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What specifically happened that made you turn into an atheist/ nonbeliever?

texasathiest09 5 May 1
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69 comments (51 - 69)

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1

It was simple. I got smarter over time.

1

I knew so little about religion I thought atheist was another one since I must've seen it as a multiple choice option on some form. Then I got laid off seasonally and was so bored all winter I considered going to church to meet people, then I learned they actually believe that shit and it wasn't just a place to hang out and pay "lip service". Thats why I'm here cause there's no place to meet anyone when you don't drink or participate in the mass delusion of religion.

1

Nothing

1

Nothing significant, really. I just got older and realized that I never truly believed what I was taught as a kid.

I never paid much attention in church and even though I was in Calvinettes, or Gems, or whatever the fuck they call it now, I didn't really participate beyond minimum requirement. I was also baptized when I was a baby, so it had zero meaning to me.

I remember my neighborhood offering a bible class for kids in the summer and I went, but really only because my friends went and we did crafts and I was all about crafts. They made each kid individually and privately "give themselves over to God" or some bullshit. I always lied and said that I already did it.

When I was 11, my parents got divorced and we stopped going to church. I was completely indifferent to it either way, but now I'm glad that I got out of it at an early enough age to be able to form my own opinion about religion

1

I was very religious as a child until 8 to 9 years.

Although one incident of a swami fooling me in my teen years overseas pushed me over the edge, I was slowly getting disillusioned over 20 years with excesses, misuse of faith to lie, fool people, abuses of women, children and not one religious head of any place every impressing culminated into my decision to quit 40 years ago. The thing that irked me the most is all scriptures were still recited in Sanskrit, no advice or interpretations were ever given in local languages at religious functions at home or outside. No one understood what the priests were chanting and most priests did not know all that they were chanting. And you were no allowed to asked questions. I said, it was not making sense, no one understood it, it was not doing me any good - so what the ffff was I doing it? I decided to go cold turkey one day. All stopped one fine morning.

However, quitting was rather easy because my family never insisted that we followed religious traditions or chores. Their focus was on academic performance and rules of behavior. So we had clarity. Religion was never talked at home and I suppose they did not oppose openly just to fit into a very religious society. In other words, avoid being social outcasts.

Thanks to the ugly faces of religion showing up world wide since, it is only validating that it was the best decision I ever made.

1

I was suddenly dumbfounded by reality and logic, I never looked back.

1

I was in grade 3 and came home for lunch. My father was home and I asked him "what religion are we" Mrs. Smith asked everyone what religion we are. Dad answered "tell Mrs. Smith we aren't superstitious". I did and she wasn't happy. My Mother wasn't all that happy either. My Father thought it all very funny. I did too 10 years later. I do remember my teacher being angry with me a lot. Sometimes for no reason. I had realized about Santa Claus so this wasn't a big jump. My mother went to church for the community and the good work they did helping those with less. She never fussed about Christian values or rules and lived by the "golden rule" do unto others.

Twice ?

@Cast1es Sorry.

1

Live birth pretty well covers it.

1

Never really did believe, never was in a religion. Slowly over a long period I lost all interest in the thought that I could be missing something, decided I must be agnostic but became more hardline over time.

1

I decided to transition from male to female and found all believers hostile to that.

0

When I was about 3 years old, my mother married her second husband. My step-father Eduardo was my hero, and he did not follow any religion, which I did not know nor would I have understood what that meant at that young age. But my catholic grandma likeD Eduardo very much, and I heard her calling him “ateo” in a half-joking way (she was not fanatical about her religion). So, if my hero was an ateo, then I am an ateo!! It started like that. Later on, when I began understanding what an atheist was, I confirmed and consolidated my conviction that I actually was an atheist. Then over the years and through getting to know the nature of christians, I have become an antitheist.

0

Well … I was born an atheist. At 4.6 I tried to become a Lutheran Christian … because I had been baptised by that brand, but my conversion failed miserably at age 5.17. However, given that I wasn't generating an income, I didn't declare my pocket money, I didn't go to the magistrates court to have my name official erased from the church register. I did that during the first petrol crisis in 1973. The teacher in charge of religious education walked into the classroom suggesting that the tanks should be sent into the states that refused to sell "us" their oil at bargain basement prices.
I got up and went straight to the magistrates court and applied for the eradication of my name from the Lutheran register. Naively I had been hoping to be heard by a magistrate. … I only filled in the form and a few weeks later I received the verdict telling me that I was no longer a member of the Lutheran church.
My father's uncle quit the bunch on the early 1920s, after surviving WW1 and subsequent battles on behalf of some bloody White Russian MAFIA fighting the Bolsheviks. At this time his action was almost an act of heresy.

0

Nothing "happened" and that is the whole point!

0

I'm a born atheist.

zesty Level 7 May 1, 2019
0

I've never believed. My parents sent my brother and me to Sunday school for a few months, but didn't attend church themselves and didn't force the issue when we quit going. Everything that they taught about the bible seemed silly. Later, when I read the bible on my own, it went from silly to absurd.

Incidentally, I figured out later that several months after we quit attending church, we got a baby sister.

JimG Level 8 May 1, 2019
0

Reading religious texts.

0

i just stopped one day to reconsider everything i believed in because i found out that something my folks had always told me turned out not to be true (they hadn't lied; they were just wrong). god went out the window pretty fast. it wasn't traumatic or anything.

g

0

I don't think anything specifically happened, per se. I just had too many questions that couldn't be answered except with blind faith. No thank you.

I loved Blind Faith. Can't Find My Way Home is great. Religion is silly.

0

I'm not sure I ever did.

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