There was no moment that I became an atheist. It was a gradual process – but there was a moment that I decided I was going to let people know…

I was learning more about the Bible but some things just did not make sense or sit well with me. Some verses, I knew, made no sense. Yet, I had passed them aside. So finally came to admit to myself that every single religion in the world had to be man made, besides one (At the most). That meant that God chose the same exact way to communicate with people today as every fake religion, making our odds 1/4200 if we are NOT using logic and reasoning. That means we MUST use some type of logic or reasoning, otherwise, it is just a crapshoot. This begins the part where we must test the background of our faith and the veracity of any scriptures that we derive it from.

That means you must listen to a skeptic and find an answer. So I watched an episode of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit! on Hulu Plus. They raised some questions I needed answers for. I went to the scriptures for answers and these insane things they said were in the Bible…actually were in the Bible. Barbaric ideals. Misogyny to the level that women had to marry their rapists. Slavery, including salves commanded to not revolt. Sanctioning ALL government heads, including Hitler. Forbidding anyone from stopping them.

So, I know that stuff is wrong. I’m not THAT stupid. But that meant the Bible had errors in it. If it were wrong in spots, I needed to consider the real possibility that was entirely man-made without any divine influence. Why this drastic jump? Because any divine, loving God would be in err to sandwich his ACTUAL commands in between MAN-MADE commands. The Bible also claims it is ALL the word of God, meaning the people slapping this thing together knew that no God would logically contribute himself to a book containing not only major errors (like figures, numbers and contradictions), but also containing major evils (rape, slavery, bloodshed). That, in a world filled with 4,199 other major religions, would be terrible when the consequences are eternal damnation in burning fire and anguish.

Once I had asked myself if it were possible that this was man-made, it did not take long. We can safely say about 3 months passed from start to finish, but the momentum picked up a lot in the final weeks.

The religious freedom bills began passing across America in the name of the Bible. By this time, I was 100% resolved that the Bible was a man-made document of contrived myths and legends from the religion with zero sensibility as a tool to guide one to salvation or damnation, unless the Creator were a mischievous or childish individual! I felt like I had to speak up about how wrong this was. But if I suddenly made public a change in my political philosophy, questions were likely to get asked. I knew many would be around “what the Bible said.” Some would be “are you gay,” which I got some of anyway. I needed to be able to offer a real explanation as to why I thought LGBT people should be treated the same as any other human and for me, the answer was that I had stopped believing in the Bible.

It wasn’t instantaneous or overnight. It was a long road full of nights of me praying for the truth. I prayed, as a Christian, to find out the true nature of our existence and this is where I ended up. And for the first time ever, life finally makes sense and feels good.

And no, I’m not gay. (Unless we’re going by the happy definition of gay, then you’re damn right I am gay!)