Whenever I am asked about what religion I practice, I say that I am Atheist. My views could be interpreted as Agonistic in the sense that I cannot and do not completely deny the existence of any sort of a god. However, I have not seen anything I consider to be evidence of the existence of any sort of a god, hence the Atheist label I give myself. I have also identified as Agnostic before, but as long as I have understood the meaning of my beliefs, I have never identified as religious in any way.

It’s not like my background is conducive to a lack of religion. I have always lived in the Bible Belt, and my parents are Southern Baptists. I’ve known a ton of religious people(mostly Christians, but also Hindis, Muslims, and Jews). I’ve known very few nonreligious people, and none have been influential in my beliefs. Until I started college, I went to church every Sunday. This doesn’t mean that college has ended my days of going to church; I still go to Sunday School and the worship service at least once a month. I have been baptised, although my baptism probably doesn’t count since the pressure of being baptised while I was still pretty young(I got baptised the Sunday before I started sixth grade) is what made me realize, “Wait, I don’t believe in any of this, and I never really have been Christian. I’ll still get baptized for my parents, though.” I realize this is a terrible excuse to take part in a religious ritual. I suppose this advice will only apply to a minority of Wofford students since people here seem to be sincerely attached to whatever religion they were brought up in, but it’s still worth saying: Wait until you’re ready and do not let anyone try to rush you to accept some beliefs when you’re trying to figure out if you are even a believer.

I consider myself to be fairly open-minded about religion since I am not oblivious to or ignoring the fact that I should not judge someone based on the religion one identifies with. Admittedly, my forced practice of Southern Baptism and the hypocrisy of some religious people made me a bit jaded with religion for a while, but I’ve since come back around to the idea that religion can influence the majority of people in positive ways. Religion can be a solid foundation for life for a lot of people, so religion should not be discredited as a basis for morality. Unlike some nonreligious people, I’ve never viewed religion(particularly fundamentalist sects) as something that causes people to do terrible things. At the very least, most modern interpretations of most widely-practiced religions are rooted in peace and do not encourage some of the discriminatory beliefs detailed in religious texts. Those people who use religion(rather, a twisted interpretation of religion) as an excuse to do terrible things are only motivated by their own personal desires, so they should not be an example of how religion is wrong but how people can be corrupt and justify their corruption. It would be very unfair to deem such people as the faces of their respective religions, so this is one of the reasons why I do not judge by religion.