My fellow Atheists... please read and answer, thanks?

Question

I started questioning faith when I learned that Santa Clause was not real. I was about 8 years old and found my dad setting up presents on christmas eve, when I was supposed to be sleeping. This rattled my sense of everything and began to question my religion for the next few years. I began to realize, that every question that I would ask of my mom, priest, or catechism teacher, would end up leading to the same ultimate answer. You should "just believe". That was not good enough for me, and I told my mom that I did not believe in god when I was 12. She replied by slapping me in the face. I didn't hear the word "atheist" until I was about 14. When I looked it up I realized that's what I am. I'm 32 now and I still like to tease my mom about the time she slapped me. She still wants me to "just believe".

I'm curious to know other atheists experiences, since I only know one other person who is an atheist.

How did you first realize that you didn't "just believe"?
How did your family react?

Answer 1

I went to catholic school for the first and second grade. We had religion class right before we had science. We were learning about the garden of eden and dinosaurs on the same day. I asked the nun who was teaching the class how dinosaurs were possible if the world was created in 6 days. She refused to answer me and I didn't press it because she was the teacher that kept grumbling about how she wished they were alowed to hit the kids like in the "good old days" so I was afraid of her. I asked some other nun and she gave me some BS about how time could be different for god and all that jazz. I didn't understand that because I thought that if that were the case, why didn't it say that anywhere. Being the nieve little girl that I was, however, I let it slide and just kept believing. The came the lesson about how Kane and Abel left the garden and got married and I was like, "who did they marry?" and the nun wouldn't tell me. I got in a lot of trouble for asking questions in that school. That made me doubt Christianity. I started researching other religions like Daoism, Hinduism, Paganism, etc., but the more I thought about it the more none of it made sense. So I renounced religion all together. I think I'm more of an Agnostic( someone who believes that something might have happened to creat us, but we don't have any way of knowing what) then athiest, but its a narrow line between the two.

Answer 2

I never actually did believe. I heard biblical stories in day care and I thought they were cute, but I figured they were fiction like every other story I hear. I asked my mom about them and when she said they were the truth I thought it had to be some big joke. Eventually I realized a lot of people actually believed in it, so I figured it must be real. I read the Bible when I was about 12 and realized there was no way that could be real. From that I just found that there wasn't enough evidence to support the existence of any gods. When I told my parents they got quiet and stopped talking to me for a few days. My brother is agnostic so he didn't care. And my sister is too young to actually understand.

Answer 3

I never really believed. I was told by a neighbor at the age of 4 that god is everywhere at all times, and I just couldn't believe in that. Ever since, I've always felt pagan and didn't quite discover there were others like me until I was about 11. Then at about 17 I finally picked up The Satanic Bible and knew that was the choice for me.

I wasn't brought up in an overly religious family, and was a very logical child, so my family pretty much accepted my being a witch. Also with my Native American background, paganism just came natural. I've had to do alot of educating to my family about Satanism and they found that they have alot of common ground with it.

Answer 4

okay, 1st of all i'm not an atheist but your question really caught my attention. i have the same experience like you... i was ten when my mom told me that she and dad were the ones who put on the presents that has a card "from santa claus" every christmas eve... i was disappointed at 1st but then my mom suggested that i could play santa claus to my brothers and sisters (since i'm the oldest.) it was kind of fun to play petend and thinking that my sibs believe that santa claus exist.

now i'll soon be 18 and is still playing santa claus. i admit that there are lots of times that i doubted my faith, even asked with god does exist... i wanted to find proof on everything that is thought and believed by the christians. but then i would just remember my little santa claus act and it would always make me smile and have this feeling that i just can't describe.

hey, i know you might be thinking... "whoa, why is this kid lecturing me?!" but i just wanted to point out that it doesn't matter if you believe or not. you're an atheist & i respect you for being one. but i just hope that someday you'll just open your eyes and believe that santa claus exist in each of us... those little good deeds we do to others is "santa claus-ish..."

Answer 5

I never believed in christianity even though I was made to go to church week after week. My mother wanted to baptize me at the age of 12 when my 10 yr old brother was being baptized but I put up such a fuss that she gave up on that. At the age of 15 I told her I was done with going to church and believing what they taught. She wasn't particularly happy, my father wasn't particularly surprised but they were accepting.

At that point I after doing some research I got into Wicca and spent many years as a solitary practioner. Over the years though I still read many religious texts and talked with many - regular folks and educators over the existence of deities. In the last five years of being a Wiccan I actually took deitiy worship out of it and concentrated on nature. After awhile, I just decided to call myself what I really am which is atheist.

My mother actually has more is probably more upset now, not in a constant way though, that I am an atheist. At least as a pagan she always felt I could be led back to the fold; I have basically shut the door for her on that. However, my family accepts my right to decide for myself which belief system is best for me.

Answer 6

I don't mean to pry, but I'm offering my services.
As a Christian, I will offer my 2 cents. I hope all of you read this answer.

Many of you are atheists for a VERY GOOD REASON!!! The god you have been exposed to is a false god. If I understood Christianity the way you understood it, then I would be an atheist as well.

There is wisdom, knowledge and understanding to be gained through Christ.

If any of you have lingering questions about God that never got answered to your satisfaction, then you may contact me and I will do my best to answer it with the Word of God.

I get very upset when people are given terrible answers about God. Many of you are Atheists because you had sincere questions that got answered with nonsense. Since you were too smart to believe the nonsense, that led you to think there wasn't a God. What you failed to realize is that it wasn't God that was false, but the people who you trusted in for answers were false Christians.
There is a God, but the answers you got were answers about a false god. I don't believe in that god either.

So, contact me if you wish and I will do my best to help out.

Answer 7

I was raised a Baptist (Southern at that!) who first began questioning at the age of 11. It began with small things like "If there were dinosaurs (and there was no question in my mind that there were) why were they not mentioned in Genesis? (I was 11.) But this led to more questions. My preacher was constantly preaching against inter-racial marriage (keep in mind I'm from the south) homosexuality, etc. But how could this gel with a God that taught love, tolerance, judge not...? Why was there suffering? Okay, original sin, but if God was all-knowing and all-seeing, surely he knew this would happen? Oh, God wanted man to have free-will, you say? He wanted humans to have the choice to sin, and therefore suffer, because in the absence of free-will, there can be no true devotion? None of this made sense. This didn't sound like the actions of an omniscience, omnipotent, loving God, but,a cruel, capricious tyrant. It boiled down to, "if they disobey, they'll be sorry" no matter how you tried to spin it, but most of all, it all sounded like a desperate, cyclical argument to rationalize the irrational. In the end I knew I just didn't believe, and it was a huge relief.

Answer 8

Please excuse me for barging in on your question because I am not an atheist, o but I do know how it feels to be teenaged & feeling right & having your mom slap you for no good reason.

When that happened to me, I actually had to slap her back once after she slapped me for having an honest opinion about her promiscuity & on it was because she had always acted so righteous & religious (fanatically) & I had hung up on her boyfriend with whom she was cheating on my step father who wasn't a great guy either, but nonetheless, equally in both our situations there was no call for the honesty of a teenager to be slapped down.

The irony of it is now I have found out that my mother is studying to be a pastor. NOW, I think somebody really needs to start slapping!

I believe, but that's just because of what I have experienced spiritually & on that part, I am not gonna expound cause that's not what this question is about.

All in all, in relationship to your question, it's very hard to believe in things that are supported only by words of liars. It takes way more than lies for faith & believing to take place, in any case.

Answer 9

I didn't know that people believed in a God until I was around 7. Faith just wasn't discussed in my family. And ever since I started to learn about God, I just wasn't impressed. I felt as if I was being told lies. And I always wondered why people would just buy into something so unknown.
But I guess people who are brought up in religious families, see it differently. Since my family has never discussed faith, my family doesn't know that I am a Laveyan Satanist.

Answer 10

I wasn't raised in any church. We never attended. I don't remember ever believing in God.

My family was sort of the same way. I think my parents were rebelling against the religions they were brought up with rather than really being atheists.

So, I didn't believe, either, and my parents didn't react to that.

I'm sorry you were slapped for giving an honest answer at age 12. Your mother was offended, and she probably thought you were an ingrate.

NEVER "just believe." It's a roller-coaster ride to arrogance, cruelty and clubbiness.