what is it that caused you to become an atheist?
25 posts in this topic.
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The reason I became an atheist is actually pretty ironic. I read the Bible, out of curiosity because it bothered me that I was born into a religion but didn't actually know much about it since my family never went to church. And I was HORRIFIED! I hated the messages that the Bible sent. I didn't like the idea that if you weren't a believer in Jesus, then you should convert or be killed. God seemed like a jerk to me. I don't mean to offend anyone because everyone thinks of God in a different way; this was just how I felt. So now I'm atheist, but no one actually knows because I live in a really religious community.
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I am agnostic, grew up under a series of Cherokee ideas and stories. never really had a proper religion. I was raised to learn as much as I can, and question everything I am told. Resulting in my rather open mindedness as far as possibilities go. There is a possibility for everything. Don't take anything at face value, because just about any fact can change when new information pops up. Question everything, and treat every possibility as a possibility.
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Well, my dad is a total Atheist, and so is my mom. But at around ten I started to think about religion and my grandmother (my dad's mom) talks about God ALL the time. She was starting to get to me and I have to admit I believed for a whole two years that God was real.
But now, I've thought about a lot, read things online, talked to my dad, and I've decided for myself that God isn't real. My parents let me believe whatever I want to (religion wise), but they're not going to stop saying things against God if I believed in him.
Lately, I've been thinking about an afterlife though. Not seriously, but enough to make me wonder. I'll admit that it scares me to think about just dying and being consumed by darkness, but I don't let that sway me in from what I believe in. -
The simple realization that life isn't spiritual, nor does it have a higher meaning. We're simply socially intelligent animals, that's all.
Like most here, I was raised religiously, but I determined it to be nonsense that a being so advanced and ascended would bother coming up with these stupid plans to test humanity and whatnot.
To me, religion is simply an instrument, a social tool, to keep in check those it needs to keep in check. -
Meh, I guess it's because I wasn't raised in a very religious family. My parents had both gone to church when they were children, but, though they didn't hate it, they didn't get much out of it, and didn't see any reason why I had to go either. So I was never really raised in a religious kind of environment. Besides, I have always felt that I don't need any form of religion. Science, to an extent, has been my religion. Science has answered my questions, made me eager to learn more, made me curious about the world and its workings, and has been my main focal point of interest. Science has been my comfort, my point of strength, and my fascination. My emotional security and morals have not been lacking without religion, either; I have a strong sense of morality and justice, also brought about from what my parents have taught me, and I don't feel the need to have something giving me confidence that I have a purpose, as I believe I can make my own purpose through my actions. As such, I've never felt the need for religion, or any form of belief in the existence of a higher deity, in my mind, and so I'm largely an atheist. I am an agnostic - I believe the science definitely can accept and contain the possibility of a god, as it accepts most any theory given to it if ample evidence is provided in favor of the theory - but I'm atheist, and that's more or less because of the environment in which I have been raised.
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Being in a Christian home. Nothing more, nothing less. You grow up in one and you see the most flaws in it. Sometimes I think most atheists were made that way--Louis C.K (an agnostic I think), Bill Maher, and George Carlin, the Christians/Catholics make their own enemies. That's what you get when you try to force belief down someone's throat, I suppose.
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I know it's been months and my situation is slightly typical but I've finally given up on the one strand of religion I had left.
1. In the first place, I never really went to church, not even when I was a little kid. My mom grew up in a very strict Catholic family and my father in a Christian family. His family didn't follow a specific branch, they just believed in God. My mom's own philosophy is that churches were built by men but the world, the outside was built by God. Therefore you can pray anywhere and still be faithful to God.
2. I wasn't Baptized because I was born during hurricane season in Florida. My mom didn't really believe in going to a physical church and you can't find Catholic churches in the south so I never went to first Communion. (My family was originally from up north.) It continues like that for all things on the path, I never went to church so it never happened to me.
3. I lost faith slowly as I started taking more advanced science courses. With so much science to explain the world, I questioned how so many people believed in God. Then I took world history and wrote this super long essay about how no religion is unique. And sense they have been stealing off each other for years, the ideas in Christianity weren't really theirs. At this time, I also studied so many different religions and found them to fit my beliefs more.
4. Tradegy. I basically gave up on God because I went some parts of my life that felt like hell. The earliest example I can think of, my dog dying on my birthday. Super depressing for an 8 year old and at that point I gave up on religion. And then a bunch of other sad stuff happened and my emotions got worse and I hated God more.
5. There's more to this story than I've said but I shouldn't take up anymore time. -
Welcome then!
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You know what happened to me?
School and brains happened.
I realized that there is no god because of science and the Big Bang and because of people in poverty and depression and "If there is a God who truly loves everyone then why are those people in poverty or depressed?" -
Both of my parents are agnostic, so I was never taught religion. I'm not sure why, but I went to Sunday school for a few months, and in a way, I believed it, but I believed it in the same way I believed in the tooth fairy. The main reason for my belief was I wanted to be with dinosaurs when I died (I was in a dinosaur phase), which isn't really a belief at all. Now, even though I love fantasy, I'm skeptical of anything that can't be explained, so I'm a full blown atheist. I just don't believe in things (that sounds darker than it is.)
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