Atheists, Agnostics.... What was it that turned you against religion?

Question

i mean what made u become/convert to an agnostic or atheist ???

for me, it was a life changing moment....i was brought up in a loving and religiously home....i went to the temple every sunday...however i was molested by the preist at the tender age of 9 yrs old in the temple....i was like every other kid....i liked cartoons, toys, believed in Santa Claus, playing at the park, etc.....but after that horrible incident, i completely changed....i started questioning everything....i read that God protected its followers from harm....oh yeah, well where the f.u.c.k. was he when i was being molested ???

at the age of 9, i was thinking why didn't God save me ??? should he have struck down the preist with lighting or something ??? of course, that never happened....that more i read the bible and "holy books," that more i was disgusted by it....

i practically disagreed with everything....why the hell is homosexuality denounced in religions ??? why can't two people of the same sex love each other ??? i didn't know that love had boudaries...

Answer 1

I am sorry u had to go through that.
I know i am not supposed to answer this since i m not an atheist and i know probably whta i m goung to say will mean nothing to u because it was a hard thing to go through.
But all i want to say is that Priest from outside does not= priest fro m inside it is just cloth on a body
seond there will be always evil on earth , people kill ,steal so why god did not protect the persons who got killed or robbed?
The answer is that God will protect you by his own plan but there will be always evil .
Being atheist will not solve the problem God will.
(I am not saying this to force you on something but just tell the truth but i can do nothing more becasuse it 's not my business its God's and yours

Answer 2

I was a devout christian for I don't I would say two years. Then I started gaining more knowledge on religions I started realizing how biased it was. Started learning religion is an elaborate hoax to keep people under control. To brainwash them to steal are money. Churches need all this money. When Its a Miltie billion industry and people fall for the same stuff every time. Then I started thinking why am I buying into this religion I was doing everything I could so the so called god would bless me or some ****. But all those two years not one good thing happened. I know one you Christians are going to look upon this thinking oh you didn't give it time you weren't faithful enough. 730days of my life devoted till I found it was a crock. There is no god. There was no Jesus there was no moses all the characters elaborate hoaxes written by man. Man created religion no god. Religions are just over populated cults.Its the truth no matter what you think if this statement is wrong or right.

Answer 3

Primarily three things for me ...

-- A nagging realization that the stuff written down in the Bible just didn't make any logical sense. People being created from dirt, a worldwide flood, people being magically conceived and rising from the dead. It all smacked of fairy-tale superstition. Then there were the Old Testament atrocities committed in God's name, and all of the contradictions.

-- After going through some very hard times in my life, I prayed and prayed, sometimes until there were tears in my eyes, begging for things to be better. Not one of my prayers was ever answered. (I, too, was molested as a small child, and I deal with the psychological aftermath even today. You have my total empathy.)

-- The people who call themselves Christians. I looked at Jesus' mesage of love and compassion, and then I looked at the people who claimed to follow him. There was a huge dicsonnect, because these people, by and large, were angry, hateful, prideful, and judgmental. I wanted nothing to do with them.

That's my story in a nutshell.

Answer 4

I went to college and took some religious philosophy courses.

Then there is that whole believe Jesus is your savior and accept him or go to hell thingee. I have a problem with that, and I always used to ask my religious leaders this question.

You mean to tell me that if a really great Jewish person (or Hindu or Buddhist or whatever), who gives their time and money for good deeds, never hurts others and lives an exemplary life is going to hell just because they don't believe in Jesus?

I didn't like the answer.

Answer 5

Sorry to hear that. Mine is not nearly as painful, I simple started looking into the evidence, mostly with evolution as I had grown up strongly creationist. I found that many of the creationist assumptions that I had were totally wrong and that evolution is basically fact. I then started looking at other biblical stories for evidence and realized how scant it is, if it even exists. Add in a bit of objective reading of the bible and that pretty much did it for me.

Answer 6

I was a firm believer for my whole life, but kept asking tough questions, that couldn't be answered by preachers and weren't explained in the bible.

I got sick of assuming that scientists were in a huge conspiracy to deceive me, and started trying to learn why evolution was such an accepted theory among the most educated people in our society.

I did it initially, to try and find a breaking point, but eventually realized that it is very solid, and that my reasoning was very flawed and open to emotional interpretation.

Basically my belief system was completely reliant on emotional thought patterns and not on proof. That did it for me.

Answer 7

I was raised Catholic but I always questioned the faith, as far back as I can remember. However, the moment that I can look back to that turned me away from the church forever (which now I am completely grateful for) was when the priest who baptized my son told me that the announcement for his baptism would not go into the church bulletin because I was unmarried. What a hypocrite! For a church who spends so much energy protesting abortion, and here you have a young single mom who chose life, and what did they do? Treated me and my son like we were an embarrassment.

Answer 8

That's a very tragic story, eddie. Mine is more mundane. I have never sensed the presence of a creator god. I've honestly tried but my gut and logic tells me that we are pretty much alone here. I don't find that particularly sad like many people do. I'm content having my life and having it end completely when it's over.

Answer 9

Sorry you had to go through that. For me it was when I started learning about all the older 'religions' that just so happen to have a lot in common with modern-day ones. Ever since I have looked at religion in a different light.

Answer 10

I am sorry that happened to you, but if you are angry at god then you are still a theist. (Just stating a fact.)

I was raised by a wonderfully confident women who was atheist. I had the privilege of growing up without the bias of any religion. It is nice because I feel like it made me more objective to the idea of god and from that point of view it is easy to see that it is very unlikely that any form of god exists. Even though I believe it is presumptuous for us to believe we know anything about god, I would bet my left leg that the Christian god doesn't exist.