What changed your mind and caused you to take up an atheistic world view? Tell us you de-conversion story.
Common sense and clear thinking. After seeing the hate and intolerance spread by almost every major religion, I began to question the people who spread this nonsense, which led me to question the nonsense itself. Comparing biblical stories to historical fact and evidence made the case quite clear. Seeing the truth for what it is made me come to the conclusion that atheism is the way to go.
Actually reading as stories from the bible. Water in to wine? The great flood? Adam and Eve? It's all absolute nonsense!
Not to mention, I also noticed all the hatred and intolerance being preached.
No proof or evidence of this so called god. People suffering, being raped, murdered, sold into slavery.. Famine, disease...
Where is this god?
In the end, it is all common sense. Science and logic triumph over all!
I was "on the fence" for a long while, but in my last year of university I took a Holocaust History course. After reading some particularly brutal primary accounts, I had my first real crystallizing "there is no way there is a God" moment. Everything since then just sort of fell into place.
My mind did not require changing, but what got me to classify myself as against religion was the systematic stupifying of followers, denial of facts, denial of self, near-boundless arrogance posing as denial of self, intolerance, bigotry and a whole mess of things just like that.
I never believed in the first place. I was a heathen child in a family of Catholics. I guess once my father died when I was 11, I felt it was ok to step out of the Catholic religion and just do my own thing. No one was really paying attention to me by that time. So I just snuck out and became a Satanist at 15. ;D
nothing really. Just growing up with documentaries and learning about the world
I never had to change my mind, I have never believed in god. Reading The God Delusion did polarise my views on theism and why it is not acceptable to allow theists to run things based on their institutionalised superstitions.
I still haven't read all of God dellusion. *shot* I keep getting side tracked by my fantasy novels. XD evil magicians must be slayn.
I also never had a mind change. Since I can remember and since my first bible classes I always saw the bible as a collection of fairy tales and had a more difficult time believing that the grown adult giving the class actually believed in the stories she was teaching. I was around 8 or 9, don't really remember precisely.
Religion never really stuck with me.
When I was a child I 'didn't know' (or care) whether God existed. I wasn't conscious of or interested in the debate until it became apparent to me in early adolescence that Christians were, and sometimes wouldn't let it go. So I thought I should have a think and ready myself for that kind of encounter. I talking to a lot of Christians, asking them questions without arguing with them (though often they couldn't tell the difference) and in doing so it dawned on me that God's existence, even if there was some ground-breaking argument for it out there that I had not yet encountered, was something that people could generally believe for no good reason at all.
Weirdly, the most common argument I've encountered (from intelligent people, not counting the rest) is a purely existential one. They'll avoid a direct discussion of whether God exists, seeing the question as shallow and vulgar, and focus instead on the possible consequences of belief on a person's well-being and sense of right and wrong. This is existentialism in a nutshell. "The mind is its own place," objective truth doesn't matter, it's only the thought that counts. Now I don't mind a bit of existentialism, except that this, an argument that implicitly rejects objective truth, is the basis for their belief that biblical morality is objectively true. It's totally weird to me.
So listening to Christians turned me from agnostic to atheist.
Edit.
I started out by researching to make my faith stronger...it had the opposite effect.
I was born into a Christian home, my dad is a Lutheran pastor and my mom is now Catholic. I was faithful and spread the good word and all that jazz, until Freshman biology AP. The topic of evolution came up, I argued Genesis, and my teacher absolutely decimated my arguments. I realized that I was being very skeptical of science and not skeptical of religion at all, remedied that, and my faith was replaced by skepticism. I am now unconvinced of the existence of all supernatural phenomena, including the Judeo-Christian God.
I took a break from subscribing to religion and began to study theology... then found thunderf00t's YouTube channel. Roughly 40 videos later, I was 100% atheist.
Some guy offered me ten bucks and a coupon for a free 44oz. Slurpee at 7-11 if I'd renounce my faith and deny the holy spirit and be an atheist from that point on.
Totally worth it. Just glad he wasn't a scientologist.
God I love slurpees.
Quote from: Ihateyoumike on August 24, 2011, 01:15:28 AM
Some guy offered me ten bucks and a coupon for a free 44oz. Slurpee at 7-11 if I'd renounce my faith and deny the holy spirit and be an atheist from that point on.
Totally worth it. Just glad he wasn't a scientologist.
God I love slurpees.
This is freakin genius.
My parents didn't have me baptized, because they both believed I'd make up my own mind when I got old enough. When I was about 13 or so, my mother got involved with the Jehovah Witnesses and I joined as well. I was seeking something at the time, and that looked like it might be it. I spent a couple of years with the JWs, didn't have any issue giving up holidays or any of that, but then began to question the dogma. The biggest stumbling block I came across was the title of one of their books... "Live Forever in Paradise Earth". The belief is the apocalypse is gonna kill off all the non-JWs, and then all the JW survivors will spend 1,000 years rebuilding the Earth. After that, all the dead JWs get resurrected and everyone lives forever in paradise Earth. My problem was two-fold... living forever would get terribly boring after a while, and anyone born in paradise would be ignorant to it by virtue of having no source of comparison. I stuck it out longer than my mother, but gave it up after just a couple of years. I found Wicca in my later teenage years after a very genuine spiritual experience, but remained a studier rather than a practitioner. A few years ago I dug a bit deeper after being introduced to some information by an evangelist (of all things) only to learn the "religion" was not what I thought it was. By this point I had come to the intellectual conclusion that organized religion is a tool of the powerful that is stifling our evolution as a species. I don't begrudge people their bogeymen if they genuinely feel they bring some joy and meaning into their lives, but I can't encourage such beliefs. I believe if God did exist, he/she/it wouldn't need to assign intermediaries for people to speak through, and the mere fact that the church has become an empire unto itself only proves it is a product of man. Sorry if I've been too long-winded. :)
Quote from: Whitney on August 23, 2011, 02:03:00 AM
I started out by researching to make my faith stronger...it had the opposite effect.
Pretty much the same story for me. I grew up in a variety of very conservative Xtian churches (my mother was the type who went to whatever church was closest to her -- she was definitely a Xtian but didn't practice brand loyalty) and always had questions, esp. since I was taught to take everything literally, and always got the same answer: you'll understand when you're older.
Well, I got older and didn't understand any better than when I was young so I decided to research on my own, starting with reading the bible from cover to cover. No matter how much I re-read some passages, or tried to make things fit, there was no getting away from the fact that the book didn't make a lick of sense.
Esp. taken literally. I don't ask a whole lot from life, but I do ask that things make sense -- I don't have to like them, I don't have to benefit from them, but I do need them to make sense.
I wasted a few more years on the assumption that it was only Xtianity that didn't make sense, and went looking for a religion/spiritual philosophy/whatever that did. That was pretty interesting, but I finally realized that, at least from where I stood,
none of them made any sense and the problem wasn't with a particular religion but with all religions. Or maybe it was just me, in either case I was clearly an atheist.
Having written all that, the answer to the original question -- what changed your mind? -- is the realization that I didn't have to believe just because I'd been told to, and everyone else around me did. It was a very time-consuming lesson for someone with a disposition as . . . well, let's be kind and call it easy-going . . . as mine.
After growing up in a non practicing Christian home, I was never fully convinced. Then in my teens I met some soul-savers that I respected who gently convinced me to look for god. I looked and was surprised, and a little disappointed to find noone there. Then gradually over the years I became very comfortable with living without a god. And eventually realised the liberating joy of life in a godless Darwinian world. And reading Dawkins has helped cement and organise my own beliefs.
Coming to terms with being proudly and openly Atheist in the face of cultural conditioning was a joyously liberating experience. I have vowed to be a conscientious Atheist and not be bullied by the religious...And more importantly, not be bullied by the weak-minded non-religious who subconsciously tow the religious line.
Education. A fascination with mythology which inherently morphed into theology (hand-in-hand). Reading the bible in basic training and thinking "wow, total....effing....insanity." I remember trying so hard to believe. I didn't want to not believe. It was like trying not to like beer and porn. I simply couldn't do it. I just love beer and porn and not believing.
Quote from: fyv0h on September 10, 2011, 12:54:42 AM
Education. A fascination with mythology which inherently morphed into theology (hand-in-hand). Reading the bible in basic training and thinking "wow, total....effing....insanity." I remember trying so hard to believe. I didn't want to not believe. It was like trying not to like beer and porn. I simply couldn't do it. I just love beer and porn and not believing.
Cool, so in touch with your personal Satan! Respect!
Logic, common senses, unfairness in life, selfishness of religions, etc.
It surprises me, but I can remember the exact moment it all began to seem like lunacy to me. I was in 9th grade, homeschooled, and we were using Christian schoolbooks. In the history one it was describing how the Grand Canyon could have never been carved from the Colorado River in the short time the earth has been around, and that hard working Christian scientists have determined that it was actually a channel for the removal of water from North America during the Great Flood. Only this massive amount of power from the Lord could have created such an immense canyon. I believe that's a near exact quote from the book.
Needless to say, even as a fairly believing Christian, I called BS. It was all downhill, or uphill rather, from there.
9/11 was the turning point for me. I'd had doubts before, and it took another ten years after 2001 for me to completely reject all the brainwashing I'd been subjected to from childhood onwards. Penn Jillette's book God, No! was also a factor, because reading that made me realise just what a load of crap I'd bought into all these years. The barbarism of Islam, the hypocrisy of Christianity, the pointlessness of Buddhism and the greed of Scientology also made me call bullshit on the idea of religion.
By the time I was 15, I had left behind my Irish Catholic upbringing for skateboarding and the Dead Kennedys. But, what really put the nail in the theistic coffin was education. In other words, I blame my atheism on Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Steve Gould, Ernst Meyer, etc... Believe it or not, studies in literary criticism/theory can make one an atheist pretty fast. Couple that with studies in the history/philosophy of science, theism stands no chance. In fact, academic pursuit of any kind, in my opinion, cannot be reconciled with any sort of subscription to religious beliefs.
Now that I've reached middle age (read: old), I really can't remember a time when I actually believed in the supernatural. I mean, I went to "Sunday School" and even was "confirmed" as a thirteen-year-old Catholic. But, it was more out of tradition than actual belief. I often wonder if my parents and extended family really believe what the Church espouses. The Catholic mass is very mechanical and ritualistic, and I sometimes doubt that the congregation actually thinks about the words that are uttered during the service. Though this may be a generalization based on my experiences, many seem to attend mass because it's just something they've always done.
Moral of the story: Go skateboarding, listen to punk rock, read some postmodern philosophy and eat meat on Friday, preferably a fried pork belly BLT.
The angry penguins at my cadechism child abuse sessions scolded us that we should read the bible. I actually listened. Reading the bible cover to cover without someone interpreting it for you - pretty much the freeway to being an atheist if you have a few brain cells firing.
Real nail in the coffin was college. Biology teacher walked in and said "oh and by the way: we come from monkeys. Evolution is scientific fact, not a "guess", it's fact. Religion is bullshit, god has no place in science, and I have no time to discuss any of that in my classroom. If you have a problem with that you should drop this class right now and run off to church. The rest of us, we'll be learning the real truth about life on this planet." He was the first real atheist I ever knew who spoke openly about religion being bullshit.
Quote from: SatanicBurrito on October 05, 2011, 07:03:28 AM
"oh and by the way: we come from monkeys. Evolution is scientific fact, not a "guess", it's fact. Religion is bullshit, god has no place in science, and I have no time to discuss any of that in my classroom. If you have a problem with that you should drop this class right now and run off to church. The rest of us, we'll be learning the real truth about life on this planet." He was the first real atheist I ever knew who spoke openly about religion being bullshit.
Was he perchance gray and round..?
Because I think we might be related ;D
Quote from: SatanicBurrito on October 05, 2011, 07:03:28 AM
The angry penguins at my cadechism child abuse sessions scolded us that we should read the bible. I actually listened. Reading the bible cover to cover without someone interpreting it for you - pretty much the freeway to being an atheist if you have a few brain cells firing.
Whenever the religious urge people to read the bible, I back them up to the hilt. I strongly encourage everyone to read it cover to cover and on your own, without anyone leaning over your shoulder saying, "what that
really means is . . .", because there are 10 million different guesses as to what anything in the bible
really means and no ones guess is going to be any better or worse than yours. The bible has created more atheists than any other book in the world, esp. since the fundys started insisting that it be taken literally rather than metaphorically.
The funny part of this (well, funny-sad, really) is that I've met Xtians who absolutely, flatly refuse to believe I've ever read the bible because they are so convinced that reading the bible unfailingly creates belief in its truth. It doesn't matter how familiar I am with this, that and the other story, that I know some passages well enough to quote them from memory, that I may even know passages they didn't know -- they think I just happened to hear it in passing and was lucky enough to remember it or some other nonsense because it is impossible to read the bible without believing it and therefore I'm just another lying atheist.
Bear in mind I'm not telling them that a god of some kind, maybe even their kind, does not exist because how would I know a thing like that? All I'm saying is that reading the bible does not result in automatic belief, that I know this from personal experience and I've heard the same from a lot of other atheists but that's still too much contradiction of the approved version of reality for them to accept. It must be awful tough going thru life chanting "la la la" with their eyes squeezed shut and their fingers stuck in their ears.
QuoteReal nail in the coffin was college. Biology teacher walked in and said "oh and by the way: we come from monkeys. Evolution is scientific fact, not a "guess", it's fact. Religion is bullshit, god has no place in science, and I have no time to discuss any of that in my classroom. If you have a problem with that you should drop this class right now and run off to church. The rest of us, we'll be learning the real truth about life on this planet." He was the first real atheist I ever knew who spoke openly about religion being bullshit.
I hope that somewhere along the line he got a Teacher of the Year award.
Where was this teacher? I may be switching colleges.. >.>
While my family and I was living in Germany, I was bullied a lot in school since I was the outside kid.
Lacking in self-esteem and friends to lean on I turned to religion for help. Somehow it made it easier to bear the hardships of everyday life if I had divine back-up. At this point I was 10.
By the time I was 14, I had built up my self-esteem with Judo, while I also grew quite a bit bigger and broader in the shoulders.
At this point, no longer requiring the divine crutch to get through a day, and increasing understanding of how the world works, that is where the faith was shaken. By the time I was 16, I didn't call myself atheist, but I pretty much was.
I had an atheist boyfriend in college who I argued with about beliefs and eventually tried to convert to Christianity (to no avail, of course). He may have watered my seed of doubt, but I think it had been planted for a long time. I was already disenchanted with the Catholicism of my childhood, and soon found that no other religion made any more sense to me. I read the God Delusion. I read the End of Faith. Atheism started to make more and more sense, both from a logical and moral standpoint.
For me, the final moment of clarity came when I thought about this: I CANNOT explain or justify human behavior within the framework of any deity- personal god or uninvolved creator. Classic atheist arguments aside, I simply can't accept that we are the product of an intelligent and powerful designer. However, I can totally justify human nature as a product of evolution. We are simply another species. We are selfish, territorial, ethnocentric and competitive because nature rewards that. Sure, we have evolved to a point where we can see the benefits of building community and seeing to the needs of others, but deep down, we are still largely run by our primal urges and the need to propagate our species.
What is surprising to me is how free and beautiful my life feels without belief in the supernatural. When I was a believer, I (like most believers) thought that an atheist must live a sad, meaningless existence. On the contrary, I feel a much more immediate sense of appreciation and awe for the world and a genuine desire to do good in THIS life for the sake of doing good, not because I feel obligated to earn some reward.
Plus, I get the satisfaction of knowing I am right, and that feels pretty damn good, too.
For me, it was arguing with my grandmother about abortion. I was a fundamentalist christian and she was a feminist who never called herself one. One day it dawned on me that someone was lying to me and my grandmother had never lied to me a day in my life. That was when the cracks started appearing. I started questioning and searching for myself - god and the answers to my questions had to be out there somewhere. At first, I returned to the catholic church I was raised in looking for answers, but it did not take long for me to realize that there were no answers there either. It took nearly five years, but eventually, my search for god led me to atheism.
Quote from: Guardian85 on October 14, 2011, 01:32:25 AM
...
You followed a religion because you were being bullied..?
Me, I just stuck a fork in a guy... VERY satisfying. 8)
Quote
What is surprising to me is how free and beautiful my life feels without belief in the supernatural. When I was a believer, I (like most believers) thought that an atheist must live a sad, meaningless existence. On the contrary, I feel a much more immediate sense of appreciation and awe for the world and a genuine desire to do good in THIS life for the sake of doing good, not because I feel obligated to earn some reward.
A perfect reflection of my own feelings. It's almost insulting to the powers of nature to attribute it's beauty to god... or it could be considered the biggest complement.
Nothing changed my mind since I never held a theist thought at any point in my life. I've been fortunate enough to live my life having very little to do with anyone who believes that stuff, or, if they did, had the intelligence to keep it to themselves. "Don't ask, don't tell" policy works well for theists.
Quote from: SatanicBurrito on October 05, 2011, 07:03:28 AM
Real nail in the coffin was college. Biology teacher walked in and said "oh and by the way: we come from monkeys. Evolution is scientific fact, not a "guess", it's fact. Religion is bullshit, god has no place in science, and I have no time to discuss any of that in my classroom. If you have a problem with that you should drop this class right now and run off to church. The rest of us, we'll be learning the real truth about life on this planet." He was the first real atheist I ever knew who spoke openly about religion being bullshit.
When I was doing my undergrad, I had a sociology professor who flat out told us that all of the best academics are atheist. It was so refreshing.
He also said "many of you can't write worth a damn - if you want to do well in this field, you need to start getting your little boyfriends and girlfriends to read over your work. If they're already doing this and your writing still sucks, you need new boyfriends and girlfriends."
He was pretty much the Gregory House of sociology, I loved him ;D
Quote from: Good and Godless on October 22, 2011, 03:50:00 AM
For me, the final moment of clarity came when I thought about this: I CANNOT explain or justify human behavior within the framework of any deity- personal god or uninvolved creator.
This is probably a point that atheists don't try to make enough. This perfect god of theirs can produce such vile creatures (serial killers, rapists, Sandusky, etc). Can anyone explain this? This type of behavior is the antithesis of everything he is supposed to stand for.
Quote from: DeterminedJuliet on November 10, 2011, 01:18:17 AM
He was pretty much the Gregory House of sociology, I loved him ;D
House is my fuckin boy. I was thinking today about how I'm kind of becoming more like him as time goes on. It was a bittersweet thought to say the least.
I have not believed for as long as i can remember. I was never christened and my parents never went to church although may mother would always say "there must be something" when asked about the existence of god.
One thing that always puzzled me was the way children are led to believe in Farther Christmas, but when they get older and question the fact how can he visit every child's house in one night and that he comes down the chimney, they are told "its just as story" Also when at school we were told of Greek, Roman and Norse gods but again we were told these were just stories. Yet in RE lessons and in morning assemble we had to sing hymns and pray to god/jesus. I remember thinking how hypocritical this is.
So you could say i have been an atheist since i stopped believing in Santa, but at the time i did not know of the term atheist. Now having read the satanic bible, I would call myself a Satanist as the philosophy of it fits well with my outlook on life.
Quote from: Ihateyoumike on August 24, 2011, 01:15:28 AM
Some guy offered me ten bucks and a coupon for a free 44oz. Slurpee at 7-11 if I'd renounce my faith and deny the holy spirit and be an atheist from that point on.
Totally worth it. Just glad he wasn't a scientologist.
God I love slurpees.
Really?! I wish I'd have met that guy.....
Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on September 04, 2011, 09:06:01 AM
Quote from: Whitney on August 23, 2011, 02:03:00 AM
I started out by researching to make my faith stronger...it had the opposite effect.
you'll understand when you're older.
I hate hearing that response. I remember the first time I heard it, I questioned my faith and honestly sat a debated why I was Christian and whether i was just being a poser for my family's sake.
Quote from: Good and Godless on October 22, 2011, 03:50:00 AM
What is surprising to me is how free and beautiful my life feels without belief in the supernatural. When I was a believer, I (like most believers) thought that an atheist must live a sad, meaningless existence. On the contrary, I feel a much more immediate sense of appreciation and awe for the world and a genuine desire to do good in THIS life for the sake of doing good, not because I feel obligated to earn some reward.
You thought that about atheist? I find them to be the funnest, most accepting and liberal people I know. Once, in church I was asked about and atheist musician that I really like. The guy asked me would I marry him, and I responded with "if we work out, then yeah." I was then shunned because "You can't marry and atheist and put God first in your life." I know that's not true, because an old couple that's a friend of the family manages it. He's and Atheist, she's a Christian, and she still wakes up every Sunday morning and heads off to church. And personally, I think they have one of the best relationships I've ever seen in my life.