How I Lost My Faith: A thread for atheist testimony

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can I post about how I became an atheist and then became religious?

Not OP but interested in your story

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I post about how I became an atheist and then became religious?

Not OP but interested in your story

Then start another thread.

[Anonymous]

I always had issues with religion especially some of the biblical stories (e.g. never believed my period or childbirth pains were due to original sin) but I still felt very close to god and my religion (raised catholic). But I started traveling and lived abroad in college in a lesser developed country and started questioning things more - like income disparities and suffering and how f*cked up it seemed. Then I took a Sociology of Religion class and learned how similar some of the stories in the Bible are to other religions that predate Christianity and slowly realized how it’s all BS. Since becoming agnostic, I’m more empathetic and less self righteous.

[Anonymous]

Raised Catholic but my parents lost their religion and I didn’t go after 8th grade. Went back as an adult. I found Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount quite beautiful and moving, even frightening. It is quite a prescription for how to live.

I got sick of the stupid sermons. The child abuse is completely evil. I think most all organized religion is not good. I have met a lot of people who were abused in some way by the effects of religion and it’s so common as to be disturbing. I also can’t stand the move of religion into politics and elections. I don’t relate to the trend toward orthodoxy and fundamentalism that seems to be the prevailing fashion, or at least a very potent force, in most world religions in this day and age.

I have also known some great people who probably are great because of their beliefs, especially Jewish friends, for what it’s worth.

I can’t stand the megachurch, rock n roll Christianity that is so common where I live in Southern California. I don’t even understand what it has to do with the New Testament. Not much, IMO.

I used to pray every day but don’t feel the same about it anymore. Sometimes though I feel as if my loss of faith is also a message from God or part of a faith journey. Like I had to get away from the Pharisees. However, I feel less and less like there is a God to pray to in the way I had. It’s more like I should just contemplate mystery and creation, that biology is God, or DNA and randomness is God. Beauty is God.

[Anonymous]

My story is very unusual, and very long. I will synopsize to say that I am now an atheist that believes that religion is poison, and that I came to this conclusion after meeting and befriending people that I did not know were fundamentalists. The effect their religion had on their kids was devastating to say the least.

Their fanaticism started me questioning, and led me here. Religious fundamentalism is nothing short of child abuse cloaked in a set of beliefs that is, from the outside, usually seen as a good thing. However, the effect these beliefs have on a developing mind are far reaching and seen with a rational mind, horrific and sad at the same time.

It is very difficult to argue these points, as "religion" and "believing in god" are seen as such a wonderful attributes, but those subtle shifts in a world view are immoral in so many ways and most religious people can't even see it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was raised in the 1960s and ‘70s by a Christian mother and Jewish father, both of whom were fairly religious. But they decided to raise my sister and me in both religions so that we could choose which we wanted as we grew older. However, both of us never became at all religious.

I guess I was always a skeptic. I remember as a little kid in Sunday school asking who invented God, and basically being told to be quiet. The older I got the less I wanted to believe in a god who let there be wars, starving babies, and other atrocities if he was all powerful. And if such a being existed, I did not want to praise or worship something that let terrible things happen.

so you live in a world of starving babies and wars, without a god.

Who do you blame for the starving babies and wars? This is not at all an argument or criticism of your beliefs. i promise. I am interested in who you blame for these terrible things?

Your response is classic religious pre-suppositionalism. It makes the assumption that there must be somebody supernatural to blame. Here’s something that you should find edifying: when you don’t believe in the supernatural being, you blame wars on the people who start them. you blame starving babies on the people who have the ability to stop a baby from starving and don’t.

That’s who you blame. The people responsible.

See how easy that was to answer?

+1 million. And I would argue that the worldview you espouse (blaming those actually responsible) would lead to a better society, to us evolving as a society and as humans, to a more peaceful world, to being able to eventually rise above the struggles and war and suffering. THIS is why religion is dangerous to humanity. It is a subtle but powerful idea.

[Anonymous]

Raised atheist by a staunchly atheist father (who was himself raised by atheists) and a mother who kept quiet on her beliefs but who returned to religion (trying on many religions) after divorcing.

I tried to believe and joined a church youth group at around age 16 but found the kids very judgmental. There’s no way I could believe in anything anyone tells me to just believe in. I feel my moral compass is just fine. The only time I wish I had a religion is when I want to tell someone that I really hope things will get better for them or when someone has passed away - saying you’ll pray for someone doesn’t have a good equivalent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Raised atheist by a staunchly atheist father (who was himself raised by atheists) and a mother who kept quiet on her beliefs but who returned to religion (trying on many religions) after divorcing.

I tried to believe and joined a church youth group at around age 16 but found the kids very judgmental. There’s no way I could believe in anything anyone tells me to just believe in. I feel my moral compass is just fine. The only time I wish I had a religion is when I want to tell someone that I really hope things will get better for them or when someone has passed away - saying you’ll pray for someone doesn’t have a good equivalent.

Being there for them, lending support and physically helping them (cleaning, arranging meals, caring for their kids) is worth more, imo, than platitudes.

[Anonymous]

Another Catholic turned atheist. I never really believed it completely. Like it didn’t make sense even as a kid but I kept trying anyways by going back to church. And then I stopped in my early 20s. I think religion has done more harm than good in the world. I never understood the doing something/not doing something bc it’s what your God wants. Like you should be a decent person bc it’s the right thing not bc it will earn you brownie points. And the hypocrisy of the most fundamentalists in any given religion. Like being gay is a sin-but all this other stuff (killing in the name of your God, greed, etc) is ok? And I work in health care—and I hear all sorts of things that just don’t make sense (God’s will, miracle, etc). But I don’t go around preaching atheism. In fact, I don’t tell anyone unless directly asked.

[Anonymous]

Decided in sixth grade that I was no longer interested in attending Sunday school because I didn’t think the Bible stories were God’s word. I claimed to be agnostic for many years, but finally embraced my atheism in my mid-twenties. I’ve been a member of a few Unitarian Universalist churches, but stopped attending when my daughter didn’t want to go to Sunday school and our lives were taken over by youth sports. I still read Unitarian Universalist publications and websites and may return to attending services at some point.

[Anonymous]

I was raised liberal (for the 80s/90s) Presbyterian, but I got sucked into Young Life in middle and high school. I'm an over-achiever and I threw myself into being the world's best evangelical Christian. Truly, I was perfect. I didn't kiss my high school boyfriend, I didn't lie or speed or drink alcohol, obviously. I had a "quiet time" every day and I was in constant contact with the American evangelical version of God/Jesus in my head.

And then when I was a senior in college, I saw a documentary on tv about cults, and these people were describing the absolutely bonkers and silly stuff they had believed in cults, and my brain said, "OMG how is this any different than the ridiculous stories I believe are true," and POOF!, my constant companion/imaginary God-friend disappeared in one shocking moment.

And then I began to see the ridiculous misogyny and obsession with sex/sexuality that I had put up with and I got really angry about it all. I told my long time boyfriend (who also professed to be a Christian) that I was now OK with having sex if he was, and it took all of two seconds for him to decide that yes, he was, lol.

Ten or so years later, after we'd gotten married and had kids and I'd gotten some distance from it all, I began to miss the church of my youth, one which was very much not based on dogma or being the best believer or gate-keeping who could or couldn't be a "Christian," and was really just a cultural community focused on good deeds and supporting each other. So now we belong to a liberal (for the 2020s) church. I tell my kids that the Bible is just a story of myths and fables, and that any "belief" I have is of the allegorical sort, but that I encourage them to find community in their lives. I think one thing we lack in America is the perspective and experience of different generations all being brought together for a common purpose, and I think something is lost in being a complete person if we can't find that somewhere. If I had to define myself, I guess I'd say I'm an agnostic secular humanist Presbyterian.

[Anonymous]

These are all very good accounts and I am eager for more. It's pretty easy to let go once you decide to be objective and realize there is zero evidence for most defined gods.

It was understanding I was not alone in my disbelief that made it possible for me to stop pretending. That's why these testimonies are important.

[Anonymous]

Welp, I was abused by my mainstream religion (Islam), and I figured it was patriarchy that made us do and think abusive things in the name of God. There must be a non-patriarchal God out there, right?

So I left Islam and went New Age for a while. Didn't really get any results, but I kinda felt better. Found a community of women. Thought the Goddess was the answer to my religion problems.

Then I got gaslit and abused by THREE female teachers who claim to be liberated from the patriarchy (Kavitha Chinnaiyan of the Sabda Institute, Sabrina Lynn of ReWilding For Women, and Maya Luna of the Venus Church), and went into a tailspin again. Reminded me of how much covert psychological abuse I went through when I left Islam.

I've sat with things for a while. I don't trust spiritual teachers anymore. I don't think it's patriarchy that makes religion or spirituality bad.

Women are psychopaths too. Even women who seem "enlightened" or "awakened" or "free from the patriarchy".

The almighty Goddess did not save me from abuse and she did not comfort me or take my problems away after I experienced abuse from female teachers I trusted.

In my darkest moments, nobody was there for me. I could not sense God. I really TRIED.

So...I have no idea. My atheist testimony is that I think we really twist ourselves into pretzels to try and make sense of the universe, and maybe it doesn't make sense. And when people THINK they've found out how to "make it make sense", they are almost universally dangerous.

It's not just men. Women cult leaders exist and they are frightening.

And I think the best we can do is explore the human heart and just try to be happy we got this one, random little life.

[Anonymous]

funnily enough, I also lost faith through female spiritual leaders...yes, there are definitely female psychopaths out there.

[Anonymous]

I was an atheist who lost faith, and then found faith, after many years.

I think faith or lack of faith can ebb and flow.