How old were you when you stopped being atheist?

[cablescavenger]

Have you always been atheist? or did you become religious? if so what made you convert?

 

[Kathryn]

I don't recall ever being an atheist. My earliest memories from age three are of me going out into the backyard, and jumping up and down with my face toward the sun. When my mom asked me what I was doing I told her I had been kissing God's face.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

I spent most of my life believing in an all-powerful, all-loving personal creator deity. It was only a little less than two years ago that I became more or less atheist. I'm still a spiritual person, or at least I attempt to be. I believe there might be an underlying divine essence to existence, like in a pantheistic sense though, similar to the Tao, or the non-dual view of Brahman.

 

[Renji]

Some people say that kids are naturally born atheists. So maybe I'm an atheist at birth, and stopped sometime... probably when I was 3 years old.

But if that's not the case, then I don't recall my self being an atheist.

 

[9Westy9]

Have you always been atheist? or did you become religious? if so what made you convert?

same as Dyana. Was religious now atheist

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Have you always been atheist? or did you become religious? if so what made you convert?

Born into a Christian family, and raised as such...so I would assume roughly age 2 - 16 or so.

 

[Gharib]

Some people say that kids are naturally born atheists.

you were born a muslim not an atheist. thats what islam teaches anyway. feel free to disagree.

 

[`mud]

Everyone is born a non-theist.
We have to be taught to believe.
In what one believes is important,
and with aging comes the decision.
The decision comes with experience,
with first......... the belief in self.
Then and most importantly,
the belief in your purpose in life.
There are dozens of "gods",
but......... just one humanity.
What path we follow to our end,
and what "god" we worship,
does not determine our worth.
Our purpose is the important goal,
and the deeds we follow to this end.
~
`mud

 

[Scott1]

Have you always been atheist? or did you become religious? if so what made you convert?

Was an atheist most of my adult life... until age 34.

Still not sure what made me "convert"... was not something I wanted at all... but mostly came about from trying to refute the claims of theists and some of that mumbo jumbo infected my brain and got me hooked.

Still consider myself just as happy as I was as an atheist... just as moral, etc etc.... just now have a different focus for my intellectual inquiries.

Peace,
S

 

[Kathryn]

Everyone is born a non-theist.
We have to be taught to believe.
In what one believes is important,
and with aging comes the decision.
The decision comes with experience,
with first......... the belief in self.
Then and most importantly,
the belief in your purpose in life.
There are dozens of "gods",
but......... just one humanity.
What path we follow to our end,
and what "god" we worship,
does not determine our worth.
Our purpose is the important goal,
and the deeds we follow to this end.
~
`mud

Since neither of us can remember our earliest year or couple of years on this earth, this is conjecture.

All I know is that I don't remember a time that I WASN'T a theist. I remember a time when I wasn't a Christian, but my earliest memories involve a deep and personal belief in a Supreme Being.

 

[connermt]

Have you always been atheist? or did you become religious? if so what made you convert?

At some point in life, everyone makes their first decision about a god. Over the course of life, that may change many times. Or not.
For me, I was introduced to christianity, lived in it for decades, then through years of questions, poor/no answers, an open mind, research and independent thought, I decided the decades I spent within that cult was to be no more.
I'm not an atheist. I see no reason for any god, but I believe that I could be wrong and a god exists (though I highly doubt it).

 

[Draka]

I was raised with bible stories and prayers and so on, like most other kids in this country, but I can't recall ever really believing any of it to be really "true". By the time I was 13 or 14 I openly admitted I didn't believe in any of it ("it" being Christianity), however I hadn't really been exposed to any other belief systems so I had no other thing to compare my thoughts to. I had the choice of Christianity or atheist due to lack of knowledge of anything else. At that point I didn't really have any belief in any deity of sorts, but I had many paranormal experiences so I did believe that there was definitely something beyond the physical. It wasn't until my mid-twenties, when I decided to peruse books about different religions that I stumbled upon Wicca and in studying it everything seemed to "click" into place. Everything I already believed, everything that I had hypothesized about, everything I thought I was alone in considering was presented to me and so much more. It all made sense. Thus, my birth as a theist.

 

[ChristineES]

I don't think I was ever an atheist. I was probably an agnostic when I was little, I know I was agnostic as a child. I was a seeker as a teen. I became a theist at 17 or so.

 

[Willamena]

I don't think I was ever an atheist. I was probably an agnostic when I was little, I know I was agnostic as a child. I was a seeker as a teen. I became a theist at 17 or so.

Well... how old were you when you stopped beating you wife, then?

 

[ChristineES]

Well... how old were you when you stopped beating you wife, then?

I knew someone would say something. I believe we're born agnostic. I believe you actually have to know about God in order to know whether you are theist or atheist. You can't say you believe in something or don't believe in something that you don't know about, can you? :sarcastic

 

[InformedIgnorance]

I was about fourteen when I stopped being a Christian to become an Atheist, three months later I become an Agnostic, ten years after that I became an Ignostic & Fideistic Agnostic.

 

[ChristineES]

I was about fourteen when I stopped being a Christian to become an Atheist, three months later I become an Agnostic, ten years after that I became an Ignostic & Fideistic Agnostic.

I've been meaning to ask you: What is a an Ignostic?

 

[InformedIgnorance]

Umm basically speaking, it is someone who wants to know your definitions before they tell you whether or not they believe or disbelieve in whatever is being discussed; it is an approach that is highly centred around meaning and logic, it attempts to determine if the TERMS being discussed are meaningful or nonsensical (related to theological noncognitivism) to determine what concept is being referred to (for example 'Afterlife' means different things to different people) and attempts to determines the logical consistency given the concepts that are being referred to.

Fideism is faith through faith alone without needing evidence and even despite evidence (or logic for that matter).

So my personal approach (no longer pure ignosticism) to a concept is basically to ask people what they are referring to, then state my position with regards to my understanding of the logic of the concept (if it is self-contradictory for example) and my position with regards to my feelings (influenced by evidence and my own subjective experiences) on the concept; the two positions may or may not agree with each-other. I maintain my strongly agnostic position (so strong I believe the definition of strong agnosticism is too certain) is potentially fallible, it incorporates atheistic agnosticism about most concepts of god and tending towards deistic agnosticism about a few very abstract concepts for god, which is largely dependant on the nature of time - I allow for a very abstract model of time, potentially including a 'beginning' (which I do not believe is necessarily required) in order to create a suitable environment for dialogue with different types of theists.

 

[lunamoth]

From the time I was old enough to process anything like the possibility of God, I believed in something More than 'just this.'. I still don't know what that More is, yet I still believe in More than 'just this.'

Only in my late 30's did I realize that it as only my pride that kept me from admitting that what I believed in was God.

 

[cablescavenger]

I don't recall ever being an atheist. My earliest memories from age three are of me going out into the backyard, and jumping up and down with my face toward the sun. When my mom asked me what I was doing I told her I had been kissing God's face.

Atheist is lack of belief, so you would have been atheist before becoming religious.