Atheist persecution

One of the many things I have a problem with is the persecution of atheists. Although it is not as prominent today as it was in the 1600's it still exists in many subtle and pernicious ways. Atheists at one time were not allowed to testify in a court because of his/her lack of belief in the Christian god. The reasoning being that since he could not swear to tell the truth by god that his testimony was invalid. The Christians like to promote how they have been persecuted and many of their ranks have been and I would not doubt that it still happens today have died as martyrs for their faiths. But what they fail to mention was that as soon as the balance of power shifted in their favor with the acceptance of Christianity by the emperor Constantine they began to do that which they themselves condemned.

Atheists have been called Satanists by the ignorant, immoral, in our country unamerican, and a slew of other names. When people think of atheists the first thing they think of is that we are bad and immoral and incapable of doing good, since they believe that we get our morals from the Christian god. But in reality atheists such as myself are as ordinary as you or anyone else for that matter. The only thing is that we are not bound by religious dogma and beliefs, we prefer to thinkk for ourselves. At one time atheists were referred to as free thinkers and I think that that title itself fits us perfectly.

We don't have creeds or doctrines or dogma to direct our lives, we are guided by logic and reason and our morals are dictated by the norms of the society we live in. We love, laugh, and cry with the rest of humanity. We think of one another as human beings not saints and sinners or saved and condemned. We value the lives we have right now and do not look forward to a future life in some eternal state in the great beyond of which no one has any knowledge that it exists. We don't cry out to imaginary beings that reside in the sky or beyond our plane of existence. Life and reality pose enough challenges to last a lifetime to be wasting this short time on Earth trying to please an invisible man in the sky.

Our ranks continue to grow as people begin to see religion for what it is; the greatest hoax of mankind. Many have been made millionaires in the name of the lord and off of the hard working masses whose hearts and gullibility are bigger then the con men of the cloth. Some have sought alternate religions but many have come to acknowledge that they can continue to live a long and productive life without a god in their lives. The actual name atheist means a=without theist=god we don't need god or gods to direct our lives. We make our own fate and dictate the direction our lives will take with careful planning and logical steps to achieve our goals.