My first run-in with an atheist as a child

If you follow this blog, then you know that I used to be a Christian. This story is set back in middle school, in the gym locker room. Everyone was a Christian, or so we thought. For me, I didn't really grasp that there were non-Christians, at least in the United States. It turns out, we had an atheist amongst us in gym class. Once we found this out, rumors started to spread that he worshiped the devil and that when a cross touched his forehead it burnt it. At the time, I believed this atheist (and all atheists) was pure evil, and I didn't want anything to do with him (afraid that the evil inside of him would rub off on me). The kid was troubled, so it wasn't hard for us to associate him with evil; but what is interesting is how we associated atheists with being Satan worshipers, almost reflexively. It's hard to pin down specific memories (this was a long long time ago), but I remember that the common narrative of the time, at least in my community, was that atheists were evil. Obviously the association with atheists and Satan worshipers is still commonly made today, but not nearly as often, which really reflects the social progress atheists have made over the years. Yes, of course many children even today would believe atheists are devil worshipers, but this is probably only typical of those few children who are still indoctrinated (church attendance is much lower than it was 15-20 years ago).

Moral of the story - You don't know how wrong you are until you do....isn't that obvious? Well, it wasn't at the time. Us kids shouldn't have alienated that atheist kid—but, unfortunately we didn't know better—we weren't open to the possibility that we could be wrong. For those that are wondering, no, the atheist kid wasn't beat-up or anything like that, and we didn't harp on him for that long.

In short, don't hate a person because of the beliefs they possess, unless those beliefs motivate them to harm others. 

"The times they are a changin'" -Bob Dylan