I was a devout Catholic until I went to college where I was exposed to new ideas and questioned my faith for the first time. Eventually I left my religion all together and became an atheist. Atheists are a marginalized group in the United States so it might seem counterintuitive that I would be happier after leaving my faith, but I definitely think that is the case. Here are five reasons why I’m happier as an atheist than I was as a Christian.

1) I’m no longer filled with guilt

As a Catholic, you are taught to feel guilty about many things and much of the guilt is focused on sexuality. You can’t have sex outside of marriage, you can’t use birth control, you can’t be gay, etc. Basically, you are to feel guilty for anything that might make God unhappy (which applies to most religions). This is obviously quite a large burden to carry around and I’m thankful I can live my life without trying to follow rules that prevented me from some of the most basic human feelings.

2) I’m no longer filled with prejudice

Just as the church taught me to feel guilty about many things, it also taught me to judge others for their own “misbehavior.” I’m heterosexual so thankfully I didn’t have to worry about feeling guilty about who I was attracted to; however, Catholics (as many Christians) are certainly taught that homosexuality is a sin. Slut-shaming was also reinforced through my religion with the notion that any pre-marital sex was immoral. Even now I still have to work on unlearning some of the bigoted messages I was taught, but my heart isn’t filled with the same kind of prejudice as it once was.

3) I’m not afraid of Hell anymore

Hell is such a horrible concept and the fear of it is an effective strategy for keeping people religious (it was for me). The possibility of being tortured for eternity is rather terrible and I’m thankful to be rid of that fear. Furthermore, I don’t have to worry about anyone I care about ever going to such an awful place as well. When I was religious, I was always bothered how such kind people who happened to be homosexual would be forced to eternal damnation because of who they loved. Eternal punishment for loving someone never seemed like a loving God to me and it’s quite freeing to abandon those beliefs.

4) I’ve stopped doing mental gymnastics

Believing in a God became a struggle for me because of the lack of evidence, contradictions in the Bible, child abuse within my church, the anti-gay prejudice, and many, many other things. I was constantly doing mental gymnastics in order to justify believing in God. Ultimately, I was engaged in a great deal of wishful thinking in order to deceive myself on many issues related to religion. Being grounded in reality has been much less cognitively taxing and also much more gratifying.

5) My life has more meaning without religion

Because I no longer have to worry about any sort of afterlife, I can appreciate this life to the fullest. My life has so much more meaning as I’m continually amazed by how awesome our world is and how it’s not just some sort of playground for a higher power. My life experiences and friendships all are so much more important to me as I appreciate how everything is temporary. I understand that the world is chaotic and sometimes awful, but there is a certain beauty to acknowledging the uncertainty of the human experience.

Featured image from Pixabay under CC0 Public Domain