When I read Egyptian mythology specifically Osiris/Isis I realized the Jesus story was not original

I am absolutely mesmerized by mythology. What really got me hooked on all this was playing Dungeons&Dragons back in the 80's. I started seeing similarities in various mythology's. Since then I i've kind of always known something wasn't right with biblical mythology. I mean seriously, I want to hear a donkey talk! (Numbers 22:28-30) And there is a talking donkey in the bible!

I think that it had a major impact on the development of my beliefs.
My mother read many stories to me as a child and I took them all in as stories, Even the bible stories. It was not impressed on me with great force that the bible stories were really more important than any of the others. The one thing I did notice that the bible stories did not seem as good and often had odd, unexpected results. Later on in my youth I became enamored of mythologies and cosmologies in general, By that time though it had become clear to me that none of them could certainly be true. A question posed by an AM radio program put to me, as I understood it, What was true, In what did I believe, In religion or in technology? A poor framing for the question, But It only took me a few seconds to conclude that technology (from science) was far the easier to believe in. The thought almost immediately occurred, If god was so great, why didn't He build all the cathedrals and wot not. With very little pause, I have never wavered from that opinion. I sought hard for a season and have never found any reason to believe otherwise.

Since I now consider my religion (Its predecessors and sequels) on the same level as mythology, yes, similar journey. Learning about Greek mythology made christianity so much easier to question.

Well, when in high school. at church we were reading the old testament, and in school we were studying Greek mythology, and I saw that the bible stories weren't that different from standard myths.

Today, I often tell people "I read the bible cover to cover and hat is what made me an atheist." It is a very shortened version, but still true.

I think modern mythology was a turning point for me. At around 8 years old I didn't see any reason why Jesus should exist if Santa and the Tooth Fairy didn't!

In a moment of foreshadowing I designed an experiment to test Christianity: like every other child at my school I'd been drilled to understand that God couldn't be tested and would never reveal itself if challenged. But, there was one biblical character that wouldn't miss an opportunity to show up, even when it wasn't wanted; I attempted to summon the Devil on a table in the back yard. I tried 3 times over 3 weekends before I gave up.

The Devil didn't exist, ergo god didn't exist and Jesus didn't matter any more than Dr. Who.

I had a similar experience; I think I put it in my bio on my profile. Learning about mythology in grade school and the whole attitude of "isn't that quaint and kind of silly that they believed this stuff to explain what they didn't understand" and I was like, how is this any different from the weird stories I'm learning in Sunday School? It was my first inkling, but it was many years and other experiences before I was able to truly overcome my childhood brainwashing. But I remember that day in school very specifically - I think the term is "cognitive dissonance".

Being raised in the Deep South, it took me a while to really learn what "I" believed, vs what I'd been taught was socially and morally acceptable. While I always embraced a certain spirituality, I never felt moved in Church. No 'switch' ever flipped for me to 'save' me, despite going through all the things I was supposed to do in order for that to happen.

As we studied the mythos of other cultures and times, I found more parallels between, let's say Greek Mythology, and Christianity. Same lessons, wearing different masks.

In my early twenties, I became Wiccan - once again looking for something to tether that innate Spirituality to. But even that didn't suit me well. As time went by, and I heard more and more about agnostics/atheists, I realized that I didn't have to label myself in order to be a good man with good morals. I learned that kindness was the rule that all faiths were supposed to abide by (but few actually did). And while I can't say 100 percent that there is nothing out there in the universe that we could say is 'God', I feel certain that, if its there, God is not a little old, long bearded man sitting on a cloud, nor is he the Son of a Titan, throwing lighting bolts down from Olympus.

Yes, didn't really care about religion as a kid put up with it til my parent's got tired of me sitting there staring into the abyss and they just stopped going. As soon as I learned about mythology I started thinking what if Christianity isn't right. What if there are multiple gods and demons? And at one point started believing in greek mythology. But finally came to the conclusion none of it existed. But i'm glad I came to that conclusion because the thought of a Phantom Black Dog (basically dogs as large as calfs with red eyes and a shaggy coat that haunt places associated with superstitions and uncanny events where some* appear during thunderstorms and maul travelers) is actually kinda scary! They're also known as hellhounds. And there is a legend that one appeared in a church during a thunderstorm and mauled a lot of people. Creepy, creepy! Still kinda cool though!

It took me until after I started college to actually admit to myself that I was agnostic. I developed my agnosticism in high school but never really had exposure to other religions. But Humanities, psychology, and Christian hypocrisy in college brought on the real questions. Another influence was a painting and the professors description was: "this portrays the weight of the individuals knowledge of their own sins causing them to either float to heaven or sink to hell" (paraphrased). But that made so much sense to me that we are the ultimate judge of our actions/guilt and submit ourselves to our own hell, which also scared me because of all of the ignorance of individuals in religion. Then I read a large amount of philosophy and realized that all of the components of religion are designed to deal with all of the individual insecurities, vague answers to questions that can not yet be answered, and to humble the individual to conform to authority. I then researched more and found that I really have become Athiest.

No, but I was pleased that mythology supported my views.

It didn't for me. My first atheist moment that I can remember was at about 5 or 6 trying to explain to an old man that a god, if it existed, must be evil and is deserving of no worship.

i agree with you on that, were always introduced to religion as children and then we get crash course of how things really are and it changes everyones feelings

Exactly how I started. Striking similarities brought be more interesting data and learned everything I was taught was stolen from previous civilizations.

I can say it definitely has always made me think of what was true and or real, i was raised, Catholic quit going to church sometime in my early 20s, ive never been a fan of organizied religions, im more ofa freethinker, i lean toward science for answers, but i do feel somewhat similar in thinking that wow maybe a Goddess like Aphrodite may have been real, im like brand new here. Hope we can get to know each other and have some interesting chats, Like your pic!

Learning about ancient mythologies as well as evolution and the origin of man early on in life didn't immediately cause me to challenge my religious beliefs but it did make it extremely easy to shed them in my later teenage years when I began to feel the need to find the meaning of life and started exploring all sorts of options.

This is why it's so super important that such subjects be taught to children.

On a side note, I was putting together trivia questions for a local trivia night a few years ago and one of my questions was banned by the establishment because I referred to religion as the Abrahamic mythology. Now I like to call it that in most situations to get people to think about it. And just to piss them off as well.

I specifically remember high school biology class as being a moment that drew me away from religion, more so than learning about mythology. But yes, ancient mythologies and religious pluralism does cause a problem for religion.

I was raised in church. My parents took us every time the doors were open. Eventually, my parents divorced, and my dad withered away (truthfully, he had a stroke at 32, then about 20 more before he died). He was a devout religious man (or claimed to be), and seeing as though his faith brought him no favor, I decided that Christianity wasn't for me. I had read the Bible (cover to cover), and can still name a majority of the books of the Bible from memory (both old and new testament). I have studied other religions as well. There's just nothing compelling enough to convince me that there is a super powered deity in the breadth of our universe. And if there was, he wouldn't care one iota about the things most religions harp on. I honestly think that most religions were created as a joke to see just how screwed up they can make things and how stupid people really are. They fall hook, line, and sinker, and it's funny to hear 2 religious zealots arguing over which deity is the real one - it's too funny to us, but scary that they actually believe that rubbish....

I used to think the similarities between religions and myths confirmed that what I believed in my former religion was true, in a way. Now it's just cool to see how human concepts have formed and made their way around the globe. I need to finish the book A History of God which I found to be fascinating when I first started reading it.

Also affected on me to be an atheist. Reading myths of Bible, quran and other holy book of other religions could be the best way to be an atheist but not for stupid one.????

No. I think I realized I was an atheist when I could never feel anything when I was forced to church as a teen and the whole fact the stupid religion made no damn since. Then I was seeing all this messed up stuff happening to wonderful people and innocent kids suffering with cancer, but this so called powerful God would never do anything. Oh, and also how the Bible contradicts itself. Only a flawed human could contradict themselves as much as the Bible does.

You could be Einstein if you are good with math, because it takes the same out-of-the-box thinking that you do to become one. You might be considered a genius, but instead you are "fringed" by being an atheist. You could say mythology influenced my being atheist but in a different way; when I was a kid, though I wasn't particularly religious like you, I loved the album Jesus Christ Superstar, much like a kid might like Star Wars now, would sing it every day in the shower (I was a really clean kid then). If you're familiar with JC Superstar, you would know it to be a more humanistic telling of JC's end days, and I think that helped lead me away from the dogmatic, perfect-JC-never-sinned of main stream religions.

Religion was so ingrained in me at such a young age that I looked at other mythologies and shrugged them off as ludicrous — but my mythology was real, damnit! It wasn't until I was at college studying Catholic theology, doctrine, and ethics that I really started to question what I believed. In particular, I was opposed to the deontological moral code in Catholicism and I found myself eventually chipping away at it, then went from non-catholic to non-christian, then to agnostic, and finally dispensing with all pretense to de facto atheism (not strong atheism).

Christianity 'is' an ancient mythology. We just refuse to call it that since it's still alive.

Learning about mythology (what surviving modern religions refer to defeated ancient religions as) was certainly a nail in the coffin of my Christian beliefs. I think when a friend of mine and I were discussing Homer's Odyssey it really clicked for me... when he wrote this, 2700+ years ago, these were living, breathing, fucking, drinking, eating gods. So what happened? The problem with religion is, it's like a badly made sweater... You start pulling on threads and the fucking thing unravels before your eyes. I started picking at threads no later than age 10... my grandma was unimpressed to say the least.