Why did you decide to become an atheist?

Question

Was it since you were young? Did a particular event happen? Was it science?

Jordi-The majority of our world is raised with some sort of religion of a higher power. Read back over the answers and it's very rare to find someone who "was just born being an atheist" at some point EVERYONE has made a decision.

Answer 1

I haven't...and won't...even as a scientist I realize that there are things beyond our capabilities and that things could never have come about by 'accident' as atheists believe. Eyes aren't 'accidentally' sensitive to light, ears aren't accidentally' sensitive to sound waves . Birds haven't got feathers etc to enable them to fly...by accident. Generations of people throwing themselves over a cliff would not mean that humans would evolve a method of being able to fly.

Answer 2

I've been an atheist for a long time, but I only recently learned to accept it. I'd say it was a combination of things. Despite what some believe, I did not have an unanswered prayer or a catastrophe in my life that made me despise god. I am just skeptical and after thoroughly thinking about why people believe in god and what god does for those people, I came to the conclusion that for most the idea of a god is just a fill-in for information gaps which have been shrinking since the existence of man. Eventually, the need to attribute things to a god of some sort will go away completely.

Answer 3

Had a religious upbringing but also had an excellent education. The two things seemed to give contradictory answers. Then, I was chatting to a chap I know and we were discussing 'the afterlife' and he said, you were nothing before you were born, why expect there to be something afterwards.
I much prefer it that way as you can view yourself as a part of everything. The atoms which make you will someday make something else. That concept along with the massive flaws in most religious concepts (for instance, God has a gender and a physical form. a. if it was, is and always will be, why does it have a gender as gender implies reproduction and therefor implies finite lifespan. b. If we were made in it's image, how can it be in everything and everywhere?) have made me an atheist.

Answer 4

Not sure when I made the final move. I was raised a conservative Jew, but when I went away to college, while still doing Jewish things (Even keeping Kosher, which was tough), I started to question the rules and the logic that God was concerned with our day-to-day activities. I eventually became a deist for a while, still thinking that there was a god, but that he she or it didn't control us, just set the rules for the universe and sat back. This allowed me to eat cheeseburgers, which are great. Eventually I put some more thought into it, and realized that the assumption that there had to be a god was not supported by any evidence or logic, and realized that I was, in fact, an atheist.

Answer 5

I was 33. It happened after I had been a strictly legalistic Christian, who changed to a charismatic born again Christian, who then started to realize that manifestations of the HS are cultural in nature and not uniform.

I always required proof for belief, which caused me to study the bible quite a bit as a believer, and eventually I had to face the facts, that my belief was entirely based on my upbringing. I researched for several years, and found that many of the people who I thought were healed and the miracles I thought I had seen were actually not real at all.

I then read about the canonization process of the New Testament, and found that the men who decided which books were inspired by God, were horrific men all with concubines and murder as part of their legacy.

That led me to read up on other religions where I discovered that there are direct comparisons to Egyptian religion, Hellenistic religion, Judaism and the story of Jesus.

I then realized that I had been following an indoctrinated belief my whole life, and that my existence could have meaning without God.

It is wonderful.

Answer 6

I'm agnostic but my Father became an atheist at the age of 14. He went to a church school but there was a service in the local town and the army had people there. During the service the Priest was called to bless new weapons that the army had recently bought. My Father was so disgusted that he renounced the church and everything it stood for.

He could not reconcile God with the evil of war.

My Father did accept however that to be an atheist is as much an act of faith as to be a Christian.

Answer 7

It was never a decision. There's no organization that recruits there's no group to join. The word is simply descriptive. I think most people come to a lack of belief before they even think about a label being associated with it.

Someone doesn't have to claim to be an atheist to be one. I'm certain that there are people who've never even thought about the word and yet they are atheists.

It's like being a non-redhead. Someone might have never thought about the fact that they're not red-headed and yet they are a non-redhead.

Someone who is a non-theist may have never thought about the fact that they're a non-theist and yet they are.

Answer 8

It's not something one decides, it's something one discovers. Yes, I've been an atheist since about age 5, though not openly until adulthood, so as to spare my mother's feelings. She was a believer. It was not a particular event, unless you mean something like the growing awareness of reality in the mind of a child. The scientific explanation of our origins has always held more appeal for me than the mythological one, because I understand the Scientific Method, and if properly applied, it is virtually error-proof, as well as self-correcting. One of the finest creations of the human mind, if you ask me.

Answer 9

I was 14, it suddenly struck me that it was just a load of bollocks. And after being brought up in a strict catholic family it was the most overwhelming sense of liberation I'd ever felt. I did once truly believe, went to mass every day, benedictions, I was never out of the church during easter and then one day a little voice said to me "this is all bollocks" There was no struggle with it, I just accepted it and the more I looked into things ie science, the more I began to really believe that there is no god. Aint looked back since

Answer 10

Metaphorically speaking, I just began to see that the Almighty Oz was really just a man behind a curtain, manipulating people's minds.

We are actually all born atheists, but some choose to become something else whether christian, muslim, buddhist etc.

Atheism - the absence of belief in one or more gods. No one is born with set beliefs.

Answer 11

I didn't decide to become an atheist, it just happened when I started to look for answers to some of the questions I had. For me it started about a year ago but I have only been calling myself an atheist for about three months. Before that I think I was just reluctant to admit it.