Current Events > When did you become an atheist?

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When I was a kid, my parents took me to church. The kids went to a separate room to get a more child-friendly service (or something). The lady there said pets don't go to heaven. That was the day I became an atheist.

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I dunno bout when I was 16 or 18 or something

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Probably like 19-20. I was a weak Catholic in high school. When I stopped going to Church weekly, I just found it harder and harder to justify it logically. Also, I had an intense unhealthy fear of dying and burning in Hell for my "sins".

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I realized that I only believed out of fear and hope, not of anything that actually made sense. I was 8, and that epiphany only hit because the sheer boredom induced by a substitute teacher had trumped my constant anxiety.

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Wasn't ever really religious. Never went to church except for my preschool was held in a church, or for weddings, or one time a friend had church camp I went to that was kinda fun. And I was in a youth choir that had a slight religious bent, I guess. Sang a couple songs that mentioned Christian iconography in them. Religion was just never a visible part of my or my family's life.

So I guess I became atheist once I learned the term for it, probably in early junior high.

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Always was. I've never not been skeptic. I distinctly remember being taken into a Church at the age of 8 or 9 by my grandpa and thinking how creepy it was, and thinking these people were kinda nuts.

Even before that, I never even believed in Santa. One of my earliest little kid memories is pulling a beard off a Santa because I knew it was BS. And I was like 4 or 5.

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When praying got me nowhere and I still lost someone I really cared for.
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Began having my doubts in middle school. I finally stopped believing in high school. Critical thought made me realize bs.

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I was raised by an atheist & an agnostic, so I've basically always been an atheist.

I learned about the entire concept of god from a friend when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. I immediately shut it down and said it didn't make sense.

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I think 13. I started having serious doubts because I was frustrated about stuff like people in my school being bigoted against gay people for example. And I thought Hell was absurd and could only interpret accepting Jesus as a blackmail situation and not "having a relationship" because I didn't feel God at all. So one day I found the courage to look it up... and fell into YouTube atheism

What a prolonged catharsis that was, I didn't really show my non-belief in real life but I consumed SO MUCH debunking content.

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When I reached the age of reason.

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I realized it in 9th grade. But I never really made god or religion part of my life at all before then.

After highschool when I started questioning my beliefs with more scrutiny and how a lot of it didn't add up to what was being taught to us. Like there was always an exception to God and Religion that somehow superseded everything that was taught in Science and Philosophy. Went out and lived on my own and met new people that helped me become more open minded that eventually led me to become an atheist.

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Always been an atheist.

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Age 6, I think.

Thats when a Catholic teacher first told me and a classroom of other children about the story of Noahs Ark. The more I thought about it, none of it made sense. How did they fit all those animals on a wooden boat? God loves me and everyone else, but drowned the world a long time ago?

My little brain nearly melted from trying to accept it, and I guess I never really did.

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Around the age where I began to fear death. So like 9 or 10 or so.

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i've never believed in a supernatural higher power.

i'm open to the possibility of a (lowercase) creator, either life on earth, humanity in particular, or even the entire universe. but in the first two cases, such beings would be just as bound by the laws of the universe as we are, and in the third they would be bound by the laws of their own. but that being said, i don't actively believe it.

there was also a short time where i considered the possibility of a sort of natural reincarnation, but i've long since moved past it.

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I'm a Satanist.

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Never became an atheist per s, just agnostic. Started with pointing out hypocrisies of the bible as a teen. Then learned that the King James bible is likely heavily mistranslated from the original text.

If people have spiritual beliefs I embrace that. But I condemn organized religion 99.9% of the time. Very rarely do even non-denominational Christians ever actually follow the teachings of Jesus Christ whatsoever, if you read and study the bible you'd realize he had very liberal ideas and was all about love and forgiveness.

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Parents have always been atheists, so I was raised without any religious presence in my life.
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after an argument on www.gamefaqs.gamespot.com

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Xatrion posted...

When I reached the age of reason.

This

None of that stuff ever made any sense to me as a kid growing up

I was always creeped out by religious nuts

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2014
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I always have been. Religion isn't a big thing in Australia and I never went to church or was around religion, save for Easter/Christmas holidays, but even those are about family moreso than religion in Australia.

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Not long after I discovered Richard Dawkins

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I never went for it as a child, but going to Christian private school for a few years pretty much convinced me to leave that shit and those slimy people alone.

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Orlando_Jordan posted...

When I was a kid, my parents took me to church. The kids went to a separate room to get a more child-friendly service (or something). The lady there said pets don't go to heaven. That was the day I became an atheist.

Is this a real story? That's... surprisingly noble of you.

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After I read most of the Bible.

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I admitted it to myself around 19 but I think I lost faith around 16.

I never went to church so I was never particularly invested, and then as I was growing up I saw all the needless pain in the world and tried to twist Christianity to try to compensate for it but I eventually just accepted the Problem of Evil as being logical proof of the non-existence of the omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God I had been taught to believe in.

Obviously, it also wasnt logical to switch to a different God just because. So here I sit an Agnostic Atheist.

Lol never will. It's illogical

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When I was 10. I drowned in a boating accident, and saw that there was nothing waiting (on the otherside).

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ekie posted...

Lol never will. It's illogical

But God being perfect and never changing, yet being completely different from the old testament version is logical?

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I'll become an athiest when someone shows me proof of no God.

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Blue_School posted...

I'll become an athiest when someone shows me proof of no God.

Where is the proof of God? A book written by people?

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Orlando_Jordan posted...

Where is the proof of God? A book written by people?

Yawn

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Blue_School posted...

Yawn

Great counter argument.

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Blue_School posted...

I'll become an athiest when someone shows me proof of no God.

i assume you're agnostic, then? it's a reasonable position, i dunno why you wouldn't just say so.

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I always have been. My mums a weird agnostic and my dad was a lapsed Catholic, so I was always allowed to make up my own mind.

I was really interested in religion as a teenager and did a lot of reading. That ended up being what solidified atheism for me, funnily enough.

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An_Actual_Chad posted...

Great counter argument.

I'm not the one making a claim, support your argument.

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Blue_School posted...

I'm not the one making a claim, support your argument.

There has been no firm proof a God exists. Same as your argument that there has been no firm proof a God doesn't exist.

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My dad was pretty staunchly atheist. My mom was raised Catholic but never pushed it on us even remotely. I started to believe in a higher power in my early 20s, but Im also likely schizophrenic so take that as you may.

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Orlando_Jordan posted...

But God being perfect and never changing, yet being completely different from the old testament version is logical?

There are a lot of religions. Which one are you talking about? One can be spiritual without the need for religion. Atheism is a silly concept.

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TreyFlowers posted...

There has been no firm proof a God exists. Same as your argument that there has been no firm proof a God doesn't exist.

Ok so neither position is tenable. That's why I'm not an atheist.

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Blue_School posted...

Ok so neither position is tenable. That's why I'm not an atheist.

I choose to live in a world of, I need proof that it exists, rather than I need proof it doesn't exist.

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Orlando_Jordan posted...

Where is the proof of God? A book written by people?

You are the proof. You have a spirit and you are not a meat sack that spawned from nothing. Science pretty clearly states something cannot come from nothing. Once this universe was nothing. As was your spirit.

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Blue_School posted...

Ok so neither position is tenable. That's why I'm not an atheist.

There is an invisible, matterless hologram projected from an alternate reality behind you right now. It can see through your clothes and know what you look like naked.

Prove me wrong.

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The_Creep_2020 posted...

There is an invisible, matterless hologram projected from an alternate reality behind you right now. It can see through your clothes and know what you look like naked.

Prove me wrong.

Why should he try? It's your life.

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The_Creep_2020 posted...

There is an invisible, matterless hologram projected from an alternate reality behind you right now. It can see through your clothes and know what you look like naked.

Prove me wrong.

I cant prove you wrong. Also, Im always naked.

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The_Creep_2020 posted...

There is an invisible, matterless hologram projected from an alternate reality behind you right now. It can see through your clothes and know what you look like naked.

Prove me wrong.

There's no way to prove that theory wrong. It's seems unlikely but I would never claimed it as absolute.

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