I am now 18, but I have only faint ideas of when I discovered that I was an atheist. I mainly revolve around fourteen, although it could have been as early as 10, or as late as 16. I have let no-one know, other than those who I have the utmost trust and respect for.

I am living with my parents, and probably will unless I go out of state for college.

As far as I know, there are 3 atheists (and at least 2 agnostics) attending school with me, all of whom I know. That is out of a student population of about 450 students (so, about 1%...). About 3% know that I am an atheist, many more assume that I am agnostic. Agnostics are more accepted, so I let them think I am agnostic. The people that know that know that I am an atheist accept me. Two teachers know, they accept me, one is an atheist, the other is a conservative Christian (lets call him Bob). Bob teaches various college courses (I have taken Psychology, and I am now taking World Civilization., both with him teaching). I believe that the only reason that he accepts me is that he thinks that I am agnostic, and that I am not yet sure if God exists or not. He is one of those teachers who tries to persuade people towards his side. I am not sure what he believes, although he refers to himself as a Christian. When he was talking about evolution, he said that it is O.K. to believe in creation, and that evolution has no been proven yet. He said that we lived with dinosaurs (by that he meant with the now extinct dinosaurs, like the T-Rex, Triceratops, etc.), that he believed in microevolution, that there was an ice bubble around earth that explained the 800 and 900-year-old people that the Bible (King James version)talked about. In Psychology class he told us that they did not put creationism in the book, but he wanted to talk about it anyway. He did, saying that it is a valid theory, and ignoring anything about falsifiable evidence. It seems to me that he is unsure of his religion, but he also seems to be very sure of the existence of God. It is late, and I think that I have begun to ramble on, so I will just stop here.

Warm Regards,

Phillip Martin

• I take that as a huge compliment - stormcrow - September 15, 2002 - 18:13 UTC
  • I remember that when I was young... - phillipmartin - September 15, 2002 - 20:02 UTC
  • If I could do it all over again... - phillipmartin - September 16, 2002 - 23:03 UTC