I used to be a Christian. At least I used to think that I’m a Christian. During primary school, everyone has to write an essay about themselves; name, how many family member, ambition, hobby and then religion, etc. When it comes to what to fill in under the religion part, I remember asking my parents about this. They said that they are Christians but they didn’t explain much about it. Naturally, I thought that I’m one too since both of my parents are. Plenty of years later, when I finally understand what Christianity and religions are all about, I finally decided that I don’t have the faith nor the belief in the existence of a higher being. And throughout that years, there are quite a number of conversations that comes out whenever I tell people that I’m an Atheist and I could see that there are common misconceptions about Atheist.
1.We didn’t seek God.
When they asked why I don’t believe in God, I would reply that I couldn’t feel the presence of God. And in most cases, they would then summarize your whole life by saying “That is because you SHOULD seek God and the reason that you didn’t try to seek Him is because your life is always smooth sailing and without obstacles. Maybe only when you start having trouble in your life, only you will start to seek Him for guidance”. That’s a pretty offending statement to me. Firstly, we DO have our own problems in life, believe it or not, and we didn’t resort to religion as a way out because of a simple reason that we just don’t believe it.
It just doesn’t make sense to imply that our life is easy and that’s why we refuse to seek Him. It’s like asking me whether do I eat peanut and when I said no, you conclude my life by saying that that’s because I’m always full and never got hungry. Only when I’m hungry then I’ll start to eat peanut. Well, no. I don’t see peanut as the solution to my hunger and hence I’ll seek other alternative instead.
2.I’ll pray for you.
When people offer to pray for you, I understand that it’s a polite and kind gesture because that person is keeping you in his/her mind when praying. There are times that we wanted to decline that offer because of the reason similar as above; we don’t believe in the power of prayer to solve our problems. This really happened few times when I decline a prayer offer. “We can really pray for you. Anything, just anything. Nope? Nothing at all? Your life this week is so smooth?”
3. Angry Birds
Lastly, we are not angry birds. Despite some movies that portray Atheist as the guy that hate God so much because of what happen to his life, we never go through anything so traumatic in our life that turns us into this one pressurized bottle filled with anger and hatred towards higher being till we chose to abandon Him. We just don’t have the faith. It can be as simple as that.
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