Here’s a short one from Adam in Pennsylvania:

Hello, my name is Adam and I live in PA. I saw recently saw the post on The Good Atheist and decided to share the sorted [sic] road that led me to my lack of faith. First I feel its necessary to explain my family background. Both of my parents are very religious Protestants and my grandmother is a devout Catholic. The rest of my family though is not the least bit religious as they never go to church and find it unnecessary. I myself was very religious in my youth because of my parents influence, and attend 6 years of religious education at a very fundamentalist school, and because of my bisexuality this inevitable led to some deep personal conflicts between my religion and sexuality. Around the age of 12 I began to realize the deep divide between the two parts of myself, at that time I considered myself a christian above all else as the entire close knit community I lived in were all deeply religious and encouraged my Christian activities. It got to the point where I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. It wasn’t only the personal conflicts though; it was the entire attitude towards anyone who wasn’t like them, and considering how fundamentalist they were, that was a very select group. Around the age of 14 my family moved and I was taken out of that environment. It was after I moved that I realized that there was more than just Christianity and that there were different options. Around the age of 15 and after much soul searching I concluded there was no god and that religions in general were a waste of time and a horrible lie. My parents recently found out about my atheism about a year and a half ago and have made appalling comments ever since, and considering I’m only 17 and still in high school I can’t leave. They still haven’t told them about my bisexuality and I don’t plan on it until I move out.