Former theists turned atheists: what arguments were most effective in turning you?

Great Debates
61

I was pretty hardcore Christian for I guess about a year around age 14-15. I needed an elective in 10th grade and everything was full except home ec and “bible history” (should’ve been called “church,” in retrospect), so I took bible history, thinking it was “the right thing to do.” I grew up in the bible belt, so I had always sort of had this vague notion of God, and believed in him, but unbeknownst to me at the time, my parents were atheists (they’re both from California), so I was never hardcore about it. God was something I sort of took for granted and yet never thought about at the same time, if that makes sense. That year I took bible class though, I became pretty hardcore for awhile. I started going to church twice a week with anyone who would go with me, started carrying around a bible and quoting it to people; basically just being an insufferable little shit. By the end of that year I had read the entire bible (some books several times) and was sniffing bullshit. The teacher told us a bunch of stories that I gobbled up, but later found out were urban legends from a book that I found at a comic book convention of all places. Examples were the “missing day theory” and the story of geologists drilling so deep they could hear people screaming in hell, etc.

Pretty much the same sense of “doing the right thing” that lead me to take the class in the first place lead me to believe that this “God” character was quite the bully. It was Hell that did it for me, in the end. I couldn’t accept that a loving God would refuse to prove his existence, and still burn one’s soul for eternity if he or she didn’t take it on faith.

I can’t say any atheist argument convinced me, because I had never heard one, nor had I (to my knowledge) ever met an atheist until quite awhile after deciding I was one.

62

One more. A former Catholic convert, to boot. Although I still consider myself a Catholic - just not a very good one.

63

Raised a casual Protestant, Disciples of Christ up until age ten, when my parents divorced and neither continued in the church, with some Southern Baptist exposure thereafter from my favorite grandparents. Did most of my Bible reading independently, in which I came to the perfectly-obvious-to-me conclusion that the NT was merely the best effort of ordinary men to recount an extraordinary event. It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I learned some people consider it the literal divinely-inspired Word of God, which I considered absurd. Still, I had no problem believing the crucifixion and resurrection happened, and therein lay our hope of salvation. And I found it humbling to accept that we aren’t masters of our fate, but rather dependent on God’s will.

Where all this fell through for me was when I went through a personal crisis and prayed to God to explain why this was happening. In part it was the familiar Problem of Evil, but, mostly, I just wanted to understand. What I realized, sitting in a nice Universalist church, was that what I thought of as prayer was really just the sound of one hand clapping. God couldn’t (or at least didn’t) answer the question. And thinking back on it, all the times I had thought God answered my questions, I had been the one supplying the answers based on what I thought God would say.

A few days later - it was winter - I was walking about the southeast corner of Central Park in New York City. I came upon one of those sublime, eerie images you might find in an art film. It was mid-afternoon and a large pond had formed a sheer, almost invisible layer of ice. A couple dozen seagulls were standing there, as if miraculously perched on the water. What was the difference, I wondered, between this flock and the average congregation of any church in America? Suppose these gulls raised their thoughts in unison to the skies above, would the Great Gull hear them? It was at this point that I had my epiphany. Of course, no amount of concentration by those gulls, nor the magnificent beauty of the scene, would bring the Great Gull into being. Voltaire said it best, when he observed that if God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Isn’t it time to admit we did?

I later learned better and deeper reasons to doubt. But this is where it started for me.

64

I was about 10 or 11, I think. I got home from catholic grammar school before my sisters from high school. My mom and I used to watch TV, Little House On the Prairie was popular.

The episode we watched one day was where Caroline was going to be alone in the farmhouse for a couple days. Weather turned this into weeks. She slipped and cut her leg, soon becoming quite infected and bulbous. She consulted the bible and read the part in Matthew where Jesus says, “If my right hand offend me, cut it off…” Caroline is next seen holding a big knife.

My mother chirps in and says, “Ugh. People get so many dumb ideas from that awful book.”

Now me, I’ve been going to catholic school since pre-school. I have never, ever heard things like this from the bible. Since humans didn’t bless us with the Internet yet, I decided to read the entire bible. Then another version, then another.

After reading this in its entirety, I found that is was historically fictional, based on bloody and violent fantasy and that this Yahweh guy was morally inferior to all humans. He is the largest asshole I have ever studied. I will say that over and over again. As I asked priests, nuns, lay people and family on passages that confused me, I never found an answer that either made sense or didn’t feel made up.

After that, I was agnostic before I graduated high school and through college I became atheist after learning about many other personal views of religions. People simply made up reasons and justified them to suit their own needs.

I learned about how evil the catholic church really is and was, especially in bigotry and education, (Ask Galileo Galilei if you ever meet him) in social classes and social differences, the murders which never ceased to end all based on hatred.

Soon later, after understanding the inaccuracies, the hatred, the real history that religion has caused and continues to cause, I am quite a vocal anti-theist. I used to feel sorry for believers-- especially when they make their leaps of logic, of education, how they confuse faith with trust, and how they really never “act” christian or catholic or any other religion, majority of people just say they believe in the hopes to get a free gift of everlasting happiness.

But on the other hand, without religions’ silly and archaic beliefs and the constant clutching on to ignorance that many people pull… we wouldn’t have any cool ghost stories, I suppose. :smiley:

65

I don’t believe there is sufficient evidence of a “one true God”. I find the certainty that God does not exist silly from the point of view of proving a negative.

There is a difference between not finding enough evidence for the existence of God and believing in the non-existence of God.

I take the child to look for the monster for two reasons. The first is that inquiry is how we figure out things and that’s an important lesson. The second is that labeling an experience is not the same as identifying it. We’ll go “check for the monster” so we can figure out what the child is experiencing.

What’s wrong with deciding that theism doesn’t compute based on years of inquiry over a broad set of belief systems?

66

We’re talking about belief, not certainty. You said:

“So I’m “spiritual” without a belief in a God, but I stop short of Strong Atheism because I think the belief in the non-existence of God is just slightly sillier than the belief in a “one true God”.”

You think the belief in the non-existence of God is just slightly sillier than the belief in a “one true God”.

So how is it you’re an atheist?

I know. But you think believing a magical being doesn’t exist is sillier than believing it does. I’m wondering how someone can come to that conclusion and be without belief.

67

I’m an atheist because I have no belief in a God. I reject Strong Atheism.

I never claimed to have no beliefs. Any system of reason requires axioms. (AFAIK) I just think our time is better spent on things we can discuss as shared experience. Life is too short to spend on binning stuff as impossible, and we’re not very good at that part anyway.

68

I’ll try this one more time: Why do you think "the belief in the non-existence of God is just slightly sillier than the belief in a “one true God”?

When I said:

“I’m wondering how someone can come to that conclusion and be without belief.”

I meant without belief in the existence of God/gods, not without belief in anything. I thought it was obvious,

69

I think for me it was the disconnect between the bible stories we got told at church (great stories, I have to say - lost tribes wandering in a desert, a city falling to an army of trumpets, seas parting, you know the sort of thing) and real life as I experienced it. My life was entirely without such supernatural elements *, and once I started wondering (age 8 or 9 or so) why that was, it wasn’t too long before I realised I didn’t actually believe the stories, and it was an equally short trip to the realisation that I didn’t believe in their central character either.

  • And has remained so.
70

It was after I realized that Santa Claus really doesn’t exist, when I was about 9 maybe? No big revelation, no catching my parents putting out presents, I just figured out “You know what? It can’t work this way. It doesn’t make sense.” and that was pretty much it.

71

Yep, that describes me. I was part of a small intensive study group toward the end of high school. The two issues I coulkdnt ever figure out were (i) why god would set things up the way we believed he did (ie, he created people just to torture them forever if they didn’t have a specific belief) and (ii) exactly what is and is not a sin. Later the problem of evil hit me pretty hard. I went off to college and left behind childish things.

72

You’re unfamiliar with the “difficulty” of proving the non-existence of something? I’d say it’s a little more difficult than proving a particular God is THE God.

73

Is it sillier to believe the Easter Bunny exists or to believe the Easter Bunny does not exist?

74

I don’t agree with that. In the case of what most describe as the “one true God”, He contradicts Himself in holy books, displays error when He is supposed to be omniscient, shows malice when He is supposed to be omnibenevolent, breaks physical laws showing His existence is impossible, etc. But my disagreement is irrelevant.

We’re not talking about proof, we’re talking about belief. Even strong atheists don’t necessarily claim to have proof that no gods exist. Likewise, theists don’t necessarily claim to have proof that any gods exist.

You said, "“the belief in the non-existence of God…”

I don’t see how an atheist finds another atheist’s belief that no gods exist sillier than a theist’s belief in a “one true God”, but I won’t ask for explanations anymore.
You may find the following helpful:

75

Two vastly silly options disengages my belief assignment software.

76

I don’t find someone’s belief silly, I find the belief in non-existence silly. People have all sorts of good reasons for believing things I consider silly.

If I dig a bit deeper, I guess it boils down to the fact that theists are often criticized for belief in something they can’t prove.

Personally I’d rather not commit to belief or disbelief unless it seems to improve my model of the world. Since a ton of people act as if they believe there’s a God (an assumption here for the sake of argument), I’d rather not commit to the position that there isn’t one.

That’s actually one of the stronger reasons over time that disappointed me about Christians in particular. The fundamental tenet of the Christian faith is that Jesus Christ is the path to God. Everything else seems negotiable.

But when I’ve faced people who claim they’re “Saved” with a simple question about testing their behavior, I’ve been shocked at the response. I ask them if Jesus Christ were standing there and you told him what you were thinking or he can see what you’re doing, “would he smile or frown”. And I’ve gotten with unbelievable ( :slight_smile: ) frequency, “that’s not the point”.

If they deny that fundamental tenet, there’s nothing left. And analogously, if an athiest believes in the non-existence of God, that seems to contradict what tends to be a position guided by empiricism.

77

You think it is vastly silly to believe that the Easter Bunny does not exist?

Ok…

78

I don’t understand the nit-pick. The belief in the non-existence of gods would have to be someone’s belief.

It’s irrelevant what some may criticize them for. What’s relevant is that belief in extraordinary things sans evidence and impossible things is irrational. Believing things like the Easter bunny doesn’t exist isn’t in the same “silly” camp as believing it does.

Disbelief is being without belief. I can think of a lot of beliefs that would “improve my model of the world” but I can’t force myself to believe in these things. I either find something credible or I don’t. I would assume you operate the same way.

I don’t think those that believe there is no God, Easter Bunny, invisible dragon in the garage have committed to anything.

I believe we live in a world without ghosts and goblins and other silly propositions based on empirical evidence.

79

It does seem pretty unlikely based on my experience.

There might be one somewhere. :slight_smile:

80

I take that back. It began earlier, when I was in 3rd grade. I noticed that the priest always gave me the same penance (3 Our Fathers and 3 Hail Marys) no matter what my sins were. I remember thinking there was something fishy about the whole thing. Just went downhill from there.