What made you become athiest?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Like most here, it was not a sudden thing for me to begin to doubt. I was raised Catholic (my parents still go to mass every week), and I remember looking around at people as we recited prayers by memory. I remember thinking, “can they mean what they are saying? They don’t even look like they’re paying attention to what they are saying!” I started to realize that at least some of the people where there because they knew they should be there, not because they believed in what was going on. I thought maybe they were there for the sermon, but as I kept paying attention, I realized that most of them just kind of sat through the sermon with a bland look on their faces.

This was all while I was 10 or younger, I don’t remember the exact age. I do remember speaking with my parents about it, and they got all anxious and started sending me to CCD. Again, as other people experienced, I started finding contraditions in the bibile and thinking that the stories being told from the bible were not too different that those I would read in my Dad’s library. (He had, at the time, a damned fine Fantasy and SF library. Parts of the bible read much like vintage Tolkein!) I endured, but was not a popular pupil in my CCD classes. I’ve always asked too many unpopular questions.

Then around 12 I started to realize that I was gay, though I did not have the words for it. Mind you, I always knew I liked boys more than girls, but I started to find out that I was the only one who did (or so I thought). That began several long years of prayer and fasting and self abuse (and I don’t mean the euphamistic way). I kept praying for god to take this curse away from me, to make me normal. I cried myself to sleep many a night praying as hard as a young teenager can. Going to Catholic school (6th grade through high school) did not help any, and in fact probably gave me the tools to really critically examine my faith.

Needless to say it didn’t work, and sometime around age 18, I made the final pact with god: cure me or I forsake you. When I wasn’t “cured”, I turned my back.

I’ve grown up a lot since then. (I’m 35 now.) I have realized that there is no need for a “cure.” I have realized that I never really believed in god, but never really disbelieved either. I’ve engaged in discussions regarding god and religion many times since leaving Catholicism, and find I am generally more well versed in the bible and the mythology of the church than those I discuss with. This I find to be perplexing, but not really my problem. It does not, however, cause me to have a lot of faith in their “answers.”

I find I can no more force myself to believe in god than I can in purple flying elephants. How does one simply choose to believe in something? What, you keep saying “I believe” over and over again until you convince yourself that you do? I don’t get it. And therefore, while I guess some would call me agnostic or soft atheist, I prefer to think of myself as someone who does not need a god in his life. I’ve come to understand the universe and my place in it without needing to resort to superstition or the supernatural. I’m at peace with the universe. Because of that, even when my parents insist in making me to go to church, or when a friend or relative decides to have a church wedding, it’s easy for me to attend, enjoy the trappings, and let all of the believers do their thing while I sit back and enjoy what there is to enjoy.

-JOhn (long winded).

42

No one in my family is particularly religious. We used to get together on the Jewish holidays, but it was mostly an excuse to eat and socialize. I’ve only been inside the temples for weddings and bar mitzvahs (again, eating and socializing). I was raised without religion and I have never felt the need for it. When I think about religion as we know it, it seems silly to me.

43

Non-religious is my original state. My parents aren’t overtly religious, but my paternal grandmother is rather religious. I had a children’s bible and all that, but it was never more than stories. It never gave me better or more convincing answers to anything than what I figured out for myself or learned through my parents/books/academic education.

44

I think everyone is born an atheist. You acquire religion, usually through constant exposure when you’re too young to be critical. If you need it, it lasts - if you don’t need it, you’ll probably give it up.

In my case, my parents (both at least somewhat religious) didn’t make any real attempt to teach me to be religious, and so I never acquired it. Belief in god makes about as much sense to me as belief in unicorns. They’re the same thing, in my book: cute ideas intended to make people feel better that some people take waaaaaaaay too far.

But, hey, if you need it, use it - that’s always been my philosophy. As long as your faith in whatever god (or mythological creature) you choose doesn’t make you overtly hateful or oppressive to others, and as long as you don’t try to shove your religion or its tenets down my throat, I’m all for you being religious. I just can’t make myself believe something that seems so silly and nonsensical.

45

First of all, I think it’s as folly to say “God doesn’t exist” as it is to say “God exists”. It presumes a Knowing, when I don’t think it’s possible to Know.

For me, the revelation came very early, about 12 or so. The trouble with religion is that it doesn’t take into account Human Nature.

Think about this…a small child is told to believe in Allah, in Islam. He believes what he is told. Over years of training, his belief becomes knowledge, then years later, conviction. Nothing can shake this conviction because it’s too deeply ingrained.

But yet, the Christians were telling me that my Islamic brothers were gonna burn in Hell for their beliefs. Even at the tender age of 12, that didn’t seem fair to me. What kind of God was this supposed to be? To punish people for being mistaken in their honest convictions?

The Islamic people are just as honest and sincere in their beliefs as their Christian brothers. Why burn in Hell for being Mistaken?

I just shook my young head, and thought, “This can’t be.” Later exposure to Jesse Helms, David Duke, and their awful brethren didn’t help. Who would want to spend eternity with a bunch of monsters?

46

When did I decide to become an atheist ?

The day I learned what Lukemia was.

47

My parents did not take us to church. When I was seven, a bus came to our neighborhood, and the kids said - “They’re showing a movie!” So I went in. Actually, it was a movie about Christianity and they were seeking converts. I don’t really remember the movie, except when it was over I remember thinking - that doesn’t make any sense. People who believe in Jesus never die? Everybody dies. Like many others who have posted, I never believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny either. So the short answer is, I did not become an athiest, I just always was. My religious sister says faith is a choice and I disagree. I don’t chose what I believe or don’t believe. Belief is that little voice in your head that says “That makes sense!” or in the alternative says “What a load of horse pucky!” It is within that little voice that belief or atheism resides. At least that’s what I think.

48

I would like to believe. I really would. I spent a lot of time in churches in my youth. I wanted to feel what everybody else said they were feeling. Wanted it badly. Some kind of connection to God, perhaps a sense of belonging…something. Anything.

But there was nothing. I came to the realization that either there was no God or God wanted nothing to do with me.

Both amount to pretty much the same thing…

49

Is it yourself, or someone close to you? Either way, I hope it will (or has?) all work out ok. It might even work out for the best, in other things in life. Good luck

{{{HUGS}}}

50

When I was 9 my father and his second wife converted to mormonism. Since I lived with them, I converted too. I was as deeply religious as a boy that age can be. The mormon church holds that they are the only church on earth with a living prophet at it’s head and there is only one living prophet at a time. At the age of 19 boys are expected to go on a 2-year mission to seek out converts at their own family’s expense. Everyone is expected to give 10% of their life’s income to the church and volunteer a lot of time in church positions. (They have no paid clergy, every male member over the age of 12 holds the priesthood.)

Two years later we moved to Provo, Utah so my father could finish college at BYU (mormon church College. )Provo is the epicenter of mormonism. My father’s second wife blossomed into a raging religious fanatic and threw myself and my younger sister out of the house in favor of her 3 daughters. She was crazy and the religious zealotry was just part of it. I was adopted by another convert family in Provo, also zealots.

After highschool I joined the army in part to escape from the narrow confines of a religious society, with the excuse that I could save money for a few years to finance my church mission. During that time I met people of different beliefs who were good, honest people. I studied lots of religious beliefs, read all of Joseph Campbell’s (among others) works, and came to the conclusion in my early 20s that mormonism couldn’t be God’s Only True Church ®.

I always had a strong respect for learning, knowledge and science. After rejecting mormonism and deciding not to make up my mind about what I can’t prove or disprove, I guess I’m a weak atheist. Sometimes I still like to think that the spirits of my ancestors are watching over me.

51

That is very thoughtful of you, mnemosyne. I suppose my post was a little vague. I have not had to cope with this disease on a personal level.

When I was younger, my mother told me how her chorale used to sing for children in hospitals. She told me why the children were there and ever since then, whenever I think of religion, I think of children “dying for the sins of mankind” - I don’t care for that kind of god.

52

well, i was stuck being athier for a long time…

i slay me.

53

I’m glad then, that you don’t have to face it yourself, or through someone else close to you. My best friend had CML at 15, and I remember being terrified about it. She’s in remission now (age 20) and is in her third year of a nursing degree. Her time in the hospital made her choose her career, hence my comment about it working out for the best.

WEll, since I’ve gone and hijacked this thread a little, let me jsut respond to to OP as well:

I just always was an athiest, as far as I’m concerned. My parents weren’t church goers, and although their and mine’s basic morals stem from Christisnity (but then, the same morals follow in many religions) and I am baptised Catholic, it was never a big thing in my family. The only times I’ve been to church have been with friends or relatives that are religious, or funerals, and I can count those times on one hand. In school, I didn’t have any kind of religious instruction until I changed schools in grade 4 - at the time I took the Protestant class, but never felt comfortable because it was all just stories that didn’t make all that much sense to me. The whole concept of God, Jesus and all those other stories (Genesis, Noah’s ark, etc) was just too bizarre. So I just never believed in any one religion. I suppose I have taken bits and pieces of many religions and turned them into my own beliefs, but I’d be hard pressed to classify them.

On the other hand, my sister is fairly deeply religious, and was never prevented from becoming so. I think she’s actually Baptist now (I don’t really know for sure). Her turn to religion came after she started having leg problems when she was 13-14 - it took about a year and a half of her barely being able to walk and of having swollen knees and ankles before the Doctors were able to identify her disease as being a form of juvenille arthritis. During that time she turned to her then and current boyfriend, and his religion, and I guess she found comfort in it. She hasn’t totally given up on the “scientific” side of things - I think she still believes in evolution, but with God playing a role in it.

I think my brother is agnotstic/athiest - though I can’t imagine him ever deciding on a religion. For him, it’s just an unanswered question, and thats it. My parents hold some belief in GOd, although they don’t follow any particular religion. My mom has some contempt for the Catholic church, due to her eductation. Her parents raised her telling her she could do anything she wanted to do, and the nuns at school were telling her she had to learn to cook, clean and sew in order to take care of a husband and kids. As for my dad, he stopped attending church when he was 12 and his father died. Not all that unsurprsing, for a 12-year-old, and besides, he suddenly was the man of the house and had to work to help support his mother and four sisters.

Yeah. So thats enough from me. Next! :slight_smile:

54

**

Ain’t that the truth. I’m not atheist, but if one thing pushes me over to the other side of the fence, it is this fact.

55

I’ve been an atheist for as long as I can remember. My parents never gave me an religious instruction or a religious reason behind their general outlook. You were nice to people and charitable because that was right and just and good, no other reason being needed. When I was around six or seven, someone tried to explain God to me. I responded that I was too old to believe in monsters, and they should ask the teacher (Preschool, I think). My ensuing education in religion was the bedrock of my continuing atheism.