Atheist and non believers, where you raised to not believe there is a God, or was this a adult decision for u?

Question

Did anything happen to make u stop believing, or nothing at all, more of a science thing...?

Answer 1

One thing needs to be made clear: It's not a choice. I couldn't choose to believe in a god tomorrow, just like I couldn't choose to start liking fish.

I was raised without religion, but my parents supported me in my occasional forays.

I've never had a reason to believe in Jehovah, Allah, Odin, Zeus, Cthulhu, Osiris, Ganesha, or any of the other thousands of deities out there.

It's not a hate thing. I don't 'hate [insert deity]' or the followers of any deity. I'm not angry, and I'm not an immoral libertine.

Since I was not raised with a bias towards any particular religion (bear in mind that my parents -one atheist, one sort of Buddhistish- were willing to take me to church if I wanted to go, and I've been to church) I've seen no reason to believe in one god over all others.

I've read the Bible, the Gita, and the Book of Mormon. All just stories to my mind. I'm trying to get my hands on a Q'ran. If that doesn't grab me, I'm stopping there. I've never felt a pull towards any deity. Sometimes I've thought it would be nice to have the community aspect of a church, but that's really it.

It ticks me off when theists treat nonbelievers like selfish, wayward children. It's not an easy choice to make, and having to constantly skirt the issue or outright lie to gain acceptance really sucks.

If I ever have a good reason to believe in a god, I will do so. Until then, I don't believe.

And, in all honesty, I think the idea of believing in a god is kind of weird.

Answer 2

I raised in a religious family. After my mother abused me, and the church kept telling me that hitting a child was wrong, (except for discipline) I decided she was a liar and a hypocrite. So I stopped going to church when I was 19. It took me a number of years to find a new belief, and another 10 years after that to find a name for it.

So now I am a Deist. Its not a religion, it's more of a philosphy. Where one can use reason and logic to make a decision regarding god, nature, the universe and so on.

Answer 3

After a lifetime of attending and being involved in church and raising my children to follow their own spiritual pathway, I realized that I had only been going throught the motions and really did not believe what I was being taught.
There were many instances where I was taught that atheists, wiccan, pagans, Jews, and others are immoral sinners but after getting to know some of these people and witnessing the sinful actions of the faithful, it was not long before my inner feelings of doubt were reinforced by their hypocrisy.

Answer 4

I was raised with Christians and had lots of trouble with the double standards and lack of faith and practice of the preaching, at least to my idea of what that meant. I know a fundie couple right now, in the military...long story short they were born and raised in California and are stationed in California and will always be stationed in California but they list their home of record as Oregon so they don't have to pay any state taxes. Legal by man's law? Yes. The honest, moral thing to do? No. And they wouldn't take their 9 month old daughter to a playgroup that had non-christian children in it because they were afraid the non-christian 9 month olds would teach theirs how to sin. So now I'm Buddhist.

Answer 5

no, i was not raised to not believe, but I wasn't exactly dragged to church every Sunday either.
I've always questioned God, I thought it sounded way too far fetched. The realization of it eventually hit me. Kinda how like one day I believed in Santa, the next, I didn't. (although, there was some buildup between those two days- lol)
Nothing made me, but I'm even more of a non-believer since i bought the book "God the Failed Hypothesis".

:]

Answer 6

It was a decision I came to when I was old enough to use my brain.

Based on logic rather than science, although the the science supports the logic that when you die, you're dead.

Even as a young kid, the "who created God?" question bugged me as well. It makes more sense to just have existence than the problems associated with a creator and where did he come from.

Answer 7

I really wish people would quit asking this question as though they think that anyone could ever grow up in north america never having read the bible.

Here's a shocker for you... most Atheists are once Christian. We've all read the bible and we all know what it says.

Here's another shocker for you... we grew out of it. We stopped believing in fairy tales. There was nothing shocking that happened to us. We are not "denying" your god, we don't think your god exists. We are not "rebelling" against your god, WE DON'T THINK YOUR GOD EXISTS.

We stopped resorting to easy answers long ago.

Why is it so incredibly difficult for you to realize these things without being told?

Answer 8

Here's a news flash: nothing leads one to atheism.

That's the way people are born.

Something, however, leads them to theism. That said, the only reason anyone believes in dieties is their environment. Someone (or more likely, a group of someones) leads an atheist to becoming a theist.

No one takes on belief in a god without persistant coaxing from mentors.

Answer 9

Religion was never a big thing in my house and so I never really believed in gods at any point. Learning about science and the natural world as a teenager just reinforced that with reason and evidence.

Answer 10

Nope, I was raised as a fundie Christian.

Nothing happened to me to make me stop believing, I just realized it was all a lie. Kinda of like how you figure out that Santa Claus isn't real.