Atheists; Was there a defining moment...?

Question

Have you never believed in God?
Was there a person(s) that contributed to your lack of belief in God?
Did you study religions & evolution objectively and this is the conclusion you came to?
WAS there a defining moment? Please share your story.

Answer 1

The defining moment came to me the day I realized that the xtian god created a planet and all species for his amusement. period.

he said something like "hey, let me create some people down there to worship me, and if they don't, I'll torture the bastards for eternity"

Then I defined my logic with the help of relativity, existentialism, ethics, and just good 'ol common sense.

Answer 2

No one defining moment - several moments.

I would term it as "internal battles"... the theist side trying to keep faith where the rational side was trying to have truth.

I studied many things. I accepted evolution as a theist... but only kinda sorta... I kept looking for things that might go against it, and found that every creationist argument against evolution had been countered thoroughly and to my satisfaction.

I've studied religions other than Christianity to some extent, but not all that much, because what I saw in leaving my religion is that some of the same problems apply to the very concept of religion as apply to just one religion in particular.

I think the people in our lives contribute to just about everything we do in some way. My decisions were decidely my own, however. When I asked for help, there were people here that helped me, though... one in particular who no longer comes here really.

I was a Christian for 20 years.

Answer 3

It was a culmination for me.

It just takes enough experiences for me to put 2 and 2 together.

Mostly, it focused on the hypocrisy of the religion. I realized that so many Christians were wrong about their religion (and I was a Christian, so I learned a lot).

Ultimately, it was a satanist who convinced me. He told me he was a satanist, which was nothing like what the Christians told me.

From that point, I looked at everything and realized that everything else that theists taught was wrong. And there is no reason to believe in any god. If such a god exists and wants to be worshiped, it would make its presence known.

This does not have any relationship to evolution. Having an understanding of logic allows me to look at it objectively, and I have some respect for it as a basis of the existence of life. I'm not 100% sold on it, but it's the closest we have.

I had an interest in Greek mythology in middle school. When I compared the Bible to the Greek stories, they looked similar to me. They were simply stories that were amusing to us but very serious to those who spun them.

Answer 4

I was once a Christian then I grew up and put away childish things. You can believe if your want. But now that I am an atheist, I can see what jerks Christians can be to people of other beliefs, and try to destroy science. Atheists believe in equal rights, but you will never see equlity from Christians so there will always be debates. I have taken science, read ALL the bible versions, Dead Sea Scrolls, early history of Mithra, and other pagan religions that were the cause of Christianity's birth, if you ever read the whole bible with an open mind you could easily see the book is nothing but a complete fairy tale...Moses? (The Hebrews were proven never to be slaves of Egypt building those pyramids), Noah? (It is proven that there was no world wide flood..all civilizations lived at the time and later with no flood of the world), Jesus? (you sure don't need any proof of him since he flew up to heaven...and his family line? Missing), Adam and Eve and their pet talking snake? Funny, how Eve had to talking to something that just slithered up and started chatting with her...lol

Answer 5

I suppose you could say that there was a defining moment for me.

To answer the first question, there was a time when I was a believer. I grew up Lutheran in a devout family, so there was never any choice or question about it when I was still living at home. Though I questioned as a teenager, I didn't really get the chance to make my choice until I got out on my own.

Far as people who contributed, well, I have to say the biggest one was my aunt, who had been emotionally, mentally, and verbally abusive to me since I was young. I'll spare you the messy details as it's quite a lot of incidents(both religious and not, so it's not just religion she's nasty about) you'd probably not want to hear about.

Needless to say, seeing how that woman treated not only me, but others(in the family and my uncle's congregation), kinda made me sick on religion. I knew that wasn't what religion was supposed to be about, but forget trying to point that out to her or anyone else. I did that, oh, I was a spoiled, rebellious little child who couldn't mind her elders to say that being so nasty wasn't good Christian behavior.

The other person who really was the straw who broke the camel's back was my cousin, who is a missionary in Nicaragua right now. I rarely hear from him for obvious reasons, though I get the occasional email. This last Febuary, I had emailed him about something, and rather than getting a yes or no answer about whether or not he could make it, I got a very long, arrogantly-toned email in response laden with unsolicited proselytization.

He has a habit of "reccommending" religious books to me, which he did in that email, a book that pretty much amounted to his snide little opinion that I had a crappy life because I didn't go to church, wondering if I thought God was to blame. Or that he thought God was to blame, punishing me for not going to church regularly.

Whatever his reasoning, that was the end of it for me, right there. I'm used to this sort of abuse from his mother, but not from him. Hearing that sort of language from him in the exact manner his mother usually did was like an emotional kick to the gut. Had some lovely little panic attacks afterward for it.

And for the record, my life is just FINE. I can safely say that I'm happier now than I ever was as a kid or teenager. I don't have health problems or lack of money or anything like that. I feel loved and safe and secure. There's little that could make my life better than it already is.

Far as study of religion, I have, both in school and a little on my own in college. I have friends of different faiths and met people on campus from different walks of life that helped to get me out of my small town of not quite 1500 people into the "big world". I learned a lot and got a bigger appreciation of life's differences when I was at the university than I likely would have ever found staying in my hometown.

Honestly, being in a bigger town on an international campus made me realize how narrow people where I'm from can be, so I suppose I'm a bit more keen and sensitive to these differences.

Believe me, these personal experiences I've had have made me objective about just about everything. Religion, the world, where I come from, myself even. I know I'm constantly learning and growing, so maybe in a few years down the road, I'll have learned a bit more about the world and make yet another change of opinion.

So yes, I've studied religion and evolution(required course in science classes around here without dispute) and yes, this is the conclusion I found.

Answer 6

Hi... I grew up in a christian family. I tried to believe, but I saw nothing that convinced me or that spoke to my heart. I took classes on world religions, I studied Islam, Buddhism, and Atheism. I've read the Bible, the English translation of Koran, the Apocrypha (I know I just spelled that wrong), and read many of the books by the prolific Dali Lama. I've spoken to Jews (never went to temple) and have several friends who are Wiccan. I've been to Catholic Mass and accidentally went to a Pentecostal meeting once. I quoted Proverbs on my mother's headstone (...for her value is far above rubies).

There has never been a defining moment. It is ultimately a knowing that grows in your mind and your heart over time. Either you buy it... or you don't.

I am Agnostic.

Answer 7

I was raised Christian, and went to church every Sunday as a child. In 7th grade, I began to realize that God was no more real then Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. It was scary at first; I thought maybe the devil would come for my soul or some other such nonsense, but over time I became more and more convinced.

Answer 8

There is no evidence to support the existence of God. In all other things, we reject claims that are not supported by any objective measures. Why should I make an exception for the claimed existence of God? Because a lot of people say so?

Answer 9

I never encountered any evidence for the existence of god. When I was 8 years old, it became clear to me that the Genesis tales could not be reconciled with scientific evidence. Since the scientific evidence is demonstrably true, the bible cannot be true. Thus the notion that it is the word of god is silly. This is part of the epistemology which I have developed for my forthcoming textbook on the subject.

Answer 10

good question......in my case i was born and raised catholic......i used to go to church very often,and by that time i was a believer..........i sang for the church chorus until i was 12....when i was 15 i met a priest who wanted to abuse me sexually and from that time i have never been to a mass.....i am 42 now.....and i read the Bible and all kinds of book about religion.......i dont believe in any deity right now and i think i have never been a true believer.....i feel respect for all religions but i think they are all based in lies and just want the control,and in some cases, the money from the people..........i think thois is the only life we have and there is not thing such as a God,to whom we have to worship or ask for forgiveness..