Athesists, what was the turning point or defining moment.....?

Question

that had made you atheist? Be as descriptive as possible.

Answer 1

Well it was a cold December morning in the year of 1995.............Actually there was no definitive moment that i can remember. It was a slow process for me. I was raised in a very religious family (not only did we go to church Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, but i was enrolled in the Church's School and we lived in a community of people who went to the same church). I was indoctrinated quite well living amongst all the Dogma. We were told that Demons were everywhere. That they inhabited News Casters, Politicians, et cetera. We were taught that the end of times was very very near. There was a lot of fear based preaching going on. As a child growing up in that environment I found it very hard not to believe. Still though some of my earlier memories as a young person are those of doubt. I never really felt the "holy spirit" like everyone else claimed to. I felt that there was something wrong with me. Why could I not feel God or have him speak with me? So i set about an intense study of the Bible. I started reading it cover to cover. I asked the elders of my Church a lot of questions. I still felt nothing. I begged and begged through prayer for a sign. I was willing to accept the most mundane sign possible. Example "Lord if you are real make an airplane fly overhead". Now this actually did happen but of course i lived directly under the flight path of Sea-Tac International Airport. The point is i tried very very hard to delude myself. I tried so hard to find some reason to believe because i had this "mustard seed" of doubt in me. I decided that maybe God was real but that the Christians had gotten it wrong. For years now i have read most any religious type of text that i come across. I started noticing certain correlations between more ancient middle eastern belief systems and Christianity. Like it was the same stories being retold. The same beliefs with a new face on them. About 7 years ago i think is when i finally came to the conclusion that religion is bull and that God as well is too. Now i read religious text simply for knowledge and pleasure.

Answer 2

I never said I was an Atheist. But the more I read and study the Bible the more confused I got. I thought I was in the wrong denomination so I tried another then anther and another. I found out that they all go by what the Bible says in part but not what it says in whole. Religion [christian religion at least] goes strictly by a book that is full of contradictions and error; it can not be the word of a perfect God.
Is there a god well I am not sure anymore. But if there is he is not the author of the Holy Bible. And the god that christian believe in is not the god of the Bible. For the bible does not portray him as loving, knowing all, or caring all, and he IS a respector of person.
eg. God does not lie. Well maybe so but he creates delusions so that people will believe a lie. He created both evil and good. and if you do not go to him you will burn in Hell forever but one can not go to him unless drawn by the spirit.

Christianity is the worship of a false god; if there is indeed a god. Or at least the Bible is not from or about their god even though they think it is.

Answer 3

In an effort to shore up my faith, I started to look at all those things you hear as a Christian like there is more evidence that Jesus existed than Julius Caesar, evolution is just a theory and has no evidence, and other creationist statements. What I found quite quickly was that evolution has an overwhelming amount of consistent evidence and that creationist claims are "reasonable sounding statements if you have no understanding of the real principles" - sorry, the real description is that creationist claims are the blind leading the blinder through willful ignorance.

Once I realized that creation was not likely to have occurred in a literal or even metaphorical sense, I started checking other things like the existence of Jesus. The proof there is highly circumstantial and what most Christians point to are references to his later followers. There is no evidence or contemporary confirmation of any of the events surrounding his life. Similarly, looking into things like the Exodus, the Flood or any miraculous event in the bible showed a suprising lack of evidence.

Basically, no evidence, no god.

Answer 4

I was 15 and after 15 years of being brainwashed by my abusive mother (no joke--check with the Florida DCF if you still don't believe me), I spent a summer away from her with my grandparents and family friends, and for the first time I could have my own opinion, think for myself, and was surrounded by both Democrats and Republicans, atheists and believers alike. I realized that if a god truly existed, he would not allow my mother--the wretch that she is--to have "eternal salvation" in paradise. If awful individuals could have a virtual "get-out-of-hell-free" card (for she had already asked Jesus into her heart, the only requirement for my former Baptist church), I wanted nothing to do with it.

After my separation from the church, I've noticed that I've become a completely different person. I've come out (something I was struggling with even as a Christian), become much more tolerant of others, have changed my political orientation to a left-leaning Independent (pre-registered as a Dem), and have ceased going to church.

I have never felt better--it's like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I still have my own set of morals, but I'm not being ruled by a Book anymore.

Answer 5

There wasn't a turning point for me, because, like everyone else, I was born without any preconceived notion of god. Their were times in my life when people tried to influence me into believing in the Christian religion, but it didn't seem to take. While growing up, I went to church with a few friends numerous times, but the more I went, the more turned off to religion I became. I figured that if I had been fine up until this point, what use do I have for god. When people invited me to attend their church, I turned down their offers and explained to them why.

As I got older and reached that point in my life, where I realized that I was no longer invulnerable, I decided to take a closer look at religion. After all, since I realized that I was going to die one day, I wanted to make sure that I really was informed about what people thought was going to happen after you die and why. I started visiting different churches, actually read the entire bible twice and went to discussion groups. At first, I started to become drawn in, so to speak, but in the end, I could not convince myself that it was true. Over the years, watching how the religious conduct themselves and learning of the atrocities committed in the name of God, it really turned me off. After all this, I can honestly say that I am glad I have never been drawn in, because it only offered false hopes of what might happen once we die. I need something more concrete than that.

Answer 6

I was Agnostic for a long time, but I pretty much became a full blown Athiest when I took Biology over the summer. It filled in all of the gaps. All of the questions that I had about how life began and such. The major turning point was when we learned about the Miller Urey Experiment. It basically proves that life developed from simple molecules in the atmosphere. If you aren't familiar with it, here is the WikiLink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey

Answer 7

Before the age of 16, I really didn't use my brain. I would lead a shiftless life. One day, I decided to go down to the local Catholic church (I was a member) and ask a few questions to the priest, to see if he could clear somethings up. When he would just go around in circles for THREE HOURS, I realized that, maybe, this guy has no idea of what he preaches.

Thus my Atheist side started to develop.

Answer 8

There was no turning point or one "moment" for that...

I was always an atheist, but I tried really hard ot believe, because it seemed like I was the only one who didn't. The older and wiser I become, and the more I learn, the more grateful I am that I did not manage to get my self brainwashed.

Answer 9

I've been one my whole life. My parents were apathetic to religion and wanted me to believe whatever I wanted to rather than force a belief on me (and I love them for it). I was just very well educated. I paid attention in school and was able to think for myself. I knew that the bible was filled with stuff that went against logic and reason and so I naturally didn't believe it. As time went on, I even learned about how bad the bible actually is in a lot of ways. The bible is extremely sexists, promotes killing for petty "crimes" and other horrible acts against people. Powerful rulers also used it as a scam to make money or to keep their position of power.

Answer 10

It was probably when I realised that there was absolutely no proof that this god character existed except for a few old passages from a long and boring book that everyone thought was true.