How did you stop believing?

[NoAmount]

My uncle was studying to be a priest.

End result: Atheist.

It would be interesting to hear the details in between

[EndlessLaymon]

I looked around a the world and the cosmos and asked myself some questions and then I realized I was following a book that holds no truth and that God isn’t there.

I came to the realization that The Bible contains quite a lot of repulsive message and tales and that there is no way I could honestly devout my life to a book that has such mean spirited morals to follow.
I then read some science books and books on atheism and haven’t looked back.

Oh Religulous also helped out

[johnson1010]

welcome to the board endlesslaymon

[wokattack]

I guess I never really started to....religious ideas just seemed like something on par with other weird 'What ifs'. The first time I actually found out that other people were religious was cycling home from school one day afte school after a Biology lesson.
We'd been taught about the theory of evolution and it had all seemed so obvious to me, so when my class mate went 'Well, he (our teacher) can be lieve what he wants, but there is no way we're descended from monkeys,' I almost ended up in the ditch.
I actually met the same guy a few years ago and he's an engineer - and strangely enough still religious.

[lady of shallot]

I was taken to Sunday school and church (Episcopal) as a child. In the summer we went to "vacation Bible school" and also on Wed afternoon from school we went to religious instruction, at a Protestant, but not Episcopalian church. Thus I learned that different sects had different beliefs and so all were questionable to me. I remember once at Bible school, there was a paper cutout of a man with a cigarette in his mouth and the teacher lit it and it burned down and burned out his heart. This was not a health message but a moral message that someone who smoked would lose his heart. It made me angry because my father smoked and he was a good man (although flawed)
Then when I was about 12 I realized in part of the Episcopal service there is a sentence (forget exactly what it is from) "Lord we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table" That really made me very angry and was the catalyst for my starting to skip church and spend my offering at the drugstore for a drink. I thought people have hard enough lives what is this nonsense all about?
My mother used to say that I would go to church if it was held at 3:00 p.m., in other words I was just lazy and did not really have any convictions. Still, residually the influence did linger. I got married in church. I had my child baptized. But I gave her no religious instruction and would not have dreamt of taking her to church.
I have read some (although certainly not to the extent of many on these boards) I question the historicity of Jesus, let alone God. Frankly the thought of heaven is appalling to me. Why would you want to revisit all the problems you have had with the relatives you have had on earth? Not only that but they would be re-visiting all theirs, all the way back! Gruesome.
I feel absolutely no lack or loss in my disbelief. I enjoy great Cathedrals and religious art and the music and the beauty but only esthetically. And I do wonder, would the lives of all those who have lived the past 2,000 years of Western Civilization have been richer without the influence of Christianity or not? Clearly those who suffered religious persecutions would have benefitted, but if we could pretend that no religious persecutions at all took place, no Cromwell, or Henry the 8th or Mary Tudor, or Spanish inquisition etc. would mankind have been better or worse off?

[DWill]

I have read some (although certainly not to the extent of many on these boards) I question the historicity of Jesus, let alone God. Frankly the thought of heaven is appalling to me. Why would you want to revisit all the problems you have had with the relatives you have had on earth? Not only that but they would be re-visiting all theirs, all the way back! Gruesome.

Yeah, the dark side of Paradise!

I feel absolutely no lack or loss in my disbelief. I enjoy great Cathedrals and religious art and the music and the beauty but only esthetically. And I do wonder, would the lives of all those who have lived the past 2,000 years of Western Civilization have been richer without the influence of Christianity or not? Clearly those who suffered religious persecutions would have benefitted, but if we could pretend that no religious persecutions at all took place, no Cromwell, or Henry the 8th or Mary Tudor, or Spanish inquisition etc. would mankind have been better or worse off?

It sounds callous to say it, but well that stuff all did happen and there's nothing we can do about it. And of course, the fact that it all happened, just the way it did, accounts for the very fact that I'm here today to think about it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be. Looked at from the cold viewpoint of natural history, our religious natures sure didn't slow down the success of our species. Here we are today, the most successful species in history if you look at ability to impact the environment while increasing numbers. We'd all like to rewrite the way things went down, but to do that we'd have to rewire our biology, too. We also have no experimental results to point to, that is a large group of humans who lived free from religion. We don't know whether another experimental condition would have produced worse results or better.

[Randy Kadish]

I guess my childhood was so difficult that I couldn't believe in a loving God. The horrors of the 20th Century confirmed my lack of belief. Today I believe in a Higher Power, but it's certainly not a Judeo-Christian God. BTW, I've tried to believe in a J-C God. I think my life would be much easier if I could, but in spite of so much reading and thinking and trying to believe I still can't.

Randy

[UPENN-Skeptic]

Well, Reading the wickedness of the bible fostered my distaste for religion. Indeed, the beginning, was when in 3rd grade my homeroom teacher proceeded to tell the class why the leaves on the beautiful trees were green. I am sure you all can easily fill in the blanks.

[Penelope]

Randy Kadish wrote:

I guess my childhood was so difficult that I couldn't believe in a loving God. The horrors of the 20th Century confirmed my lack of belief. Today I believe in a Higher Power,

And I 'guess' that is what it is all about.......It is me here in England....thanking Randy Kadish for being so honest.

There is a higher power....and we only seem to be able to connect with it, by being painfully honest.....

Bless you....GOD bless you!!

[UPENN-Skeptic]

It is difficult to credit any one religion as being True or any one god as being True when there have been so many throughout human history. None appears to have any greater claim to being more credible or reliable than any other. Why Christianity and not Judaism? Why Islam and not Hinduism? Why monotheism and not polytheism? Every position has had its defenders, all as ardent as those in other traditions. They can't all be right, but they can all be wrong. I am sure Im preaching to the choir, but I would like to include one last reason for not believing, or rather, why I stopped. Indeed, no religion is perfectly consistent, or even mildly at that (and I would challenge anyone to disprove this contention) when it comes to doctrines, ideas, and history. Every ideology, philosophy, and cultural tradition has inconsistencies and contradictions, so this shouldn't be surprising — but other ideologies and traditions aren't alleged to be divinely created or divinely sanctioned systems for following the wishes of a god. The state of religion in the world today is more consistent with the premise that they are man-made institutions. Simply put, faith, is an unreliable guide to reality or means for acquiring knowledge.