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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Atheists at what age did you discovered that there wasn't a "God"or that any deity did not exist?  Was it through a life changing experience, your parents, your understanding of science, etc?  Also, did you get ostracize or rejected by your family and friends once you told them that you were an Atheist?  Have you ever suffer discrimination because of your belief or lack of? 
 [/quote]

I have yet to discover there is no god -- that would be impossible - like discovering there is no Zeus.  I stopped believing in god as an adult when I learned about religion from an academic point of view. And of course, I never believed in Zeus.  I was told he was a mythical character from the beginning -- a god people believed in long ago, but not anymore.

I learned there are many gods out there that people still believe in and that in some cases, e.g., Christianity, there are strong punishments for not believing (hell) and strong rewards for believing (heaven) but both are ideas, not actual places. And while there is no way to prove that God doesn't exist, there is no way to prove he doesn't.  I learned lots of other things but those were the main reasons for no longer believing.[/quote]

Speaking as a theist, I think this is the most sensible post in the thread and I agree that atheism is a system of belief, or organized non-belief, rather than discovering a scientific fact.

Also, there are still people who believe in Zeus, but that's neither here nor there.[/quote]

+1. I'm another theist who has no patience with evangelical theology or posting in caps. I agree, however, that [b]OP's concept of "discovering" atheism rests on the premise that it's a system of belief--in the non-existence of a God--that rests on something unprovable, i.e. the non-existence of God. The fact that atheism has no established tenets for how to behave doesn't take away from that. [/b]

This--inability to prove the non-existence of God--is the reason some atheist thinkers like Dawkins describe themselves as agnostic instead of atheist. I think Dawkins has said he's 99% atheist but there's always that 1% uncertainty so he's technically agnostic.

Just a small correction: many Christians don't actually believe that non-believers will be punished.[/quote]

Poster deemed 'reasonable" here -- I don't think you're in a position to determine what OP meant by "discovering" atheism.  I took it to mean, as op described, how different people came to be atheists.  And as we've seen by the responses, it has happened in different ways.  This is something I had already learned from meeting other atheists, but can see it would be a question for someone thinking about atheism for the first time, from the point of view of a believer.

As for Dawkins, he's being precise in a way most atheists and agnostics are not, in part, I think, because they (and most people) don't really understand the terms.  Briefly, agnostic means not knowing and atheist means not believing. It does NOT mean "knowing" there is no god.  Regarding any supernatural being, humans technically can't know for sure, because such beings are invisible.

Atheists don't believe in god the way they don't believe in other invisible beings, like fairies and gremlins and Santa.  I know it offends religious believers to have god lumped in with that group, but being invisible and impossible to prove using the scientific method are the common elements of supernatural beings, irrespective of their importance in society.  Atheists reject all of them.  Technically, atheists are "agnostic atheists" - they don't know and they don't believe. And some will call themselves that.  Some people who call themselves agnostic feel more comfortable in the "don't know" category.  It doesn't sound as harsh and may imply that they are searching for god -- and maybe some of them are.

Atheism as been improperly defined as "Knowing there is no God."  I don't know one atheist who thinks this way.  Most are science-oriented and realize that God can't be proven. But atheists may also be as unmotivated to disprove god’s existence as religious people are unmotivated to disprove Santa’s existence. Speaking for myself, believing that god is real is as farfetched as believing fairy tales are real.

I suspect the idea of atheist certainty is sometimes taught in church (along with atheists being mean, bitter and without morals).  It's easy to see how someone who doesn't believe in god but who is kind, pleasant and moral might prefer the term [i]agnostic[/i] over [i]atheist[/i].  I prefer the “atheist” and I know some people who formerly called themselves agnostic, are now using the term atheist.  It's more precise and helps to show people that atheists do not fit the stereotype that society has placed on us.
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