Atheists - what influenced your beliefs?

Question

Were there any events in your lives which opened your eyes and made you question your religion, or eventually lead you to atheism? If so, what were they?

Answer 1

Where was he during 911, the great tsunami, flooding of New Orleans, the Iraq War started by war-mongers, the holocaust, the Bosnian-Serbian war?.... all the dying and miseries. Yet he failed to show up. He's non existent. So, I.m an atheist.

Answer 2

I never had any religion so I had none to question. I did not come to atheism eventually, I was an atheist by the time I was eight years old. I didn't call myself one, of course. But looking back I was one. I took off when I was still a teenager and never looked back. I did have a run in with a cult, but I was too savvy by then to get hooked. I have always depended on myself because I have always had to. I went to sea at a pretty young age and I learned the ways of the world. There was nothing a religion could teach me in so far as getting along went and now that I can see the end of the road coming up, I see that there is nothing a religion can teach me that I don't already know. I guess I have never believed in a god. I don't believe in all the hell stories either. That stuff is spouted by people who are afraid of life and death. I am not. I have a great wife and we were both independent and in our late twenties when we married. Got five good kids who are educated. Four school teachers and a psychologist. I have nothing to kick about. I will rot in the ground with the best of them.

AEN

Answer 3

At some point, I realized that science made sense. Therefore, evolution was correct, and creationism was not. Also, I took the Bible as symbolism, because it wasn;t logical. I was also pretty po'd that the Christian God is a he, and didn't understand why the whole "messiah" thing was relevant. Then, in Church History class, my teacher talked about levitation and the saints. I was fuming by the end of class, fed up with what I considered lies, and decided that I had had enough deception: I no longer wanted to be a participant in Christianity. I wanted to be a bystander, on the other side, watching, listening, but not accepting their beliefs as my own. I felt that I owed it to myself to figure out what i believed, since I couldn't defend Christianity. So I thought, and thought some more. I questioned myself, tried on new religions, and finally settled on Deism-- which isn't atheism, so I don't know if i should be answering this question...

Answer 4

Erik R...Stop it. Just stop it right now. Stop believing what Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron have told you. They don't know anything about evolution (no matter what "testimony" they give you), they take numerous quotes out of context, and they can't give you a single bit of scientific evidence anything they say (about evolution) is true.
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Sorry. Didn't mean to stray off the subject. I don't think there is any one specific thing that made me question my beliefs. There are a couple of experiences I remember, though, that stick out:

1) A world religions class I took in college a long time ago. I started asking questions like "How could all of these religions claim to be the 'right' one by its believers with nothing more than primarily personal experiences and ancient texts?" and "How could anyone possibly chose the correct religion when they make the same basic claims and try to discount every other religion?"

2) A number of people that I knew, trusted, and even outright respected in some cases were so completely close-minded about things that I felt passionately about (science, in particular), and their fear and blindness was a direct effect of religion.

3) Adherence to silly, time-consuming doctrine and dogma without question by some of these same believers.

Answer 5

Contrary to what many assume, my atheism was NOT actually the result of studying of science, a tragic personal event, nor a distaste for Christanity (I rejected the Bible and Christianity many years before I became an atheist, taking up other theistic religions along the way).

I simply found myself no longer needing the notion of deity in my life. It was something I no longer thought about. It didn't happen overnight, but one thing that really helped was moving out of my parents' place and going to college. I was no longer in an enviroment where I felt I had to cling to my religion. I was opened to a much better social life, had new purposes and directions, and was learning more about the world. I also realized that the thing that I really loved about religion was the ritualized expression, but found other ways of getting my ritualistic kicks without having deity in the picture. So the theism faded away.

Answer 6

It all started when I was just a child. My parents read regular books with me at night and then when they took me to church on Sundays, I couldn't believe that they actually believed what they were being taught. I was an only child and had to have an active imagination, but instead of God I focused on how things were made.

As I got older and science progressed, there was no need in holding on to the possibility of a God anymore. Think of all of the time people waste in church, synagogues, and mosques each year. I think the number unfathomable. If everyone started focusing on our only lifetime, how much better do you think we could make our world?

Answer 7

It started when I was a teenager and had to go to church. I never liked the fact that God didn't blow off the guys who were hurting Jesus and I started disliking him because of that. Then I realized that religious people all believed their religion was better than everybody else's. That wasn't so bad at first, because everybody differs ... but it really bugged me that most religious people fancied themselves BETTER than me because I didn't follow like a sheep as well as others.

I balk at authority ANYWAY, so I decided if God was like that, then maybe the people telling me about death and hell were perhaps a few backwashes short of a full can of Coke!

LOL
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Oh, and from an early age I decided that Adam and Eve thing was just a pile of moose doo doo.

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Answer 8

I never really had any beliefs as a child. I tried to believe in a god, but it never felt real. As an adult, I actually joined with the Pentecostals. Wow, what a ride! That 6 year trip really nailed in the truth for me. It was so hard for me to pray to nothing, to ask nothing for a miracle, to raise my hands to nothing.

I gave it my best shot, but in the end, there really is nothing higher and/or bigger than me.

Oh, that and reading the bible everyday for 6 years!

Answer 9

Just never saw any evidence for a god, so never developed a belief in one. I remember when I was young realizing that people actually believed in it, unlike all the other things like Santa.

Answer 10

Well non beliefs, actually..There was the event of me thinking I was about to die.. You know when you see the light, then total darkness.. That makes you question a lot..