Your story...

[Dreamer]

i'm sorry if this kind of thread already exists, and i'm also sorry if this isn't the right section for it, i wasn't sure where to put it.

but i am interested in how all of you came to believe what you believe in now. (whether you're an atheist or a theist). i am just interested in how people come to their conclusions over what thought path to follow. partly because i myself have had my atheism written off, all too often, as merely the result of being brought up in an atheist household, rather than a conclusion i came to by myself. so i would just be interested to hear your story...

my story:
Well as i said i was raised by convinced atheists parents but in a catholic country. even my grandfathers and one of my grandmother's were atheists. (it was highly unusual for my grandfather living in austria during the time of WW2 in a very rural, conservative and catholic area to be an atheist and a socialist, but he was, his whole life. and i admire him for that courage).
as a child i knew practically nothing about religion. from an early i age i said "God doesn't exist because when you go up in a plane you can't see anyone in the sky" (  , in their version "There was just a big flood and a nice old man decided to save the animals". from the moment i started school where you are only ever given the choice between protestant lessons or catholic lessons, i was taken out of religion lessons. my parents got a lot of flack for this. "Your poor children don't get to join in with the other children. they are being left out. you are depriving them of the priveledge of church services and first communion etc" with my brother's teacher even going as far as claiming that my brother had confided in her that he was very upset that his parents wouldn't allow him to take part in religion. NOT TRUE my brother and i always loved having a free period whilst everyone else sat around reading the bible.

from the age of 15 i was allowed to sign the paper myself every year that said i didn't want to be part of the catholic religion lessons that were offered in my secondary school. i still had to justify it ever year. which i resented. i felt i shouldn't have to justify it. but hey, it's a small price to pay.
up until that age (around 15) i had never given religion much thought. and admittedly, i probably was an atheist (or religionless - because atheism wasn't really a word i used much) mainly because of my parents influence.

however in that year i had probably one of the most influential experiences of my life to date. my best friend, also my neighbour, whom i had grown up with and seen virtually every day of my life and who, together with her twin sister were the closest thing i ever had to sisters. developed cancer. she had had cancer when she was 4, shortly after that we met and became friends. by the time she was 14, everyone believed she had a pretty certain all clear. she had made amazing progress despite major surgery and was one of the most determined people i have ever known. her cancer came back, out of the blue, when she was 14 and developed fast. her parents exhausted every option but within the space of a year it became clear she wouldn't survive.
i don't remember what was the ultimate thing that sparked it off, in hindsight perhaps desperation. but i became religious. i guess it was some form of Christianity though i never gave it a name. and i never told anyone. i prayed every night and convinced myself to believe in God. i made myself believe that if i believed enough and prayed often enough she would survive. a couple of weeks after my 16th birthday, her 15th. she died. after battling since the age of four with cancer and the consequences of brain surgery. i would never presume to know what it feels like to actually lose a sister, but it's the closest i have ever come to feeling what imagine it might feels like (although i know, from seeing her twin sister that to claim my pain amounted to the same would be disrespectful and untrue)

perhaps it was an immidiate reaction or a delayed one, i don't know. all i know is until the day she died, i believed that if there was any kind of God, there was no way he would let an innocent teenager die, and i also know that from the day she died, i knew i never again would want to believe in nor trust a God. i thought that even if a God did exist, i wouldn't want to believe in such a cruel and heartless being. and my faith ended there.
i lost my grandmother, one of the people i had always loved most in world only a few weeks before my friend. my grandmother lost her faith in her twenties after her sister died in childbirth for the same reasons i lost my faith. i have always found this facts sadly poignant.

in that year, the 16th year of my life my interest in atheism itself grew. i started to become more interested in the rational reasons for atheism rather than just the emotional ones. i have always loved my dad but in my early teens we didn't have much in common. but in that year we became very close. he is a scientist, an atheist, a student protester against all sorts of oppressive things during the 60s and 70s, a fierce defender or rationale and democracy and nowadays probably the person i admire most in life. partly through conversations with him in that year, regarding subjects i had never approached before, i came to understand issues regarding atheism more.
in that year i saw Richard Dawkins' "Religion - The Root of all Evil" for the first time and it had a profound effect on me and i proceeded to find out more about RD and his work. through RD i became fascinated with many many issues regarding atheism and humanism. after having a humanist funeral for my grandmother i quickly realised it was the life stance i could most identify with and still do.

nowadays i get called a fundamentalist atheist, a no-God botherer, intolerant because i don't like religion (note, religion, not religious PEOPLE), and all kinds of things that completely miss the point. but ultimately i find it to be one of the most life-affirming, enlightening, strengthening and uplifting aspects of my life and i can't imagine ever going back.

i'm really sorry if that was ridiculously long, i can really go on sometimes. but i am very interested in hearing all of your stories.

[leftyguitarjoe]

I truly feel for your friend. My buddy Jon died last month of a heart attack. He was 16. I miss him.
The day he died, I made this for him: http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c155/ ... an/jon.jpg

ANYWAY

As for my story, well, its not that epic.

My mother raised my not to trust churches, but to trust the bible. She had a very bad experience with a church she devoted her life to once, but the pastor threw a curve ball and broke my mom's trust for churches. I was always taught lessons from the bible, constantly reminded that jesus and god and moses and blah blah blah.

I then began to immerse myself in science. I thought about the happenings of the bible, and opted to think it was all fantasy. Well, ALMOST all of it.

I couldn't bring myself to renounce my belief in a higher power. I had become a deist, or an agnostic. I would still pray and stuff, but nothing got better.

(in comes the 21st century) Then I discovered Thunderf00t  I watched all of the "Why do people laugh at creationists" videos, and they boggled my mind. Then I read the God Delusion. It was like a huge god-sized weight was lifted off me. I felt emancipated. Now, I can call myself an atheist, and be proud of it.

[Dreamer]

thank you.
i am sorry too about your friend Jon, there's no reason for someone to die that young. what a lovely tribute you've created!

i very much understand your sentiment in the last paragraph, i love that feeling (and your expression) of having a god sized weight lifted off your shoulders.

thanks for sharing!

[susangail]

Wow, you've come a long way Dreamer, kudos! I think having some taste of religion is a good thing (if you make it out alive that is...) Thanks for sharing!

(in comes the 21st century) Then I discovered Thunderf00t

[MariaEvri]

ok heres my story (ill read your guys later on)
I was babtised as an orthodox, like all greeks do, but as I grew up, I started questioning my religion. I dont remember when it happened exactely, sometime between my 13-14  or even 15 yr old? I started going through a what I now know is an agnostic phase. In teh meantime, I was fascinated with science and I watched as many documentaries as I could. I always knew about evolution and accepted it (even when I considered myself a christian-odd no?) Anyway, I have been a 100% atheist for a couple of years, but I just recently started showing my believs (not going to church etc). I told my dad, and even though he is not a theist himself, he says that there is no such thing as atheist-there is something out there. My mom died before I could tell her, but I know she would have said "dont be stupid its just a phase"... etc
I dont feel oblicated to tell the rest of my family. Religion is a personal issue. If they ask I will tell them though.

[MariaEvri]

I am so sorry for your loss, Dreamer. I lost my mother, the closest person to me and -even thopugh that is not the eraosn i lost faith- i can say I kinda know how you felt. It is sad to see young people die when they ahve so much potential in thir life.

[Chimera]

I couldn't tell you exactly when I became an atheist. It's been a long, drawn-out process of questioning, reasoning, researching, and self-discovery.

I was born into a conservative Christian family, baptised at 2 months old, went to church every Sunday with Mom and Dad, did the Sunday school thing, and went to kindergarten at a private Christian school. My dad says he remembers vividly my going up to complete strangers and asking them, "Do you know my Jesus?" For a long time, religion was just a part of my life. It was something I did because it was "normal" and accepted. Of course there was a God, the Bible said so, my pastor said so, and my parents said so; I had no reason to doubt it. But it wasn't really that big a deal to me. At 13, I had my "conversion" experience. My youth group drove down to a big Christian music festival and I accepted Christ as my personal Savior during those three days and came back changed. I got involved in church events and became one of the most respected members of my church even though I was just a teenager.

Just before I turned 21, at the urging of a friend, I moved across the country to Jacksonville, Florida, to take part in a Discipleship Training School with the missionary organization Youth With A Mission. It consisted of an intensive 3-month course of Bible teaching and, for lack of a better word, indoctrination, and finished with a 2-month missionary experience in a country in the "10/40 Window" (those countries in the eastern hemisphere, between 10 and 40 degrees latitude, that are predominately non-Christian). My missionary group went to India and traveled the country in those two months, spreading the Gospel and preaching in churches and homes. I spoke in front of a group of roughly 1000 people. It was a wonderful time in my life, probably the best I've ever had.

After I came back, I held onto my faith for months. I spoke at my church and my family reunion about the trip, showed slides, answered all their questions. But, in the back of my mind, questions were arising, or had arisen, that I'd been able to suppress before, but that I was unable to ignore now...about my faith, about God, and about the world. I'd seen things in India that really challenged my faith, like people having to crawl on all fours because they didn't have the means to get their diseases or physical problems treated. I was discovering compelling scientific evidence for things beyond biblical explanation: homosexuality, intersexuality, evolution. I couldn't find the answers to my questions at church or in the Bible, but I could find them in research and science. When Hurricane Katrina hit, I found it much more reasonable to call it an act of nature rather than an act of God. Why would God allow so much suffering? That disaster was probably one of the greatest catalysts to my becoming agnostic.

The questioning continued. A girl I'd known at my church, a friend from the youth group, had become pregnant accidentally. Her family, one of the pillars of the church, had her marry the boy who impregnated her and she carried the pregnancy to term. She missed going to college to become a nurse because she had to do "the right thing." Was it really "right" for her to bring a child into the world before she, or her husband, were really ready? Was it right to bring a child into a life of poverty? Was it right to say God had a purpose, instead of just saying it was a mistake?

On Easter Sunday of 2006, I went to the service at my church. I hadn't been there in a month or more. As we sang the hymns and listened to the pastor's sermon, one thought kept railing through my mind: "I don't believe this anymore." Perhaps that's the moment I knew I was an atheist, but couldn't admit it. A couple of months later, though, I knew I couldn't deny it any longer. I knew there was no God. Religion was a lie, and probably the greatest evil in the world. I have never looked back, and I don't see how I could. The evidence for God is simply not there.

[susangail]

Wow Chimera. Isn't is amazing to think back to how devoted you once were? It blows my mind sometimes. Thanks for sharing.

[Tom62]

Well to be honest we never took "our" catholic faith very seriously at home. As a young child I always thought that stories in the Bible were nothing more than fairy tales (especially the ones about Adam and Eve, Noach's Arc, and Jonah and the whale). When I was told that Sinterklaas didn't exist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas) I automatically assumed that all other catholic saints were not real either. When I was 12 (or 13) I seriously started to doubt whether anything written in the Bible could be based on facts and the "truth". The more I studied it, the more I realized that the Bible was just a big book full of silly lies, misconceptions, inconsistent storytelling and very boring stuff. When I also learned what evil acts were commited in the name of deities (whether you call him God, Jesus, Allah or whatever), I basically came to the conclusion that the world would be better of without them.

[afreethinker30]

Growing up I had to go to church,only because my mom didn't have someone to keep an eye on me.Every sunday morning I would go sit,listen and try to not nod off.Of course Sunday school,Bible "class" and the Christmas plays.They made me play Mary every year only because my name is Mary.My mom was Methodist so I guess I lucked out,she was more lax on the Bible with me.When I was 12 I had spent a Saturday night with a friend of mine,so the next morning I went to church with her.It was the most profound thing for me.At first the service seems to be pretty normal.Then the preacher starts in yelling about a demon in a tree,and how it tricked a young girl into doing the devils deeds.After that I blocked out alot of what he said,I just stood there watching the people.Raising up their hands yelling for God,one woman started shaking and crying.I can't remember how long it went on but I clearly remember after service them passing around the plate for money.At that moment I realized it was all this hoax,scare people,take their money and do it all again the next Sunday.There have been alot of things since that have only pushed me more into denying religion.Just alot of the claims of the Bible,tv evangelists,history of religions and people to claim to know what their God wants.I lost my mom six years (almost 7) to cancer.This woman who spent every Sunday at church,watched services on TV when she couldn't get out of bed.Her home was full of angels,Jesus pictures and Bibles.Spoke of how she was not afraid to die.But when the end came she held on as long as she could.She was in the end afraid and the last person she asked for wasn't God but her mother.My hubsand lost faith after he lost his nephew to SIDS.He was 17.

Mom and me.

[leftyguitarjoe]

I know what you feel.

It was not my mother that died, but my best friend's mother. I could comfortably call her "mom" too. She died suddenly on December 22 2006. It was the first day of winter vacation. Needless to say, it was a BAD vacation.

She died suddenly. None of us saw it coming.

[afreethinker30]

I know what you feel.

It was not my mother that died, but my best friend's mother. I could comfortably call her "mom" too. She died suddenly on December 22 2006. It was the first day of winter vacation. Needless to say, it was a BAD vacation.

She died suddenly. None of us saw it coming.

I wish at times my mom would have gone like that.She had to go thru Chemo,radation and surgery and it did nothing.She was sick for about a year before and it was hard to watch her suffer because of it.Damnest thing it was lung cancer and it wasn't caused from smoking or second hand smoke.

[Mister Joy]

Fascinating stories.

Dreamer and Leftyguitarjoe: I'm very sorry to hear about your losses. A friend of mine, David, died of leukaemia a couple of years ago. No matter how much foreknowledge you're given that they probably wont survive, nothing can ever prepare you for that kind of loss.

My story:

I'm a third generation atheist. My sister and I were raised by our mother, who was a student for the first 7 or 8 years of my life (she's now an artist by profession, a qualified teacher with a Phd in mathematics and a masters in fine art) which was arduous but I do miss those years.

It was my grandfather that first broke the religious mould & his story is probably more interesting than mine. His family, the Christiansens, migrated to the UK in the late 20s, shortly before he was born. These Christiansens were, and still are, extremely 'Christian' (in a strict but unconventional way - they have some very quirky ideas) and equally wealthy. Think the freemasons - they're not as powerful but they have a similarly esoteric attitude about themselves. When WWII broke out, my granddad was a child so he was sent off as a refugee. Adults were mostly either fighting or working in the cities and factories to make munitions etc. - targets for enemy bombs - so kids were usually sent packing into the country side because it was safer. He ended up living with some very unsavoury Welsh farmers throughout the war and - now outside the manipulative powers of his family - he had ample time in isolation to think about what they had been teaching him and conclude that their religious dogma was a corrupting influence & nothing more.

When WWII ended, he returned to his family and attended funerals for those relatives that had died. It wasn't long before he outed himself. He's very vague about the reaction he got but the gist is that they semi-disowned him. His parents and siblings all excluded him in their wills, which separated him further from the rest of his family by a huge divide in class. He was defiant about this though and from that point he began to isolate himself further from the others, even going as far as changing his surname to the Scottish alternative, 'Christie', which is the name I've inherited, and to this day he and his descendants have been frowned upon as the 'black sheep' by his many siblings and theirs. The fact that my mother was the single parent of two illegitimate children and my uncle married a black woman (GASP! Oh the controversy!) didn't help either. We do still have connections with them though, unfortunately.

My grandfather is a man for whom I have immense respect: he went against the pressure and sacrificed great wealth in simply being honest about what he did and didn't believe in. And he still remains relentlessly good humoured and jovial about the whole thing.

Anyhoo, as for me, I was raised without any mention of religion, for or against, except in school which I didn't much think about. I suppose you'd say I was raised an "apatheist". I got much more interested in the theism/atheism debate when I lived in America because of what a deeply religious country it is and dubbed myself an 'agnostic' because even though what I'd inadvertently learned of religion all struck me as rather far-fetched and silly, I knew very little about the subject or the arguments for and against. So committing myself to atheism at that stage of naivety, I reasoned, would be unwise.

I now consider myself to be an atheist because - having spent a few years looking into these things and discussing beliefs with theists and atheists both face to face and on the internet - I've concluded that religion is pretty far fetched and silly after all.

[Chimera]

Wow Chimera. Isn't is amazing to think back to how devoted you once were? It blows my mind sometimes. Thanks for sharing.

I think the term is "deluded," LOL. But yeah, it's amazing to think of how strongly I believed it all just a few years ago, and how far I've come now.

[susangail]

Wow Chimera. Isn't is amazing to think back to how devoted you once were? It blows my mind sometimes. Thanks for sharing.

I think the term is "deluded," LOL. But yeah, it's amazing to think of how strongly I believed it all just a few years ago, and how far I've come now.

When I think of it, I think of myself as in a daze, a very long daze. Yup, deluded works.