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[Raiden]

Was raised as an atheist, so never really.

 

[Snuggles]

Was raised as an atheist, so never really.

Well, I just hope you never went hungry in that family.
Because an empty stomach makes weird sounds.

 

[ItAintEasyBeinCheesy]

Well, I just hope you never went hungry in that family.
Because an empty stomach makes weird sounds.

He needs Jayzus to fill his belly with loorve?

 

[Souldriver]

Gone to catholic school, had religion as a class, got 2 communions, had to go to churches and all that jazz, yet I've never had that *realization* that it all was a bunch of lies.

As long as I can remember, I just went with the flow during all those moments of religion being pushed on me. I can remember they used giant drawings depicting bible stories to make them more attractive, in the "preparation classes" for my first communion we had to endure all sorts of stories and projects and tasks ranging from "thou shall not..." to woolly spiritual moments of awareness about religion, in church -obviously- the priest rambled on about the usual stuff, I went on weekend trips to monasteries to learn about religion, ... and all I did was think to myself "what the...who believes this kind of stuff!?! This is so ridiculous!" until it bored/annoyed me and then I just sort of zoned out and waited till its over.

So I just underwent the whole thing not believing in it. However, once they personally addressed me for something (teacher, sunday school lady, ...), they got in trouble. Not because I was rude or anything, but because their mindset doesn't allow for any varying opinions or different points-of-view. If they asked me a simple scholar question like "what happens next in this story", I would answer it just fine. If however, they started with bullshit like "what do you think god wants you to do in this situation?" I answered honestly and said what *I think*. I remember many ear pulling and punishments when I was younger, and discussions when I was older.

I remember this one time in secondary school (we were around 16) that the priest/teacher gave us the task to work on something that for you, personally, represented what god is. As most students don't believe in god, they just tried to somehow reconcile religious teaching with what they found important. Some made a collage of their friends with under it a shitty description of how god is all the love you get from friendship, others chose a song that makes them happy, others chose a picture of a dead loved one saying how it was a constant reminder of him/her, I chose a song with lyrics I deem important as a life lesson, ... After all the presentations were over, the priest simply said: "well, that's all nice and all, but that's not what God represents. I'm gonna have to fail every one of you". :lol the fuck! I had a long debate with him after class. Either he sticks to his strict teaching where everything is law, literal and unquestionable, and makes us undergo it all, or he tries to engage us in it but respects our personal opinions and views on the matter. Not a mishmash of both! What an asshat.




So nope: didn't have a moment of realization.

 

[phisheep]

For me and, I guess, for anyone who was brought up that a religion was true, it was rather a long process. But there was one notable turning point. Strangely enough, it was a sermon by an evangelical vicar. The sermon was based on the 'improbability argument' - that the universe is so amazingly unlikely to be the way it is by chance that it is overwhelmingly likely that God exists (that's a very brutal summary of a long, and good and entertaining, sermon). It's a rotten argument of course. But what really struck me in the course of it is that he was effectively admitting the possibillity that the universe could be the way it is without a God. A minuscule and remote possibility sure, but still a possibility. That was a revelation to me, because the way I was brought up - which was in this context remarkably free of express dogma and bible-bashing and proselytising - it was just an underlying fact that God existed just the same as cats and gravity and light do.

Once the possibility was admitted, everything else fell eventually.

So, yeah, I was converted to Atheism by an evangelical sermon.

 

[Danielsan]

Never had that moment.
I was born an atheist.

 

[Nocebo]

I was never really raised religious. My parents used to be religious but my dad got out of it when he found that the "evidence" for it is all about circular logic. I guess I had always just accepted that the various religious stories are just myths and stuff because it makes the most sense.

 

[Snuggles]

I was officially an atheist when I dropped a really fucking good sandwich on the ground.
If I remember right it was a chicken carbonara and it was totally ruined when it hit the floor, no god would allow that.

 

[Slayer-33]

When I noticed that "my religion/god" is the one that's "right" and not "theirs"

Also noticed it's a business and never ever saw or heard from god in my life.


On that point, "supernatural" doesn't exist in my mind, I'm too rational to believe any of it. It's non sense to my brain and I have a hard time comprehending on why people are so fearful of the being that is supposed to be all loving and all forgiving, yet he asks so much from you in return and tries to control your life in all the aspects.


God allows bad things or even unmetionable things happen to good people, that is not a "test" in my book.. that is BS.

 

[Steppenwolf]

I was raised atheist in an atheist country and always found religion odd and idiotic when i was a kid. Still do but today i'm open minded enough towards spiritual things to consider myself an agnostic and not an atheist.

 

[Keikoku]

I never was very religious, but reading Watchmen was my real moment of realization. The moment when Rorschach explains how he became Rorschach. So powerful.

 

[Deleted member 30609]

got really angry with my parents in a long-car drive home when I was twelve years old and shouted "there is no god!" or something.

I was a difficult 12-15 year old. Luckily I was, by estimation, a pretty rational late 16+.

As time went on, and I became a tad more (mentally) well-formed, one of my best friends in high school and myself would do that thing where we'd talk into insane hours of the night about typical young wannabe-intellectual philosophy. The sun would rise the next morning and then we'd hate ourselves as we tried to operate the next day at school. Good times.

 

[Aegus]

I don't think I ever believed. Seemed silly.

 

[BocoDragon]

To be honest, my moment of conversion came from looking at a frozen waterfall. I had this moment where I looked at the entangled spiral of ice, seeing the detail in the way the strands of water were arranged... and I had this moment of realization: nature is so crappy. It was so random and ugly, I could have designed something better than this garbage. I knew then that there was certainly No God. If he existed we would have giant bat wings or something.

 

[Souldriver]

To be honest, my moment of conversion came from looking at a frozen waterfall. I had this moment where I looked at the entangled spiral of ice, seeing the detail in the way the strands of water were arranged... and I had this moment of realization: nature is so crappy. It was so random and ugly, I could have designed something better than this garbage. I knew then that there was certainly No God. If he existed we would have giant bat wings or something.

wat :lol

 

[Conceited]

Was raised as an atheist, so never really.

Same, and I'm thankful for it.

 

[Steppenwolf]

To be honest, my moment of conversion came from looking at a frozen waterfall. I had this moment where I looked at the entangled spiral of ice, seeing the detail in the way the strands of water were arranged... and I had this moment of realization: nature is so crappy. It was so random and ugly, I could have designed something better than this garbage. I knew then that there was certainly No God. If he existed we would have giant bat wings or something.

How do you know he didn't design the awesome stuff on another planet? Earth could just be his trashbin. :lol

Also bats could be giant. But they don't look giant too us because god designed us even more gigantic.

 

[madara]

I'm vastly more intelligent then everyone so I knew at age 1. :lol Outside those stroking their ego in here, religious small town setting, doubts around 14, stronger doubts around 20. Wasnt until my grandmother died that I figured it out completely.

 

[farnham]

when i read about all the stuff religious people did throughout history (crusades, stuff the spaniards did to the native americans etc.) in the name of god.

 

[Mr. Sam]

I was an agnostic bordering on Christian until I was twelve. I found a copy of the New Testament and was trying to believe what I was reading. Couldn't.

 

[Dan Yo]

Forgive me for making 2 sorta controversial threads in the same night, but both are topics I've been wanting to explore here.

Anyways, it was interesting for me. I was raised in a Christian household, I was never given the choice. I went to Christian schools, too. It was always pounded in my head that jesus Christ is my lord and savior and it is the only way. Even as a child, I never chose to believe it, I only believed it because it was the only way I was shown. When I was forced to church I would just try to lay across the pew so I could take a nap while the pastor blabbed his nonsense.

...but as I got older I hit that dangerous zone where I started to think for myself. Long story, but my eyesight started to fail and I was forced to use contacts .One day when I tried to force contact lenses in my eyes, I somehow realized in that moment that I was suffering for nothing. I was doing that just so I could see, and it hurt just to do it, what kind of god would put me in that situation? Who would take away my eyesight and make me suffer to get it back? It was a minor, even laughable situation but somehow it got me on the path of atheism. Or really, realization. In just a single moment of frustration I realized that everything I told was false and that there is no god, only reality.

Since then I have spend years observing others and building up confidence in my lifestyle. It's liberating to accept the truth.

What about you?

I'm not a particularly religious person, and growing up I had a similar experience to yours as far as always falling asleep in the pews pretending to be praying, but your story of "realization" is kind of stupid.

"Why does God allow people to suffer?" Is probably one of the first questions a child in Catholic school asks their priest or teacher. They usually answer it a few ways. One of which is that God allows us free will and doesn't usually interfere without a reason. If your eyesight went bad because of genetics, sitting too close to the TV, or because you smacked your eye into a door, and the solution to that is a contact, which was an invention by man, is painful to you because man invented it that way, and is only effecting you because (let's face it) you're the one who chose to put it in your eye, then exactly how do you blame God for that?

Sometimes they go deeper and more long-winded which involves talks about the different trials and tribulations that test us on a daily basis to be good people.

I'm not preaching to you about why you should believe in God, because as I said, I'm not much for religion either, but I did think your moment of realization sounded ill-conceived.

 

[Tears For Fears]

God should have made the world in the vision of Bladerunner, than I could be like half robot and half human boning robots.

 

[MrHicks]

To be honest, my moment of conversion came from looking at a frozen waterfall. I had this moment where I looked at the entangled spiral of ice, seeing the detail in the way the strands of water were arranged... and I had this moment of realization: nature is so crappy. It was so random and ugly, I could have designed something better than this garbage. I knew then that there was certainly No God. If he existed we would have giant bat wings or something.

BEHOLD this snow crystal

you gotta admit that looks pretty awesome (designed) lol

 

[Snuggles]

I'm not a particularly religious person, and growing up I had a similar experience to yours as far as always falling asleep in the pews pretending to be praying, but your story of "realization" is kind of stupid.


I'm not preaching to you about why you should believe in God, because as I said, I'm not much for religion either, but I did think your moment of realization sounded ill-conceived.

Call it whatever you want, as I mentioned it was a small moment but it was when I began really take into consideration that I was being surrounded by bullshit.
That's the whole point, in real life we don't have story book moments where everything comes together in a big way and we realize it's wrong, in real life (that's life not on internet or TV), things may happen in underwhelming ways but in the end it still means the same thing.
Maybe I could have made the story more acceptable by saying that my house exploded and I renounced Jesus as I was diving away from the inferno, maybe that would have been less stupid but the way it really came about unexciting and apparently "ill-conceived" to the ignorant outsider.
I guess you had to be there.

To sum it up, you're wrong and your face is a penis.

 

[Arjen]

Never, born in a family without any religion what so ever.
I do know that ever since i was a kid i was flabbergasted that there were people who believed in al that invisble man in the sky stuff.

 

[Tears For Fears]

Never, born in a family without any religion what so ever.
I do know that ever since i was a kid i was flabbergasted that there were people who believed in al that invisble man in the sky stuff.

He's not in the sky, he is apparently in a star cluster that's not in our universe. Or that is what some random psycho said in a youtube video.

 

[Arjen]

He's not in the sky, he is apparently in a star cluster that's not in our universe. Or that is what some random psycho said in a youtube video.

You got a link to that video?
I love those religious nutjobs on youtube :lol

 

[Dan Yo]

Never, born in a family without any religion what so ever.
I do know that ever since i was a kid i was flabbergasted that there were people who believed in al that invisble man in the sky stuff.

From what I recall in Catholic School, Heaven is not "in the sky" and God is not "an invisible man". I don't think any of them presumed to know where Heaven was.

 

[BocoDragon]

BEHOLD this snow crystal

you gotta admit that looks pretty awesome (designed) lol

sharp knees. would not hit.

 

[Monocle]

I was raised in a fundamentalist household until my family left our religion when I was still a kid. As a teen my lifestyle grew less restricted as I experienced more of the secular world. It was a painstaking process. I held on to the assumption that god and the supernatural existed until I was around 19, at which point I finally discovered atheistic literature. I immersed myself in it for weeks. Barely did anything else. At the end of this period, every trace of my nebulous faith was gone. I felt that up until that point I had been sleepwalking through life, taking everything for granted with the assumptions that I was divinely protected from harm and that my immortality was assured.

Realizing I had become an atheist liberated me from my difficult childhood in almost every way. It forced me to start thinking for myself. The knowledge that I very probably will not survive my death instilled in me a powerful urgency to make the most of the time I have. Outgrowing religion is the best thing that ever happened to me by far.

 

[wolfmat]

Was never a question to me as a child, so it came natural.

As a kid, I put church stuff, prayers and so forth on the level of meals at a full table. Simply congregations, being social and saying weird stuff to amuse yourself and others. Maybe I took chants and things as an in-joke I didn't get, I can't really remember though. I think you could say I never got religion.

My parents sort of flipped concerning religion, meaning that at some point in my childhood, they stopped talking to the pastor or teaching us stuff about the bible. I never asked them why that was, however.

Note that I grew up at a distance of 200m from a church. And I was often there, and even nowadays, I enjoy going into churches because they are marvellous buildings.

However, I'm not looking for anything beyond cool reverb, awesome lighting, old-ass benches and neat windows in there.

 

[Tears For Fears]

It's been years since I seen it, but this is the closest thing I could find.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPNWss0mRK8

 

[Trent Strong]

God should have made the world in the vision of Bladerunner, than I could be like half robot and half human boning robots.

:lol Holy shit.

 

[Druz]

Went to school and sunday school. When I was young I questioned why it's considered "school?" and why they're separated into two different locations. On the weekend I learned jesus rode dinosaurs and on the weekday I learned about actually true things. Stopped going to church after my confirmation. Slowly became atheist but had that lingering "GOD IS WATCHING YOU TAKE A SHIT RIGHT NOW"

Mid-teens I noticed that believers have this really oppressive veil over them at all times. It was outside looking in kinda stuff. Looked at the whole church thing from outside the box. WHo are these people? Where is their authority coming from? History classes helped immensely too... different techniques used to control a massive amount of lower class. There being multiple religions I asked myself "What if they're all wrong?" instead of "Which one is right?" Was an atheist from then on from my late teens.

Then Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins appeared and I'm no longer a closet atheist.

 

[Nocebo]

From what I recall in Catholic School, Heaven is not "in the sky" and God is not "an invisible man". I don't think any of them presumed to know where Heaven was.

That's something that puzzles me. It seems to me like every believer pretty much has their own set of beliefs surrounding the main concept. They somehow pick and choose and sometimes this spawns new offshoots of religions. The only reason their personal beliefs gain strength in their mind is because there's this overarching entity that believes similarly enough. However ultimately they themselves choose what they want to apply to their daily lives, it is not god or the teaching of jesus they follow. What puzzles me is why they don't realize this?

As someone with low confidence I can say the thought of saying "well supreme authority X condones Y / Z so it must be the right way to go." seems like a comfortable thought. I also think people in general are affraid of being wrong and taking the wrong actions. I think people with strong selfreflective capabilities have trouble believe in the concept of God.

 

[Kurtofan]

My family as a whole is Catholic but my mother and father never forced me to go to sunday school (even if I knew the stories of the Bible and went sometimes to church for Christmas),so I never really believed,but I respect those who do.
I think I admired Greek-Roman gods for awhile during my childhood.
Also I consider myself more of an agnostic than an atheist.

 

[Dkong]

There has never been a moment for me since I've never believed anyone telling me some religious shit in my entire life. I went to a christian elementary school when I was real young and I always thought the stories from the bible were real bad fairy tales :lol

 

[AnkitT]

My parents are religious(hindu), but they didnt really force their beliefs on me. When I reached 14 years of age, I started to believe that god didnt exist, but it wasnt fully formed i.e I still had this thing in the back of my mind that there is a god. My parents always wanted me to go to temples with them, take part in ceremonies, and worshiping, etc. but I always refused, they didnt like that much. But I had a firm belief by 16 years of age in the non-existence of god, supported by my questioning nature, and the incongruence of logic and the answers that people used to give me. I flat out stopped believing. But recently, I have started swinging more towards agnosticism, since I believe that we cant ascertain for sure if there is some form of higher power out there, but I still hold logic and reasoning in very high regard, and my primary belief is still that the idea of the god that is popularized throughout the world, is truly false.

 

[dragonlife]

I don't know what I am...

I never believed things from the bible were real, even as a child that went to church (Hated it! Always interrupted my TV time ). I don't like thinking people are wrong for thinking God exists, though. Religion is also a topic I avoid because it makes me uncomfortable, especially face-to-face. Hearing people thank God for small things always makes me "<_<" on the inside =/

Live and let live is what I think

Spoiler

Science is awesome!

. So...does all this make me an atheist? I've never really thought about it, honestly.

 

[News Bot]

I always had the doubt, but didn't fully renounce it until I was 17. My mum suddenly sat and talked with me about stuff and then brought up God, to which I reflex'd "I'm an Atheist, mom."

Didn't go down well, she took one angry fit and started cussing me into the ground. I asked her to prove the existence of God in a platonic voice and she replied "because I'm here, you're here, your sisters are here" and so on. I told her to fuck off immediately afterwards and was on bad terms with her for about 3 weeks before she started crying to me one day. After 3 weeks of not so much as eye contact, she eventually caved and opened her mind a little and accepted my non-belief... after much coaxing from my dad, who wasn't terribly religious either (but really couldn't put up a debate to save his life).

And once you read the Bible the whole way through and look back on it beyond the bullshit, you realize that the vast majority of it is no different from a fairy tale. A very hypocritical and hole-riddled fairytale with a violent, jealous, manic depressive, contradictory, vengeful, bi-polar pissant as the main character. The commandments are largely no different than outdated laws, the main 10 being moral guidelines that should be obvious to any civilised human being with a decent mental health record. Not seeing any evidence of "miracles" in real life didn't help either. Did God just stick around for a few thousand years before cocking off? Once you start looking at other religions, it also becomes blatantly obvious that the vast majority of religions (aside from the really unique ones) are based on the exact same fucking shit. Same goes for mythology. More fairytales, many bearing pretty much the exact same outline as stories found in other mythologies (Izanagi's failed rescue of his wife Izanami from the underworld in Japanese mythology contrasted with Orpheus's failed rescue in Greek mythology, just to give an example). Ridiculous shit yo. The belief that billions of people are going to suffer and burn for eternity for not having the luck of being born some place is the ultimate thing that turns me off it all, I think. An astonishingly retarded venture.

Now I simply cannot even attempt to believe in the concept of God or religion in general. While I admire those who find religion and embrace it on a personal level, I sincerely hope organized religion fucking burns.

 

[NekoFever]

I don't think I ever really was religious. My parents aren't really, this isn't a religious part of the world, and the few times I went to church were with thing like the Scouts, where it was very much done under duress. I used to smuggle in toys or my Game Boy or stuff because it was a waste of my time even then.

I remember being in school at around age 8 or 9 and arguing with a friend that it was bullshit, while he argued that it must be true or they wouldn't be allowed to teach it in school. That incident has always been one of my arguments against religious schools, because it gets given credibility when coming from an authority figure like a teacher, where you're supposed to be being educated.

So yeah, I didn't believe as far back as I can remember. Belief in God didn't last any longer than Santa Claus. I don't remember when I stopped believing in either, because they were both quite unimportant to me.

 

[FleckSplat]

See, some of you guys are very lucky to have seen the truth so soon. Shirley I'm not the only one born in a religious family, it takes true character to learn your way out of that shit.
To go against what you were supposed to accept as truth, what was pounded into you. I'm just glad that I had the mental fortitude to outlast that shit.

 

[I <3 Memes]

Like most people here I would say it was sometime around 3rd or 4th grade. Not that I really believed before then. I would say that before that age pretty much everything in the world was confusing and difficult to understand. At that age things like money, airplanes, politics, stories about santa and easter bunnies, and religion are all on an equal ground as complete mysteries that a kid just can't wrap his head around.

 

[Shanadeus]

I was kinda born atheist and just stayed that way.
Wonder what I'd be like if I grew up in a religious household and then changed my mind afterwards, it seem to make some people a bit bitter about religion.

 

[Barrett2]

For me, my moment was while serving as a Mormon missionary, in 2000.

I decided to wake up two hours early every day to read more, and quickly began pouring over books detailing the history of the LDS Church. Not surprisingly, every single aspect of LDS history that lends itself to the narrative of it being "the one true church" was logically and surgically destroyed.

It was a crazy realization that my entire life was predicated on a complete lie. Even more frightening was how many LDS people I knew never even bothered to do basic research like I had. It was wild that so many people would devote their lives to something they knew so little about.

Then I started reading books about general Christian history, etc. I quickly concluded there was no rational basis to believe any of it.

 

[TacticalFox88]

As an agnostic I still lean slightly religious, but there is still doubt. Why? Fuck, even I don't know.

 

[elrechazado]

Shirley I'm not the only one

You are, and don't call me shirley.

 

[Xun]

I was Christened but neither of my parents were religious.

I came to the realisation shortly after I found out Santa wasn't real.

 

[Arnie]

As I believe it there is no moment of realization for being an Atheist, to me it is just a natural progression of a clear thinking mind. There is evidence of scientific proof which completely disproves religion which should be all the realization anybody ever needs, however we live in a world where peoples hope clouds peoples rational thinking.

There is no proof for religion, there is proof for evolution. As our understanding of the universe and physics improves there will no doubt be more contradictory evidence but still people will go on believing these ancient stories as truth.

 

[elrechazado]

There is evidence of scientific proof which completely disproves religion which should be all the realization anybody ever needs,

Curious, what scientific proof is this, and what does it conclusively disprove about religion "completely"? Also, "evidence of proof"? For someone who seems to swear by science, this isn't a logically tenable statement at all.