Personal Experiences that Led you to your Atheism

[rasetsu]

It's these sort of droll, dogmatic atheist just-so stories about religion, belief and developmental psychology that leave me cold. Most explanations like that are pulled wholly out of one's ass.


A poster on another forum made a bunch of similar ad hoc explanations of religion and after I riddled it full of holes using my gatling gun of world facts, he and I are no longer on speaking terms.



Somewhere between the ages of seven and seventeen, I lost faith, and then found it again in a totally different form. And over the years since then, a secondary faith has slowly blossomed.


I can't tell you the necessary reasons for why I lost faith, and although I have beliefs about the faith that replaced it, who can tell the truth of such things?

[Coito ergo sum]

At bottom, it was a long series of rational analyses of various religious claims, and then a rational analysis of the arguments for the existence of gods. it took me some time, but by age 13, I had concluded that the organized religions were made up fairy tales, and their holy books were cobbled together, internally inconsistent fabrications. By the age of 18 I was an open agnostic, although still self-identified as Lutheran. I gave religion very little thought until I was in my 30s. Then I set myself on the mission to read the Bible from cover-to-cover like a novel, since I realized I had never actually done that in my life. Once I did that, I polished off the Qu'ran and the Book of Mormon, then the Tao Te Tching, the I'Ching, Baghavad Gita, the Satanic Bible, and a host of other religious books, including translations of ancient Greek, Roman and Norse myths.

By 35 I was an open atheist.

I found, in short order, that the mere expression of the fact of being an atheist is very often viewed with surprise, shock and then condemnation by religious folks. I learned that when they ask you why you're an atheist, or how one can conclude there is no god, they really don't want to hear the answer.

But, there was no one moment of enlightenment for me. I was raised to view things analytically, but I was also raised by parents who thought it was important to be part of a church and such, because that's what everyone else did. So, even with that milquetoast religious upbringing it was a long journey for me from scoffer/doubter to atheist. I can only imagine how awful it must be for children of the devout.

[HomerJay]

It's simply a canard erected by theists who think the non-falsifiability of God gives them special powers.

I think that you misunderstand what I said.

It wasn't created by theists. It was created by a very large community of atheists (alt.atheism) nearly 20 years ago.

I can't have been discussing it before then, then.

You can always take the opportunity to explain what you meant.

BTW I don't think agnostics say anything interesting either.

[MrFungus420]

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?

The fact that absolutely no claim of a god's existence is believable.

[laklak]

Never believed in any of it. My mom sent me to Sunday school a couple of times, but they told her I was being "disruptive". I was apparently asking uncomfortable questions like "how do you get out from under the ground when you're dead?" and "why didn't the lions eat the giraffes on the Ark?". All I really remember about it was coloring this picture, just the top half of a picture, of Jesus (nice Caucasian lad) with his hands on this beatific child's shoulders. Then we got the lower half to color and the kid was in a wheelchair. I remember thinking that Jesus had put the kid in the wheelchair and I didn't want anything to do with someone like that.

[cowiz]

I met god and he told me he was made up.

[SteveB]

I met god and he told me he was made up.

God can do that tho.

[FBM]

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?

Hope this is useful:

I was in undergrad. I'd been raised in the US Deep South, surrounded by all sorts of fundamentalist wackery, but had gravitated to the Episcopal Church, arguably the most liberal and permissive of the established churches. Well, in that area, anyway. I was majoring in Philosophy & Religion because I was planning to go on to Episcopal seminary afterwards.

In the course of my studies, I took a class called History of the Bible. It was taught by a Baptist minister, but he was also a scholar, not the bible-thumping sort. He encouraged inquiry and skepticism, but he still believed. Anyway, during the semester, we learned about how the Bible came into being, literary analysis of the Gospels, etc. It was an evening class, and one night after class I was walking back to my dorm room, thinking deeply about what we'd studied that evening (and throughout the course, actually). (I'd long been critical of politics and politicians' manipulation of the masses for their own gain.) Suddenly it struck me that the Bible was put together the way it was because of the political ambitions of the Church. Perfectly mundane. No supernatural explanation required, such as being guided by a Creator. In just two or three seconds, that skepticism spread in my mind to include the stories of the Bible themselves. It became clear to me that they were all made up at some point by somone with this or that personal ambition in order to control the minds and behaviors of others. In a span of 5 seconds, max, I went from being a fully convinced believer to saying, "Well, I'll be damned. It's all made up. What am I going to do with a Philosophy degree now?" Well, I minored in English, luckily, so now I'm an English teacher.

[cowiz]

I met god and he told me he was made up.

God can do that tho.

No he can't

[tattuchu]

Never believed in any of it. My mom sent me to Sunday school a couple of times, but they told her I was being "disruptive". I was apparently asking uncomfortable questions like "how do you get out from under the ground when you're dead?" and "why didn't the lions eat the giraffes on the Ark?". All I really remember about it was coloring this picture, just the top half of a picture, of Jesus (nice Caucasian lad) with his hands on this beatific child's shoulders. Then we got the lower half to color and the kid was in a wheelchair. I remember thinking that Jesus had put the kid in the wheelchair and I didn't want anything to do with someone like that.

He didn't just have his hands on the kid's shoulders. The fucker was holding the kid down!

[SteveB]

I like those epiphany type stories. One moment you're a theist and then something clicks and bang you're not.

[SteveB]

I met god and he told me he was made up.

God can do that tho.

No he can't

God can do anything, even not exist!

[laklak]

Never believed in any of it. My mom sent me to Sunday school a couple of times, but they told her I was being "disruptive". I was apparently asking uncomfortable questions like "how do you get out from under the ground when you're dead?" and "why didn't the lions eat the giraffes on the Ark?". All I really remember about it was coloring this picture, just the top half of a picture, of Jesus (nice Caucasian lad) with his hands on this beatific child's shoulders. Then we got the lower half to color and the kid was in a wheelchair. I remember thinking that Jesus had put the kid in the wheelchair and I didn't want anything to do with someone like that.

He didn't just have his hands on the kid's shoulders. The fucker was holding the kid down!

He was standing behind the kid too. Upon this cock will I build my church...

[FBM]

I like those epiphany type stories. One moment you're a theist and then something clicks and bang you're not.

Hope it's useful for your essay.

[cowiz]

I met god and he told me he was made up.

God can do that tho.

No he can't

God can do anything, even not exist!

Can he make a square circle?

Checkmate atheists! Oh hang on, that's me.