Why I am now an atheist

Sent in by Jennifer V

My journey to becoming an atheist isn't really and amazing story. My brother and I grew up in a home where religion was never really discussed. It was just assumed that we were catholics like our parents were. I never asked questions about "God" or "Jesus", but believed what my parents did.

It wasn't until I was 16 and met my future husband(who is now my ex-husband) that I really explored religion and Christianity. My ex-husband and his family were devout Christians and it was expected that anyone he was dating would be also. I was preached to and eventually and was "saved". I repented all my sins and accepted "Jesus" into my heart. I didn't really know why I did it, I just knew that I hadn't heard anything else, so why wasn't Christianity correct? At this point, I was probably 19 years old and ready to get married to the guy who is now my ex-husband.

After we got married, I started taking some evening college courses and one of those happened to be philosophy. Of course I thought I knew everything there was to know....religion was right and everything else was "evil". My professor really opened my eyes to discovering who I was. She did teach me to not just accept things just because someone tells you that it is the truth. This course allowed me to explore different religions and also atheism. It seemed I wasn't allowed to do this around my ex-husband because he thought that I was "poisoning" my mind. I would always get on websites and read books, but I had to be sneaky. Needless to say, we got divorced when I was 25. I couldn't be with someone who thought that I was "evil" because I was reading and learning about different religions and cultures. Of course that's not the only reason we were divorced, but it was a big one.

I am now 26 and am still doing a lot of research on religions, but over the years I came to the conclusion that I never did believe in "God" or "Jesus", but said I did to fit in with my ex-husband and his beliefs, and his family. I feel for me that atheism is the truth.

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