Atheists, how many of you who used to believe in god before,turned atheist because of some religious extremist

Question

or because of what other religious people did?

How did it happen?

Bad Liberal, I like your answer, but I don't like te fact that you speak for all atheists (you said we)

Answer 1

Enlightenment and not due to anyone's religious extremism ( and if at all the extremism is to be counted; its by the founding father's only).

Yes I did believe, that's what we are taught right from the birth...right. And had no choice either as I lacked the requisite knowledge.


It happens as you gather knowledge in the course of your life, the more you learn the more you get to the bottom of the truth. Knowledge is power and when you have it you can use it for your own betterment and keep yourself away from falsehood. One must respect oneself, and one's intelligence first. You must reject at once what your mind dose not accept. Any compromise in it, is only going to make you trade a wrong path which will never lead you to truth.

I am trying to do just that.

Answer 2

The phrase "turned atheist" seems incorrect, at least in my case. Although I was raised Lutheran, attended Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, Confirmation classes and church services regularly while growing up, there was never a time that I believed. From my earliest memories to the present all religions seem almost silly. To expect people to accept these wild tales and impossible events based on nothing more than hearsay is foolish. And yet worldwide most people (estimates of as many as 90%) have some kind of religious beliefs. It's amazing!

Answer 3

My "conversion" from a believer to an atheist didn't happen overnight, it was a gradual process. It had nothing to do with religious extremists or what behaviours I observed among other believers.

It was just a process of reading and thinking and education. I have written about this in greater detail in the past, so if curious you can search some of my old answers.

Answer 4

Not me. I stopped believing in God because I couldn't stop thinking about what some people call "the problem of hell"

A Just and Loving God who could think about putting people in a place where they are tortured for eternity is just unbelievable. How could I say to someone that I believe that this God is both Loving and Just but he does something like this.

Justice means Fairness.... what you take is what you get. So in the case of hell... God inflicts most extreme pain for eternity. If God is just, then by definition those who go to hell must have spent eternity causing pain, not to mention the pain has to be as much as there is in hell.... how could anyone could do that!!!

Its impossible, therefore there is no Just and Loving God!! Is there a possibility that there is another God who is unjust... well... i thought about it... and it turned out there isn't one at all!!

Answer 5

No. People like that might have helped turn me off to one or two particular religions, but it wasn't my reason for going from theist to atheist.

I became an atheist simply because I found myself having no reason to belief in deity any more. It didn't happen overnight. As I got older and learned more about the world, I came to form better answers about the physical world around me, human behavior, personal identity and goals, etc. Deities became, as Occam said about certain things, an "entity multiplied unnecessarily".

Answer 6

I was raised Southern Baptist.

Bad behavior by Christians DID help me start doubting. So did taking an ancient history course in college where I learned that most of the stories in the Old Testament were just copied from older stories. I saw a lot of bad behavior by Christians in college, too.

It took about a year, but through learning and observation, I totally forsook the beliefs I was raised in .

Answer 7

been through a few Fundy religions. Started to study on my own. First I used the bible but it didn't take long to see through it. Religion left an awful mess in my life. My whole family was broken up over religious beliefs. I'm Atheist because I don't take things on Faith, I take them on proof

Answer 8

fortunate you. i replaced into consistently nerve-racking and suggestible and sure, i thought. thought I had dating with God and felt the holy spirit - the great works. consistently had a thinking techniques tho and at some point at 14 something went click in my techniques for the period of church and that i thought - how do all of us understand this? What info is there? This sounds loopy. This replaced into the commencing up of the top. have been given caught for a decade being an psychological atheist yet protecting psychological theistic fears and ideology. finally overcame it via plenty analyzing and pulling out all my superstitious fears and utilising logic to them. I totally believed. No, i did no longer discuss with partitions and hallucinate. I in basic terms examine too plenty into stuff and drew nutty conclusions and worried. sure, I do nevertheless overinfer and worry yet i'm conscious of it and as quickly as this occurs, I brutally provide myself a staggering speaking to and don't enable myself to pass there. This leads to my being the comparable style of atheist as those self-righteous ex people who smoke. I certainly have an techniques-set of 'I overcame this rubbish with sheer confusing paintings and refusing to allow myself to grant in to it - now you do it!' the traditional theist, no. people could have psychological honesty and integrity and extremely care suitable to the fact. We get those right here. each time I see somebody say they seem to be a Christian yet they are in a position to't end questioning all of it seems illogical, i understand somebody is going with the aid of what I went with the aid of. they're regularly the comparable age too. Then I tell them the subject concerns I had getting previous superstition and the books which helped yet its very confusing for individuals to examine from others' reviews. the reason for my fantasy replaced into being advised there replaced right into a god in school and questioning instructors could be appropriate and then analyzing the bible and transforming into to be too afraid to doubt.

Answer 9

Hmm no. I was never truly religious, I was agnostic as far as I could remember, I became atheist at the age of 13.

Answer 10

No, we don't become atheists because we're cross at some believer, we're atheists because of the sheer impossibility of believing in something for which there is NO EVIDENCE!

===

Ultimately, the second part of my statement is true of all atheists. I invite all reasonable contradiction from other atheists.