I live in the very bible-belt southern state of Louisiana and i use to be a christian for a long time but became an atheist last year. No one knows I'm an atheist except my dad (he's an atheist too) and i know that if i come out as an atheist to my friends in my christian school where I'm the only atheist, I will be ostracized from everyone more than i already am because my friends cant stand atheists at all. I know if i tell my family my grandad on my moms side of the family will believe video games and the music i listened to caused this and mom will believe him and take everything that brings joy to me and double down on the religious indoctrination. I feel that i am the only atheist in the small town i live in well basically i am the only atheist. I wanna know where do some of you stand on this or if you are an atheist with a very religious family and or possibly living in the south where you feel you are the only atheist around

This sounds like a very similar situation in which I am currently going through. For one, I was a Christian but I turned athiest last year. Also, I live in Tennessee, and my family is very religious. Pretty much the only difference is that I recently told my whole family, and they don't really have a problem with it. That, and most of my friends aren't religious, besides my friends here on Vizzed. For what I suggest for you to do, I honestly don't know. I understand how much joy the things you love can bring you, and that you want to open yourself up to your family. However, if you do, they'll probably take away what you love. If I were you, I wouldn't tell them until I was old enough to move out of the house. Because, they can't really do anything to you if you're an adult. You make your own decisions. However, just do what you think is best.

TristanTehGamer1 : Hey, we both live in the same state, imagine you live in the same state as the majestic IB, either that's a good thing or a bad thing. So we both will have the same experience when it comes to this if it happens by state.

Anyways, back on topic, I feel like no matter on where you live, everyone has an opinion and choice on what faith they want to explore in and we all have the freedom to choose on who we want to worship, and they are people out there that doesn't want to be a part of any religion and I am one of those guys who is non-religious. So, how I look at it, if you want to be an atheist, that's fine by some people, but some people, especially old people, and extreme religious people (I have seen these kinds of people down here), and you don't tell them your an atheist or otherwise, that will cause problems. That is how the South runs, at least by my experience.

Ouch. That sounds painful. At least you have the support of your dad.

Tennessee and North Carolina might be better in the respect that you wouldn't be an outcast, but I know my family wouldn't be happy to hear me drop the a-bomb around them.

Although both states do have these in their constitutions:
"North Carolina, Article 6, Section 8
The following persons shall be disqualified for office: Any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God."
"Tennessee, Article 9, Section 2:
No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."

I don't know what's up with that, or if they would actually be enforced. :/

At least you have the internet as your outlet.
It can be used to read the works of modern atheistic scholars or to express yourself.

"I feel that i am the only atheist in the small town i live in well basically i am the only atheist"

I'm sure there are some atheists around you.
They just don't want to face the social consequences of saying so, like you are.

TristanTehGamer1 :
LunarDarkness2 :

I'm sorry to upset the apple cart and I honestly don't want to put a trip on you guys, but if you "were a Christian and turned atheist" I am sorry to say, you never were a true Christian in the first place.  It is what they call a "false conversion".  You were possibly given a false gospel with a false message and were bogged down by religious, traditional rules and practices that would frustrate anyone.  That is so far removed from real Christianity and now you have made a choice from "there is a God" to "there is no God".  You have basically moved from having some wisdom (God exists) to committing intellectual suicide by believing that nothing created something.  I am not trolling no.  I am honestly concerned for peoples eternal salvation, especially when they said "they believed in God" to, "no, there's no Creator".  I would really like you to listen to the following:

Hell's best kept secret

and as well as,

True and False conversion

You can either listen to the audio directly or you can download the mp3 for free.  It is not my place to force anything on you.  It is obviously your choice to listen to this or not.  I only want you to keep an open mind and make a wise choice sooner rather than later.

SoL@R : I'm sorry. I will listen to these audio files, but I don't really plan on changing my decision on my change from Christianity to Atheism. Thank you for your reply.

LunarDarkness2 :  Never asked you to convert to anything.  Like I said.  I can't and won't force anything down your throat.  Thank you though for listening to the audio files!  That's all I asked  

SoL@R :

Keeping my personal beliefs ambiguous, I actually don't think that the atheist position reduces to "nothing created something", which would indeed be intellectual suicide.

If you can get through some of the jokes, I found that this was a good watch to understand the position. It actually seems quite reasonable. It's a physics take on the matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EilZ4VY5Vs

SoL@R : I do not know if my decision will change but i will listen to those audio files

SoL@R : So saying the universe is self created is intellectual suicide but saying god is isn't? I fail to see your logic here. And I don't really see how every single former Christian turned atheist wasn't a "true Christian" what defines what a true Christian is and what isn't? How would you know the situation of every single atheist who was formerly a Christian? The same argument you made could be made for pretty much any other religion out there.

I don't want to discuss theology here but I guess you who said have problems down south might read this article if you haven't already. 

http://www.cracked.com/article_21125_6-realities-life-as-atheist-in-fundamentalist-regime.html

And no, this is not me telling you anything. Just thought it might be a good read for you guys and something you might be interested in.

Sorry for only replying to these posts now.  I had internet issues followed by a busy week.

TristanTehGamer1: Thank you for taking the time to listen to the audio files. It's all I ask and for you to think about it,

EideticMemory :  Yes, I am familiar with Richard Dawkins and his "sidekick" Lawrence Krauss.  Although they say they are "against religion" in many of their talks, they are really just targeting the Christian faith.  They hate everything about it, because they hate God, the Bible and the truth it represents.  They openly blaspheme and mock the name of Jesus Christ and Christians in general.  However, apart from his anti-Christian attitude, crude language and weird theories at times he is a really good speaker if he sticks to the topic and talk about actual observable and not historical science.  So I watched the 1 hour and 4 min. clip and what the talk boiled down to was that "mysterious stuff..dominates nature", "the laws of physics allow the universe to begin from nothing" and apparently these "laws" are quantum fluctuations that exist in nothingness that created the universe.
He is 100% right about "mysterious stuff" that dominates nature.  The Bible tells us that the mystery of God is Jesus Christ:  “My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2–3).
Futhermore Jesus Christ, whom God has given authority over everything is the one that is holding everything together - every atom, every molecule - by the word of His power.  "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He  made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high..." (Hebrews 1: 1-3)

Mr. Krauss himself said at 3:36 on the clip and I quote, "But the key point is mystery.  That's one of the things that makes science so special, I think, is that scientists love mysteries.  They love not knowing.  That's a key part of science..."

The Bible gives an answer to this mystery and it shows that science is only playing catch-up with what has already been revealed in God's Word.  I would like to ask Krauss this question - Where did these quantum fluctuations come from?  What caused it?  How did they came into existence?  I'm sure he will come up with some "clever" explanation.  Anything but acknowledging the existence of an all-powerful Creator.

Zlinqx: "So saying the universe is self created is intellectual suicide but saying god is isn't? I fail to see your logic here."

Something can't come from nothing.  As simple as that. So there had to be a Divine Creator.  Same goes for a building or a painting.  You see the building and you see the painting so logically there had to be a builder and a painter.  There's nothing illogical about that.  I would also like to invite you to listen to the audio files that I gave the links to a couple of posts up.  Hopefully that will give you a better understanding of what a "true" and a "false" Christian is all about.  

"The same argument you made could be made for pretty much any other religion out there."

No, not really.  Check out the thread I have made here.  It gives a clear explanation how Christianity differs from other religions.

Summon Fail :/

TristanTehGamer1:
Zlinqx:

TristanTehGamer1 : I know this is important because I counted the word "atheist" eight different times in your opening statement.

Okay, you believe there is no God.  There's nothing out there but humans and probably some aliens.  And when we die, that's it.  There is nothingness and there you go.

That's fine and dandy.  You can believe what ever you want as long as you are a fundamentally good person.  There are Christians who are mean as all get out and they're not nice.  Jesus walked around and told people to love one another and many of today's Christians don't follow that too well.

I don't have any particular religion I follow aggressively.  I work at a YMCA and the "C" stands for Christian but we have atheists, Muslims, Jews, and every other religion and non-religion you can imagine.  

Here's the deal.  If your friends would ostracize someone based only on their belief system, those aren't very good friends.  They're not good people.  Maybe you have to find a new group, a new way, or go it alone if your belief system is so important as to go against the grain.

It's not easy with something as important to religion.  It's not like you enjoy the color orange more than green and everyone else likes green.  Even sports aren't as serious as religious differences.

Find your way and enjoy your life.  If people ignore you or hate you because you don't believe in their God, they aren't good people.  You don't want to be around them anyway.

SoL@R : That doesn't make sense. By your logic if everything has to have had a creator that means god has to have had a creator too and something has to have created whatever created god and so on, so forth, so saying the universe can't be self created but god can would by all means by intellectual suicide.

The painter in your example didn't just simply warp into existence from nowhere there is a biological process that lead to the painter coming into existence.

 Which means that either at some point something must have come from nothing or something has always existed neither really makes the theory of a god existing any more likely.

Edit: I will listen to the audio files you provided later but I sincerely doubt they're going to change my mind.

Zlinqx :  We are already off-topic so for risking going further off track, I have created this thread which will hopefully give an answer to your statement, " if everything has to have had a creator that means god has to have had a creator too...".
Thank you by the way for listening to the audio files.  It's all I ask

SoL@R :

Thanks for checking it out. What's really weird about those quantum fluctuations is that they're literally matter/anti-matter pairs that are popping in and out of existence from moment to moment. It's something that can be visibly seen in our universe, data about it can be recorded, and our calculations aren't precise unless we include the effects of it.

It's like there our concept of oblivion doesn't physically exist in our universe because even if we take away "everything", 90% of the weight of our universe would still be there in this bubbling field of quantum particles popping in and out of existence. As for whether this fluctuation field ever had an origin, I don't know if we'll ever be able to verify it scientifically, but it does make one wonder whether the answer might be mechanistic.

But the implication of quantum fluctuations are incredible. It gives further ideas in the scientific realm to a start that may have occurred long before what is known as the Big Bang, since it is possible that the Big Bang is a natural byproduct of this field (albeit one that occurs very rarely). It also means that it is possible for the universe to rise again after a heat death.

Just one piece of advise: only "come out" to the people who you trust completely. It's like being gay (which I am): it's "different" and still carries a stigma, although atheism's seems to be stronger. My mother had a stronger (although not violent) reaction when I told her I wanted to be de baptized