Atheists, a question my husband asked me last night: Do you remember the exact moment you stopped believing?

Question

Common Sense, surely that must be a misnomer. Why on earth would I blame anything on a nonexistent entity?

Answer 1

No, there was no "moment", I never believed, even as a child... I tried to, but I just coudn't do it.

Answer 2

The social aspect of religion always attracted me, but I have always been repulsed by the ridiculous and arbitrary dogmas that religions preach and by the sheer nonsense that constitutes the bulk of most religious texts. Submitting to such doctrine is the equivalent of committing a lobotomy on oneself. What makes us most unique as humans is our ability to think rationally about the world around us. Religion denies us the right to use our own minds.

While I have flirted with a number of spiritual paths over the years, I have come to see just how intellectually stifling they all are and have never been able to commit to any of them. However, it's only been in the last six months that I have fully embraced logic and reason and therefore, atheism. So, I can't say that I ever fully believed; but it's only been lately that I openly call myself an atheist. Most of the studies indicate about 20% of Americans are non-believers, but only a few of them have taken the next step of declaring themselves atheists. This is most likely due to the continuing lag in educational and living standards in the US as compared to Europe, such that atheism still has something of a pejorative connotation among the poor and uneducated.

Answer 3

I was raised in a family of athiests, except my only sister, who is a born again (only "God" knows why, haha). My parents' families are strict Catholic. They grew up Catholic and gave up their respective religions during their late teens in the early 70s. I was taught there was no God from the beginning and I won't ever believe in a God. The truth is all around us. They don't teach creation in school. They teach evolution. Isn't that a clue here?

I'm such a strong athiest I ended up majoring in Anthropology in college and it was the best thing I ever did.

I'll never believe in "God". The Bible is such a fantastic work of fiction. I'm not sure most people realize it's a bunch of stories collaborated together and written down from word of mouth. History can prove that it is.

Science can disprove creation the way it is told in the Bible, yet people still believe. They use the excuse that "theories" are our fact. And we can't ever decide and our theories change. DUH! Sure enough. So is relativity and gravity, yet they believe in those. The fossil system is completely disregarded, yet we have so much evidence of past beings, including dinosaurs and early humans that they could fill a football stadium.

Religion. It's a waste of my time.

Answer 4

Ok if Printninja doesnt get the best answer Im going to find a Christian to convert me. haha
That was an exceptional piece. Ninja said it perfectly.
Ever since I was young ( 5 or 6 ) I never liked Bible study. I always hated going. It was to the point where I would get sick to my stomach knowing I had to go. I remember the last day of it I told my grandma I was too sick to go and I just wanted to stay home. I wasn't really sick but I still had to stay in my room and was not able to play with the other kids when they got home.
I find it funny how I was forced to go because of my families beliefs then punished for not wanting to go along.

I also went to a Christian day after school from 3rd to 4th grade, including the summers. So I grew up with it around me. Its not like I never learned about the Bible because I did the first 11 years of my life.

Thinking back to the 5th grade we had the mobile church trailer come to the school and if you wanted we could take that class. Unlike my friends I took it because.... I don't recall that reason. Anyways in that class we were able to get stars for remembering verses and answering questions. At the end of the year I had the most stars. My mom must have been proud.

I always had questions to things such as Noah's Ark, Where did Cain get his wife from,and others. These questions were never answered with straight forward answers. I always got and still get a vague or weak answer. The most frequent answer I get is, " I have Faith."
That has never done it for me. Never has and never will.

I remember the day I told my mom I didn't believe in God. I was 18 and I got pulled over for speeding and got a ticket, I was pretty pissed off about it. When I got home I sat down and watched the news with my parent and I heard that a Cop was shot and I said, "Good! That's what the pig deserves."
My mom asked what my problem was and I stormed out the front door.
She met me outside and in my anger I came out and said it. She didn't like me saying it and cried. I know it hurt her but this is the way I am. I love my mom and I wouldnt do anything to hurt her but this time I couldn't do anything about it. To this day she tries to get me to go to church when I'm in town.

Answer 5

I remember straining to suppress questions and doubts concerning God when I was about 8 or 9. I spent about 7 to 8 years suppressing my ever-increasing skepticism.

When I was 16 years old, it come to a head. I don't even remember what started it (nothing even remotely tragic), but I realized none of it was true. I was at school when this happened. I wanted to go home so bad, and when I eventually did, I locked myself in the bathroom, where the world seemed to fall apart (it felt very physical, as if the walls were caving in). My "moment" happened inside my mother's bathroom at the age of 16 and began a long period of deep depression.

Answer 6

No, not really. I remember the big realizations that started me questioning my beliefs, but it took a while to shake them all off. I don't remember the exact moment that I stopped believing all together. The most significant thing was when I met an atheist at school when I was 12, and realized that non-belief was an option.

Answer 7

Yeah, while i substitute into sixteen years previous i finished being a Christian. It substitute into slow, no longer unexpectedly. The extra I studied the bible the extra I got here to attain i did no longer like the god portrayed in its pages. there is no way i could serve a god which could deliver human beings to hell. So i began out watching different gods. i ultimately switched over to Asatru and practiced that for a on a similar time as worshiping the Norse Gods and Goddesses. This final 365 days I grew to become an atheist in spite of the undeniable fact that, that too substitute right into a steady occurring as my way of thinking shifted, in spite of the undeniable fact that it dawned on me while i substitute into walking contained in direction of the woods watching the timber that I could purely be user-friendly with myself: I no longer believed in gods. I remember plucking a leaf from a tree that day, I nevertheless have it.

Answer 8

Between the ages of 9-11, I had significant doubts, but I think I was non-committal because of all the fear and guilt I'd been taught as a child.

By 12-13 I proclaimed I was agnostic.

By 14 I was pretty certain there was no god, but some small part of me still felt like it was wrong to think this way, so I kept it to myself.

Around 15-16, I began to publicly declare I was an atheist, and yet there was still this irrational little feeling in my head that maybe there was something responsible for all "this. I think I wanted people to know I was an atheist, but I still held back .001% in my own head, "just in case."

At the age of 22, my closest friend in the world had a heart attack and died in my arms. Yet even that event wasn't enough to kill that last .001%. It was a week later, at the wake, when I had to leave the room during a brief spoken service from some faceless religious person (lest I throw up - my friend was an atheist) and I went outside. I was racked with grief, sobbing, and I looked up at the stars in that typically clichéd fashion, and "opened my heart" to ANYTHING, a message, a sign, a feeling, a thought, a voice in my head or my soul or whatever, an explanation as to why, some comfort, ANYTHING at all to indicate that there was a purpose or meaning behind all of "this." That I wasn't alone in life.

I felt nothing, received nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

I can honestly say this was the most anguished moment I've ever felt in my life. Nothing has compared. It wasn't my friends death either. No event, no death, no tragedy has ever effected me like that moment, because it was at that moment I realized, finally, that we are truly alone in this universe. We are nothing more than a collection of cells that have become aware of ourselves, and our unavoidable destiny with death.

It was at that moment that it struck me... all the people inside the funeral parlor clung to their faith, to their god, for one simple, selfish reason. To avoid that ultimate pain that I had just willingly let myself feel. It wasn't the grief over the death of my friend, but the ultimate, piercing knowledge that says "this is it." We truly are alone in the grand scheme of things. All we have are ourselves and each other, and eventually we will all leave each other, some of us sooner than later. Nobody is waiting for us. Nobody is going to save us. It's just us, and with this realization I instantly found the strength to cast off that .001% of doubt and never look back, because I realized that the power and strength that so many people assign to "god" is nothing more than their own will, and their own courage, and their own fortitude, that they are too ashamed or afraid to embrace and be proud of.

It's the ultimate symbolic expression of a child leaving their parent to go out into the world on their own, knowing that their parent will one day be gone forever, but understanding that they still matter and what they do with their life matters, and matters a lot.

Answer 9

I was a devout little Christian at age 9... an atheist by age 11 (when I was told the story of Jonah and the whale) *rolls eyes* then by about 16 I discovered "spirituality" which for me .. means believing in me.. my powers (which includes being connected to everyone, universal love and lots of hippy lovin stuff) but as for all the little preachers declaring we should all "come back" to Jesus.. does it ever occur to you that behavior like that just pushes us further away?

Answer 10

In Christianity? I started doubting and reading and questioning about 11 or 12. Threw out Christianity but kept god for a long time. Thought him a vindictive a*s most of the time but still thought there was some "greater power" there.

In ANY power greater than us, that actually cares? Six years ago. ( and no it wasn't 9-11).

Answer 11

that's assuming all atheists at one time believed but for me it wasn't an exact moment. I never believed in the sense that i believed only when i shut my brain off from all the questions. Eventually, i couldn't quieten my mind and church got very very frustrating. But i still didn't become an atheists till some events in my life made me re evaluate my life including all the beliefs i inherited from my parents