I don’t believe in god, hence my life misses nothing without one. Thus, I conclude that the very usage of the word “God” is nothing but outright sentimental nonsense.

Once I was in a discussion with a believer he called me an agnostic, the same way many call me a bisexual. They claim this is manifested on their belief that I have just not found god yet (as if he is playing hide and seek with me), so they prefer to push me into Agnosticism rather than Atheism. “There is hope” they say, “There is salvation”. Salvation from what? The same way I am sometimes pushed into bisexuality, as my appearance does not fit into their stereotypical cross-dressing gay or a transvestite, the screaming, mountainous makeup and nail polish, radiating towards them. I am an honest Gay Atheist, known for hard-hitting reality of the free market, living my life, and not the life others want me to live.

What is actually this whole hoopla surrounding the death for a believer? They are reluctant just talking about it, because the life expectancy is in reality just a mixture of coincidence, Biology, genes and accidents, geographical location and the abuse of the body. People believe in religion because they are afraid of death. But death as a religious should make them happy, as they can take a seat next to the big wise white bearded daddy on a cloud. Eternal life, fun in paradise, meeting back dead relatives and pets for some believers… But why do they cry? Why do they suffer so much after the death of their beloved or friends? Why are they afraid to die too? I guess they know everything is over, but they just cling to what is called “hope”, the lottery game maybe, even if it’s 6 billion to one, or even less, like the watered down homeopathic medicine; I would even call it just a placebo.

I have no faith to lose, just a reality I may love, like, or set in a way that it makes me happy here on earth. I am not afraid of death, as millions have died and millions will. Of course I have fear of the dying process. A slowly fainting away in pain, helplessness and dependability. How many believers have I seen suffering, over years, asking their god to relieve them from the pain. And in that moment, they don’t consider that as a test of their god, they are suddenly focused on themselves, the nurses and the caretakers alike. Humans become important, as the god then clearly fades to a swirling thought of their mindset, their brain in wishes. Bible lessons, morning prayers and hymns, the annual Christmas, Easter or Thanksgiving ceremonies in churches. Nobody disregards the role of the shepherd in the nativity play at an ever lasting “elementary school”. I was even baptized, had the confirmation at the Protestant church at the age of 14, but it was just a ritual, a scene play by adults and their fantasies. For me it was water on my head, and presents in my arms; more than enough reason to sign out of church when I was 18, but many more reasons of course.

Also, it was when I reached 14 when I gave the religion up, caught in the infantile games of the adults. When I sat as a teenager in my room, I already knew that there could be no god, because the idea that he would be watching me masturbate, or having my sexual affairs with others was initially absurd, even more ambiguous was the idea that all my dead ancestors were lined up in a row watching me, like the parents of my classmates’, who were Jehovah’s Witnesses. I had other more rational arguments against this resounding convincing feeling of knowledge the idea that there’s god inflicted on me. I had better things to do with my fellow comrades.

No god, no heaven, no life after death, no hell, so that gave death was a very different role. It was absolute, and made me focus on life instead. Why should I dream about the pictures in the children’s bible more than about my neighbor whom I adored, or the things I wanted to do to help others or earn my own money.

If you believe in god, and it turns out that there is no god, you have lost years of your life, but not when you have not believed in a god, and then find out after death that there is one. As then it would be questionable why he was hiding and why he created intelligent beings who are capable of doubting. If you want recognition you have to come forward, show face, cause everyone hiding can not be recognised. Belief gives all freedoms for lies, and that is what the organised religion is doing. Belief is a tool to enslave. I could tell a friend: “You have never been to Germany. If I tell you now, that every person who enters Germany will be rewarded with a home, money and health care, and if you trust me, hence you believe me, you will follow my demands. In order to achieve that, you have to work for me for ten years and do what ever I tell you. After that I will supply you with a visa.” Belief can make the one in need do all this, and it’s not new, as that is what religion does. Religion presents itself as an insurance that will never be claimed, as a health care that can never be held responsible, and as a saviour, from what ever some of us have to be saved from, to gain immortality.

“Believe It, cause you don’t need to know it now, as we know what we believe.” This diluted version, the dull murmur of a man with metaphysical headache comes from the priests and pastors, the religious representatives and the entire Scripture.

If people call themselves Atheists with twenty and an Agnostic with sixty, that does not mean that they would have gained more knowledge in the meantime, they just have a greater awareness of their ignorance. How can we be sure that we know enough to know? As Darwinians, or Atheists of the 21st century, we  fully understand that we are categorically wiser than the gullible bigots and devotees who have attended a divine providence for a perfect world, in the middle ages and up until the 19^th century. The belief in a resurrection and a last judgment is fading in many parts of the world today: “What makes the religious so sure that their knowledge is final?” – A book, faith and child indoctrination. That is all; no evidence, no proof, no examples.

Atheists are not necessarily more educated, but more tolerant and observe more about the god whom they do not believe in.

The German magazine “Der Spiegel” reports, that Barry Kosmin says that the following is a market of a different kinds.  Researchers examined customers that consume at companies that have names like Lifechurch.tv or World Overcomers Christian Church ™. The sociologist analyzes the souvenir shops, TV shows and worship services offered by U.S. churches.

But most of all, Kosmin explored that the group of customers that are in the consumer group of non religious items are the fastest growing segment in the market of ideologies. Kosmin said: “In the past 20 years, their number has doubled in the U.S. to 15 percent.”

The director of the “Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture” at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, is one of the few scientists who have devoted themselves to the study of secularism. These include groups such as Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists and religiously indifferent.

Worldwide, the number of non-religious people multiplies with a share of around 15 percent, counting 1 billion people, holding the third place after Christians with 2.3 billion and the Muslims with around 1.6 billion members. Yet surprisingly little is known about the wicked: who are they, what do they believe?

“Sometimes I feel like Christopher Columbus on the expedition to an unknown continent,” says Kosmin. “Many believe, for example, that the U.S. population is becoming more religious, but that is an optical illusion. Many evangelicals are simply political and louder..”

And probably also because of the religious market is shrinking. In the U.S., churches are losing each year up to one million members. In Europe, secularization has advanced even further, in France, the proportion of non-religious, who believe neither in god nor in a higher power, at 40 percent, and in Germany at about 27 percent. And the dominantly godless countries like China, South Korea and Japan must also be counted.

And again, the most amazing insight is, that Atheists know more about the god whom they do not believe in, as the faithful themselves. This conclusion resulted at the Pew Center 2010 in a survey conducted in the United States.

Unfortunately, many Atheists do not have powerful organization like the believers have in form of churches for example. Many societies produce their own kind of secularism. In the former East Germany more than 20 years ago, the popular Atheism in its third generation emerged after reunification, is no longer a feature of the more educated classes, but dominant culture. Children of Atheist parents with nearly one hundred percent end up with no religious affiliation. Even after the removal of the anti-clerical repression by the GDR regime, re-Christianization didn’t take place in the country.

Similarly, Catherine Caldwell-Harris of Boston University maintained, “There are two cognitive styles of thinking among the people, some see a deeper meaning everywhere, even bad weather seems to them by fate. Others are purely neurobiological dispositions, rather than skeptics who may not have much to do with faith.”

Only a small part of the non-believers is as radical as the “strong Atheists” like Richard Dawkins, or the so-called “new Atheists like the deceased Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris. The majority are more religiously indifferent or mildly agnostic, analyzed Kosmin. In addition, there are secular Humanists, Freethinkers, and many other groups, so the sociologist: “One of the problems with Atheism and its scientific approach, is that we can not agree on a common terminology. Every researcher invents their own names.”

At the age of 14, I didn’t even have a lone clue about the word Atheist, and I started using it in my thirties; but whatever we call ourselves,  if we oppose religion we are skeptics and critical, and if we leave religion we are non-religious. Atheism is the peak of what non-belief can reach, only that it is reality based. The meet up with a god and his kingdom is the peak to reach for the believer, a peak only existing in the mind, to serve their earthly wealth, disregarding the pictures they portray.

Today I have turned 43, and can’t it be of greater pleasure to witness the 21st century with the rising of Atheism, the growing support and rights for LGBT’s, and as for today, the approval for same-sex-marriage in the House of Lords in the UK; the country I was born, in the city of London, where this is happening.

By Thomas Fleckner