What happened atheists?

Question

I'm curious. What made you stop believing in God, or if you never did, what prevented you from it?
And please, no evolution explanations, just tell me your story from the heart.

Answer 1

This question gets asked nearly every day and I think Christians and Atheists alike are getting pretty tired of it. Why not do a search to see if the question has already been asked before posting. And yes, that's from my heart.

Answer 2

It's been a long progression for me. I was raised Mormon and at first began to question it. I went through a brief period of time where I believed that specific religion was wrong but was still vaguely Christian, but I pretty quickly became convinced that no religion based on the Old Testament could be real. I simply refuse to believe that there could be One True God that has the characteristics described in the Old Testament. And when I compared the stories of the Old Testament to the mythologies of other cultures, I saw that if one sees the Old Testament as simply the mythology of the ancient Hebrews, then it simply made a lot more sense.

Note that it took a long time to go through this process. In hindsight, I think it is a form of child abuse to raise children to have religious belief. Children do not have the ability to think critically about what they are taught. By the time a child's brain has matured enough to think critically, it is often too late for that child to conceive of the world in a nontheistic way. Even for someone like myself, who developed the ability to think critically and examine my beliefs objectively, it was hard to recognize when I had biases in my thinking that were preventing me from thinking clearly.

It's so nice to finally be free of those biases.

Answer 3

i felt that the guilt was overwhelming. I couldn't believe that there was something invisible that was governing everything. A group of mortal men wrote a book many years ago, how do we know it was really Jesus who said those things? I use christianity as an example, because I was a Christian. I also found that faith brought not comfort when I faced my biggest loss. I believe that God is just another story that humans tell. I think we are still animals, intelligent or not, and if they don;t need a god, why do we? Religion may just be used to answer things we cannot, such as death, when really, we may never know, and cannot pretend we do. Also, we were put on this planet with nothing, we have no external link, no high communication, how do we know what is true?

Answer 4

I was raised Southern Baptist. I think from an early age I doubted stories from the bible. They seemed so much like Grimm's Fairy tales. I used to get into trouble for questioning my Sunday School teacher during class. As I got older and found out that there were other religions, other versions of gods, and *gasp* people who didn't believe in god at all...then I really began to question. I studied the bible, studied other religions, and after a great deal of soul searching I decided I no longer believed. But up to that point I tried so very hard to be a good christian and to follow the bible. But once I let go of those feelings, it was a huge relief.

Answer 5

I read a lot of history including the historicity of Jesus, philosophy, mythology, and psychology. I also studied textural criticism which is the study of the origins of the Bible, its authors, and its translation as seen by Biblical scholars of every religion. The more educated I became the less it all made sense. I was raised in a Protestant family, went to Catholic schools and studied the Bible with a rabbi. I also studied the history of the major religions. One day I sitting on the sofa and I realized that I felt that man since the very beginning of time has created a first cause who was the key to eternal life. Only the names have changed.

Answer 6

I stopped believing in God at about the same time I stopped believing in the Easter Bunny. Intelligence eventually takes the place of superstition. As I began to understand the Universe, I didn't need a Fairy Tale to make me seem right all the time, or make everything OK. The world makes sense without the myths.

Answer 7

I met someone who didn't believe in God when I was 15, and it was a time when I really wanted some questions answered about the bible and why people believe what they believe but I was always taught it was REALLY bad and ingrateful and sinful and you don't have any faith, etc. if you ask questions. But this person was not raised to think that way and wasn't afraid at all to doubt the existence of God. After him, I was less afraid of doubting, and as the years went by (I am now in my mid-twenties), I realized more and more that I don't believe that any one religion AT ALL, I view them as silly and backward. I'm all for being a good person but when someone tries to tell me that dancing, sex before marriage, homosexuality, masturbation, drinking, and everything else is a sin, I know they're wrong. Also, with the things I see (and don't see) happening in this world, I don't believe in a God that would let that happen. I know Christians have a response to this (something about a bet with the devil- yeah THAT's why it's ok for God to let this stuff happen, and something about freewill) but I say it's bunk. We are alone in this world and I am not afraid anymore to admit that to myself.

Answer 8

I think I was born a natural skeptic. I stopped believing in Santa at 3 years old (my parents say.. I don't remember ever believing). I remember being 4 or 5 sitting in a church with my parents listening to the preacher and thinking that I do not believe any of this stuff.

As I grew up how I thought of the world grew more complex... there just was no supreme god being involved.

Answer 9

I never did, because I didn't want to believe or be told what to believe, I wanted to KNOW. Science is the only way we can really "know" the universe. And yes, through evolution (as one part) I have a true sense of spirituality that is based on the FACT that all life is related. All life on this planet shares a common ancestor. That to me is a very humbling thought. Also that the god in the bible is insufficent compared to the universe that is revealed by science.

Answer 10

I never believed in a god.

I examined a lot of different beliefs though. See, your capitalised 'God' is probably the christian one. It's not the only one.
I do not see how your creation/origin myth is different from one of the other ones.

And that is all they are to me: origin myths. Attempts by primitive men to understand what they could not rationally explain. The conversation must've gone something like this: "what the hell is this enormous yellow light?" "let's call it the sun." "how did it get there?" "um, god did it"

These beliefs got codified, became dogma, and here we are with today's various religions.

We can see the documents (holy books) of these religions were written by primitive men; among other things there is flat earth belief, that the sun revolves around the earth, that slavery is OK, that women are below men, etc. etc.

Answer 11

Babies are not born with a religion. They acquire it from their parents and society. There are no Christian babies or Moslem babies! To believe in anything one does what everyone must do: reason and decide if his reasoning could stand the test of logic and the evidence of the senses. If it doesn't, one is accepting somebody else's thoughts without proof, just because one likes them, or makes us feel better. When a child falls and hurts himself, we want to make him feel better, and say anything and promise anything that will help him feel good again, that's what faith and religion is all about.

One can only arrive at the truth with reason. We have no other tool. To say that something is true because I like it, or because someone told us, or because it is written in some ancient “holy” book, or because millions of people believe in it, or because we hear voices inside us, all these are logical fallacies and very bad reasoning.

There is no faith higher than the truth.