Were you born to atheist parents and never went to the dark side? Were you raised in a harsh church and decided it wasn’t for you? Did you decide science was awesome and it conflicted with religion? I’ll share my story if you will.
I was raised Methodist. It wasn’t bad at all. It was all singing and hugging and no negative, but I had doubts early. At age six, I asked god if he was really really real. He didn’t respond. So I got some cards out. I said to god, “if you’re there, god, this card will be red.” It wasn’t. I repeated this experiment with no good results. I was skeptical. I asked my mother, “if god is jesus’s daddy, then who is god’s daddy?” She couldn’t answer me. Again, a skeptical moment for me. Then I wrote this letter.
It didn’t happen. Also, isn’t it funny that I posted a business phone number for god at age six? What was I thinking? I guess I really wanted him to contact me wherever I was. I should have added my playground, my school, my grandparents’ house, etc.. Ah, well. It didn’t work. Nothing ever happened. At age six I was a confirmed atheist but I hid it.
At age 13 I came out to my mother and she was livid. I think it broke her heart and I’m sorry for it. But at that age, I had been studying science and science (especially evolution) contradicted religion. I tried to explain that to her but she was too upset to hear it. It’s probably a real blow to parents. So I pretended to be a Christian for a long time afterwards. I finally came out as an atheist (again) in my late 20′s. Everyone I know was dismayed. I lived in Mississippi at the time, so it’s to be expected (but not for long I hope!).
Now I’m out and proud of it. I love science which leads me to atheism.
Now YOUR turn. How did you come to atheism?
I sauntered vaguely into it over the course of my teenage years. Mostly because of science, but also because I like to eat babies.
Babies are tasty.
I like mine brined overnight, then grilled on an alderwood plank, finished with a brown sugar glaze and cracked pepper.
Oh, wait. That’s salmon.
Anyway, I’m at least third generation non-believer, and am an atheist because that’s what you are unless someone takes it upon themselves to thrust religion on you before you’re old enough to really understand. Since my parents never did that, I have been and always will be an atheist.
I started the son of an evangelical preacher. It was the believers themselves that drove me to question more than I had already done. At 6 years old I thought the Genesis story was absurd, but my parents spoke of it as a parable of sorts. That worked for a time, but it was observing believers that made me understand there was no truth or innate goodness in religion. I sought those things in various religions. I began to run out of possibilities.
There simply was no evidence for what was claimed, not even in the lives of ardent believers. Their god appeared to taunt them with ills and bad luck rather than bless them with health and wealth no matter how much they prayed or believed. So I sought answers in mysticism/spirituality. No evidence there either. All the while I was learning and studying life. Science was making more sense. As I began to study artificial intelligence the more brain science there was available to me the more certain I became that gods are nothing more than inventions of our minds.
I’m an atheist today because over a very long period I have observed (and studied the observations of others before me) that there is no evidence for the existence of any god or gods. Prayer does not work. Magic spells of protection and harm do not work. None of it even seems to work _unless_ a person wants to believe it does. Not only is this more lack of evidence for gods and magic, but it is also is evidence that supports the thought that it is all made up bullshit that only seems to work because adherents suspend disbelief and ignore facts and logic.
I quit praying, quit going to church, quit wanting the fairy tale to be true. I was alone in my journey and not overly concerned to know anyone else that was certain gods do not exist. Then came 9/11. That woke me up. Religion is not passive, benign, or good. I observed not only that, but some religions encourage violence such as destroying buildings and suicide bombings. The Christian bullshit fountain was in full blast spewing hate and bigotry and ignorance everywhere. In 2 months I went from quiet atheist to angry atheist – and get this – because of the believers themselves.
I’ll admit to learning much more about the christian bible since 9/11 – it’s difficult to be angry unless you understand what you’re angry about. Recently my mom (who still believes) admitted that I know more about her bible than she does. I’m not sure how she will deal with that. I have to be subtle so as to not hurt her feelings while still not bending over and saying I’ll go to church etc.
She tried to tell me the rapture is true. I introduced the wecanknow.com people and explained that. She does not think anyone can know and I described the process used to arrive at rapture belief, then how wecanknow.com folks work. Its the same thing; mix a bunch of disparate passages and interpret it to mean what ever you want. But.. but.. John of Patmos wrote in Revelation that…. Mom, what would happen if anyone wrote what he wrote in today’s world? She agreed he would be put in psychiatric care but opined that this is why god had him write it so long ago so as to not have to admit that book is full of crazy stupid shit.
Basic arguments I’ve learned since 9/11 are effective. My mom offered that god was good to get me a job…. but she has no idea why her god let my work be outsourced and offshored. So he could give me a better job… well, why put me on unemployment to give me a different job? None of it makes any sense and knowing how to show this is very important, whether you are angry or not.
I was born an atheist to non-religious parents and I’ve never been convinced by theistic arguments or so called “evidence” of gods.
I am a life long Atheist. I honestly couldn’t tell you what my parents beliefs are/were because it NEVER came up. They were both raised Christian I’m relatively sure, but I don’t think either of them carried on believing into adulthood. Being English however did did mean that the church was used for the cultural things, my parents were married in a church, and when my Mum died there was a ceremony held at a church.
For a long time I was a pretty wishy-washy Atheist, I just simply never thought about the whole God, belief, religion thing. Easy to do in England as the Church mostly just sits in the background and occasionally rattles the doors. That slowly changed as I read more and more on the internet, and I came to understand just how bad it was in the US, and then I started to see the stirrings of similar things over here once the Church of England began to realise that they might be losing their grip on society. I have gotten move fervent in my Atheism, but I don’t have much of an outlet for it. Most of the people I know are either Atheist, or keep their religion private. I set up a website blog to act as an outlet for a while, but I slowly let it dwindle as I’m not a writer and I can’t compete with what the big Atheist bloggers are already saying on my behalf. I can currently be found on Yahoo!Answers in the Religion and Mythology sections trying to debunk all sorts of silly woo-woo.
Now that I am parent I’ve tried hard to give my daughter the freedom and option to make her own choices. She went to a Church of England school, simply because it is the best in the area. She was exposed to religions (not just Christianity) at school and had many questions for me. I tried to answer them as honestly and factually as I could, and if she asked I would express my own personal opinions as well. A couple of years ago she told me that she didn’t believe the whole God bit, and I was so proud.