Why I Am Not a Theist

The Road Beyond Belief by Astraea

Part One: The Beginnings

There was no lightning bolt moment—no grand revelation that turned me away from belief. I simply never had it to begin with.

As a child, I went to church with my parents regularly. I sat through the songs, the sermons, the rituals—but none of it ever felt true to me. It wasn’t rebellion. It just didn’t make sense. The stories, the rules, the invisible presence watching and judging—it all felt like something outside myself, a narrative that others clung to but that never reached me.

Interestingly, my mother was firm about not teaching us to believe in Santa Claus. She thought it was wrong to lie to children. And as far as I can remember, I never believed in him either. Perhaps that shaped my skepticism early on—the quiet certainty that just because people believe something doesn’t make it real.

In my late teens, I did try. I explored many different religions, open to the idea that maybe one of them would resonate, that maybe I just hadn’t found the “right” one yet. But nothing ever stuck. The symbols, the language, the metaphysics—it always felt like reaching for something outside the world I knew. Something that didn’t feel necessary.

Nature, on the other hand, always made sense. The way wind moves through trees. The way rain turns barren soil into a sea of green. The fierce, quiet wisdom of ecosystems. I never had to believe in nature. I could see it. Feel it. Stand in awe of it.

And I still do.

Part Two: Moral and Intellectual Grounds

One of the strongest reasons I’m not a theist is moral. The idea that we need a god in order to be good doesn’t hold water. If that were true, humanity would’ve self-destructed long ago. Kindness, empathy, and cooperation existed long before scripture—and they exist in people who’ve never believed a day in their life.

In fact, what I see in most organized religion isn’t moral clarity—it’s moral distortion. For all the talk of love and salvation, there’s an awful lot of hatred in the details. Hatred of women. Hatred of each other. Hatred of gay people, trans people, people who believe differently, or not at all. The amount of harm justified in the name of “God’s love” is staggering.

And then there’s the intellectual dishonesty. The willful rejection of science and history. The insistence that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, that evolution didn’t happen, that climate change is a hoax. Religion, in many ways, was the original Fake News—a system designed to control people through fear, obedience, and misinformation.

I don’t need a divine rulebook to tell me what’s right. And if the god in that rulebook behaves worse than most people I know? That’s not a god I could ever respect, let alone worship.

Part Three: Meaning Without Theism

I don’t need a god to give my life meaning. I find meaning in every breath I take. In the glow of a sunrise, in the hush of twilight, in the way wind moves through trees. In every moment that reminds me: I’m alive, and this world is extraordinary.

Love gives my life shape. So does beauty. So does kindness. I feel awe every day—not from sacred texts, but from the quiet miracle of existence itself. The way life fights to survive, to connect, to grow. The way people carry on through pain. That’s holy to me.

I especially feel drawn to those who’ve been cast aside: the less fortunate, the ill-treated, the refugee, the person struggling to find themselves in a world that tells them not to. The ones dealing with mental illness, physical illness, trauma. I feel love for them not because of religion, but because I recognize their humanity. Their sacredness.

Sometimes, I think if Jesus were a real person, this is what he would have cared about, too. Not rigid belief systems. Not political dogma. People. The hurting, the lost, the ones society forgets. And on my better days, I think I might be more Christ-like in spirit than many who claim to follow him.

Not because I believe in divinity.

But because I believe in dignity.

Part Four: Compassion for Believers

I understand why people believe. Life is hard, unpredictable, and sometimes cruel. If believing in a higher power gives someone comfort, helps them sleep at night, or eases their pain—who am I to take that away? Compassion, to me, means recognizing that we all need something to hold onto. For many, that’s God.

Most of my family believes in the big “Sky Daddy,” and honestly? That’s okay. Live and let live. As John Lennon once said, “Whatever gets you through the night.”

But for me, personally, the idea of living this one wild, beautiful life just to obsess over the next one feels like a loss. There’s something heartbreaking about clinging to an afterlife so tightly that you miss the life you’re actually in.

I don’t need to fantasize about heaven to feel joy. I don’t need to fear hell to be decent. I think it cheapens life to frame it as a test, or to belong to a belief system that’s more focused on death than on living.

This life, right here—this is enough.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t come to this place through bitterness. I came to it through observation, through experience, through love. I’ve walked through churches, temples, forests, deserts—and what stayed with me wasn’t doctrine. It was the wind. The silence. The humanity.

I’m not a theist because I don’t feel the need to be. I don’t fear divine punishment or crave divine reward. I’m here to live this life as fully, kindly, and honestly as I can. To find awe in nature, meaning in love, and strength in compassion.

If that makes me misguided in someone’s eyes, so be it. I’d rather be grounded in reality than suspended in promises I can’t see.

I’m not here to convert or condemn. Just to say: this is who I am. And for me, that’s more than enough.