When Did You Become a Non-Believer?

[The Seeker]

I went to church on a regular basis from the time I was a toddler until I was 18 and went away to college. I thought Sunday school was ok but thought church was very boring and often fell asleep during the sermons. I guess I first began to question Christianity when I couldn't figure out how dinosaurs fit into the story of genesis.

After going to college I never went to church on a regular basis but still believed in God. About 5 years ago I became interested in learning more about my religion and read parts of the Bible and other books about Christianity. All this did was make me question my beliefs even more and I slowly became a deist.

I became an agnostic after taking a college course that dealt with the philosophical arguments that claimed to prove the existence of God. During this class we read a book titled Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant by Greg Graffin and Preston Jones (I highly recommend this book). After reading it and finishing the course, I was pretty much convinced that the Christian God didn't exist. In my mind, the arguments against the existence of God were much stronger than the arguments for His existence.

So, at what point in your life did you lose your belief (if you ever had any) and what caused you to not believe?

 

[Willamena]

I became a non-believer sometime when I was very young, at a time when a Sunday School teacher explained to us that God is up in the clouds, watching us, every moment of everyday, spying on every single thing we did. I found the idea horrifying and it made me paranoid.

I'm no longer a non-believer, but I would still find the idea horrifying.

 

[Phasmid]

I've always believed since I was a child.

Then I drifted away from religion and God, but kept my belief... I just didn't do anything about it.

Then I went to college and a friend of mine lit that spark in me, which I had as a child and I began to practice Christianity and go to church.

Then I stopped the religious practice and just stuck with the belief.

And recently, like you, I've lost faith due to nagging questions like, "What's the point in dinosaurs?" "Weren't neanderthals just as likely to become the dominent species as us?" "Why's the universe so huge?" "Why doesn't the Bible make any sense?" "Why is there so much natural history?" etc.

At the moment I'm not sure what I believe. I'm just trying to behave rationally and stand on my own for a while. If there is a God then I'm willing and waiting... but I've tried to find Him and have mainly just hit more questions than answers. I can see both points of views... but I'm stuck in between.

 

[Wandered Off]

College for me. I was raised with a fundamentalist very literal interpretation of the Bible, and I had read it several times cover-to-cover. For some reason, though, I was afraid to read it critically. Then there was a Bible class at, ironically, the world's largest Baptist university where a professor pointed out the two creation stories and other inconsistencies along with speculation about why they existed. This wasn't Sunday School where the inconsistencies were glossed over or rationalized away as they had been in the churches of my youth, and that cracked the very foundation of my belief. Once that was gone, the rest followed quickly.

I became a rather bitter agnostic for a long time. The bitterness is mostly gone by now, and I have drifted among deism, theological non-realism, and atheism, with there being little practical difference among them.

 

[BucephalusBB]

Religion was only a small part in our family. Church was for me not a goal to God or something but just 2nd christmasday. I think I never believed or bothered but became conciously atheist when I was 16 or so.

 

[whereismynotecard]

I stopped believing in god when I was in eighth grade, so I would have been 13. Prior to that though, I never went to church or read the bible. My parents and relatives would always just casually mention god and those such things, and I therefore accepted them as true, since all of the grown ups talked about it just like it was truth.

Strangely enough, I stopped believing in god because I got obsessed with The X-Files, and Mulder didn't believe in god, and I thought, "That makes a whole lot of sense..."

 

[The Seeker]

College for me. I was raised with a fundamentalist very literal interpretation of the Bible, and I had read it several times cover-to-cover. For some reason, though, I was afraid to read it critically. Then there was a Bible class at, ironically, the world's largest Baptist university where a professor pointed out the two creation stories and other inconsistencies along with speculation about why they existed. This wasn't Sunday School where the inconsistencies were glossed over or rationalized away as they had been in the churches of my youth, and that cracked the very foundation of my belief. Once that was gone, the rest followed quickly.

I became a rather bitter agnostic for a long time. The bitterness is mostly gone by now, and I have drifted among deism, theological non-realism, and atheism, with there being little practical difference among them.

Sounds like we followed similar paths. I'm not sure if my mother believes everything in the Bible, but she raised me to believe that the 7 day creation and most stories in it were true. Although I had a lot of questions about the Bible I never really asked because I was too scared to question the preacher. Once I took my class on religion and really analyzed Christianity and the Bible, it didn't take long for me to dismiss it.

 

[Magic Man]

Mine was similar to yours, Phasmid's and Wandered Off's. I was raised Catholic by very open-minded parents. Once I hit about 17-18, I stopped going to church because I didn't feel like getting up. Soon, I really began to question things, just as many others do. I found that the big unanswerable questions left too much doubt, but didn't give it much thought for a long time. I considered myself nominally Catholic, but was really more agnostic. It was only when I came here that I consciously realized that I was an atheist. After being here for a while, my disbelief has only grown more firm.

 

[Father Heathen]

I became skeptical during my early teenage years. My conscience and rationale rejected the steaming load they were trying to feed me. Trying to swallow it just felt dishonest and self-deluding.

 

[Willamena]

This may or may not relate to your stories, but I have noticed that there are more than a few people in the world who don't know (or make) a difference between "literal" and "true".

 

[whereismynotecard]

This may or may not relate to your stories, but I have noticed that there are more than a few people in the world who don't know (or make) a difference between "literal" and "true".

She's talking about Hannah?

 

[Willamena]

She's talking about Hannah?

Who is??? *looks around*

 

[whereismynotecard]

Who is??? *looks around*

You??

 

[Willamena]

You??

*looks at herself* I don't think so!

 

[OutOfTime]

from ******* x-files? wow, and they say that tv doesn't influence people.

 

[whereismynotecard]

from ******* x-files? wow, and they say that tv doesn't influence people.

That wasn't the only reason, Jack... I didn't just say "Mulder doesn't believe in god? That's cool... me neither then."

I was saying that The X-Files made me consider all of the religious things that I had never thought about before, and I ended up agreeing with Mulder on that issue.

 

[whereismynotecard]

*looks at herself* I don't think so!

Okays. Never mind then.

 

[OutOfTime]

it's the same thing. it's called 'planting the seed'. it has to start from somewhere right?

 

[whereismynotecard]

it's the same thing. it's called 'planting the seed'. it has to start from somewhere right?

Who cares though? I would have arrived at the same conclusion, I'm sure, if I had never watched The X-Files. The only reason I didn't become an atheist sooner was because prior to 8th grade I never even thought about it.

 

[texan1]

Mine was similar to yours, Phasmid's and Wandered Off's. I was raised Catholic by very open-minded parents. Once I hit about 17-18, I stopped going to church because I didn't feel like getting up. Soon, I really began to question things, just as many others do. I found that the big unanswerable questions left too much doubt, but didn't give it much thought for a long time. I considered myself nominally Catholic, but was really more agnostic. It was only when I came here that I consciously realized that I was an atheist. After being here for a while, my disbelief has only grown more firm.

We all have similar stories. I was also raised Catholic by open-minded parents. When I started to question things rather than just simply accept them as true, nothing made sense any more. And a big thing for me was the anti-gay stuff. For anyone who has had any gay friends, it just seems so ridiculous. Homosexuality is not mentioned by Jesus and is not in the 10 commandments and yet some religious leaders seem to be so focused on it. There have even been people on this forum who indicated that you can't be gay and be Christian at the same time. Yet Adultery, Taking the Lords name in vain, and keeping the Sabbath ARE in the 10 commandments but don't seem to be a big deal. You can be divorced, skip church on Sunday, yell Goddammit when you stub your toe, but God forbid you are GAY!!! I just started to notice that Christians seem to pick and choose what to believe in, sometimes based on their own prejudices. And there are weird things in the Old Testament that would take years of study to figure out and justify....many people disregard it....so if some of it isn't relevant or true....maybe none of it is? And do you just have to hope you are born into the right religion in order to be saved? If the Muslims are worshipping the right God how unfair is it for someone who is raised in a Mormon church in Salt Lake City? Can you really blame them for not being Muslim?

But life for me is filled with such unexplainable beauty and I still felt God, I just felt that the Christian account of what God is wasn't right. And like others have mentioned I thought about how the Earth is just a tiny speck in the universe. Like one grain of sand on a huge beach. I find it hard to believe a God would make us so tiny and then worry about whether or not we believed in him or were worshipping him the right way. And why would he waste millions of years on dinosaurs? So then I started to wonder if there was a God at all. If there is I just think it is far beyond what we can comprehend. Since joining this forum my certainty that there is no personal God has been strengthened.

So I've kind of vacillated between agnostic and atheist. It truly is amazing that we are here and it is a wonder how it all began. I'd like to think there was a loving God behind it all, but I find it hard to believe. I feel content to accept it as a mystery, at least for now. DANG. I get long-winded when it's late.