In case any of you care.
I was raised in a fairly secular home, though my mother, raised a Catholic (but she fell away from the church because of the Latin masses and the "Mary worship"), would pray with me every night before I slept. I never understood it, though. My first church service was a funeral for my maternal grandmother. All I remember of it was me, as a kid, screaming "open that box, my grandma's in there!" but mom recalls me speaking "like a chipmunk" for about a year afterwards. [likely due to stress] One thing you should know is that rejection and racism occur often in my life, especially early on. My mother's family, outside of her mother, opposed the marriage of their Connie to my half native american father (we thought her adopted brother, Kent, accepted the union as well, but it turned out he was trying to break them up by causing fights between them and sowing seeds of distrust when alone with one of them). The reason was purely racist, didn't want to dilute the bloodline with us damn mixed breeds. As a kid in preschool, I was rejected by other kids, mostly due to my attitude. I was a bit of a jerk, to say the least, which I believe is behaviour I took from my father, an emotional mess and a bit of an abusive person, emotionally. Occasionally physically too. And I'd of course abuse my poor little mentally handicapped brother in turn.

The Question:
"How can you(me) be an atheist?"

The Assumption:
"You have never heard the word of God or that Jesus is your savior. You are uneducated and that is the reason for you blindness."

This is one thing which has always bothered me. Religious folk tend to believe just because someone does not believe the word of God, it means that they are uneducated in Christianity. This is one of the most false assumptions I have ever heard.

Do I believe in God? No.
Does that mean I am uneducated? No.

I am probably one the most educated people you will ever meet in temrs of religious beliefs.

www.smbc-comics.com

Ever since I was a teenager (not so long ago), I've always been a bit turned off by religious media. There are several reasons for this. For one, the quality level is rarely high enough to impress, and most religious media I've experienced is very heavy handed in its preaching. It's also always struck me as elitist. That is, the general "secular" media isn't good enough for the religious. I understand the desire to have television shows, movies and music that affirms your worldviews. I am more likely to listen to a mediocre band that preaches things I believe in. However, many christians nowadays will not listen to ANY music that isn't christian, even if it is not "offensive" and does not promote something christians are against. Hell, they only recently started accepting U2, and the band has been quite christian since they began.

This is so true. And funny!

Christians tell us that "jesus' died for us, and that he was a sacrifice.

I have two simple questions for our christian friends:

The first: What did this 'jesus' sacrifice? Is this jesus dead? Don't you hold that this jesus is now in eternal bliss, in heaven, where he receives the undying love and gratitude from a multitude?

Sacrifice means loss. Sacrificing doesn't involve gain. It certainly doesn't involve no loss and infinite gain. Yet this 'jesus' loses nothing, and gains everything.

Some theists respond by saying that he lost his physical body. But what does paul say about the nature of flesh?

I did create an account ages ago, but I never used it until now. So, I'm here. I'm Ben, and I'm an atheist. A closeted atheist...yes. Haven't told the family, save my youngest brother. Anyway, I'm new here, so...yeah. Hi!
Ben