My Religion

By Sarah M., Lakewood, CO

I have a magnet on my mirror stating, “Life is not about finding yourself – life is about creating yourself.” This is the statement I live by.

Many people do not believe me when I say I am an atheist. They don’t understand that I simply do not believe in any sort of god or afterlife. I also do not believe in the devil, in angels, or in souls. I believe in myself and the strength I have gained through the help of my parents, teachers, and friends – and my own hard work.

I am not going to try to dissuade anyone from his or her own opinions either. I know that people enjoy having religion in their lives; some need their faith to help them through hard times. And some do not want the responsibility of their misfortunes weighing down on their shoulders.

I do. I abhor the idea of fate – that everything is already planned out and you have no control to change anything. If you believe in fate, when bad things happen, it is not your fault; it’s just fate. When my life is not going well, I know that it is no one’s fault but my own. When I do well in school, when I fall in love, it is not fate and we are not soul mates. I worked hard and paid attention and did the homework. My love and I simply love each other – that is all it is, and for me that is all it needs to be.

For some, life is overwhelming. How can anyone be successful and happy in such a difficult, horrible world? They need someone to help them, someone to guide them, and someone to have faith in to make sure things get better. Placing my success and happiness in another’s hands breaks my heart. I need to be successful because of my efforts. I must be responsible for my own happiness. That is what I need from my religion.

Who will ever know what the truth really is? All I know is in the same way that some have full faith and trust in God to give them hope, I need to believe I am on my own to be truly happy – for how can I create myself if I spend my entire life just looking?

This piece has been published in Teen Ink’s monthly print magazine.

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NinjaHummingbird said...
Nov. 6, 2011 at 5:00 pm:

this is a well written article but i think you made some incorrect assumptions. I am not a christian just because i want weight off of my shoulders and i do not necessarily put my fate in the hands of another. I am a christian because i believe in God.

WordsRUs replied...
Dec. 14, 2011 at 10:08 pm :

I think you're assuming too much. Take it from somebody who gave up religion. I prayed for thanks, yes, but I never asked for my burdens to be lifted. From what I can gather, a true Christian does not test the hand of God. The simply have an unspoken faith that God is caring for them. It's different from actively putting your troubles on another.

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amesgriffey said...
Nov. 6, 2011 at 10:31 am:

Before I read this article I thought by just looking at the title you were going to talk about how your religion helped you get through something major but it was the comlete opposite. I don't agree with you, seeing I am a Chrsitian, but you have a really good point. Some people really only say they have a religion to sound a certian way or to have someone else to blame. I like how you take everything into your own hands. For that sole factor, I applaud you.

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Kalou said...
Nov. 6, 2011 at 12:49 am:

"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike"

"Atheism is a non-prophet organization."

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blahblah44 said...
Oct. 19, 2011 at 6:49 pm:

The unfortunate thing is that this entire ordeal is human reasoning. Who's to say that what we as people think is true? Being argumentative and presuming others have inferior beliefs is a definite issue of pride. Pride in Christians, athiests, or other religious groups is pride just the same, and is quite unattractive. No one appretiates it when another acts like so, and it usually is contradictory of their beliefs...... By the way, though athiests do not believe in practically anythin... (more »)

disagree replied...
Jan. 11, 2012 at 2:44 pm :

your statement "People were made to worship and therefore must worship something." really does not make any sort of sense to me. religion was first thought up, no matter how many millions of years ago it may have been, by a person or group of people contemplating the meaning and origin of life. before modern science, there simply was no explanation for the creation of the world. so, religions and holy beings and "gods" were formed. now, god and angels and such may indeed have definetly created ... (more »)

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Breece6 said...
Oct. 6, 2011 at 6:17 pm:

If it's all the same to you, not having any spiritual ties to anything, I don't really think you should be a traditional "aetheist". I think you should try the post 30 years war style "skepticism" or something I've heard of called "Nialism" (I'm not sure if I spelled that right). I head "Nialism(or however you spell it)" is the belief that we can never know anything for sure so the best thing we can do is to draw conclusions from what we can try to figure out.

ZeeBYoung replied...
Oct. 20, 2011 at 4:15 pm :

I think the word you're looking for is Agnostic.

Breece6 replied...
Oct. 21, 2011 at 1:17 pm :

I guess, but I've always heard people associate the word Agnostic with people who think God doesn't care about the universe. What I believe is that we should just take what we can know and draw conclusions, mine is Christianity, so I consider myself a Nialistic or Skeptic Christian. One who believes in God and Jesus Christ mainly because of the evidence I see for it.

Twistedtree replied...
Nov. 10, 2011 at 12:15 am :

i belive you are thinking of the word nihilism. (ni-ul-iz-um) Though that is an amazing description, many people today think it means apethetic or depressed.

Breece6 replied...
Nov. 10, 2011 at 5:26 am :

Thanks, I don't have a very firm knowledge about the word (my brother introduced the idea to me) so I wouldn't know. Thank you for clearing that up, I think the work skeptic works fine in the context of my belief.

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JulianneV said...
Oct. 4, 2011 at 4:27 pm:

I agree... this is kind of like Buddhism, though.

TheEarlofZerces replied...
Nov. 5, 2011 at 11:21 am :

I think it's more like Empiricism

sarahmichelle98 replied...
Nov. 22, 2011 at 9:39 pm :

i always tought buddhism was fascinating....and whats Emiricism?

TheEarlofZerces replied...
Nov. 23, 2011 at 9:17 pm :

EMpiricism is the train of thought that truths in this world can be found out through observation and logic, rather than faith and taking everything at face value.

JulianneV replied...
Dec. 9, 2011 at 8:46 pm :

so kind of like transcendentilism

The_Earl_of_Zerces replied...
Dec. 10, 2011 at 10:23 am :

Just the opposite, actually. Transcendentalism states that the best guide through life is your own gut feeling and your intuition. Empiricism states that the best guide through life are facts and logic. In other words, Transcendentalism looks inwards, while Empiricism looks outwards.

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Confused_scheherazade said...
Sept. 24, 2011 at 12:03 am:

Thanks. It's to know that someone believes in thinking about the harder topics in life. I can't say that I'm strongly into religion. I believe that people should act kind and warm for themselves, not for someoneelse. Great article. Can you read mine, To Hell and to Heaven.

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Heather C. said...
Sept. 23, 2011 at 8:26 pm:

I am a Christian. I believe in a supernatural being. I don't believe in Him because I don't want the responsibility of my actions to weigh down on my shoulders. Believe me when I say that when I do something I shouldn't, I know that there is no one to blame but myself. I can empathize with many of your points, but I love to believe that there is my heavenly Father looking down on me with love. I quote, "I would rather live my life believing that there is a god, and die to find out that there isn... (more »)

Heather C. replied...
Sept. 23, 2011 at 8:32 pm :

Sorry, didn't mean to post the same thing twice!

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Heather C. said...
Sept. 23, 2011 at 8:21 pm:

I'm a Christian. I believe in a supernatural being. But it's not because I don't want the responsibility of my actions on my shoulders. When I do something I shouldn't, I know that there is no one to blame but myself. I can empathize with many of your points, but I love to believe the I have a heavenly Father looking down on me with love. I quote, "I'd rather live my life believing that there is a god and die to find out there isn't, than to live my life not believing that there is a god and die... (more »)

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