I am an atheist.

Long post! I'm on a mission to recover my lost ability to write like a human being. Go, me!

Recently, a deviant by the name of yuumei (Wenqing Yan in most other senses of the word), an amazing artist whose dA profile states "Proud to be an atheist", was sent a message that stated

"I love your work and I was hoping we could become friends, but then I saw that you're an atheist and I'm scared of atheists..."

This is, frankly, the stupidest piece of trash I've ever heard on the topic. Scared of atheists? Why? We're not the ones who started witch-hunts. We're not the ones who insist that you'll burn for eternity after you die. We're not going to put you in a bare cell, take away your sacred texts and shove science at you. We're not going to label you as uncivilised and jahil. We're not going to round all the theists up and gas them.

You're afraid of the wrong people, hon. In fact, we atheists are the ones who should be scared - of fanatics like you, who'll do who knows what to us because we aren't proper people like you are.

It's not just a western thing to be so anti-atheist. Two years ago, a certain classmate declared, with absolute certainty, that atheists (like myself, though I'm guessing he didn't know) were disgusting and would burn in hell when they died. Lovely. Look, I know it's never too late to repent and I can be brought to see the light, and I appreciate your concern for my soul, but I just don't see how it is that I can be brought to fear a fire that, to me, does not exist.

This country requires me to state my religion whenever I apply for anything, regardless of how useless this little procedure may be in any other process than that of discrimination. My parents expect me to show my Buddhism whenever the need arises because they don't know about my non-belief, and would not condone it if they knew. It really isn't nice, the feeling of kneeling at the altar and pretending to pray to deities I don't know, all the while thinking "Shit, this incense smoke is killing me and the environment."

I have nothing at all against religion. I just don't want to be forced into it, because I've realised that religion and I simply do not fit. Neither do I like how so many have used it as an excuse for so many things, although that is of course entirely the fault of the individuals concerned. I'm totally fine with religion, as long as it isn't forced on me. Have I made that clear enough? I'd hate to receive all sorts of senseless responses on how I don't respect religion, because I do. The world would be messed up without religion, that's for sure. I know that.

But STOP TELLING ME I'M WRONG, DAMN IT. There is no right and wrong about this, alright? Thank you.

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P.s.: Yes, I know I use a lot of Oh-my-God, What-the-Hell and suchlike in my speech, but that, as we very well know, is slang.