when you start losing faith in God?

Question

what do you say to yourself

i'm starting to believe i'll become an atheist. it just all seems like a fairy tale compared to the pains and struggles of humanity

Answer 1

I've been an atheist for most of my life. Technically I was xtian when I was a child, but that was before I started giving any serious thought to theological issues. Even as a child though there was always something about religion that made me feel uncomfortable. It just felt wrong somehow, unnatural. (And no, I did not have any "close encounters" with priests.)

Sometime in my early to mid teens I DID start giving serious thought to it, and the more I thought about it, the less sense the whole concept of a god--any god--made. The moral outrages and hypocracies found in the bible, the logical fallacies of godhood, the complete lack of any actual evidence, the question of why I should believe any one religion over another, the observation that most people believed for merely emotional reasons, all of this led me to the conclusion that belief in a god was irrational and unnecessary. Later, I've even come to view some forms of belief as a form of mental illness.

At first, for a couple years, I called myself an agnostic. I'm pretty sure I was atheist even then, but I didn't have the courage to admit it to myself or others. Atheists are still on the receiving end of a LOT of hate, bigotry, demonization, and discrimination by the holier-than-thou crowd. It didn't take too long, though, for me to come to terms with my atheism. It did take a bit longer to start admitting it to friends.

I've been a full, "card-carrying" atheist now for about 20 years. Short of having a stroke or forced lobotomy, I don't think there's any way I could ever return to religion. I feel like I would have to lower my intellectual standards and compromise my morals to do so, and quite frankly I think I am far better off now. Being a freethinker opens up your mind in ways that's hard for believers to even begin to imagine. It really removes the blinds from around your eyes which many believers have no idea they're even wearing.

The world is actually a far more beautiful place without the fairy tales to obscure your view. The universe is must vaster without religion to cloud your thinking. And life is both happier and more precious without the false hope of imaginary afterlifes.

Answer 2

When I lost "faith" I simply accepted it. I am not Atheist or any other religion.. but I suppose I am closest to Agnostic.

To tell you the truth, it was like a Santa Claus/ Easter Bunny/ Tooth Fairy type thing for me. (I don't mean to offend any one)
I believed when I was a little kid, but as I got older I realized that he may not be real. Only with God, I still think that he could be real.

But!
The bible never said that there is no such thing as pain and struggle. It isn't all fairy tales. This is not a reason that I have my doubts..

Answer 3

Your going through things that many not christian kids go through. Don't blame it on God. I had different growth spurts than my piers as well. Imagine if you didn't have God to lean on. The non believers have nothing, you can tell by some of there answers. I was a boxer, so I knew I could kick ever ones butt, but I was a believer and I knew it was wrong so I didn't. The Lord put it in my heart to carry my bible to school, and I used to be very self conscious and pray that no one would confront me. (they often did) The Lord made me strong on the inside in those days, and I had no idea of the things that I would have to bare latter on. Your young, these days will pass and the real world is nothing like public schools. Be strong little faith, you may not realize how much you really need you faith, and be thankful that the Lord still provides even when your dad is out of work. If you stand firm in the Lord you will influence those around you more than you know. God Bless you in Jesus Name

Answer 4

I said to myself, "why did it take 50 years of my life to finally reach Objective Reality?"

But then i started reading and found out that there was a scientific reason for people believing in god(s), angels, demons and things that go bump in the night.

Fact: the human race has been around for hundreds of thousands of years.
Fact: the concepts of an afterlife, of gods, spirits, etc. have only been around for a few millenia.
Fact: these concepts were invented and promulgated by ignorant barbarians as an attempt to explain the world around them, before there was a such thing as science or epistemology.
Fact: the christian religion is only a couple millenia old, one of many religions that came before it and have come since.
Fact: most of the books of the bible were written by people who were never there, as second- or third-hand accounts decades or even centuries after the events they claim to tell about.
Fact: the books of the bible have been heavily edited over the centuries, with passages or even whole books being re-written or omitted to fit the theological and political climates of the time.
Fact: the books of the bible have also been subject to extensive errors, misinterpretations, and differences of opinion in interpretation as they are translated from one language to another and from that to yet another language.

Knowing all this, how can ANY religion be viewed as anything BUT the invention of men? I know this may not be what you want to hear, and I doubt I'll do much harm a person's faith; faith is remarkably impervious to reason. But we atheists are nothing like what the church leaders are fond of charicaturing us as. We are freethinking individuals who are able to see the Big Picture without the blinders of religion.

We do not live in despair, quite the contrary; freethought is incredibly refreshing, liberating, and empowering. We are not nihilists, but lovers of life who see it as all the more precious because there's no eternal afterlife. We do not need the bribe of heaven or the threat of hell to be good people, we believe in being good for its own sake. Through science and reason, we know more about the true nature of the world we live in than religion could ever hope to offer.

Atheists are not the enemy of religious folks. Our quarrel is with irrationality, wishful thinking, superstitions, intellectual dishonesty, and all other forms of thinking that keep mankind mired in darkness, ignorance and hate.

Answer 5

You may not be losing faith. But you may be changing your belief. Many people believe in God (or whatever name you may call Him) but don't want to show it outright. What you believe is yours and yours alone. Even though the world may be a hard and devastating place at times, there are little miracles happening every day. LIke when someone smiles at you. Not because they know you but because you a a member of the human race. If you want to become an atheist then that's your decision and no one elses. Do what in your heart you feel is right for you.

Answer 6

When that happens to me I start singing that REM song.

Answer 7

i did somewhat when someone very close to me died and i asked myself how can god let pedophiles live and take a good hearted person first it just didn't make sense...but right now I'm not too religious or against but there are alot of unanswered questions out there.

Answer 8

You can still have faith.. there are miracles that happen every moment of every day. It's hard to see the pains of humanities everyday, but if you give up faith, what is there to look forward to after life? Be faithful you'll need him later on and you'll be glad you did. God is good..

Answer 9

according to the bible life is a struggle and hard there is no fairy tale about it honey other then what happens when we die

Answer 10

Well never only if you love god a lot like me