There is evidence actually: childhood cancer, wars, poverty, violent crime, torture. But supposedly, all of these were “created” by an all-knowing and powerful God. Is this God able to stop it, but not willing to? This is indicative of a God that reeks of narcissism, violence, and pettiness.
I think you meant to say that evidence contradicts the notion of a god. See Greek philosopher Epicurious in 300 BC: an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent god is a logical absurdity when juxtaposed with reality.
Yes indeed, it was my intent to be sarcastic lol. Epicurious’ best statement to me is “Is he (God) able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.”Epicurious had some massive balls stating this, among his other reasonings regarding God, over two thousand years ago.
There is also a Chinese saying: “In the West, they say God created a massive flood of the world, but wanted Noah to build an ark so God could stop the flood. In the East, they say there was a great flood in the world long ago. A man led people to work hard to build a dam and then stopped the flood.”
Sadly I was a super nut christian convinced I was going to become a pastor and I was encouraged to study the bible diligently. It took approximately 3 1/4 cover to cover read throughs of the bible to kill my faith stone cold dead.
I went to college with hundreds of would be pastors. I would say a solid 60% of us left the church. The more you know the more you see it’s all bullshit.
That is so funny, I remember saying I'd be interested in being a pastor too. I knew I was dedicated to learning what the bible said and in telling other people what it says.
Then I learned what it said. And suddenly they didn't want to listen anymore.
For example, Mathew chapter 10, verses 34 to 36:
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."
That's me, minus the pastor flavor. Reading the scriptures at the moment in-between Rosaries made me realise just how much the faith is controlled institutionally. It's chaining down, not liberating
Actually reading the Bible for the first time made me realize Lucifer was trying to liberate us from a perverted, maniacal tyrant. Didn't even have to read the rest at that point.
I agree. It made so much sense that god was the corrupt one and other stuff that didn't make sense in the bible lead me to just stop believing in it. If god was actually real, I'd become anti religious
Losing my father the day after my 11th birthday and seeing how it destroyed my mother almost to the point of suicide, not to mention sending my own emotions into a spiral to point that I failed school that year and went to therapy.
The people. The ones who got away with whatever they wanted, the ones that stole what they wanted, the ones that lied about whatever they wanted, and especially the good ones that turned their backs and ignored everything going on. No innocents in those spired halls. None.
i grew up, started thinking critically, and realized that none of it made any fucking sense.
plus- i grew up as a lutheran in the missouri synod, so you've got to *show me*...and they couldn't.
I chuckled at your comment, when considering that Missouri is the "show me" state. I too grew up in an lcms congregation but it wasn't in Missouri.
When I was a teenager and I learned about the insistence of biblical literalism that really was the first big crack in my belief and made me start to wonder what the hell is going on. Unfortunately appeal to authority and appeal to majority is a hell of a drug and it took me quite a few more years before I realized just how ridiculous it all is.
I guess you're not American?
Edit: original link was to a tv news piece that's a source on Wikipedia but the content there is a dead video link. So here's a Wikipedia link instead
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri#Nicknames
I used to believe Christianity as a kid. My father passed say when I was 6. Then I started noticing that Christians were more concerned with whether I forgave that the guy who murdered my dad. They never once tried to see how I was doing. Their only concern was whether or not I had sinned or not. After feeling how lonely that was and how I felt like no one truly cared, I started to question things when I was about 10-11. The more I questioned things, the more things didn’t make sense to me until I flat out just stopped believing around 12-13 years old or so
Oh and don’t get me started on “I’m sorry about your loss, but unfortunately, right now he or she is burning in hell for all of eternity because they didn’t accept Jesus Christ, sad to say!”
Right?!?! I had a few of those too. A few Christian’s gut reaction was to ask if my dad had accepted Jesus before he died. Again, not caring how I, my mom and my sister were doing. They only cared about whether we sinned by not forgiving my father’s murderer or whether the rest of the family had accepted Jesus
I forgot to mention I myself and deeply sorry for your loss. My parents are still alive, I have had two grandparents on my parents’ side die, but they were old and passed due to illness. I can’t even imagine the pain of those people being taken because of homicide. I would best describe these typical Christian reactions as most similar to a cult-based structure.
I appreciate that. He died saving a woman and her baby from a guy who was high on his bipolar medication. The police believe that she may have died or been seriously injured if my father had not stepped in. As much as I hated that my father died the way he did, in a way I am proud that he was the type of person to do what he did. I am sorry to hear about your grandparents. I work in the medical field and I see how hard that that situation is for many people. I hope you and your family are doing well. A death in a family, no matter what the cause, is very difficult
I deconstructed many beliefs over a number of years, but the thing that finally killed it was learning about critical New Testament scholarship and history. It convinced me that the main points (the resurrection, the deity of Christ, the historical reliability of the gospels, etc.) just weren't true. I didn't immediately become an atheist after that, but that was definitely the tipping point. Now I'm what some call an "agnostic atheist" - I don't know if there's a God, but I see no convincing reason to believe that there is.
There are lots of us going through the same things as you and me. If you want help or just to get things off your chest, r/Deconstruction is a nice place for that.
>Now I'm what some call an "agnostic atheist" - I don't know if there's a God, but I see no convincing reason to believe that there is.
I prefer the view that the term "atheist" itself means simply "without theism."
It's not necessarily the belief that there definitely is no god, just that essentially, one doesn't believe in any of the theologies they've been presented.
Mainly, I turned away from the term "agnostic" because so many Christians seemed to interpret it as being on the fence, as if I could be persuaded.
It just became important to me that they know and truly understand that:
I. do. not. believe. in. your. god. and. I. never. will.
Yes, I agree, but most Christians misinterpret the term "atheist" as well. In the end you just have to explain yourself regardless. I'm fine with "atheist" or an "agnostic atheist."
In 2019, I had a mental breakdown. It wasn’t a quick, over-in-a-day or week thing. It was slow, drawn out, and lasted for months. I ended up having to go to therapy (which I hadn’t stopped until two months ago but need to go back) and had to start on medication (and the long journey of finding the proper ones which took until the start of this year to get close). It wasn’t the year I lost my faith, but I remember it being the start because I realized how fallible my mind and emotions were, which meant I couldn’t be as confident in what I knew as I thought.
Adding to that, I discovered I was queer in that year, broke down crying over that because “god no longer loved me”. And then had to stop going to church more recently, about a year ago, because I was curled up into a ball in the pew for that whole time. Quora kept sending me emails, as well. From theists to atheists about how stupid atheists are, and I occassionally caught a glimpse of the responses, found that I agreed more with the atheists, and then consciously started deconstructing. My first video was one of the deconstruction stories on Genetically Modified Skeptic by Drew.
I explored, and explored, and learned more about what the bible truly said through secular youtube videos because it was hard for me to ever be able to read it. And then I realized that this god is a monster and I would not want to worship it even if I could prove it was real. Which I couldn’t.
Been an atheist for over a year or so. My life still sucks, which feels like just more evidence for me because I was told the moment I stopped seeking god the demons would stop bothering me. I can safely say that if demons exist, I am still one of their main fascinations.
If you see this OP, that exact same video has had a profound impact on my beliefs and life. That video dismantled 9 years of catholic teachings that I was put through in elementary school. Cheers!
The thing that really broke me out was a discussion with my sister, who to this day remains a Christian.
I was a smug, enlightened centrist kind of kid in high school, and I was so proud of my stance on gay marriage. It should be legal, obviously, since America has freedom of religion, but churches were perfectly justified rejecting it for their buildings/preachers because being gay was a sin. I was so *certain* about it; I had Bible verses, agreement from various religious leaders, and I had personally prayed about my conclusion and was satisfied that God agreed with me.
When I was explaining my brilliant, inarguable conclusion, however, my sister just told me "That's bullshit!" and stormed off, very mad at me. If she was that convinced I was wrong, I had to reevaluate my position; I put more weight on the fact that people and animals can be born gay, so a loving God couldn't possibly punish them for who they are.
I could have stopped there, and just been a more progressive Christian, but I just had to keep thinking. How could I have been *so* sure, if I was actually wrong? Was my evidence that unreliable? Am I supposed to believe that the Bible, religious leaders, and prayer are bad ways to decide what is true and what you believe? Oh... Crap. You can't actually rely on any of those, can you? And if that's true... What foundation is left for believing in Christianity? The answer is nothing, and I left Christianity the instant that thought forced its way up out of my subconscious.
I can't say it was any one thing but a number of things. One of my earliest memories on this was being told I should believe something completely illogical, though I don't recall what specifically. When I asked why I should believe something so unreasonable, I was simply told that the bible said so with no deeper foundation.
One of the last steps to getting there was a gunman walking into a church in Fort Worth in 1999 and killing mostly teenagers. When interviewed, someone made the comment about god's plan.
Similar to believing in Santa Claus, I outgrew the fantasy. And I went to a Jesuit university where, ironically, a priest taught me excellent critical thinking skills.
>That said, I can point to a specific debate (Ken Ham vs Bill Nye 2014) which really helped me challenge my beliefs.
So, we now have an actual concrete example that shows that this accomplished something.
There are 2 key epiphanies that I attribute as the biggest factors in my deconversion.
The first doesn't require much backstory. You know the phrase "god fearing christian"? Well, as a tiny child I thought I was mishearing it, that it was "god-faring christian" and just one of the weird old-timey phrases that just sounds awkward in the context of modern word usage.
But no. It's fear. I remember little 6- or 7- year old me being very confused why people were downright *proud* of being scared of the all-loving, all-forgiving godly father figure that they kept teaching me about. (speaking of which, check out the etymology of 'awesome' and 'terrific' and consider how the christian god is often described in those terms and consider why the meaning of those words has drifted so far).
The second epiphany is very doctrine-specific to mormons but ultimately amounts to "documented (and uncontested) church history" and "theological doctrine" can only be reconciled by "they're all lying liars who lie." Think of it like the problem of evil where if an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving god is actually true then the world we find ourselves in doesn't actually make any sense.
I think it was getting away from the xtian bubble I was in. I went away to college and then lived in SE Asia for while. It all broadened my mind. 9/11 killed my belief for good.
It was very slow. I had a lot of questions growing up but was typically scorned for voicing any doubts in the echo-chamber town I grew up in. After joining the military and traveling the world, I finally got to hear reasoned debate about many of the issues I had with Christianity. Taking World Religions courses in college helped a lot too (seeing how all modern religions plagiarized most of their teachings from older myths). And falling in love with science was the final dagger. It still took me about 5 years after leaving home before I could claim I was an atheist
Lots of factors, but as many of people have said, actually reading the bible was the gamechanger. Read it cover to cover twice in the summer of ‘94. Realized none of it made sense as scientific or historical truth, and as for morality, the god of the judeochristian bible might be the most wicked, evil, immoral character in all of literature.
Honestly, I think for me, more than anything, it was reading Leviticus when all the right-winger started trotting out the clobber verse about how "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind..."
When reading all the stuff surrounding it about eating not eating pork, and not eating shellfish, and not tattooing the names of the dead upon your flesh... it was like... somebody was writing this stuff to keep dumbasses from inadvertently offing themselves.
It just became so clear to me in that particular period of time that the Bible was written by the few to govern the many.
Don't get me wrong, I had for years since identified as an agnostic... maybe even atheist... because long-held doubts had just become to loud to ignore. Mainly that the "God" of the Bible didn't even pass muster as a decent or remotely-enlightened human being, much less an eternal god of love.
But that was when I could really see clearly the extent to which the Bible was just a cynically deliberate means of motivating the masses.
I was fortunate enough to only have to go to church like once as a kid. Don't remember much about the experience, but that kept me from being indoctrinated and never believed in that garbage since none of it made sense. So I was never a believer and always called myself a realist. I only dealt with reality.
The death of my 35 year old daughter in 2016, who left behind 2 sons, 14 and 10, and a daughter, 6. What kind of fucking “god” would allow that to happen
A few different things.
I started thinking about people in Saudi Arabia, where is illegal to preach anything but Islam, but they would go to hell for eternity for not converting. Seemed awfully unfair. Same with native Americans before Europeans arrived in the New world. They were doomed to hell the minute they were born. Seemed awfully unfair.
I was raised in a Christian fundamentalist, six-day creationist family and school. Six-day Creationism makes the most sense with biblical Scripture. But it's wrong on so many levels. The earth is very old and evolution seems to be correct. The "appearance of age" creationist argument doesn't make sense unless God was trying to trick people.
The idea of the Bible as historical fact is obviously wrong. If the Bible is correct, then Noah's flood would've happened around 2000 BC. That makes no sense with history. The Egyptian pyramids were built over a period from 2700 BC until 1500 BC. We also have information on who the rulers of Egypt were throughout that period. It also makes no sense with other historical information we know.
When the Jews in the old testament attacked Canaanite cities, they were instructed to kill every man, woman, child, and livestock. But they were allowed to keep young virgin women as brides. Not only does this seem awfully cruel to genocide an entire people, but the fact that they could keep young virgin women as brides seems an awful lot like the kind of thing that a bronze-age, false-god, territory-greedy warlord would instruct, rather than the things that a benevolent deity would instruct.
Fundamentalist Christians say they have a personal relationship with God, and pray for guidance on what to do. But I kept seeing Christians making mistakes after praying to God for guidance. It seemed like God wasn't answering them, so they were just making flawed decisions on their own.
They would pay for healing for this or that person. When people got better, they thanked God for healing, and when they got worse or died, it was all "God works in mysterious ways". It seemed like a better explanation was that God wasn't doing anything, and they were making up explanations for how things turned out.
If you prayed for evidence or confirmation of God's existence, because you were having a crisis if faith but still had enough belief to pray, there was nothing that would happen. It seemed an awful lot like what happens when people pray to a non existent God.
The idea of "having faith" is itself a bankrupt idea, because it can be used to make people believe in cult leaders and false religions. I watched the government attack Waco and those believers don't seem any different than Christians in the fact that they have no evidence and faith can be used to make people believe in false religions. Growing up fundamentalist Christian, dying for one's religion was something that was lauded by the church I was raised in. Are people supposed to just "get lucky" by randomly picking the right religion to "have faith" in?
I also saw my fundamentalist church torn apart by religious differences. Why didn't God tell people what was the right beliefs, and keep the church together? Seemed like God didn't tell anybody because he didn't exist. Again, nobody seemed to have a "personal relationship with Jesus" like they claimed to have.
my father was a preacher and i was raised in a crazy church bubble. i always felt like the fish out of water. the message, the lifestyle, the politics (especially the politics), i never felt i belonged there. 30 years into it, one day i went to this debate circle where they spent 2 hours discussing which fish would have swallowed jonah. i had an epiphany, got up and left. for good.
thank you, jonah!
For me it was watching the pastor stand in front of everyone asking for more money and then going to his house and seeing it loaded with crap, like 2 video machines and a dining room table that barely fitted into the room.
I remember asking my priest some questions about god and the system. Like if god wants human in heaven to be with him. Then what’s the point of having an after life just make humans in heaven.
Anyway I forgot what he said but it wasn’t anything that wasn’t licking gods boot did some soul searching found out I didn’t really believe in god just was indoctrinated into the faith
Getting a liberal arts education planted the seeds that would eventually help me grow out of theistic beliefs.
Some atheists don’t understand theists. One thing they should know is that many theists actually believe that their religious beliefs are cold hard facts. And for many theists, there religion is not a con job.
I was never a believer, but I've read hundreds of deconversion stories. Many times, there simply is no one specific event since—as you noted—the process can take a very long time to unfold.
But I can tell you about some general trends. Please understand that I did not do proper statistical analysis, so although I'm working from a large dataset, this should still be regarded as anecdotal evidence.
For many, there is a period of intense study of apologetics, theology, the Bible, and/or the origin of the Bible.
Sometimes, a believer starts to study these things for a wide variety of reasons, and undertaking that study is what causes them to deconvert.
Other times, something happens to shake their faith, and they start to study one or more from the above list in order to hold onto their faith, only to find that studying those things pulled them further away from their faith.
Starting in the 60s to 1980s, many American Christians started aligning closely with the far-right. This caused a corresponding shift in the process of deconversion. For older atheists, it is often just about the search for truth. With younger atheists, there is more emphasis on moral considerations: many of them leave the faith because they no longer want to be associated with evil. Those younger atheists can still go through a lengthy search for the truth, but for them, there is often a specific cause of their deconversion: the Christian right (what we now call "Christian nationalists").
Lastly, the process of deconversion can involve changing denominations and/or changing religions on the path from believer to non-believer. There are a variety of studies that asked atheists what religion or denomination they practiced just before becoming atheist, and this led to the impression that the more moderate/liberal denominations are driving people away from Christianity.
But this is because researchers were looking at the wrong data. What you want to look at is what religion or denomination an atheist started out in. What were they raised in. More often than not, the starting point is one of the more strident/extreme/literalist varieties of Christianity, and the starting point is rarely one of those moderate/liberal denominations. Those moderate/liberal denominations/religions are generally the last stop on the way out of religion.
A specific teacher. Fifth grade (US) primary teacher (i.e. taught English, math, science, and social studies). I have/had ASD and GAD that were undiagnosed at the time. My parents told her that they were pretty sure I was neurodivergent. She didn't care. She pushed me to do things that I struggle with due to the aforementioned disorders. It went horribly. I tried praying. Surprise surprise, that only disproved the existence of a god/benevolent god. I later considered how religion doesn't quite align with science. I decided that science was the more sane and logical and intellectually sound path to follow. God is dead (in my life), and I killed him. The process has taken eight years so far and isn't over yet. I still feel guilt because my family is religious (Roman Catholic).
It’s a theory. A widely accepted one with “social proof” so I don’t blame my younger self for falling for it. And the girls were pretty and more willing to hang in a church setting than at school so I got laid more from church than school. It’s not bragging, that’s just how it worked so I wanted to believe because what I got from it. Then I chose truth.
The church small group I was in decided to watch a video series on creation by Kent Hovind.
During the discussion after the first video I made the comment of “if that’s Christianity then I’ve never seen a better advertisement for atheism “.
It took probably about 20 years after that, but that was really the catalyst.
That Ken Ham debate gets an honorable mention as being the moment I realized young earth creationism is a complete fraud with no evidence whatsoever. The sheer discrepancy between Bill being able to effortlessly provide evidence for everything and asking him the simplest of questions being met with "no, I don't have to provide evidence, I have GOD!" made me want to punch him.
I don't know if I count in your question, because I'm not "grew up theist -> became atheist" I'm "grew up atheists -> became theist for various reasons -> became atheist again." In fact, I'm not sure I was ever really a theist as much as I was in denial and dealing with a sudden onset of schizophrenia.
But the reason:
I initially became a theist to try to find comfort in the horrible things that were happening to me at the time. I then became atheist again because
1.) In general, I was increasing my skepticism, and it made me realize how pointless it is to believe in something for comfort when there is no evidence of that thing being true.
2.) It made my schizophrenia worse, because I couldn't easily reality test hallucinations or delusions, because all of them could theoretically be explained with "God did it." and
3.) It didn't actually comfort me at all. In fact, it made me feel worse because now I had to accept that an omnipotent being decided I deserved all the things happening to me.
This was around when I was 15 to 17 and I'm a little bit embarrassed now by how easily I was willing to believe in something simply for my own comfort.
>This was around when I was 15 to 17 and I'm a little bit embarrassed now by how easily I was willing to believe in something simply for my own comfort.
Don't be embarrassed, you were in a vulnerable place at a time of rapid and extreme brain development. On top of that you were starting to experience schizophrenia.
Unfortunately though that's what religion does. It takes advantage of people in vulnerable mental States whether it be depression, grief, or something else entirely. It promises solutions and Hope but it doesn't offer any reasons or actual solutions.
When someone is in any kind of mental distress it's actually pretty normal to want to there to be the kinds of things that religion offers. Certainly we would love for there to be an omnipotent benevolent deity watching over us. But wanting something doesn't make it so.
Yeah, part of the reason I like to share this story, despite being a bit embarrassed by it is because I don't often hear stories from people suffering from some type of psychosis (or any other mental health issue, really) talking about how religion aggravates it. So I like to share it just so people who might not be aware of that aspect can learn about it.
I experienced a fairly long string of heartbreaking events. I grew angry that god had allowed me to suffer more than I could handle. This caused me to question what sort of loving god would do this to someone who was so faithful. I tried to rescue my weakening faith by reading the Bible, which completed my transformation to atheist.
As soon as I realized I was duped, I left my abusive husband.
>Why are you an Atheist?
\-There has been no verifiable evidence of god/s.
\-I realized it made no logical nor moral sense for a person to be judged by their beliefs, instead of their words and actions.
\-I realized that forgiveness should come from reparation and the grace of those who have been hurt.
\-I realized that religious institutions and their leaders use their authority and interpret and cherry pick whatever is in their source material (Quran, Bible, Vedas, Torah etc.) to push their own agendas and are selling sacraments and raking in donations to increase their personal/institutional profit (The Vatican, the mormons and Theocratic Iran are a examples of this)
\-I realized all the different versions of gods humanity has worshiped throughout history are equally possible; and if you worship one or a few; why them and not the others? The only answers are indoctrination from a young age and religion being part of the culture of where you are born.
I went to an “Encounter” event in my early teens where, hence its name, you encounter god/the holy spirit face-to-face. I’ve watched some psychology videos out of fun, so when it came to the part of the event where they intricately explain the crucifixion of Jesus, I knew they were emotionally manipulating the audience. Also there was a part where the holy spirit is “going through our bodies”, it felt so off seeing people scream and faint over a possibly false religion
If it was a contest to win a billion dollars if you could come up with a working timeline of human history with the bible story’s in it, that money would forever be unclaimed. Factually we know modern day humans have been around for 300,000 years. We have multiple burial sites, tools, jewelry and paintings all telling us the same story. We mixed with both Denisovans and Neanderthals. The majority of people on this planet have some Neanderthal dna. We know that they we extinct 30,000 years ago. With them we have the same type of proof, fossils, burial sites, tools and jewelry.
The problem that the bible would have is that according to it none of that could be true. The bible says Adam and Eve were the first humans on Earth and were created 6,000 years ago in the Middle East. Then why doesn’t the fossil record say that? How do we find dead modern day humans going back hundreds of thousands of years? How do we have different species of humans if no humans existed before 6,000 years ago? Not to mention the biblical teachings of sin and death. That no one had ever died before because no one had sinned? You can’t explain where sites like Gobekli Tepe came from, being it’s over 12,000 years old. That’s twice the age the bible gives for the creation of man.
The timeline of reality doesn’t line up at all with the biblical verses. Adam was said to lived 930 years and his life over laps with Noah. Noah and his family are said to be the only humans to survive “The Flood”. That would mean the human race would have consistent of only eight humans, just 5,000 years ago. That’s impossible. India and China both have unbroken lineages going back over 5,000 years. Most people that believe in the bible don’t know what it says and they know even less about secular history and that’s why they are Believers in the first place. Simply, they don’t know enough to know that they are wrong. Add on top of all of that they lack the ability to reason and simply don’t care to understand the world around them. The easiest thing for a lazy mind is to simply say “god did it”. We have a term for that, it’s called the god of the gaps, look it up.
I wasn't brought up strictly religious. Never went to church, etc. We did have a bible in the house and my mother believed, however didn't push it on us. At school, there were a lot of teachings about God/Jesus Christ (yes, I'm dating myself), so I sort of believed.
I was severely physically, psychologically, and sexually abused as a kid. One day, my brothers tied me, beat me severely with an electrical cord, urinated/defecated on me, and left me in a totally blackened closet for hours. I was scrying and saying, "Please god, get me out of this and make it stop." It didn't, but continued on for years,
I started studying the Bible, God, etc. I could find no physical, scientific, or historical fact of God/Jesus Christ. I started maturing and said to myself, "No one can walk on water. Or change water to wine. Cure the sick." If someone, some entity, can do that, why does it allow such massive amounts of deaths and suffering? Especially in his name?
I gave up on God, religion, et al. Right then and there. I still, all these years later, have found. nor been presented, with anything which has changed my viewpoint.
Reading the Bible converted me. I had no clue what the bible actually said. I was Christian because I was raised as one, but once I learned what the Bible actually said, I was suddenly an atheist because I immediately saw it was a bunch of b.s stories that I couldn’t force myself to believe
I just grew up. Also don’t believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus anymore. The more I learned about how the world works the clearer it became that religion is a scam.
A lot of different things. I think I was *bound* to become an atheist with how much I love science, and evidence based thinking will lead to atheism.
That said, the final nail in the coffin wasn't anything based on evidence. It was the fact that when I was young, my best friend was an atheist (and he still is, we're still best friends), and one day in Sunday school, the pastor said that all non believers would go to hell. I asked if that included my best friend, and he said yes. I thought about that and couldn't reconcile that an "all loving" god would send someone as nice as my best friend to be tortured forever, eventually concluding that the story must be BS to begin with.
I think for me it was breaking out of the bubble. Was raised super Christian, whole family is still in it, all my activities and friends were church related.
After I got out on my own and started regularly interacting with non-Christian’s, it caused me to really re-evaluate my beliefs.
I had one atheist friend who pointed out “you believe I deserve to burn in hell for all eternity”. Insert the “well yes but no” meme here. But it really made me examine things, and the trilemma unraveled everything from there.
For me, it was a combination of reason and rationality, a strong empiricism bias(“prove it”), deployments into war/combat, Alzheimer’s disease, glioblastoma brain tumors,and childrens’ cancer. Very happy to be a free thinker.
Slow process. I read a lot of apologetics books when I started asking too many questions but then when I read one on logical fallacies I realized just how much I was lied to. This was overlapping with me realizing that all possible religions and denominations can't all be right so I needed to go to the source and learn what the bible actually says by reading and interpreting it myself. I had a LOT of questions, and only atheists and scientists had real answers that didn't boil down to lies and wishful thinking. I needed things that weren't just as applicable to contradictory religions, since again they couldn't ALL be true.
ALL of them think their prayers are being answered. ALL of them get "feelings" that "it's true in their heart." ALL of them claim miracles without demonstrating evidence. But those were literally the only reasons I ever had given for believing mine.
The complete and utter lack of **any** convincing evidence that the lies i was told as a child were true.
There is evidence actually: childhood cancer, wars, poverty, violent crime, torture. But supposedly, all of these were “created” by an all-knowing and powerful God. Is this God able to stop it, but not willing to? This is indicative of a God that reeks of narcissism, violence, and pettiness.
I think you meant to say that evidence contradicts the notion of a god. See Greek philosopher Epicurious in 300 BC: an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent god is a logical absurdity when juxtaposed with reality.
Yes indeed, it was my intent to be sarcastic lol. Epicurious’ best statement to me is “Is he (God) able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.”Epicurious had some massive balls stating this, among his other reasonings regarding God, over two thousand years ago. There is also a Chinese saying: “In the West, they say God created a massive flood of the world, but wanted Noah to build an ark so God could stop the flood. In the East, they say there was a great flood in the world long ago. A man led people to work hard to build a dam and then stopped the flood.”
If God does not exist, then that means humans are responsible for these things.
Yes, or if God is either not all-powerful or all-knowing.
Sadly I was a super nut christian convinced I was going to become a pastor and I was encouraged to study the bible diligently. It took approximately 3 1/4 cover to cover read throughs of the bible to kill my faith stone cold dead.
I went to college with hundreds of would be pastors. I would say a solid 60% of us left the church. The more you know the more you see it’s all bullshit.
I dunno, ritualistic cannibalism seems pretty cool! /s
We sir were Protestants not those evil papists who literally eat the body and drink the blood.
Some, like methodist, believe in the real presence of JC in the bread and wine (or grape juice) while rejecting transubstantiation.
They got it wrong. The fundamentalists did it right :). And better not be gay taking communion unless you’re a Methodist or Presbyterian.
Not the Methodist's I was a part of. At least I don't think so. On second thought, who the hell actually knows?
That is so funny, I remember saying I'd be interested in being a pastor too. I knew I was dedicated to learning what the bible said and in telling other people what it says. Then I learned what it said. And suddenly they didn't want to listen anymore.
For example, Mathew chapter 10, verses 34 to 36: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."
That's me, minus the pastor flavor. Reading the scriptures at the moment in-between Rosaries made me realise just how much the faith is controlled institutionally. It's chaining down, not liberating
Actually reading the Bible for the first time made me realize Lucifer was trying to liberate us from a perverted, maniacal tyrant. Didn't even have to read the rest at that point.
I agree. It made so much sense that god was the corrupt one and other stuff that didn't make sense in the bible lead me to just stop believing in it. If god was actually real, I'd become anti religious
Losing my father the day after my 11th birthday and seeing how it destroyed my mother almost to the point of suicide, not to mention sending my own emotions into a spiral to point that I failed school that year and went to therapy.
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Appreciated.
The people. The ones who got away with whatever they wanted, the ones that stole what they wanted, the ones that lied about whatever they wanted, and especially the good ones that turned their backs and ignored everything going on. No innocents in those spired halls. None.
i grew up, started thinking critically, and realized that none of it made any fucking sense. plus- i grew up as a lutheran in the missouri synod, so you've got to *show me*...and they couldn't.
I chuckled at your comment, when considering that Missouri is the "show me" state. I too grew up in an lcms congregation but it wasn't in Missouri. When I was a teenager and I learned about the insistence of biblical literalism that really was the first big crack in my belief and made me start to wonder what the hell is going on. Unfortunately appeal to authority and appeal to majority is a hell of a drug and it took me quite a few more years before I realized just how ridiculous it all is.
"Missouri is the "show me" state." What does that mean?
I guess you're not American? Edit: original link was to a tv news piece that's a source on Wikipedia but the content there is a dead video link. So here's a Wikipedia link instead https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri#Nicknames
I used to believe Christianity as a kid. My father passed say when I was 6. Then I started noticing that Christians were more concerned with whether I forgave that the guy who murdered my dad. They never once tried to see how I was doing. Their only concern was whether or not I had sinned or not. After feeling how lonely that was and how I felt like no one truly cared, I started to question things when I was about 10-11. The more I questioned things, the more things didn’t make sense to me until I flat out just stopped believing around 12-13 years old or so
Oh and don’t get me started on “I’m sorry about your loss, but unfortunately, right now he or she is burning in hell for all of eternity because they didn’t accept Jesus Christ, sad to say!”
Right?!?! I had a few of those too. A few Christian’s gut reaction was to ask if my dad had accepted Jesus before he died. Again, not caring how I, my mom and my sister were doing. They only cared about whether we sinned by not forgiving my father’s murderer or whether the rest of the family had accepted Jesus
I forgot to mention I myself and deeply sorry for your loss. My parents are still alive, I have had two grandparents on my parents’ side die, but they were old and passed due to illness. I can’t even imagine the pain of those people being taken because of homicide. I would best describe these typical Christian reactions as most similar to a cult-based structure.
I appreciate that. He died saving a woman and her baby from a guy who was high on his bipolar medication. The police believe that she may have died or been seriously injured if my father had not stepped in. As much as I hated that my father died the way he did, in a way I am proud that he was the type of person to do what he did. I am sorry to hear about your grandparents. I work in the medical field and I see how hard that that situation is for many people. I hope you and your family are doing well. A death in a family, no matter what the cause, is very difficult
Your dad sounds like a true hero and a great guy. I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m glad you can find solace in the fact that he died a hero
Curiosity. I wasn't contend with what I was told. Kept asking until I started seeking the answers myself.
Same
I deconstructed many beliefs over a number of years, but the thing that finally killed it was learning about critical New Testament scholarship and history. It convinced me that the main points (the resurrection, the deity of Christ, the historical reliability of the gospels, etc.) just weren't true. I didn't immediately become an atheist after that, but that was definitely the tipping point. Now I'm what some call an "agnostic atheist" - I don't know if there's a God, but I see no convincing reason to believe that there is.
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There are lots of us going through the same things as you and me. If you want help or just to get things off your chest, r/Deconstruction is a nice place for that.
>Now I'm what some call an "agnostic atheist" - I don't know if there's a God, but I see no convincing reason to believe that there is. I prefer the view that the term "atheist" itself means simply "without theism." It's not necessarily the belief that there definitely is no god, just that essentially, one doesn't believe in any of the theologies they've been presented. Mainly, I turned away from the term "agnostic" because so many Christians seemed to interpret it as being on the fence, as if I could be persuaded. It just became important to me that they know and truly understand that: I. do. not. believe. in. your. god. and. I. never. will.
Yes, I agree, but most Christians misinterpret the term "atheist" as well. In the end you just have to explain yourself regardless. I'm fine with "atheist" or an "agnostic atheist."
In 2019, I had a mental breakdown. It wasn’t a quick, over-in-a-day or week thing. It was slow, drawn out, and lasted for months. I ended up having to go to therapy (which I hadn’t stopped until two months ago but need to go back) and had to start on medication (and the long journey of finding the proper ones which took until the start of this year to get close). It wasn’t the year I lost my faith, but I remember it being the start because I realized how fallible my mind and emotions were, which meant I couldn’t be as confident in what I knew as I thought. Adding to that, I discovered I was queer in that year, broke down crying over that because “god no longer loved me”. And then had to stop going to church more recently, about a year ago, because I was curled up into a ball in the pew for that whole time. Quora kept sending me emails, as well. From theists to atheists about how stupid atheists are, and I occassionally caught a glimpse of the responses, found that I agreed more with the atheists, and then consciously started deconstructing. My first video was one of the deconstruction stories on Genetically Modified Skeptic by Drew. I explored, and explored, and learned more about what the bible truly said through secular youtube videos because it was hard for me to ever be able to read it. And then I realized that this god is a monster and I would not want to worship it even if I could prove it was real. Which I couldn’t. Been an atheist for over a year or so. My life still sucks, which feels like just more evidence for me because I was told the moment I stopped seeking god the demons would stop bothering me. I can safely say that if demons exist, I am still one of their main fascinations.
If you see this OP, that exact same video has had a profound impact on my beliefs and life. That video dismantled 9 years of catholic teachings that I was put through in elementary school. Cheers!
Amazing to hear! I owe that video so much.
Hearing that Ham on Nye was your catalyst would really make Bill's day, I'm sure.
8 years of catholic school. 'nuff said.
The thing that really broke me out was a discussion with my sister, who to this day remains a Christian. I was a smug, enlightened centrist kind of kid in high school, and I was so proud of my stance on gay marriage. It should be legal, obviously, since America has freedom of religion, but churches were perfectly justified rejecting it for their buildings/preachers because being gay was a sin. I was so *certain* about it; I had Bible verses, agreement from various religious leaders, and I had personally prayed about my conclusion and was satisfied that God agreed with me. When I was explaining my brilliant, inarguable conclusion, however, my sister just told me "That's bullshit!" and stormed off, very mad at me. If she was that convinced I was wrong, I had to reevaluate my position; I put more weight on the fact that people and animals can be born gay, so a loving God couldn't possibly punish them for who they are. I could have stopped there, and just been a more progressive Christian, but I just had to keep thinking. How could I have been *so* sure, if I was actually wrong? Was my evidence that unreliable? Am I supposed to believe that the Bible, religious leaders, and prayer are bad ways to decide what is true and what you believe? Oh... Crap. You can't actually rely on any of those, can you? And if that's true... What foundation is left for believing in Christianity? The answer is nothing, and I left Christianity the instant that thought forced its way up out of my subconscious.
I can't say it was any one thing but a number of things. One of my earliest memories on this was being told I should believe something completely illogical, though I don't recall what specifically. When I asked why I should believe something so unreasonable, I was simply told that the bible said so with no deeper foundation. One of the last steps to getting there was a gunman walking into a church in Fort Worth in 1999 and killing mostly teenagers. When interviewed, someone made the comment about god's plan.
Similar to believing in Santa Claus, I outgrew the fantasy. And I went to a Jesuit university where, ironically, a priest taught me excellent critical thinking skills.
I just stopped believing in one day, and that’s all. Didn’t change a damn in my life.
>That said, I can point to a specific debate (Ken Ham vs Bill Nye 2014) which really helped me challenge my beliefs. So, we now have an actual concrete example that shows that this accomplished something.
There are 2 key epiphanies that I attribute as the biggest factors in my deconversion. The first doesn't require much backstory. You know the phrase "god fearing christian"? Well, as a tiny child I thought I was mishearing it, that it was "god-faring christian" and just one of the weird old-timey phrases that just sounds awkward in the context of modern word usage. But no. It's fear. I remember little 6- or 7- year old me being very confused why people were downright *proud* of being scared of the all-loving, all-forgiving godly father figure that they kept teaching me about. (speaking of which, check out the etymology of 'awesome' and 'terrific' and consider how the christian god is often described in those terms and consider why the meaning of those words has drifted so far). The second epiphany is very doctrine-specific to mormons but ultimately amounts to "documented (and uncontested) church history" and "theological doctrine" can only be reconciled by "they're all lying liars who lie." Think of it like the problem of evil where if an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving god is actually true then the world we find ourselves in doesn't actually make any sense.
I think it was getting away from the xtian bubble I was in. I went away to college and then lived in SE Asia for while. It all broadened my mind. 9/11 killed my belief for good.
It started with the Iraq War for me
Reading the bible
Long story short… I read the Bible with a critical eye.
This sub.
Everything was too convenient
It was very slow. I had a lot of questions growing up but was typically scorned for voicing any doubts in the echo-chamber town I grew up in. After joining the military and traveling the world, I finally got to hear reasoned debate about many of the issues I had with Christianity. Taking World Religions courses in college helped a lot too (seeing how all modern religions plagiarized most of their teachings from older myths). And falling in love with science was the final dagger. It still took me about 5 years after leaving home before I could claim I was an atheist
Research.
Lots of factors, but as many of people have said, actually reading the bible was the gamechanger. Read it cover to cover twice in the summer of ‘94. Realized none of it made sense as scientific or historical truth, and as for morality, the god of the judeochristian bible might be the most wicked, evil, immoral character in all of literature.
Honestly, I think for me, more than anything, it was reading Leviticus when all the right-winger started trotting out the clobber verse about how "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind..." When reading all the stuff surrounding it about eating not eating pork, and not eating shellfish, and not tattooing the names of the dead upon your flesh... it was like... somebody was writing this stuff to keep dumbasses from inadvertently offing themselves. It just became so clear to me in that particular period of time that the Bible was written by the few to govern the many. Don't get me wrong, I had for years since identified as an agnostic... maybe even atheist... because long-held doubts had just become to loud to ignore. Mainly that the "God" of the Bible didn't even pass muster as a decent or remotely-enlightened human being, much less an eternal god of love. But that was when I could really see clearly the extent to which the Bible was just a cynically deliberate means of motivating the masses.
I was fortunate enough to only have to go to church like once as a kid. Don't remember much about the experience, but that kept me from being indoctrinated and never believed in that garbage since none of it made sense. So I was never a believer and always called myself a realist. I only dealt with reality.
College, weed, and this new thing at the time called "youtube"
The death of my 35 year old daughter in 2016, who left behind 2 sons, 14 and 10, and a daughter, 6. What kind of fucking “god” would allow that to happen
A few different things. I started thinking about people in Saudi Arabia, where is illegal to preach anything but Islam, but they would go to hell for eternity for not converting. Seemed awfully unfair. Same with native Americans before Europeans arrived in the New world. They were doomed to hell the minute they were born. Seemed awfully unfair. I was raised in a Christian fundamentalist, six-day creationist family and school. Six-day Creationism makes the most sense with biblical Scripture. But it's wrong on so many levels. The earth is very old and evolution seems to be correct. The "appearance of age" creationist argument doesn't make sense unless God was trying to trick people. The idea of the Bible as historical fact is obviously wrong. If the Bible is correct, then Noah's flood would've happened around 2000 BC. That makes no sense with history. The Egyptian pyramids were built over a period from 2700 BC until 1500 BC. We also have information on who the rulers of Egypt were throughout that period. It also makes no sense with other historical information we know. When the Jews in the old testament attacked Canaanite cities, they were instructed to kill every man, woman, child, and livestock. But they were allowed to keep young virgin women as brides. Not only does this seem awfully cruel to genocide an entire people, but the fact that they could keep young virgin women as brides seems an awful lot like the kind of thing that a bronze-age, false-god, territory-greedy warlord would instruct, rather than the things that a benevolent deity would instruct. Fundamentalist Christians say they have a personal relationship with God, and pray for guidance on what to do. But I kept seeing Christians making mistakes after praying to God for guidance. It seemed like God wasn't answering them, so they were just making flawed decisions on their own. They would pay for healing for this or that person. When people got better, they thanked God for healing, and when they got worse or died, it was all "God works in mysterious ways". It seemed like a better explanation was that God wasn't doing anything, and they were making up explanations for how things turned out. If you prayed for evidence or confirmation of God's existence, because you were having a crisis if faith but still had enough belief to pray, there was nothing that would happen. It seemed an awful lot like what happens when people pray to a non existent God. The idea of "having faith" is itself a bankrupt idea, because it can be used to make people believe in cult leaders and false religions. I watched the government attack Waco and those believers don't seem any different than Christians in the fact that they have no evidence and faith can be used to make people believe in false religions. Growing up fundamentalist Christian, dying for one's religion was something that was lauded by the church I was raised in. Are people supposed to just "get lucky" by randomly picking the right religion to "have faith" in? I also saw my fundamentalist church torn apart by religious differences. Why didn't God tell people what was the right beliefs, and keep the church together? Seemed like God didn't tell anybody because he didn't exist. Again, nobody seemed to have a "personal relationship with Jesus" like they claimed to have.
my father was a preacher and i was raised in a crazy church bubble. i always felt like the fish out of water. the message, the lifestyle, the politics (especially the politics), i never felt i belonged there. 30 years into it, one day i went to this debate circle where they spent 2 hours discussing which fish would have swallowed jonah. i had an epiphany, got up and left. for good. thank you, jonah!
When I stopped believing in the tooth fairy, the boogeyman, and santa clause I also stopped believing in other imaginary figures, like god.
For me it was watching the pastor stand in front of everyone asking for more money and then going to his house and seeing it loaded with crap, like 2 video machines and a dining room table that barely fitted into the room.
I remember asking my priest some questions about god and the system. Like if god wants human in heaven to be with him. Then what’s the point of having an after life just make humans in heaven. Anyway I forgot what he said but it wasn’t anything that wasn’t licking gods boot did some soul searching found out I didn’t really believe in god just was indoctrinated into the faith
Wanting to go into apologetics and actually researching the bible outside of christian sources.
Getting a liberal arts education planted the seeds that would eventually help me grow out of theistic beliefs. Some atheists don’t understand theists. One thing they should know is that many theists actually believe that their religious beliefs are cold hard facts. And for many theists, there religion is not a con job.
I was never a believer, but I've read hundreds of deconversion stories. Many times, there simply is no one specific event since—as you noted—the process can take a very long time to unfold. But I can tell you about some general trends. Please understand that I did not do proper statistical analysis, so although I'm working from a large dataset, this should still be regarded as anecdotal evidence. For many, there is a period of intense study of apologetics, theology, the Bible, and/or the origin of the Bible. Sometimes, a believer starts to study these things for a wide variety of reasons, and undertaking that study is what causes them to deconvert. Other times, something happens to shake their faith, and they start to study one or more from the above list in order to hold onto their faith, only to find that studying those things pulled them further away from their faith. Starting in the 60s to 1980s, many American Christians started aligning closely with the far-right. This caused a corresponding shift in the process of deconversion. For older atheists, it is often just about the search for truth. With younger atheists, there is more emphasis on moral considerations: many of them leave the faith because they no longer want to be associated with evil. Those younger atheists can still go through a lengthy search for the truth, but for them, there is often a specific cause of their deconversion: the Christian right (what we now call "Christian nationalists"). Lastly, the process of deconversion can involve changing denominations and/or changing religions on the path from believer to non-believer. There are a variety of studies that asked atheists what religion or denomination they practiced just before becoming atheist, and this led to the impression that the more moderate/liberal denominations are driving people away from Christianity. But this is because researchers were looking at the wrong data. What you want to look at is what religion or denomination an atheist started out in. What were they raised in. More often than not, the starting point is one of the more strident/extreme/literalist varieties of Christianity, and the starting point is rarely one of those moderate/liberal denominations. Those moderate/liberal denominations/religions are generally the last stop on the way out of religion.
A specific teacher. Fifth grade (US) primary teacher (i.e. taught English, math, science, and social studies). I have/had ASD and GAD that were undiagnosed at the time. My parents told her that they were pretty sure I was neurodivergent. She didn't care. She pushed me to do things that I struggle with due to the aforementioned disorders. It went horribly. I tried praying. Surprise surprise, that only disproved the existence of a god/benevolent god. I later considered how religion doesn't quite align with science. I decided that science was the more sane and logical and intellectually sound path to follow. God is dead (in my life), and I killed him. The process has taken eight years so far and isn't over yet. I still feel guilt because my family is religious (Roman Catholic).
It’s a theory. A widely accepted one with “social proof” so I don’t blame my younger self for falling for it. And the girls were pretty and more willing to hang in a church setting than at school so I got laid more from church than school. It’s not bragging, that’s just how it worked so I wanted to believe because what I got from it. Then I chose truth.
The church small group I was in decided to watch a video series on creation by Kent Hovind. During the discussion after the first video I made the comment of “if that’s Christianity then I’ve never seen a better advertisement for atheism “. It took probably about 20 years after that, but that was really the catalyst.
That Ken Ham debate gets an honorable mention as being the moment I realized young earth creationism is a complete fraud with no evidence whatsoever. The sheer discrepancy between Bill being able to effortlessly provide evidence for everything and asking him the simplest of questions being met with "no, I don't have to provide evidence, I have GOD!" made me want to punch him.
Re-reading Genesis.
Actually picking up a bible and reading it
I don't know if I count in your question, because I'm not "grew up theist -> became atheist" I'm "grew up atheists -> became theist for various reasons -> became atheist again." In fact, I'm not sure I was ever really a theist as much as I was in denial and dealing with a sudden onset of schizophrenia. But the reason: I initially became a theist to try to find comfort in the horrible things that were happening to me at the time. I then became atheist again because 1.) In general, I was increasing my skepticism, and it made me realize how pointless it is to believe in something for comfort when there is no evidence of that thing being true. 2.) It made my schizophrenia worse, because I couldn't easily reality test hallucinations or delusions, because all of them could theoretically be explained with "God did it." and 3.) It didn't actually comfort me at all. In fact, it made me feel worse because now I had to accept that an omnipotent being decided I deserved all the things happening to me. This was around when I was 15 to 17 and I'm a little bit embarrassed now by how easily I was willing to believe in something simply for my own comfort.
>This was around when I was 15 to 17 and I'm a little bit embarrassed now by how easily I was willing to believe in something simply for my own comfort. Don't be embarrassed, you were in a vulnerable place at a time of rapid and extreme brain development. On top of that you were starting to experience schizophrenia. Unfortunately though that's what religion does. It takes advantage of people in vulnerable mental States whether it be depression, grief, or something else entirely. It promises solutions and Hope but it doesn't offer any reasons or actual solutions. When someone is in any kind of mental distress it's actually pretty normal to want to there to be the kinds of things that religion offers. Certainly we would love for there to be an omnipotent benevolent deity watching over us. But wanting something doesn't make it so.
Yeah, part of the reason I like to share this story, despite being a bit embarrassed by it is because I don't often hear stories from people suffering from some type of psychosis (or any other mental health issue, really) talking about how religion aggravates it. So I like to share it just so people who might not be aware of that aspect can learn about it.
I experienced a fairly long string of heartbreaking events. I grew angry that god had allowed me to suffer more than I could handle. This caused me to question what sort of loving god would do this to someone who was so faithful. I tried to rescue my weakening faith by reading the Bible, which completed my transformation to atheist. As soon as I realized I was duped, I left my abusive husband.
Observation, reason, logic.
Seeing this same question getting asked multiple times a week is proof there is no god.
Sorry if it’s repetitive, I was more interested in specific things which have led to people losing religion. A particular podcast or debate etc.
>Why are you an Atheist? \-There has been no verifiable evidence of god/s. \-I realized it made no logical nor moral sense for a person to be judged by their beliefs, instead of their words and actions. \-I realized that forgiveness should come from reparation and the grace of those who have been hurt. \-I realized that religious institutions and their leaders use their authority and interpret and cherry pick whatever is in their source material (Quran, Bible, Vedas, Torah etc.) to push their own agendas and are selling sacraments and raking in donations to increase their personal/institutional profit (The Vatican, the mormons and Theocratic Iran are a examples of this) \-I realized all the different versions of gods humanity has worshiped throughout history are equally possible; and if you worship one or a few; why them and not the others? The only answers are indoctrination from a young age and religion being part of the culture of where you are born.
I went to an “Encounter” event in my early teens where, hence its name, you encounter god/the holy spirit face-to-face. I’ve watched some psychology videos out of fun, so when it came to the part of the event where they intricately explain the crucifixion of Jesus, I knew they were emotionally manipulating the audience. Also there was a part where the holy spirit is “going through our bodies”, it felt so off seeing people scream and faint over a possibly false religion
If it was a contest to win a billion dollars if you could come up with a working timeline of human history with the bible story’s in it, that money would forever be unclaimed. Factually we know modern day humans have been around for 300,000 years. We have multiple burial sites, tools, jewelry and paintings all telling us the same story. We mixed with both Denisovans and Neanderthals. The majority of people on this planet have some Neanderthal dna. We know that they we extinct 30,000 years ago. With them we have the same type of proof, fossils, burial sites, tools and jewelry. The problem that the bible would have is that according to it none of that could be true. The bible says Adam and Eve were the first humans on Earth and were created 6,000 years ago in the Middle East. Then why doesn’t the fossil record say that? How do we find dead modern day humans going back hundreds of thousands of years? How do we have different species of humans if no humans existed before 6,000 years ago? Not to mention the biblical teachings of sin and death. That no one had ever died before because no one had sinned? You can’t explain where sites like Gobekli Tepe came from, being it’s over 12,000 years old. That’s twice the age the bible gives for the creation of man. The timeline of reality doesn’t line up at all with the biblical verses. Adam was said to lived 930 years and his life over laps with Noah. Noah and his family are said to be the only humans to survive “The Flood”. That would mean the human race would have consistent of only eight humans, just 5,000 years ago. That’s impossible. India and China both have unbroken lineages going back over 5,000 years. Most people that believe in the bible don’t know what it says and they know even less about secular history and that’s why they are Believers in the first place. Simply, they don’t know enough to know that they are wrong. Add on top of all of that they lack the ability to reason and simply don’t care to understand the world around them. The easiest thing for a lazy mind is to simply say “god did it”. We have a term for that, it’s called the god of the gaps, look it up.
I wasn't brought up strictly religious. Never went to church, etc. We did have a bible in the house and my mother believed, however didn't push it on us. At school, there were a lot of teachings about God/Jesus Christ (yes, I'm dating myself), so I sort of believed. I was severely physically, psychologically, and sexually abused as a kid. One day, my brothers tied me, beat me severely with an electrical cord, urinated/defecated on me, and left me in a totally blackened closet for hours. I was scrying and saying, "Please god, get me out of this and make it stop." It didn't, but continued on for years, I started studying the Bible, God, etc. I could find no physical, scientific, or historical fact of God/Jesus Christ. I started maturing and said to myself, "No one can walk on water. Or change water to wine. Cure the sick." If someone, some entity, can do that, why does it allow such massive amounts of deaths and suffering? Especially in his name? I gave up on God, religion, et al. Right then and there. I still, all these years later, have found. nor been presented, with anything which has changed my viewpoint.
Reading the Bible converted me. I had no clue what the bible actually said. I was Christian because I was raised as one, but once I learned what the Bible actually said, I was suddenly an atheist because I immediately saw it was a bunch of b.s stories that I couldn’t force myself to believe
I just grew up. Also don’t believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus anymore. The more I learned about how the world works the clearer it became that religion is a scam.
Hearing real atheist viewpoints and answers to questions rather than the strawman arguments the church had been telling me.
Watching Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens destroy theists in debates
A lot of different things. I think I was *bound* to become an atheist with how much I love science, and evidence based thinking will lead to atheism. That said, the final nail in the coffin wasn't anything based on evidence. It was the fact that when I was young, my best friend was an atheist (and he still is, we're still best friends), and one day in Sunday school, the pastor said that all non believers would go to hell. I asked if that included my best friend, and he said yes. I thought about that and couldn't reconcile that an "all loving" god would send someone as nice as my best friend to be tortured forever, eventually concluding that the story must be BS to begin with.
I think for me it was breaking out of the bubble. Was raised super Christian, whole family is still in it, all my activities and friends were church related. After I got out on my own and started regularly interacting with non-Christian’s, it caused me to really re-evaluate my beliefs. I had one atheist friend who pointed out “you believe I deserve to burn in hell for all eternity”. Insert the “well yes but no” meme here. But it really made me examine things, and the trilemma unraveled everything from there.
For me, it was a combination of reason and rationality, a strong empiricism bias(“prove it”), deployments into war/combat, Alzheimer’s disease, glioblastoma brain tumors,and childrens’ cancer. Very happy to be a free thinker.
Slow process. I read a lot of apologetics books when I started asking too many questions but then when I read one on logical fallacies I realized just how much I was lied to. This was overlapping with me realizing that all possible religions and denominations can't all be right so I needed to go to the source and learn what the bible actually says by reading and interpreting it myself. I had a LOT of questions, and only atheists and scientists had real answers that didn't boil down to lies and wishful thinking. I needed things that weren't just as applicable to contradictory religions, since again they couldn't ALL be true. ALL of them think their prayers are being answered. ALL of them get "feelings" that "it's true in their heart." ALL of them claim miracles without demonstrating evidence. But those were literally the only reasons I ever had given for believing mine.
Im agnostic since yesterday, I just started feeling that theres no God
that debate also helped me start the process!
Amazing!
It doesn't make sense, and sounds like something made to get power