NFL star running back Arian Foster reveals he's an atheist

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In a league where many of his teammates and those around him are people of faith, Houston Texans running back Arian Foster has revealed to ESPN the Magazine he is an atheist.

“I get the devil-worship thing a lot,” Foster tells the Mag in an upcoming issue. “They’ll ask me, ‘You worship the devil?’ ‘No, bro, I don’t believe there’s a God, why would I believe there’s a devil?’ There’s a lot of ignorance about nonbelief. I don’t mean a negative connotation of ignorance. I just mean a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge, lack of exposure to people like me.”

Foster tells The Mag’s Tim Keown he’s not trying to get any of his teammates or anyone else for that matter “on his side.”

“If a loving, kind Christian, Muslim or Jewish person can’t accept a different vantage point, there’s just nothing I can do about it,” Foster says. “I have no ill will toward religion or religious people. I have no quarrels. Believe what you 
want to believe.”

In a rather poignant portion of the interview, Foster talks about the common refrain among his peers about consistently “having faith.”

“Faith isn’t enough for me,” Foster said plainly. “For people who are struggling with that, they’re nervous about telling their families or afraid of the backlash … man, don’t be afraid to be you. I was, for years.”

Foster recently suffered a groin injury that drew the indirect ire of the team’s owner Bob McNair.