When did you become an atheist?

[Syntax]

I was walking home from school one day, in about my sophomore year of high school(when I would often think philosophically and introspectively). It dawned on me that I was only believing because I was afraid of the consequences of not believing("pascal's wager"...though I'd never heard of it at the time).

It was like a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I was suddenly emerged in a cool bath of truth, because I knew I no longer had to feel guilty about being skeptical of the inconsistencies of scripture.

[Kylyssa]

I have always been an atheist.  My parents raised me in an atmosphere where I was allowed to choose what to believe.  I briefly examined religion a few times and never found anything but myths and stories.

[Ihateyoumike]

I can remember when I first started to question the god that my parents brought me up to believe in. I remember I was walking to work, the summer in between my sophomore and junior years of high school, and I began to wonder if it was the fear of god that was leading me to keep my beliefs. I started to think about it deeply, and I remember confronting my parents with some of the questions I was having.
I was "grounded" for questioning my faith. I was punished for having an open mind and questioning "my" religion. I was not physically harmed, of course, I was just grounded.
That, of course, lead me to questioning religion even more.
I never really felt comfortable labeling myself as atheist until about a year ago, however. In the years following that incident, up until last year, I was always searching for faith. I knew that organized religions which I had learned about didn't have the answers for me, but I felt that finding a faith that was suitable for me was something worth striving for. I even felt that, even not having a religion to follow, having a god present in my life would be a good thing for me.
I even told everyone that I believed in god, I just did not believe in organized religions.
Like you, it felt to me as if a great weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. It is amazing the amount of learning I have been able to do without religion and close-mindedness holding me back.
Last year, I had to move in with my brother due to financial issues. I spent alot of time talking with my brother. He was moving towards complete atheism, I came to find out, and it was because of my discussions with him that I was able to become comfortable with throwing out the idea of a god when contemplating the universe in which we reside. It turns out that the knowledge had been with me for longer than I'd realized that I did not believe in a god, but it took being able for me to open up to someone that I trusted to open myself up to those beliefs.

[susangail]

About a year ago, give or take. I was raised a Christian. I was hardcore, Bible-thumping, how-can-you-not-believe-in-God?! Jesus freak Christian for many years. Then I went insane (literally), lost my faith, and realized I didn't want it back.
 

[curiosityandthecat]

This should totally be a poll.

I was born an atheist; 27 years on the force.  

[Whitney]

I guess it was about 5 years ago.  I was raised as a Chrsitian and was really into the church for quite some time. I do remember at one point in my early teens wondering if I might be Jewish since I wasn't really convinced Jesus existed; but back then I really didn't know enough to realize there were other options. I also read the bible during this same time period.  I was somewhat of an online preacher before I read the Bible.  It's been so long now that I don't remember it very well, but I must have read something that made me not want preach so much online because I quit doing it.  Maybe I was starting to realize there was no way to prove any of it was true.  I think I wasn't ready to admit it to myself.

I quit doing church stuff my Junior year of high school because my childhood church basically split up over a stupid argument related to bulding maintence and if it would be a good idea to move locations.  When I looked at other churches I realized that very few people are two faced and will be your friend when you are a their church but not talk to you at school.  I already considered myself non-denominational by that time and decided going to a church wasn't something I wanted to do anymore.

For the first part of college I didn't think much of my religious views.  Sometimes I would have discussions with a friend about how could anything exist without a god; but we kept overlooking a (now) very obvious problem:  it was the wrong question.  We were also looking for an answer when we should have considered it possible that no one knows the correct answer.

I started dating my husband in late '05; he was already a well reasoned atheist.  A friend asked if it bothered me that I was dating a non-believer.  I hadn't really thought about it till she asked and my response to her was that I guess I must not be much of a believer myself otherwise it would bother me.  So, I started reading arguments for and against god.  On Christmas Eve of that year I finshed reading a book I had picked up.  It was called The Question of God; not a great book either, it just posed questions that got me thinking.  I realized on one of the most ironic dates possible that I was certianly no longer a Christian and considered myself agnostic.

I continued reading and researching over the next 6 months or so.  This included taking a Philosophy of Religion class.  I discussed on both atheist and Christian forums with people from various religious backgrounds (I also got banned from a couple Chrsitian forums for apparently asking the wrong questions).  I eventually came to a place where I simply could not find a reason to believe anymore.  I was a very reluctant atheist because my research was intended to find a reason to prove to myself some sort of god exists.  The only reason I was even able to emotionally feel comfortable researching is because I was convinced that if a god does exist it would lead me in the direction I needed to go in order to find the truth.  Obviously, I didn't find a reason to believe.

[suntzu]

I officially joined the enlightened minority of atheists in October of 2007.  I originally wanted to be an atheist.  When I was 7 or 8 I told my mom at our kitchen table that I didn't want to believe in God.  She told me that was fine, but then she stated "that's what the communists believe."  We'll by the time I was 7 or 8 (1983-1984) I had already been indoctrinated into thinking that the Russian Communists were the worst people on earth.  So naturally I fell for this piece of magnificent manipulation by my mother and decided to enthusiastically believe in God.  As I grew up, I always had doubts, but after reading the bible, I had even more doubts.  However, it wasn't till high school that most of my doubts and weirdly enough religious fervor would peak.  As I read more of the bible I found myself getting more fundamentalist.  For example, if I read somewhere that god smiled on people who murdered gays, then I felt that being gay must be really really wrong.  To be clear, I never wanted to hurt anyone who was gay, but God obviously wanted those people to suffer so mentally how could I protest.  Also, when I would get into discussions about the middle east, the old testament is pretty clear about what the Jews are supposed to do to the Arabs in that region.  According to the book of Ezra, they (the Jews) are not supposed to seek the peace or the prosperity of their Arab neighbors.  People would tell me that peace was the answer, but as I read the bible God didn't give any wiggle room for peace.  As a matter of fact God said peace was not to be sought by the Jews.  Moderate Christians would irritate me because it seemed like they believed in God but never actually read his word.  When I would quote them a verse demanding cruelty or something politically incorrect, they would tell me that you have to look at the book as a whole.  

Now, add to this that my best friend has been an Atheist for as long as I have known him (20+ years).  All my life, he would harp about the inconsistencies of the bible, of the christian faith, of how ridiculous religion was when you thought about it.  I just assumed I would enjoy his friendship and that he would go to hell.  He knew that I loved science and technology and would press me about evolution, the age of the earth, and disagreements between science and the bible.  I stuck to my guns and decided that it was all just a test of my faith.  At some point I stopped debating with him or anyone about religion.  I avoided any topic about God.  I stopped because I couldn't answer any questions honestly and I didn't want to go to hell.  So I quit trying to convince people I was right for fear that I would convince myself I was wrong.

Then about 5 years ago something happened that is too embarrassing to really admit.  I read the DaVinci Code.  I will wait for you to stop laughing.  In all my years as a theist I never once considered the authenticity of the source of my faith.  I never once considered how the bible was assembled.  Now, I know that the DaVinci Code is NOT a source for absolute truth.  But it got me to ask some questions;

1- Was the bible really assembled by a pagan emperor?
2. Were there really more gospels that didn't make it into the cannon?
3. Could the gospels have been edited or revised along the way for political reasons?
4. Why are there differing accounts of the same things if the book is perfect?

I looked outside the realm of Dan Brown for these answers and found out that indeed these things most likely were true.  At this point, I would not have admitted it then, but I stopped believing.  Then, a few years later, at an airport on my way to Australia I picked up a book called "the God Delusion."  By the time I got off of the plane, I was fully in the atheist camp.  I'm embarrassed that it took two books to help me see what should have been obvious to me from the start.  I'm embarrassed that it took over 30 years to figure it out.  Se la freaking vie.

[Kiros]

It was about 2 years ago when I completely dropped religion. I started questioning my religious beliefs quite moderately while I was 16 years old. By 17 years old (2 years ago), I had realized that the only reason people would believe in a god would be because they want it to be so. Some people fear death, so heaven is something to look forward to. Other people long to be loved, so they want to think that at least one important being loves them. There are many specific reasons that one could come up with, but it all just leads back to the desire for there to be a god.

[MariaEvri]

it started gradually while I was still in elementary school.. from a non religious christian to an agnostic to an atheist and now to a full hard core apatheist. (apatheist as in there is no god and i couldnt care less)
Nothing happened to change me, just me reading science maagzines and watching documentaries and thinking with my common sense.

[Miss Anthrope]

That's a complicated question for me. I was raised secularly in early childhood until my Mom started attending church when I was 8. I kind of tuned it all out, and already believed in evolution because of TIME-LIFE books and magazines I had read, and to a more comical degree "The Far Side" comic strip. So I never really developed an all-out "belief" in God, and just kind of played along throughout my teens. I'd say I was more of an agnostic theist, and I moved more towards agnostic atheism in my late teens. Not surprisingly, the more I learned about the Bible the less I believed it. I even attended an alternate Christian school for 7th and 8th grade, and we ended up doing this full-out study of the book of Revelations; that was the STUPIDEST thing they could have done. I was just like "Whaaaaat?!!!" That was when I went from sort of a skeptical acceptance to questioning everyone's sanity. Seriously, Revelations...Worst...ending...ever.

[Nazzer]

I can't remember the first time I ever questioned my faith. I remember two specific instances, however, one time while I was sitting on the porcelain throne and another while I was walking to my church's Youth Groups of all places. Other than a few isolated incidences, I never really did much. I just considered that god might not exist, then I went back to "well of course he does, what about the feeling you get when hes in your presence?" and other standbys like that.

My life really changed when I discovered internet forums. My first forum was the Dragon Ball Z film page on Countingdown.com, back in January of 2005. I made the quick transition from "speakin' 1337" because I thought it was cool, to speaking in complete sentences with proper grammar and spelling. Soon enough I joined the game maker forums, for the excellent program Game Maker 6. I hung out there a lot for a while, but quickly got bored because the topic of discussion never varied much.

I had started watching animations on stickpage.com as early as 2003, and stopped visiting after a while, but then, in November of '05, I went back again, and I noticed that there was a forum on stickpage. Stickpage.com's forum, while technically an animation forum, was unique in that its members didn't animate and talk about animation and give little discussion towards anything else. Instead, most of the site's consistently active members don't animate at all, except for a few quickies here and there. Well, the forum had a Debate Section, and I "knew" what debating was: two guys in suits arguing about politics, but not insulting the other person.

Well, that was pretty different than debating on forums, I realized. There wasn't a 2 person limit. Anyone could join in. And since it was the internet, no one worried about insulting others or wearing suits.
This was a pretty radical discovery, but it was beaten by a more ominous one: a thread called "Does God Exist."


Immediately I ripped into all the atheists and agnostics there, and developed a reputation as one of the best defenders of Christianity. While the discussion began like this one: http://www.stickpageportal.com/forums/s ... hp?t=17459  They eventually became more sophisticated as we all got more intelligent. After a while, though, I began to question my own logic. I began using Adam's Puddle arguments (Adams Puddle is my name for the first quote on wikiquote by Douglas Adams and the logic it shows: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams#Sourced) and other fallacies, like the "Atheists nightmare", the banana. I started to hate myself for using bad logic that I knew was bullshit, and then defending it.

Everything changed one day in January of 2007, when I was in art class. I listened to the band A Perfect Circle a lot, and I loved there music, but they had one song, Judith, which was blasphemous, and I avoided it it like the plague. Well I overheard a Junior named Blaise (At this point, I was a Freshmen in High School) saying the words "going to play Judith", and I perked up. I was always looking for someone who listened to the same bands I do, so I said "Judith by A Perfect Circle?" He said yes, he and his band would be playing it at the upcoming talent show. I asked him if he was going to censor it, and he said "No, we're just gonna go out and say 'Fuck your God'" So I said okay and returned to my work.

That day, after school, I went to get on the computer, and memory of this event popped up in my head. I went to youtube and looked the song up, listened to it, and cried with guilt. I loved the song, I realized. I loved the beat, the passion, the guitar, the drums, the bass, and the subtleties. I started wondering "Why am I trying to hate the song so badly?" I answered myself "Because it says Fuck your god in it". "But why should that matter? It's just a song?"


Here's where the turn began. I asked "Why would god care about something so menial?"

Then I thought deeper. Maybe because there... isnogod!

To borrow the analogy from Julia Sweeney, I decided to for once, just try on the atheist glasses, and if I didn't like what I say, I could rip them off.

So I did, and in horror at the sense and order and beauty I saw, I ripped them off in shock.  Then I slowly put them back on.

That day, i got back into an active religion thread. I made an argument against Christianity, and someone asked "Wait, aren't you a Christian?"

"Not anymore" I responded. "I realized it was bullshit."

"That's too bad. We've now lost our best debater."





Now I have a reputation as one of religion's fiercest opponents on the site.

[VanReal]

I don't think I have an answer to this.  I was raised in the catholic church (but never baptized to my grandmother's dismay) but I don't really remember much about it but looking around at people and taking naps under the pews.  The songs were funny and I used to wonder how everyone knew the words and why they were so mellow and scary sounding.  I can't remember when but my parents went Jehovah Witness at some point.  My aunt says she felt sorry for us because of no Christmas presents but as the baby of 16 children I didn't notice, we never really did Christmas.  At some point my parents stopped being witnesses and I never heard about church again.  I can't think of a time when I prayed or ever thought of a God or "maker".  It isn't something I became, just is who I am.  Kind of like my lack of athletic ability, just never had it and never tried to develop it, I never became a non-athlete.

[SallyMutant]

I was raised a moderate Protestant. I wasn't forced to go to church much, and when I went, the sermons were usually intelligent and they did not harp on guilt or on fire and brimstone. I found TV and radio fire and brimstone fundies scary when I was a child, but hilarious by the time I was a teenager. (Though, living in the bible belt, I still know that  they are scary and dangerous.) So I was lucky not to be damaged by a church.
I was never a concious seeker or doubter, just a somewhat credulous but apathetic agnostic. When I was in my mid-thirties I just realized one day that all religion was unbelievable.
It really parallels the day when, as a very small child, I decided for myself that there could not be a Santa. (It just came to me one day--Hey. . .  no-one could be that old; no one could get to every house in the world on Christmas Eve.)
Voila! A Happy Atheist--my enlightenment was nice and painless. I never had the shock of someone telling me there was no God or Santa.

 

[Twiddler]

I think I've been an atheist or leaning towards it for almost all of my life where I've been able to "critically think" (not saying that I'm special, just that at some age I began to doubt everything I was told, maybe when I was ten).  That's not saying that I was never surrounded by god (just realized that I've always capitalized this word, when in all reality, its like any other word to me now.  So I'll stop...) because I was raised a child of Methodist and Catholic parents and I went to church regularly and was even confirmed as a Methodist.  And I remember that when I was confirmed I had to give a speech to the entire church on how god has lead my life and will continue to lead it and I remember how hard it was to say the words.  I never went to church after that largely because of my lack of faith (it was just a hunch in the beginning) and the fact that church isn't exactly "cool."  The thing is that, like I'm guessing many others did in their teenage years, I never really discussed my beliefs unless the person I was talking to just openly admitted their lack of beliefs.  But in the past two years while I've been at college I've been essentially suffocated by religious stuff everywhere and that has oddly pushed me to be more open about my beliefs and its gotten to the point where I'm very confident in my decision and I am very willing to discuss religious matters with people, even if their first action after finding out that I'm an atheist is to scoff and believe me to be scum.

[karadan]

I always have been one. I just never had a name for it until the reverand tried to peddle religious dogma to me when i was at school. I was eventually banned from religious studies for it, or rather, the reverand never told anyone that i'd stopped going to those lessons.