A question for Athiest/Agnostic/humanistic types...

[fujiyama]

This is especially for those that were raised in religious households...Though, it would be interesting to hear from those raised in non religious households as well.

When did you lose your faith in God? Was it a specific incident? I was sparked to ask this question because of another thread in GD about God.

I myself can't think of one specific incident, but I think it was around 7 or so where I started questioning the existence of God. It was right around the time my grandfather died, and I wondered why good people would die. Death (and moreover the pain it causes for others) I suppose is a major reason for many to question God's existence at a younger age. Of course, when you're older, you understand disease and the natural cycle of all living creatures.

Another major thing that caused me to question it all was science. While the two (God and science) weren't necessarily directly in conflict, it seemed less likely to believe in a reason for God's existence (especially when looking into evolution, etc).

[toddzilla]

1. i don't remember ever actually questioning the existence..

maybe it was growing up in a severely dysfunctional family, or watching my mother get beaten on a regular basis.. i can't honestly say i've ever believed in god on any level.. and i went to catholic school up until the 8th grade. mass was just another thing you did, but never really put any thought into it.. i was an altar boy a few times, but it's all just a fucking racket like everything else and i think i basically always knew it.

[mopinko]

2. i was raised a catholic

but my father was an alcoholic. there were 7 of us, cuz the church said so. so that looked stupid at an early age. i think i was in 8th grade when a friend's mom, who had 14 kids, had to petition the bishop to get a hysterectomy that her docs said she HAD to have. that was when i knew the church was f'ed.
when i was a junior in catholic high school, i took a class called comparative religions. when i realized that every civilization had a god/gods that matched their cultures, i realized people were looking in the mirror, and talking to themselves.

[Mojambo]

3. It's odd, I can't recall EVER believing in god.

Not even as a small child. I come from a pretty non-religious household though so that's probably why. Then again my brother considers himself a non-churchgoing christian so I'm not sure.

The earliest memory I have of rejecting religion was when I was 6 or 7 and spending 2 weeks with my relatives. They were regular church goers and when they took me with I just flat out didn't dig the whole experience. I found it intimidating and uncomfortable. It's a very sharp memory for me.

[qazplm]

4. agnostic here

I dont think I EVER believed in what everyone else seemed to take on faith.

I had too many questions even as a child, and no one could give me anything close to a satisfying answer.

There were no real events, I cannot remember a time when I believed in God...although I have never been an atheist either...I simply didnt know, and I didnt ever get the feeling that anyone else had it figured out either.

I still havent lol thus why I am still agnostic.

[BigMcLargehuge]

5. I never had faith in anything other than my mom or dad

They tried the church thing when I was a kid, but I realized pretty quickly that many of the stories in Sunday school were very similar to the Grimms Fairy Tales and Aesop's fables I'd read when I was 4. You know, tips for living (and in the case of Grimm's: not being eaten).

I thought of Jesus then like the fox in the Fox and the Grapes fable. An illustration, or allegory, of how men should behave, and by virtue of the circumstances of his death, how men shouldn't.

I sat down with my parents after dinner one night and started asking questions. They were both raised Roman Catholic, and happily engaged my 8 year old sense of understanding, but never insisted I believe in any specific diety. They maintained that it was probably better to just try and be a good person than to work hard to adhere to rules and tenets that do not reflect the reality of modern life.

When they asked if I believed in "God", I answered, "No."

They asked why. I asked them why they did.

Neither could answer.

So, I'm atheist.

Hope that helps.

[Fenris]

6. God conflicted with my belief in science

In my case, I learned about the universe in scientific terms at a young age. My parents were not religious, and it was never discussed. When I grew older I began to hear others talk about their religion and everything that God supposedly did. It didn't even occur to me that an invisible man in the sky could be the cause of everything. It seemed like such a foreign idea. But I tried. I read the Bible to the end. But in the end, I couldn't except it. It was illogical. It was irrational. It was chaotic. It wasn't provable.

In the end, the universe of process and scientific order won out over the Hebrew sky-god.

[Nlighten1]

37. Same here.

[TXlib]

7. I can't remember ever believing in God

[Ohio Dem]

8. "The dinosaur bones are a test" did it for me.

At least, it got me thinking. At the very least, it turned me off on "religion."

And all of a sudden one day in high school, I started thinking about it. It didn't make any sense to me that Christianity is more right than Islam or any of the others. Then there's Classic Mythology, which is obviously fiction. But a guy getting swallowed by a fish and living in there for a few days is reasonable? A burning bush spouting commands? Two of every animal on one 150-yard long boat? Etc, etc. I believe the Bible is mostly our mythology. I say "mostly" because I'm sure there is some historical fact in there. You know, like Paul wrote a bunch of letters. I'm sure he did. It's the content that I don't believe.

I don't know about the existance or nonexistance of a higher power (how could I know?) I tend to think not, but I guess I'm an agnostic.

edited because I used the normal html brackets for my italics and not the square ones

[Ramsey]

9. Religion

I was raised in a protestant family, and we attended church consistently, except for my dad. He was an intellectual and I think consequently rarely went to church with the family, although he didn't challenge my mom about taking us. Being raised an Episcopalian, I look back and find our church was fairly liberal compared to others I am aware of now.

I was allowed to stop going to church in middle school. I argued that since dad chose not to go, I could also choose not to go and still not be a bad person. My dad and I would watch Star Trek together on Sunday morning while my mom took my siblings to church. Neither of them participates in any organized religion today, although my sister belongs to a very liberal non-denominational peace and charity group.

I found church to be overly rigid. There I was obligated to chant the same meaningless words that I didn't believe in week after week, across the aisle from people who treated me and my family like crap all week only to act phony-nice to us at church.

I was destined to be a scientist, and religion just didn't make sense to me. I came to understand that organized religions were established by men to subjugate other men, through fear and wonder. None of it was particularly intellectual. The story of Jesus as saviour to mankind to stop the blood sacrifices that preceded him struck me as a particularly cynical manipulation of people. What I am drawn to is the person of Jesus, his actions, his teachings. As a role model, he rocks. As a messiah, he leaves me uninterested and wary.

I strongly believe that if there is a higher being in this universe, a concept I am highly willing to consider, that such a being by definition would be enlightened, beyond the capacity of the human race to comprehend. Such a being would NEVER require us lowly beings to gather together to worship him/her/it on bended knee. The whole premise is totally illogical. The concept of worship embodies a selfish and egotistical deity, which a truly enlightened god would not.

In the end, it wasn't the specific religion I was raised to believe in that turned me off of religion. It was a combination of the obvious hypocrisy of organized religion, its historical role in manipulating people's sensibilities, and my burgeoning faith in science that led me down the path of agnosticism.

[No2W2004]

10. As an Agnostic,

I can say it's the only comfortable fit for me. I will never tell anyone else, "I know" as in "Here's what god is" or "This is how one gets to heaven." The truth is that no one can know unless one has died. Since dead people aren't in the habit of sending reports from wherever they might be, (sorry John Edward, piece of shit that you are!) one can't say "There IS a god" and one also can't say "There IS NO god". It's beyond all understanding, all knowledge, and all study. So, I just let it be, and not spend my time worrying about it. I envy those who let their faith carry them through troubled times, as it must be a great comfort. For myself, I'd rather learn something from my troubles, so as to avoid them in the future.

To those who believe in god, afterlife, spirits, peace be with you.

To those who don't, peace also be with you.

As for me, it's not my way to impose my beliefs on any other person, and I resent anyone trying to shove their beliefs on me.

[cosmicaug]

11. It was gradual.

fujiyama wrote:

When did you lose your faith in God?

It was so gradual I never noticed exactly when I crossed that line. I know by 14 I was telling myself I was going to church "for the wisdom" aspect of it. Of course, the shit pretty much repeats every damn year so there's only so much wisdom there to be had so, needless to say, I don't go to church any more (in fact, I find attendance to religious services deleterious to my religious tolerance*).

fujiyama wrote:

Another major thing that caused me to question it all was science.

While there's absolutely nothing in science that precludes a god or gods (because gods are incredibly elastic concepts and the gaps for the them can be made as big as you want them to be), I eventually came to the realization that there's absolutely nothing concrete that hints to the existence of such things.

* What I mean to say is that despite the fact that I'm fairly tolerant of everyone else's religions (though, I do like to rag on Scientologist now and then --but their leadership has traditionally been just plain mean so I don't feel bad about that), I reach a point when I can't help but become very cynical and ask myself whether the officiating minister can really truly believe the crap being said --this is particularly bad at funerals (where the whole tone of the thing is like they're addressing 5 year olds).

[WindRavenX]

12. I've just never "felt" God

I've always busied myself with science, and I thought that science was divine- even though the processes were things that were complex and hard to understand, they could be seen.
I distinctly remember having a moment when I felt overwhelmed with the magnitude of life once I grasped the complexities of DNA...once I understood DNA, I was never the same.

[amerikat]

13. Our church sent a mailing stating how much $ each family gave

to the church for the year. I was 10 or 11 and I knew that was so wrong. I knew The family at the bottom of the list. They lived a few doors down the street from our house. They had a hard life but were great people. The kids were always picked on after that disclosure. As far as I'm concerned the church owes them an apology. I considered the whole Idea of religion to be hypocritical at that time. And I still do.

PS. The family gave $.10/week.....$5.20 for the year.
the family at the top gave $100.00/week. I always thought it was ironic that the $100 people were more respected that they had a hundred bucks to blow and the other family lost a loaf of bread to make their 10 cent offering. enough said.

[fujiyama]

23. WOW

That is so terrible. It makes you wonder how many churches are like that out there -- just for the money.

I remember reading that if the Mormon Church were a corporation, it would rank somewhere around Pepsi Co in revenue. This isn't to rip on the Mormon Church in particular, for I could only imagine where other denominations are (like the Catholic Church).

[AntiCoup2K4]

33. The Mormon Church IS a corporation.

Any Mormon publication copyright disclaimer contains the following : Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

[DifferentStrokes]

40. Ever hear of the widow's mite?

KJV Luk 20:45 Then in the audience of all the people he said unto his disciples,

46 Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love
greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues,
and the chief rooms at feasts;

47 Which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers:
the same shall receive greater damnation.

KJV Luke 21:1 And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their
gifts into the treasury.

2 And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.

3 And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath
cast in more than they all:

4 For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of
God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.

------
Hard to think of a worse argument for atheism and against religion. But that's the logic of a 10 year old.

[lazarus]

14. The more I learned

Both from reading the Bible and from learning actual knowledge, i.e. science, the less I believed.

I was just going through the motions, fooling even myself, until I left high school.

Then I played semantic games with myself for a few years. I was an "agnostic", which isn't a position, but a modifier. It's like calling yourself a "yellow".

Once I realised the binary nature of belief, I was able to admit I'm an atheist.

It's easy. One believes in (one or many) god(s), or one doesn't. If one doesn't, one's an atheist.

Agnostic means "without knowledge". One can easily be an agnostic Christian or deist, or an agnostic atheist. Agnostic is merely a descripor.

It's the difference between saying:

Agnostic (soft) atheist: "I do not believe in god."

Gnostic (hard) atheist: "I know there is no god."

[No2W2004]

16. Ok,

Agnostic means "without knowledge". One can easily be an agnostic Christian or deist, or an agnostic atheist. Agnostic is merely a descripor.
It's the difference between saying:
Agnostic (soft) atheist: "I do not believe in god."
Gnostic (hard) atheist: "I know there is no god."


Now, the way I have understood things, to be a deist, one must have faith in god. So, how can one say "I don't know" and still be a deist?

As a gnostic, how do you know there is no god? What is your experience? How have you studied, researched, and come up with your conclusion?

As an Agnostic, I don't say "I do not believe in god", nor do I say "I believe in god". I do say one can't prove the existence, or the non existence of any deity, thus it's out of my realm of understanding.
That's where "without knowledge" comes in. That knowledge is impossible to know.

[lazarus]

19. easy

One can say that one has faith in god's existence, without claiming to know for a fact that he exists. (IOW, be able to prove it.)

It may be out of your realm of understanding, but you still either believe or you don't. You can have a lack of belief and still be agnostic; indeed, most atheists are agnostic. Gnostic or hard atheism is hard to support. (I'm a hard atheist, btw, and I acknowledge it's a long, complicated process to demonstrate why I feel I can state there is no god or gods as defined by current society.)

I believe there is life on other planets, but I don't know either way. Some people believe there isn't life on other planets.

These are two completely different questions:

1. Do you believe in god?
2. Does god exist?

It's perfectly rational to say yes to the first, and "I don't know" to the second (at least, as rational as any belief in the supernatural is.)

Similarly, it's perfectly rational to say no to the first, and "I don't know" to the second.

The first question determines if you're a theist or atheist. The second determines if you're an agnostic or agnostic type of either theist or atheist.

[No2W2004]

24. interesting points,

What is faith? How can one say they have faith, but then say they don't know? Doesn't faith entail belief?

I can say "there must be life on other planets, due to the sheer numbers involved. It seems silly to say that out of billions of planets, the only one to hold life is this one." Of course, I can't go to these other planets and find out for sure, but only can say that it's the logical conclusion.

How can one come up with a logical conclusion that god exist? In my opinion, it can't be done, thus it requires a leap of faith.

[lazarus]

26. I agree

But some people insist they can "prove" god exists.

The proofs are invariably flawed logical constructs, or self-referential (i.e. God exists because the Bible says so, and the Bible's right, because God wrote it, and he's perfect).

Also, scientists are still torn about the "life on other planets" bit. Yes, the odds seem strong that life does exist, but then, we have no idea what parameters that life requires. That we can tell, life can only exist in a frighteningly specific mix of environment, orbit, heat, chemistry, etc. If the earth were closer or further from the Sun, IOW, the whole thing might not have started. We just don't know.

But we can believe. :D

[asthmaticeog]

21. correction

To be a Deist, one need have no faith in god. The "god" of Deism is entirely impersonal, and is considered by some Deists to be literal, but by others to be a metaphor for a natural, non-natural or supernatural Prime Mover that may or may not still exist. Knowledge of or faith in an extant god is unnecessary for one to profess Deism.

[No2W2004]

22. I guess I'm missing a point here,

My understanding of "religion" and deism insist that there be faith. Maybe not faith in a big man with a white flowing beard dressed in robes, but faith none the less. Faith in something more that this life.

Faith, to me anyway, separates those who consider themselves religious and those who don't.

[Kenneth ken]

15. I never had any faith to lose n/t

[asthmaticeog]

17. Around my Bar Mitzvah

Though I can't remember a time that I ever took the divinity concept seriously as fact, it was around my Bar Mitzvah (age 13 for those among you who don't grok Judaism) that I came to understand I was an atheist. Not too long after, at age 16, when I visited the Holy Land and saw with my own two eyes how massively and unnecessarily fucked-up such an inarguably beautiful (seriously, if you ever get a chance and have serious courage and/or a death wish, GO! OMFG, it's incredible over there) and important place as the Middle East is because of religion (and this was in early '86, before the Intifada, mind you - it could have been WAY worse had I gone a year later), I felt validated in my non-belief. I've been a prosletyzing atheist ever since, and I've actually converted a couple of once-religious friends to rationalism. If only I were gay instead of an atheist - I sure could use a new toaster.

[devilgrrl]

18. I lost faith when I noticed that most of the kids that attended...

religious schools were some of the biggest most sadistic assholes in the neighborhood. I thought it was all about do unto others... :wtf:

[neoteric lefty]

20. I never fully bought into the idea of Christianity...

but I started to understand my true feelings sometime in high school. I try not to be one of those atheists that belittle religious people. God is a good thing and has cause many people to do great things. I don't believe that a God can possibly exist while still allowing us (all creatures) to be free. But to each, there own as long as respect and understanding is given to all.

[LiberalManiacfromOC]

25. Agnostic. I stopped believing in any formal religion two years ago.

My dad cheated on my mom and think went from great to shitty. At that point I just asked myself "IF God is so wonderful why would he do this to my family?" I thought about it and I figured that God and satan are like one in the same. Like, for example, God is Schitzofrenic. So the forming of the christian religion was God speaking to some lady (while in "satanic mode") and telling her she was a virgin and then telling the son she gave birth to that he was the lord and savior. So wars, pain, and death proceded the creating of that religion and satan was happy with a job well done. That's my thoughts and faith basically. (I believe in a heaven but I think you get reincarnated until "you don't screw up your lifetime.")

[no_hypocrisy]

27. Yom Kippur. In synagogue. During the sermon part.

Yeah, I know it's melodramatic with the setting and it being the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

But I was sitting there, thinking, this is bullshit. I honestly don't believe I've "sinned". I've made mistakes and apologized and/or made restitution for 98% of them. I'm human. I'm flawed but my problems are with other people, not with God.

Which brought me to my next epiphany. There is no God. Nobody is listening when you pray. You have your conscience and that's it.

And the Old Testament was tantamount to fairy tales. Good lessons like Aesop's Fables but not true.

And furthermore, I realized that Israel was an imperialist occupier of the West Bank and was illegally squatting. The question of Israel's existence itself was open for debate too.

So with those issues on the table, I decided it would be hypocritical to continue with the charade of claiming to be Jewish (with the exception of ethnically; you can't change your ancestors) when I decided to denounce the whole package.

Two years later, I discovered the American Humanists. Then the Ethical Culture Society. And finally Freedom from Religion. I don't prefer one group above the rest. They make good points.

[Misunderestimator]

28. For me no single thing, but an oversaturation of religion...

forced onto me as a child. My father, who was quite religious, took us through many different denominations. Episcopal, then Presbyterian, Methodist, Church of Christ among others... and we read the bible as a family nightly.

And the effect was that I learned Christianity deeply and saw all the angles of the denominations, and found a lot of hypocrisy. By the time I left home I no longer believed in it all.

Interestingly, my father ended up agnostic as well in the end (and he turned into a Democrat too). Go figure. :shrug:

[Jokerman]

29. I was raised an atheist, and I'll die an atheist.

Cracks me up when some fundie wants to talk to me about why I've "lost my faith".

[Skittles]

30. none of my prayers as a child were ever answered

and I never prayed for myself.

[LWolf]

31. I never lost my faith in "God."

I just never had any faith in the traditional definition of "God." I always defined "God" differently.

I was raised by a Buddhist, who also sent me to Sunday School every once in a while.

[trof]

32. Mid teens?

I was raised in a Christian household and still subscribe to many of their beliefs.
Do unto others, etc.
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) was a fairly liberal, unstuffy, non-dogmatic, relatively non-prohibitive church as I remember it.

I was pretty much a believer when I was a little kid and did my "Now I lay Me...and bless grandpa and granny" every night, went to Sunday School most Sundays, and church with mom, granny, and grandpa when I was old enough. Grandpa was a deacon, passed the plates for offerings and communion.

My disillusionment began when I was 15 or 16. We had a fun bunch in our Sunday School class and also met every Sunday night for Christian Youth Fellowship. Played basketball or shuffleboard, talked to girls, ate supper. Afterwards we'd have a roundtable discussion about whatever came up.

One night the discussion centered on Jesus Christ as a person. Not as the Son of God, just as a Nazarene during that time in the past. Stupid me asked how we knew that this person actually existed. I wasn't being smart alecky, just asking.
Oh dear. Most of the rest of the group came down on me like a ton of bricks. How could I even ask such a question? Blasphemy. Heretic. I'm looking for some answers and this is evidently not the place to find them.

That was the beginning of the end of my belief. Over the years I've just seen and read and heard things that have convinced me that all religions are fairy tales. Miz t. is a believer, and we just agree to disagree.

[slutticus]

34. When I was a freshman in college...

...It happened kind of sudden, I was raised Catholic.....I haven't told my family yet (it's been 10 years)

In our society coming out as an atheist is the other "coming out of the closet"

[trof]

35. "coming out" - same here.

Several years ago I told my great-aunt, who I loved and who loved me very much. She was in her 70s and talking about some upcoming church function.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I thought "Now why the hell did I say that?"
She grieved for days.

[Gothic Sponge]

36. I'm agnostic

I've always questioned the existence of "god." As a kid, it was no different than Santa or the Easter bunny. I was very turned off by the people i knew that hailed themselves to be very religious. All of them were racists!

[GiovanniC]

38. I Remember Learning in School

About Ra and Isis, Zeus and Prometheus, et al. and it kind of struck me. Back then, they believed in these gods the same way most of society believes in God, Jesus, Allah, Yahweh or whatever. Now we think of how silly that all seems.

I wondered, in two or three thousand years, if our descendents won't look at us and think us ignorant and gullible.

Cultures have created gods to explain the things they could not explain. The sun and stars and fire and nature used to be unexplainable things, and the gods were created to explain them.

Today, the things we can't completely explain -- life, death, the meaning of life, hope, and how it all began -- are explained by God. Is it that much different than those who, thousands of years ago, explained the sun as being a burning chariot racing across the sky?

[NNadir]

39. Several things stand out in my mind.

I think the most important were the religious arguments my father, something of a fundie, had with his sister-in-law, my aunt, a Jehovah's witness, over the meaning of bible passages. It turned out that they each had differing translations of the bible.

My mother, a very devout Episcopalian (that is NOT an oxymoron), once berated me for praying for a good grade in school (I was in elementary school). I hadn't studied and she yelled at me and said that prayer wouldn't help me but studying would. She was right, of course, but it made me question her constant appeal to prayer in other cases.

[Az]

41. Born atheist and stayed that way, but I do remember when

I first realised I was different from a lot of other people. It was a Boyscout event. We were at a weekend camp. Saturday night we spent at an observatory looking at the stars and planets. This was and is my idea of spiritual. The next day we were waken and made to attend a mass. I was raised religion zero so this was quite a shock to me. It was a dead experience for me. There was no connection of value to the ceremony to me. I did not get what others were getting out of it. It was my last scouting experience and the awakening of my understanding that I believed something different from most other people.

I have since come to understand the connectivity others recieve in such events. Such things still do not move me. The services and spirituality I crave involve people communicating with one another or exploring the universe.

[Donkeyboy75]

42. I guess I've always been that way.

I'm an agnostic. I think athiests who insist there is no God are as bad as fundies who insist "He" exists. There simply isn't enough proof either way. But I don't think any religion has it right. I have always been a very logical person (which is probably why I'm now a scientist), and the Roman Catholicism I was raised with never made any sense to me at all. I also could never figure out why one religion was more correct than another. I have some fundie relatives who believe you will go to hell if you don't accept Jesus. But I can't imagine a God who would condemn people in Pakistan to hell just because they were never exposed to Christianity.

Other posts have mentioned how the Bible's stories and Greek mythology stories are equally silly. That's something I picked up on in about the 6th grade, and I think it's a great point.