My experience coming out of the closet

My experience coming out of the closet

The moment I walked out of the closet of Christianity I felt similar to the moment my old pastor brought me out of the water after my soul had been cleansed and the gates of heaven opened for me to enter after my impending death.  After realizing I am no longer a Christian I went outside to be greeted by a blue sky with clouds sprinkled around the vastness of the atmosphere like puzzle pieces scattered on a blue carpet.  The weather was warm and the idea of life and living felt tranquil and beautiful.  I contemplated about a quote Charles Darwin wrote in the first edition of  “On the Origin of Species.”   Darwin wrote, “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”  I felt a kinship with life.  It felt as if with each breath I was breathing in and I was feeling life, enjoying its smell, beauty and the way it taste upon entering my being.  I felt at peace being an Atheist.

I concocted a peculiar analogy in regards to my Atheism.  I imagined being a southern white man being taught that because I’m white I am superior to all others solely based on race and the way God created me.  I also imagined that I was brought up ever since I was child to believe that all blacks, gays and minorities are below me on social, intellectual and economical matters.  Then I imagined myself going through a strange metamorphosis in which I wake up a black man.  I created such a grandiose scenario because I was feeling the judgment that I imagined blacks experienced in the 1960s.  I was recently at a birthday and I told someone that I am an Atheist and someone replied, “I’ve never seen a real life Atheist.” I couldn’t help but imagined meeting a white person and that person saying, “I’ve never seen a real life black person before!”

I do not have any quarrels with people that believe in the God known as Yahweh, Zues, Christ, Allah or even Apollo.  I only ask for the personal sovereignty to believe in what I choose to believe in.  Atheists are not less moral than believers nor do they hold a truth that I do not have and I do not have a truth that they do not.  If religious people are more moral than Atheist then it seems logical to say that all scientists have a truth that religious people do not have and therefore religious people should consult scientist for truths in the realm of science and not depend on a holy book for answers in regards to science matters.

I do not want to convert people Atheism and I do not want futile attempts for people to try to convert me to Christianity.  I want to live peacefully in this grandeur view of the life that has been given to me and consume the beauty of the human experience – growing by evolution.