Atheists......?

Question

What exactly caused you to turn your back on organised religion? Or were you just lucky enough to escape the damage altogether

Answer 1

When I was nine and in the 4th grade I wrote an essay with a mathematical proof that it was impossible for Santa to visit every Christian home in the world within 24 hours. Then I asked why all the Christian parents would engage in a world wide conspiracy to convince their own children that the impossible was true. I was required to read my essay aloud and afterwards several of my peers suggested that providing rewards for believing the impossible was a strategy for getting children to believe in religion. I agreed with them and returned to my desk.

The following day, the Principal removed me from class and took me a meeting of parents who were concerned that I was undermining their child's faith. My fundamentalist father was there and immediately started slapping me around for "making trouble." A couple parents asked him to stop hitting me. Then I was required to read my essay again and when I finished my father back-handed me so hard I rolled backward off my chair with a bloody nose. One of the other fathers, who was built like a NFL lineman, pushed my father against the wall and stage-whispered through gritted teeth that if he touched me again the big guy would beat the living crap out of my father. When everybody returned to their seats, the big guy sat between me and my father. I felt very protected and safe and was amazed that anyone would stand up to my brutal father on my behalf. While the adults continued their meeting, talking about me as if I wasn't even there, I realized that something was seriously wrong with my father because none of the other grown-ups liked him.

After the meeting, my father took me home and beat me with a belt for costing him half a day's pay and for embarrassing him in public. While I was still crying, he made me read selected parts of the Bible aloud, as he always did when he punished me (almost daily). This time something clicked and I realized the Bible and everything in it was as evil as my father. The following morning, he woke me up and beat me again, "for reinforcement." Then he made me read the Bible again and I swore to myself I would never ever be religious because I didn't want to be anything like my evil Christian father.

At school, I sought out the son of the big man who had defended me. I learned that he thought I was a real genius and that he feared my father would turn me into a criminal. The big man was a doctor, a scientist at the Livermore Radiation Laboratory and I could see that his son was very proud of him. Somehow, I knew this was how it was supposed to be and I was overwhelmingly embarrassed with both my parents. (Mom was a holy-rolling Pentacostal who used to force me to go to church and watch as she and others spoke in tongues and literally rolled on the floor. At nine years old, I found the experience mortifying and would rather take one of my father's beatings than endure the embarrassment of watching my mother make a genuine fool of herself.) Anyway, I was very impressed with the big guy scientist and adopted him as my secret role model. I promised myself that I would never love my obviously insane parents and would never allow myself to accept superstition as if it were the truth. I promised myself my life would amount to something positive because I was going to become a real scientist and discover true facts.

Answer 2

I've seen things that makes me think that if there is a God, he has a lot to answer for, sod this "mysterious ways" crap, or blaming man and his wickedness, things come from nature that are unfair to the innocent, and if God is responsible, he is either powerless and weak, and therefore unworthy of worship, or ignores the cruelty of a universe HE created like a child failing to live with the ramficiations of his action.

From what I have seen, "Religions" serve to split people into groups of people that at best, disagree and at worst hate each other, whatever message there is is unclear as it is lost amongst so much contradiction, hate and division. How can I decide one religion is right when other religions say the opposite, with as much conviction and with the same dirty slate of their own behaviour?

So, I think there is evil in this world outside of mankind - whether it be the disease that racks the body of a new born baby and kills it, the lion that rips apart the zebra or those born disabled. Nature is ugly, nature is built on suffering. God created it and God created us and put us in nature. If God exists I have a major problem with him for his lack of responsibility for his own creation.

I dont come from religion, but have dabbled into it and read into it and tried to take it seriously. I have also tried to be a good person, I have existed well and tried to be the best I could. If God holds the fact I didnt live in accordance with him, so be it. If he is insecure that I didnt get some calling that was lost to me through the chaos of his own creation, so be it. If I fail him because of this. So be it. But he is at fault for not being clearer and not giving me a better chance to do so.

Answer 3

My parents were intermittent in enforcing my religious training and I grew up feral. After a brief stint in the Christian church I took off on my own. Recently, it occurred to me, to my surprise, that there is some kind of Divine entity in the Universe, just nothing like the one described in most organized religions. This was a funny realization to me, but I believe that now.

Answer 4

It was a gradual process. Mom's father was a preacher, so I was sent to his church regularly, but I read science books at an early age, and they had ideas that conflicted with religion. I soon saw science has evidence to suppport its positions while religions appeal to the authority of books that have many contradictions and are quite ignorant about science. I began to doubt my family religions at age 7, and that increased as I grew older and wiser.

Answer 5

When I realised many years ago that religion was the root cause of all troubles in this world we live in.

Plus I've taken a strong dislike to people who think their beliefs & religions come first in daily life

Answer 6

I don't consider my religious upbringing 'damage', my parents were trying to do what they thought was best for me. They just see the world differently than I do. I never consciously turned away, I've been an Atheist since birth. Just around age 12, I was no longer afraid to admit that I didn't believe in god.

Answer 7

I read the Bible and looked at the world. Religion didn't seem to be getting it right. The people who were making real changes and trying to fix things had faith in the human race. I was lucky, I suppose, my parents let me think for myself.

Answer 8

I'm not so much an atheist as a humanist who doesn't concern himself with god or lack thereof. There might be, there might not. Doesn't matter too much in my day to day life.


As for what led to me turning away......when my father died and I asked questions....I received no answers. So I said screw it and left. That was the initial reason. Why I stay away is because I don't agree with organized religions teachings. I agree more with Buddhism/Shinto.....but that's a philosophy, not a religion.

I think gays should be able to marry, abortion be legal (female's right to choose), suicide (a person's right to do with their body as they want), mercy killing/assisted suicide for those with terminal illnesses and in immense pain, and the death penalty (because some people just deserved to be killed for their crimes) My thoughts on those subjects go against what most religions believe in.

Answer 9

Thankfully my parents had their heads screwed on enough to never insist I take on religion.
With so much evil going on in the world I find it hard to believe that there can be a god that allows it all to happen. Plus there are more plausable scientific explanations for things that people claim god was responsible for.

Answer 10

was lucky enough not to have been brought up in a religious background and knowing that all "holy books" are written by man not a mythical god has helped me stay on the path of righteous atheism