Deleted User said 10 years, 9 months ago:

It just seems logical. In all honesty, I envy those who hold faith in god, it gives them a sort of comfort. Out of all religions I’d actually consider Buddhism or even Satanism (read up on it, it’s not about devil worship, the type of satanists I’m referring to don’t even believe in God or Heaven or Hell) just because they promote individualism and I believe that if everybody were Buddhist, the world would be a more harmonious place. However, I just don’t feel as though I need religion, most of them just seem like blind faith to me. I can take responsibility for myself, and I can live how I feel is right. I bide by my own moral code and not others. I am a free thinking person and I think that in some cases, religion holds people down.

AdaephonBenDelat said 10 years, 8 months ago:

I attribute my de-conversion to a number of factors. First, I was working a graveyard job, so I stopped going to church as much. The lack of contact with other christians, as well as the less-frequent doses of preaching and emotionally-driven music, let the… brainwashing… wear off, so to speak.

I had a lot of free time, and I’ve always been a fan of documentaries, so I started watching a lot of shows on the history and science channel. So naturally, I was exposed to evolution, and facts about the age of the earth. At first, the christian-defense-mechanism kicked in and I internally scoffed at things like “millions of years”, and “related to apes” etc.. but after a while, it kind of piled up and was making more and more sense the more I read/heard about it.

So I read God Delusion. That, as well as several other books about the bible and religion, kind of blew the lid off my belief. It was like waking up. Or like, reaching the age when you finally realize that Santa is just a crock of shit and none of that could actually be true.

Best part is though, I’m happier this way. I grew up Pentecostal, and went to lots of churches with christian rock music and fiery youth pastors.. and now I realize that shit just screws with your head when you’re young. They try to pound into your head that god has some plan for you, and you’re important, and you have to do something… all it does it leave you feeling unfulfilled when you have to do things like do homework, graduate, get a job, pay bills, pay taxes… instead of being able to just live and enjoy your life, you end up feeling like you’re missing something.. like you’re waiting for that big plan god is supposed to give you..

It’s really messed up. It makes me feel sorry for teens who are christians, because it’s no way to live your life. Life is so much better when you can just be… without having to feel guilt about things like hormones, or liking a guy/girl, or wanting to have sex, or porn, or being gay or liking Harry Potter or any other perfectly normal things christians try to make you feel bad about.

Ok, I’ve rambled. But that’s pretty much why I’m an atheist. I woke up.

Board said 10 years, 8 months ago:

I used to believe that souls exist, similar to buddhism. I wasn’t a true buddhist though, as I didn’t believe in karma, but I still thought that after death, you probably are reborn somewhere else, be it as another human, animal, or alien, or maybe you’d be even born in the past/future/alternative reality.

Eventually I started thinking about equality and morals and that kind if stuff, which raised questions in my head: Is the soul of a good person equal to a bad person’s soul? Is the soul of a man equal to a dog’s soul? What about a jellyfish? Do bacteria, viruses or plants have souls? Where would the line be drawn between “has a soul – doesn’t have a soul”, and all that sort of stuff. Too many questions and not enough answers, unless you scrap the idea of souls altogether.

I’m still open to religion and spiritualism, but unless I have concrete proof, I don’t think I’d be able to believe in anything but science and atheism.

Vahavy said 10 years, 8 months ago:

I’m an atheist because I never believed in fairy tales. I always knew Santa didn’t exist. Or the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny.

Now that I’m an adult and I understand a bit more about the world, and the Universe, I still don’t have any inclination to believe in fairy tales. I fancy myself a scientist, if not by profession then by philosophy. I see no evidence that would allow me to make the claim a deity exists.

But, that being said, I don’t know for certain one doesn’t. So I don’t have unbelief, either. I have nonbelief. Neither positive nor negative. There is not enough evidence to make either claim true, no matter how small our gaps of knowledge are getting. But, given the situation, I choose to live as if one doesn’t.

Deleted User said 10 years, 7 months ago:

I’m from a catholic family. My mom is Jewish, my dad and his side of the family Catholic. My nana was really into church and praying. I never understood it. She would force me to go to church with her and my grandpa every Sunday back when I was in middle school. I hated it. It was boring and I didn’t understand a word of what was said in church. I guess I’ve always believed in God since I was little but I never knew why or really questioned it until the past year. I’m 21 now, and I’m an atheist. I’ve tried reading the bible, I’ve participated in religious conversations with friends, and I just never could bring myself to believe that any of this….crap is real. The bible to me is just a big book of fairy tales. There’s no heaven or hell. I’ve hated religion for the past year. I constantly hear people say that gays are sinning and their going to hell, blah blah blah. I’m not gay, but that statement always bothered me. If we’re all supposedly gods children, then why would only gays go to hell? It just never made sense to me. So yeah, I’m an atheist because I don’t believe in something until I see it. And I haven’t seen god lol.

VivosMortuos said 10 years, 7 months ago:

To me, religion and god is a concept. It’s a theory. When I was little, I was baptized catholic and raised catholic. And then my mom wanted me to be christian. I always pondered at the idea of such god-like powers. If a god or religion is so powerful to be able to save your life, then it should be able to show itself whenever asked to do so. There are many religious people out there who I have befriended and some that I can’t befriend because I am “against the concept of god and/or religion” and therefore they are too stubborn to accept me because it will displease their god. I always said afterwards, “So you fear you might displease your god? Tell me when you’re on the verge of death and he swoops down and magically saves you.” I have ALWAYS been told to be myself and be an original but not like that. Like really? My dad is catholic and my mom is christian. Every time I would say I don’t believe in god, I would get scorned at for, or my mother would even TAKE AWAY MY STUFF. To which I, one day, replied, “You can’t get your way so you take my stuff. Fine, when I don’t get my way, I’ll take your stuff.” She tries forcing me into believing something I choose not to. She tells me I’m too young to believe in stuff like this. I tell her that you can’t be too young to ponder at life. Like one of my idols say, “I’ll bow to your king when he shows himself,”-Oliver Sykes. I will go by that quote for the rest of my life.

extracheesy said 10 years, 7 months ago:

I grew up being baptized Catholic and went to a Catholic grade school from 1st – 8th grade. Religion was basically shoved down my throat and I was forced to go to church multiple times a day. I always asked questions along the lines of “If God loves us no matter what, why do we have to go prove our faith all the time? Shouldn’t he just know?” Nobody could ever give me an answer that made sense.

In high school, my mom suffered all sorts of problems. She was a smoker, she drank too much, she had a minor heart attack, suffered a stroke, and lung cancer finally got the best of her and she passed away. All that happened over the course of about 10 years. 10 years of her dealing with so much pain and suffering. I know she bad some poor life decisions, but I couldn’t understand why such an amazing person would be subjected to so much. In grade school they always preached things like ‘God has a plan for everyone’, ‘God is all powerful’, and ‘theres a reason for everything’. In my opinion, if all those things were true, God wouldn’t have let my mom suffer for 10 years and then be taken away from me.

So I’m an atheist because I’m a logical person, and I watched an amazing person suffer for 10 years with no help from ‘God’.

fantasticat said 10 years, 5 months ago:

I can remember back to when I was little and my cousins, who were taught to be very religious, would always talk about god. They were young like me, so they were just spewing out things that had been indoctrinated upon them, but I can remember questioning if what they were saying could possibly make sense. My parents aren’t religious either, although my mother is kind of spiritual. My father, a very smart man, has always been an atheist, but he never forced his opinions on me like Christian parents tend to do to their kids. My parents let me decide for myself.
As I got older, I began to realize that all of these religious fairy tales were bullshit. I believe that most of our worlds problems could be solved if religion wasn’t a factor, considering how it fuels so much hatred among people. Even in our own country. Christians hate gays and discriminate against them because of a few vague, misinterpreted verses out of a book full of lies. It’s ridiculous. I thought that we, as a society, would be more advanced than that by now. This hatred is something that I didn’t want to take part in. So I became an atheist, choosing to believe in science, evidence, and facts, rather than fairy tales and lies.