When I was in 5th grade the big thing to do to prove how popular you were was to invite as many kids over to have a sleepover at your house on Saturday night and then all go to church together on Sunday. I was a rather unpopular kid, I was ugly and spent most of my time with my nose in a book, but I was a warm body of the appropriate age so I eventually got asked. Not knowing that it could possibly bother anyone, I politely declined. When they asked why I told them that I was an atheist and wasn't really interested in going to church, but thanks for asking me anyway.

Now none of the kids around me knew what an atheist was, but some of them remembered that word and asked others. Like their parents, who warned them to stay away from me. And one little girl asked her Southern Baptist minister, who told her that "Atheists aren't even human, don't treat them with the kindness you would show a dog." Coming from a person in a trusted position, this bit of 'wisdom' spread quickly.

At first it was just shunning. No one would talk to me, which was fine by me because I didn't talk to others very often. Then it was threatening letters left in my locker, which didn't bother me because kids are just being stupid and they'll find someone else to pick on if I just don't react, right?

Then the beatings began. It started with tripping me in the hallway so they could push my face into the wall. Then it escalates into groups holding my arms while they take turns punching me. They start talking to me again so they can sing songs about how stupid evolution is and how I'm going to burn in hell for ever. I think about going to get help from a teacher, but one day on the playground I'm struggling to get to one and she looks me dead in the eye then turns away. There's no help to be had.

One day a huge group of them surround me. I'm restrained again as a boy wearing cleats kicks me in the face and they all laugh as I bleed. I lose my mind. Until that point I had been a pacifist, then I started to fight back. When I finally got away I ran into the school and hid in the janitor's closet, crying and screaming, terrified and angry. A little girl trys to help me but I'm so lost I can't respond to her, I tell her to go away.

Finally the teacher comes and drags me back to class. She tells the class it's mean to yell at Angie, ignoring the bruises and the cuts. I huddle first at my desk, then under it, begging people to just go back to shunning me, to pretend I don't exist. After class I've calmed down some, so I go to the school councilor and beg her for help. She asks why I'm being bullied, and when I tell her I can quote to you her exact words because they hurt so much. I'll never, ever forget them. She said "One day you'll change your mind and you'll thank them for helping you".

I couldn't react. I had finally worked up the guts to ask for help and the help I get is telling me I deserve all that pain and that'll make me a better person. It's a familiar refrain from my childhood, but I digress. I stop crying. I stare at her, for the first time feeling complete and total hate with every fiber of my fucking being. And I decided that hate was the only way I was going to make it.

I spent several more years that way. Hating everyone because they hated me. Being beat up when people got the chance. Being literally hit over the head with a Bible, having kids raise their cross necklaces when I walked by thinking I'd burst into flame if I touched them. Being cornered in the locker room for some punches to the gut, or slammed into the wall. I got back what I could, fighting without any regard as to what could happen to me, but I was outnumbered by 2000 by the time I got to high school. By then I got to have sexual harassment with my daily beatings. And the adults always turned away. No one wanted to help the atheist, because atheists are lesser humans and not worthy of the respect you'd show a dog.

I dropped out because I was seriously afraid that I was going to kill someone. And I spent several years just hiding from the world, trying to heal. I'm on the verge of tears right now just remembering it. That's what I get for being unlucky enough to be an atheist in Texas.

Do you still wonder why I would perfer a non-religious leader? Do you still wonder why I am not the biggest fan of vocal Christianity? Do you still wonder why I sometimes, just sometimes, still feel like a victim?

Part of me almost wishes I could be in his position so I could kill them.

When they gang up on you like that is when you start to shatter tracheas.

Where did this occur, exactly?

Damn. Considering what a shit position she was in, it'd probably have been better to kick randomly when ganged up on like that. And where the fuck where her parents?

Thanz, these were all public schools. I do realise that the majority of people aren't like that, but it took a while for me to be able to see it.

I'd also like to clarify that I did not become an atheist as a rebellion to anything. My mom is a spiritual agnostic, my step-dad was a Baptist, and most of my family is non-denominational Christian. I was encouraged from a very young age to not ask questions, but to go to the library and research to find my own answers. My grandfather particuarly got me interested in critical thinking (and computer games, my grandpa rules). When I was sent to vacation bible school during summer I just came to the conclusion that I didn't agree with what they were saying and started to look up various religious beliefs. I ended up deciding that I wasn't really swayed by any of them and that I didn't feel any compelling reason to believe, so I was atheist.

Same where I live now, Texas, in a suburb of Dallas.

During the first part of it my mom and step-dad were going through a messy, messy, MESSY divorce, and I had already had "Don't tell me bad news" drilled into my head by said step-dad. My step-dad was a real, real creep and I ended up getting into a pattern of hiding EVEYTHING and never talking and I think it was just easy for my mom to go along with with the problems at work and at home.

During the later half of it, after he was gone, my mom was in serious denial that anything could be happening and thought I was just trying to get attention. So I started purposely pulling greater and greater stunts for attention so she'd see what it was like when I was really hurting vs when I want attention. Finally she realised that there was a problem (though no where near the extent of it) and pulled me from school. I think it was only when I started to get better she realised how damaged I had been.

She still denies that some of the stuff I went through could have possibly happened, but I think she realises part of why I acted so badly.

I spent years fighting back. All that happened was they learned not to come at me one on one, but to come in groups. I don't think there's anything I could have done short of making a huge public conversion that could have stopped it. This was a group activity, even those who didn't dirty their hands directly supported the group action and talked others up into it.

To everyone who knows about this: were her parents churchgoers?

And did she ever tell her parents or was she too ashamed to?

Perhaps if everyone took some time off their days to will these bastards to suddenly drop dead and die, perhaps, through the combined force of our wills, it can happen.

Perhaps if everyone took some time off their days to will these bastards to suddenly drop dead and die, perhaps, through the combined force of our wills, it can happen.

I am curious how much of this is true.

not that Id be surprised if it was.