What did/would it take for you to reject religion?

In My Humble Opinion
1

For both those that are religious and those that formerly were: what would/did it take for you to reject your religion?

Many nonbelievers say that religion isn’t supported by scientific evidence and/or that existing scientific evidence undercuts or contradicts religion. And while many believers counter that it does not or that science is itself a religion, I believe in many cases what’s overlooked is that believers tend not to have arrived, in my experience, at their religious beliefs as a result of careful scientific study in the first place. And to many believers, they see no contradiction in science. Also, many believers simply view science as answering the ‘how’ mechanics of reality but not the ultimate ‘why’ of first order (such as big bang, etc.) so they co-exist comfortably in their minds.

In my own case, I rejected my religion not due to scientific evidence as much as because of what I noticed among believers I grew up around to be an apparently increasing degree of red-faced defensiveness, apoplectic rage, refusal to honestly debate or discuss the details of religious teaching, close-minded thinking, political extremism, rabid partisanship directly tied to the religion, behavior that bordered on obsessive compulsive, and a rabid hostility towards rational dissection and discussion of religious tenets that put them into question; all of which, taken together, indicated to me a deep insecurity on the part of the believers that I was around in my church and private school. Why so insecure and angry?

The other group in my circle of believers were those that weren’t angry but grew glassy-eyed when discussions got complex and just sort of wandered away from self-examination with a mumble of “well, god works in mysterious ways…”. Not exactly the type of attitude that engendered respect in me. To the contrary.

Ultimately, both of these attitudes caused me to step back and look at religion from more of a distance historically, socially, psychologically, and in terms of cultural anthropology so to speak…and ultimately reject it as basically a cult that was merely struggling for its own existence and continued relevance while the effectiveness of its indoctrination slowly fell apart (for me) under its own weight, defensiveness, and hostility to questioning. So, that’s my story.

What would cause you, as a believer, to reject your religious beliefs? Not just your particular church or practice but your entire religious belief?

And for those that used to believe and rejected religion, what caused it to happen for you?
Mods: I don’t know if this is Great Debates or not so please move to the appropriate forum if it isn’t. Thanks.

2

Rejected, after watching the movie Ghost, though I’d been leaning in the “reject” direction for some time before.

3

Really? That’s interesting, can you expound?

4

Experience, I guess. After seeing a fair amount of random shit happen, it seems that whatever algorithms (or lack thereof) which generate the world don’t match up too well with the notion of a benevolent, intercessory, moral creator. There’s also something kind of narcissistic and petty about most of the theologies I come in contact with - with humanity (or ‘my’ subset of humanity) being god’s primary concern, and the rest of the universe just a barely relevant stage set.

Moving on to religion as a social construct - I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it was an evolutionary step in human consciousness. I suppose it might even be possible to make a pragmatic choice to endorse a given religion based on community and morality, and to accept it’s deity as a proxy for the unknown, unknowable or insanely complicated.

I don’t know that I’d say I was ever really a believer, even though I had a fair amount of religious education as a kid.

I haven’t seen Ghost

5

Thanks. I agree with the subset of humanity part too. My mom sometimes will narrowly avoid some accident and then claim prayer helped. That always seems to me to imply – well, what about the other person who had an accident? They didn’t pray hard enough? Or it was meant to happen? And if it was meant to happen anyway, then what good would prayer do? It seems so self-centered.

Religion as a proxy for the unknown is a fascinating notion. Sound reasonable.

6

The only reason I can see myself rejecting religion would be internal, not external. Currently, I define myself as a believer of a certain sort. Could I go through certain psychological changes that would force me to rexamine my self-definitions? It’s possible. Could they cause me to lose or redefine my faith? I don’t se why not. I like to think of my personality as monothilic, unalterable, but I know that that isn’t exactly how things work. People change, and so might I.

7

I was baptized and raised catholic, attended catechism, and was confirmed.

I remember in grade school, thinking how absolutely silly it was for the catholics to say that they were right about heaven, and all the millions/billions of folks in China and India were flat out wrong - and going to hell (or at least being deprived of heaven). Thought it ludicrous - and pompous - for people of any creed to act as tho they knew they were right - and were better than folks who thought differently, when they had no reason to think their beliefs any more well-founded than any other creed. Also thought that a god who would “punish” a perfectly well-behaved Buddhist or Hindu for acting and thinking consistent with his culture - just because he didn’t believe in a particular deity - seemed like a dick. So it seemed to me that either all of the religions were equally right, or equally wrong.

As I progressed through high school and college, it didn’t seem to me that religion was necessary for morality or anything else, and that science explained everything a heck of a lot better than miracles or “magic.”

So in short, at a young age I decided religion had a number of shortcomings, and then rather quickly I realized there was no “need” for a supernatural hypothesis.

8

I reject religions a lot. Every time the folks running that particular religion start to lie, cheat, and steal or hate in the name of Christ, I reject them. It happens a lot. It makes me angry, but judging them is not my authority. Following them is not my choice.

Now to make my reject my faith would be different. I don’t see it happening. Doesn’t mean I am beyond the reach of the things that take the faith of others, just that I don’t see it.

Tris

9

It was when the demons-spirits-whatevers were hauling away the soul of the recently-deceased bad guy. It occurred to me that basic dogma talked about this stuff being a “forever and ever” kinda thing and I felt sorry for the demons whose job it was to torment this guy for eternity (because, of course, anything less than eternity would be wimping out). What a lousy job that must be, I thought, plus it violated the laws of thermodynamics and it hit me how silly the whole idea was.

As I said, I’d been leaning that way for some time, but this was an epiphanic moment.

10

I’m not a believer, and even though most of my family are, some of whom are evangelicals, and even though I was raised to be religious about theistic faith, like Themenin, I don’t think I ever believed. Oh, I went to church and said the memorized prayers, but it never felt real to me so, thinking about it now, it was probably less of a rejection for me than never having accepted it in the first place.

Personally, I hold to the Sam Harris philosophy that theistic religion is dangerous, shouldn’t be tolerated, and that nothing good, ultimately, can come from it. Practically, however, I appreciate that I live in a world with folks who hold to different philosophies, and it’s not my mission, responsibility, or right to make their lives miserable, nor to enlighten them, the dichotomy of which probably makes me a hypocrite.

11

There are just so very, very many incongruities. I want to believe in God, Really, I do. I think it would be just super to know that there’s a loving father figure in the sky who has a plan for all of us and wants to give us everlasting life just because he loves us. But I simply cannot bring myself to believe it. It’s just so obviously not true.

12

I’m coming to this as a Jew, not a Christian, and it’s very different. My belief system has very little to do with my religion. I accept most of the traditions and rituals, because I find that they give me strength and sustain me. I don’t think there is anything that would turn me from that.

Example: My prayers are almost always answered. I pray for the strength to do what I must do, and I’ve always been granted that strength. I pray for the patience to face what I must face, and I’ve (usually) been granted that patience. My prayer is not about some great Father figure in the sky, but about my life here, and I find that coming out of prayer, I have a serenity, even if I was fraught and frustrated before beginning prayer.

Example: When my mother died, traditional Jewish mourning practices were a great stength to me. Do I think my mother is in some heavenly paradise? I don’t know, I think probably not, I think probably death is oblivion. But the rituals and the traditions, and the knowledge that I was doing what my ancestors and their ancestors had done going back at least to rabbinic times, gave me the strength to deal with the mourning process.

So, I don’t think religion is necessarily about God, or about blind adherence to what the politicians at the head of the church/synagogue say, but I find religious tradition is stengthening for me. I guess it’s the same sort of feeling you might have after voting in a national election; you know that your vote doesn’t matter when up against the zillions of dollars used to finance campaigns, but you feel ennobled by voting anyway.

13

I have no idea what would cause me to have a complete loss of faith. I feel something internally which leads me to believe that there is something greater, something Divine. I don’t worry too much about quantifying it so I’m not too put off by the clumsy attempts of men to define it, make rules for it or fail to debate it properly. So until I feel my own connection that that Power severed, until I feel that it no longer touches me and helps strengthen me, I don’t see myself losing faith entirely.

14

I was raised Catholic (and that’s go-to-church-every-week/go-to-Catholic-school Catholic, not Christmas-and-Easter Catholic).

It’s going to sound silly, but the thing that first started me away from it was masturbation. Specifically, that the Church actually considered that it had the power to tell people not to do it. Also the idea that the Church could keep two people who love each other from marrying (straight people, at that!) because of different religions, or infertility. It just inflamed me that anyone would allow an outside entity to dictate to them about that sort of thing. That was the thing that actually caused my break from the Church.

I always have had a problem with authority…

15

I don’t remember a specific moment when, as Michael Scott might say, “I had an epiphery.” But by age ten I found I had no religious beliefs. I think it just goes against my nature. There are lots of things that would be comforting to believe in, but I just can’t without any evidence. So maybe a lot of our discussions on this topic come down to basic personality differences.

16

I appreciate your answer, but have one question regarding your use of the word “granted” to describe the result of your prayers. The way you describe your practices, it seems to me like you are receiving various benefits from ritual, tradition, meditation, etc. But to say that your prayers are “granted” seems to necessarily imply that some other party is acting in response to your prayers. So I’m confused when you later say you don’t think religion is necessarily about God.

If it is not God who is granting your prayers, who is it? And if it is simply you growing and becoming stronger as the result of the activity you term prayer, then mightn’t some other work serve better than “grant?”

Please accept that I mean no disrespect in posing these sincere queries. I have long had some confusion over the distinction/overlap between various cultural and religious aspects of Judaism. In fact, when my wife and I were researching various “faith communities,” we felt that our life approach had a great deal in common with Judaism. Unfortunately, the rabbi we were speaking with at the time said at least some belief in a God was pretty much required… :wink:

17

Organized religion seemed to be mostly for the benefit of the organizers.

18

Me, too.

I haven’t exactly rejected my faith, but I’m no longer a devout Catholic. As a child my biggest problem with the faith was the idea that people who didn’t believe in God would not go to heaven. Even at that age the idea seemed incredibly petty. Why wouldn’t a just God judge us by our acts, rather than whether we thought He was real or not? As I grew older, I could never reconcile the idea of an afterlife with the idea that we are born and die only once. Some people are born in terrible situations; some are born with things handed to them on a silver platter. The child who grows up to be a drug addict might have grown up to be someone different, given the right circumstances. I just think it’s horribly unfair to condemn someone to eternal suffering based on less than a century of living. Now, as an adult, this is all compounded by my disagreement with a lot of the Vatican’s policies on numerous issues (abortion, homosexuality, masturbation, celibacy, etc).

I’ll still answer “Catholic” if questioned about my religion, but in reality I lean heavily towards agnostic.

19

I suppose that the use of the word “granted” implies some external power rather than internal power, but I didn’t intend that, I intended ambiguity: I don’t know whence the source of the inner strength.

I think that most organized religious leaders (rabbis, priests, etc) will say that some belief in higher power is required. Certainly within Judaism, there has been serious debate because some sects (humanistic Judaism) deny the existence of God, and the question is whether the other sects can recognize them as “truly Jewish.” However, Dinsdale, if you find your life-style has much in common with Judaism, and if you think you would derive strength and growth from being involved with a “faith community” (whatever that means), then my suggestion would be that you study Judaism some more, and see whether it really does fit your needs.

Once you ARE Jewish (by birth, say) belief in God is up to you as an individual; you’re Jewish regardless: Can you be an atheist and still be Jewish?. If you’re looking to convert formally, however, then the rabbi doing the conversion will have a great deal to say about your declaration of accepting the commitment.

20

I was also raised Catholic and attended Catholic school straight through high school.

I originally rejected Catholicism for a variety of reasons–the Church’s stand on birth control, the infallibility of the Pope, their view that sex is a sin unless engaged in for procreation (and then only by married couples), etc.

But the day I completely lost any belief in a supreme being is still etched in my mind. About 20 or so years ago, I read a news story about a church group returning from a day trip to an amusement park. A drunk driver slammed into their bus, causing an explosion and fire that consumed almost all the passengers (mostly children).

These were people who had dedicated their lives to worshiping God and Jesus Christ, only to die in the most excruciatingly painful way possible. At that point, it became clear to me that if such a horrible thing could happen to God’s most fervent disciples, then obviously such a being could be neither omnipresent nor omniscient, to say nothing of all-powerful. And if he is none of those things, then surely he doesn’t deserve the dedication and fealty demanded by him. Rather than believe that such a malevolent being could exist, I came to the conclusion that he surely must not exist, and that things happen randomly with no “plan” at all.

I know I will probably receive many responses about “questioning God”, “God’s plan”, “free will”, and so forth. Sorry, I can’t accept any of that.