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How did you come to be atheist, agnostic, etc.?

Unfortunately when I ask religious people why they believe what they believe, the answer almost always includes “my parents raised me to”. Frankly, it’s something I find sad and stupid- don’t base your life on beliefs someone else told you to hold.

However, if you were raised to believe in a religion, what prompted you to let go? Please just tell me about your experience, I am genuinely curious.

HaleyJ 4 June 16
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44 comments (26 - 44)

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I have always had draw to science and math, questions and real answers. We went to church very spotty as a young kid you know Easter and Christmas or when my single mom thought we needed some Jesus. My Mom got remarried at the end of gradeschool and we started going to church and I was saved and baptized shortly after even though I never felt anything I think I believed at least some. I started questioning in Sunday school where the junior high to high school kids were separated out before service started for bible studies. The teacher had no answers or answered because god basically. Obviously non satisfactory. That was the beginning for me.
After I graduated high school I continued with church regularly, my best friends mom was the Sunday school teacher, and the couple I moved in with were big into church. The couple I lived with got married and I was part of the wedding everything was fine until he went on a mission and I couldn’t stay in there home anymore because God. After I moved out I’m lost touch with them for awhile but my still had my best friend but Church started being a once a month thing then less and less until I stopped going altogether shortly before I moved to another state. By then I was in my twenties. I haven’t gone to church except to appease my mother a few times on holidays and for weddings and funerals.
I did not really know I was an atheist until I girl friend in my mid twenties I lived with got into a discussion about religion. Through some questions she brought it out. She was relieved because I have a tattoo with a cross in it and she was afraid I was a believer.

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i was raised in a secular jewish family. cultural identity was important to us but religion itself was not. i never even learned whether or not my parents believed in a god until i was an adult, and i only asked them because someone had asked me and i didn't know the answer. i believed in a kind of personal god, sort of like an invisible friend, just an observer or witness, until i was 15, at which point i realized that something else (unrelated to religion) my folks told me, believing it themselves, turned out not to be true. i decided to examine every belief i'd taken for granted and god went right out the window.

g

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Kept asking questions till the point where the religion I was brought up with failed to answer and discouraged asking questions to the point where 'You need to have faith to understand it's became the answer to every question'. Started looking at life with a 'If it can be proven it's true' perspective. Been free since.

1

I was raised without any religion in the household and as early as I can remember I said I was an atheist

Lucky.

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I’ve always questioned things, but having been exposed to hatred of other religions by other religions made me move away from the church and everything region, in my eyes, epitomizes. I also read a lot about the birth of god(s) and of religions. A lot of research Before I came to my beliefs, but I haven’t been religious for many,many years. Always found it stifling.

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I am an Agnostic Atheist and always have been. My father was xtian, but since he could never produce god I didn't believe.

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I was tired of listening to the same bullshit. I could smell it was all orchestrated rubbish! When you ask questions - your answer is another question - like how can you even ask who created god.

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Well in my teens I did Bible study with The Worldwide Church of God which was very educational. They are often viewed as a cult by mainstream xtianity. They taught things out of sync with the mainstream. I grew more liberal and just quit following them.

1

For me it was two things that primarily lead me to be agnostic. First, was the lack of experiencing anyone with a true faith (I was brought up Lutheran) all I saw was hypocrisy. Secondly, I play chess. If my mind cannot fully grasp a finite game, how much less must I be able to figure out the truth in and about the universe. So now I lean towards Taoism, philosophically and simply acknowledge the mystery that is consciousness.

1

I was born like this

Amisja Level 8 June 17, 2019
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I went to a private religious school and listened to them.

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My parents despised the church politics, so kept us out of the church. They we're raise christian and kept enough to help us kids blend in to a 99% christian society. When I turned 18 I tried really hard to find "my faith". I explored every faith available to me that had any tinge of decency. Talked to countless people that seemed half conscious of the religion they were in. Three years and I found myself left with only philosophy to answer my questions. For all my searching I came to this conclusion. From a purely logical stand point I find one reason for religion, herding the hordes of sociopaths out there. As a non-sociopath it's just useless for me.

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My journey from believer to atheist took a little over a decade; but, in short--learning more about the Bible and how it was created led me to discount it as the word of any god; and, therefore, I stopped identifying as any kind of Christian. However, I thought that some sort of god existed; and, after looking at other religions, I settled into deism.

During this time of change, I also started learning more of the science I had been taught to ignore--and to fear: namely, astrophysics and evolution (as a lay person via books and the Internet).

It was in learning more science that I realized that there is no evidence for any kind of god and that there is no need to insert a god in order to explain how the universe works. So, why insert one?

I now consider myself an agnostic atheist. I do not believe that any god, of any kind, exists; but, I also accept that this is something that cannot be known (proved/ disproved in any scientific way); and personal revelations, feelings, experiences etc. are not acceptable evidence.

0

I read the Babble...it is so full of WTF!

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they attempted to raise me catholic. i was even an altar boy for a while. it was not voluntary. i do not ever recall believing what they preached as it made no logical sense, and there are blatant errors throughout the teachings and readings. maybe at the ages i believed in santa claus? i don't recall that either, but i must have? i never could grasp what their "faith" felt like to them. i have described my feelings response to those conversations as utterly "empty." like... you know that shit's not true right? i do recall about the young age where i started vocally responding to the absurdity. they continued to make me attend for 5 or 6 years after i explained quite concisely, with examples, that i did not believe what they did to both parents and priests. that bucking of the catholic tradition led to a general anti theist point of view by my twenties. all of them are man made myths.

live and let live? laughable concept. the day the religious live and let live is the day i will stop ridiculing them. see donald and his recent weighing in on prayer in schools in this country. i believe that was what?... yesterday? float the crazy idea in front of me and you'll will get a properly measured response to whatever idiocy you present. if it helps them get through the day to think they are the chosen ones, so be it, they are dipshits and i kindly expect, no require, them to leave me out of it. but they don't, and won't... ever shut the hell up in public. and these are my tiny and insignificant personal quibbles. never mind the recent incidents/articles about indigenous people tortured/murdered by those who found them lacking in faith, the folks who blow themselves up for 40 virgins, the lgbtq people harmed by the religious, the list is really far too long and pointless to write in response here. does religion in and of itself harm? i would argue yes as it is falsity masquerading as truth from positions of authority damaging young minds or at a minimum pointlessly confusing the shit out of them. but the bigger problem is people harming other people justified by their religious bent. hardly live and let live.

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Sometimes the best way to become an atheist is to study the Bible.My path to Atheism started when I studied Religion and Philosophy at Otterbein College, proceeded a little further down the road when I studied the sciences and did research at the University of Pittsburgh and South Alabama College of Medicine. Studying where the Bible came from and also moving into a scientific mindset that requires proof is what did it for me.

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I was raised in a strictly conservative Catholic family. What changed me was reading the Bible. Starting with Genesis one can see that their god is horrible in many respects. I first concluded that any creator of the universe could not be that guy. If there is a god and is the one most religions have invented we really have a problem and there is nothing we can do about it. Just the belief in the existence of Satan makes god super bad. . According to the N.T. Satan was created as an angel, had a fight with god, lost, and was turned into a devil and cast forever in a newly created hell, absurdly allowed to roam the earth hunting souls to accompany him in hell for eternity !!!. It is an idiotic dogma who makes the supreme being a supremely unjust and incompetent deity. God's policy about Satan is immeasurably unfair.

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When I lived in Alaska, we went to a bapitist church..... Though my mother went every so often. Also when we moved her to Vegas, she came sometimes. I never really sat and had a talk about my mother's religion, but I do know that she did want her children to form their own beliefs about "what's out there". That's how I feel as well. My children will make their own choice and I will not judge or leave them if there belief is different than my own.

Crys Level 3 July 25, 2019
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I was raised Pentecostal and I hated a majority of the time I was forced to go to church. One parent being Pentecost/Non-denominational and the other a Catholic, it was really hard not to believe there was SOMETHING out there. It wasn’t until I became an adult and really started to see what religion WAS and how awfully distasteful the people who were religious that I started to really search for an answer to the question “Is God real?”. Reading articles and watching videos of theist-turned-atheist is really what got me to thinking that the isn’t a “god”. There are too many cracks in stories for me. “Which is the RIGHT god?”, “What is REALLY a sin?” “Why would a god kill his own creations?!” Videos of Ex-clergy people saying that religion really IS just made up to control the masses. Turned me away from the idea that any “god” could be a reality. If I’m wrong, perhaps a “god” who doesn’t give a shit about anything else, would give this girl a pass. 🤷🏻♀️

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