To atheists and agnostics?

Question

Did you ever beleive in God,what made you change.Was there a particular event that turned you away from faith in God?

Answer 1

Yes. Many events and unanswered questions.

Answer 2

I was a Christian. I wasn't sure why none of made any sense to me so I read the Bible. After reading the Bible I realized that the Bible didn't really make sense. I thought perhaps the message of God got lost in translation or perhaps the message got tainted. I focused on what Jesus said. In order to find out more about what Jesus said I read the Gnostic Gospels and I realized that Jesus was teaching Buddhism.. I think I probably still believed there was a God after that. When I started here I was probably somewhere between a deist and an agnostic. I quickly became an atheist.

Answer 3

I tried very hard when I was a teenager to believe in God. I got into this mindset that being Christian was "right" and that I was somehow a bad person for never having read the Bible. So I went and did research and tried my hardest to "convert" to Christianity, but I couldn't do it. I had too many problems with the faith -- too many questions that no one could answer. I rejected Christianity when I was around 16 and I've never gone back.

But when I was doing my research, I stumbled upon various other spiritual paths that shaped the belief system that I hold today. In the present time I believe in a lot of things and I'm very comfortable with my spirituality, but I never would've arrived at that point if I had just blindly accepted the Bible as truth. It all worked out better than I could've hoped for.

Answer 4

I used to have faith. Such blind faith that only a child can know. Then after some time I did what the church dreads most. I started to read and think. I started to talk to people and figure out for my self what I saw in the world. I was no longer able to blindly accept comments like "god acts in mysterious ways" I started to see this as a cop out. Then after my wife passed away I realized that I was more comfortable in thinking everything I was ever going to be must be done while I am here on earth. After this there is nothing. Work and play as hard as I can now, I don't have to wait for another life to begin.
B

Answer 5

Yes, I was raised a Christian and did believe in God.

No, there wasn't a particular event that turned my away from that belief. Unlike Christians who can often cite the hour and minute when they were "saved" in a fit of religious fervor, atheists tend to gradually turn from the superstition only after careful thought and introspection. I don't speak for all atheists, but the ones that I know seem to have broken away from that superstition only after really taking a look at what they belief, what the tenets of various religions are, what evidence they have, what tactics they use, and the nature of belief, itself.

Faith is belief in something without evidence, usually because you really want or fear it to be true. It's best cure, therefore, is evidence. There is plenty of evidence that religions are man-made fantasies. There is no evidence of any actual gods.

Answer 6

Such a long answer. I'll try to keep it short. I was raised Christian and in my childhood I had moments of intense feelings of worship and devotion. As I got older though and read the Bible I had more and more questions. Some had answers but many did not have good, logical, or honest answers. In my teens I started reading a variety of Biblical scholarship and found some of my answers but they didn't point toward a literal interpretation of the Bible. I became agnostic by the time I was eighteen.

I majored in Biology and took the pre-med courses. In taking many course in science I learned a great deal about evolution, astronomy/cosmology, other world religions, and critical thinking. I finally came to the point where I just think religion is mythology, what man created to help them cope and make sense of things they didn't understand.

Short answer--I could go on for hours about problems with the Bible and Biblical history. I'll list some books that have influenced me deeply.

Answer 7

I think I did for a brief period as a small child because my mom (a non-practicing Catholic) said God was real. I believed everything she told me for a few years. I slowly started thinking that maybe she was incorrect because she was unable to answer my difficult questions. I looked at her Bible a few times and found that it really didn't 'speak' to me. Then, learning about other religions made me wonder how one could be 'more right' than another. I basically left it alone after that and decided that maybe I will know the answer one day but not today. No particular event turned me away. I was just naturally open to other ideas.

Answer 8

The more I studied the bible, the more full of holes it became. SO I studied it in the original languages and that made things worse. So I tried to turn off my mind and come to god as a little child and just have faith. This also did not work.

It wasn't an event or god not healing my puppy. It was a long process of 3 years in which "nobody was home."

Answer 9

When I got older, at about eighteen, I began to question my beliefs. I had learnt about many other religions (not in great detail, but I had a fair idea of what they were all about) and started to wonder why I believed the things I did. My head was full of all these odd notions that had accumulated over the years and didn't quite seem to match up to the real world. I reviewed what I knew of the world - geology, biology, evolution, cosmology etc. and realised that religion didn't explain things anywhere near as well as science. It was all too vague and fuzzy and implausible. The inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible made me doubt it - if I had a physics book that was as full of glaring holes as the Bible is, I would have thrown it out. I couldn't help but wonder why, if there was a benevolent God looking after us all, did so many people suffer and die all around the world - He didn't seem to be doing His job very well.

Answer 10

I am neither atheist and agnostic. I don't believe in religion, or man.

I have found religion to be hypocrytical in many regards. It is obvious that the bible was written as a historical document citing chronology and begats. 3 - 4 thousand years ago that was very important to the middle eastern societies. With the new testament, it elevates a great teacher (who was a VERY precocious child, according to gospels that are not in any bible) to deity status and espouses that the only way to become one with god is to blindly believe in the church and what it says. Religion is a very convenient way for men to control others through fear and ignorance.

I don't need anyone to stand between me and the Devine Oneness. I choose my own path to align my will with what I feel is the will of the Devine Oneness. That is much more powerful to me than what any religion espouses.

Looking outside of what is pounded into kids from adults and society, there is a wide world that religion doesn't touch. Critical thinking, reading other material on other religions, other ways of thinking about spiritual subjects will help you become better at knowing for yourself what rings true and what is coersion through threats and dogma.

Answer 11

I had been a believer (Hindu) for the first 20 years of my life. I can honestly say that God was my best friend and the one with whom I talked the most.

But there were always periods in my life where I doubted his benevolence and existence. I got into a bit of cosmology, evolution etc and though science doesnt disprove or even attempt to disprove God, I realised that there is no evidence for God.

I 've been an atheist for about 14 months now