So, why don't you believe in God?

[Storm]

Very long story made very short.


Also I guess a huge factor would be that for the first 17 years of my life my mother was abusive to me and my siblings.
I would just close my eyes and pray.
Once I stopped praying everything ended up getting better.

:hug:

Been there. Here if you want to talk.

 

[jelly]

I mean, what is your story.

I am not interested in the "there is no evidence of god"-argument, I am interested in how you came to view the world the way you do.
Where you born in a non-religious family or did you make a conscious choice later on?

I was born an atheist into a catholic family and was deconverted from my atheism through ritual indoctrination until I became an unsure ignostic.

 

[Warren Clark]

:hug:

Been there. Here if you want to talk.

Aw thank you.
Yeah my aunt was telling me I had no room to make jokes about God since I don't believe, and I went on a rant... and it all came up. lol

2nd anniversary since our departure from hell. X)

 

[CaptainBritain]

Well imho, Gods and magic are the most simplistic excuses ignorant primatives have ever imagined as an explanation for anything.

Thats the short version.

 

[Oneatatime]

I mean, what is your story.

I am not interested in the "there is no evidence of god"-argument, I am interested in how you came to view the world the way you do.
Where you born in a non-religious family or did you make a conscious choice later on?

I was raised by religious parents and was made to to go Church until the age of 10. From as young as I can remember I never believed in God, prayer felt like a waste of time, Bible stories of miracles were clearly nonsense, and the whole thing was deeply boring.

I guess I was just naturally skeptical which when coupled with a young interest in science religion didn't have much of a chance.

 

[Koldaramor]

I was born as an atheist.

Like everyone else, I was a theist pressure. Each time, I was saying something wrong. I started to work for a living. Theology, history, sociology, philosophy, politics, documentary, I was curious. I asked why you've found the free time.

Why God created people.
Why God needs people to worship.
Why in the world so unfair.
Why God does not interfere in the bad events.
Why has the theory of evolution.
Why does not evidence of God.
Why is creating the evil god.
Why do some of the world's hungry, some people very rich.
etc etc

I left selfishness. Now I am a positive atheist. The right thing.

 

[pururun]

i live in a religious country (which most of the population choose Islam as their religion) and was raised in a faithfull moslem family. but i viewed religion as daily routine, something i must follow without doubt. i wasn't a faithfull person that time.

during my high school, i joined a religious discussion group. the group taught me to view religion using rational viewpoint, i learned that God creates the universe, because God is the first cause. i learned that life isn't determined by god but it's determined by human action and the surroundings. how good deeds will make the better world, etc. i began to understand that my life should be devoted to do good deeds and to worship God.

when i went into college, i thought to learn more. i was reconsidering my belief. i asked myself how did i believe in my religion, if my religion is true, how i could trace & verify this to God. came out without answer, i asked further about God existence. i read some books and discussion thread about God's existence. i learned that many can cause the universe to exist, not necessarily God. for example i considered that universe is like what's shown in last scene of MIB and there might be other possibilities. but i'm not there yet. it's something i can't reach. because of this i realized i'm an agnostic.

Because i was once a faithfull believer,sometimes i find myself feel the fear of hell. so i view my life as a gamble (pascal wager). i feel obliged to learn more about religious beliefs and find the truth until my end of life.

 

[9Westy9]

After going to uni I started to encounter better arguments both for and against the existence of god. Eventually I decided that I couldn't justify a belief in God any more.

 

[455SinceFriday]

I don't believe in the God that is presented to me. But God can still be. I heard of a master teaching two young students how to draw a straight line, the master showed one student a line that was zig zag and told him it was straight. The other student was shown a straight line and told it was straight. He brought the students together. He then asked them to draw a straight line, they did exactly as they were taught and assumed true. Both students began to argue on who was correct. The master spoke up and said "You both are correct."

 

[jarofthoughts]

I mean, what is your story.

I am not interested in the "there is no evidence of god"-argument, I am interested in how you came to view the world the way you do.
Where you born in a non-religious family or did you make a conscious choice later on?

I was born in Norway, which, as you know, is a very secular country to begin with.
And neither my mother nor my father were religious.
In fact, the only one in my family that I can recall being actively religious was my grandmother on my father's side.

I don't remember ever having believed in a god or gods, although religion has fascinated my, first because of the narrative (angels, demons, miracles),
which I read more or less as if they were fantasy stories, then after a while because I wanted to figure out what and why all these people around the
globe actually thought about the world.

I suspect I have been an atheist all my life, although I didn't bother much with it until my late teens.
As mentioned, Norway is a very secular country, and religion is rarely in your face.
But once I started paying more attention to the world around me (that is, not going to parties and not constantly desperately trying, and usually failing,
to get laid) my stance on the matter solidified more.
Nowadays I consider myself an empiricist first and foremost, which naturally leads to me being an atheist as a consequence, although that also means
that I can come down just as hard on things like crystal healing and so called psychics as I do theists.

 

[atDissenter]

I was raised by parents who had no religion. As a consequence, I grew up with no need for these type of "elaborate (religious) decorations."

That's not to say I don't "decorate" my life in some fashion. I do. Mine just happens to be art, reading, music... I miss nothing.

 

[LuisDantas]

I guess I simply observed how the world worked and came to conclude that it in no way seemed to be guided by a higher power.

I also noticed that while people around me, including by blood family, often spoke of this "God", they did not seem to have either much of a belief in his existence nor much of a reason to. It really looked more like they agreed to pretend to believe in rare rituals of support.

Quite gradually I realized that it turns out that I take the matter of belief more seriously than they did, enough so to desire to have a clear stance on the matter. So I began calling myself agnostic, then atheist.

Far more recently (2007 or so) I came to realize that my family was only nominally religious, and that many believers are far more incisive about their beliefs. Which, frankly, came as a shock. It was hard enough to accept that the make-belief faith of my relatives was something to stay.

 

[futilethewinds]

There are so many reasons. The first one which convinced me was simply that God seemed like all kinds of things (the Tooth Fairy, Santa, the Loch Ness Monster) that I knew did not exist. So I figured God was like those things and also did not exist. I was 8 at the time.

 

[ChrisPine]

Produced the decision to discard the concept of God to me, opposed to actually living in a radiating way and the way that I perceive through my decision and bear some reflection combined with experience in the place later dropped. I just just how much things actually, in the light of something (In either case, when indicating the opposite), I can not dispute the absolute form of God may not theism over a long period of ascribing. Until this time, when I first life began for me, I had no concept of what God As a result, now that fits him and reflected back.

 

[TommyDar]

For me it was realizing that I didn't need Odin, Zeus, etc. to live a full and meaningful life.

Then it was realizing that logically, if those "gods" didn't exist, then it wouldn't make sense that Allah existed.

 

[futilethewinds]

My mother and father were both agnostic as I was growing up. They sent me to an Episcopalian church until I was about 8. My biological father sent me to the Worldwide Church of God, which was pretty much a cult, while he was alive. The church is no longer called that. They rebranded. I don't think he ever really believed, either, I think he was just using religion to control me.

I never believed in God, but I tried very hard to. It was just too silly for me. This invisible all-powerful guy in the sky? Come on. Not to mention bible stories, like Jonah and the Whale. That's just goofy.

 

[jonman122]

My mother was Roman Catholic and my Dad was Agnostic as I grew up, but I never really even thought of the "non existence of god" until I was about 16 years old. Since everyone in the community I was in believed in god in some way or another, it was just the normal thing I guess. But When I was 16 my dad showed me some books by some guy named Carlos Castenada, I read them all because they were still excellent stories and while his ideas are also a little farfetched I realized they were entirely as plausible as the idea of god. Once I saw this correlation, I did the research for myself and found and watched debates by, initially, Richard Dawkins, and then Christopher Hitchens. With all of the evidence I ended up collecting, I came to the conclusion that there was no practical reason for a belief in god, nor even a spiritual reason. You can still be "spiritually" active and have no belief in a god whatsoever I suppose and all of this culminated in to me not believing in any gods.

It's weird because I never really thought about how I came about being an Atheist, it was interesting putting it all in order in my head.

 

[StarryNightshade]

I should say I'm more of an agnostic/semi-Ignostic, rather than an atheist.

I was raised Southern Baptist and 100% believed in it until around the age of 10. I drifted in and out of doubt until I became an atheist at 13. Before I became an atheist, I expressed an interest in Judaism (and actually wanted to convert) and the only exposure to Buddhism was my moms, half-Japanese friends mother. Who, I believe, was Zen.

After a year into college, I became more of an agnostic and began exploring religion again. This included Judaism (again), Islam, Baha'i, Unitarian Universalism (which is the church I currently attend),Taoism, Confucianism, etc. Around my sophomore year, I read up on Buddhism and began studying. Now I consider myself a Buddhist who also takes some inspiration from Hinduism.

As for God, I view "him" as a philosophy. A "ground of being" of sorts. However, as far as whether or not a literal being exists? I don't think there is enough evidence to prove or disprove such a thing one way or another. So I supoose that the atheism vs. theism debate is a bit moot. Even though, admittingly, I have partaken in a few myself.

 

[Jeremiah]

I mean, what is your story.

I am not interested in the "there is no evidence of god"-argument, I am interested in how you came to view the world the way you do.
Where you born in a non-religious family or did you make a conscious choice later on?

I have never been given a good reason to believe in gods and it really is as simple as that.

To be honest, as a kid it never occurred to me that some people actually thought gods were real. I had always regraded them as a fairy tale, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. My earliest impression of gods that I can remember was the movie Clash of the Titans. I did not go to church much but every now and than we'd go with my grandma. I never really gave any thought to the meaning of church, I was just there hanging out with my grandma.

Than one day it just clicked and I suddenly realized that this Sunday School teacher actually thought this stuff was real. And I looked at her like she was crazy.

I also did about the same thing with my Elementary school teacher. When he started to talk about the solar system as if it was real, I looked at the guy like he was a madmen.

I mean I was exposed this stuff all my life, but I just did not think about gods and other planets much at all. I was too busy climbing trees, baking mud pies and catching frogs.

But what ended up happening, is that the Elementary school teacher backed up his wild claims with facts and logic while the Sunday School teacher never did. So the school actually gave me reason to believe this wild story of other planets being real; the church however never give me any reason to believe their god was real.

And from there I did not have much interest in religion, but I did become very interested in Science up through High School. That interest has since died though.

I have always had extremely skeptical mindset, it is just the way I am.

 

[futilethewinds]

I was raised part Episcopalian, part Worldwide Church of God, but I must confess I don't think any of my parents really believed. I mean, I don't know about my biological father. He might have believed in God. But I don't think he really subscribed to the doctrine of the Worldwide Church of God, I think he was just using it to control me. And my other two parents, my mom and functional father, sent me to an Episcopalian church just in case they ever got into a custody fight with my biological father. They wanted a judge to see that they were sending me to a mainstream, sane church, as opposed to his ******* insane one. My mother is now an atheist and my father is agnostic.

So, I don't know how to answer the part of the question where you asked whether my parents were nonreligious. They traveled their own path. I traveled mine. I never really believed in God or any religion, and I still don't to this day. I tried really hard to believe, I just couldn't. God seemed equally silly as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.