I have a question for the Atheist out there?

Question

Tell me honestly, what lead you to become an Atheist? Please give nice responses for I'm just asking a question and I'd like to know why. Tell me your story or the day you decieded to be an Atheist...or tell me something...nicely but truthfully though.

Answer 1

Hey Star,

You will find that there are several type of atheists, but in particular human fashion we can boil things down to two "Main" categories which in themselves have several sub categories. For the purposes of this answer I'll only mention the first two - and you can use your own imagination and other responses to build your third and other sub categories. Try using triangulation and opposition to create more "atheist objects" in your head - ie, if I give you A, then the opposite -A, remainign true to atheism, would be another field. Now that you have those two, you can gather what A- would be, from triangulation. (See math for logic)

Religion Atheists - these are atheists whom studied religion for several years. They were usually forced to go through a religious household either from parents or marriage, and although they may have "believed" and been "born again" and all the other keywords of a Christian Church, they began to receive doubt. Christians say it's Satan, they say it's intelligence. Usually, what happens with Religion Atheists is either that A) they study the theology behind Christianity and they find the Factual History of the book, along with the stories of the Roman Catholic Church and the stories presented through History.

Most Christians ignore this, as the "Bible" is the only book they need... however there's a whole FIELD of study called "Theology" based on learning the history and background of things, and *theologists* usually are not Christian - because they know it's fabricated.

Or

B) They find other religions, study the basics of them, and come up with a conclusion that they are all prettty much the same, and that no one is sure of anything at all.


The second type of atheist is Follower Atheists - these are the children of atheists or the generally younger generation (under 30 I would gather) - that haven't had the need, time, or want to study a religion. Instead, they just claim Atheism from the start, without bothering to come up with a reason why. I usually make fun of these Atheists because they have faith in articles and studies they've read, but have never sat down to study why they believe in the scientists they do. These are usually the people that are very shocked when you tell them "You know, even if the Dr went to college and passed with a 2.0 GPA and barely got above an F, he's still a Dr doing surgery with a knife."

They forget that out of the thousands of things Scientists come up with every year, only like a small 2-3% actually is proven right by the scientist community. They take what they hear pretty much like blind Christians do - they have faith the Scientists is correct.

/shrug

Answer 2

I'm not an Atheist, but some of these answers are quite well delinated and make sense. As much sense as what somone would say if you asked the opposite: How did you find religion or become relgious.

There are still far too many people, however, talking about "holes" and this and that in Christianity and heading back to Darwin.

Will DARWIN stand the test of time. Freud didn't. He's a quack today. He basically founded modern Psychiatry, but he's looked at as a witch doctor.

There are so many holes in Science and Darwin's theory and it's a theory not a fact. Not all, but many Atheists keep trying to CONVINCE the WORLD it's factual, when Science doesn't even agree with them. It is a THEORY.

One day, science may make a bold discover and poof! Darwin will be out of the books or possibly confirmed.

The Planet PLUTO faced not being a planet anymore, but Scientists have COME UP with a cute defintion that still makes it a Planet, as well, now, as a PLUTON (sounds like something you put into a salad) and a DWARF.

Critics from within science say this defintion reads like it was written by lawyers not scientists!

Get my point.

You tell me you read the Bible a lot, researched it, looked up things about Constatine and made up your mind to become an Atheist. I view that as being reasonable.

You tell me it's because SCIENCE IS RIGHT then you better explain why they can get the weather preditions right in a given DAY and why IT'S A PLANET ONE DAY and MAYBE NOT A PLANET on another day!

Science is as full of holes as any religion.

Those who read and, like any Protestant, interpreted the Bible and then drew a conclusion it was all bunk, are at least taking reponsibility for their own actions and not basing their lives on an alternative relgion:

Science.

I'll go through my dissertation again:

Mass ALWAYS EXISTED in the universe and always will exist in basically the same quanitity.

In the begining there was a dark void with this mass and it accumulated and in a flash there was LIGHT and the stars and the planets were formed and over time the waters seprated from the land and life began.

What book am I reading from? The Bible or a Cosmology book?

The Answer is Both.

Science is a religion that requires a leap of faith to accept that MASS has always existed and always will exist.

It also requires a leap of faith for MAN to jump from MONKEY, once upon a time, but NO MORE. IT stopped jumping out of monkeys. Monkeys stopped mutating magically.

Put the breaks on! Cease mutations! No more evolution! MAN has evolved, so there is NO FURTHER NEED for evolution, therefore it doens't happen anymore!

You know there's another person who believed in this and thought he could make a master race. Adolph Hitler, who wanted only the BEST and PURE to mate so they can produce a new evolution of SUPER HUMANS.

Is Hitler's theory of evolution valid. Some scientists might say yes!

Do SUPER HUMANS or the NEXT SPIECES come from randoming mating? Some scientists will say yes.

No one KNOWS what they are talking about in Science. It's all speculation.

I know my lay phyics fairly well. Newton's LAWS, you know, graivity, action, reaction, conservation of engery, a body in motion. The only work in "normal" space, they don't work the same in "relatavistic" space. There for they are not absolute truths. Of course, Relativity is a theory, so a pratical law in our world stops being a law in a theoretical world.

It was once said BY SCIENCE that MATTER can't be created nor destoryed, then they found the Positron or anti-electron, naturally occuring in the universe and when it mates with an electron, POOF the particles of matter and anti-matter vanishe but the overall MASS of the universe doesn't change by the same quantity, thus the conservation of Energy, thus it is now the MASS of the Univese is forever and ever.

Heart Doctors can't explain why a young, healthy (internally) person does not revive after 12 hours of valve surgery and someone 50 years old with clogged ateries and the gout comes back alive just fine from the same procedure.

Answer 3

OK, here we go:
Evolution - we evolved from animals. The first 100% human was the child of an animal with very, (very), similar DNA. We are basically intelligent animals.

The Holy Books - If prophets really were talking to God, they would have learnt something useful,(like the world is round etc). Islam, Judaism and Christianity, as well as most other religions are based on the ramblings of insane\misguided people who couldn't explain the world around them.

Evidence - there isn't ANY! Why believe so strongly in something and base your whole life around something you can't even find any evidence for?

Brainwashing - I assume from your english that you're Christian. If you were born in Calcutta you'd be a Hindu. If you were born in ancient Egypt you'd worship Ra. How can YOU put your faith in a religion that you have DIRECTLY as a result of when and where you were born?

My advice to you is to read the Bible or Koran, see what lunatics these guys really are.

Good luck and I hope you come to realise that there are morals and beliefs you can hold which are more noble, (and correct), than what has been forced upon you by circumstance.

Answer 4

I was a practicing Christian for over 30 years. I studied the subject, including reading the bible more than once. It was not a decision, it was a process.

And, the only logical conclusion is that the bible is a book of mythology and there is no credible evidence to support God belief.



Edit: Read Sabine's answer below.

Becoming an atheist is not as easy as some people seem to think. Especially those who are not atheists.

The claim that atheists got mad and stormed out of church is completely opposite the truth. Imagine that...

If I wanted to sin without consequence, I would still be a Baptist.

Answer 5

I grew up as in a Christian household. Went to church, got confirmed all the 9 yards. In confirmation class I would ask questions of the pastor (much like I do on here) and get some bogus nonsense answer. Instead of a "I don't know" it was make up something that sounded religiously good. This started to create doubt in my mind. This coupled with the fact that God NEVER EVER answered my prayers, or others who were in incredibly worse situations when there were people about going "Ooh, I prayed to God because I needed money and I found a shiny quarter on the ground!" as if God had time to direct them to a quarter but not save the dying child with cancer, totally turned me off to religion. In time, I grew to trust my own abilities to set my life straight and did not need God. Since I have never seen proof that God exists and the bible is a hodgepodge of bogus mumbo jumbo, I give it and religion as a whole absolutely no validity.

Answer 6

Mom's father was a baptist pastor, so I was sent to his church and heard some lectures at home. He had a book that said creation was in 4004 B.C. I later learned that was Bishop Ussher's figure from his Bible study. I was fascinated by dinosaurs, so I bought some books about them. The books said the Earth is 4,700,000,000 years old. As you can easily see, something had to give way. I had doubts about other Bible teachings even at age eight or so. As time passed and I learned Science, I saw that the Bible was quite inaccurate. I took much Philosophy in college and Bible History. The textbook of the latter lists many contradictions in the Bible, and so does a book Billy Graham gave me. I studied many religions, so I can be much more objective than my relatives who believe it's a sin to question their beliefs or study other religions. Some Christians learned that I had attended Zen services and prayed to have "the Devil of Buddhism" removed from me. The Zen Buddhist priest said it was OK for me to attend Christian churches. Becoming an atheist is not something that happened suddenly. It was a gradual process that began with reading dinosaur books and observing inconsistencies in what my relatives said about the family religion. I dreamed at age nine or so that I went to Heaven. Only 200 or less humans had made it. Before the first day was over, all of them had been thrown out, for they couldn't follow the overly strict codes of behavior. That dream showed I was thinking deeply, and it led to more thought. I could write a book about scientific inaccuracies and contradictions in the Bible, e.g. it says pi is 3, but it's 3.14159...so I cannot use the Bible in my engineering work or painting. I just had a third letter on this subject published in a local newspaper 8/16/06. I have more to send. I limit it to one letter per month. I think I've been nice. You have, unlike my oldest sister who preaches to our kid sister and me and shows she is a hypocrite. If I mention something from my Bible History class, she has a tantrum and insults me outrageously. I quit speaking to her 19 days ago. I'm glad you aren't like her. All too many Christians like her provoke atheists and then accuse them of starting quarrels. Double standards are present all too often among Christians.

Answer 7

My doubts existed my entire life... even as a kid sitting in the church pews, I knew that there was no way to confirm that any of these stories were real.

As an adult, I began to read the Bible in search for soemthing that could give me faith and found the opposite. The story regarding Jesus' ressurection. He reveals himself to his apostles and they did not recognize him at first. After they did, one of them, (Thomas) did not believe it until he touched his wounds with his own hands. Now if someone who knew Jesus and followed him had doubts right there in the room with him, how can I be honest with myself and claim that I have no doubts 2000 years later on the other side of the world? How do I know that they didn't just make the whole story up? It sounds fictional to me. If my beliefs were so important, then why would God leave my faith to be predicated upon the primative writings of men from thousands of years ago? Why should I believe anything written from then without any evidence?

It just doesn't make sense to me. Never has, really.

Answer 8

I don't think I ever believed in God. Even as a child, I just always thought it was some made up story to help us to understand how to do right by each other. I went to one church regularly, took bible lessons in Sunday School, and even visited many other churches. It just didn't stick. I don't look down on those who do. Most of them just seem to be trying to live decent lives, and if faith helps them to do that, more power to them. There is a lot of pressure to believe. I always felt uncomfortable with saying the "Under God" part of the pledge, so I just didn't. I worry now that my daughter will feel the same way, as people are far less tolerant now than when I was growing up. I'm not unhappy, I don't feel hopeless, and I'm not amoral. I just don't believe.

Answer 9

I started off with the usual family upbringing in church. Read the bible, went to bible school, etc. When I became old enough, I read about other religions and their beliefs. (Miracles happen in every religion by the way.) This led me to Buddhism, which is such a simple and beautiful religion. There is no hate, no judgement, no fanaticism. It's simply a beautiful way to view the world and understand the environment around you. It's all about compassion and understanding. Something that some of the mainstream religions have strayed away from.

Answer 10

I would not call myself an atheist, because I believe that to mean that you believe in no god at all, and I don't feel that I don't. But I do not believe in the God from the bible and I do not believe in organized religion, at least not any that I have encountered. It might work for some and if that is where you feel close to your god then good for you. I have never felt closer to a God than when I was out in nature, or when I felt the wind blowing my hair or the sun shining on my face, that is where I need to go to be spiritual. I could never not believe in a higher power when I see all of the miracles that happen everyday or when I look at my children, but I do not need to go to a church to feel it. Hope this helped.