Atheists: What fact turned you away from religious belief?

Question

Was it Bible contradictions? Was it commonsense?

Answer 1

Personally, I feel that organized religion is dangerous. As well-meaning as people can be, any church organization becomes a bit cult-ish at one point or another. It's very easy to become the victim of blind faith, and even easier to lose yourself. My beliefs lie within the universe and nothing else. I pray, but I don't need any church or pastor/minister whathaveyou to direct my life in an uncomfortable way. Some people may need the structure, but it can also be very damaging. It all depends on who you are.

Answer 2

Both, really. There were contradictions that didn't make sense to me, but anytime I asked what the deal was, I either didn't get a straight answer or I would be shamed for even questioning God and the Bible in the first place. Apparently just asking to clarify something so I understood it was a sin, go figure that one.

Then it was common sense in realizing that things in the Bible contradicted what I knew about proven scientific fact and theory. I knew that the Bible was 2000 years old and that people didn't know what we know now, just like we don't know what this world will be like 2000 years from now. So people then couldn't possibly know about the impossibility of people descending from one couple and being a surviving species.

And that's excluding my usual arguement about inbreeding that tends to go along with that arguement about needing more than one pair for a species to survive. Even so, the inbreeding thought did come to mind and had a hand in my logical, sensible decision, I just, well, wanted to spare the lengthy details.

There was also a bit of abuse I endured at the hands of my family that was also a big factor, being treated as sinful and "not good enough" even when I was a believer. Lots of things including some fun comparison between myself and a cousin started by our grandparents and continued by said cousin's mother that I'll spare you from hearing.

Those three things were what drove me away, the contradiction, the common sense that science of 2000 years ago wasn't anywhere near what it is today, and the abuse.

Answer 3

Bible contradictions started it and then common sense took over. I finally became a free thinker after pushing aside the fears instigated by the limbic system of the brain. I didn't know where or what the limbic system was, until i did some reading by neuroscientists. Anyway, it all started to make sense. This was after 50 years of believing in Catholocism and the Church....long time for having a distorted worldview.

Answer 4

I don't think I ever really believed the stories I was told in Bible school. I realized that they were morality tales like Aesop's fables. As I learned more science, history, and philosophy, the contradictions between the religious viewpoint and those from other areas (as well as the internal contradictions in the religious viewpoints) made it clear that religion had nothing reliable except delusion. This conclusion is not limited to the Bible. It also applies to the Torah, the Koran, and the Baghavad-Gita. All are ultimately morality tales dressed up in legend.

Answer 5

I prefer Agnostic,and to answer the question I would have to say common sense,and the realization that if I were to choose to believe in God on pure faith I also have to look around the world he has built for us,and hate him for it. If God exists he is at best an absentee landlord and at worst a sadist. The line of thought goes that if God created the universe and everything in it,and if he is all powerful then he also created all of the evil in the universe and chooses not to stop it. This to me is no different than putting a Cobra in your child's crib and then blaming them for being bitten and dying,it would be evil if any parent did that to their child,and it's equally evil if God does it. So if God exists and chooses to allow this world to be what it is then I simply want nothing to do with him,I am far from perfect but I do try not to knowingly associate with pure unadulterated evil.

Answer 6

Considering how vague the commonsense answer is, I'll go with that lol.

No, basically I saw that religion was wrong is many places (not just Christianity) and is essentially used to enslave people without them knowing it.

When the time comes, you won't see me signing my life away to somebody who claims to be working for a higher power.

Answer 7

Education

Answer 8

i imagine diverse atheists would have initially been theists, yet finally realised that they did not believe. i became agnostic even as i became youthful yet grew to change into completely atheist even as i became about six. yet in all likelihood an equivalent volume of atheists would in basic terms were born into atheist or agnostic households. i don't think of there is quite a way of telling the precise information.

Answer 9

Bible contradictions, common sense, awareness that Jesus did not fulfill the prophecies required of HaMasiach, realization through study of physics, psychology, and computer science that free-will is only an illusion (and without free will, god is meaningless), realization through the study of physics that a creator isn't needed, occam's razor saying if there's no free will and no creator, the deific hypothesis gets discarded.

Answer 10

Lack of evidence.

Wait, you wanted a FACT that turned me away from religion? Well, try this for starters:

Wikipedia has a page where they list all events throughout world history in which man caused other men to die; this includes wars, terrorist attacks, murders, riots, etc.
"In total, all these events combined account for at least 400,768,714 [deaths], perhaps as high as 644,101,868."

Over 400 and up to 650 million people died from man-created events. That's insane. And that figure doesn't even include the millions who have died from natural disasters and other things that weren't started by humans.

He's not much of a "father" if he doesn't protect his children.