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I am just curious how many atheists here came to your beliefs by being raised atheist or in a non-religious household, or how many people became atheist as a result of a religious upbringing??? OR any way in between or otherwise??My huband and I are pretty full-blown atheists, for me just being raised in more of an agnostic household, religion was not anything I was really exposed to until I Was much older, and just never made sense to me. Since I Was brought up without religion I always felt more objective I guess. I guess since my extended family was quite catholic - religion was always a negative thing in my life as well - which probably contributed to how I Feel about religion. When your own grandmother thinks you're not good enough because you don't go to church, but is pretty evil and conniving herself, well it doesn't really make you want to convert. My husband (and my dad actually) were brought up in pretty religious (Catholic) households. My husband swears Catholic School converted him away from Catholicism. The same happened with my dad. Anyway - my husband made the comment the other day that we should take our kids to church or something so they see how wrong religion is. It just made me laugh and I assured him they didn't have to learn the way he did. & yes - I Was just reading 'God Defiles Reason's' essay and that's what got my curiosity on the subject.So what about you?

12 Years of Catholic Schooling here!Then I took a look around at all the other ridiculous myths people believe and *whammo*...atheism.Mr. P. The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

So I just read preface to "Ethical Brain" and am thinking - "well isn't this a relevant subject?"

I'm no longer an atheist, but when I was... I came to it by reading Ayn Rand. I remain a Rand fan, though I've come to disagree with her on certain issues, that being one of them.

I did not like church as a child; I found it boring and tiresome. My mother, although religious herself, did not make me go to church. My young life was happy and without serous problems. There were bullies, family death and other troubles, but I used those challenges to strengthen my body and spirit, all without religion. In short, religion never offered me anything I wanted or needed. I had and still have great friends, (border lining on family) Love, health and happiness. I saw that people of faith never seemed to be as happy as I was/am. Also the whole "I am holier than thow art" attitude was very transparent. The people with that attitude rarely followed their own rules, but for some reason felt that they should impose the same rules on me.People of Christian faith seemed to live a conflicted life: on one hand they wanted to date and do things like have sex and move in with each other. But their church condemned these actions as sin. The result was either ridicule from the church members, living with the guilt of it all, or both. For me the church became a symbol of useless rules and pointless guilt.In a mostly Christian nation I was truly free, (and I knew it) I had not placed stupid restrictions on my behavior that most people do not have the discipline to adhere to anyway. If their belief of their God could not keep them in line then how strong could that belief be? After all the rules that I imposed on myself were and still are non-negotiable. I do not have a God to scare me into compliance either. I guess when you have lived a charmed life you don't need a God. LaterFrank

I've just been re-reading my MA thesis, written 15 years ago, on 'The Place of Ethics in Heidegger's Ontology'. Sorry if that is obscure, but it is helpful for me to explain how I came by my beliefs. Ontology is the study of being, while ethics is the study of values. So my interest is how values can be grounded in the study of being or existence, and how philosophy can develop a rigorous systematic approach to the meaning of being. I learnt from my parents two key values, spirituality and rationality, approached within a nonconformist Christian framework. I know these values would appear contradictory to many on this list, having read people's comments about the irrationality of the church and the psychic damage false religion causes. However, the question I have is whether there is such a thing as true religion. I believe there is, and that scientific study of the Bible should lead to recognition that the story of Jesus still has much to teach, and indeed, remains central to the human story. The image of Jesus as a man who died for love of humanity is profound, but it is weird how the cultural formations of Christianity have lost touch with the story of Jesus. When Paul said "We preach Christ and him crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, the power of God" (1 Cor 1:23) he was calling the believers in old metaphysical mythology to accept the evidence of recent history, that a man had come into the world and died for pure love, while presenting an amazing message of salvation. Jesus asked us to look for the crucified in our world, usually the poor, deprived and oppressed, while holding to a hope of resurrection of the crucified, with the resurrection resulting from the fact that the truth will always eventually win. This original Christian emphasis on historical evidence often gets concealed by church dogma, but it is basic to the empirical spirit of the West. Hence, for me, the challenge is to work through the empirical spirit of atheism, respecting rationality, but seeing Jesus as the epitome of the human commitment to truth, and his relationship to God as a way to summarise this ultimate commitment.

Raised atheist. Tried to beleive (in "God"). Didn't work. If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

I was raised in the Church, and I have been church all my life until about the last 5 years of my life. I have had situations in my life that have caused my to revaluate my religious experiance, because there were contradictions between what I had been taught and what was happening in my life that I could not explain. I believe in God, but I do not believe in the God of the Bible anymore. I am into Math and Physics (so I have some understanding), and when I look at the universe and the physical laws that govern it, there is an mathematical order that I can not explain as random acts. (The universe is a cool place) I am in the process of reforming my beliefs and looking for truth.