I am an underrepresented, hated, and bastardized minority in the United States.

Republicans even hate me more than they hate illegal immigrants.

I have been kicked out of homes, commissioned to conversion, and would never be elected president by today's public.

I am white, hold a college degree, and live in a "nice" part of LA (when the meth heads have abandoned their post on our street, anyway).

I am an atheist.

I didn't set out to become an atheist. I didn't reject a god or an idea. I just am an athest. I just never did, and don't presently, believe in god. I didn't want to get the world's panties in a bunch and make people uncomfortable (though now I've kind of become accustomed to it and a bit fond of the activity). I never imagined that I would be able to go to work and listen to others speak of church while I couldn't talk about my, um, non-church (which would contain reading books about economics and working out).

It never occurred to me to believe in a god until one day when I was five years-old. I was playing with the twin girls that lived across the street from me. They were in possession of the backyard envy of the entire neighborhood - a trampoline. We were bouncing about on it, having a grand old time due to being five years-old and not giving a shit about anything except the next kool-aid serving. Then one of the girls asked me, "do you believe in god?"

I pondered this a moment. Such a question had never been asked of me. My tiny little logic feelers then asked this question to determine the answer to the question in front of me: "can you imagine what god is?" My answer to myself was a firm "no".

"No, I don't." I replied and continued my bounc-a-thon.

She then tore off across the yard and into the house screaming for her mother.

"Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmm!!!! Asta doesn't believe in gaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwd!"

Their mother promptly drug me out of the house and across the street, plopping my ass down on my front porch. I don't believe she even explained to my mother what the issue was. Though later on I was told that she felt I was a "bad influence" because I liked The Simpsons.

At that moment, I became the target of conversion for every Christian in the neighborhood.

Nary a Friday at school passed without a local girl asking me if I would like to join them at Kiwanas or other variety of church group that coming Sunday. Feeling uncomfortable, and a bit like caged animal getting prodded with a hot poker pushed into the giant meat churner, I repeatedly declined.

Then I decided to ask my father, "what religion should I be?"

"Whatever you want. Research them, decide if anything is interesting to you."

So I did, nothing seemed interesting. It all seemed like, well, bullshit.

I couldn't understand why any large number of people would live their lives by something unprovable and would hate others that didn't agree. It seemed dumb.

I suppose it was inevitable, but at age 16 I was prompted by a cute boy (who was a devout Christian) to conduct the ultimate experiment and test of atheism: going to church regularly for a year.

At this point I legitimately wanted to believe in god. I came to think that life would be much easier if I didn't have to rely on myself all the time, but could blame things on and rely on god instead.

It didn't work. After one year of weekly church attendance (occasionally bi-weekly for some kind of phony Jesus-y basketball practice), I realized I had to get out of there as quickly as possible. I was defrauding perfectly honest and well-meaning people. I didn't believe in god. No matter how hard I tried, I absolutely could not bring myself to have faith in the magical man upstairs whom no one has ever seen or can prove existence of beyond "um the bible".

So I abandoned ship, never to consider such a thing as religion could be part of my life ever again.

I very much wish that my childhood had been a less cumbersome battle with being an atheist. Truthfully, a minority that most neighborhood parents couldn't begin to explain to their children. Gay you can explain. A difference race, of course. A different linguistic background? No problem. But atheism was impossible for the families in our neighborhood to stomach, let alone comprehend.

For faiths that claim to be open and accepting, I found them to be anything but. I felt alienated. It's not polite to bring up religion in conversation, but I wasn't necessarily good at biting my tongue when someone around me said something I found offensive to my sensibilities and logic. I pissed off a lot of people by being open about my atheism as a child and an adolescent. I'm still doing it right now...to some of you...probably.

A great sense of relief washed over me, like many a broken levee, when I read an article in the Economist about Camp Quest. Camp Quest is what I so needed and longed after as a child - the secular answer to bible camp.

Camp Quest means that kids like me don't have to exist alone and sheltered. Knowing that we are in on something big, that everyone else seems to be ignoring. We feel disbelief that "I'm really the only one that thinks this?". It's not true, kids, you're not the only one.

About Camp Quest.

I'd like to think that my parents did the best they could to create a compost heap of fertile fact and logic brewing organisms for me, and in a safe and loving environment to boot. But if I had kids today, they'd spend as much time as possible at this camp. If not just to know that they aren't alone, but to learn that they should never doubt their own logic as much as the world would like them to.