Thread: Why did you become an Atheist?

No one become's an atheist, people become theists. Everyone is born atheist, religion is taught.

My family never really talked about religion and god as such... and none of them are really religious, so when I grew up I pretty much had free hands to decide for myself.

I never really took the whole thing too seriously (I always had these huge questions about god and how in the world any of it made sense), and through the first years of school during the religion lessons, the teachers never really seemed to be able to give proper answers to the questions I had (much like Scatterbrain). I've been questiening religion from as far back as I remember, and I never actually picked it up, so as I grew older and became familiar with all the terms, it was only natural to label myself as atheist, or an agnostic atheist So while I were never actually a theist (which I understand the question was directed towards) it's still gives an explanation as to why I didn't choose religion.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

No one become's an atheist, people become theists. Everyone is born atheist, religion is taught.

Indeed.

After I was taught religion for a while I began to first notice inconsistencies in the bible, and other things that just don't mesh with the modern world. Christianity goes against the grain of Science and Technology and to me, it is obvious which one has more credibility.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

No one become's an atheist, people become theists. Everyone is born atheist, religion is taught.

No, originally everyone is simply non-religious.

When I was little, my parents never really talked about God at all. They pretty much brought me up to be open minded to everything.

But in school we would sing hymns and read stuff about God, so all this talk about God made me just assume that God must exist.

Then when I got old enough to think logically for myself (around 7 yeas old, give or take) I started to question it. This was also when I read a lot about science. Physics in particular. So I read about the Big Bang. And then I found out that religion says that the Big Bang is nonsense. Then I thought, "if they have now come up with a good explanation for it, why still think religion is right?"


So basically I realised that religion is most likely something people made up because it was a good theory back then, just like people made up the theory that the earth is the centre of the universe and everything rotates around it.
And I wondered why people didn't discard the idea of religion when better theories came along. (just like they discarded the idea of earth is centre thing when they realised it isn't the centre).


Those are the thoughts I thought over a few years. I could never fully explain my reasoning behind my atheism, but just so you know, I AM STILL OPEN MINDED. I believe there is a minute possibility that God exists the way religion says.

So I just stick with "it is possible, just not probable"

I was born in Hungary, so it goes without saying that I was baptized as a catholic. My grandparents are very religious. My great grandmother made my grandparents look like heathens, all things being relative.

My parents were more open-minded about stuff. When we moved to Canada, I was still sent to a catholic school (there are lots of those in Quebec, after all). We'd only really go to church twice a year (xmas and easter), and I felt like it was a bloody waste of time. I mean, I believed in God and that he loved me and everything, and I was already learning about this stuff in school, so why go listen to some Hungarian sermon? Anyway, it did nothing for me. And like I said, my parents were pretty open-minded about this stuff. They didn't really lecture me about it. As long as I lived a good life, it was all they needed. You know, the practical stuff.

I then went to a catholic high school. That's where I started to think for myself about this stuff a little bit more. By the way, I understand faith. Even when I believed, I understood that there was no real evidence that there's a god. But it felt good, sorta, I guess. Anyway, in high school, I definitely wasn't one of the popular kids. It was a pretty harsh world. So, first lesson: What someone's religious affiliation is has absolutely ZERO to do with whether they're a great person, or complete trash.

In high school, the main religion teacher we had (and we had him for all 5 years) was a really great young man, and I would actually go talk to him after class hours about this stuff. I'd ask him about what hell really is about, and we'd talk about sects and other topics they don't cover until later. He mentioned that "hell" is really a kind of state of loneliness and darkness. It's not a "place of fire and brimstone" where you get tortured for all eternity. Then it hit me. Lesson 2: No two religious authorities have the same view. And I'm not talking about little nitpicky details, but about large, fundamental truths. This was really interesting.

Eventually, I started feeling pretty lonely and disconnected. And I decided that I would no longer play the victim. I had to take responsibility for my own actions. If there's a god, he'll find me and if he's not an asshole, he'll judge me on character and how I lived my life, and not on whether I followed the SOPs outlined in a book that was written by greedy men thousands of years ago.

So I became a deist. I wasn't ready to let go of the idea that there might be a creator, but as far as I was concerned, said creator didn't do such a great job, and frankly, probably didn't care.

It took very little effort, after that, to go right to being agnostic. There's no story behind that. I just, at some point, realized that all the "deity baggage" I had could be let go very easily at that point, so I did.

Originally Posted by really

No, originally everyone is simply non-religious.

Are you implying atheism is a religion?

Originally Posted by tnemrot

Are you implying atheism is a religion?

It might not be a religion, but it is a conviction. You're not born with convictions.

I looked long and hard at the beliefs I was taught and I had accepted as a kid, and then saw them to be unproven. Fin~

Originally Posted by khh

It might not be a religion, but it is a conviction. You're not born with convictions.

conviction, strong belief, article of faith (an unshakable belief in something without need for proof or evidence)
a strong persuasion or belief b : the state of being convinced

Copypasted. Do you still think it's a conviction?

Originally Posted by tnemrot

Copypasted. Do you still think it's a conviction?

You should have copypasted the definition of atheism, if anything that's what I'm confused about

Atheism is A-theism, that is to say, not theism.

And let me just throw out there that agnosticism does not mean you are unsure whether god exists or not. I am a strong atheist and also a strong agnostic.
Agnostic:

1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

Remember that agnosticism means you believe it's unknowable, not necessarily that you don't know. There's a fine line but there is one. If you are undecided (which is a rather lame position to take in any situation anyways), you are simply undecided, not agnostic. Agnosticism is not a middle-ground between theism and atheism, but on another plane entirely.

Anyways, to answer the thread's question, I "became an atheist" mostly because of Dreamviews. I remember like 5 or so years ago when bradybaker was around and he was always such a solid debater and I respected his use of logic in arguing religion. I just found every religious view completely against the scientific mode of thought and every rebuttal by people like bradybaker to make perfect sense. I was somewhat undecided at this time, but mostly out of fear that being an atheist was bad or something, but then I realized it didn't matter. Eventually I started arguing religion and my convictions grew that way. This was before there was a R/S section on dreamviews I think i was about 12 or 13 at the time.

I wasn't raised as anything and able to make up my own mind. The only religion in my life was having to sing hymns or pray at school, which I refused to do once I was old enough to realise I didn't believe any of it (about 10 or so).

I saw absolutely no reason why any particular religion was correct and all the others were wrong, and I was able to see the flaws, bad reasoning, contradictions, absurdities and so on in all of them. The more I educated myself, the more I've been able to see this, especially as I did advanced science and learnt about the scientific method, as well as my studies in to philosophy and knowledge.

About 6 years ago, I still used to respect people's religious beliefs, providing they'd actually made up their own mind about it. When I actually went through and read about the religions in detail, and the negative impacts of said religions, I lost any respect for such a belief system.

Originally Posted by tnemrot

Copypasted. Do you still think it's a conviction?

erm...yes? atheism is usually backed up with a strong feeling that god is not real.

on topic...I still have a side to me that is spiritual I suppose, but like a lot of people I moved out of the realm of christianity once I got online and started reading arguments about it. When I was younger I did genuinely believe in god and I really enjoyed reading the book of revelations, so I feel sometimes that lets me see where christians are coming from in all of this...but pretty soon science took over too much and Im too the point now where I need more then some coincidences that "may be" miracles.

Originally Posted by tkdyo

erm...yes? atheism is usually backed up with a strong feeling that god is not real.

Atheism is just a lack of belief in a deity or gods. You're describing the feelings that have become associated with the word.

I became an athiest recently after sitting down, thinking hard about it for a few months, and concluding there simply wasn't enough there for me to believe in a God.

Originally Posted by tnemrot

Are you implying atheism is a religion?

No but it is a belief/theory. Nobody has any beliefs/concepts upon birth (that were taught) from the external world.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

No one become's an atheist, people become theists. Everyone is born atheist, religion is taught.

+1.

All I have to say has already been stated in that post.

God or religion was never a part of my life or upbringing. We never went to church, never joined a youth group...never even cracked a bible. (When people quote the bible, I have no idea what they're talking about.) Yeah, so since I was never taught religion, I never really saw any valid arguments for the existence of a god. To this day, I see no valid arguments. I wouldn't consider myself atheist, though...agnostic is more accurate a term. I don't believe in any sort of god or divine being, but you never know. For all intents and purposes, however, I am a "practical atheist."