Hello Guys.
I had a question in mind for atheists and agnostics.
It is said that if a child left to grow alone with his set of beliefs, he would grow up to believe in the existence of God.
In addition, most of your parents weren't atheists nor agnostics.
So my question is, what are the things that made you become atheist/agnostic.
The very first moment that you have decided on this subject, what was before that?
Appreciate your responses.
Firstly, I think the quotation you use simply isn't true. While human history indicates that people have a tendency to believe in God, and studies have suggested that our brains kind of lean upon the notion of God as an explanatory framework in lieu of better explanation, I don't think it is true to say that a person, left to their own devices, will
always grow up to believe in a God. It's certainly not true these days.
For me personally, I was raised by a father from a Catholic family and a mother from a Protestant family, but both of my parents grew up to reject both systems of belief and came to be atheists. However, they did not "raise" me as an atheist. In fact, they sent me to a series of Christian nurseries and schools (mostly Catholic), and never really talked to me about what I should or shouldn't believe with regards to the spiritual world. As such, I'm not sure that there is a particular moment where I suddenly decided upon being an atheist rather than something else. I never really felt like I held an opposing view; I was just always an atheist, and eventually grew into referring to myself that way.
I do remember perhaps one of my earliest encounters with religious belief, however. I was attending a Christian nursery, so I must have been very, very young at the time, and I remember vaguely one of the teachers talking to us about various Christian beliefs - in particular about the afterlife and miracles. I don't remember my immediate reaction, but I remember going to my mum after nursery that day with a head full of all these amazing and bizarre teachings and asking her: "Mum, are we Christians?" She simply answered, "No."
Then I walked away, with a distinct feeling of relief.