I am not an atheist because I am mad at your god. I am not an atheist because I love sin. I am not an atheist because I don’t want to answer to authority.

I am an atheist because I sought the truth about reality. I have accepted nature and my place in the universe. I will live and I will die. I wish to leave this world knowing that I did my best. I hope our descendants inherit a world that can sustain them.

I do not believe religion will bring peace to mankind. At the very core it seeks the end of the world. Judgment day. The end of the road for our species. And against those ideas I will fight. For my child as well as yours.

• Mike Autrey