I must have been asleep at the switch on Friday because I totally missed Jim Adams’ Friday Faithfuls challenge. It was about religion and the challenge was for us to write anything about religion.

Jim warned us that religion can be a very touchy subject for many people, so he asked anyone who responds to this prompt to be respectful of others. I will respect Jim’s wishes.

I am an atheist. Since Jim provided the symbols of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, I thought I’d provide what is generally considered to be a symbol that represents atheism.

But just because there is a generally accepted symbol for atheism, as there are for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, atheism is not, as many religious people like to claim, a religion. Atheism has no holy books or holy grails. Atheism has no dogma, no rituals, no churches or temples, no tithes, no prayers, no hymns, no rules, no hierarchy.

The only thing atheists have in common is that we do not believe that a supernatural, ever-present, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God exists. Period. End of story.

I believe that man created God in his image. I believe that Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others who worship God, made up God in the same way that Greeks and Romans, for example, made up Zeus and Jupiter and all the other gods they believed in.

Most atheists are not militant in our belief about the non-existence of God. It doesn’t rule our lives. We just think of it as mythology and if people wish to embrace a mythology, if it helps them get through the days, or floats their boats, that’s fine with us.

But what is not fine with us is how many religious people seem to believe that atheists are a bad, sad, miserable, immoral, lost lot. They feel sorry for or pity us because we have lost our way; we have strayed from the path of righteousness. They can’t understand how we can be moral individuals if we don’t believe in God or an afterlife. It’s so sad that we can’t or won’t allow ourselves to bask in the glory that is God, or to accept Jesus as our savior. Which is why they want to “save” us. How magnanimous of them.

Or if they don’t feel sorry for us and want to “help us see the light,” they become very angry at us when we decline their offer. How dare we question their beliefs? How do we have the audacity to suggest that the Bible isn’t “The Truth,” and that God didn’t create us in his image, or that we evolved from monkeys?

By the way, no atheist ever said human beings evolved from monkeys. We generally accept the evolutionary theory that humans and apes have a common ancestry. And that also means we reject creationism, euphemistically dubbed “intelligent design.” Personally, I have no objection to the teaching of creationism/intelligent design in churches or religious schools. But I do object to teaching it as a science. It’s not science, it’s religion.

I could go on and on about the number of wars that have been fought and lives lost in the name of God or in defense of specific religions. But I think I’ll stop now. I’ll just say that if you believe in God, have faith in God, and accept the teachings of your particular religion, I’m happy for you. All I ask of you is to be happy for me for believing differently than you.