When/ how did you become an atheist?

Tell your story.

For me, I had heard about god and wasn't sure about it. We were Jewish, and I didn't really find any reason to question it until I heard about Santa Claus. I discovered, much to my amazement, that some of my friends did believe in Santa. I would ask the mothers about it, they just said it was a cute thing and not to clue them in that it wasn't real. I think I was about 10. I realized that if people would believe in Santa while the people telling them knew it was a lie, then god must be in the same family of myth.

 

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I never really believed in it. I don't know why. I've always had christian friends. I think it was somewhere between 10-13 that i found out that the whole thing was kinda unrealistic.

 

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I attended St. Bernadine’s Catholic Grammar School for eight years, reaching the end of my mercilessly indoctrinated religious faith sometime in fifth grade after the baloney had really gotten too deep.

In first grade, which was partly in the Ascension Catholic school, I didn’t know quite what to make of the nun in her costume, calling her "Mother Monkey", but I did happen to glimpse a girl’s leg when she sat down much too quickly, but then I promptly forgot about sexual inclinations until 6th grade, when I fell in love with my nun, Sister Theophilia.

It was not that I was afraid to be impure for all these years; I just wasn’t ready, having been born in December. However, a deep yearning arose for Theophilia, but, alas, she and Father Kramer soon quit the Church and ran off together.

I was shocked, not even realizing that I'd had a chance with her. If I’d known, I would have surely walked her home from school or asked her out. Theo was replaced by a lay teacher, Mrs. MacShane, whom I’d had in 4th grade, a most fun teacher. Unfortunately, she now rewarded communion-goers with popsicles, and so she was reprimanded and eventually sent packing.

Playing a lot of baseball, I had forgotten about the female sex once again, for, in seventh grade, the boys were separated from the girls. Midway through, though, I reached puberty. So, then, it was that when a girl was rarely seen, we boys would go all the more wild. I made sure that I attended a public high school.

 

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We used to sing the Lords Prayer in school assembly, and sometimes pray before food. I didn't know what was going on, and I always used to look around at everyone else pretending to pray. I never sung, just mouthed the words if the teacher looked. Seemed like no one took it seriously, and it just all seemed a bit of a waste of time.

My parents never mentioned anything about the subject. Before I left primary school I just thought it was some story that a couple of people told. It wasn't until I was in my mid teens when I realised just how many people world wide were religious.

It seems 99% of the people I meet in the UK are non-religious. If the subject ever crops up most people seem to think Christianity is daft and people laugh at anyone who takes it too seriously.

 

When I realized that I was God, I was like, "WTF? I'm the greatest being in the universe?"

I stopped believing there.

 

I can remember faking belief in God many times when growing up. I didn't want to appear different from all the other kids. Whenever I did get dragged into church and they passed hat, I thought to myself what a scam they had going. I thought about religion and God a lot, but I never could convince myself God was a reality. I listened to a lot of people and they didn't have much luck convincing me either. I finally had to admit to myself I was one of those dreaded atheist and their was nothing I could do about it. Then finally I joined a science forum and found out that the atheists are the good guys.

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Eastern Philosophy?

 

"When/ how did you become an atheist?"

Some days more than others.

 

After reading stories of the Gods like Thor, Zeus and Odin when I was very young. They were comic book characters that were based on the mythological ones that were written about by those living in the past centuries. That lead me to give thought about the Christian God and came to a conclusion that this was a myth as well. Although there weren't direct connections there were many indirect ones. The main thing was that they were all made up by humans and none could be verified as "real" but only myths.

 

But those comic books were made by satan.

 

Isn't Atheism the default before minds get poisoned by a load of BS. Are we not all born atheists?

 

I am by no means an athiest.

I lost my faith in organized religion when I read about history.
Thought of it as absurd that we are gods creation and god is "testing us", LOL.

I didnt give it much thought untill I came here (Didnt really care if religion was right or not)

I believe in god because its more sensible for my intended purposes to believe than "reserve a frame of reference untill the evidence is emperical" is bullshit I have enough evidence to deduce a god having to exist. God looking down on us? LOL I doubt that. More like god looking as us.

 

No.
Unless you can remember your frame of thinking when you were a baby

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Never had the belief.

My mom infrequently had us going to church (baptist), and any time we spent with her parents on the weekend involved going to their church (methodist). As a small kid I spent the time drawing on pads of paper in the pews. Later with my mom, we had the mandatory bible school as well. I learned what the "right" answers were...it wasn't too hard since they never explored anything that might make you think. Nothing ever swayed me into actually believing anything that was taught.

I guess that it never made sense to me, and as I got older and learned more about different religions, it still didn't. A universe without gods make more logical sense.

 

Not buying that. Atheism is a lack of a belief in God as well as the refusal to believe in god? So under the former context we are born atheists.

 

So when you were a baby you remember if you had faith?
Did you even have the capacity to subscribe to a belief or lack of??
So than................animals are athiests?

 

Atheism is a lack of belief in god. How can something believe in god (higher functional understanding) when it can't even talk? Remembering has nothing to do with it. No one is born with a belief in god, are you serious?

 

Well, it's not exactly religion or philosophy, and eastern philosophies are generally atheist. And I happen to like them. For a while after I became doubtful at 10, I was just an agnostic. I didn't know any good arguments against god, but I never did believe. I would always omit the "under god" part of the pledge in school. Then I discovered Buddhism, Zen, and Taoism at my local library. Then I knew there was a viable alternative to western religions. I still wasn't aware of all the arguments against god until I started to read Dawkins, then I realized I was an atheist.

 

Ah, I was just curious.

As a kid I went to church and Christian schools, but I never believed. I asked critical questions but never got any real answers so I decided to see the bible as a book of fairytales (quite literally).
So actually I never became an atheist I just 'resisted' becoming a theist.

 

That's what Hitchens says. We don't become atheists so much as realize that's what we are.