I’m going to be writing about something pretty controversial today, something which may or may not get me mobbed by religious devotees (seriously though, I don’t mean any offense to anyone this is just my views). If you haven’t guess it yet, I’m going to be talking about religion. Now, for those of you who know me and/or were able to infer some things from my previous posts, I am not a firm believer in god. I often scoff at rituals, sarcastically blame the almighty or just forget he exists. So yes, I am not a theist and I’m going to be explaining that to all of you.

Now, atheists are often associated with being heretics. Oh no, they’re devil spawn who want to taint our minds. ­ No, that’s not how this works. First, I want to draw the line between different kinds of non-theists. I mean, if I just dumped Christians or Hindus or whatever into just theists, people will get defensive and drone on about the differences. Well, non-theism is similar. We are not all Satanists. I’m here to enlighten you (Yes, vaguely religious pun intended. Yes, it was a terrible one.)

First of all, atheists. What does it mean? We lack faith in god. This is different from saying God doesn’t exist its akin to I don’t think God exists. The difference? Well, we don’t actively assume all theists are wrong. They can go ahead and do whatever they want. Will they drag us into it? No. Those who actively reject the idea of god existing are called anti-theists. Rather than not thinking God exists, these guys think that God doesn’t exist. There’s a fine line between the two but that line can be the difference between someone who approaches any religious concept with enmity and someone who just doesn’t accept that concept as his own.

The division does not end there. Another significant category of non-theists are agnostics. These guys are the chilliest in my opinion. They don’t believe in god, nor do they not believe in god. They simply refuse to comment on their own belief since they humans are incapable of proving or disproving so thus discussion is pointless. They are the religious embodiment of the phrase “no comment”. Under this there is also a subcategory called Apatheists. This is more a philosophy rather than a religious identity but it is the idea that one should not care about the potential existence or non-existence of god. Since they deem it irrelevant they often choose to life as if god does not exist but in the end, they do not openly say he does not.

Aaaand the list goes on. Next up is pantheism. Most of the big science-y guys, the ones who do work to prove gods non-existence? They fall in this category. Basically they believe in God but not the God theists do. There is no supernatural, omnipotent entity up in the sky. “God” is not a being rather is the universe itself. The world and the laws of nature are what they worship, not because they believe it is omnipotent but because they think it is unquestionable and the only “divine” thing in existence. This concept is hard to wrap your head around but this is what people like Albert Einstein believed in.

Last spot on the list goes to the ones who earned the ultimate title of heretics, the ones hated by all – the Church of Satan. Do you imagine a group of cloaked individuals huddled in a basement around a chalk drawn circle, chanting with upside down crosses in hand to try and revive the devil? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Despite being named after Satan, the Church of Satan do not actually believe in the Christian devil, nor in any other religious notions of such. They use the term Satan for its Hebrew root meaning “adversary”. Rather than worshipping an enemy of god, they are similar to the atheists in that they reject the idea of god. They describe themselves as “skeptical atheists” in the sense that they lack faith in god while doubting his existence. This puts them somewhere between antitheists and atheists, while adding a touch of sassiness to annoy the theists.

Now, the list goes on and on with various philosophical schools of thought being closely related to the debate on god. However, since this post is getting way too long and this blog is supposed to be about me lets divert the topic a bit. Some of you may be wondering, where do I come in all of this? Well, if you read carefully, you’ll notice I used the pronoun “we” when discussing atheism. So, yeah, I identify as atheist if anyone asks. The most religious of the religious may say “you are too young to judge and understand god”. Well, sorry people but I attended a Christian school, born and raised Hindu and have read parts of both the Old Testament and the Quran. I’ve delved into the internet and learned more about the types of non-theism which I discussed about today. I think I’m justified enough to form my own beliefs and my beliefs are a lack of belief.