Hello love fil

We are born without a belief in God. We are told there is a god. We are told there is also, Santa, the Easter bunny and angels. We later find out that Santa and the Easter bunny are not real. We ask, "Why the fuck did you lie to me"? We are told, "because it was cute"! We say "Fuck you". Later, we realize that if they lied to us about Santa and the Easter bunny, they are probably lying about God and the angels. We ask them. They tell us, "No, those are real". Suddenly we realize we are dealing with lunatics.

Children are born tabula rasa. They learn about logic as their brain develops through experiences either trial and error or pattern recognition (which has to do with memory). The thing with religion is that it is taught to some from birth or others who are adept at compartmentalizing their minds.

What you're saying does make sense as it is about self actualization (what are you/who are you etc)...

I don't think that you can choose to believe anything. I think you are convinced . For good reasons or bad. Even if my life depended on it I couldn't force myself to believe something that I was convinced was false.

This assumes like so much of hardcore Atheism that lack of proof is proof of lack. For me it is more lack of proof is irrelevant when it comes to the reasons and motivations of the faithful. They as a rule do not particularly care about proof of God. The ones who seem too like Creationist "Scientists" are simply using their position as a way to bolster the faithful and dupe the possible converts. I think people chose to become Atheist for reasons very similar to choosing any system of thought. Something about it appeals to them. Here is a better question. How many of you chose Atheism as a result of or in response to religion? Can Atheism exist without a God to not believe in or to mock/refute? Does one become Atheist to refute or defy their negative experience with religion? Is Atheism as a movement solely the realm of outcast and heretics? Not that I think that is a bad thing but were does it go from here? As for Christianity not being real? The results of Christianity as a force in the world is far greater then the results of Atheism. Belief in something by its very nature is not about the truth of it rather what it as a thought process helps you achieve. Children have imaginary friends to deal with trauma and what can be a very scary new world. People build mental homes to store and collect information and make it easier to retain and recall information, memories or partition traumas as a way of dealing with them. None of these are real in a physical sense but their results are very much real. That too me is the ultimate question; what is the result of the action, influence, organization etc. If someone constructs a God in their mind to explain the unexplainable or as a aid in moral action who are we to call that wrong? And as for the negative actions of Christianity we should certainly rail against them but not through mockery, violence or insults. Rather we should ask hard questions and try hard to educate the young and the doubters among the rabid faithful. And we should respect those who's faith is personal and does good works as long as they are based in reason and thought not dogma, bias, hatred etc.

It makes perfect sense. I never would have thought of myself as religious if I have been taught from birth that that was what I am (was) and what I'm supposed to be (have been). In other words, if given the chance, I never would have chosen religion for myself. After giving it a proper think, I began to see how ridiculous it all was and dropped it like a bad habit (which it was). Therefore it could be days that I had reverted back to my natural state after a long stint of pretending to be something I wasn't. Story of my life, really. Almost completely paired down to nothing but the real me now.

I think both are possible, different people have different paths towards choosing a belief. Some things you can feel convinced about from a young age, calling yourself an Atheist as soon as you know what the term means.

Personally I just had a large helping of scepticism which made me pay a little lip service but not really believe even when I was young.

For me it was an awakening as I always had doubts in catholic school. I just could not accept what the priests and nuns were preaching s it seemed contradictory. I later found out it was.Everyone takes the words of the bible to make the case they believe in.

There is a choice of abandoning the deep sentimental relation that we have with religion. In most of people it is there since childhood, it became an element of the self already, that is why even with massive logical arguments in favor of an agnostic/atheistic view of the world, many can't do the leap.
On this sense is a choice, you need to choose to abandon or even to fight against this sentimental connection.
Many choose to not do it and simply become a nominal religious (they say that they are, but in real they don't give a shit about it).
But of course, before this choice comes, one can learn about the falacies and logical flaws, rebel against obvious unethical moves of religions, be abused and get angry with it or any other way that will put this choice in front of them.

No. .....All people, species are born hatched sprouted et cetera Atheists. ....zero people choose as infants to be brutally painfully strapped to a board and have their penis prepuce flesh clamped and scalpeled off then bleed for days with betadyne and urine soaked diapers searing the pain again and again. ...no child chooses to be threatened with hell nor bribed with heaven before entering the real world of Head Start or kindergarten. ...the gibberish sounds gott gawd gods in any language ARE NOT WORDS nor referents without objects. ...all such lies are forced upon us by fake dictionaries cults TV radio preachers and abusive families. ...our Atheism and Feminism is our birthright and patriarchal criminal theocracy is hell for real

Even though there is no god, Christians are still a thing. And realizing you are not an alien doesn’t preclude the existence of aliens.
But I don’t think anyone decides to not believe in god when they do.

You choose between many directions ... These directions are not all true ... of which, only one is truth ... You have to read and search to realize the truth

We are born as clean slates. You can become religious and accept any of the world's religions and be a sincere believer. But if there are no deities of any form, one could argue you're delusional. Waking up to that reality now means you're in touch with reality. But it is a choice either way. You must choose to look at the whole truth, partial truth, or no truth, and you must choose to accept it deny it. Whatever you pick just determines how rooted in reality you really are.

My story began as natural understanding and after tragedies of upset without guidance caused me to actually allow control of my mind to be guided by beliefs of the strongest kind, more tragedy is caused me to understand that I must make the choice to live and you choose to do so in a way that I decided must never allow the confusion of truth were told and actual truth and have done so alone and without it being very personal choice I would most likely be without my own mind and hindered still as I had in the five-year period I was living for everyone but myself.

Becoming an atheist is basically becoming EDUCATED to the fallacies inherent in all religions. Most religious beliefs are acquired in childhood and are likely to be based on the geography of where you were born: USA? Christian, or Catholic. India? Hindu or Buddhist. See?

All infants are agnostic or atheist. “Choose” or “free will” are highly subjective words that are highly debated as to their nature or affect... meaning, “do we really ever choose anything or are we slaves to determinism?

Now for a non philosophical answer.... In general, if we were raised atheist then it’s mostly because of how we were brought up, if we were brought up otherwise but later become atheist, then we chose athiesm. (Either are only general ideas... I don’t think this is a 1 size fits all question or answer)

I remember distinctly being young and trying to be religious. To hear the word of God, fo understand it all...and when I was real with myself..absolutely nothing made sense or was tangible. As I grew, I realized I was not alone and it started to make more sense and I started to find the beauty in the world and people more than stories and ideologies

I didn't choose to become an atheist. I looked at the reason to believe in god or relgion. I looked at the arguments against it and just wasn't convinced. To my athiesm is just not being convinced of any religion or seeing any evidence to requires there to be a god.

"Choice" is a mirage. Examine any belief u hold, like u can safely operate a car, then try to change it and live with the belief. If, however, u are repeatedly in accidents, ur belief begins to reflect ur reality.
Same with atheism.,. Just try to believe in supernatural beings, let me know

I think it’s a realisation that you come to. For me it came from studying science and physics, and realising that the bible’s tales of miracles were rubbish. I mean, virgin birth? Walking on water? Multiplying loaves of bread and fishes? Raising the dead? All extremely unlikely, and I mean by that percentile chances in very tiny amounts.

And if the miracles are bogus, then what other lies are in there? Some parts of the bible are extremely outdated, like sending menstruating women away from the ‘camp’. Crazy.

But these things are all knowledge that you absorb from society and the people around you. The bible is taught, you find out it’s just another book written by fallible humans, your belief goes.

Phrases like "we believe" were dead giveaways of a scam when I was a kid (that is, using "we" to include me). How could someone else be telling me what "we believe". How did they know what I believed? But since everyone around me seemed to believe it, I figured it must make sense to someone who knew something somewhere. So it was in my head as probably true, I just didn't understand how. I went to Sunday school briefly, expecting to learn something useful the way I did in regular school. I mean, even in regular school the classes that weren't hard science were agreed upon language conventions, history, even physical health (no one claimed sitting in a corner and praying made you healthier). But there wasn't anything like that in Sunday school. The other kids took nothing seriously. NOTHING. They were there for donuts and hot chocolate, and that was it. I was there to learn these secrets of the universe. And it became clear very quickly that there were no secrets to the universe, and that "god's house" was just a second-hand, single-wide trailer behind the church. I can remember thinking that god should be able to afford something better to teach children the secrets of the universe, and sadly I seemlessly understood this was just what the people who went to this church could afford...probably over a long period of time at that. It was like being told you were going to the Emerald City to not only discover there was no Wizard, but that the city was a second-hand, single-wide mobile home, lol. I was only mildly disappointed. I cried when I found out Santa wasn't real two years prior...after a serious investigation into the presents in my parents' closet.

It's all belief...so it's all choice. You can believe in unicorns and whether they exist or not you believe they do. Just like every religious person in the world believes in their religion because they choose to. One chooses to be an atheist because they realize that there is no god.

I think you choose what you believe in. It's chose to leave religion and not have be burdened by fairy tales and dogma. I have few regrets in live, but I wish I was an atheist at your age. Instead of an religious closed minded fool.