The stigma that because I do good things must mean I am religious makes me angry. I was raised by a mother who was a nun. She wanted to have kids so she asked the Pope to absolve her of her dedication, which he did. She then adopted us as she was unable to have kids herself due to a disease I won't name. Anyway, just because I was raised by her everyone seems to think that my good deeds are religiously intended. All my friends know I am atheist, but my family does not, except for my father. It angers me that I have this stigma tied to me. Anytime I do good people say that God is blessing me or that I will go to heaven. Oh and when good things happen to me they say that God is paying me back for all the good things I have done, or that the life that God has created for me is coming into fruition. So I guess this means that every time I do something good it is because of God and not because I worked hard at something. Recently I landed a management job at a hotel in Downtown Kansas City. My entire family kept talking about God making things come true through prayer. They had been praying that a job like this would come along. What they failed to recognize is that I have been working in restaurants since I was 16. I had 8 years of experience in hosting, serving, bartending, supervising, prepping, and whatever else I wanted to learn. I had always wanted to go into management so I did the things that are required of a manager. A manager needs to know the restaurant inside and out, and that was my plan, to learn everything I could. When I applied for the job, out of 60 people i was one of the five chosen for an interview. They called me the day after the interview and told me the job was mine. That's when the comment about God came into play. Later that day I called my Dad, who is a fellow atheist, and told him I landed the job and he told me he wasn't surprised. He told me I had been working hard toward this moment and that I should be proud of myself. My dad and I have grown closer since I had found out he was an atheist. When I realized I was one too it made me happy to have someone who could help me. My dad recognizes that positive things happen in my life because I make the right decisions. I snapped one day when a fellow coworker, from a job I was quitting to accept the new management job, said that God had big plans for me. I said "I don't believe that God helped me get this job, I did. I worked my ass off for 8 years to get to where I am. Don't you dare tell me that all that work was really because God wanted me to do it." She was probably one of the biggest Catholics I had ever met. I was written up by my manager for it, yet when I complained that she kept religion up at work she never got written up. I find it crazy that I have to listen to people talk about God at work, yet I can't say one thing that is against God without getting punished for it. I am glad I have finally found a site where I can discuss the immoral teachings of Christianity and how unplausible God is. Thanks for reading. I will have more as I have more time to write.