My Religious Deconstruction: How Atheists Shook My Faith

Christianity blinded me to what atheism actually is—and speaking with many types of atheists lifted the veil from my eyes.

This is one of a series of posts titled “My Religious Deconstruction.”

This series aims to document the primary experiences, ideas, and choices that motivated me to question my Christian worldview—and renounce it.

My pastors told me atheists reject God, have no morality, and live without meaning. Religious media echoed the same stereotypes. I believed them—until I actually met atheists.

In the movie God’s Not Dead, the “atheist” professor, who ultimately embraces God later in the movie, is angry at God for letting his mother die. This misrepresents atheism because why would an atheist—who doesn’t believe God in the first place—be angry at God? Atheism is a lack of belief in God or gods. So, someone who “rejects” God in this manner is, by definition, not an atheist.

In my experience, many Christians assume atheists believe God exists but are just rejecting or repressing their knowledge of God so that they can sin freely. I believed this too. I couldn’t conceive that someone actually doesn’t think God exists and has good reasons for thinking so. (This is because indoctrination narrowed my worldview so much that I wasn’t even aware of it until I had experiences that drove me to become more conscious of it.)

Completely misrepresenting atheism isn’t just something Christians do because they are confused about what the Bible says. The Bible (an allegedly “true” book) communicates the same misconceptions. 2 Corinthians 4:4 strongly implies that nonbelievers have some kind of Satan-caused mental problems that prevent them from believing in God: “. . .the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”¹ And 1 Corinthians 15:33 claims that nonbelievers are morally corrupt “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’” These verses don’t just misrepresent atheists—they teach Christians that nonbelievers are mentally corrupted or morally dangerous by default.

Embarrassingly, as I’ve realized from re-reading my journal entries, I had misconceptions about atheists until I was at least twenty years old (I’m twenty-three now).

So how did I go from this view to viewing atheists as they actually are?

I met atheists occasionally in school. Usually, this would come as a surprise to me because I would know a classmate or a teacher for a long time and one day I’d learn that he or she is an atheist. Learning this would dramatically shift my perspective of him or her (like learning someone is gay when you’ve been taught that gayness is a sin—as I was). I also came across atheists online, but I’d often listen to them while assuming things about them that my Christianity told to assume. Many of these atheists seemed to fit the mold Christianity gave me. They were nihilistic, depressed, and directionless. But, these are just characteristics common to many teenagers in public schools. And, for those atheists that didn’t fit my mold, I’d assume that they were hiding their emptiness or sin somehow.

None of these brief exposures to atheism changed my view much. It wasn’t until I went to a conference for flourishing and freedom that I was exposed to atheism in a more direct (and different) way. In 2021, I went to a conference called LevelUp. There, I listened to talks on various topics: health, history, philosophy, etc. In one talk, from Craig Biddle on secular spirituality, he claimed “God doesn’t exist. If he did, theists would present evidence for him.” and then he moved on as if this was no big deal. This startled me because it was a big deal. How could he say this? How could he gloss past this issue of God’s existence so easily, as if it wasn’t consequential?

What LevelUp did for me is expose me to more types of atheists. I learned that I can agree with atheists on some, if not, many things. Many of the atheists at LevelUp want to live productive, moral, and happy lives—lives in which they go after their values without hurting others. I concurred. I learned, atheists aren’t necessarily immoral—they can be even more moral than Christians. Additionally, many of these atheists at LevelUp were super purpose-driven and the opposite of nihilistic. I have observed Christians who are very unmotivated to improve their life. Instead, they pray that their life gets better (e.g. they lose weight, get a better paying job, etc), and then they continue to make the same decisions that led to their problems in the first place. Many of these atheists at the conference worked at nonprofits aimed at making the world a freer, healthier, and more enjoyable place—all while maintaining their physical health and climbing the career ladder. Lastly, many of these atheists came from a wide variety of political, racial, and economic backgrounds.

Atheists are just as varied as Christians are, but I was confused about what was common about all atheists. I realized their commonality is simply that they all lack belief in God. And everything else an individual atheist believes, does, or says isn’t necessarily a result of their atheism. Atheism doesn’t play a very major role in how good or bad someone’s life is. What matters more is a person’s positive assertions about the world—not their lack of one. And atheists can have many different positive assertions about the world, from those who hold that there is a rational, objective morality (such as many of those I met at LevelUp) to nihilists to communists.

Realizing this about atheists showed me that my pastors were either lying about atheists or deeply confused. I went to church and the next time my pastors mentioned atheists from the pulpit, I walked up to them after the sermon in confusion. “Why did you say that atheists are immoral and rejecting God?” I asked. “I’ve spoken to some atheists and that’s not what they believe. They lack belief in God. Also, many of them leave productive, happy lives—more so than some Christians.” My pastors put on a front of insincere humility and admitted their error, but this still put a dent in their reputation for me. And they continued to stereotype atheists because that’s what the Bible does. This all frustrated and confused me further. What else might they be confused about? What else might the Bible be in error about?

This experience of moral, purpose-driven atheists also showed me that I shared many values with these people. I, too, wanted to create a freer world. I, too, wanted to treat people with respect, create environments in which open discourse could ensue, and share ideas in that environment that led to everyone’s gain. I began to see that I identified way more with this specific kind of atheist (the liberty-orientated, life-loving kind) than I did the unmotivated Christian who prays that her problems go away or the nihilistic pastor who deems that all of our works are like dirty rags. Belief in God, I realized, wasn’t what I wanted in a community. I want a community who challenges me, helps me grow, and aids me in my quest to achieve my values—including the value of truth. And, if this community happens to be predominantly atheist, so be it.

What shook my faith wasn’t just atheism. It was realizing I blindly trusted people who never earned that trust.

More posts in the My Religious Deconstruction series:

• Religious Indoctrination Isn’t Funny

• How a Christian Teacher Accidentally Shook My Faith (upcoming)

1. This verse is a really good example of psychologizing: condemning or excusing specific individuals on the grounds of their psychological problems, real or invented, in the absence of or contrary to factual evidence.