Believer asked:

"I've noticed that many of your pages revolve around two topics: that you are an outspoken atheist, and that you have had a very difficult life including homelessness. Have you ever considered that there may be a connection between the two? Have you ever asked yourself "What if I'm wrong?". I wonder if you gave your life to God whether he would have taken you down the same path. Were you always an atheist? Did you have a bad experience with a church or a clergy member? Do you feel that if there was a God he would have preventing certain things from happening, and so therefore chose to believe He does not exist?"

"I've noticed that many of your pages revolve around two topics: that you are an outspoken atheist, and that you have had a very difficult life including homelessness. Have you ever considered that there may be a connection between the two?"

No, but many religious people have told me that not thinking God is real caused all of my (well-deserved in their opinion) suffering. I believe that my difficulties were not a punishment from a non-existent God. Many people who are devout believers have even worse lives than mine so that logic doesn't hold up. Additionally, if I analyze what happened in my life, I can pretty well see why things happened the way they did.

As an atheist, I believe that autism is a real thing. I ascribe to no ideology that causes me to reject the existence of learning disabilities and emotional problems as real. Having been diagnosed with autism, I tend to believe I am autistic. There is a known connection between inability to perform in social interactions and autism. In fact, that's almost the definition of autism. My autism was not properly treated when I was a child and, like almost every other autistic who receives no special assistance, when left completely on my own I experienced difficulties. I was a stranger in a strange land. I had no familial support and had formed only the most inadequate of friend support structures in school.

When this left me homeless, I was the perfect victim for predators. I was incredibly naïve and socially inept. I had no "common sense" to keep me from dangerous situations. I reacted to harmful stimuli (beatings, rapes, and other frightening encounters) by withdrawing into myself instead of reaching for help as most people do. That entrenched me more deeply into homelessness - a shell-shocked autistic isn't the best at navigating the hard road out of homelessness.

"Have you ever asked yourself "What if I'm wrong?""

You assume one thing that most Christians do - that I don't want to believe in God, that I never considered it. When I was homeless there was many a night when I longed to think of God as real. What complete and total idiot wouldn't want someone or something to exist that loved them in that situation? The physical deprivation and pain of homelessness is dwarfed by the emotional pain, heartbreak, and crushing loneliness of being homeless. I often prayed, saying, "God, if you are real, please just let me think that you are." I was not able to convince myself that God was real. Even by pretending and acting as if God were real, I couldn't.

Maybe it's the autism but I have a basic inability to believe in (or even understand why other people believe in) things that I don't think are real. No matter how desirable a thing is, if I don't think it's real, I am unable to make myself think it is.

" Were you always an atheist?"

I never thought God was real. I thought I could fake myself into believing if I acted like I did (I had to pretend to believe in God anyway, to get services and to avoid abuse), you know, how smiling and acting happy can make some people really be happy, right? But I couldn't. Don't you have any idea how desirable belief is? I mean, to actually think that there is a perfect justice waiting for us? To think that the good people will be rewarded with paradise? To think that the people we loved who died are not truly gone forever? Those things are all incredibly desirable but again, I can't force myself to believe in make-believe, not even for just a time. I even watch a movie and see actors and special effects most of the time, I see art and craftsmanship, I don't experience suspension of disbelief.

"Did you have a bad experience with a church or a clergy member?"

Yes, but I didn't think God was real beforehand. After I was beaten by schoolmates because my parents were outed as non-Christians, several pastors showed up to the hospital and to our home to berate my parents for not raising us as Christians. One pastor showed up to try to convert me through fear when my parents weren't there to protect me. He insisted that while the kids weren't right to beat me that it was just a taste of the pain I'd experience if I didn't accept Jesus into my heart. He told me my dead brother was suffering in Hell because he hadn't been raised Christian - forever and ever and that it was all my parents fault.

" Do you feel that if there was a God he would have preventing certain things from happening, and so therefore chose to believe He does not exist?"

I don't think God is real but if a God were real, I would not presume to know what it would or would not do. As explained earlier, it's not really a choice at all to think something is real or not.

Give it a try yourself - think of something you think is make-believe, something lovely and desirable, like a unicorn perhaps. Now believe that it's real. You can't, can you? Now imagine your only child is dying a horrible, slow, and painful death and a bunch of people have told you that unicorns are real and the touch of a unicorn could save your child's life. Do you believe in unicorns yet? Now imagine someone you loved told you that not only are unicorns real and their touch can heal any sickness but that if you don't believe they are real you will be tortured for eternity. On top of that, imagine that a bunch of really old books say that all of that stuff about unicorns is true. Now, ask yourself why don't you believe in unicorns and you'll have the answer as to why I don't believe in God.