Hello everyone!
I am a newly confirmed atheist. I've spent a vast majority of my life wanting to believe. I tried to force myself into believing by attending churches with friends ( christian, catholic, seventh day adventist). When I was seven I made my mother take me to Sunday school, she really was opposed to the idea as she is a wiccan and therefore has a rather unfriendly view of bible people in general, however she let me go to make up my own mind about it. I've looked into (admittedly not very deeply) many other belief systems like buddhism., mormon, the rosicrutians and even scientology. However, none of these resonated with me. I have come to the conclusion that I simply cannot believe in things I cannot experience in the physical world.
My problem is this, now that I have admitted to myself that I am atheist I find myself leaning toward anti-theism, and I don't want to be a bigot. I have no problem with race, you could be purple with orange spots and I have no trouble with that, same goes for lesbians/gays and all other connotations of that, but when someone tells me they are Christian I automatically assume they're an idiot, If Muslim they're probably beating and raping and/or killing people. I know intellectually that not ALL of them are stupid or violent but with media and the internet I am seeing more and more of this represented. Anyway I suppose what I'm asking is has anyone else found this happening to themselves and if so how do you deal with? Is it simply a matter of avoidance? For example 'Don't read the comments section on an athiest YouTube video'.