Atheists: Was your Atheism borne out of anger at God, from growing up with parents who were Atheists?

Question

...or just as a result of you figuring it out on your own with no real motivation?

Actually, to all of you who assume that I am a Christian, I am an Atheist myself. I have met a lot of Atheists who were disillusioned and/or angry at God for letting something bad happen to a family member. That is when it started to sink in that God doesn't exist and thus...

Oh, and I really hate to be the one to tell you this, but a lot of people on here are complete a$$holes with their answers, I'm sorry to tell you fellow Atheists.

Answer 1

You don't understand what not believeing in something means. Start there and then see how dumb this question is.

Answer 2

I figured it out on my own. I was actually raised in a family that mostly comprised of devout Christians. Under their instruction, I used to believe God. But as a preteen, I started thinking for myself and realized that what I'd been told to believe didn't make any sense to me. So by the time I was 12, I was an Atheist and my family accepts that. I guess my only real motivation was a desire to make sense of the world around me.

Answer 3

My parents were god-fearing people - real salt of the earth. I began to ask some pretty awkward questions when I was about 12, such as "Yes but HOW do you know there is a god?" "Isn't the bible just stories written by malnourished sand-dwellers?" etc

I never received a reasonable answer, from then until now, and I never will. Religion is rubbish, plain and simple. - and I claim my right to say so!!!!!

Answer 4

Nope! My parents were good catholics, and so was I until something started me thinking. Where did you get this 'anger' thing from? The process of thinking openly and ratuionally about my beliefs was a long and painful process, but I was able to think from outside the confines of my religious beliefs, and once you achieve that, you immediately see the absurdity of all the 'mysteries' that believers accept without question. Think about it: Virgin birth, for instance, and put that alongside the fervent belief of a Hindu in a Monkey, or cow, or snake god. See the absurdity?

Answer 5

me, anger at the church and the lack of proof of a god. I grew up in a christian household, and in the church. I was condemned, and damned by the church, and my parents. I prayed and prayed and prayed and nothing ever changed, never able to "feel god" to "know" him like so many christians claim. After so many years of futile attempts to see some form of evidence that he existed, all the while watching the evils being done by the church, and by "gods children" the ones who claim to preach love and acceptance and all the good god does blah blah blah...i turned away. I no longer want to be associated with a hypocritial assocation and a god that preaches hatred.

edit: Do not associate anger at the church as anger at god. I was angry with the people of the church, for what they did and continue to do, i was angry at people but continued to try to find this god person, eventually i gave up, but i still am angry at the people of the church as they are more evil than those they condemn as evil.

Answer 6

Some things happened in my life which I was unable to reconcile with the idea of a loving God. I came to the decision that there could not be a God if he or she were not loving. Therefor there could be no God.

As for my parents, my mother was a believer. My father is an agnostic.

I have no interest in whether others believe or not. It is their business. I can't make myself believe in something that doesn't seem real to me.

Answer 7

Somewhere along the line, I began to doubt the concept. I guess you have to have faith to believe that God would kill little babies or innocent people for some good reason. I guess you have to have faith to believe that everything on earth is some grand experiment to see if we are worthy of heaven. I am sorry, but I just don't believe it. I don't have any trouble with those who do. In fact, I find them quite quaint in a nice way. There is a certain fulfillment from seeing people attend church. I just don't believe it will help them get to heaven.

Answer 8

Utter lack of evidence for the existence of God,(Or gods.)
Studied previous myths, many of which told the EXACT same story as the one we were following in this day and age. ( http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ )
Studied the beliefs of other religions, none of which had any more or less credibility than the one I had been raised to believe.
Figured it out on my own. And I did have motivation. I was motivated to find out the truth.

Answer 9

Anyone who is angry at "God" is not an atheist--they are a theist--a believer in God/s.An atheist doesn't say there is no God---or there is no flying pink unicorn--they just say there is no proof.In my case I found that the tribalism of organized religion was a definite barrier in my search.

Answer 10

My story is very similar to an earlier post. Religion wasn't important in my household, then in 4th grade I was enrolled in Christian school. I became a Christian shortly their after, but the combination of hypocrisy, judgment and inaccuracies caused me to choose Atheism.

Answer 11

I grew up Catholic. Both of my parents were religious, and one was a fanatic.

I only became atheist after reading the works of Carl Sagan and coming to this philosophy on my own. I cannot be angry at something that does not exist.