At what point in your life did you decide you didn't believe in (a) God(s)?

I never stopped believing in a God…it just took on a higher form than the Catholic heaven and hell version I was force fed as a kid.

I have never come to the conclusion that there is no god. I don’t believe in a god, sure, but I acknowledge the possibility that there is a god and I’m just wrong.

To address your question though, I was about 15. Two main things led me to this conclusion. I read the Bible, and I was transfered to a specialist science school. Both made it pretty hard to keep my blindfold on.

I’ve also never come to the conclusion there there is no god. I don’t think there is one, but I acknowledge that I may be wrong.

My atheism was the result of a series of steps, some forward and some back, over many years. I was raised Christian. In sixth grade, I read the Bible front to back, and came to the conclusion that there is no way it could all be true. At that point, I went from being Christian to being unsure. I felt there could still be a god, but I felt certain if one existed, it was nothing like the god of the Bible. I considered myself agnostic, but searching.

At 13 years of age, I visited family in the bible belt. I got all swept up in their fervor, and got myself baptized. A ‘born-again’ Christian. For about a month. Away from the fervor, I could not maintain my belief. Back to agnostic. Back to searching.

As an adult, I have had times in my life when I really felt there was a god… a ‘gut feeling’, you could say. It was always when things awed me in some way. Things like falling in love or having a child or when some really unlikely set of circumstances occurred. The older I got, the more I realized that feeling awed over those things is perfectly natural. They are awesome, in and of themselves. No god is necessary for that to be true.

As time went on, I learned a lot more about the way the world and universe work, and the way the human mind works. The more knowledge of these things I gained, the less need I had to believe in a supernatural being. Without the need for one, I looked for evidence of one. I found none. Thus, I am an atheist.

I came to the conclusion that there either isn’t a god, or there is, but it doesn’t care in the slightest about the affairs of mortals. Which is just as good as being non-existent.

It happened when I first found out that not believing in all the things the church said, especially the parts that made no sense, was an option.

I do believe in God. Just not the one that everyone else talks about. The other one is the reason I accept and love atheists even though I am not one myself. I have contemplated it, I have thought about it then I figured if everyone is running around believing whatever the heck they want anyway, I may as well take my love for science and quantum physics and call my God the greater portion of that instead of some cursing, vengeful, wrathful, hellfire and brimstone tyrant.

@Prosb I consider myself agnostic, but you sum up my feelings pretty well when you say if there is “it doesn’t care in the slightest about the affairs of mortals.” Exactly! If it doesn’t notice me, why should I waste my time worshiping it, trying to understand it or worrying about if it is even there or not?

I was raised in an Athiest family so I didn’t believe in God growing up, because I wasn’t really very aware there was one to believe in. During my 20’s I guess I decided, after learning more about religion and God, that I am an athiest not only because my family is, but because it makes sense to me.

I’d say around 16. Well I never believed in god before I was 14 either…it’s strange that way…I was into witchcraft during 14–16 and believe in the Goddess…that’s pretty much the only way I ever believed in a deity…

I was about 9, and after a couple years of catholic school, I was finally able to direct at religion the same skepticism that allowed me to denounce Santa at age 5. I realized that everything was just a story, and there was no reason to believe a story just because other people did and had passed it down for thousands of years. This understanding solidified as I became older and learned more about the hard sciences, history, sociology, and psychology.

For a while it was comforting to imagine a “different deity” so I could enjoy the fuzzy-glow of theism while rejecting mainstream interpretations of it, but by the time I was 14, it became philosophically untenable and I had to reject all of these delusions.

I AM A GOD!!! in my mind anyway

Pretty young. Like Santa Claus, I can’t actually remember ever thinking there was one. I was probably about 10 when I started to get the concept that other people, races, religions, all had their own special stories and they all believed that their stores were the only right ones.
I remember one parent, a very vocal “religious person” – not mine, who was taking a group of us kids someplace and she actually prayed to god that there would be a parking space for us. What? Are you kidding me? Millions of people staving, disasters happening, war,... and she expected god to give her a parking space?!?! That completely negated the power of prayer for me. Even I knew if you want a parking space, you get to the event 15 minutes early. I also learned it was far better to study than pray for good grades. .
I am responsible for my own actions, my own grades, and my own parking space.
Lastly, I learned it makes no sense to argue over the subject. Believers will believe, non believers will not. It is almost genetic. Theists or Atheists, the ones who get up 15 minutes early, will get the parking spaces.

I was raised attending church & I started struggling with believing when I was a teenager. Reality & logic were what made me question what I had been taught. I studied the Bible very deeply & found that it was full of contradictions & I kept trying to leave religion behind, but when you are raised attending church, this is a very difficult step to make. I finally made a total break from believing that “God” existed when I was in my early 50’s. There is simply no way that a ‘loving, omnipotent, God’ would allow the horrendous things that go on, on this planet that we call home.

I never stopped believing in “God”. However, I quit believing in the whole old man with a white beard who vaguely resembles Charlton Heston and has nothing better to do that play puppet master with we puny humans at a pretty early age and I quit believing in religion some time in the college years.

I had been losing faith for a long time, but I came out of the atheist closet shortly after my son was born, three years ago.

I was born into an Irish Catholic family, then my parents split and my mom married into a fundamental Pentecostal family. I went Fundie wholeheartedly. Taught Sunday School, had no life outside the church… Finally met a good churchgoing man and got married. We were treated so badly by my family (my cousin, the pastor’s daughter, had a crush on my now-hubby, and never forgave me for landing him after he rejected her) I stopped going to church.

Since I was so devoted to my deity, I spent the time “between churches” to read the Bible on my own and do my own studies. I talked with people of other denominations, and the fact that the one true religion could have so many different flavors, all of which disagreed with each other, kind of made me balk.

Then I started thinking about other religions entirely. If Biblegod couldn’t keep his followers straight, maybe he wasn’t the right god, but perhaps there was another one?

Around the time my son was born, I was seriously considering a more eclectic pagan thing – god is all around us, nature is god, blah blah blah.

But, a difference that makes no difference is no difference, as I was told by a very wise person. If god doesn’t do anything that science can’t explain, god may as well not be there. If god is there, he/she/it/they are more than welcome to prove themselves to me.

I believed in god because I was told to, then when I became a teen a just questioned religion and god. First I came to the conclusion that all (yes, all) religion is fallacious, but I was an agnostic because I knew religion was separate from god.

Then, I did some more thinking (and reading) and essentially decided there’s no evidence of any god. Of course there is a minute chance I am wrong, but so is everyone.

I believe in God more intimately every day! Maybe a good though simple analogy would be to see this earth as a big container and all of us in it as kernels of pop corn. God wants us to “pop” – to come alive and take our rightful place. For various reasons some of us don’t pop – we stay in our original form on the bottom of the pot, perhaps a little burned or singed by life but definitely not all light and fluffy like the popped kernels have the potential to be.

I love everybody on this site and I have read back through a number of threads and I am aware of the assertions of the atheists and the theists and won’t participate in any slagging matches. I am open to private messages and will respond when I feel the question is from a genuine place not some kind of a jeering place. (So no public @smilingheart1 this and that please.)

Everything depends on one’s world view and one’s ability to take God at His Word. This is the big stumbling block. God is all about love, He totally loves every atheist and every theist on the planet. God IS LOVE and that’s all He can do is Love. He wants us all to accept this at face value and enter in. I see three principle differences between atheists and theists. Many atheists see God as a Judge not a Lover, won’t accept evil exists and blame everything on an unknown force; and see this world as all there is. Atheists do not seem to believe that God values mankind so much that He appointed us as stewards over the earth. That also contributes to a whole range of things from disorganization to downright anarchy. I also believe that authoritarian so called Christians have messed with far too many minds, turning off far too many people.

What we believe will have a huge affect on our experience and inner state.

@smilingheart1

Just saying, it’s pretty lame to make a lot of assertions (pretty judgmental ones at that), and attempt to protect yourself by saying you won’t participate in any discourse to back them up.

@Seek_Kolinahr, faith is very, very precious. If you are really sincere, come at it from a sincere questioning place or let it drop. I have seen enough mean shark season in the jellie pool to recognize this. So no public slagging. We are all free to make our points but I willnot go public anymore.

This is a public forum.

“many atheists see god as… and won’t accept…” “atheists do not seem to believe…” “this contributes to…downright anarchy”

If you make claims like this publicly, you must be able to defend them publicly. If not, you’re on the wrong forum.

I still believe in God.

@Seek_Kolinahr , last point – any further are all yours. I just want to say PUBLICLY that each of us come into this world alone, go out alone for the most part. We are all here for various lengths of time. Your beliefs are paramount to you, to the person that is behind @Seek_Kolinahr‘s avatar. Your beliefs will influence everything about YOU. Whether others chime in and say this or that really isn’t the issue. Whether you have a support group in the background backing you up or not.

To me, faith isn’t worth discussing if the attitude is wrong. It just doesn’t make sense. Why bother? We will never ARGUE a God in or out of existence. It is futile. And that is how most of these threads conclude: everyone stays in the same place. I truly believe there are a many more people on Fluther who assert they are atheist than who actually are. I think the overwhelming majority are not and the reason I say this is because theists seldom introduce these topics. We are at peace!!!! It is the ones who keep dredging around on the topic like they keep checking to see that everyone has STILL got God voted out this week

“We will never ARGUE a God in or out of existence. It is futile.”

I disagree. Public forums and chat rooms were very influential in my making a change from fundamental Christianity to atheism, and feeling comfortable in doing so. (RIP MySpace “Christianity” chat room!)

Many, many theists are theists simply because their parents were theists and they have never known different. Sometimes all it takes is someone saying “it’s okay to think for yourself” and to ask a question to which their religion has no answer (or, at best, a very poorly conceived answer)

When a theist gets tired of making excuses for their deity (“the devil hid the dinosaur bones to make us doubt God” “carbon dating is a myth perpetuated by anti-god scientists”) they are more likely to accept that maybe that deity isn’t really worth protecting.

If you want to devote 2/7th of your week and at least 10% of your income to a god that tells you your eyes are lying to you, that you are a slave with no purpose other than to serve him, and that you will be damned for eternity if you choose to ignore his demands, that’s your prerogative. I’m just here to give others the chance to say ‘no’.

I was 15. I had just written a paper about existentialism and my conclusion was that I was an atheist.

Hasn’t happened. Oh, I’ve had some shaky moments, but I got better.

@Seek_Kolinahr You know I love ya’ and read the same playbook. As an atheist I recognize others might not have the same internal guidance as I. I’ll even let them pity me and think I am a bad person because I didn’t go to church or whatever, while I was working as medic on their Volunteer ambulance service because they are not available on Sunday. That’s OK. I figure they don’t know any better and no amount of logic will change their opinion.
If a theist wants to look at a rainbow and think it came from a great snake, or a turtle walking across the sky or a god painted it as a sign of whatever, I let them. You and I know it is simply light refraction and know it is an arc 42 degrees from our head shadow. I know exactly where to look before it appears, they don’t. Let them study any text and memorize any passage. I’ll be the one with my tripod already set up to get the photo.

I think that it was when our second daughter was born and I had to take “Baptism Class” before the church would baptize her. I was thrown out of the class for asking too many questions.

I then started to question what and why I believed, tried a couple different churches then decided that Sunday mornings were better spent taking care of our daughters and possibly working on making another one.

^ Can I get an “amen”?

@Seek_Kolinahr Amen, I liked your answers.

When I realised the church was just an excuse to extort money from vulnerable misguided widows…e.g. My grandmother.. I was about eleven.. when an uncle threw the vicar out of my grans house after repeatedly suggesting she donate my grandfathers insurance money to church funds, shortly after his death. :-/

@Scooby a good rule is to never give a church money. Good for your uncle.

Thanks @Ron_C good advice…

When I learned that people actually believed in them.

As a child, I watched adults pray when they were upset and, to me, it seemed silly, and a little bit desperate, to ask some imaginary force to fix things.

I’m not trying to hate on religion – this is the first thought I can remember.

Ok, not being sarcastic and not questioning anyone’s right to be an atheist, but I am genuinely curious.

It seams that many who have turned to “atheism” are really just angry at the rigid adherence to church dogma that many of the overly religious advocate. Is it that you don’t believe in any yet to be understood spiritual component to our existence, or is it really just a rejection of the delusions of those arrogant enough to believe they understand (sorry, don’t have a better word for it) god?

It’s kind of a “I started questioning my god and couldn’t find any good reason to believe in one when I really thought about it” thing.

And then I started looking at the evidence, studying anthropology, paleontology, and evolution. And now I’m convinced that the evidence suggests god is unnecessary to explain what we’re doing here.

I never believed wholeheartedly in God and now I don’t disbelieve wholeheartedly in him either. Do human beings have a soul? I think that is a similar question. If humans have a soul then the Universe will have a God and if humans don’t have a soul then what are we?

@YoBob For me, there was no religion involved in my later decisions. And I think many people in general know religion is separate from god/whatever “all of this” is.

For example, learning about how vast and complex the universe is helped me make my decision. I do not care if people think humans on a rock know the answers to all of this, my main proponent is that I just don’t think there was an entity to it all.

Essentially, I think the universe is just “here”. It’s a “thing”. Chaotic, but also systematic, and also indifferent.

I just never really believed. We would say grace and have bedtime prayers when I was younger, but I didn’t really pay attention to the words. I just thought I was supposed to say it, but there was no real meaning behind the words.

@Ron_C Thrown out for asking too many questions. Lord that fits right into a stereotype of mine, but I have never had an example like that regarding adults.

I wasn’t raised to be religious but explored on my own as a grade schooler before deciding if there was a god/gods, they were for other people.

Every one of these questions reinforces my belief in God.

@YoBob Nah, I was never mad at church/religion or god. I did disbelieve in religion first. I threw religion out at a very young age, and made my decision about god(s) at a much later age.

About two years ago my concept of God shifted dramatically, but really it just became more complex, and has been doing so since. I no longer believe in God in the biblical sense, but I believe in an entity and have no shame in calling It God, but I realize It is infinitely more than the name accredits.

@YoBob For me it’s both rejection of god, and of the overly pushy and pious followers. The rejection of god came first, and after the response I got from my highly religious community, I grew angry at the rigidness and unfairness of the church.

@Soupy Yup! As a non atheist, that’s my reason for not liking them too and technically they do it to me as well, and I believe. Just not what and the way I am supposedly supposed to.

*How’s that for a kick in the seat? That’s why if an atheist has nothing nice to say about a Christian especially, they can always come sit by me!

@JLeslie they didn’t put it in those terms Actually the head priest said, “I think you know enough about the subject and you dont need to go the the other meetings.” I asked, “will you still baptize my daughter?” “Of course”, he said.
I left because I thought it was a good deal. The same type of things got me excused from a “Human Relations” meeting when the Navy started putting women on sea duty.

@Ron_C I see. So, it was for the Catholic church, are you Catholic? I don’t remember.

@JLeslie I will always probably think of myself as a lapsed catholic. There are a number of things about the catholic religion I find admirable, they’re not afraid to have a good time, they are more than tolerant of race, in fact, ignore it (at least my church did), they are consistent in their beliefs, and they support families, they don’t pay much attention to the bible, especially the old testament, and they are open to science. Granted, it took 2000 years for them to evolve and but they are open to change (at glacial speed), they, at least American Catholics are open to women in leadership. Of course the logical evolution is to become atheistic, some of us simply evolved faster than our base religion.