NationStates Jolt Archive

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.

I read--a lot--and I discovered that the "truths" my church had been telling me were anything but truthful. Even so, all that did was get me out of my church. The road to atheism was a long one from there, but that's where it began.

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.
Speaking as a Catholic who was born into a religious family, who then strayed and became atheist for ten years, and then returned after much questioning and thought... I would more like to know how people like you never question what your told, never doubt your faith? How do you know that your faith is real if you don't really think about it?

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.

I've never attended church. Oh, and I think a lot.

Speaking as a Catholic who was born into a religious family, who then strayed and became atheist for ten years, and then returned after much questioning and thought... I would more like to know how people like you never question what your told, never doubt your faith? How do you know that your faith is real if you don't really think about it?

I actually think about it all the time.

I'm not really sure myself how it happened. I enjoy reading philosophy and such and that may have contributed, but I just noticed one day that I no longer cared. I no longer believed what they told me.

I shouted "I'm not a fucking Catholic!" at my mother outside Church when I was fifteen. This was after... hmm.... however many years it had been since I'd understood the bases of Catholic faith, which happened when I was in... say.... year four? Also I found the whole thing boring, irrelevant, barely based upon its sacred text, and I considered the scientific theory of creation of the universe and the evolution of life thereupon far more compelling. I still don't purport to be atheist, but I'm certainly a non-abrahamic agnostic. I disbelieve completely the Abrahamic God as he is largely taught today.

I went to a catholic school

Non-Abrahamic Agnostic. I like that, Mind if I steal it for myself? I don't believe in the maojr religions as they're taught, but I can't say that there is specifically nothing. Is that the same thing? Or do I need to find my own term? :)

I simply faded away, and now follow my own personal spirituality. It's a kind of syncretic monotheism because I believe all religious revelations are really reflective of the same God, only interpreted by the peoples of the revelation's time according to the existent cultural and ethical systems.

Non-Abrahamic Agnostic. I like that, Mind if I steal it for myself? I don't believe in the maojr religions as they're taught, but I can't say that there is specifically nothing. Is that the same thing? Or do I need to find my own term? :)

Go for it, man. :p It's not like I've copyrighted it. It applies as long as you disblieve the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, (and all other derivant religions) view of deity, but not the possibility of deity itself.

Go for it, man. :p It's not like I've copyrighted it. It applies as long as you disblieve the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, (and all other derivant religions) view of deity, but not the possibility of deity itself.

But what about disbelieving in the Hindu gods too?

But what about disbelieving in the Hindu gods too?

Non-Abrahamic Non-Vedic would be what you're looking for there.

I went to a catholic school

Yeah, that helped. Though it was a different denomination first, Catholic school just put the nail in the coffin.

But it was a lot of asking questions. Why is it silly and superstitious to think that there was a winged horse or something but not that a burning bush talked or a dude split a sea or another rose from the dead? The answers didn't satisfy.

Then, upset that I was asking all these questions, I had to sit up front during the morning whatzit where the dude would preach from his life experiences. Except that they had left me up there earlier and I had read 'his' life experience while I waited from a published little book he didn't happen to write. As an adult it's a 'meh' moment, but as a kid, man that was a hammer. Nothing that dude said was worth anything to me after that. The pomp and circumstance of the Catholic Church was just too cartoonish for me and then that was it.

But that was just the road to agnosticism. Atheism took longer. It was the 'tea cup orbiting Pluto' essay that really sealed what was already pretty much a done deal anyway. I was already at the frustration point of the whole ridiculous 'you can't prove that god doesn't exist' thing. I can't prove a lot of things don't exist, but I can determine that they are unlikely, and if fact wait for them to become likely to consider them possibilities in any meaningful way.

I mean, I don't wait in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin "just in case," either.

Go for it, man. :p It's not like I've copyrighted it. It applies as long as you disblieve the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, (and all other derivant religions) view of deity, but not the possibility of deity itself.

That's me to a T

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.

Basically, I never gave thought to it till I started learning about the various atrocities committed in the name of various religions around the world. Then I started disliking religion and logiced my way into athiesm.

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.

I just never really beleived. It wasn't a big deal, it just happened. For a while, my frustration with the religious right and it's goons had me being a militant, but eventually a form of moral ignosticism came together in my head.

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.Do what? Start using a brain? And if you do it, why would you care anymore what the Christian Churches teach?

I was raised in an American-Irish Catholic family. My mom being Irish: my dad not. I became quite bored with the dogma of Catholism: original sin, purgatory, mortal sin, no meat on Friday, Mass (stand up sit down (fight, fight, fight), kneel) confession and others. After about the age of 14 I stopped going to church except when my mom insisted. Then at about the age of 17 I ran into the Baha'i teaching and was immediately attracted to the concepts that all of humanity came from the same source, and were all of the same race, the human race. That all the majors religions were linked and in essence were the same religion just renewed from time to time with new teachings meant for the people of that time and age.

I put it aside (the Baha'i Faith) for many years, but kept running into it in times and places I didn't expect it. I finally took hard look at the teaching and found them to be what I believed to be true and then converted. That was thirty years ago.

it pretty much just faded away.

once it had faded enough to allow me to question everything (or maybe i just got old enough to think it through) the parts that were obviously not literally true or that contradicted each other began to bother me.

im the sort of person who cant take the good and leave the bad. if christianity is based on the bible and parts of the bible are false, how do we know what parts are TRUE? its like being on a jury and having a witness lie about things, you dont believe any of it if part of it is a lie. it might turn out that some parts are true, but you have no basis for trusting in that. so you need confirmation from another source/witness. in court there should be other people telling the same story before you give any credence to the liar.

with the bible, there are no other sources. none of the stories are backed up by anyone else. they stand alone as the religious records of a specific group. why would i believe those stories more than the vedas? why would i believe them to be more true than the greek and roman myths about their gods? and

if none of them are true, doesnt that mean that one of these things are true...

god doesnt exist

god doesnt care about us one way or the other

god doesnt care if we believe or not

to me, those are all atheistic possibilities. either god doesnt exist or is so distant that it is AS IF he doesnt exist. both are the same to me.

I was brought up in a Catholic family, went to church weekly, but I realised around 15 that I had never really believed any of it, just accepted it without really thinking. I then began thinking about it all, was Atheist as a kind of reaction to it, and have since become Agnostic but still leaning towards Atheism.

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.

I informed myself. I talked with people of different denominations. I talked with people of different faiths. I read books on religions of the present and the past; as well as books on how the people following specific faiths behaved in practice.

And I decided that claiming that my religion was the only true one was both arrogant and silly.

I wasn't born into a super-religious family, but we were Christian. At twelve I was an uber-fundie, but a year later I turned out to be a very liberal Christian. Over the summer (age 14) I started reading and playing on the Internet more and discovered more about Christianity, and understanding it made me turn away from it. I became agnostic and now I'm an atheist.

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.

When I was 17 I experianced the death of a member of my family to whom I was very close. It was a bad death that was only the last in a string of very bad things that happened to a good person. Looking at my faith lead me to find a fatal flaw in the concept of a single omnipotent God. More than that I felt that even if I gave God the benefit of doubt, I would still prefer to burn in hell than kneel out of fear or submission.

I became an atheist for awhile, but that didn't really fit for me. I still felt that there was something more out there, that there was something beyond siple perception, I just didn't know what. Eventually I landed where I am today and I've made my peace with the concept of God. Losing (and finding) faith wasn't a conscious choice so much as an experiential process.

I grew up in a religious family, but they had a very superficial faith (or at least what I can gather from what they say and do) and ended up getting on "the wrong path" and decided for a time that there was no God and that my family and all the people I had known growing up were stupid and that they used their "religion" to make other people feel bad............it turns out that I still believe most of that, only now I do believe in God and am deeply spiritual.......it took me a few years of hanging out with satanists to figure out what I really believe and why.

I was raised in a religious home, by parents who were themselves raised to be Christian. However, I was raised Unitarian.

I was raised in a religious home, by parents who were themselves raised to be Christian. However, I was raised Unitarian.

I have a friend who is Unitarian Universal........she is interesting, she keeps inviting me to church picnics.

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.

I started exploring other religions, meditating, praying, and eventually found my way onto the usenet group alt.atheism. I couldn't imagine how anyone couldn't believe in a god. Then I saw their arguments, and they made sense to me.

i don't know how but when i was young i just knew it was all bull

it took me a few years of hanging out with satanists to figure out what I really believe and why.

Gah! Good lord, a few years? I could barely handle a few months before the whole thing started to feel like self-parody.

Gah! Good lord, a few years? I could barely handle a few months before the whole thing started to feel like self-parody.

it was a growth process and continues to be, it wasn't but about a 6 months in when I decided that they didn't have a handle on anything that I couldn't BS my way into, but I still wasn't ready to give up yet.

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.

Your question has one underlying assumption that isn't really true in my case. That's that if we were born into a Christian family that we were Christian ourselves at some point. My family was Christian but I've never believed. I remember that when I was little I desperately wanted to believe because everyone around me did, and I pretended as though I believed but I never did. The church I went to was a fundie church (I went with the neighbors to that one, my parents didn't go to church then) and I did all of the fundie things like handing out Chick tracts and going to church camp in the summer. When I was about 15 or 16 I finally gave up the pretense.

Through all of this I never even came close to believing. I was (and remain) completely incapable of seriously believing in the idea of a God who is as intimately involved with the world as the Abrahamic God. If there is some sort of God he doesn't seem all that interested in showing himself. I also cannot bring myself to take the Bible any more seriously than the Greek or Norse myths or other such ancient myths. I've read the Bible a number of times and it just doesn't do anything for me. I think that for it to have any sort of religious significance you have to already believe to an extent.

Anyway, my religious position would be one of apathy. I'm not really an atheist because that implies that I actively believe that there is no God. That's far more effort than I put into religious thought, as religion absolutely no role in my daily affairs. I suppose I'm a firm agnostic in that I believe that if there is a God (which is highly dubious) he doesn't seem all that interested in what goes on here and thus there is no way to know whether he exists or not, and as such he's not really of any consequence to the living.

I couldn't imagine how anyone couldn't believe in a god


That's the exact opposite of me. I've never been able to imagine how anyone could seriously believe in a god.

I lost my faith. I can't remember how or why. At one point I just started requiring proof to believe.

I've tried to find a religion, I hate being an athiest. Death is scary as f**k to me, and I think about it all the time. I also wonder what the point of it all is. Not what the meaning of life is; but really, if we die and don't even know we existed to begin with, then what's the point of any of it. [/rant]

I lost my faith. I can't remember how or why. At one point I just started requiring proof to believe.

I've tried to find a religion, I hate being an athiest. Death is scary as f**k to me, and I think about it all the time. I also wonder what the point of it all is. Not what the meaning of life is; but really, if we die and don't even know we existed to begin with, then what's the point of any of it. [/rant]

What's the point? The point is to make the world a better place, to help your fellow human beings better themselves, to better yourself in the process. Death isn't scary if you realize that once you get there, you're done, gone, out of it. What's to be afraid of?

Live for the world, live for yourself, not because some imaginary friend in the sky says you must, or says you're going to a better place as long as you worship that imaginary friend in the sky. Do it for humanity. Help the race grow up. There are places to go and things to see out there, and a multitude of things to do here. [/rant]

My parents stopped going to church when I was like 7. Fortunately, I never paid attention during church and thought it was all stupid, so the last time the christian brainwashing kicked in was when I felt really bad about masturbating when I was like 10.

I'm now in the "It feels good, it isn't harmful, do it" crowd. The church of common sense, I suppose. I joke about being a discordian.

I have a question for those who were born into a Christian family, and either became atheist, agnostic, or switched faith. How did you do it, even though the Christian Church does teach that either believe in us or go to Hell? I'm just curious about it.

I never believed in it. It never made a lick of sense to me. I did believe in God but I somehow never swallowed the whole Charistianity thing. My Catholic Grandmother read her bible to me daily when I lived with her and my mother sent me to a Baptist church with the neighbors on Sundays when I was livign with her. The only things I enjoyed about church were the bbq's, beach trips and the coffee. I went until about 3rd grade and held no interest in learning anything about any religion whatsoever.


At one point I stopped believing in God as well around 5th grade. Then around High School I had a major spiritual experience wher I felt like I understood the oneness of all things and felt connected to a universal consciousness/creator of sorts. At that point I had no doubts about "Gods" existence.

Then my English class had us read Sidhartha around 10th grade and I felt a connection to it right away. I read more about eastern philosophies and tribal philosophies and just took what lessons I could from them, but never accepted anything as the One Truth. I don't believe there really is any One Truth that applies to all people.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I also began looking into the bible and especially the lessons of Jesus (near the end of my religious studies that I was doing for myself on my personal time) and felt that I gained some great insight from there as well but just because I can recognize some truth in something doesnt mean I am going to blindly put all of my faith in everything associated with that thing. I Now pretty much avoid religion altogether and look for thoughtful insights from life as lessons are around us everywhere.

Actually, if anyone wants to know the honest truth: I took a large hit off of a joint when I was 17 years old and couldn't stop coughing. I wondered, "What if this is all there is?" There was definitely a long progression before and after that but that is the pinpointed time when I decided to be agnostic.