I think I was about 6 or 7 when I realized everyone was full of crap about just about everything but I tried to keep an opened mind until I was 13 in 7th grade and the "Bible study" group was relentless and kept Bible thumping everyone in the school and that was the last straw, not the Bible thumping rather the stupid stuff coming out of their mouths and their "goodie goodie smug attitude and ignorance of the universe in general, I thought to myself there is no way I'm gonna be a "Stepford" kid brainwashed and all. Buddhism just seems logical and is willing to admit fault and truth.
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When Did You Become a Non-Believer?
- Thread starter The Seeker
- Start date
BucephalusBB
ABACABB
When I was about 6 or 7 I was playing with marbles I guess. You had time to realize stuff and keep open minds and so???!!?
3.14
Well-Known Member
wel was forced to go to church untill i was 12 but never realy bought into all that nonsense, was always from how did this writer get so famous, who did his pr, and he if they belief that why not write my own book. (then got a gameboy and though reading books would have gone extinct in the next couple years) if i hadn't got that gameboy you would have been worshiping johammed and allesus by now
BucephalusBB
ABACABB
Not atheist, but non-theist.
I think we are all born mystic.
Wandered Off
Sporadic Driveby Member
It's a nit-picky point, but I'm not convinced we just "decide" what to believe. Belief is more complicated than that, and I don't think we have direct control over it. We certainly can influence it by choosing what information we expose ourselves to, but I can't simply decide to believe something I don't already without some external catalyst. When my faith crumbled, it wasn't voluntary. I wanted to continue believing, but I couldn't.
This is another reason the sola fide concept I grew up with didn't ring true. All we have to do is just believe to avoid eternal damnation, but if we can't really control our beliefs very well, it's an obviously unjust idea to hang our eternal destiny on them.
The Seeker
Once upon a time....
I would say that we're all born ignorant of religion until we're indoctrinated by our parents.
When I was about 6 or 7 I was playing with marbles I guess. You had time to realize stuff and keep open minds and so???!!?
I'm not saying I was a normal kid, I wanted to talk to "God" when I was 5 to get somethings straightened out, I remember asking my Grandmother "if God is everywhere then why can't I see him and why won't he answer me". That was kind of the beginning of my search, I walked to the Catholic church by myself and ask questions but the nuns just feed me, I went to the local synagogue ask asked questions, I have to say at least the Jews took me seriously and tried to answer my questions and I had some neighbors that were born again something or other they were quite entertaining and as I got older I realized the stories they told me weren't even in the Bible let alone any other religious text. I don't know what to say I became a monk after high school and i have been studying philosophy and religion my entire life.
texan1
Active Member
I think this is very true. I sometimes wish I had the faith I had as a child, but I know I never will. I even still "talk to God" every once in a while which may sound weird.
And I have always thought the idea of "just believe and you will be saved" was always a little strange too. It seems to me that if a person was going to be judged by God or anyone else, they should be judged by their actions, not their religious beliefs.
Smoke
Done here.
I've told my story before, so I won't go into the whole thing again. I renounced Christianity on peace and justice grounds when I was 45, but I was still a believer at the time. Very rapidly, within a few weeks, I realized that if I couldn't trust the Church I really had no reason to believe in the Trinity, and then that I really didn't have any reason to believe in God at all. For somebody who had been a believer as long as I could remember, my transition from believer to atheist was very quick and smooth, though it surprised me.
TurkeyOnRye
Well-Known Member
They are one in the same, I'm afraid. Atheist means non-theist. Strong atheist or weak atheist, neither of them are theists.
Anyway, my story of finding the light is short and simple. Christianity was causing me some serious cognitive dissonance; inconsistency, hate-filled bible verses, the problem of many religions to choose from etc. The fear of hell and the fear of sinning via external analysis delayed the purification process far longer than it should have. It started when I entered high school and it was complete when I left.
Phasmid
Mr Invisible
I completely agree. If God is omnibenevolent then I don't see why He would cast someone into Hell simply because their logic wouldn't allow them to believe in Him. By the same token I don't see why people of other faiths should be cast into Hell. They've likely had religious experiences and, as a result, believe their religion is the "true" religion of God. It seems wholey unjust to condemn people to eternal suffering when there are so many variables, so many choices, so many paths to take in life.
Naturalist_Atheist
Uh.... Pootie Tang.
I beleived in God as a child because Mommy told me to. At around the age of 11 or 12 I started to have doubts. Can't explain them. I don't remember anyone talking to me about atheism. But I just felt silly when I prayed to God. I just didn't feel any presence. It felt like I was talking outlout to myself. As I went through school new windows were opened to me. Evolution made perfect sense to me the first time I heard it. I had always been fascinated with science even from young age. My Uncle (A theist) Use to talk to me about the stars and what they were made of. I think this kick started my interest in science. The rest is history.
lamplighter
Almighty Tallest
I didn't become Agnostic until about 13, took a little while even though there wasn't any really prominent religion in my house growing up, never prayed in fact I thought it was stupid most of the time to be honest, and I've been to a Sunday service at a Christian church twice my whole life, before that I thought all religions pretty much had the same goal just different paths for getting there, but the more I learned about what people did in the name of religion the more disenchanted I became and eventually came to the conclusion that if there was a god he was certainly apathetic to humanity and certainly wouldn't take interest in any particular person on a individual basis, I just can't see evidence of when it has actually occurred, funny how people always seem to talk to "god" when no one else happens to be around. Although for years I couldn't name what I was until I happened to stumble on the word agnostic one day in the dictionary.
dark alchemist
New Member
i would have to say around the age of 10 my dads at the time gf made me go every wed and sun which at the time i never really cared much about religion and, i for a time actually believed in it. but then i started to ask questions that the minister or his staff couldnt answer so they took us on a trip to Salem or Portland bc they had this big convention there and, the minister at one point had us all (about 200 easily it was a big church) and he said that god could do miracles as long as u believed and he took out some cloth and made it vanish into smoke. all the kids were ohhhing and ahhhhing and i just sat back there amazed he used a cloth designed to burn up quickly to convince kids from the ages of 8-13 that god exists and i told my friend that and we just asked our minister if we could get a drink so they let us go and we didnt go back until we left. and so i just stopped believing bc i never felt gods presence any way while there when i did believe so that made it easier for me
Alceste
Vagabond
I don't remember ever believing in God. I went to church - even sang in the choir, but it never took. I remember praying for comfort in particularly difficult times, even into adulthood, but it's never had much more significance than tossing coins into a wishing well. It's a comforting thought, but you don't really believe it works.
My church was not a hardline, literal church, from what I remember. It seemed more focused on community and the practical application of various biblical parables than redemption. Also, my dad was an atheist and didn't come with us. He'd also studied to be a minister and was able to give me a very thorough religious education from an academic perspective.
Anyway, when I was a kid the most important and meaningful thing about church was the bake sales. God didn't enter into it.
My church was not a hardline, literal church, from what I remember. It seemed more focused on community and the practical application of various biblical parables than redemption. Also, my dad was an atheist and didn't come with us. He'd also studied to be a minister and was able to give me a very thorough religious education from an academic perspective.
Anyway, when I was a kid the most important and meaningful thing about church was the bake sales. God didn't enter into it.
rojse
RF Addict
Before joining RF, I had as little exposure to religion as one might be able to have in the western world. I went to church for a few Christmas seasons, had a few classes about it, and that's about it, not enough for me to embrace or reject religion. When I first sat down and had a proper think about religion, like whether God might be real or not, it all seemed quite ridiculous to me. It was about then that I joined up with RF, because it hardly seemed fair to dismiss an idea that has had such influence on the world without considering the opposite perspective.
The only thing that has changed since then is that the more I have delved into people's reasonings on why God might exist, the more that their belief is based on something so tangled and convoluted that it resembles a pot of cooked spaghetti strands, (possibly on purpose, but that's the cynic in me), based on large misunderstandings or misgivings of science, or boils down to the simplest of tautologies - I believe God exists because I believe God exists. None of this impresses me, compared to the cold voice of logic espoused by atheism, but I respect the candour of those whom speak in regards to tautologies.
The only thing that has changed since then is that the more I have delved into people's reasonings on why God might exist, the more that their belief is based on something so tangled and convoluted that it resembles a pot of cooked spaghetti strands, (possibly on purpose, but that's the cynic in me), based on large misunderstandings or misgivings of science, or boils down to the simplest of tautologies - I believe God exists because I believe God exists. None of this impresses me, compared to the cold voice of logic espoused by atheism, but I respect the candour of those whom speak in regards to tautologies.