Most people discover Atheism when they are in their teens, but for me, my path to believing in non-believing was a lot more complicated. I didn’t even know that other people didn’t believe in God. At least not until I was in middle school. In grade school, every time I told someone I thought God didn’t exist it led to laughter or rage. For the longest time, I just thought there was something wrong with me. Looking back, it’s crazy how much of an impression religion leaves on us when we’re young.

I’m a Hindu by birth. At the age of two I dressed up like a deity, Krishna, for a religious festival. But on one fateful day, instead of watching Cartoon Network, I saw a documentary on The History Channel. It turned my whole worldview upside down. God didn’t create us or anything, evolution did it all.

Evolution wasn’t really a new term for me. I’ve heard the word pretty consistently throughout my life. Thanks to Pokémon, a franchise that has permeated my childhood and one I still indulge to this day. I feel like without Pokémon, being the lube for the mind fucking that this documentary would entail — I would not have fallen in love with the Theory of Evolution as much as I did. The change would have been too jarring.

from GIPHY

The documentary started with my guy Charles Darwin (fun fact Charles and I share the same birthday), chronicling his journey throughout the Galapagos Islands. He noticed the differences between finch species on each island. He also noticed how the differences correlated with their environment.

This realization led to one of the most obvious but most important discoveries of all time — each species of finch came from one original species which split off according to their environment. When I realized the magnitude of natural selection, I think all the neurons in my brain must have fired and instantly made a new connection. My world view became completely different.

Little second-grade me tripped up even more once the documentary talked about whales that used to have legs?!?

The theory of evolution has always, in my mind, made sense. For example, parents with blonde hair have children with blonde hair, tall people have tall kids etc. So why not over a thousand years if only tall people survive, then wouldn’t everyone would be tall. It just clicked for me.

From that moment on I couldn’t see God as being the sole creator of everything. Religion had lost its hold on me. At first that brought immediate confusion, but now as a near adult atheist, I feel like being a nonreligious kid really opened me up to different people and different situations. It also made me feel more alone as a kid. I couldn’t really relate to anyone or anything for a while — except maybe Pokémon .

original Pokemon art

Eventually, I stopped thinking about it as a big deal and it just became a part of my life. It’s funny how similar believing in nothing is to believe in a God. Both can make you feel isolated, both can even make you feel like an outsider and both neither I nor a religious person would involuntarily change our views.

Now allow me to contradict myself. I said I believed in nothing, but I think I just believed in myself more. When my parents told me to pray, instead I gave myself a pep talk or I reflected on my day, I thought about if that cute girl was going to talk to me or if I’ll get an A in some class. Sometimes I thought about success, like if I’ll fulfill my dream of becoming a CEO. These moments of reflection replaced prayer, but I think the effect was the same either way.

One more fun fact: Hinduism allows atheism. Yet, I still cannot tell my parents I’m an atheist. I’ve told everyone, it’s like my whole entire body is out of the atheist closet except for my right foot. I just can’t do it with my parents. They won’t disown me if they find out, but it would definitely change the way they look at me, and even themselves as parents. I don’t want to do that to them. Hopefully one day I can completely come out of the atheist closet. Until then, I’ll just continue to reminisce about being an existential second grader.