To those who are atheist/agnostic and were raised religious - what made you change?

Question

I was raised moderately religious (liberal Muslim), and studied religion for years. For me, it wasn't so much an abandonment of Islam, but religion altogether - all as manmade myth, stories, and figments of order.

So for you - was there one thing that made you figure out that organized religion was all a bunch of BS? A rule that made no sense? An event in your life?

I'm curious!

Answer 1

The onset of reality. Honestly, I just realized how much religion contradicted science. I saw religion as an antiquated idea that tried to explain the unexplainable. Once science got out from under the control of religion, it flourished and started to push religion back into the dark corners of "the unknown", where it continues to kick and scream for every scrap of control it can get.

And I also couldn't accept a god that was so cruel, arbitrary and uncaring. Reading the OT, I know that this was a god with whom I wanted nothing to do. Even reading the NT, reading very closely, I wasn't that thrilled. If this is what god is, I want nothing to do with him.

That, and I met someone who was unapologetically athiest. I realized then that it was OK, I could be one too. I realized that being an athiest doesn't make you a satan worhiper who bites of the heads of babies. Most true athiests that I've met have been much better people than the rest. They just choose to accept responsablity for their own lives and live without superstition.

That being said, I do enjoy studying about mythology (in which category I include all religions.) I love the whole Jungian/Campbell view of it and what it tells us about who we are as a people. Neat stuff.

Answer 2

I was raised a Lutheran, but started reading philosophy and studying the bible. I lost faith in the Bible for a number of reasons. First, there was the passage where God told the Jews that they were his chosen people. Then, there was that whole virgin birth story. Then came the story of Job. So, I became an Atheist and got sick nd tired of Christians trying to convert me. And, I realized that Arheists had the same problem as Christians.
They both have closed minds.

Agnostics are open minded and are willing to believe what makes sense rather than to hang everything on a 2,000 year old book of fiction.

Answer 3

I was raised a protestant christian.
My parents would force me to go to sunday school as well as church every sunday.

After a while, everything began to start to be bullshit. Everything basically started to not make sense, when you begin learning about the evolution of the world, and theories such as darwinism, you begin to realize that hey, god didn't make the world in 7 days.

I think that religion is just crap because people didn't know how we were there, they needed a reason to live basically.

Now that modern science has begun to explain everything, how can you look toward religion and say, oh man, it's true?

Then there's problems in the world that make you wonder if God exists. If he did, would he let the war happen, would he let innocent babies die of heart problems, no. We all would be perfect, we would all have no problems.

If you ask me, I believe miracles are true, I believe in soul mates, the whole nine yards that there's someone or something looking over everything. Just jesus and ****, makes no sense.

Then I read the book "The DaVinci Code" and I honestly began to almost believe it, things that Dan Brown brought up, and theories that he said just began to make so much sense.

So that's just my opinion, hopefully that helps.

Answer 4

I was brought up Catholic, attended Sunday school and had my communion and confirmation. I haven't been to church since I was maybe 14, and I have never felt limited because I haven't been back. Maybe it was my family, not the holiest of people, or just the fact that I just didn't see the point of it anymore; the wonder that a child's conception of god and religion is far different than a teenager's or adult's. I believe in god and try to be as good as I can and that is all I need; also I think the abuses of the church and the blatant business atmosphere that it brings just made me lose any conception that it was worth my time. Good for you if you go to church, but I would rather live my life know, rather than be so overly concerned with the afterlife.

Answer 5

I was a practicing Christian for over thirty years. Reading the bible and studying history left me with no other logical choice.

God (Supreme Being type) does not exist in fact. And, the bible is a book of mythology.

I have posted several questions in this category that are the same questions I asked myself. And, if you read the answers, you should easily determine that God does not exist in fact.

If he existed, there would be common agreement amongst the answers. God is a figment of a person's imagination and is whatever a person claims him (it?) to be.

Atheism is the only logical choice.

Answer 6

Knowledge has a strange way of making so many things seem silly. Perhaps that is why the bible calls it "the tree of knowledge." Perhaps the old Jewish writers had it right...you cannot have too much knowledge and still have God in your graces...as in...you need no gods to be happy, live a good life, and face the unknown with bravery, no crutches, and no one to blame but yourself for all that goes wrong. Not a bad deal in the total scope of things, is it?

Answer 7

Being raised in a religion, or belonging to a religious group is not the same as being born again. There is as much difference as being religious person and a born again Christian as being a human and being alive. Absolutely astounding difference. Anyone not satisfied with religion-does not really have it.

Answer 8

No single event.

I guess it started when I began studying history and other religions.

Very quickly it became apparent that religion has no real substance, and that no practiced religion had any more credibility or validity than the tens of thousands which have come and gone.

Answer 9

I was raised secular Jew, became Christian in college, then after I was divorced, decided it was a crock. Why? Because of the behavior of the so-called Christians as regarded my divorce. I wanted no part of any group of people that shared THOSE values. So I quit, and have been much happier and more prosperous ever since.

Answer 10

My whole life I went to a catholic school. Took religion and I guess when I was in grade 9, it clicked into me that there's no real proof and why waste my time with it...
Plus all those years of taking religion bored the hell out'a me.

EDIT: I never did go to church though...Only when we had to during school.