Atheists. When and how did you realise the clothes have no Emperor?

Question

I was about 12 I think.

Answer 1

VERY nice reference. Wonder how many people will get it? I think it was more gradual for me, starting when I was first told about god. I never really quite bought it all, I think. Then I started to question and dig a little deeper, and well, we know where the road of logic leads.

Answer 2

I struggled with this question of god through my teen years. I was also raised in a "liberal" christian environment, by which I mean I was free to question god and religion, and NOT come to to the same conclusions as the bible.

I read the bible and religious literature, but never found any satisfaction in the text. I grew wary of evangelicals as they seem to have a different agenda than saving my soul ( and I think that is very true today)

In college, thermodynamics and organic chemistry made a strong impression on me that the world is naturalistic.

Philosophically, I grew to think it is logically impossible to have an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being called god, and still believe that you can have a thing called free will. Since I find predestination to be ridiculous (different debate) I chose free will and thus the absence of gods.

I have modified my thinking to a certain extent, and also believe that the belief in a god stems from humans needing to fulfill a need for safety (via. Maslow's hierarchy of needs).

Answer 3

I grew up a fairly liberal Christian (the son of a Methodist minister), and Chsristian liberals have a lot of leeway for incorporating into faith the theory of evolution, an emphasis on social justice, and a broad interpretation of the Bible. In the south, liberal Christians represented the cutting edge of improved race relations, educational advances, and aid to the impoverished.

However, as I came out of the closet, entered seminary, and consequently went church hopping, I tried to find ways to integrate my expanding view of nature, humanism, and existential thinking into my Christian thinking. Ultimately, they didn't fit together.

Family pressures kept me from saying things out loud until about 1985 (age 30), but after that I was at least able to admit to myself that dependence on God was not a rational approach to life.

I find it ironic that I accepted that I was gay long before I came to believe that faith in God is irrelevant. And yet without being gay (and therefore rejected by the church) I doubt I would have had the emotional fortitude to question my earlier beliefs. It's one (among many) of the reasons that I'm glad I was born gay.

Answer 4

I figured this was the case when I was probably 10. Since my family is Baptist, I kept telling myself, "I must not get it yet. There is something I'll get later." Well, I am 25 now and believe that people are just tricking themselves as Christians (or, I apoligize, not very intelligent)

Answer 5

I honestly dont know, it was kind of gradual, i started thinking of the holes in religion then i would try and rationalize it, one day i stopped rationalizing and realized if it doesn't make sense it probably because it's not true.

Answer 6

I was about 7. I realized there was no Santa and I made that next mental jump. . .

Answer 7

by the time i was old enough to actually care.. i was about 10 or 11 when i thought about it and was like "damn that don't make sense..." and i really wanted to believe but i just couldn't... i'm 15 now, and my opinions haven't really changed....

Answer 8

I always knew. I had the fortune, or being raised a free thinker.

Answer 9

Yah like eyetyrant, when I was a little kid, my mother one day admitted that there was no Santa Claus. My very next question was "Oh...is that a little like God...?"

Answer 10

I was told pick evolution or Jesus. Evolution has empirical evidence. So, what was there for Jesus. What repeatable expiriments? 23