Knock knock knockin on my door

I awoke this morning after working late last night to the sound of banging on my door. As usual on a Saturday morning it was the Christians come to inspire me to follow Jesus. This time it was the Baptists. Last week it was the Mormons. To top it off, this time it was a couple of kids.

My usual response to this is smile and as politely as possible say “No thank you, I am an atheist.” They usually hand me a pamphlet, let me know I am welcome at their church, and they walk away. Of course this time the kids had to go tell the adults that there was an evil bloodthirsty atheist prowling the streets of their community just waiting to snatch up their children as they sleep.

So, ten minutes later I have a rather large man in a stark white shirt, black leather vest and a cowboy hat standing in my doorway asking why I don’t believe in God. I was prepared, as always, my standard reply to this is “Why don’t you believe in Santa Clause?” Seeing as he had a very young boy with him who I was sure DID believe in Santa I decided to change up my response.

Why don’t you believe in Buddha (I know it doesn’t work like that, but he doesn’t so play along.) As usual he had no response to this, they never do. This is usually the part where they walk away shaking their heads. Still, this guy didn’t let up.

He presumed to assert that without Jesus it was impossible to raise children with any kind of morals or ethics. This is where I went off. I will not repeat the entire conversation here, as it did take a while. My point is that this seems to be the prevailing attitude in this country. We atheists are bad people and you cannot produce a decent, kind and moral human being without their particular religion. The most annoying part about this is they cannot even agree on what it is their religion says.

Frankly I am tired of it. I am really getting fed up with trying to live a good honest life and being told that I can’t because I don’t have an invisible friend that lives in the sky. I am tired of people trying to convince my kids that they need to tell me I am evil. I am tired of the public school system trying to pass off religion as part of their curriculum. But most of all, I am tired of these people interrupting my damn cartoons!