Fifteen percent of people in United States have no religious affiliation, and it’s beginning to show.  Secular groups and conventions are helping to separate church and state, to keep religion out of schools, and to show that there are in fact many atheists in foxholes.  There are even people proposing atheist churches (they are facing resistance from both theists and fellow non-believers).  Many are speculating as to why so many people are losing their faith and rejecting creationism.  This is a gathering of explanations from atheists on their realizations.

I personally became an atheist because it was there the entire time, just waiting to be realized; however, I did, like many others, become agnostic beforehand.  The first thing that led to my atheism was finding out that Christianity isn’t true.  I was a Christian as a child, but I started to hear about there being no archaeological proof of Jewish slaves in Egypt migrating out via the Red Sea.  I was always dubious of “Noah’s Ark.”  There were always little things like that.  Then I learned about Horus, son of O’siris, Sun-god of Egypt and savior of humanity.  Horus was born of a virgin-womb.  He was baptized by Anup, the Baptizer, who was later beheaded.  He healed the sick.  He revived a man named Azar (Azar roughly translates to Lazarus).  He walked on water.  He had 12 disciples.  He was tempted while alone in the desert.  He was crucified.  Three days after his death, two women announced that Horus is risen.  This was written roughly around 1280 BC,  around 1280 years before “Jesus of Nazareth” was supposedly born.  It was surreal to learn about this.  Then there were the crimes committed in the name of Christianity that just made me more averse to religion and its effects on society.  Looking into science, I became an atheist.

The discovery of false stories in religious texts drives many to a completely atheist view and many would argue that one would then need to look into the rest of religion, but looking at the main source, science, is the key to finding a theory as to how the universe came into existence.  However, there are many atheists and with them come many different stories of initial doubt.

Perhaps one of the most famous and evangelizing atheists is Ricky Gervais.   Gervais once said, “A Christian telling an atheist he is going to Hell is about as scary as a small child telling an adult they won’t get any presents from Santa.”  Most non-believers would agree, so it’s doubtful that atheists just decided to drop their belief in gods because they found it hard to follow the rules and were afraid of hell.  In fact, many Christians believe Ricky Gervais to be a better Christian than the members of the Westboro Baptist Church, the establishment known for their Christian based picketing.

Gervais says he became an atheist when he was eight because of one peculiar moment with his family.

“I was sitting at the kitchen table when my brother came home. He was 11 years older than me, so he would have been 19. He was as smart as anyone I knew, but he was too cheeky. He would answer back and get into trouble. I was a good boy. I went to church and believed in God -– what a relief for a working-class mother. You see, growing up where I did, mums didn’t hope as high as their kids growing up to be doctors; they just hoped their kids didn’t go to jail. So bring them up believing in God and they’ll be good and law abiding. It’s a perfect system. Well, nearly. Seventy-five percent of Americans are God-­fearing Christians; 75 percent of prisoners are God-fearing Christians. 10 percent of Americans are atheists; 0.2 percent of prisoners are atheists.

“But anyway, there I was happily drawing my hero when my big brother Bob asked, ‘Why do you believe in God?’ Just a simple question. But my mum panicked. ‘Bob,’ she said in a tone that I knew meant, ‘Shut up.’ Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a God and my faith was strong it didn’t matter what people said.

“Oh…hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist.”

Gervais’s realization is one of childish curiosity, with his atheism backed up over time with scientific evidence.  On the opposite side of the spectrum, there is a slowed secularism of reluctance.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali, known for her fight against Muslim tyranny and pious sexism, fought her atheism for years before enjoying the feeling of liberation.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up in Somalia as a Muslim and went through things the average American couldn’t fathom.  Ayaan contributed an essay entitled “How (and Why) I Became an Infidel” to Christopher Hitchens’s The Portable Atheist.  The following is an excerpt.

“When I was a child, I had a child’s revulsion against injustice.  I could not understand why Allah, if he were truly merciful and all-powerful, would tolerate and indeed require that I stand behind my brother at prayer and obey his whims, or that the courts should consider my statements to be inherently less valid than his.  But shame and obedience had been drilled into me from my earliest years.

…

“I picked up a book-The Atheist Manifesto by Herman Philipse, who later became a great friend.  I began reading it, marveling at the clarity and naughtiness of its author.  But I really didn’t have to.  Just looking at it, just wanting to read it- already meant I doubted.  Before I’d read four pages, I realized that I had left Allah behind years ago.  I was an atheist. An apostate.  An infidel.  I looked in a mirror and said out loud, in Somali, ‘I don’t believe in God.’

“I felt relief.  There was no pain but a real clarity.  The long process of seeing the flaws in my belief structure, and carefully tip-toeing around the frayed edges as parts of it were torn out piece by piece- all that was over.  The ever-present prospects of Hellfire lifted, and my horizon seemed broader.  God, Satan, angels:  these were all figments of human imagination, mechanisms to impose the will of the powerful on the weak.  From now on I could step firmly on the ground that was under my feet and navigate based on my own reason and self-reason.  My moral compass was within myself, not in the pages of a sacred book.”

Ayaan’s reluctance is relatable to many Americans in the sense that most don’t want to lose their faith.  They feel that it’s too important, whether or not they have doubt, and no longer approach the subject.  Some atheists, on the other hand, never really had any religion in their household and as a natural result rejected faith-based dogma.

Evan Rumler, JHS student and atheist, is familiar with this.  When asked what made him an atheist, Rumler said, “It was just me growing up without a church.  It was really simple.  My parents wanted me to decide what I believed by myself.  It was like learning that Santa wasn’t real.  I matured enough to rationalize my beliefs.”

So, when a child was left alone with no one teaching him religious superstitions and misinformation, he grew up to be an atheist.  No one steered him away from religion.  He just naturally didn’t come to it.

The sudden rise in atheism is neither a fad, nor rebellion from former generations’ norm.  It is just natural secularism that happens when religion isn’t forced on anyone as much as it always has been.