Hallo everyone,

I’ve lurked on this site for quite some time now, and finding myself desperately in need of atheist acquaintances, have decided to join. I’m not typically a forum person, but I shall try post when I can. I only have net access in the evenings when I’m home. I’ll give you some background info on myself. Sorry if it’s long, but I’ll appreciate anyone who reads it all..

· I’m 18, male, and live in South Africa. I have an extremely strong christian background. Some of you who live in the Bible Belt might understand the kind of background I’m talking about. Basically, I was a christain since I could remember. I was brought up in it at home, and spent my entire schooling career in a christain school. Or to be exact, an ACE (Accelerated Christain Education). If you’ve never heard of it, look it up. You’ll either laugh or cry. It’s an entire curriculum based on biblical “truths” and principles. Every subject, from math’s to history, is filled with brainwashing material. A typical school day could include devotions, bible reading, praise and worship, and of course, the ever present 3 times a day prayer time. The curriculum and staff accept the bible as literal truth, and this is taught through the grades. Other educational gems are the teaching of 7 day young earth creationism in science, that all other religions are direct works of satan, that satan is a physical actual person, that any one who isn’t a christain will have a empty, meaningless life, that the rapture is literal, that christains are now and will soon be extensively persecuted, and dozens more. An science test may have a statement along the lines of “Science is the practice by which god reveals the knowledge of his creation to men.” You get the idea. I accepted all this without question at the time, though now I wonder how I made it through a day without being physically sick.

· Mid last year something happened which led to me becoming pretty miserable for a long time and starting to doubt and question everything I’d been taught. Those who have deconverted know how traumatic this can be. Anyway, in November last year I decided I was atheist. I tried dabbling in other religions but just didn’t have the inclination or energy. The more I read on atheism the more sense and logic it made. However, that was only the beginning o my problems. I was happy in my atheism, but absolutely terrified of telling anyone. I was still attending school and that would have made it difficult at the least. I thought my friends would probably all leave me, and mostly I feared my father would put me on the street. So I lived a lie, attending home group meetings, church, always keeping the façade of the good christian. As you can imagine, the strain was terrible. It became impossible to attend these things without feeling sick. Eventually, after not attending church for 2 months, my friend confronted me, asking if I was involved in the occult, as I seemed backslidden and unsaved. I told him of my atheism. I had imagined when I finally came out, I would lay out a logical reason and defense of my decision, while easily defeating their theist arguments. Instead, I found myself unable to stop shaking from adrenaline and emotion, and unable to form any kind of coherent argument against his questions, as I could barely talk. Since then (this was about 3 weeks ago) we’ve said nothing of the incident. However, things have become strained as he is one the most fundie, closed minded theists you could ever meet.( 4 of my friends now know of my atheism)

· I am currently working temporally at South Africa’s largest distributor of christain music.(with the aforementioned friend, who is a permanent there) As you can imagine, this is a nightmare, being surrounded by just as much fundie christianity as I was at school. Its now at the point where whenever I hear some of them discussing some ridiculous christian idea I can hardly keep myself from screaming and punching the nearest thing.

· So finally, I’m hoping that in being here I’ll find some nice, rational, atheist acquaintances, and learn more and more so when the day of my all out coming out comes I’ll be able to do the cause proud. Thanks for reading! J