For me i didn't become an agnostic , I just realized that I've always been an agnostic before... In fact i didn't even know that I'm agnostic, I didn't believe any superstitious as a child, i didn't believe in ghosts and other supernatural being.. I think i'm just lucky that i find science to be more interesting than joining religions.. I also got open minded friends they are very open in discussions even though some of them are indeed religious.. Evolution is introduced by my uncle since i was 8 year's old, in fact some of my relatives don't have any religion.. I guess that kind of thing kinda impacted my views on the world..
I was a questioner starting at a young age, but had a devout belief in God/Jesus as a Catholic until I was 9 years-old. I was a logical-thinking child. I did not understand how just one group would go to heaven and other good people would go to hell. I could not understand the claims about God being all-knowing, hating evil and all powerful, but let child be abused from parents even if they prayed for it to stop. In college all the science that I learned supported my view that if there was a power higher than a human, it was humans as a group. It also did not help that I went to Catholic school, and saw "The Scary Dying Suffering Jesus" every day at church and before school. Really, a dying suffering dude, at a place for children, it is very odd when you think about it.
I also remember walking the long walk to school from church in long cold winters. The girls wore flouncy skirts with just tights and were not allowed to wear pants like the boys, after I while,Then, I also figured something was not quiet right with the whole church situation but could not name it. My lack of belief, as another person stated, became deeper as I was able to think abstractly as a child.
I considered becoming an catholic earlier this year. There things in the baptist belief system that didn't make logical sense to me as well. I'm glad I avoided that train wreck. Since, I questioned the belief in god since my early 30s. At 41, I stopped believing in fairy tales and began my enlightened journey.
@freedom41 I always thought going to Catholic School, would knock the "GOD" right out of a person. Thanks for your comment.
Luckily I never had a religion...was born into a freethinking family.
So lucky of you ??
@GlaslowII Don’t I know it!
My interpretation of what "God" is evolved over time, initially. My first shift away from Christianity was acknowledging that I believed God was more of an essence than a being, or that God was simply "all that is". I maintained this view for awhile until I asked myself, "well, then, why call it 'God'?".
Prior to all that, the earliest steps were having unresolved questions about dinosaurs in the Biblical era and other obvious contradictions and inconsistencies present in Christian scripture.
I had a similar path to yours. Peace.
Good for you, To paraphrase Hawking's statement: Yes no one can prove or disprove the existence of God. All one can do is to provide reasonable explanation based on Science. This is utterly wonderful enough to fulfill the mysteries of existence and console ourselves that God is unnecessary to live a happy,satisfying and morally upright manner.
Hey bro... Nice comment!
By the way I'm also a pinoy like you..
But now I'm currently living in America..
It started in my first church school class. It was about the walls of Jericho. I just was so sceptical that marching and blowing horns could have worked. Anyway, it just never really "took".
I called myself an agnostic until I realized that even though I tried to create some religious belief that was self-consistent and compatible with physics, I still wouldn't believe in god(s).
God created the entire Universe and doesn't interfere (violating physics) using miracles? Does a god, working within the constraints of physics, deserve the title?
So now, the only time I entertain thoughts of gods is when I read about demigods in Manga or watch Anime. I even support the protagonist struggling against "entity-X" in "The Evil of Tanya".
Hahahaha that's awesome, By the way I love anime like you.
I wasn’t raised particularly religious but did some time in Baptist, Lutheran and Catholic Churches and even a stint in Catholic school. I really tried to believe but I just never did. In fact, I’m convinced that most people, no matter how religious they pretend to be, deep down don’t truly believe. Instead, they fake it in order to fit in and reap the benefits of association with the other fakers.
I think you're right. I believe that's why religious people tend to be so defensive, because somewhere they know that if they start tugging threads, the whole thing will unravel.
I find it fascinating how many people who have left their religion, whichever one it is, started with "I read the book for myself".
I was born and, after a few years, started to hear stories about a magic wizard who lived in the sky. I assumed right from the first time that these were just stories like Jack and the Beanstalk, Winnie the Pooh and all the other stories I heard. The dinosaurs I saw in books, though, were real - there were whole museums full of fossils to prove it. So in other words, I was born an atheist; it came as quite a surprise when I found out some people believed the sky wizard was real too.
when I was 14, I had a science teacher who spent more time on the scientific method than on the actual discoveries of previous science. he would bring it up all the time, show how it related to shit like dating choices, learning to skateboard, everything, as well as showing how it developed the science that we do know when the lessons were about established facts and theories. He just hammered it in.
I started looking at everything through the lens of the method, and the logic behind it, and started seeing massive discrepancies in my religious beliefs and the bible, and the things I'd been told about my religion. I kept digging at it.
I immediately became skeptical of mainstream christianity, like within a couple of weeks of starting the journey. I started looking at fringe christian groups, the hippy groups, and that didn't pan out, so I started looking at other religions, at that point still trying to hold on to some kind of spirituality. Nada.
It took 4 years of exploring a lot of beliefs and systems, but by the time I was out of high school I was an Atheist.
That could be ‘exhibit A’ as to why the religious focus on public education in the US. Not only is the school board often their first political entry point, it allows them to attack teachers like the one you describe. Many teachers, with their jobs and careers in jeopardy, are true he & sheros. I love teachers ~
I have been a none believer since twelve. I just thought it out...rejected the false accepted the truth. We are just high functioning animals. I do not need a God to make me feel special...or to install morals and values...in fact, I don't need a god for
anything. I am the architect of my existence, master of my destiny. So are you.
It was part of my cultural baggage, being raised Catholic in a traditional, Polish Catholic family. Church on Sundays, and eight years in a Catholic school (a really good, progressive, humane one without any of the stereotypical abuses). As I reached the "age of reason," however, I began to think for myself, and also did some traveling to places with other cultures, plus had an older sister whose books on philosophy I borrowed. The old ideas just became unconvincing and nonsensical as my horizons broadened, and have remained so ever since. Boom!
Well, since NO child is actually BORN religious, only to parents or a parent who MAY/ not be religious, the child is usual forcibly introduced to religion whilst it is still too young to realise it is happening.
Yes, I'm sure there is at least someone who will disagree with my above comment, however, in the 164 child births I have personally assisted as a Mid-Wife, I have never once witness a new-born emerge from the mother wearing ANY religious insignia what-so-ever, crossing itself or offering up a prayer in any shape nor form.
I was born into a family where my Father was an Atheist and my Mother came from a background deeply involved in some very ODD variation of the Seventh Day Adventist type belief system, i.e. no using electricity, etc, on Sundays, etc.
She made great efforts to ensure that I was sent, every Sunday to 'receive' religious 'instruction' but my natural curiosity, fostered by my Dad, won out every time and without exception my asking questions, etc, got me EXPELLED from Sunday Schools and from School Scripture Classes.
I still have almost EVERY signed letter of expulsion that I was ever given to take home for my parents to read, expelled from every church including the Catholics right through to the Methodists, Lutherans, etc, etc.
Of course every expulsion got me a verbal tirade,and often physical punishment from my mother, but my father would simply say to me, " Keep it up my boy, you are learning to THINK for your self, ask questions and expect answers, that is the best way to really learn." That is something I passed on to my daughter and she continued it on relentlessly no matter what.
I was born an atheist. Like you, I have never believed in a god(s).
Donald trump became president so I said fuck it I'm going to be atheist ?? and I found out Noah's ark was bullshit and Adam and eve.
I was about 5 or 6 when I admitted to my family I didn’t believe in Santa Claus. They were pretty forthcoming about it. I figured if Christmas celebrated Santa and Jesus that if one didn’t exist the other couldn’t exist either (oh the logic of a child). I kept that connection secret because I thought I wouldn’t receive any presents if I didn’t play along ?
It wasn’t until a few years later that I figured out what an Atheist was, better arguments for my position, that there were more people like me and that I could be a good person without a celestial overlord. Some of us are just so made that we can’t believe!
Started asking questions at Sunday school that were not answered, was discouraged from asking those questions and told that I should not question gods plan and\or reasoning!
Thankfully even though my parents are Christians, they encouraged me to think for my self and never criticized my questioning everything!
I was raised Presbyterian but never did believe. At age 17 my church group sent me to Alaska to help build a church. They did not know I was not a believer--they just assumed I was.
Had a 18 year old partner and we lived in a fishing village and ate fish every day. We worked 6 days a week and then church on Sunday.
One Sunday I was too exhausted to go to the church. This made my partner quite upset. He thought
I had a duty to go to church. So, after some argument I blurted out "I am not a believer!" Right then he blindsided me and hit me in the head. I was bleeding profusely and no continuation of the fight.
Later my partner was sent to another place and I stayed in Petersburg Alaska. [this was long ago even before Alaska was a state. ] I was told I was not to work on the church any more and instead was to read the book of John. I was happy to do this. So, I read that book but also read parts of the Old Testament. And then I was very sured there was no Christian God of love.
One day in my late 40's I just woke up to realize that I didn't believe in the Christian dogma. It was shocking to me. I felt like the rug had literally been pulled out from under me and I was falling and. falling down the rabbit hole like Alice. I had been a believer I think, hook , line and sinker all my life. The accumulation of things along the way finally made it through my intelligence and blew the fog away. Free at last.
Growing up in a very religious family and going to church all the time, I always heard things that made me question a lot of Christian thought. Once I got old enough and focused enough to start researching the religion I was raised in, I started to get the answers. The more I researched the less Christian I became.
briefly, i was raised as a secular jew, which means religion was not spoken of much in the family. we celebrated the holidays. we ate jewish food. my folks spoke some yiddish. god? not really part of life. he made a nice occasional invisible friend but that was that. i don't think i ever prayed in my life. age 14 i decided to check it out more and study judaism. after a year of that i realized that while i found talmud study interesting, i wasn't making friends or feeling close to anyone at shul. i stopped going. then i discovered that something my folks told me as fact, and which i had just accepted, wasn't true. they'd told me long-haired boys were dirty and rebellious and i found out that this was incorrect. i decided to question everything else i knew, too. some stuff withstood the test. god didn't. oh well!
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