Personal Experiences that Led you to your Atheism

[SteveB]

I'm gonna be writing some god damn essay on this topic, but I'm wondering what y'alls (I'm in Texas, so the y'alls are necessary) personal experiences that steered you toward atheism. You can talk about anything, profound or not, as long it led you to your atheism.

I'll start off with the whole 9/11 dealie. Not really a "personal" experience, per se, because it was an act of terrorism that shook the entire world. Still, it really shaped my view of religion as a whole and cast it in a very negative life. 9/11 showed me how destructive, capricious and malicious religion can be. I'd keep going, but--fuck--I'll be saving that shit for the essay.

So what are y'alls personal experiences that led you to become an atheist?

[Red Celt]

So what are y'alls personal experiences that led you to become an atheist?

Birth.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I'm going to have to go with birth as well.

[SteveB]

Fuck, just make something up then!

[tattuchu]

Sorry, Nib. Birth here as well. I just never believed to begin with. I was never led to atheism. I was always there, even when I didn't know the name for it. Now, why the religious indoctrination didn't take with me, as it did with so many others, I can't say.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Confirming I was atheistic? The would be age seven, Sunday School. I was asked to not come back because I asked awkward questions about the Flood myth.

Confirming I was a militant atheist? That would have been when I heard about "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed."

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You're not aware of your atheism at birth. Hell, I couldn't even read! So there had to be some time when you realized you didn't believe in god or gods after that point, as I posted above.

[Ayaan]

Here. It's a bit long, however, if you're looking for the 'moment,' skip to the third paragraph from the bottom.

[Red Celt]

You're not aware of your atheism at birth. Hell, I couldn't even read! So there had to be some time when you realized you didn't believe in god or gods after that point, as I posted above.

That's a differentiation between weak atheism (lack of the belief) and strong atheism (belief in the lack). My transition between the two only really happened when I became increasingly aware of theism... of which, I was never a part. It wasn't a golden on-off-switch moment.

[SteveB]

Here. It's a bit long, however, if you're looking for the 'moment,' skip to the third paragraph from the bottom.

Now that's what I'm talking about. Thank you for that.

[MiM]

You're not aware of your atheism at birth. Hell, I couldn't even read! So there had to be some time when you realized you didn't believe in god or gods after that point, as I posted above.

Everyone's an atheist at birth. It's staying an atheist that's the trick

[Rum]

Nibbler: I suspect the American and European (well the UK anyway) experiences will vary a lot, mostly because there is more secular thinking, agnosticism and atheism over here. There is no stigma or real resistance to atheism here either, which there seems to be in parts of America.

I grew up a sort of relaxed Church of England member. Non-practicing really except for rituals and the odd wedding, funeral and christening. I was taught to say my prayers t bed time and did until I was about 13 or 14. Then I was 'converted' by the youth movement wing of an evangelical group and was briefly (a couple of years) a member of that group. I managed to escape its clutches when my parents moved and entered a period of what is often called 'searching' - i.e. experimenting with all sorts of religious 'paths' including Hinduism (I lived in an Ashram for a while), Buddhism and so on. By the time I was in my 50s (I'm 61 now) I was a skeptical agnostic leaning towards atheism but with no real commitment to it. It was reading the God Delusion and the discovery of Hitchens, Dawkins and the rest we know so well now, which really clarified my thinking and made me feel committed in some sense. I say in some sense because it is difficult to be committed to a non-belief!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You're not aware of your atheism at birth. Hell, I couldn't even read! So there had to be some time when you realized you didn't believe in god or gods after that point, as I posted above.

That's a differentiation between weak atheism (lack of the belief) and strong atheism (belief in the lack). My transition between the two only really happened when I became increasingly aware of theism... of which, I was never a part. It wasn't a golden on-off-switch moment.

We need a third term, for total lack awareness of belief. That's the state we are born in.

[Red Celt]

We need a third term, for total lack awareness of belief. That's the state we are born in.

The term already exists: atheism = without theism.

A newborn baby is atheistic, amoral and apolitical... and more or less every other word that has a prefix of "a" (meaning "without").

It definitely isn't aumbilical. Until the cord is cut.

[Red Celt]

To further clarify the differences between weak and strong atheism, here's an example that I recently used elsewhere:-


Carlos and Juanita are marooned on a desert island. They have a baby girl, whom they name Isabella. They both agreed that it was wrong to impose their own religious beliefs on their daughter, so they raised her without any references to any deities.

When Isabella wondered about the beauty (and cause) of a rainbow, Carlos and Juanita explained that it was caused by the refraction of light through water droplets. They didn't say that it was a promise from God that there would be no more floods. Whenever they knew the answer to Isabella's questions, they gave an honest answer. Whenever they didn't know, they always said that they didn't know. They never shrugged and said "god did it".

When Isabella came of age on her 16th birthday, her parents sat her down and explained what they knew about the world religions, answering any questions that Isabella might have. Whatever beliefs Isabella then held, her parents were happy that the choice was made by her as an adult, rather than imposed by them.

After contemplating what she had been told, Isabella told her parents that she believed that deities did not exist.


Isabella was born a weak atheist and remained a weak atheist for 16 years. She then became a strong atheist. The differences between the two states might be subtle (or non-existent) to some, but the differences very much exist.

1. A lack of belief in god(s)
2. Belief in the lack of god(s)

They are not the same. They deserve separate consideration; they deserve separate definitions. 1 = weak atheism (our natural state). 2 = strong atheism (a chosen state).