What started your journey towards becoming athiest/agnostic?
At age 13, I became an atheist when I realized the Bible is just a book of stories written by men
In nursing school, my mother became an atheist after being raised Catholic. "I realized a woman cannot turn into salt," she said.
After dropping off us four kids at Sunday school, my parents went back to bed. They chose First United Methodist Church because Dad went there as a child. Dad never went to church while we were growing up.
My parents were great when I announced I was an atheist. "I don't want to go to church anymore," I said. "That's fine," they replied. Their blasé reaction was a relief.
Reading the bible and observing the people that attended church.
me too, if only more believers read their own scriptures!
@educatedredneck totally, and lived them instead of paying lip service, although it would be tricky as the bible contradicts itself!
@girlwithsmiles lol, I was a basket case for nearly a year trying to live up to all the wackiness just in the NT!
I was at a catholic elementary school being brainwashed and reading the bible. Third grade. This God didnt seem like a good person asking Abraham to kill his son. Wtf I thought.
Being born to atheist parents? No one ever needed me to have a god so I didn't need one.
Our daughter was raised by atheist parents. Claire is a kind, moral person with a great work ethic. Imagine that.
Fundamentalist Christians probably think Claire was raised in a witches coven. My middle finger is twitching.
I got sent to catholic school in another country and I would always get lashed by the teachers because of asking how come people were a lot older in the Bible than they live today among many, many other "heresies". Then when I got home I would also get it from my parents because that was an expression of God's love, because if you don't break your child's spirit they will rebel from God. It was pretty horrible at the time considering I was under 10 but I'm glad they never broke me.
Being an evangelical Christian for most of my live. Ironically I have follow the scripture “look for truth and it will set you free”. Well, now I am free. After studying scriptures of many religions I get to the conclusion that all of them can’t be right, some have borrow something from the others. As well those days science of brain, mind can explain things which some times age we couldn’t grasp and understand without looking for something supernatural.
Man, I prayed that verse so fervently for a long time. I guess that's ONE answered prayer
For me, the belief system came in pieces.
But the path started in eighth grade and we had a unit on mythology as part of our English curriculum.
The teacher stated that myths started as a way to explain the unexplainable, and this little light went off in my head that correlated that statement with my then Catholic upbringing.
I didn't become a stone cold non-believer on that day, but that's where it started.
Sadly a very rude professor who didn't think anyone can be agnostic, you were either Atheist or you had a religion.
I honestly have no idea. There was no single epiphany or even a specific time-frame at which I can identify as when I became and atheist. I don't feel like I even made a thoughtful and conscious choice in the matter. I suppose some may claim the devil made me do it. LOL
I went to a catholic school from 3rd through 7th grade. In the early days I was very much a believer and accepted it all as true, but I slowly started seeing the cracks in what I was being told. I was told that God is love, but I didn't see a lot of love in the church. I think the defining moment was one time when one of the nuns was telling me a story about the devil following a girl home from school. According to her story, a girl was followed home from school every day by a man wearing a trench coat. She knew it was the devil because one day she turned around to look at him and say that he had hooves instead of feet. After she told us the story I thought to myself, "I am never going to believe anything you tell me ever again". And I didn't. After I started looking at everything I was being taught by the church objectively, it was all revealed as the total bullshit that it is.