Take me down, take me down to the little white church, take me down, take me down, take me down, take me down to the little white church, take me down to the little white church, take me down to the little white church. Lyrics taken from http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/l/little_big_town/little_white_church.html.
  Because in a neutral atom, there are an equal number of positive protons and negative electrons. The equal number causes the charges to cancel out, making the net charge â¦ 0. An atom is made of positive protons and neutral neutrons in the nucleus, and negative electrons surrounding the nucleus.
Now it's time to get down to basics. The atomic number of an element, also called a proton number, tells you the number of protons or positive particles in an atom. A normal atom has a neutral charge with equal numbers of positive and negative particles. That means an atom with a neutral charge is one where the number of electrons is equal to the atomic number. Ions are atoms with extra electrons or missing electrons. When you are missing an electron or two, you have a positive charge. When you have an extra electron or two, you have a negative charge.