Anyways, hi. I'm Manuel. Guess I should mention stuff about myself. I grew up in a very Christian family. From a young age I was pressured to move up within the church and so I did which saw me ordained as a minister at 15 years old. Yeah fun. Nothing like being a 15 year old and having people 3-5 times your age asking you how they should live their lives.
Anyways around 17 I stepped down from my position of minister. Honestly out of respect for God. You see I realized that I hadn't done all that out of love for God but to please my mother. So I decided I'd step down until I was ready to do it for God and not another person.
After I turned 18 and moved out I stopped going to church altogether. I still believed however since I wasn't taking it seriously anymore I decided I'd get to it when I was ready. Around 20 is when I decided I wanted to build my own personal relationship with God and I spent the next couple years praying, meditating and researching. When I couldn't find what I was looking for in my particular denomination I branched out to the others. Once the others failed me I branched out to other religions altogether. The problem was the more I learned the less I believed. God began making less and less sense.
At around 22 I was a pure agnostic and by 23 I became, or rather I finally realized and admitted to myself that I am an atheist. Since then I've very openly criticized religion. I don't hide my atheism, despite living in the bible belt. Those friends that I lost because of it and the family that turned its back on me have proven themselves to not be worth my time. I continuously speak out against religion for several reasons.
To let others who may share my views but are to afraid to say anything know that they are not alone.
Because in my opinion religion is a force for evil in the world and should be opposed and ridiculed at every oppotunity for the way it tears apart families, persecutes those it disagrees with, is used as justification for some of the worst atrocities committed by humanbeings against each other, cock blocks science and is overall an outdated meathod of understanding the world that needs to die off so the world can progress.
I know this was kinda long and I wasn't able to mention any of my interests outside of combating religion however if you're interested feel free to message me.