What is a religion?

Well, Merriam-Webster officially defines it as “the service or worship of God or the supernatural,” but to others, it’s much more personal. To some, it may be a guide leading them to a happy and pure life; to others it may be their motivation to get up every morning. Regardless of the reason, roughly 84% of the world’s population identifies with some type of religion, leaving another 26% as unaffiliated, or atheists.

When it came to religion, my family had a wide variety of feelings. My parents described themselves as faithful, but not religious, meaning they believed in God, but did not see a need to go to church every Sunday to prove that. My grandma, on the other hand, was the opposite. She was extremely religious and went to church every single Sunday, even if it meant she had to take a taxi to get there. The majority of my family was Baptist, but my cousin, her mom, and her sister were all Mormons.

I always went to church with my grandma, and at night she would read to me from the Bible until I fell asleep. Around the age of seven, however, my grandma was around less since my parents didn’t need her to watch me all the time. We started going to church every other week, then only a few times a month, then once every couple months, then only for major holidays, and eventually, we stopped going altogether.

Despite not going to church every Sunday, I was still a strong believer in God, and took it upon myself to continue practicing my faith. I created my own “church” service in my basement on Sundays with my stuffed animals. I would go on my church’s website and find the live stream of the service to watch with them, and spend the entire day reading the Bible. This lasted for only a few months and was later reduced to simply praying and reading the Bible before bed.

I would pray every night for world hunger to end, or for my family in Haiti to be safe after the tsunami, but every morning I would wake up and see more devastating information on the news.

“Grandma, why does God let bad things like this happen?” I asked her one morning.

She looked deep into my eyes and said, “God makes everything happen for a reason; you just need to have faith in him.”

From then on, that was my motto. “Everything happens for a reason.” When my best friend got cancer in second grade, I told myself, “Everything happens for a reason”. When my cousin’s mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder the next year, I told myself, “everything happens for a reason”. When my parents separated in fifth grade, I told myself, “everything happens for a reason”. I never once questioned anything, because I believed that God had a plan, and everything would work out in the end.

Finally, I reached seventh grade. My best friend Camilla was talking about how she was dreading going to her father’s house for the weekend and mentioned that he was an atheist. At the time, I had never even heard that word before, so when she explained to me it was a person that didn’t believe in God, I was taken aback. I wasn’t aware that there were people in the world who didn’t identify with some kind of religion.

As soon as I got home I threw my bag down and raced to the computer. I googled “atheist” and delved into the search results. For a while before, I had been questioning how one could know that God was actually real. After all, you don’t just see him walking around on the street. I kept trying to tell myself to “just have faith”, but it was becoming harder and harder each day.

There was one quote that particularly stood out to me: “If a person has an imaginary friend, he is crazy. If a group of people have the same imaginary friend, it’s a religion.”. This changed my entire perception. It had also been brought to my attention that a large portion of the Christian community completely contrasted my views, and I didn’t want to be associated with a group of people with such narrow minds.

After a lot of thought and countless hours of research, I decided that I was officially an atheist. The next step was to tell my parents. I walked down the hallway, anxious about the conversation I was about to have. My hand rose to the door to knock when suddenly it burst open, and I was face to face with my mother.

“Can I talk to you?” I mumbled.

“Yeah, just give me a second; I need to use the bathroom.” She pushed past me and ran to the room before promptly slamming the door shut.

I walked in and sat on the bed, trying to think of what to say. “Mom, I’m an atheist.” No, I need to build up to it. “Don’t be mad…” No, that’ll only give her more reason to be upset.

“What did you want to talk about?” My head whipped around to see my mom approaching the bed.

I took a deep breath in. “Okay, so I’ve been doing a lot of research and thinking lately, and I think I might be an atheist.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I just don’t feel like I have enough proof to know that God really does exist,” I explained, fiddling with my hands.

“Well, you know I support you in everything you do, and I’m always here for you, but I think you should keep an open mind about these kinds of things. If everything in the world goes wrong and all your friends and family turn against you, the only person that really has your back is God, and I think it’s important to establish a healthy relationship with him in case these things happen.”

“I know. I’m open to the idea of him being real, but I just don’t feel comfortable calling myself a Christian or a believer until I have solid proof of his existence.”

“I understand.” She pulled me in for a hug, and that was that.

Looking back on it now, I don’t know what I was so scared of. My mom has never argued with me on my views and ideas, so why would this be any different? I’m so thankful to be a part of such a loving and open-minded family because I know people that aren’t lucky enough to have people behind them in everything they do.