Lisa’s Blog

Kevin and I got engaged on February 14, Valentines Day. I made a wonderful dinner, we lit a few candles and played some classical music. After the dinner Kevin made a wonderful speech about how much he loved me and then he came over to my side of the table, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I accepted with tears in my eyes and have been bursting with excitement ever since.

Now we are planning our wedding. It is going to be a simple ceremony followed by light refreshments. We are thinking about having the wedding May 10th or 17th of this year. I know that is soon, but we don’t really want to have a long engagement.

Well, I have to go make dinner and work on more wedding plans, plus study for my class tomorrow. I am going to be pretty busy these next few months.

I have gotten a few requests from different people to explain how I became an atheist. So, I thought rather than telling my story over and over I would post it here and allow everyone to read it that wants to.

First of all I would like to take a moment to say that I didn’t make this decision to hurt anyone or because I am mad at “God”. I also wasn’t pressured into this decision by anyone. I came to this decision for a number of reasons that I will discuss in detail throughout this blog post. Finally, I am more than willing to discuss my position with anyone via e-mail so that both parties my have as much time as they need to respond.

I came to this decision through reason and scientific evidence. There isn’t any evidence for God and plenty against him. There were a few sites that played a huge role in my deconversion and I would challenge anyone that reads this post to take a good look at theses sites and to keep an open mind as they do so. The first site that I recommend is Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? , another site I also gleaned a lot of information from was God is Imaginary. Both of these sites present a great deal of information on where I am coming from. These weren’t the only places that I got my information from, but they are where I started. I hope that when you are finished reading through both sites you will realize that I didn’t come to this decision overnight.

I welcome anyone to e-mail me to discuss this decision in more detail. If you don’t have my e-mail address click here and fill out the basic form and I will send you my e-mail address. I regret that I have to do it that way, but if I was to post it in this blog post I would receive way too much spam.

Sorry for the long leave of absence, I just have been very busy. As of today I am officially out of my Lansing apartment and living with Kevin for the next couple of weeks until my next apartment is ready for me to move in. I never realized how much stuff I have. I naively thought that all of my stuff, minus the big furniture, would fit in 2 car loads. I was a little off it really took 6 car loads! Oh well, it is finally done!

I am happy to say that the last few times that I have seen my parents have gone very well and I am actually looking forward to seeing them again this weekend. I don’t know if they will say the same thing when they see my car full of more things for them to store at their place, lol. My next apartment I am sharing with 4 other girls so I won’t have the room to store everything like I did when I had a 2 bedroom apartment all to my self.

Well, Kevin is on his way home and I need to put the finishing touches on dinner.

For all who are interested here is a blog post that I found very interesting from Daylight Atheism titled “A Crack in the Wall”

Well Kevin and I are up in Cedarville MI with his parents. We arrived yesterday evening just in time for supper and will be staying up here until Friday and then we will be going to his parents place for a few days. So, in short I don’t have to get back to reality until Monday (July 9th) I promised myself on the car ride up here that I wasn’t going to think about all my problems and I wasn’t going to cry. I really don’t want to ruin this vacation for everyone. Well, that wasn’t as easy as saying it, I cried twice last night once before we went to go get ice cream and then I cried myself to sleep. Well, I am just going to have to try harder to think about all the good things happening in my life. That is all I am going to type for now, tears are forming in my eyes and I really don’t want to cry anymore.

My day was going well, I had just been relaxing doing a little laundry and watching television. Then, my mom called, it started out fine just chatting like a mother and daughter should, but of course that didn’t last long. Why do we have to always argue? Why do they think that this is all my fault? It isn’t just me pushing and pulling the family apart. I want so bad for our family to be the way that it used to be. I just changed my religious views, that is all, and they are acting as if I am some sort of criminal. She actually started comparing me to some people that we know that got mixed-up in criminal activities, I then told her that the difference between me and them was that what they were doing was illegal and that I wasn’t doing anything illegal. Then she actually said that she wished that she could believe me, but she just can’t. Oh WHATEVER, I am going to try and enjoy the rest of the day, I have a terrific boyfriend that is going to get off work any time now and is going to make this day as special as it should be. I am one lucky girl to have him in my life. I love you Kevin and thanks for everything.

I am finally 21 years old! Today should be a pretty good day, Kevin and I are going to celebrate after he gets off work and then we are going to leave to go up north tomorrow to spend a little over a week with his parents. Enjoy the day I know that I am going to!

My parents and I haven’t been getting along to put it mildly. From the moment that I told my mom that I was an Atheist there has been an endless stream of insults hurled my way and lots of nights filled with tears. So far my mom has told me that she isn’t proud of the woman that I am becoming and that I shouldn’t reproduce. I was just moving on from those comments, when the mother of all bombs was dropped on me. It all started Sunday night when I realized that I was going to need my passport to go to Canada with my boyfriend Kevin and his parents. So I simply IM’ed my sister and asked her to take my passport and birth certificate to work with her and I would meet her when she got off to pick up those documents. My dad then called me a few moments after I got done talking with my sister to ask why I needed all my paperwork, so I told him that I was going to Canada. He then told me that I only needed one of them not both. I said that I knew that, but since I was getting one I might as well pick up both. I went to sleep that night a little annoyed that I got the third degree for such a simple request, but I thought that everything would be fine. When will I learn, nothing when dealing with my parents is ever simple. They sent my sister to work with my birth certificate and told her to tell me that was all that I needed to go to Canada with so that was all that I am getting. I was furious I am an adult and I want to be treated like one after all in 2 days I will be 21 and I have been living on my own for about a year now. So after I got my birth certificate from my sister I drove another 45 min. to go to my parents house in hopes of having an adult conversation and smoothing out this whole situation. Again I should have known better, but I am a slow learner. The conversation was pointless I asked for my passport and told her that I am an adult and it is my passport and she countered with the only reason that you need your passport is to leave the country and the thought of you leaving the country scares me to death. Which is not really the truth this is just her way of controlling me even though I am not under her roof and I an adult. I wish it didn’t come to this, but if this situation doesn’t get resolved soon I will be taking my parent to small claims court to sue them for my passport. Before I do that I am looking into getting a new passport by claiming it stolen by my parents. I don’t think that it will work, but it is worth a shot, and I think that it is a much better solution than suing my parents. Not because I think suing my parents would cause more strife between us but because I would have to take a few days off work for that option. I do think suing them for my passport would be a great solution to show them that I mean business and I am truly an adult, plus I would love to see the judges reaction when my mom tries to tell him that she just doesn’t want me to have it.

Here is a list of links that raise questions that I believe every Christian needs to have a clear answer for and will provide information for atheists so that they can support our position better.

• The Secular Web is the first site that I would like to draw your attention to. This site contains a massive amount of articles that are very interesting and thought provoking. I found these articles to be of particular interest: A List of Biblical Contradictions, Mistakes of Jesus, A review of “The Case for Christ”, and Atheism and Society.

• The next link that I am sharing is an Essay that Kevin found, “The Necessity of Atheism”. It is an essay that seeks to concisely describe the major points in support of atheism.

• This is one of the first sites that I visited when I first started looking into becoming an atheist, Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? It is very clear and to the point.

This is in reply to a Myspace blog post that my sister Megan made a few days ago.

Just so u all know.
Current mood: depressed

right now I am not myself. everyone has noticed. I can’t hold it in any longer and just to get it out there, I have been going through some rough times with my sister. She has torn my family apart and I am trying my hardest to hold it together but I can’t anymore. I love my family with all my heart. they mean the world to me. and to see her sit there and act like she isn’t doing anything wrong and wondering y our family is falling apart and thinking it isn’t her, is making me even more misseralbe. I haden’t gotten a cold sore in 3 months and all this stress has caused me to get 5 coldsores with in a week. I am now down to 3 because of all the medicine and creams I have been using. please pray for lisa and my family as I don’t know what is going to happen… I just want my old sister back, the one I looked up to, the one who would go out with me and have sisters nights, the one who would drive all the way from Lansing to see me and go to dinner and shopping cause she missed me, the one who when I was just born thought I was another doll for her to play with. I still love her, but she is making it hard for me to love her. she is putting a lot of stress on me, and my mom and dad. and I can tell a change because my mom cries everyday now and I go to bed crying every night. Lisa … if u read this … I still love u … that will never change … I just wish u knew how much stress u put on mom and dad and me.

She didn’t tell you exactly what I did, so to prevent any rumors from getting started, I would like to state, for the record, what’s bothering her:

I became an atheist.

I didn’t do this to rip my family apart. I did it because I feel it is the right thing to do.

I also would like to say that I know this is hurting my family and I am sorry that they are hurting, but they are not the only ones hurting. I miss being able to talk to them without the whole conversation revolving around me going to “Hell”, and how they are right and I am wrong.

As my mom always said, the only way another person can hurt you is if you let them.

This is just an area to share my thoughts with anyone that is willing to read them. I hope that you enjoy and feel free to comment.