CHRISTIANS: Were you ever an atheist?

Question

If so, what did you do to influence your atheism?
i.e., were you REALLY an active atheist, or merely a disinterested UNBELIEVER?

If you were an atheist, can you name some of your atheistic influences? Philosophers or Intellectual Atheists whom you may have studied. When you say that you were an atheist, did you really give atheism a chance, or did you simply jump on the Christian bandwagon when it came along, having been compelled by the emotional pull of the sermon?

Why did you leave atheism? and how could you, after having learned that Jesus never existed and that the Bible is a very shaky compilation, etc, etc.
Did you get sucked into all those apologist websites (Josh MacDowell, Tektonics) that give out wrong information?

Do your emotions really have that much control over you?

To "The CRICKET":

I COULD WRITE A BOOK about the errors of Josh MacDowell, Tektonics, etc, but don't have the space here.

Simple GOOGLE searches on both will uncover tons of info.

Try,
Noanswersingenesis
AtheistEmpire
GodlessWebAwards
EvoWiki
SkepticFiles
RichardDawkins.net
Panda'sThumb
RabidApe on YOUTUBE
AtheistNetwork
InfidelGuy
FreedomFromReligionFoundation
TBK (TruthBeKnown)
BrianFlemming's Weblog
RationalistsInternational
Rational Response SQUAD

and the list goes on and on and is growing daily!

As for Josh MacDowell, there's so much info against his claims, but you can start here:http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/

To "The CRICKET":

I COULD WRITE A BOOK about the errors of Josh MacDowell, Tektonics, etc, but don't have the space here.

Simple GOOGLE searches on both will uncover tons of info.

Try,
Noanswersingenesis
AtheistEmpire
GodlessWebAwards
EvoWiki
SkepticFiles
RichardDawkins.net
Panda'sThumb
RabidApe on YOUTUBE
AtheistNetwork
InfidelGuy
FreedomFromReligionFoundation
TBK (TruthBeKnown)
BrianFlemming's Weblog
RationalistsInternational
Rational Response SQUAD

and the list goes on and on and is growing daily!

As for Josh MacDowell, there's so much info against his claims, but you can start here:http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/

Answer 1

No, I've always been and always will be a believer.

Answer 2

It seems to me that what you're asking is..."Were you a REAL atheist, or were you just pretending?"

Yes, I was an atheist/skeptic for twenty years. I didn't allow myself to be influenced by anyone, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't even call myself an atheist, though I was. I just didn't believe in God. I believed that science was making enough advances that there was no room for God, that the Bible was a fairy tale and there was no way to prove otherwise, that Jesus may have existed but He was NOT what the Bible said He was.

My becoming a Christian less than a year ago had nothing to do with any sermon. I hadn't attended church (other than on Christmas, my mom's birthday, and Mother's Day) in seven years (almost eight), and at the time, I thought I wanted nothing to do with it.

I had read about half of one of Josh McDowell's books, but had never heard of tektonics.org. Most of my faith actually came from things I witnessed, and from various revelations.

I wrote this in a previous answer, but it's valid for this one: When I became an atheist, and I told my mom about it, she disagreed with me but she understood. She told me then that she had always known I was the type of person that couldn't just believe something in my heart. I had to believe it in my head.

Just curious, how did you come to the conclusion that Josh McDowell and other apologetics give out "wrong" information? Like what?

Answer 3

I was an a-theist.

But there is no organized activist atheism as you seem to suggest, since it is disbelief in something. To that extent it is an organic counter movement, without a unified context or culture with which to provide a communitarian foundation or rituals or anything else to bind people together or provide support in a systematic way.

Who influenced my athiesm? Daniel Quinn was a big one for me. Richard Dawkins. Pete Singer. Albert Camus. Bertrand Russell.

Did I convert because of the emotional pull of the sermon? No. I became animist because of my personal experience that things have spiritual energy, in the same way Native Americans talk about the spirits of things. Then when my son was born I experienced ego death of the type Krishnamurti writes about. That experience of pure existence and love is central to religion. From there I could better access the writings of people like CS Lewis, Huston Smith, Aldous Huxley, etc and all those things led me to Christianity.

I did not give into apologetic hacks like Josh McDowell (whose books are the most prideful drivel I've ever read). The level of thought and argument one finds among Catholic and Anglican philosophers engages a great deal more than tautolgies and pointless claims.

Do my emotions have that much control over me? I do not experience emotions as a negative thing. If you believe in evolution as a religious doctrine (which I'm guessing you essentially do though you may not call it that) then you would have to admit that emotions and instincts that have empirically survived (i.e. yours and mine) are not bad things and to be ignored. because what you are suggesting is that you are sooo much smarter than the people who gave you those successful emotions that you know better than natural selection and can safely disregard them as irrational and therefore irrelevant. Not hardly. Exclude emotion and irratinality and you exclude Love. I would venture to say that everyone here, athiest, agnostic, theist, whatever is unwilling to dismiss the universal experience of love.

If you love someone, let yourself feel more and don't smother those things. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that rationality is better than irrationality - rationality is a human construct that judges itself to be the ultimate but really is just another evolutionary tool we've evolved, yeah? And all of it together is your experience. You don't hve to amputate your heart to think for yourself.

Answer 4

I was an atheist-born and raised by atheist parents who taught me everything about science and evolution. I was saved at age 25. I was not an emotional person. Atheists pride themselves on NOT being emotionally driven. My accepting Christ had very little fanfare about it. I went...I heard a message...something moved me...and I came forward. Based on the heavily atheist background in which I grew up, my thoughts would silently debate with Christian beliefs even as I was a newer believer. I viewed much of what I saw as phoney and didnt understand what I read. The one thing, that has confirmed in my mind, the truth of Christ is my personal testimony. You can argue about the nuances of a book. You can bicker about the definition of words or who said what...but there is no debating what Christ has done in my life. He changed me (often against my own desire) to want the things of God. This is not me 'psyching myself out'. My flesh wants to do those old things. My spirit no longer can. Thats not me...thats God working in Me. Thats why I never returned to Atheism.

Answer 5

An agnostic, yes. Never an Atheist. EVER!

Answer 6

No I have alway,s knew that God was real,never doubted it.

Answer 7

I was a true atheist. Don't talk to me about jumping on bandwagons if you're lapping up dribble from philosophers and "intellectual" atheists. Who determines their intellect? You? They all look like fools to me now.

Answer 8

nope i always believed in God, i just chose to live my life and not listen to him.
but many are called and few are chosen, you can hear the truth of salvation but choose never to accept it, i chose to accept it.

Answer 9

no lol atheists are too smart for becoming such thing