How did you become an atheist?

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alitaptap

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I am interested to know why one becomes an atheist and come into a conclusion that atheism was the way to go?

Catholics, other religious groups, or anyone interested are welcome to make comments, give insights, or anything you want to say. BUT the single rule is CIVIL Discussions. We can be critical of others beliefs and claims, but do so in a civil manner and with logical assertions. Please don’t call one another’s beliefs “nonsense”. It’s not the intent of this thread to start a debate, but a discussion and sharing of life experiences.

Below is an interesting article about some common arguments and fallacies:

atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2010/07/answering-right-questions.html
 
I was baptised protestant and attended a religious primary school. I’m not sure if I disliked the school because it was so religious, or because I disliked the school I grew to dislike religion. The school was very religious and (in my mind) very patronising. They got angry when I asked the usual childish questions (how do we know the bible is true? etc) and so I began to draw away from religion. The few answers I did get seemed to me to be obviously flawed or still did not answer my question. Our religious studies lessons were very boring. I was once sent to the head teacher for asking how we knew that God existed (a question which can, and has, been answered). I often argued with the teachers and disliked the school very much. We never went to church as a family. I became openly atheist when I left my school and as the years went by ended up making Richard Dawkins look like an evangelical preacher. I eventually began to doubt my atheism and in October 2009 I had an epiphany. I am very happy to be religious.
 
i was one due to systematic brainwashing by my parents.😃 but I found God, so I’m no longer an atheist.
 
doughnut said:
i was one due to systematic brainwashing by my parents.😃 but I found God, so I’m no longer an atheist.
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lol, this exact response could be flipped around.

Talking about catholicism or some other religion:

“i was one due to systematic brainwashing by my parents.😃 but I found atheism, so I’m no longer an catholic”
 
It was not an interesting process, but here goes.

Baptized Presbyterian.
As a child, I was moderately religious. Prayed as a kid (my prayers went unanswered, no big surprise there).
In the teen years I attended Bible studies, mostly to meet girls (and I did :))
In college I became non-practicing, but still mildly religious.
Later became totally indifferent to religion, never even thought about it.
When I lived in the US (last 28 years), I became curious, since the society is so overwhelmingly religious there, so I started to read some books (from both sides of the fence). The result was abysmal. The apologists were way under par in their “arguments”.
Realized that there is no support for the beliefs, moreover, the beliefs flatly contradicted what I experienced - see the problem of “evil”.
It was all “downhill” from there. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was my experience on these boards. I read very few intelligent anwers (which were still insufficient, though thought-provoking), the majority simply made me shiver. Nevertheless, I am optimistic, and those few intelligent posters make my time worthwhile to be spent here.
Oh, well. I prefer warm to cold, so I guess I will feel comfortable in my designated place in hell as many posters so “kindly” advised me. 🙂
 
Hello everybody:)

Each person have the right to decide and choose his thoughts, faith, views, i was born a catholic christian and had a catholic faith, then i start thinking and questioning. what if it’s not the correct religion. in the end any person say that his religion is true and others are false, Muslims, Jews,Hindus, have faith in their religion and they are “happy” because they were born in the "correct "religion.
Then i said to myself i don’t want to be like many who beleive anything without questioning , so i started to doubt,to question, and to search for the truth, a scientific logical truth with evidences,then i found lots of reasons that convinced me about atheism and non existent god or gods( i never knew about Richard Dawkins, Darwin or organized atheism, i thought that i was alone with that way of thinking on earth ) , I used my mind and logic and discovered that religion is man made and that we created gods on our own image ( that’s my opinion) … and day after day i found other reasons wherever in bible , sciences, history that prove my thoughts concerning religions, our planet and the universe.
I don’t think i will change my views , or become religious again, im atheist for a long period, and i think it’s hard for an atheist to convert to any religion, because a child after discovering that santa clause is fake, cannot write him a letter and ask him for gifts, i mean i wish if there’s a god, a loving one…but i just can’t find any reason to beleive that is true

That’s my story, love to sharing it… i found this forum by surfing the internet and i beleive that wherever our beliefs or ideas are… we still one!

Thanks
 
alitaptap said:
I am interested to know why one becomes an atheist and come into a conclusion that atheism was the way to go?
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When I was concious of my atheism, I wanted to remain as such because I wanted to be my own God; set my own limits, decide my own fate. I perceived atheism as true freedom, and thus disliked God on the basis that is was restricting my freedom, my autonomy. Arguments against God, especially Carl Marx’s assertion that God is nothing more than an opium for the masses, were all convenient excuses to bolster my disbelief.

Now I realise that I was in slavery and that God is freedom, and is the only kind of freedom worth living for.
 
I’ve never been religious, but my reasons for not being are two fold.
  1. Lack of evidence.
  2. The things I have seen in my life have convinced me that there can be no divine invigilation based on love.
 
I never became an explicit atheist but simply drifted away from the Church at the age of eleven and became indifferent to religion which I regarded as sentimental and old-fashioned. At university I started to investigate and realised how superficial my life had been…
 
Long story short.

I drifted for over 30 years after being a cradle Catholic. Caused myself an enormous amount of pain, anger and suffering before coming home. I didn’t have God in my life and things were absolutely miserable even though I had many successes. Money can’t buy happiness period.

If your heart and mind refuse to let God in He won’t come in. I finally realized how stupid I was and pulled the door off the hinges. I’ve asked the entire Communion of Saints to come in and stay forever. It all started with a whisper and I started searching and over the course of many years I found Him again.

I will pray, beg and cry every day, whatever I have to do so I never become lost again.

I also pray that others with a hardened heart get the same whisper. I wouldn’t push God on anyone until they want to listen. That’s why we have these threads that just go on and on.
When they want to listen or need to listen that is the time to tell them. God Bless.
 
My atheism is a result of my applying skepticism to religious claims. I decided pretty early on in life that I wanted to believe things that are true – and that I wanted to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible.

In order to accomplish this, I had to subject all claims to scrutiny. In order to accept a claim, I need sufficient evidence that it is true. For some claims – for example, claims about my emotional state, such as, “I love my family” – my observation of my own emotional state is sufficient evidence.

For other claims – for example, claims about the external world, such as “objects on this planet fall at a rate of 32 feet per second per second” or “there is a disembodied intelligence that intervenes in nature”…claims that we would expect to be able to detect – evidence drawn from the external world is needed in order to be sufficient. No amount of observation of one’s emotional state is sufficient to establish this claim.

It’s as simple as that. By the time I was a teenager, I no longer believed literally in gods (though I saw their cultural and literary significance, in the fashion of mythologists like Joeseph Campbell). For a long time, I held on to a kind of vague pantheistic belief because it made me feel good – until I finally turned a skeptical eye to it and it crumbled under examination.
 
I was a cradle Catholic and attended Catholic schools, for the most part, until I went to college. At the big university, I attended Mass for a time. However, my roommate happened to be an atheist as well as a philosophy major (even though her parents were Christian missionaries in India). We had some discussions, but I couldn’t really explain the Catholic-Christian point of view since the study of apologetics was not in my early schooling, and I wasn’t, as yet, grounded in my faith. I started to read some philosophy after taking only an introductory course. I mostly read the writings of the existentialists which seemed mostly negative full of angst and despair. Although I was fascinated with their writings and adopted a somewhat pseudo-intellectualism, I became confused about my own identity and, therefore, decided to “find myself.”

After a few years that took a toll on me and my relationships emotionally, I started to have desires to seek further. I read books on Christianity and other religions into the night and tried to keep my life going during the day. Little by little, the Holy Spirit began to fill me, and where there was once darkness and emptiness, I was being filled with joy, peace and love. I was blessed with the fruits of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts that put me on solid footing. I found purpose in life itself as well as in my own life.
 
Hello,

I am an agnostic, but I was born an atheist. My parents were atheists.
That’s about all the help I can give you. I can not attribute my beliefs to my parents, as we do not share the same beliefs.
 
StrawberryJam said:
Hello,

I am an agnostic, but I was born an atheist. My parents were atheists.
That’s about all the help I can give you. I can not attribute my beliefs to my parents, as we do not share the same beliefs.
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Hi StrawberryJam,

How did you become an agnostic? How did you conclude that agnosticsm was the way to go? Why not atheism?

I am trying to understand why anyone else thinks differently.
 
alitaptap said:
Hi StrawberryJam,

How did you become an agnostic? How did you conclude that agnosticsm was the way to go? Why not atheism?

I am trying to understand why anyone else thinks differently.
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Hello Alitaptap,

Tried to send you a message but realize you can not recieve it.

I am not closed minded to alternate viewpoints.

Although, to be honest I do evaluate frequently if I have become trenchant in mine.

Why not athiesm?

It closes too many doors, yet I am finding that my father’s view may end up being mine.

He may or may not have seeked in the same way as I have.

I will never really truly know. And, I can not ask him more about it anymore.
We are still stifting through his personal letters and other things after his recent death.

I find myself unable to sleep, eat, or think rationally now. So forgive me for sounding a bit disjointed in my replies of late. We are all human, and can not be immune to distraction.
 
StrawberryJam said:
Hello Alitaptap,

Tried to send you a message but realize you can not recieve it.

I am not closed minded to alternate viewpoints.

Although, to be honest I do evaluate frequently if I have become trenchant in mine.

Why not athiesm?

It closes too many doors, yet I am finding that my father’s view may end up being mine.

He may or may not have seeked in the same way as I have.

I will never really truly know. And, I can not ask him more about it anymore.
We are still stifting through his personal letters and other things after his recent death.

I find myself unable to sleep, eat, or think rationally now. So forgive me for sounding a bit disjointed in my replies of late. We are all human, and can not be immune to distraction.
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Hi, StrawberryJam.

Thank you for sharing what you feel. :hug1: Also, thank you for sharing your views on atheism and agnosticism. Using scientific reasoning is fine, but I think that there are certain religious questions that science cannot answer for us. The important thing is I respect and love other members even when I disagree.
If I understand the responses (so far) correctly,

An atheist is declared non-believing-in-god(s). He is persuated that God(s) do not exist.
An agnostic simply declares “I don’t know”

Correct me if I am wrong.
 
alitaptap said:
Hi, StrawberryJam.

Thank you for sharing what you feel. :hug1: Also, thank you for sharing your views on atheism and agnosticism. Using scientific reasoning is fine, but I think that there are certain religious questions that science cannot answer for us. The important thing is I respect and love other members even when I disagree.
If I understand the responses (so far) correctly,

An atheist is declared non-believing-in-god(s). He is persuated that God(s) do not exist.
An agnostic simply declares “I don’t know”

Correct me if I am wrong.
Click to expand...
I do thank you for your kindness and respect of different views.
While I do not represent agnostics, you could lump me into the I don’t know category/
However, I find it much harder to say that as all this time has gone by now.
Still, there are some things that will not be "one size fits all:
I will continue to try to dig deeper.
 
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