Atheists/agnostics, why did you become atheist/agnostic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe I am ‘losing my religion’ as we speak.
I have been an active Methodist all of my life; I married a Catholic guy who goes through all the motions but doesn’t actually have deep faith. I realized we keep up the pretense for our children (kind of like the Santa analogy above) because my Methodist church provides a convenient way to help us reaffirm the values we want to instill in our children.

I want to live like Jesus... I just don’t think any religion has any (provable) truth deeper than old earthly creation stories that morphed into stories of divinity.
This has been a mix of influence of my anthropological education background / having children / burying loved ones / not feeling stronger faith as I age, but the opposite. Shouldn’t faith strengthen as we invest in it? I’ve given it 42 years.

I am struggling with this, though. It’s tough to let go or something after a lifetime of trying.

I hear you. It can be tough to make the transition to non-belief. "Letting go" doesn't need to be as complete as cutting a bad ex out of photographs if you don't want it to be. It's still okay to want to live like Jesus. In the same sense that it's okay to want to live like Atticus Finch or Robin Hood or Tom Sawyer.

Personally, as a committed atheist, I'm actually really impressed by the bible. I think it's kind of cool and interesting that humans' desire to understand -- to understand the world, to make sense of creation, to explain what they didn't have the science to explain -- resulted in the creation and codification of these stories. Not that it's necessarily great literature, and a lot of it is simply not well written even in a good translation, but there's a lot there. So feel free to interpret the New Testament Jesus stories as a reasonably-decent guide for how to live. You don't have to give that up as you move away from really "believing."

Interesting point of view -- thanks for expressing it. Sounds like, having removed or discounted the Bible's power as a must-follow book of rules, you are able to recognize its value as ancient literature.

This is a view that can be difficult for formerly religious people who became atheist because they were taught to "believe" the Bible as the word of God, and then found it to be a sham.

Jefferson had similar issues with the Bible. He took the New Testament and used a razor to physically cut out all supposed miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural - i.e., the Resurrection, miracles, etc. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

Then there are the "liberal" branches of religion that treat the Bible like a precious family heirloom -- kept on a shelf in a place on honor, but no longer used in every day life because it is so obviously impractical and outdated.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a pretty strict Catholic household.

It was early on for me, really when I was preparing to being confirmed. And I got into an argument with the priest on transubstantiation.

I kept saying "you mean, it REPRESENTS the body & blood of Christ." He was an old man, and kept saying no, through the power of Christ and the power of Mass, it becomes the body and blood of Christ.

and I was like "but its still a cracker and cheap wine."

It's probably different by parish, but it really put me off. And when I told my parents that I didn't want to continue with my confirmation, my father supported me; my mother did not.

That was the first step on an inevitable journey to not believing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that religion is completely manmade.

I mean really when you think about it, what on earth makes Islam, Christianity, Judaism (etc) more plausible than Greek gods and mythology, or ancient Egyptian? Or why is monotheism any more plausible than polytheism?

The stories, the concepts of an afterlife, and so on are not any more believable (and in many cases, obviously borrowed and built upon).

People create and tell stories to have a sense of order. To structure what they feel is chaotic in the universe. Which is fine... but it's just a story in the absence of (or before) scientific understanding. Or to give comfort. But it's all completely manmade.

+1 this

Honestly, the Greek stories are way better than the Christian stories

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that religion is completely manmade.

I mean really when you think about it, what on earth makes Islam, Christianity, Judaism (etc) more plausible than Greek gods and mythology, or ancient Egyptian? Or why is monotheism any more plausible than polytheism?

The stories, the concepts of an afterlife, and so on are not any more believable (and in many cases, obviously borrowed and built upon).

People create and tell stories to have a sense of order. To structure what they feel is chaotic in the universe. Which is fine... but it's just a story in the absence of (or before) scientific understanding. Or to give comfort. But it's all completely manmade.

+1 this

Honestly, the Greek stories are way better than the Christian stories

You mean Greek mythology, right? That's what we call what they considered their religion. Someday, children will study Christian mythology the way we studied Greek and Roman mythology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that religion is completely manmade.

I mean really when you think about it, what on earth makes Islam, Christianity, Judaism (etc) more plausible than Greek gods and mythology, or ancient Egyptian? Or why is monotheism any more plausible than polytheism?

The stories, the concepts of an afterlife, and so on are not any more believable (and in many cases, obviously borrowed and built upon).

People create and tell stories to have a sense of order. To structure what they feel is chaotic in the universe. Which is fine... but it's just a story in the absence of (or before) scientific understanding. Or to give comfort. But it's all completely manmade.

+1 this

Honestly, the Greek stories are way better than the Christian stories

You mean Greek mythology, right? That's what we call what they considered their religion. Someday, children will study Christian mythology the way we studied Greek and Roman mythology.

I'm totally going to start calling it that when discussing with my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that religion is completely manmade.

I mean really when you think about it, what on earth makes Islam, Christianity, Judaism (etc) more plausible than Greek gods and mythology, or ancient Egyptian? Or why is monotheism any more plausible than polytheism?

The stories, the concepts of an afterlife, and so on are not any more believable (and in many cases, obviously borrowed and built upon).

People create and tell stories to have a sense of order. To structure what they feel is chaotic in the universe. Which is fine... but it's just a story in the absence of (or before) scientific understanding. Or to give comfort. But it's all completely manmade.

+1 this

Honestly, the Greek stories are way better than the Christian stories

You mean Greek mythology, right? That's what we call what they considered their religion. Someday, children will study Christian mythology the way we studied Greek and Roman mythology.

I'm totally going to start calling it that when discussing with my kids.

That's what we do. We talk with our kids about Thor and Odin and the Norse mythology, Zeus and Hercules and the Greek mythology, the Mahabharata and Indian mythology, Celtic mythology, Christian mythology, etc. (I dug out my old copy of Deities & Demigods for reference to some of the more obscure pantheons.)

[Anonymous]

Grew up Catholic. Heard about abuse in our Church and the suicide of a young alter boy. Hated how the Church took millions to pay the cover up of priests. I'm now an agnostic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that religion is completely manmade.

I mean really when you think about it, what on earth makes Islam, Christianity, Judaism (etc) more plausible than Greek gods and mythology, or ancient Egyptian? Or why is monotheism any more plausible than polytheism?

The stories, the concepts of an afterlife, and so on are not any more believable (and in many cases, obviously borrowed and built upon).

People create and tell stories to have a sense of order. To structure what they feel is chaotic in the universe. Which is fine... but it's just a story in the absence of (or before) scientific understanding. Or to give comfort. But it's all completely manmade.

+1 this

Honestly, the Greek stories are way better than the Christian stories

You mean Greek mythology, right? That's what we call what they considered their religion. Someday, children will study Christian mythology the way we studied Greek and Roman mythology.

I'm totally going to start calling it that when discussing with my kids.

Also include Jewish mythology, when teaching your kids about the Old testament stories. There is also Jewish history, which includes persecution through the centuries, based on the Christian mythology that the Jews killed Jesus.

[Anonymous]

Religion is the cause of all ills in this world. It is discriminatory and causes wars. It’s all made up by men and subjugates women. It should not play a role in politics. People should not impose their beliefs on others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fascinating stories -- and devoid of the evil and ignorance that believers are told (often by clergy or devout family members) are central to disbelief.

Non-believers do describe a lot of angst and pain and rejection, though, via believers who try to convince them how wrong they are, and of the punishments that they'll suffer due to their lack of belief.

The only evil and ignorance I suffered in my journey to atheism was the terror I felt as a child when I knew deep down that I didn't believe it but everyone around me did (or pretended they did). I spent literally years as a child secretly thinking I was evil or defective. To question the very existence of God when you are a small child who has been taught God is literally everything in your life and means everything to all trusted adults is very scary.

As an adult, I think that is significantly cruel to a child. My children will fortunately never experience that.

This was my reaction, too. I remember learning the story of Isaac and Abraham in Sunday School around the age of 7 and looking around the room for other horrified faces and seeing none. Then the teacher ended with a smug “we should all love God as much as Abraham.” That was pretty much it for me.

[Anonymous]

Raised Catholic in a family that was a weird mix of adherent (Mass/Sunday School EVERY Sunday, Catholic school til college, parents participating in several parish ministries) but also very socially liberal/progressive. Probably why I hung on for so long, because my immediate Catholic community seemed to really put their money where their mouth was in terms of social justice, which remains very important to me. My parents are still active Church members.

The first cracks in the facade for me came when our pastor went down early in the child abuse scandal. I realized if HE wasn't scared enough to commit such a mortal sin, maybe he didn't really believe. I was in high school at the time.

I held out into college, but as college kids do, got lazy about attending Mass. Then started dating a non-religious guy. Once I got some distance from the Church, it gave me perspective. I slowly realized it was just convenient fiction.

It took years to accept that I was atheist, internally. I am comfortable with it now. But it's very much don't ask, don't tell with my family. I'm sure my parents, etc. realize I'm at a minimum agnostic now, but we don't talk about it at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that religion is completely manmade.

I mean really when you think about it, what on earth makes Islam, Christianity, Judaism (etc) more plausible than Greek gods and mythology, or ancient Egyptian? Or why is monotheism any more plausible than polytheism?

The stories, the concepts of an afterlife, and so on are not any more believable (and in many cases, obviously borrowed and built upon).

People create and tell stories to have a sense of order. To structure what they feel is chaotic in the universe. Which is fine... but it's just a story in the absence of (or before) scientific understanding. Or to give comfort. But it's all completely manmade.

+1 this

Honestly, the Greek stories are way better than the Christian stories

You mean Greek mythology, right? That's what we call what they considered their religion. Someday, children will study Christian mythology the way we studied Greek and Roman mythology.

I'm totally going to start calling it that when discussing with my kids.

Also include Jewish mythology, when teaching your kids about the Old testament stories. There is also Jewish history, which includes persecution through the centuries, based on the Christian mythology that the Jews killed Jesus.

Any book recommendations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that religion is completely manmade.

I mean really when you think about it, what on earth makes Islam, Christianity, Judaism (etc) more plausible than Greek gods and mythology, or ancient Egyptian? Or why is monotheism any more plausible than polytheism?

The stories, the concepts of an afterlife, and so on are not any more believable (and in many cases, obviously borrowed and built upon).

People create and tell stories to have a sense of order. To structure what they feel is chaotic in the universe. Which is fine... but it's just a story in the absence of (or before) scientific understanding. Or to give comfort. But it's all completely manmade.

+1 this

Honestly, the Greek stories are way better than the Christian stories

You mean Greek mythology, right? That's what we call what they considered their religion. Someday, children will study Christian mythology the way we studied Greek and Roman mythology.

I'm totally going to start calling it that when discussing with my kids.

Also include Jewish mythology, when teaching your kids about the Old testament stories. There is also Jewish history, which includes persecution through the centuries, based on the Christian mythology that the Jews killed Jesus.

Any book recommendations?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BOR8S7A/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
The Bible Unearthed Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts
Israel Finkelstein Neil Asher Silberman

In this groundbreaking work that sets apart fact and legend, authors Finkelstein and Silberman use significant archeological discoveries to provide historical information about biblical Israel and its neighbors.

[Anonymous]

To maintain your mental health and balance, you can visit the website found-salvation.com. It helps a lot, gives relief

[Anonymous]

My crazy mom who is the church lady. Growing up with her and her demanding that I believe everything she did was enough to turn me off of it forever.