What made you stop believing?

Question

This is mainly for the atheists on Yahoo. I am seriously curious, was there a particular incident that made you stop believing in your religion? If not, why did you distance yourself, if indeed you were ever part of an organized religion?

Thank you for the kind thoughts Dolores. Have a wonderful day!

Answer 1

There were a couple of things that made me become an atheist. One was the death of my father, for various reasons that made sense to me when I was 9. And the Born Again Christian who told me that my dad must have done something bad that God let him die so young, and now he was burning in Hell, did absolutely nothing to endear Christianity to me.

Another was the contradictions that I saw in the Bible that I was not able to get adequate answers to. Is it literal? Is it metaphorical? If it's literal, how did all the animals get in the Ark? If it's metaphorical, then why do people treat it like it's literal? Why do different denominations have very different beliefs, if they're all reading the same Bible? Things like that. My parents never used "Because I said so" when I asked "Why?" - they'd give me an explanation that was age-appropriate. So I wasn't satisfied with "Because the Bible says so", either, but that was pretty much the only answer that I got.

However, there were also things around me that I couldn't comfortably explain *without* the influence of a Higher Power, so I went from Atheism to Agnosticism to Spiritualism to Paganism.

Answer 2

Looking back i don't think i ever believed. I remember hearing these crazy stories growing up and realizing they didn't make much sense... I tried to believe and at times i thought i actually felt something but as time went on it faded and i realized it was all in my mind... even then i continued to play along for fear of ridicule. While i was in High School it really didn't matter much, i didn't think about religion at all and people around me didn't talk about it at all so i just went thru my life. In college i started to think more spiritually (the whole "everything happens for a reason" thinking) but that quickly faded as well. In the past few years under this flurry of crazy christian rhetoric flooding the airwaves I've become more active in studying religion and exercising critical thinking and skepticism and it's really been a liberating and fun experience. It continues to frustrate me however that so many people believe a myth as absolute truth, and continue to base decisions that effect everyone on these beliefs.

Answer 3

Not one thing in particular. It was a journey of investigation, research and meditating that took literally years to accomplish. I made a calculated, rational decision after examining all the evidence.

Thanks for asking a decent question about it.

Answer 4

I am a theist, but want to comment on this question. I appreciate the way you've asked it, it is written very respectfully and treats atheists with dignity. Such a breath of fresh air in Answers, thank you!

Answer 5

You are assuming that I believed in the first place. Organized religion is the biggest problem that the world faces today. I couldn't send my son to catholic church without fear of him being raped. Just an example.

Answer 6

I'll speak for my wife.

She was in a terrible family situation. She prayed to God for assistance, but none was forthcoming. She turned to the church for help, but they considered in an internal family matter ans something that had to be worked out with the father.

She worked up the gumption to stand up to her father.

(Now, some of you might say that the Holy Spirit entered her to give her the strength, but she'd argue otherwise)

Since there was no Divine Intervention, God must be a crock of crap.

Answer 7

i'm no longer an Atheist yet decide for to respond to this one in any case. there are a good style of excellent motives to resign on prepared faith (exceedingly Christianity and the Bible) yet those are all synthetic institutions, the Bible is wrong with the aid of fact it is written via adult adult males. prepared faith is twisted with the aid of fact it is run via twisted adult adult males. God is infrequently the effect in maximum religions those days, it is approximately money and ability. yet, i do no longer blame God for that, basically adult adult males's stupidity and how surely guy could be corrupted. I nonetheless have confidence in some form of a extra physically powerful ability however, i think of there is extra to life then what we see. it is basically something i think...ought to be that "faith" situation all and sundry is often thinking.

Answer 8

A lack of provable, repeatable evidence. I have no faith. I do not debunk the possibility of the existence of God either though, as that would require just as much faith. Surrendering yourself to Christs teachings are one thing, surrendering yourself to Christ is something I just can't understand.

Answer 9

Sometimes you don't like what you hear and what you see. Your best thing is try another church or religion. Better yet, try praying, God will give you a path to go.

Answer 10

I grew up in a religious home(My Grandfather was a minster) and it bothered me how "God" was always applied to our daily life and I wasn't really allowed to do anything secular. I also was raped and molested so I felt that "God" had abandoned me.