How did you come to beleve in the religion(or lack there of) that you believe in?

Question

Was it the way you were brought up?
Did you search it out?
How did you come to believe?

Answer 1

At age 13 I read the Bible all the way through. At age 15 I realized organized religion was the diametric opposite of what is taught in the Bible. I gave up commercial Christianity and eventually became a Christian.

Answer 2

It's hard to say, really. I was raised to be a Catholic, but over the years I always asked questions, and sought other explanations for things. These days I am an atheist, which, yes, is a faith or belief system. It requires quite a leap of faith and conviction to risk damning oneself for eternity. At any rate, there were no singular events. I just sort of developed the belief that we exist in a natural orderly universe, with laws that cannot be broken. The existence of a deity would break those laws. I also believe of course that anything not understood now, has some natural reason to be, and is possible to understand, should the right brilliant mind figure it out. That is of course provided it is not more complex than a human brain can comprehend. We are only animals after all. I'd like to see a dog comprehend an internal combustion engine.

Answer 3

I am an atheist. I was raised catholic, and went to catholic schools for several years. I remember questioning why a god let people get sick and say or do certain things when I was about 3rd or 4th grade.

I fell away from attending regularly by the time I was 18 or so, once I wasn't forced to go. But I was in my 30's before I started really wondering about the existence of a god. It wasn't because I spent lots of time studying religion, it's just that it wasn't part of my life. By the time I hit 40 or so, I was agnostic, and shading to atheism.

Whenever I tried to learn a bit about religion, I saw things that were physically impossible. Talking snakes, parting the sea, burning bushes, food falling out of the sky, all of these are impossible with modern technology. How could they happen 2000 or more years ago? Then I was taught that the christian god is a loving, forgiving god, who just happened to let thousands of people die of sickness, pestilence, war, famine, etc. And that he used bigoted men and women to preach the message of love, but only if you were white and rich, or black and poor, but not gay, or asian, or whatever the preacher didn't like.

Feh... if that was what religious folk were like, count me out.

But I must say that I have met many people who have been kind, giving, friendly, and tolerant. They didn't worry that I wasn't a member of their belief - they just wanted to help. and they were true ambassadors of their faith.

Answer 4

I was raised in a family of lax Methodists, which means that we attended church as a family only on Christmas and Easter. Except for me. I tried never to miss Sunday School, church services, and Bible study. I attended every VBS, and frequently won certificates for being the youngest member to memorize lengthy scripture and psalms. I was very devout, I prayed frequently, and Jesus was my closest friend.

My parents divorced, and my father married a woman who sang in a gospel band along with her 3 sons, one of whom was a minister. He wasn't the only minister in her family--there were several. All this sounds like I would fit right in, but they worshiped differently, believed differently, and were none too happy about me questioning the why of all this.

Needless to say, this led me to question even more. By the age of 11 my faith was slipping, and by the time I was 14 I declared myself an atheist.

Answer 5

Atheist: The preposterousness of the bible did it. I realized it didn't pass my BS detector when I was a child, but I didn't admit it to myself until I was 16 years old.
I came from a Catholic family, spent some time at a Catholic school.

Answer 6

I was so anti-Catholic that I was determined to definitively prove Catholicism wrong once and for all. The more I studied it, however, the more convinced I became that it was I who was wrong and that Catholicism was indeed the One True Faith. After about 6000 hours of study, I converted to Catholicism.

Answer 7

Reading.

Answer 8

I was raised Catholic, but I willingly confess and accept that Christ is LORD, because of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus is accursed"; and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit" I Cor. 12:3

Answer 9

Partying to hard like a rockstar.so I looked for answers in the bible and found them.

Answer 10

I am an Atheist because it feels right to me and it makes the most sense (in my opinion).