Asklemmy

Two things started the slow 10ish year journey to atheism for me. I can't remember which happened first.

Some Mormon lads doing their mandatory missionary work knocked on our door when I was home alone. I decided, screw it, kill them with kindness. Maybe I'll convert them! After I got them some ice water, they started the spiel. It was so stupid, how could anyone believe this? Then I thought, wait, how is what I believe any more believable? That was an unsettling thought that I could never really shake.

I also challenged myself to read the entire Bible (NIV) front to back (which I did, thankyouverymuch). I already had a lot of apologetics for the pentateuch warfare, slavery, etc. but in Psalms there's a verse that basically goes, "blessed is he who dashes the babies on the rocks." And like. What the fuck is that. In what possible circumstances is killing babies okay, let alone with God's explicit endorsement? That also stuck in my head ever since.

There was a lot else in between, but years later I stumbled into a copy of The God Delusion. "Know thine enemy, right?" So I read it on lunch breaks at work. While I now know the book has a reputation for kinda bad philosophy, by the end it had tidily dismantled the last vestiges of the purely "rational" arguments to believe in God I still had. So I sat there, an atheist for the first time in my life.

I read the Bible. I started asking questions about things in the Bible that didn't match science, I loved science (still do), but nobody wanted to answer my questions, they'd just get mad, so I started seeking information elsewhere and came across atheist or ex-religious sources who answered the questions I had. Those sources also helped me realise the damage that had been done to me mentally, which I'm still working on overcoming.

At about the age of 8 I could tell that Catholicism was evil. So that was it for me. Lots of specific things but just evil overall.

The people. Family, their friends, the church people, the religious school people. Everyone. Toxic. And it took me far too long to figure out how wrong it all was and how so much judgement and hate and shame and guilt and manipulation was not normal.

None of my community raised an effective adult. But they sure tried to raise an indoctrinated subservient guilt-riddled sack of shit.

Fuck religion and fuck people who pressure it on others, especially children, and so many of them use it all as an excuse to cover the fact they are ultimately just shitty people.

Thanks to them I feel like 2 decades of my life were stolen from me and I had to relearn and grow up a lot in my 20s to get out of it.

Sure is interesting in religion how there's a neverending amount of pointing at YOUR need to change, but none of those pointing ever seem to change or improve as humans.

I was a child who had been SA'd by an adult man. The adults around me told me to pray for forgiveness. I was 12.

Years later, I went to get a visitor's pass to visit a friend at my old Christian school. They aggressively denied me entrance.

I asked the forbidden question too much. "Why?"

My mother refusing treatment for cancer when it was still in early stages, Jesus will cure it for sure

I learned about Gandhi when I was 12, and thought it was dumb that he would be in hell just because he wasn't Christian. Absolutely could not square that rule with the idea that "God is love". Figured it was all a bunch of bullshit.

I grew up as a Christian. When I was around 15, someone asked me "if I hadn't been born a Christian, would I be a Christian?" Considering it, I opened my Bible and immediately a verse popped out (in classic God fashion) saying "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have"

So then I felt called even more to really explore, based on that:

• 1. I couldn't currently defend my faith reasonably
• 2. If God was actually real, he wouldn't be scared of people exploring arguments against Christianity, because the faith would be based on something ultimately true.
• 3. By exploring other faiths, arguments, etc, if I returned as a Christian, I would have a much stronger faith.

The more I explored these arguments, as well as gaining a better understanding of what the Bible actually is (in a historical and literature sense), more and more of the belief system unraveled, eventually to the point I didn't call myself a Christian anymore.

Then over the next decade I went back and forth exploring alternative denominations in Christianity, as well as other religions (Daoism, Buddhism, Judaism), especially as I still felt a "spiritual pull" / intuition in a lot of situations. So it took me a really long time to separate that intuitive sense of direction from the belief system around the Holy Spirit specifically, and learn where trusting that intuition is effective, and where it can be misleading. That's been the most complex part of all of this.

I still enjoy exploring other belief systems, components of Christianity, and connecting with whatever that intuition is occasionally, as I do think there is a lot there for human psychological and emotional health that Western modernity sorely lacks. (I suspect this hole in our culture is why a lot of fundamental US Evangelism has flourished btw)

But that's how I lost my faith - God gave me the push I needed :P

As a kid religion seemed like make believe, still I followed it and thought of myself as Catholics into early adult hood. Eventually I just started referring to myself as an atheist.

Learning about the world, in school and by reading humongous amounts of books when I was a kid and preteen. I eventually realised that "nah, I don't believe that." and that was that.

That's the sanitised version lol. A number of those books were by Erich von Däniken, unfortunately, and that simply "overwrote" Christianity in my young and impressionable science-fiction loving mind. Luckily I continued learning and not TOO long after I realised that was bullshit too and in the process I also actually realised why religion doesn't make sense to me.

tl;dr: HP Lovecraft made me atheist

I read the Bible. I watched the way believers treated others, and learned how they saw the world. I realized how poorly adjusted I was for interacting with anyone besides other believers. I left the church and learned how to become a better person. It was a tremendous amount of humbling work, and frankly, I'd rather have learned it earlier.

I never believed, I was told I had to be christian or I would go to hell.

I went to a Church school.

Many experiences over many years. My own curiosity and love of learning really helped save me. But for me it was all made to finally click together by psilocybin.

The hypocrisy and manipulation made it impossible to worship with them next to me.

I graduated from oral Roberts University and was full in. But the leaders of the small church were more interested in holding power rather than helping people. Fox News had an article with a headline stating blue eyed people were smarter than brown eyed. Being Latino, I was annoyed at the article and started to question why I even thought that the right wing evangelical establishment cared about me. I was just used for the financial support and votes.

In college we had to take a certain number of bible classes. Senior year took one on the history of the old testament or something like that. Course compared the texts to older texts from nearby regions and it's all basically plagiarized. This was somehow supposed to bring us closer to god, but for me it did the obvious and was the straw that broke that particular camel's back.

Adulthood makes you realise that there is no such thing as justice. Our lives are lived dancing in the palms of the Monetarists looking to make a quick buck. There is no karma and life is suffering as slaves to the elite.

If god exists, there should be no slavery, rape and wars.

They weren't very kind to my family.

Bad shit happened. When I asked why, the answers were lame. When I accused god of being an asshole, the defenses were the very definition of not even being wrong.

I had waited a long time to have any kind of personal experience of God, and finally gave up. Like they said, the holy spirit was supposed to work in you, I prayed for it and looked for it for a long time. Since it didn't appear, no reason to excuse the problematic passages or shitty people.

I dunno, it just made no sense. If people find out you're an atheist, they don't argue with facts, they argue with morals.

I'm sorry you need to believe in something with zero evidence to be a good person/find beauty in the world/be at peace with yourself/whatever, but I can just do those things anyway. I don't need to convince myself of certain facts for it.

I just gave it up 1 day. No life changing event, no bad experience, just a shift in perspective happened, and I basically realised that I did not really need a god. I still practice some things which were part of my religious activities (donating, or serving others), but that is more of general good citizen thing rather than being religious

Took me until my 20s to reconcile my atheism. Maturity, i guess.

I consider myself someone who is always in search of truth.

When I realized evangelical Christianity has some hardcore lies and hypocrisy, I left it.

I did eventually find my way back to a more traditional version of Christianity that is interested in truth and love.

I read the whole bible as an adult.

But the discipline that took, probably shows that I was starting to think more deeply about things

They tried too hard to make me join, but instead I got annoyed

I’ve left catholicism Because of the amount of bigotry and hate I witnessed in catholic some circles, from celebrating the death of a openly gay person, to calling for a g*nocide of the f slur (yk what I mean),the thing is. These some catholic circles are pretty much common. and I’m like. If this is what you teach. Then screw it, im leaving the church, then I left it and didn’t wasted my time getting around catholics, Then I found refuge in Anglican Church. Now I’m a normal, non-bigoted Christian living my life like how I want to , and now im slowly started to disconnect from my catholic community I used to be part of, no more tradcath nonsense, moral of this story. If your church/religion teaches hate, then you should just change it, or just become atheist at this point,

Withdrawing from it for a while and not going through the motions

Haven’t. Curious on the experience of others.