At what age did you realize that you are a non-believer?

Question

It happened young for me. I was sitting on the beach in San Clemente looking at the waves roll in and realized that what I was seeing was much bigger than Sunday school.

I was 10 years old. Initially, I had faith that there was no god, and then as the years passed, reason helped me understand that that was true.

Answer 1

16.

"I was 16, Catholic, and had a crush on a boy named David in my advanced art class. He was smart, intellectual, a little on the crazy side (that just made him more intriguing) and was always making inside jokes with me. So it's pretty safe to say that I really paid attention to what this guy had to say.

"He started asking me lots of difficult and unanswerable questions about my religion. You know, the basic ‘how can God be omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient at the same time' question and other silly things like ‘can God create a rock so huge that even he can't lift it?' I'd never been made to logically ponder my faith like that. I started reading the bible, looking up religious and atheist sites on the web, talking to different people about what they believe in... and why others don't believe.

"I thought about lots of things. It was probably the beginning of my real intellectual processes. Teens start their deep abstract thinking at about 14-16, or so I'm told by my developmental psych teacher..

"I thought about it for approximately a year. I remember feeling totally torn up inside, like I was horrible to think any of these things. One side of me was screaming about how much of a sinner I was for even considering the possibility that God doesn't exist, and the other side was constantly lecturing on how irrational and childish my desire to hang onto my obviously false faith was.

"I remember having a conversation with my mother in the old mini-van on our way to some sort of activity. I don't remember exactly what was said and I didn't intend on telling her about my newfound atheist, but... eventually, it came out. I was an atheist."

Answer 2

I almost thought the same way. The problem isn't so much that something exists or not, but what you are DEFINING as God. If you define it as the God they teach about in church (the one who always votes Republican, or some other stupid answer), then no, I don't believe.

My advice is to be open to God (whoever or whatever that defines) rather than seeking what you think God is. That way:

1) You won't be looking for something that doesn't exist.

2) You will be open to something (or someone) who is capable to reach you. If it turns out there is God, he knows who you mean.

You might want to check out Tao Te Cheng by Lao Tzu. You'll find it in the Social Science section of the library. There are all different translations today. (It was written in China about 400 B.C.)

Answer 3

13

Answer 4

thank you for this!! you're suitable. The Catholic Church isn't a Christian church. Their articles of religion are opposite to the sparkling teachings of Scripture. and that they murdered countless tens of millions of Bible-believing Christians, each and every each and every now and then only using fact of those human beings's love of the Bible. The Waldenses, as an occasion, have been hated via the Catholic hierarchy using fact they studied the Bible all day long or perhaps *gasp* taught it to their little ones. i'm fairly specific that the Catholic Church continues to be persecuting Bible-believing Christians in different international locations at present. The darkish a while are an occasion of the wickedness that comes from twisting the observe of God and starting to be an synthetic faith.

Answer 5

I realized that there was no god during my freshman year of highschool. We had gone to frisco to feed the homeless and we were in our rooms for the night. There was a girl who had just converted from Islam and she didn't get all of our customs and such. She started crying (she may have been on something too, but hey-to each his own) and everyone was upset because she was crying. One girl ripped her bible and everyone but me and her left the room. The last girl to leave the room belonged to a family that was very influential and everyone praised her on her godliness. She stood up, looked at the girl, and said "WELL! It looks like I'm not getting any sleep tonight!!!" and then left the room slamming the door. For the rest of the night I watched everyone and how they interacted. They reminded me of animals and I realized that people were proof enough that there was no god.

Answer 6

I mostly quit believing around 12, turned agnostic for the next 15 years or so, but but then got sucked back into again in my late 20s and slipped into the pit of fundamentalism for a brief period before I rescued myself for good around age 35.

Answer 7

It came upon me more gradually. I was brought up going to Sunday School and church and didn't question it. As I started to grow up and think about it more, I tried very hard to find what I thought was the right path in my teens. But as I lapsed into my twenties, I gradually realised it wasn't right for me. I respect anyone else's belief, but I realised that I was a non-believer, and over the years more things have fallen into place that help me realise that is who I am and its ok, because it doesn't stop you from being a caring, committed person.

Answer 8

It was much later for me. I was 17 sitting through my pastors sermon one Sunday morning. All I kept thinking was, "Who does this guy think he is?" It felt odd to me that this 40 something man acted as though he had all the answers in the world. Accept Jesus and you are saved...give me a break.

I consider myself an agnostic and I am happy to be. I will never pretend to know things that I possibly couldn't.

Answer 9

After wanting to be a missionary at age 5 (vacation bible school), at age 6, I figured out truth was better than fiction, went to my mom and told her I didn't buy any of it. She responded that obviously I had thought about it and that was my decision.

Turns out that she and my dad thought that way too, but churchiness was so much a part of the suburban culture, and the social order, and job promotion opportunities in that era, that we went to church anyway. (Is the word "churchiness", similar to "truthiness"?).

Answer 10

I never had faith in the power of God, of his version of mythology and the way the world works . . . never. I can remember myself at the age of three questioning how it was possible for a god that was all powerful and all good and all wise allowing evil in the world . . . I eventually found faith in the form of paganism, but never in God.