick up my boyfriend from work, I started thinking about mental illnesses in the biblical time period. That all led up to asking myself if I really was deist, like I claim to be.
So I looked up the literal term of atheism: a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings. Damn it. I do believe in the natural flow of the universe but I don't believe in an actual being or deity. Hard to explain but God, in my terms, is everything in the universe. Oh man, I'm an atheist. Agnostic but atheist none the less. I had been fighting it my entire life. I spent years searching & joining different religions in hopes that one of them had the absolute truth; that one of them made actual sense. None ever did. I always had my doubts or didn't agree with some things that religion represented. "Naw, I'm not an atheist," I'd say. Something is out there watching over me. I refused to take responsibility for my own life & hoped something out there could do it for me.
It never did. Every time something happened that I prayed for with all of my being, it was because of me.
I've spent years guarded by religion and beliefs. I spent many years intentionally misunderstanding atheism. The only atheist I knew scoffed at religion. Made me think all atheists were assholes. The older I got, the more atheists I met & they were not evil. They were sweet, understanding people. Which was great because I've always thought religion could be beautiful & they agreed with me.
After this reflective discovery, I started thinking about being an atheist mom. I've always told myself that I'd present all facts (unbiased) to my child if he ever asked me about religion. Recently, my little sister claimed she was a Christian and that we were all Christians. I politely corrected her and said that I was not a Christian because I did not believe in God. My son asked me what that was & I explained to him in the best way that I could. All he said was, "Well that's not me. I don't believe that." And he's absolutely right. He is too young to worry about that stuff, in my opinion. Before he makes any decisions, he likes to be thoroughly informed. He's a smart kid & he knows it. He might play video games & watch Johnny Test but he loves to learn. He takes every opportunity he can to ask us questions. No exaggeration on that. When the religion topic comes up again, I'll be excited to discuss things with him. For now, all he asks about is space.
This is not to say I am not spiritual. I have such a connection with myself & the earth that it sometimes blows me away. When I die, I plan to donate all of my good organs to science (or someone who needs it) & have the rest of my remains be cremated & put back into the earth. That or put in a bio-degradable casket or just straight into the ground sans casket. I absolutely love to mediate. I love being at peace with myself and the world around me. It's a blessing to be alive. I also feel like I have all of this emotion because I don't believe in an actual afterlife. I appreciate the here and now with great intensity.
Here I am guys. I feel more relaxed with myself because of this. Dare I even say that I actually feel love for myself because of this epiphany? Because I absolutely do. So please, if you think atheists are bad people or evil, look atheism up. It's been given such a bad rep, much like modern feminism, vegans, environmentalists or anything else progressive & non-traditional.
So if you don't have an atheist in your life, you do now. An atheist mom from Texas.
