have any of you atheist ever belived in GOD?? if so what changed your mind?

Question

this is a serious question,not trying to dogg anybody. o.k.

Answer 1

serious answer: The christians

Answer 2

I'm not an atheist, but I went from being a good Catholic to an agnostic before I finally settled into being a happy pagan. It wasn't any one experience, but a bunch of little things. I'd been taught (by my family and the church) that everyone was equal and deserved to be treated with love and respect, and I believe that deep, deep in my bones, so I had trouble with the idea of a God who would damn good people who didn't happen to be Christian. I had a priest tell me that animals don't go to heaven (FWIW, I've also had priests tell me they do), and that didn't make sense either, not deep deep in my soul. When I went to college, some members of the Baptist Student Union gave me a comic book on "the truth about Catholicism," which was full of lies (18 years a Catholic; I knew from Catholicism), and I realized that if THAT organized religion was lying, then maybe they could all lie. Then as I studied literature I learned how much of our belief in Heaven, Hell, etc. comes from fictional sources like Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost. And--the Christian God just stopped making sense.

Answer 3

Well, I'm not technically an atheist but I used to believe, but I grew up to question authority and why I had to follow what everyone else did. I wanted to be my own man and not everyone else's. So I questioned the existence of a god, and I questioned the reality of sciences. To this day, neither has given me any realistic proof, so I believe neither, nor do I disbelieve them. I am truly rare in being open-minded and I think beyond the word of others.

Answer 4

Yes, then I spent years in a hypocritical church. Then I started to look at the Bible with adult eyes, and an adult brain, and it started to seem like nonsense. Currently I am reading the Bible in it's entirety for the first time. I am not even done with Genesis yet, and it seems even MORE fake now, than it did before, but hey, I'm giving it a shot. I'm Agnostic, but I realized that in order to be Agnostic, or Atheist, I had to view several religions with as much knowledge as I can gain in order to make a fully informed decision.

Answer 5

Hello =)

My Grandmother (Born in 1898) had enough faith to sustain the entire family. Once she passed away, well.... Let's just say that My God died with her, and there has been no sign of him since. If it was a matter of God testing me, by her passing and the years of suffering that occurred afterwards, well, we shall say that I failed the test.....

Some 30 years later, and I find myself no longer a "bitter atheist", but a Buddhist -- still an atheist, I suppose, but not to such an extreme, and I can now see the value of Abrahamic Religions to their followers, I suppose.

If the God of Abraham does exist, he is not what most believers think him to be, however.

Namaste,

--Tom

Answer 6

I spent an inning in a baseball game praying to god to let our team win. We didn't win, perhaps I should have spent more time fielding pop flies rather than praying, and perhaps the other team was praying harder, but it surely damaged my faith. Oh yeah, and a few years later I realized that religion was a sham mainly by observing blind believers, and feeling no shame by not attending church or even caring about my religion.

Answer 7

Yes. I realized that the only reason I believed in God was because everyone else did. Growing up, it was just assumed that there was God because everyone else said there was one. But then I realized they all believed in God for the same reason, they were told to. So I did independent thinking and came to my own conclusion.

Answer 8

I used to believe in God. As I was growing up, I was never taught religion (my parents + siblings are Atheist). I found out about God myself, and became fairly religious. I never went to church, but he was definitely in my heart. I was this way for about 2 years.

At one point in my life, things started shifting for the worse, so I turned to God like I always had. I prayed that he would help me get through it. However, He wasn't there for me when I needed him most. I kept holding on, and trying, but he never came and he never answered my prayers. This was a huge awakening.

After this happened, I started believing that maybe there was no God. I read deeper into Atheism, evolution and other religions. But what I came to realize was that faith, strength and trust within myself is all that I needed. If I never gave up God, I dont know where I would be today - most likely miserable & saerching for answers I would never get.

Answer 9

yes for the firs 5-6 years of my life and i stopped because of the school i was going to sacred hart was such a pain then i started to realize that evolution make more since and i started to study history and found a couple of bible contradictions and studied the bible and found more then i truly became an atheist

Answer 10

i once believed in god. my dog (yes i know its a dog but i never really had any real friends beside him. he was part of the family.) died. i know it seems a bit immature but i took it very hard. i began asking myself very hard questions that religion couldnt answer (or gave me crappy, half-baked answers). over years of searching i eventually found myself to be an atheist. there are many other reasons such as not being in control of my own life and such. but yeah that was one reason and thank you for asking a serious question and not bashing atheists.

Answer 11

Er, most American atheists grew up believing in God. I assume that most of us changed our minds for the same reason - God never materialized, and in light of the lack of evidence for the existence of a god, we stopped believing.

It's really pretty straightforward.