How Did You Become An Atheist?

Just tell your story and whatever happens will happen. 

I'll go first.  

I was not raised as a fundamental Christian, but rather I was simply taught about God as a kid.  My mom took us to church a few times, I went to Sunday school once and it was enough to drill the simple axiom into my young brain. 

My mom kind of dabbled in The Bible at the time but generally avoided churches, she would go to one for a while, not like it and then put it off for a while and do it again later.  I maybe went less then 12 times in my child hood and I never read The Bible too much back then but I had this cartoonish bible stories that I would read that were all old testament.  

Fast forward to high school and I'm sitting in a social studies class one day and my teacher is talking to another student about something, I wasn't paying attention, but what caught my ear was one phrase that he uttered to a student in the class. "You know that some people don't believe that god exist right?".  As soon as I heard this it was like a light went off in my head.  I more or less became an atheist in that solitary moment. 

Kudos on bringing a fresh story to the table.

If everything you said was a book, I'd read that book.  

Christianity is in fact a mystery religion, and that being the case, hiding and revealing is a very real aspect of it.

As The Orthodox Church is the true One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, we understand this better than anybody. 

But I think it is worth noting that the reason the faith takes this form is not likely for the reasons you may suspect. One big reason is because spoken plainly these things aren't really understood anyway. Part of what I have been doing here is belaboring that point.  

To give you an idea, I say "The Truth is God", and people here either think I am saying something other than what I am really saying, or they ask for a sign or miracle(proof). The irony here is that this response is predicted in scripture, but anyway... you have to have a mustard seed of faith for this mountain of disbelief to be cast into the sea! "I believe, but help my unbelief."

There was not any one moment where I became an atheist. Even from a young age, I always kind of knew that biblical stories such as the Ark, Moses parting the sea, and Jonah getting swallowed by a whale were just myths, in the same category as Paul Bunyan and Merlin. At least, I can't remember a time when I seriously believed that they were true stories.

It certainly didn't help the Christian cause when my brothers high school girlfriend, the daughter of a fundamentalist preacher, tried to convince me to break all my Led Zeppelin albums because they contained messages from Satan.

ahhh, the Satanic Panic.  Classic. 

With much more hiding than "revealing".  

And could I please ask that you be considerate and kind enough not to disrupt and derail someone else's thread with your usual repetitive mantra.. Please take note of the title of the thread. It is about why someone becomes or is, an atheist and not why you believe in your god or why you are religious..

You have to approach the faith with humility and charity, otherwise you will be locked out. It is done this way for a reason, and it has to be this way. You are right to discern something is hidden, but you are wrong about what it is that is being hidden.

If you want to talk about it somewhere else, you know how to reach me.

Had the fortune of being raised by parents of 2 different religions, both of whom were agnostic in nature about it. I didn't learn atheism, I learned Theism (against their will). I am a Pagan believer in alien demigod-like overlords. I believe we're a goal-oriented simulation, a game, an experiment and/or a television show for them.

I'm not sure if I can pinpoint the moment when I became an atheist but I can tell you the cause. I examined my beliefs to see if the were rationally justified. They were not.

What were the two religions? 

I didn't open this thread to talk about God.  I'm not against you doing it, however.  Just know that your shouts will fall on deaf ears. 

I wish my story was that rational, lol.  So what caused you to examine your beliefs like that? 

I am not here to hijack the topic, my only intent was to point out to Stephen that Christianity is a mystery religion, so him noticing thst something bbn is being hidden is actually a good observation.

The fact that Christianity is a mystery religion happens to be lost in the protestant/evangelical world.

Believe me though, my words would fall on deaf ears whether or not I was posting in this topic or any other topic in this nihilist circle jerk of a "religion" forum. 

I'd like to point out that I am the only Christian here who actually participates on this forum. Even so, there are already those talking about running me off. Really, if I were any of you, I would take full advantage of the fact that I am here, especially since I am an Orthodox Christian, and you won't find too many of them who speak English on a forum like this.

Of course, in another topic.

Unless of course you would like me to pointnout how every reason to be an atheist is a bad reason. After all, the real answer to the question "How I became an atheist" is "I don't know any better"

I'm not a nihilist.  I can't speak for the others.  

I'm not running you off.  I said it will fall on deaf ears because I'm not in debate mode right now, it's not because I want to ignore your arguments.  

Languages are not an issue.  I can speak pretty decent Spanish and I have google translate for the rest, lol. 

Fine, I'll indulge you a bit.  What do you mean by mystery religion? 

What an IDIOTIC question....the word ATHEIST was invented by Jesus and Allah God inventing Parasite VAMPIRES...as a WORD TOOL...

"ATHEIST",  is a word used as a TOOL  used by Christian and MUSLIM parasites to DEHUMANIZE -DEGRADE - OPPRESS - and ultimately incite

CONFLICT and VIOLENCE towards all HUMANS who do not accept their idiotic Jesus or Allah God hoaxes and the truly psychotic DOGMA

and Comic Book Bible / Quran VOMIT....they attach to their idiotic GOD...

Even the word "GOD" was invented by some Catholic Church CLOWN who was translating the HEBREW and GREEK Bible version VOMIT

into a GOTHIC version using a now extinct Eastern Germanic Language !   

That's RIGHT fools...."GOD" the word NEVER EXISTED in all human existence until it was twisted out of an extinct language !

of course it had to be the work of the Roman Catholic Church PARASITE VAMPIRES....the Roman Church was among the first 

to go on a rampage of assimilation into their CULT using all manner of FEAR -INTIMIDATION -VIOLENCE strategies...and what

better way to CONDEMN - TORTURE and MURDER all who do NOT CONVERT  and accept the CHURCH as their "GOD"

............THEN TO LABEL THE HERETICS with another word like "ATHEIST............sick ...truly sick minds pull this crap...

GET IT ?  the Roman Church plays GOD in the name of their JESUS invention....and the ARABS followed with their ALLAH GOD HOAX

GARBAGE and Quran Comic Book VOMIT...

Of all the thousands of GODS humans have invented and TRASHED...only the JESUS parasite VAMPIRE CHRISTIANS and the ALLAH

Parasite VAMPIRE MUSLIMS condemn not only EACH OTHER but every human that exists who does not CONVERT to their RETARDED

GOD HOAX...

Do the Hare Krishna label NON BELIEVERS and MURDER -TORTURE -OPPRESS them ?  do the HINDU ?  how about all the other

NON Abrahamic GODS from all Cultures on EARTH ?   NO they do not OPPRESS and CONDEMN only the JESUS and ALLAH

psychopaths do this atrocity to humanity..........

Worse as mentioned is the PARADOX of the Abrahamic JEW - JESUS - ALLAH GOD garbage...which CONDEMNS everyone regardless

........THe JEWS do NOT openly assimilate and promote their GOD...it's a closed system...BUT....the Christians and Muslims ?

OH YES,,the MIND and LIFE sucking Christians always CONDEMN the Muslims and ALLAH as a FAKE piece of garbage....and in return

the Muslims CONDEMN - MURDER and DESTROY the Christians - Jews and all who do not accept their GOD and DOGMA !

EVERYONE LOSES....and that is the point behind the 3 middle East stooge GODS of the JEW - JESUS - ALLAH parasite VAMPIRES

...Jesus and Allah become the perfect scapegoat TOOLS used DIVIDE and CONQUER weak minded masses of azzes..into slavery..

It's the JESUS and ALLAH slaves that do all the MURDER and DESTRUCTION for their Preacher VAMPIRES who prance around in

Halloween Glory Gown costumes and play GOD in the name of their GOD !   what a SCAM !  

It's the ROMAN EMPIRE cloaked behind their boy wonder GOD...JESUS  in collusion with the ARAB Empires Allah God hoax....

Even NOW world wide the JESUS parasites and muslim parasites are inciting FEAR - INTIMIDATION - VIOLENCE with the recent

BOMBINGS in Sri Lanka and shootings in AMERICA...

ATHEIST ?  no....just a human that does not fall for the JESUS and ALLAH Parasite VAMPIRE propaganda and hypnosis into their

psychotic CULTS....

Honestly there is no simple answer to that but I will say when my faith began to slip I read the entire bible cover to cover trying to save it (though I was not a christian I had been taight to respect the bible) and then again wondering why I had bothered tryingvto save it and by the time I had completed this process I was an atheist.

It means that our religion is expressed in mysteries(not like a thing to be solved, but something to experienced). Also, it is something that looks different to outsiders than what the hidden meaning of it actually is.

To give an example of a mystery, we have the institution of the eucharist. People in the west call it communion or the lord's supper, but the meaning is actually more obvious in Greek... thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is not something to be solved or intellectualized, but s ok mething to be lived out.

Orthodox Christianity is apodictic(self evident) truth expressed in mysteries, allegories, and parables. To demonstrate why it is done that way, I have very consistently since I joined this forum explained that Christianity is literally Truth worship, and we do this through the purifying of the nous, which usually gets translsted as intellect, understanding, mind, or even heart, but has more to do with what influences us and compromises our ability to live in truth.

So there is a lot more to it than people realize, especially those who have primarilty been exposed to unenlightened western forms of "Christianity".

Lots of words were invented in ways that one might subjectively find idiotic, that doesn't change facts.  

The question is valid because people do indeed become atheists.   That is to say that people believe in theism and then stop believing in it.  This is simply just a fact.  Would you deny that this is true?  

As for the rest of things you said, it's clear that you hate religion.  While you are entitled to your opinion, those are all just subjective pleas and don't really shed any light onto this particular topic.   

It doesn't matter why any particular words was invented.  It only matters how we use the word in the present. 

I'm afraid I would have to disagree with your assessment about what a mystery is.  

A mystery, by definition, is unknown.  So to say that a mystery is truth is incoherent.  

If Christianity is truth worship, then why do their beliefs contradict each other?  Wouldn't that mean that they are worshipping false things as well? 

Communion is not a mystery in any sense of the word.  We know why people do it, so that's not a mystery.  We know what happens when people do it, so that's not a mystery.  We also know what it represents, also not a mystery.  

When you say that Christianity looks different from an outsiders perspective, I would agree but then say that it's a vacuous truth.  

Essentially, any belief system is going to look different from an outsider's point of view because the very fact that both of them have different beliefs necessarily means that they subjectively assess things differently. 

Furthermore, even people within the belief are going to see things differently because of their subjectivity.  So your entire point is moot.  You should have just said that everybody has different opinions.  

You specifically target western Christianity and say that it's unenlightened.  What makes your version so virtuous?  Wouldn't you just be a catholic?   Because that's not really high up on the tiers of palatable religions.  I'd rate Judaism as being exponentially more enlightened than Catholicism 

I had a similar experience after becoming an atheist.  

With my parents being Christians, I caught a lot of flak for my beliefs at home.  So one day I decided I should give The Bible a chance (like it was going to be the missing piece) and then started reading it.  I didn't even have to make it out of Genesis before realizing that there was no substance to this book.   Literally, there's a 4 or 5 page section where they just name blood lines.  The moral lessons are kindergarten level and the whole things sounds like a movie that should be in CGI.  

I think Sam Harris puts it best "Imagine how good a book would actually be if it was inspired by God"

It sounds to me from your story that you went from never having seriously even thought about the issue directly to atheism whereas I was deeply spiritual (if not religious) for a number of years going so far as to believe that I had supernatural powers before examining my beliefs and deciding that the positive results of my "powers" were somewhat inconsistent.

Your assessment is not far off.  I've always considered myself lucky in this sense.  I'm not sure I would have been able to become an atheist if I was raised fundamental or became that way on my own.  

I wouldn't say that I never seriously considered it.  I had a fear of hell to some extent.  I believed in ghost.  Mostly because my Mom did and it was just one more axiom that I took from my parents.  I think that's just what kids do.  

I think the key difference for me was that I didn't try to live my life by my belief.  To me, it was just "god sends good people to heaven and bad people to hell" and The Bible teachings weren't really what made me believe this.  It just seemed intuitive to me. 

Honestly, things like accepting Jesus to get into heaven seemed ridiculous to me even when I believed.  I thought to myself.  "well, maybe that's true, but there has to be some other requirements"  

My rational mind was always in the background being the arbiter of how I believed. 

I think that's what made it so easy for me to become an atheist.  The very first argument I ever came up with after that was "You can be good without The Bible, so who needs The Bible" 

I think this was an indicator that all of my spiritual beliefs were morally driven rather than by doctrine.   I never got into the logical end of it until I got older. 

In other words, you think you know better, even though you are in the dark.

Because I was once a believer but not a conventional one I find that many believers of every stripe will try to convince me that I was right to have faith but simply chose the wrong things to have faith in and subsequently suggest that if I would only believe the things that they do I would find "true faith". Would I be incorrect  in assuming that between the two of us this is not a shared experience? 

Do you think that's an honest way to address my critiques? 

If I'm wrong, then you should be able to tell me why I'm wrong instead of just belittling my ability to make judgements.  

I could make the same statement to you. 

I could say that you think you know better, even though you don't.  

Surely, you can come up with a better argument.  Don't be lazy. 

That's an interesting question.  I would have to say that we indeed do not share this experience. 

As to why we don't share it.  I couldn't tell you.  I am aware of the argument but never had it used against me.  

On the few occasions that I have brought up my deconversion, I get different responses.  

A person on here presented something similar to what you said.  

They told me that if my mom had taken my salvation more seriously, I would have been able to see the truth better.  

That would be the closets to what you're talking about. 

Oh I too get a variety of responses but the idea that I had the "right idea" but was on the "wrong track" tends to erk me especially and so it stands out in my experience. It's the idea that the experiences I had, which seemed very real and very convincing to me at the time, were somehow less profound than anyone else's experience. 

Indeed to date no spiritual claim that i have been exposed too is provably different from my own in evidence level, only in content.