Pivotal moments on the road from theist to atheist.

[Tero]

Thumbs up smiley.

[Ian]

KISS.

Well, of course they were upset! Knights In Satan's Service!

[Svartalf]

I've never turned atheist... insofar as I don't totally exclude the possibility that supernatural things do exist, they simply have not shown any testable evidence or proof of existing since we humans have had reliable means to record such evidence (guess that I nearly thought that the faster than light neutrino experiment might have been some proof )

But, while I was fairly religious as a young child, and was encouraged to be so, both my my nonpracticing parents, and by my heavily devout enlarged family... I came away from belief in the tenets of the christian religion in general and its catholic version in particular as life gave those tenets a reality test... I mean, I lost my dad when I was 8, which precipitated the family from relative affluence (middle to upper middle class), then life through lemons at me, like in the social arena as I reached and went through adolescence, even though I tried to get in dog's good graces... then my mother died just before I graduated high school and I was forced to live with an aunt whose piety did not show in her application of the better human qualities for a few years, and I suffered a series of academic failures, without knowing why, which reduced my prospects from bright to more mediocre... and I stayed an ill socialized virgin despite my best efforts, treated like the runt of the litter even among my fellow nerds... and as it went on, I wondered why I was getting the Job treatment...

The turning point came at a time when I was not sure what would come after my next degree, and what I should do after that, and wondering just what aid religion could give me in leading the rest of my life, and whether I had a vocation or something... and I engaged for the first time into an actual extended reading of the bible (well, the new testament, since that was the book I had at hand, a Gideon handout)... and as I read (in between books on the corpus for my MA), I realized that it was a bunch of contradictions, blatant errors (or misinterpretations), and general absurdities that demonstrated that Jesus wasn't Messiah, and that his followers were morons... I have particular enmity toward john the liar and paul the sunstruck.

[tattuchu]

I wish I had an anecdote to share, but I don't recall ever believing to begin with

[mistermack]

The first pivotal moment was when I found out that there was no Santa Clause.
Seriously, I was very very young, and my brother told me. I didn't believe him, so he showed me where our mother had hidden our christmas presents.

After that, I KNEW that adults didn't always tell the truth, and never again believed what I was told without question.

The second pivotal moment was when I tried out the "Lourdes Cure".
I had been told that Lourdes water had miraculously cured people, and I happened to have some, in a tiny glass window, in the cross of a crucifix on my rosary beads.
Some gift from one of my aunts.
So I thought I'd put it to the test. My left hand had been burned as a kid, and I was having regular skin grafts as I grew. So I broke the cross, rubbed the water all over my hand. Nothing. Another big lie. And this time, about Jesus. I was probably six or seven, and pretty much from then, an atheist in a catholic family.

I kept my mouth shut though, till I was too old to get a whacking if I said that I was.

[tattuchu]

mistermack got me thinking. I never really believed at all but, as a young child, I guess I kinda held out hope that it might all be true. So one day as an early teen, I dunno, 12 or 13 years old, I figured it wouldn't hurt to pray. Really pray sincerely, give it a proper chance, assume it's true, have faith and all that. So I did. I prayed sincerely, no bullshit, asking God to answer, show me some kind of sign that He existed and I should stop doubting and follow Him.
Of course I got no answer. And no sign either. I looked around my room for anything that might have changed and could possibly be construed as a sign, and out my window into the yard for the same. Nothing. So I waited. God might be busy, so I needed to be patient. I waited about an hour or so. Still nothing.
"Okay," I finally thought. "This is stupid. Nothing is going to happen. It's all just fake like I thought. Oh well, at least I tried."

[mistermack]

mistermack got me thinking. I never really believed at all but, as a young child, I guess I kinda held out hope that it might all be true. So one day as an early teen, I dunno, 12 or 13 years old, I figured it wouldn't hurt to pray. Really pray sincerely, give it a proper chance, assume it's true, have faith and all that. So I did. I prayed sincerely, no bullshit, asking God to answer, show me some kind of sign that He existed and I should stop doubting and follow Him.
Of course I got no answer. And no sign either. I looked around my room for anything that might have changed and could possibly be construed as a sign, and out my window into the yard for the same. Nothing. So I waited. God might be busy, so I needed to be patient. I waited about an hour or so. Still nothing.
"Okay," I finally thought. "This is stupid. Nothing is going to happen. It's all just fake like I thought. Oh well, at least I tried."

We've all tried something similar :

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVDTpOtf ... page#t=31s[/youtube]

[Thumpalumpacus]

KISS.

Well, of course they were upset! Knights In Satan's Service!

Wait -- I thought it stood for Knuckleheads in Silly Suits ... now I'm confuzzled.