How did you become an atheist?

[rcpratt]

I was born too smart to believe there's a man in the sky.

 

[xSauronx]

Wouldn't people be born atheists? The only way that changes is for someone to convince you that there's a deity out there that you have to worship. Which one depends on where you're born.

more or less agreed, considering kids are indoctrinated from birth, more or less.

atheist after reading the bible and it sucking hard, and after reading about other religions, and after reading some books and articles

< grew up brainwashed, took some time to get out of it

 

[Lifted]

Thank God we have another religion thread. I was starting to suffer from withdrawal.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I went to a Christian Apologetics forum to understand better why my dad thought the Mormon's were "the biggest cult in the United States."

Wound up an atheist.

True story.

 

[Brigandier]

I used to think that bunnies and fat men gave me cool shiz, and at the same time I was told a man in the sky had a plan. The first two turned out to be false, and I questioned the third. The answer I got was, what is sheer dumb luck(coincidence) is what is called god.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

The turning point for me came in 4th grade. I went to Catholic gradeschool and during Science class evolution was being discussed. The nun made the statement that evolution couldn't possibly be true. I raised my hand and asked her why man couldn't have evolved from apes. Holy hell. You'd have thought I just reached out and tweaked both her nipples and then pissed in her habit. She gave me a steely, cold look and exclaimed tersely through clenched teeth "Because apes don't have souls."

Not only did I stop believing in religion and god right then and there, I also determined that all nuns had serious personal issues.

 

[Turin39789]

Doesn't apply to the first person that thought of said deity.

Yes it does, they just got to a certain age and realized the power/influence/money they could make with a fancy story.

 

[Kadarin]

Not only did I stop believing in religion and god right then and there, I also determined that all nuns had serious personal issues.

If they didn't have serious personal issues, they would have done something normal with their lives rather than become nuns.

 

[Kadarin]

My parents are Catholic and therefore they decided as I was going into high school that I should be enrolled in Catholic CCD classes. That experience threw a whole assload of religious indoctrination at me that just stopped making any rational sense and therefore I gave up on the idea of religion as hopelessly stupid and arbitrary.

 

[zinfamous]

I was born too smart to believe there's a man in the sky.

Fail!

That's a pic of "Big Brass Balls" Kittenger, by the way.

 

[Gibsons]

I went to a Christian Apologetics forum to understand better why my dad thought the Mormon's were "the biggest cult in the United States."

Wound up an atheist.

True story.

You were some flavor of christian before that?

 

[nanette1985]

My father's family is mennonite, my mother's family is episcopalian. When I was little my mother was very ill for many years, and I got sent to live with various and assorted relatives. Funny how they all had different religions - I quickly learned to keep quiet about religion and not take any of them seriously, since I wouldn't be there very long.

Since then, I haven't had any reason to change my mind and become "theist" in any way.

 

[InflatableBuddha]

after reading 10 of Malak's posts.

QFT :thumbsup:

 

[HAL9000]

I went to a christian school between ages 5-11, lovely school, great time. After that at my secondary school I studied "RE" for about 7 years, at age 16 I decided I was too old for the fairy tales and needed to decide for myself, so I set about studying which led me at age 18 to starting university and studying for a degree in philosophy I studied it for three years during which time I realised the question "does god exist" was about as reasonable as "does the easter bunny exist".

 

[Eli]

It took a lot of time and thought, nothing in particular spurred it on. I considered myself agnostic for a very long time.

I still do on some level, but lean strongly towards atheism now. I'm just too logical of a person. It just doesn't make any sense. At all.

First, the idea that we're in any way, shape or form "special" in this incomprehensibly vast universe is just plain laughable. It's like saying the Sun revolves around the Earth.

Second is science. I know that there are many religious people that believe in science, some perhaps even wholeheartedly. But in my opinion, it takes someone who does not think for themselves to not look at the mountain of evidence that basically shows we are not special.

Third is religion itself. Of all the thousands of religions that have existed in the last 100,000 years.. Have you picked the right one? If that doesn't make someone realize the absurdity of it all, nothing will.

Religion was created by humans to control other humans, and to try and explain things to the best of their ability at the time. It is not needed in a modern society.

Edit: I would like to add that my Dad, whom I lived with during my childhood, is very religious though not in a church type way. He basically has his own version of Christianity, which I find typical. Anyway, he essentially taught me how not to live.. Just like any good father should. Asking God for things clearly does not work for him, and I'm sure this had a big impact on my own beliefs later in life.. Though I'm sure I would have arrived at the same conclusion, it probably would have been a much longer, different road.

 

[Squisher]

Satan appeared before me when I was quite young. He came before me and offered many earthly delights to turn my back on the one true religion. He gave me marijuana and sins of the flesh. I turned and never looked back.

 

[Gibsons]

Satan appeared before me when I was quite young. He came before me and offered many earthly delights to turn my back on the one true religion. He gave me marijuana and sins of the flesh. I turned and never looked back.

Can you hook a friend up? I didn't get anything.

 

[zerocool84]

My parents are Catholic and therefore they decided as I was going into high school that I should be enrolled in Catholic CCD classes. That experience threw a whole assload of religious indoctrination at me that just stopped making any rational sense and therefore I gave up on the idea of religion as hopelessly stupid and arbitrary.

CCD is nothing. I went to Catholic school my whole life.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I was born an atheist just like every other person that has ever existed.

A better question would be "How did you become a theist?"

 

[HAL9000]

I was born an atheist just like every other person that has ever existed.

A better question would be "How did you become a theist?"

Theres no point in answering that, the answers are generally the same, "I became deluded" although in rare cases the answer is "I saw a man with magical lasers coming out of his eyes fly out of the sky and touch me with his penis"

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Not believing in invisible fairies is my default.

 

[sandorski]

As I learned about other cultures and religions, I realized there was no objective means to decide which one was right. They all proclaimed that all the others were wrong, so at least most religions had to be wrong. Seemed like a crapshoot to pick the One True Religion.

Then I learned some physics and biology.

Basically This. My path was long and meandering, but these issues is where I started to doubt my Faith. It just made no sense that the idea of "Righteousness" as described in the Bible existed in many other Religions(including even in non-Religions, like the Soviet Union), yet according to my Christian Faith they were just as bad as being Satanists. It was unjust to think they were all going to Hell when their values were the same and given various recognized Christian Leaders shenanigans, especially where Financial Fraud and Homosexual improprieties were concerned, it seemed unlikely that the Christian path was Special in any way shape or form. The fall back of, "We're all Sinners with Human faults", only worked for so long when those whom I respected for their strong "Holy" positions on key issues kept being proven to be doing the same things they railed so hard against.

Another issue regarded Passion for Belief. The argument was common, "Christianity is true and the Passion of its' followers was the Proof". Except that same Passion didn't just exist within Christianity, but is common within all Religion, even the ones deemed the most ridiculous(in the view of Christians). How could this be without the Holy Spirit? How could other Religions possibly believe in Miracles, like Healings or even Life Changing affects of Conversion(deliverance from Addiction for eg), which were as authentic as what Christians touted? Again the Fall Back position(s), such as believing they are merely tricks of Satan put into place to deceive Christians, began to make no sense whatsoever.

Other issues kept coming up where I became more and more disenchanted. For me the US Evangelical movement was the most direct Path to Truth, yet they were becoming increasingly Political. That fact alone didn't matter much, as I felt Christian Morals/Ideals would create the best outcome, but as that movement became further Politicized I started to see a disconnect between Biblical Teaching and that movement. The very Ideals spoken by Jesus himself were being ridiculed. Not just were these positions Wrong, from that perspective, but the reasoning behind them was so scantily based upon the Bible that they were a tangle of confused thought based upon a mountain of Assumptions with no Biblical backing. It became painfully obvious that Evangelicals were not influencing Politics, but that Politics had usurped control of Evangelicals. I think it was at this point that I fully began to realize there was no God guiding all I had been lead to believe in, that it was merely a farce of control.

Yet, it would be years before I truly became an Atheist.

 

[caddlad]

I refused to be assimilated. And I paid the $50 dollah atheist fee.

 

[SlitheryDee]

It took a lot of time and thought, nothing in particular spurred it on. I considered myself agnostic for a very long time.

I still do on some level, but lean strongly towards atheism now. I'm just too logical of a person. It just doesn't make any sense. At all.

I did this too, but now I think that I was just choosing what I considered to be the most defensible non-religious position. It was a mistake that also came from thinking in too absolute terms. My thinking was that I wasn't absolutely certain that there wasn't a God, so I must not be an Atheist. Going a bit further, it was obvious to me that no one could possibly be certain in either direction, so agnosticism is the only logical choice for anyone.

The breakthrough came when I realized that being an theist or atheist is about opinion rather than certainty (though I haven't found the theist who would admit that their faith was merely an opinion). I still know that it's impossible to know whether there is a God or not, but I'm an atheist because I know that if I had to guess I'd say there wasn't.

 

[sandorski]

The turning point for me came in 4th grade. I went to Catholic gradeschool and during Science class evolution was being discussed. The nun made the statement that evolution couldn't possibly be true. I raised my hand and asked her why man couldn't have evolved from apes. Holy hell. You'd have thought I just reached out and tweaked both her nipples and then pissed in her habit. She gave me a steely, cold look and exclaimed tersely through clenched teeth "Because apes don't have souls."

Not only did I stop believing in religion and god right then and there, I also determined that all nuns had serious personal issues.

I bet you can get that in Thailand. :hmm: