Question to Godless Heathens: What Made You Become Atheist?

[Samuraikoku]

I don't mean to be offensive, but I'm not sure I follow.

If we do not exist, proof does not exist. If proof does not exist, we do not need it to exist. Thus, we exist, thus proof exists. Thus we cannot prove our existence. And so on and so forth.

The Force will be with you. Always.

[Proloteriat]

I was brought up as an atheist. Plus religion??? Its theories are so flawed. But I do respect religious people all the same.

[Hockeyokolips NOW]

I was brought up as an atheist. Plus religion??? Its theories are so flawed. But I do respect religious people all the same.

Respect them as people or respect their beliefs?

I was raised a Catholic, to my neverending shame, but always questioned how a loving god could be so damn nasty as to condemn someone (a Muslim or a Jew or a Hindu or an Atheist or...) for simply not believing in him, regardless of their actions or what was in their hearts. Thirty odd years of it and I never really took that final step over the line until I read Sam Harris. He gave me the push I needed and I am indebted to him for it.

[Malgrave]

Probably being forced to attend church for several years and performing in an extremely cold church building for the duration of my primary school education. I mean singing in a freezing cold church whilst holding an orange with a dozen candles in it is enough to drive anyone away from religion.

[Ragnarsdomr]

For my fourteen year stint as an atheist? Well, that's how my parents indoctrinated me as a child, so that's how it goes. Most kids do tend to follow their parents' beliefs for a good amount of time.

However, after my introduction to Nordic mythology in the fourth grade, my adoration for the tales gradually grew over the following five years until I looked into Asatru as a belief system and began to start reading critical essays and other writings on Germanic religions, as well as the source poetry and prose. So, well, I'm not an Atheist anymore, but I am a Heathen.

[Cryptrov]

I was raised atheist and have never had any religious feelings. I guess I might be a good target to all the religious people who'd like to say atheists are just too dumb to know. Once, when I was reading Kierkegaard's writings, I almost became religious, but it just didn't happen - and then I read some Nietzsche and that really was the end of even symphaty towards religions.

But I haven't forgotten Kierkegaard; his ideas about finding absolute "moral" (immoral moral, as he expresses it) in faith in paradox has inspired me to worship myself as my god. So in a way I'm an atheist satanist, by LaVey's definition and example.

[Warshania]

So, what was it that pushed you over the line into atheism?

I believed in God for 14 years until I got interested in the bible and decided to read a few chapters. That fateful day I saw all the contradictions, and the nonsense, and the corruption the Bible had. So I became an atheist. And all it took was reading the Bible.

You know, I used to be a Christan as well, but then I turned 6 and stopped believing in fairly tales.

On a more serious note, I've also done the same thing as you've done, plus some more research in religions in general about 5 years ago and I decided to reject any religious movement or belief regarding the existence of God. This whole thing about religions - especially the Abrahamic ones - is a joke from my perspective.

[Cryptrov]

I read the bible.

I was raised up in a religious conservative family.

Then I hit 14 and realized that I had never really felt God. Or "talked" or "had a relationship" with him, and that I had never actually been a very strong Christian. I still held on, believing that I was just doubting or whatever.

Then I read the Bible.

same question i asked the OP. why didn't you give reconstructed hellenismos a try? or shinto? how did the bible make you dismiss all the other options?

We humans haven't infinite mental capacity. We have to believe in things of which we cannot be absolutely sure. These two facts lead to the fact that one needs to believe the lie that is the most useful. A part of usefullness is being easy to grasp. Complex ideas about existence tend to be hard to process, especially if they contain paradoxes (which hinder usefullness, too). Atheism, I think, is kind of easy to understand and doesn't take too much study of religious texts. Atheism really isn't any explanation, but rather it is a stance that none of the most complex explanations hold.

Then, what is a "complex" belief? Spirits are complex, because we rarely have any direct intercourse with them, so is a monotheist god; even those who believe in it admit that much. Personally I don't bother myself with that kind of concept-monstrosities. My concepts should be simple and tested in use. Please correct me if "a god" happens not to be a concept, but a state of mind or something else. Also an explanation on how a god is useful would be appreciated.

[Alikhaa]

I was raised atheist and have never had any religious feelings. I guess I might be a good target to all the religious people who'd like to say atheists are just too dumb to know. Once, when I was reading Kierkegaard's writings, I almost became religious, but it just didn't happen - and then I read some Nietzsche and that really was the end of even symphaty towards religions.

But I haven't forgotten Kierkegaard; his ideas about finding absolute "moral" (immoral moral, as he expresses it) in faith in paradox has inspired me to worship myself as my god. So in a way I'm an atheist satanist, by LaVey's definition and example.

I loved Kierkegaard. I remember one of my best papers in philosophy was about how Nietzsche and Kierkegaard would actually get along, despite Kierkegaard being a theist and Nietzsche being atheist. They were both existentialists and there was no way Kierkegaard could be defined as prescribing to slave morality. It was a fun paper.

Anyways.

Yes... so to imagine.

You're really just looking for ways to support your own hypothesis in your explanation instead of reading what I've actually said. But that's fine, I understand. Off to a final.

When you get back, explain how we misinterpreted what you wrote. I took "so to imagine" as you mean, "so to speak." The rest of that post was a declaration that "you can pray to the infinite consciousness that created and sustains all existence and is infinitely more powerful than anything else that exists."

I meant that you don't need to believe in God or choose between any religion's God in order to pray to such a thing as God. If God exists (and it's easy enough to conceptualize of God as "the infinite consciousness that created and sustains all existence and is infinitely more powerful than anything else that exists" without worrying too much about it) it's safe to say that God would be the "most high". It's not like you'd want to pray to an intermediary, less powerful "god" if God existed. You'd want to go straight to the uppermost entity in order to be sure of whether or not it was there. You can imagine this concept and pray to this imagination of God without actually believing it exists.

Just like, as I analogized later, you might call outside of a bathroom stall, "Is anyone in there?" You're talking to an "anyone" in there, and you imagine this anyone in there in order to receive and respond to your call, but you don't necessarily believe someone is in there. You're just opening your mind to the fact that there might be someone in there before you bust in.

This seems fairly easy to understand, to me, from what I had written...

[Bottle]

I was born atheist. I've yet to be provided with a convincing reason to convert to any of the countless religions I have encountered. Always willing to hear the latest pitch, though.

[Pilgrims]

I am not an atheist, but do have a question though... A number of the posters mentioned that reading the Bible was the final straw in turning them towards atheism. My question:
What was it in the bible that caused your atheism? / What part (book/chapter) was the problem? I am asking out of interest, not to judge or argue about it.

[Genivaria]

I am not an atheist, but do have a question though... A number of the posters mentioned that reading the Bible was the final straw in turning them towards atheism. My question:
What was it in the bible that caused your atheism? / What part (book/chapter) was the problem? I am asking out of interest, not to judge or argue about it.

Endorsement of slavery. Killing people of other faiths (which included my friends), killing homosexuals (which included my friends), killing witches (I had friends who are Wiccan), rape, genocide, murder of children among a number of other very unpleasant things that Yahweh endorsed.

The book that others around me had refereed to as "their moral guide" essentially ordered me to murder my closest friends.
I literally threw up after realizing this.

After that I didn't see the Bible as being 'sacred' and beyond criticism, and so I started hearing many of the criticisms about said book and how little sense it made.

[Celestial Divinities]

Nothing. Just like nothing made me believe in God.

[Pilgrims]

I am not an atheist, but do have a question though... A number of the posters mentioned that reading the Bible was the final straw in turning them towards atheism. My question:
What was it in the bible that caused your atheism? / What part (book/chapter) was the problem? I am asking out of interest, not to judge or argue about it.

Endorsement of slavery. Killing people of other faiths (which included my friends), killing homosexuals (which included my friends), killing witches (I had friends who are Wiccan), rape, genocide, murder of children among a number of other very unpleasant things that Yahweh endorsed.

The book that others around me had refereed to as "their moral guide" essentially ordered me to murder my closest friends.
I literally threw up after realizing this.

After that I didn't see the Bible as being 'sacred' and beyond criticism, and so I started hearing many of the criticisms about said book and how little sense it made.

Endorsement of slavery - yes, common practice everywhere at the time... there were no jails or police. But if a slave ran away from his master, he was not to be returned. Also it was not allowed to capture (steal) anybody in order to enslave them - this was actually punishable by death. The only cases where slavery was allowed were:
1. A (non-Hebrew) slave born in slavery.
2. A thief unable to repay his victim.
3. A Hebrew unable to pay his debts, could sell himself into slavery, but all Hebrew slaves had to be freed after 7 years (unless he chose otherwise).
Killing people of other faiths? - Not true. The only people who were to be driven from the land (the exact same punishment that the Israelites themselves were threatened with if they were unfaithful to God) were the Canaanites. They were not driven out because of belonging to another religion, but because their "religion" included practices like killing their own children (sacrificing them). It was because of these practices that they were being punished.
Killing homosexuals? - Not true... it was forbidden to do, but not punishable by death.
Killing witches? - Yes and no. The "witches" mentioned in the Bible were definitely not Wiccans.
Rape was punishable by death, never endorsed!
Genocide? - No (unless you mean driving the Canaanites from the land, mentioned above).
Murder of children was exactly why the Canaanites were driven from the land - definitely not endorsed by Yahweh.
You read things into the Bible that is not written there... moreover, the very "morals" that tells you murder is wrong is derived from this book, definitely not from "survival of the fittest".

[Genivaria]

Endorsement of slavery. Killing people of other faiths (which included my friends), killing homosexuals (which included my friends), killing witches (I had friends who are Wiccan), rape, genocide, murder of children among a number of other very unpleasant things that Yahweh endorsed.

The book that others around me had refereed to as "their moral guide" essentially ordered me to murder my closest friends.
I literally threw up after realizing this.

After that I didn't see the Bible as being 'sacred' and beyond criticism, and so I started hearing many of the criticisms about said book and how little sense it made.

Endorsement of slavery - yes, common practice everywhere at the time... there were no jails or police. But if a slave ran away from his master, he was not to be returned. Also it was not allowed to capture (steal) anybody in order to enslave them - this was actually punishable by death). The only cases where slavery was allowed were:
1. A (non-Hebrew) slave born in slavery.
2. A thief unable to repay his victim.
3. A Hebrew unable to pay his debts, could sell himself into slavery, but all Hebrew slaves had to be freed after 7 years (unless he chose otherwise).
Killing people of other faiths? - Not true. The only people who were to be driven from the land (the exact same punishment that the Israelites themselves were threatened with if they were unfaithful to God) were the Canaanites. They were not driven out because of belonging to another religion, but because their "religion" included practices like killing their own children (sacrificing them). It was because of these practices that they were being punished.
Killing homosexuals? - Not true... it was forbidden to do, but not punishable by death.
Killing witches? - Yes and no. The "witches" mentioned in the Bible were definitely not Wiccans.
Rape was punishable by death, never endorsed!
Genocide? - No (unless you mean driving the Canaanites from the land, mentioned above).
Murder of children was exactly why the Canaanites were driven from the land - definitely not endorsed by Yahweh.
You read things into the Bible that is not written there... moreover, the very "morals" that tells you murder is wrong is derived from this book, definitely not from "survival of the fittest".

I see you haven't read Leviticus.

[Rhodmhire]

I had a lot of questions about the divine and didn't get a whole lot of answers that I found intellectually satisfying.

So I pretty much quit trying to justify claims about the divine.

Sometimes I wonder if that was a wise decision.

[Tlaceceyaya]

I had a lot of questions about the divine and didn't get a whole lot of answers that I found intellectually satisfying.

So I pretty much quit trying to justify claims about the divine.

Sometimes I wonder if that was a wise decision.

It was.

[Rhodmhire]

I had a lot of questions about the divine and didn't get a whole lot of answers that I found intellectually satisfying.

So I pretty much quit trying to justify claims about the divine.

Sometimes I wonder if that was a wise decision.

It was.

From an intellectual standpoint, yes.

From a social standpoint and from a mental standpoint, though, I'm starting to feel like it was quite the opposite.

For myself, that is.

[Pilgrims]

Endorsement of slavery - yes, common practice everywhere at the time... there were no jails or police. But if a slave ran away from his master, he was not to be returned. Also it was not allowed to capture (steal) anybody in order to enslave them - this was actually punishable by death). The only cases where slavery was allowed were:
1. A (non-Hebrew) slave born in slavery.
2. A thief unable to repay his victim.
3. A Hebrew unable to pay his debts, could sell himself into slavery, but all Hebrew slaves had to be freed after 7 years (unless he chose otherwise).
Killing people of other faiths? - Not true. The only people who were to be driven from the land (the exact same punishment that the Israelites themselves were threatened with if they were unfaithful to God) were the Canaanites. They were not driven out because of belonging to another religion, but because their "religion" included practices like killing their own children (sacrificing them). It was because of these practices that they were being punished.
Killing homosexuals? - Not true... it was forbidden to do, but not punishable by death.
Killing witches? - Yes and no. The "witches" mentioned in the Bible were definitely not Wiccans.
Rape was punishable by death, never endorsed!
Genocide? - No (unless you mean driving the Canaanites from the land, mentioned above).
Murder of children was exactly why the Canaanites were driven from the land - definitely not endorsed by Yahweh.
You read things into the Bible that is not written there... moreover, the very "morals" that tells you murder is wrong is derived from this book, definitely not from "survival of the fittest".

I see you haven't read Leviticus.

I have read all of the Bible repeatedly (Leviticus included).

[Mosasauria]

I was raised Catholic for 13 years.
Then I realized that the church was a sham, Catholicism itself full of lies, and began to doubt whether Jesus Christ ever existed. Thus I became an Agnostic Deist.

It was not long afterwards, however, that I began to question religion in general, and questioned how I, one with a scientific mind, could believe in something with such little empirical evidence. Thus I became an Atheist.

[Divair]

It was.

From an intellectual standpoint, yes.

From a social standpoint and from a mental standpoint, though, I'm starting to feel like it was quite the opposite.

For myself, that is.

It's difficult from a social standpoint unless you live in Sweden.

[Bleckonia 2]

I asked questions about our universe. I was very curious as to how it began, how it works, etc.. I realized that "God did it" wasn't good enough for me, as I though that there was more to it than that. So I did some research into real science, and I found that it worked much better, and explained things much better. I then felt that the Old Testament (keep in mind that I'm ethnically Jewish) had too many contradictions and falsehoods, and I soon realized that since there is no evidence for God, then I should not believe in him.

[Bleckonia]

I asked questions about our universe. I was very curious as to how it began, how it works, etc.. I realized that "God did it" wasn't good enough for me, as I though that there was more to it than that. So I did some research into real science, and I found that it worked much better, and explained things much better. I then felt that the Old Testament (keep in mind that I'm ethnically Jewish) had too many contradictions and falsehoods, and I soon realized that since there is no evidence for God, then I should not believe in him.

[Genivaria]

I see you haven't read Leviticus.

I have read all of the Bible repeatedly (Leviticus included).

Then this should sound familiar to you.
Kill homosexuals.

"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

Killing of Non-Believers.

They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

1) If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

2) Suppose a man or woman among you, in one of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, has done evil in the sight of the LORD your God and has violated the covenant by serving other gods or by worshiping the sun, the moon, or any of the forces of heaven, which I have strictly forbidden. When you hear about it, investigate the matter thoroughly. If it is true that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, then that man or woman must be taken to the gates of the town and stoned to death. (Deuteronomy 17:2-5 NLT)

Slavery.

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

Rape.

If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.(Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB)

They must be dividing the spoils they took: there must be a damsel or two for each man, Spoils of dyed cloth as Sisera's spoil, an ornate shawl or two for me in the spoil. (Judges 5:30 NAB)

You read things into the Bible that is not written there

O rly?

[Condunum]

God dun it.