Becoming Atheist - Your Experience

[PrincessPeach]

It was the summer of 2000 and I was almost 10, my best friend Leeannabell and I are playing outside in the morning sun when a white bus pulls up and a young lady approaches us. She asked us if we wanted to get on the bus and go to church with her she said it would be real fun and she just needed to know where we lived so she could knock on our doors and ask our parents if we can leave with them.. Of course both of our parents said yes. We find a seat on the bus and sit down together, another young women pops up from the seat behind us and the first thing she says is "Do you guys like candy, what is your favorite type of candy?" I was a shy/timid young girl and I said to her "My mommy told me not to talk to strangers" I know my mommy said I could get on the bus I just did not feel comfortable... She ignored my statement and continued to name off candies, she named off bubble gum which my friend said she liked she says to Leeannabell "Fine, I will bring your favorite candy bubble gum for you next week on the bus and for you" she looks over at me and says "Candy corn, you like candy corn don't yah?" Nervous and wanting her to go away I agreed I have never liked candy corn, ever and yes she did bring us the candy the next week. I will never forget the first day of sunday bible school my friend and I got split up, the church divided us up by gender and age and sent us to our learning rooms.. They kept us in the rooms for about 15-20mins maybe and really, they didn't teach us anything just distracted us with biblical based amusements, drawings, games, word searches ect... And then...........
Every one is released and we all go into this huge room where again we are divided but this time only by gender. The first day the priest was so enthusiastic and it was so much fun again not much teaching just 'amusing', they gave away so many toys and they did a 'candy run' ! Everyone got to run and get as much candy and toys as they could it was so much fun we all loved it...
This church was much fun, it was a First Baptist church and far far different from the first church I went to,( Greek Orthodox (age2-6).. I remember my baptism at age 2 1/2, the entire community took park in watching me get dunked, for me it was quite traumatizing... The monks did not shower but once a month in the pond, at age 5 I saw a monk walk up to a chicken casually and just cut its head off with no remorse, I couldn't even scream I could barely take in what I was seeing as I run away I find myself in a chicken coupe, which confused and scared me even more at such a young age I had no idea what they where doing with the chickens..
They did not separate the children from the service, we heard the old testament teachings just like everyone else. )
Not caring about the teaching's I went just for the candy and prizes, my friend took it very seriously I knew they had ulterior motives even at such a young age.
They always gave out higher end gifts to new members, one morning on the bus I saw them give away a $25+ clock that my mom and I debated purchasing from target because of the price... I did not understand how they had the money to buy that gift to just give it away for no reason, that didn't make sense...?
Then the priest in the big room was preaching and he said "People who wear all black clothing and listen to rock music are the devil worshipers and are bad people that you need to stay away from" My oldest brother was around 15 at the time and he wore all black and I had even stolen his Offspring cd, so I listened to rock music too. The preist also said that god was every where and sees all that you do but if you accept Jesus into your heart you will be forgiven for your sins because it is in our nature to sin, we are creatures of sin, as long as you ask jesus for forgiveness you will be saved. I asked what about murder what if we kill one or more people, as long as you as for forgiveness it okay he responded, I then asked what about the first commandment thou shalt not kill? No answer ignored...Siding more with my atheists brothers views, I stopped going to church much after that, my friend continued to go every weekend she never missed a day. Christmas time came around and I had not shown up to church for weeks, my mother brings to me this huge gift, I wonder where it came from? The church who would have known, it was a huge art/doodle gift bag very expensive and very cool. My best friend asked me if I got a gift and I told her yes and what it was, she was very upset and jealous because all she got was a book but; me someone who hasn't regularly attended church in months gets this big ol' present? Well, it was enough to get me back and going again... I went on/ off until the summer time & we moved surprisingly close to the church... Some how one of the bus attendees tricked me into giving her my new address somehow.. I was hoping my move would be my way out, they would knock on your door if you weren't outside for the bus on Sunday morning.. It was my first weekend in our new apartment, this one had a gate that you needed to call to be let it in. My balcony over looked the gate I could see all the cars coming in and out of the neighborhood. I received a call the first weekend there and it was someone pretending that they lived here & said they needed to get in, so I just dialed 9 and let them in, knowing I could see who was coming in and out I peered out my balcony... To my surprise I see the white church bus pulling in, they pull the bus on the side of my building a few seconds later I hear footsteps running up the stairs and then footsteps running down the opposing side of stairs.. There was no knock or doorbell ring, knowing something just happened I peeked my head out the door and what do you know, a veggie tales movie was left on my doorstep..
My brothers where atheists so I went on in their footsteps...
When I was 19 my partner was religious and I pretended to regain my faith so that I could feel as if I was a sociably acceptable person.. Also it made me feel okay to live my life as a glutness slob, jesus forgave me and that's all that I cared about.. I knew even the whole time I was fooling myself, I had been an Atheist for years but I wanted to be accepted and I took comfort in relating to other people called themselves Christian's...
Then, I watched Earthlings, became vegan and came back to my senses !

Yup

[Campbell305]

I was catholic until I was about 14-15. For a time I would make myself get up and go to church on my own when the rest of my family would stay at home. My family is all pretty much catholic on my mothers side whereas I'm not certain what my farthers side believe but I wouldn't classify them as atheists. I'm not really sure where the initial doubts came from though it may have something to do with my sisters coming out. She got the typical religious response to it but as my sister was close to me I realised that her being gay didn't make her different at all so why should all these people say that she is. So I didn't really have a stand point on religion for about a year and a half. I came across the genius George carlin and his points on religion. After that I knew atheism was the way for me and I think it was the best thing that ever happened to me because it makes me critically examine all things now and not just except them as true like I once did.

[AmplifiedSavagery]

I come from a Catholic family but I was raised by grandparents and they were not the church going types, even though they claim to be Baptist. I was taken to church by my grandpa on my dad's side but I never latched onto the stories told to me in Sunday school, it was a Lutheran church, since I always went for the free breakfast and toys. Even after I stopped going I still didn't care about religion. I did go to church so I could join their basketball team but that was the only reason I went, other than free food of course. At the age of 8 I received my first computer, the big bulky desktop ones of the 2000's before screens became flat, and basically lived by the computer. I joined a 3D chat software, I still use it today (IMVU), and I largely thank that for making me the Atheist that I am today. Up until about 6th grade I questioned the existence of God and pondered why nothing happened when I would attempt to pray or "find Jesus in my heart" as I was often told by my Catholic grandma on my dad's side. In the 7th grade, I realized I was an Atheist. I had heard this term for years from my dad, who used to claim to be one but after nearly dying of deadly bacteria has "found God again". Through middle and some high school, even though living in Mississippi, I was an in the closet Atheist and went along with what my religious family did. I had frequently read articles and watched videos with Atheists such as Richard Dawkins debating Christians on YouTube. This had given me further reason to not believe in God and I learned more about this new belief system. I quickly found there is a lot of hate towards Atheists and I kept my beliefs to myself up until when my dad nearly died. I became enraged when my Grandma thanked God for being the reason my father is still alive. She had entirely discredited the hard work of the doctors, nurses, and the people who helped us get here today in the science of medicine. This is when I came out as an Atheist and started to join Atheist pages on Facebook, which has caused me a lot of trouble ever since then. I started delving into my new findings to learn more, since I crave to know how things work and just about anything, which has caused me to get yelled at every day. When I graduated from high school earlier this year, May 2014, I was given dirty looks from my family when I refused a small bible being handed out by a local church. That also got me into debating with my family on how wrong it is to have religion in schools in the South and how it's shoved down your throat. I had been that Atheist student who didn't accept invitations to go to an even to "Keep Prayer in School", which had brought a lot of negative side effects. I moved in with my dad so I can attend college without paying 3,000 dollars for a tiny room. My dad and Grandma confronted me one day and basically attacked me with words. This still happens frequently. I'm told every other day how "The Atheists are wrong!", "You will burn in hell.", "You just don't know God. You should go to church and you would believe after talking to the priest.", and so on. You can probably guess other things I get told and so on. So, now I'm an open Atheist and watch a lot of videos, listen to pod casts, and so on. It's long winded but that's my coming to reality.

[PiggyOfDoom]

I was raised in a Christian household. My mother left me when I was barely 2. When she was leaving she got into a debate with my father, she started throwing plates and glasses at him; I tried to stop her but she hit me between the eyes with a broken glass. After that she went away and I had to go to the hospital so the doctors can stich the cut. A few years ago I was running, fell and literally ripped out a piece of flesh out of my knee, we had to GLUE it up so I wouldn't bleed out. A year ago I asked myself "Why would a kind and loving God let these things happen to me?!" "It's not going to make me stronger, it's just going to get me killed!". A few weeks ago I was browsing Youtube and found the first video of "CRAZY SHIT the Bible says". After the video I got my shit together and realized that this "God" of ours is just another fantasy to make us "Be good lil' humans!".

[miniboes]

I was raised in a Christian household. My mother left me when I was barely 2. When she was leaving she got into a debate with my father, she started throwing plates and glasses at him; I tried to stop her but she hit me between the eyes with a broken glass.

At the age of two you attempted to stop your mother from hurting your father? That's impressive.

[PiggyOfDoom]

At the age of two you attempted to stop your mother from hurting your father? That's impressive.

I didn't attempt to stop her, I was more like "Mommy mommy what are you doing?". That kind of curiosity nearly got me killed numerous times actually.

[Lightningman_42]

I have always been an atheist, but I'd be happy to share my story of how I became an aSantaClausist.

During my early childhood I was taught to believe in the existence of a wise, bearded old man in the sky who flew around distributing presents to children. My parents taught me that he gave presents to good, well-behaved children, and they said that he always (magically) knew when I was being good and when I was being naughty. Essentially, this magical bearded old man in the sky used hope for a reward as a motivator for me to be good. I remember it was fun and appealing to believe in some magical person flying through the sky distributing presents through chimneys.

After a while however, when I was maybe 5 or 6 years old, I started to develop some skepticism, and wondered why I could never meet Santa Claus in person. One Christmas eve, my parents had me wait in my room while they opened the front door and pretended to speak to Santa Claus. In a way this seemed like evidence of Santa because their act was rather convincing at the time, but I still wondered why I could not meet him in person. One day, out of the blue (I was maybe 7 or 8; I don't remember exactly), my father told me in a very serious tone that he had to tell me something important. He confessed that the whole "Santa Claus" character was just imaginary, and it was he and my mother who had actually been giving me the presents.

I don't remember exactly how I felt about this at the time, but I do remember quite clearly that the revelation was not very surprising. I finally realized that my belief in Santa Claus was based entirely on his appealing nature, and my desire to believe, but I never really had any concrete evidence. Had I additionally been taught to believe in another wise bearded old man in the sky (who uses promise of a reward as a motivator for moral behaviour), then I imagine that I likely would have applied my skepticism to that fictional entity as well.

[Insert name here]

I always had a pressure on me to be religious, my parents enrolled me in a Christian preschool that taught us "Christian values" up until I "graduated" and went to elementary school. Those nine years from kindergarten to eighth grade encompass the worst school experience I have had so far, only now in high school has it gotten slightly better. I think I can attribute my current personality to how I was treated in kindergarten, if I were treated well by my classmates, I probably would have been an all around social butterfly that would not question much, while the reality was that I was bullied quite often. To this day I do not know why, but if my parents are to be believed it was because our family was not from that area and they did not really want us in their community. I was Christian for 14 years until last year in my first year in highshool, it was at this point that I changed so much, or at least many of my view points did, before then I just parroted what my parents said. In regards to religion, I had started thinking about God and why he allowed suffering in the world, then one day, I stumbled across a debate on the exsitance of God on, guess who, the vegan atheists channel, the vegan atheist and Darkmatter2525 were both huge influences on my transition to atheism, I would watch their videos late into the night until I had made my choice. I will say though, my parents really did put in an effort to make me religious, because I had never heard of the word atheist until I stumbled across the vegan atheists channel. And so ends this post.

[garrethdsouza]

I grew up raised catholic and the indoctrination was pretty good with Sunday school and regular church every single week, I bought it hook line and sinker.
Then in my first few years of college I met a bunch of pretty regular guys who were atheists and seemed pretty intelligent, informed, had good taste and even career centric while most of my catholic friends were either goofing off or not as intelligent to communicate with. And the atheists seemed like pretty regular and decent guys too. one just said religion was all an elaborate conspiracy which I felt was ridiculous.
I was also aware about evolution and that it wasn't incompatible with god either and that too made sense to me though being a wildlife documentary buff I felt there was no possible way for the whole ark story to make any possible sense.
It was only after I happened by chance to read books by Sagan especially cosmos which was more about science and a tad in religion that suddenly everything that was already in my head just fell in place. Sagan writes pretty well, I tried reading a bit of the god delusion once but I felt it paled by comparison.