My Testomony: God did not create man-Man created god.

I grew up in the South, where churches can be found on every corner. Although I did not attend church regularly with my parents, I did attend with my aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I listened to the stories of the Bible and I thought I understood them. For the most part, I believed the Bible to be literally true. When I was about 13, I started to attend a youth group at my family’s church. I was surrounded by other teenagers who shared my same views. I began attending every church event I could. I went to the prayer meetings before school. I volunteered to help those in need, all in the name of the Christian god.
By the age of 15, my faith had become strong; so strong, that I decided that I wanted to be one of those people who could spit Bible verses back to every “devil-sent” atheist out there. When people asked those hard questions, I wanted to be able to tell them the answer, an undisputable answer. I began my search on the internet. I researched Catholicism and Judaism. Each had fundamentally different principles. Then, I asked myself, “If we cannot prove the origin of god, can we find the origins of Christianity?” I mean if god created the first man and women, wouldn’t Christianity be found throughout all of history? Looking back, this is a pretty simple Q&A. Before Christians, there were Greeks, Mayas, Egyptians, Indians and many more cultures around the globe. Each one of this different societies worshipped different deities. There is no historical record of a Christian god influences the ideas of ANY of these cultures. However, the followers of the book of Mormon do believe that Jesus visited America and taught the scriptures to Native Americans. If that is your belief, more power to you but it is NOT historical evidence.
At the age of 18, I met a wonderful woman who was Pagan. She explained how Christians took from the Pagans (holidays, rituals and so forth). I studied Paganism with her for almost a year. I never felt a connection like I had before with Christianity. This is not to say one couldn’t. I now know that these feelings of connections are all psychological in nature. It is the same feeling a child gets when they wake up to see that Santa Clause has delivered their presents.
By the age of 19, I had come to one conclusion: Man created religion. I denounced any belief of Christianity. I felt relieved, free from all the pressure surrounding the Bible. I still believed in a higher power. A big ball of energy floating around in the sky keeping watch over his creations and laughing at the ignorance that religion has manifested.
It wasn’t until I started researching scientific theories that my agnosticism began to lean more towards the “no god” side. The theory of evolution is a widely debated subject among scientists and religious people. I had the same thoughts that anyone else who does not have knowledge of the subject may think. I mean, there is just NO WAY I could come from a monkey. Why are there still monkeys then? I laugh at myself now. The theory of evolution explains that humans and everything else on Earth evolved, and continues to evolve, over millions of years. Fossil records do prove this, no matter how hard Creationists try to say it’s not there. Our very, very distant ancestors have a common ancestor with today’s monkeys. However, we left that branch of evolution a long time ago. The development of societies, tools, agriculture, and even religion has set us apart from our cousins.
Over the past 5 years, I have spent a lot of my time reading about what it means to an Atheist. Just like Christianity, every Atheist has his or her own view of the world. Being Atheist does not mean not having morals. Christianity does not hold a monopoly on morals, as it does holidays. Morals are a part of humanity. (Richard Dawkins and I share the same view on where morals originated from. There’s a great video on YouTube of his speaking on this subject.) Being an Atheist means standing up for what we believe is the right, human thing to do. We do good because we want to, not because a deity demands it.
As of today, the majority (98%) of my family does not know that I am an atheist. It hasn’t been until the past three years that I have become vocal to my friends and to new people that I meet of my views. One side of my family is very Evangelical while the other half is non-denominational Christian. I’m positive the later will be more accepting of my decisions but with less presents at Christmas time! The Evangelical side scares me. They come with hell-fire and brimstone when they go on a witch hunt. However, it is time for me to stop worrying about the opinions of others. If they feel the need to pray for my lost soul, I will let them. In all honesty, it’s a waste of their time, not mine.
On the note of wasting time, it is now time for Atheists to stand up and voice our opinions. Just as gay people are fighting for their rights, we should be fighting for our right to freedom without religion. It is time to come out of the closet

Introduction

Being either a believer or non-believer, we have all (hopefully) contemplated the existence of a higher power. Human history is riddled with thousands of gods and goddesses, each carrying traits that resemble the culture they came from. One must take into account that ancient Greeks, Mayan, Egyptians ect. believed their gods were the only one. Then came the movement of monotheism (the belief in only one god). Now, the stories of Zeus, Thor and Kukulcan are regarded as only myths. If you are a believer in Christianity, I urge you to think about this. What happened that pushed Zeus out and pulled Christianity in? Who's to say that in another few hundred years, Scientology will be regarded as the most popular religion? I believe that there will be a day in human history when people view the Bible as an ancient mythological writing, as I do now.

I am writing this blog to share and discuss the different views of people. I will focus mainly on the Christian religion, with an atheistic bias. All thoughts are welcome as long as they are not harmful.