If your are an atheist, how did you arrive at your beliefs?

Question

I have had many discussions with atheists, who have strong convictions about their belief, but none have been able to explain to me how they systematically or academically arrived at their belief (or disbelief).

I would like to know, specifically, if their is an atheist out there that has come to their conclusions after thoroughly, diligently studying The Bible. None that I have met thus far have any more than just a superficial (if not warped) understanding of Judaism or Christianity. Most seem to have come to their conclusions on their own without actually studying in detail the theological issues involved.

I am not judging anyone, I just am interested in this topic.

Answer 1

Mine wasn't academic in the slightest

i just realised that believing in a god existing was a bit like believing in Santa existing

This has been backed up by the lack of any decent evidence of a god actually existing.

Why do I need to study your religion in detail? Your religion or your religious book is not proof your god exists.

I would only need to study the theological issues if I was unsure as to which god actually existed. Have you studied all the worlds religions/gods before picking the one you currently believe in or is just the one your parents first taught you about?

To quote Stephen Roberts:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours"

Answer 2

You are jumping to some big unwarranted conclusions here.

First, atheism is by definition an absence of beliefs. So you simply cannot meaningfully ask or answer the question how does an atheist arrive at their beliefs - you can only ask why did they not arrive at a set of beliefs.

The answer to that is likely to be the total absence of any evidence to back up those belief systems. There is a lot to this - and yes, I have studied it far more than you could possibly imagine.

Second, you assumes athiesm is based on ignorance. Many people who are atheists have a more complete understanding of the bible than you have, but also likely have an equal understanding of other religious writings (the Koran, Torah, Bhagavad Git etc) of which you appear totally ingorant yet which in the name of religion must carry at least equal weight.

You argument on what can be achieved by reading such texts is somewhat circular because you cannot use a book on which a belief system is based to proved that belief system. Its like me saying "there is a tooth fairy and it is proved by me saying there is a tooth fairy".

But you are right that the theological issues do deserve study, and these generally proved the most damning of all for religion. Theological values have changed so often (indeed been made up through history) that many christians are totally ignorant of where their beliefs come from. They rashly and incorrectly assume that this is the bible, but they would be hard pressed to assemble a consistent theology of any kind let alone like their own from the bible on its own.

Answer 3

Being raised in a christian home, I was subjected to the church and it's doctrines for many years.

At one point I really believed that Jesus was the only path to eternal salvation. I have come to understand that those beliefs were not of my own choosing, but rather, they were instilled into my mind from a very young age.

I have read the Bible on a number of occasions. As well as other religious writings such as, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the book of Enoch, the book of Moses, and a number of the omitted gospels.

Although it has no merit for argument whatsoever, I've even read The Divine Comedy.

I have since opened my eyes to the absurdity that the Bible teaches; that I am more than simply a pawn in the chess game between God and the Devil. I will not undermine the positive effects religion (christianity mainly) has in many people's lives, but I cannot turn a blind eye to the negative either.

Blah blah blah...there is much, much more that I can say, but I'll leave it at that.

God Bless.


I will admit that I am not a true athiest, but am merely an agnostic.

Answer 4

I'm not an atheist but an agnostic. I do have many atheist friends, though.

I'm agnostic simply because I don't KNOW for sure there is no god. I don't have proof that there is one but I don't have proof that there ISN'T one either. That's why I'm not completely an atheist.

I used to be a Christian for over 20 years and was never really content with the religion. I got interested in studying world religions in college, along with studying the bible and how the stories in there came about, the mistranslations, the omissions, the forced changes (by religious leaders), etc.

It'd be a long day to explain exactly how I decided I didn't want to be a Christian any longer. But much of it has to do with proof. I don't buy the faith issue. Faith, while it's a nice romantic idea, is a crutch and a tool by religions to get them NOT to question anything for fear that the person will abandon the religion someday. Because, honestly, say if someone was to seriously look at the bible with fresh eyes and you've never heard of Christianity before (without all the propaganda), you'd think it was a bunch of crap. It's highly illogical: Noah's ark (let's see you get polar bears from the arctic circle on the ark along with over 100,000 other animals and keep them- and yourself -alive for 40 days at sea), talking snakes, talking donkeys, a man parting the Red Sea, etc.. you get the point.

The illogical stories in the bible are just ONE reason why I'm not a Christian. I would think people can understand why non-christians do not take the bible as proof.

The other part of it has to do with how judgemental and hypocritical Christians can be. I'm not going to believe in a religion that says their god will send my gay and Jewish friends to "hell".

Answer 5

I've explained before, but I'll type up a summary now.

First, if you are a Christian, you probably have a curious definition of a "warped understanding of Judaism or Christianity." Second, you act like Christianity is the only serious challenge to atheism, when atheists reject *all* gods.

I came to reject belief in the Christian god over a period of several years. The more I learned about Protestantism when I was young (first year in college), the less I believed it. I especially became suspicious when I found out that the cranks who believe they can talk to god are only fooling themselves, when they claimed the "Holy Spirit" told them something about me that wasn't true. (They have a "vision" in which their god told them I was anorexic, and I knew that I ate three meals per day, sometimes more. They actually came to the conclusion because I once skipped a meal because I wasn't hungry, and then they convinced themselves their god told them their opinion.)

I joined a more moderate religious sect (Catholicism), and I studied that in detail. There, I learned how to study the Bible critically instead of literally.

I spent most of 2002 in Asia. While there, I was immersed in non-Christian culture for the first time ever (I'd been in Bosnia for a while, but in a Christian portion of it), and I became convinced that the Christian god was pretty much logically contradictory. ("Perfectly good" contrasts with "these non-Christians deserve lower status because of where they were born," for example.)


From there, I learned how religions came about, and I learned a bit of philosphy, and I studied the origins of life, the universe, and consciousness from a scientific perspective. I also observed arguments for an against theism, and the theists looked silly *every time*. When I found out that the silly-looking theists were actually using arguments that Christian philosophers consider convincing, I knew theism was hopelessly flawed.

Poof. No need for gods.

Now, I'm an atheist, and I have been since 2002.

Answer 6

It took rather a bit more than studying the Bible, contrary to the common saying, "A thorough reading of the Bible is the greatest force for atheism."

I think for me the biggest realization was that just as I can place species on an evolutionary tree, I can do exactly the same with religions. No religion today is what it was even 150 years ago, let alone 1400 years ago (Islam), 2000 years ago (Christianity), or 3000 years ago (Judaism), or even 10000 years ago (Hinduism).

That made me a pretty strong agnostic.

Then I started studying the field of neuroscience, predominantly from the computer science view point. I double majored, in fact, in computer science and psychology with an eye towards attending a graduate program in neuroscience.

I learned two critical things -- how the brain creates, in perfect accord with the laws of physics, the supernatural experience, as well, that free will is a literal impossibility in the universe in which we find ourselves.

Without free will, theism becomes entirely meaningless.

I admit that I am left with Deism or atheism, but since deism is consequentially equivalent to atheism... occam's razor takes care of the rest.

Answer 7

Actually, it was at age 8 in the third grade. I was in the children's chapel, repeating as I had done many times, the Nicene Creed.

"I believe in god the father almighty maker of heaven and earth....."

And when I listened to it, I thought how utterly silly.... If Jesus rose after three days, and was Innocent, then the two kittens that had died that my female cat had had ought not to be still buried behind the garage. When I got home, up, they were still there.... that began a long line of questioning.... if god is good, why does an animal have to kill another to live.... and later when I was in middle school, why would god allow 6 million to die and when I understood more about cancer, why did people have to get that.... by age 17, the entire idea of the supernatural seemed ridiculous... so I started to study the bible, it as well as its history... I was a staunch atheist by the time I was 18 and could argue with reason how evolution made far more sense that creationism.....gods, supernaturalism, prayers simple seemed contrary to experience, and particularly so when I then ended up studying all sorts of religion... they all seemed unreasonalbe. By then I had concluded that man had invented all gods throughout the history of his evolution.

Helpful?

Answer 8

Well I became an Ex-Christian from studying the bible. And yes, I did actually read and study it. I have found Christianity to be severely lacking in its spirituality, social, and ethical teachings; and Christians to be largely arrogant and rude.

Here's one the main reasons I don’t like Christianity. Many people who have rejected Christianity site the doctrine of hell as one of the major reasons, and I agree, the idea of a God punishing people for all eternity simply because they didn’t worship him is sadistic beyond comprehension. But the turning point for me was thinking about what would Heaven be like? What kind of heaven would it be like without those whom you loved most? What type of heaven would it be like if you can’t even remember those you loved because God erased your memory? You surely wouldn’t then be able to remember anything at all about your life here on Earth as a result. You wouldn’t be the same person you are now because all the things that make us who we are would be striped from you. What makes us who we are is our memories and past experiences.


Then of course is the matter of living for all eternity in one place, spending all your days doing nothing but praising a God that stole your memories and robbed you of kin sentencing them to the lake of fire. I think any sentient being would in time go insane as the centuries rolled by. It sounds like an awful dreary existence. Eventually, if we don't have a continually challenging and diverse environment, we will die, yet in heaven you cannot die. You are forced to exist forever, you can’t commit suicide in Heaven. I started to see why Lucifer and one third of the angels rebelled against (the Christian) God. Heaven seems like a fate far worse then hell.


Me becoming an atheist happened later on and was a separate event. I didn't go from being a Christian to an Atheist, I was an Asatruar. The reason I became an atheist is because I just can't find any evidence for the existence of any gods, or afterlife, or soul. I'm what you'd call a reluctant atheist. I really wish there was an afterlife and gods who cared.

Answer 9

I've read the bible cover to leather-bound cover at least three times. I've got a pretty good understanding of it. Atheists don't like the religion. That's the simple answer.
The Bible does not prove that God exists. All its proves is that people in the past believed that God existed. And no-one follows the Bible to the letter (most Christian women do not cover their heads, at church or otherwise). So what you have is a bunch of sects following their own interpretations of a book written in several different, foreign languages thousands of years ago. Can you see why people might be skeptical?
Also, there are lots of Christians who are horrible bigots and misogynists. Christianity has been used to justify war and slavery in the past. Isn't it obvious why you might want to loudly declare you don't want to have anything to do with that tradition?

Answer 10

I was born an atheist and I was not brought up religiously, therefore I remained in my natural atheist state.

But when I ever considered reading or even studying religious texts (which I don't), who says that I have to start with the bible? Why not the Vedas, or the texts of the Egyptian pyramids, or Confucius, or the Edda? It's all the same sort of mystic mumbo-jumbo, hardly intelligible, thousands of years old, copied and edited and forged over and over. Sorry, I see no use in this.