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No-Psychology3374

I stopped seeing the Bible in a literal light when I finally took a university course that included a thorough review of evolution by a researcher active in archaeological digs in E. Africa. When I saw the mountains of physical evidence for the first time at 28 years of age, I knew the Bible was not history. If there is no Garden of Eden, there is no original sin and no need for redemption. I also began to see the world in natural, scientific terms without any need for supernatural explanations. I had to face facts. And I did. šŸ™‚


No-Psychology3374

I should add my dad was a fundamentalist Baptist pastor. Big shift for me! šŸ˜€


Fluid_Thinker_

The most obvious and arguably one of the easiest parts of the bible to disprove is the whole creation story. With this foundation falling apart, the house of cards will likely completely break down. The misogynistic view that the New Testament holds about women being not allowed to teach completely loses all of its justifications. No, there were no Adam and Eve, so you can't tell me that the reason for women being inferior is that she ate the damn fruit. But if that argument of Paul is bullshit what else could not be the 'absolute truth'? A whole lot of the book, if not everything, is made up and the morals are outdated.


No-Psychology3374

I view it as a house of cards as well. I appreciate your comment about the false biblical basis of misogyny. Very good point.


Fluid_Thinker_

Thank you. All these moments of sudden doubt accumulated over the last few months and the only logical conclusion is that this is a man made book.Ā  I highly recommend you reading about the authorship of the books, gospels and epistles if you haven't done so already. The first crack regarding this topic was the unknown author of the book of Hebrews and it sent me down a rabbit hole. Ā That's why I find pastors and priests somewhat intellectually dishonest. At least here in Germany, you need to visit a state approved University to study theology in order to become a pastor. They have had enough clues and had to learn all these facts. Despite that, they still prefer to run with the crowds..


Mioraecian

I suffered from severe anxiety and depressin during my teen years. Grew up in a religion that was considered a cult. I was told my depression would get better the more I prayed and trusted God. It didn't, I became suicidal and basically went a long time without mental health treatment. One day I said to myself, if God is permitting me to feel like this and won't help me get better, after everything I've done, maybe God is kind of a dick. Coincidentally, at that time, someone gave me a book on Budhist meditation for mental health. I then went down a crazy road of reading about other religions looking for an alternative to Christianity. I was then in a horrible life changing accident, and about that time, I also read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. I went from seeking an alternative version of God to considering that maybe God isn't a dick, maybe he just doesn't even exist. Then I spent 15 year reading evolutionary psychology, biology, physics, behavioral economic theory, theology, etc. And now there is literally nothing that could convince me a God exists. If one presented itself to me or mankind I'd simply ask, what planet they were from and how long it took them to travel here.


goddias

That's what I'm saying! Even with our mental health struggles, we're only going through 1% of what other people out there have gone through. No just God would allow that to happen. In the interim period, I had the mindset of not giving a damn about God if he DID exist. I just thought that if he did, he was a piece of Scheisse, not worthy of my devotion or personal sacrifice. I went through a similar journey, though just with science and psychology. It was enough to make me realize that humans just look for a higher power when things don't work out.


Mioraecian

Absolutely.


MurkyMitzy

Lutheran Catechism classes when I was 11-12 (12-13?). Pastor said that dogs don't go to heaven and you should never pray for an animal. He also said that praying for dead relatives meant you thought god had made a mistake so don't do that. It really made me mad, then it made me think, and a few years later I was an atheist.


Empty-Discipline8927

When I was told as a child that there is no dogs in heaven, no animals etc.. I basically said.. screw that I'm not going then. Ive felt this way ever since.


MurkyMitzy

Dogs are the best people I know.


magicalvillainess90

I grew up in a strict religious house hold and just did what I was expected to act. My religious ex (Let's call him Chris) made me realize that if we had a kid that was gay, he would cut them out of his life and expected me to do the same. I refused and told Chris that I would divorce him if that happened. That's when I realized that my religious was a cult and I did not want to be apart of the church anymore but I was still afraid to break away at the time. After I broke up with Chris, I went to church one last time to see if I should give it a chance. Well I ended up seeing my ex's friend (Let's call him John) and I told him that I broke up with my ex. John told me he wanted to talk to me after church which caused me to feel uncomfortable and scared but did not say anything as he walked away. As I sat on the chair, I flashed back to when Chirs told me that John was angry that he got to me first and hoped that we broke up so that I could be with John. This caused Chris and John's friendship to end and they never spoke to each other again. I asked myself why both these guys couldn't date women their own age (back then I was 22F, my ex was 32M and his friend was 35M) and it just hit me that they were trying to groom me into being the 'perfect christian wife'. That was when I decided to quit the church and left in the middle of the sermon as to not talk to the ex's friend. I vowed to never date a religious man ever again and have limited contact with my family. I've felt a lot happier as a result so I don't regret it.


goddias

You made the right decision, girl! Those guys were just trying to make you a so-called "tradwife" that would side with them in any social justice way. I have thought about that, too. I will say that most of my relatives are essentially non-practicing Catholics, but even my staunchly Catholic grandma supported me when I came out. She always says that God never makes mistakes, and she took me as an example: if God doesn't like it, why would I have been born that way?


agent_flounder

The idea of religions that demand loyalty over one's own children disgust me. Now that I am a parent, I just cannot fathom how any parent could kick out their own child.


teetaps

Lots of things, but another sticking point was Neil DeGrasse Tysonā€™s reboot of Cosmos, the story of [Giordano Bruno](https://youtu.be/JKyLcoN122g?si=26XVUgHNxli6Wpem). Right in episode 1, they make a super compelling argument about how big the universe is, and how restricted our human minds can feel. Which is ironic, because this was _after_ Iā€™d studied psychology, which is all about how our minds canā€™t be trusted. Thereā€™s something about the line ā€œyour god is too small!ā€ that legitimately shook my belief in anything Iā€™d ever known or believed about who we are, why weā€™re here, and why it may or may not matter. That moment was scarier than any horror movie or deep dark fear Iā€™ve ever experienced. But embracing the fear has freed me from a lot of crappy beliefs. Am I a ā€œbetter personā€ without my previous faith? That remains to be seen. But I know for sure that Iā€™m much less likely to hurt people around me purposefully due to my beliefs. Edit: the line isnā€™t in the video I linked, youā€™ll have to sail the pirate seas to see it unless you have the right subscription, but Cosmos, either Saganā€™s or the reboot, are really existentially freeing


sk-theantifriend

Reality.


junction182736

For me it was not seeing evidence of God working in my life even though I really needed it and later confirmed by the utter hypocrisy of supposedly strong believers. It took a while after that though, until I just realized one day I was an atheist and felt no compulsion to believe a deity exists.


goddias

'Amen' to that. The utter hypocrisy is one of my pet peeves. I have had Mormons come at my door, and I just tell them: I love sucking dick, and there is no God that would make me hate it or feel ashamed about it. I should state that being gay is not the reason I am an atheist, even though it might have made it easier: if I'm going to hell anyways, might as well add some transgressions to that too.


StBlase22

There is no hell so just do you.


101001101zero

I love teaching Mormon missionaries about their religion. Iā€™m book smart and was raised as one. After leaving I learned a lot about their fā€™d history. Itā€™s a pyramid scheme business hiding behind the falsehood that itā€™s the one true religion lol.


Emerald1014

Agreed.


Person1259

I kind of just grew out of it like learning Santa isnā€™t real


CHILLGHOSTDUDE

Same


whatswrongwithme223

For me it was researching the bible. I wanted to research the facts of the bible so I could better defend it against atheists, and what I learned ended up turning me into an atheist instead. Oopsies


anaggressivefrog

I had problems in my life that nobody else around me had. Abusive family. All my Christian friends had nuclear families and had all their needs met. They told me that it was God's plan that I suffer, as I probably needed to learn something from the experience. I realized they were actually telling me that I was inferior to them. That I was "extra broken" and needed to suffer to be on par with them. They had no issue with this. Christians have no moral compass. They just claim that everything God does is good, and all else is evil. Meanwhile they coast on their privilege and sing kumbaya. The final nail in the coffin was just the total lack of any and all evidence for God whatsoever. Christians think that normal, everyday shit is actually evidence of God. They define "goodness" as something that comes from God alone, so they can just sit in a circle and say things like, "I got into college! God is so great!" Or "my grandma barely recovered from her terminal cancer! God is so great for forcing her to suffer like that only to deny her the end!" Or some other stupid BS. I realized the only evidence they had came from circular reasoning. So between the endless circular logic and complete lack of morality, I realized Christianity was just a weird cult designed to control everyone and give the priests cover to molest children. It's a scourge on this earth.


agent_flounder

Refining "good" was one of the things that horrified me when I was still in. I later realized how dangerous it is. First, it's one of the prime mechanisms for brainwashing. Second, "good" can be defined to mean anything based on who is interpreting the Bible. Killing men, women and children who are non-believers? "Hey that's good because God did it." Like ..wtf? Any number of horrid things become good with this twisted thinking. Empathy? "Out the window. Irrelevant." Then I listened to what some Calvinists had to say. Holy crap.


101001101zero

I was the example in my Utah county mormon community because I was the only one with an apostate dad. In Sunday school my ā€œteachersā€ would get brutal with me as the example of why they all needed to stay in the cult.


justelectricboogie

The people.


Golconda

Being gay was the first piece but the big one was once I wasn't in a controlled private school and realized how big the world really is and that 'christians' just want to maintain superiority so they can wag their finger at you like they have some kind of upper hand because they believe in smoke and mirrors.


georgie969

My faith was so strong due to indoctrination and ecstatic experiences. I believed that my religion could overcome any challenge. I was wrong. From misogyny and slavery to genocide and anti rationalism Christianity failed.


Petto_na_Kare

Mainly hearing about the suffering others have experienced, and realizing that a ā€˜just and loving godā€™ couldnā€™t possibly exist while letting these things happen. Ironically, the final straw happened shortly after I graduated high school, when I went to a youth group with a few acquaintances. I hadnā€™t been to church in a while and figured Iā€™d give it a try to see if it was for me. First time I went, this girl around my age gets up in front of the entire group and talks about how she found peace after being sexually assaulted by accepting God and going to church. Before that, I had never really met or conversed with somebody who went through that kind of trauma, so it was upsetting to see. More importantly, it shook the foundation of what I was taught about Godā€™s nature and role. Why did such a thing have to happen to this girl? And if God has a ā€˜planā€™ for everything, was it his plan for this girl to get raped so she would turn to him out of desperation? I couldnā€™t reconcile those things in my mind, how God is supposed to be the embodiment of love and all that is good, but allows innocent people to suffer lifelong trauma and pain. That night when I got home was the first time I consciously rejected the religion I was raised on.


onomatamono

Learning the Easter Bunny was fiction did it for me. I think you will find the most common answer is rational people applying logic and reason in the face of zero evidence for a god compelled them to stop playing compartmentalized make-believe and start thinking like grown-ass adults.


RedRadish527

My brother-in-law decided he's not going to do Santa for his kids because he doesn't want them to question the existence of a person they can't see, because that might lead them to questioning the existence of Jesus. Like dude, you're so close to the point...


RedRadish527

I grew up super conservative Catholic in the US, and honestly it was mostly because of politics. Everyone would say that the Democrats are evil, this or that law is of the devil, abortion is murder (and was considered an almost unforgivable sin for most of my childhood, priests were finally able to absolve it in 2016) yadda yadda. But I could see that all of that was really hateful, and I was shown more love from my non-catholic/liberal friends than the church. I tried to reconcile the two throughout college as I moved further left politically, and the breaking point was when a younger friend of mine got pregnant her freshman year of college and was pressured into marrying the guy. It destroyed her reputation and her life trajectory, she dropped out of college and has two kids with him now. Well FUCK THAT, no one deserves to go through what she went through. By then, I figured that everyone around me said Democrats can't be Catholic so I guess I'm not Catholic. Since then, I've deconstructed the faith and wouldn't go back even if their social teachings drastically changed. I'm agnostic and even further left than I was before, and the happiest I've ever been.


goddias

The inter-religious hated is honestly so stupid. In Puerto Rico, we considered ourselves, just like any member of a Christ-believing religion, to be Christians. Once I got here, I had to deal with so much "Catholics aren't Christians" comments that I felt I was going stupid. It is literally the same bullshit, especially when you don't follow one of the more liberal branches of Christianity.


RedRadish527

I honestly see more of the Cristian/Catholic hatred now than I did then, though granted I was in a super insular community and just didn't know many Protestants. People who say Catholics aren't Christians are WILD, literally they all believe in the same Jesus.


goddias

Exactly! Frankly, it's stupid. In their defense, as much as I hate it, WASP's believe so because of the British legacy. I don't know whether it started across the pond or here, but Brits were (generally - not the Scots or Irish at the time) very anti-Catholicism. I agree with the sentiment, but more the anti-clerical French Revolution way. The whole argument regarding the belief in Jesus is dumb. If anything, Catholics and Protestants have different beliefs on Mary. They could/should have based it on that.


KillerEndo420

God has a plan/is testing your faith bullshit. When I was 11 I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. The pain is unbearable(think of that scene in the cell where meGod is ripping Vince Vaughns guts out),and the humiliation of shitting yourself uncontrollably. Eventually it just didn't make sense that an all loving and kind god could do that to a child. Started with hate/anger and eventually moved to ambivalence then disbelief.


jmac_1957

The nuns beating the piss out of me in Catholic school (getting paddled every other day.) As a little kid, I knew this was bullshit. Turned me against the "Good Book" and the whole holy roller nonsense doctrine.


PicaRuler

I grew up in a southern baptist church that believed people from other denominations (catholics, methodists, etc.) are all misinterpreting the Bible and they are going to hell. They taught us to take things in the Bible literally, including the creation story and Noah's ark. Eventually I started reading more academic works about the history of religion and some books about the natural world. I came to realize that if you try to look at the Bible in a logical way and compare it with what we know about the earth and the cosmos, they flat out do not reconcile. Two books in particular had a real effect on me. I read a book called the Devil and the History of Evil which outlines the origins and evolution of religious thinking about evil gods and how eventually people stopped worshipping the things like bad weather gods etc. and ascribed power to a bigger good god that keeps them in check. Eventually the lesser gods all get lumped into the devil and demons etc. Started to realize how much all of these changes and new interpretations have changed the religions over the centuries and started thinking "maybe all of this is bullshit" Then I read Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" because I grew up being taught that he was evil and demonic and all this shit. Once I read about the painstaking ways that scientists figured out some of the secrets of the universe and figured out how much love for the natural world and the cosmos the man had, it kind of sealed the deal for me. None of the timelines in the bible make any sense to the history of the Earth or the universe.


andweallenduphere

I worked with children with severe behaior issues. I couldn't believe anymore as I loved all of them and I grew up thinking if you did bad things you went to hell. Nope. We are a product of our dna and environment.


Odd_Cockroach_2289

Reading the 'inerrant' word of God.


Lap-sausage

Getting bullied and ostracized at school and my parents didnā€™t care and the Principal said ā€œoh itā€™s boys being boysā€ so I went to Church for months and prayed and prayed and fuck-all happened. So I told my parents I wasnā€™t going Church anymore. I was 14. Plus Episcopalian is sooooo fucking boring. Edit: I started getting baked with my friend down the street. That was a lot more therapeutic.


lolbertroll

Me. I did.


lolbertroll

Nothing made me I chose to think different.


Maghioznic

For me it was the moment when I started thinking: what can I tell about the world if I drop all my beliefs (God, good, evil) and I just rely on the things I know from my experience. What is left? I found out that there is enough left for me to work with and from that point on I did not look to add any other elements that were based just on "faith".


GilpinMTBQ

I was like... half-religious through childhood. It was a big part of my life. I went to services, bible camp, christian music festivals but I never really bought into it. I refused going through baptism because I think deep down I knew I didn't really believe in it. In college I was sucked into the Campus Crusade stuff because that was the only kind of group Id ever belonged to... but again... it was something to do and somewhere to belong and not something that I really bought into. I was lowkey embarassed by it but I didnt have anywhere else to be. Then as time went on and I met people who existed outside of that world I became comfortable with the idea that I didn't need all that. I never "turned on" religion. I wasn't hostile to it. There were parts of it I appreciated. Even when I was grappling with my queer identity I wasn't opposed to it. I guess I figured my family was the same way. Turns out they weren't. When I finally came out to them they ambushed me with a prayer group and bible verses. That really hurt me. Then Trump happened and millions of "loving Christians" bent over backwards to suck the dick of a fucking sociopath and liar who is the embodiment of everything they profess to stand against. Now I see those motherfuckers for who they are and there will no forgiveness. The next time I step into a church it will be for a fucking funeral and for no other reason.


CyberDonSystems

I just kind of stopped believing there was anything out there. Probably have George Carlin HBO specials to thank for that.


StBlase22

Faith is believing in something strongly without evidence. I realized Iā€™m not that guy and not into fairy tales. Also, too much hate and bigotry emanates from religion.


Suz354

On my road to leaving religion behind, I was particularly struck by Bertrand Russel's reasoning that if there were a god, as conceived by most religious folks, there could be no way for us to understand it or to please it. It made me think, what if ants started piling up sand to 'worship' us as their superiors, would we even notice? Would we stop stepping on them? Put more nails in that coffin!


Heartdanger24

I was raised in a strict, conservative Christian family. I turned away from the church when as an adult I watched ā€œGleeā€ for the first time. I couldnā€™t believe that the gay characters on the show were evil as Iā€™d been raised to believe.They were people like me! I decided I was done being told to hate people, I didnā€™t even know anything about. After that, other false beliefs and misinformation started popping out at me.


DimWit47

The existence of many religions got me thinking that if a God truly existed, there would only be one true religion.


wyvern19

When my mom (Irish Catholic) died when I was young, not long after my second Communion, I just hated the god of Abraham for letting her leave me all alone, but after the hate cooled down and I went looking for real answers the Bible stopped making sense. No religion could fill the void and in the end it was just a process to work through what I thought made sense and what seemed to fit with personal and general observations. I consider myself agnostic because what lay behind the "veil" is utterly unknowable by creatures as simple and small as we are. But the universe is boundless and infinite. And with infinite combination comes infinite diversity so I don't discount anything off hand but the burden of proof is on those making extraordinary claims. I believe it's just more human arrogance to say definitively one way or the other. Wisdom and true understanding begins with admitting that you don't know the answer. *Edit- with all that being Said I'm intensely anti religion in schools or legislation. I don't care what people do in their homes or private places of worship, but do NOT ever put your dogma in schools or in laws. I will fight that, tooth and nail.


NoisyBrat2000

I realized the the nice high I got from being I church was self induced.


pinkeroo67

Abusive nuns and priests. Disgusting people.


[deleted]

I just, grew up. I started thinking for myself and boom! It hit me.


bizzeebee

The pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church, combined with leaving my small town and learning all sorts of new things in college.


BronxBelle

When I overdosed on Tylenol (not trying to kill myself- my orthopedic surgeon just couldnā€™t get my pain levels under control. It turns out I had some nerves trapped between bone and scar tissue.) My Assembly of God preacher looked at me and said ā€œyouā€™re a disappointment to God.ā€ This wasnā€™t the first issue but it was the final straw. I was done. I did recently get into the Jehovahā€™s Witnesses organization and JFC theyā€™re really insane. And life pro tip: never date a Jehovahā€™s Witness you met on fetlife.


UnfinishedThings

Listening to a radio show about how thenBible was compiled, what books were left out, how it was changed over the centuries, why there are so many different versions. Once you realise that the Bible isn't the unerring word of God but a collection of bronze age mythology, then the whole thing falls apart Christianity cannot exist without faith in Bible


Emerald1014

Major tragedies in recent years. I was married for 6 years and out of nowhere my husband died while I was 30 weeks along with our first baby. A widow with a baby on the way at 34 years old. This was 2.5 years ago now. Then a year later my dad dropped dead in front of everybody, completely also unexplained. He was essentially the matriarch of my family and a healthy guy. My dad and my late husband were buried exactly 1 year apart in the same cemetery, 2 plots from each other. I have more questions than answers with a lot of Catholic/Christian based beliefs. The common Christian believe of " What God has in store for you will come to you" just does not add up with life changing tragedies. How are things really predestined? Predestined that I'm going to struggle to find someone else? I'm 37. It's not easy. Pre-destined that my daughter never gets to even meet her father? Not adding up. Also even though it's just basic TV, I have seen some stuff on the History Channel suggesting that there have been books on purpose left out when the King James version of the Bible was written. What for? Narrative? Politics?


tonyofgallifrey

A friend of mine just loaned me the book "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Ehrman. It's about the writing and compiling of the New Testament through time, and it's really interesting so far.


goddias

Wow, I am so sorry to hear about your losses... I absolutely agree that "what God has in store for us" is not a good-enough excuse most of the time. I mean, in your case, losing your husband as well as your dad just one year apart, while you were pregnant the first time around, it's ridiculous. If I went through anything similar, I would think God was a sadist if he existed. Soooo much shit happens to us that any just god would never allow. Honestly, such a person is not worth my time. With regards to the Bible, it was just to justify why King Henry divorced/executed so many wives, and to justify the schism with the Catholic church. Even back then, they knew not to blindly follow extremely strict religions.


agent_flounder

Sorry for your losses. That is a lot to go through. Tragedy definitely makes one wonder. A friend's baby died. Another friend's husband died during her pregnancy. Both believers. And lots of prayers went up from me and others. I suppose that was the first major "hmmm" for me. There are a different set of books in the Catholic vs protestant Bible. I've never read the Catholic ones (is that the apocrypha? Idk). I was really curious about the Bronze Age history of the Levant after deconverting. "The Bible Unearthed" was pretty fascinating and talks about the political and social context of how the original books of the Torah were put together, touches on religions of the time, and evaluates the historicity of the books against archaeological findings of the last few decades -- digs performed by actually scientific minded archaeologists looking for truth rather than religious people trying to prove the Bible is all true.


themattydor

I was riding in the car with one of my parents, maybe both, and I thought something like ā€œMy parents are great and have given me so much, but Iā€™m supposed to love god more than them, when I have no evidence that heā€™s ever done anything for me? Nah.ā€ I was lucky that I wasnā€™t super indoctrinate and deep into it. But I also had enough shame and fear of making my beliefs known that I didnā€™t ā€œcome outā€ until 20 or more years later. Which is ironic, because my way out was essentially the thought process of ā€œhey parents, I appreciate what youā€™ve done so much that my brain and emotions wonā€™t allow me to be religious.ā€


Unhappy-Mall-1950

I grew up in a religious house, but not super strict. For me it was the hypocrisy, like my parents being divorced (bible condemn), having children before marriage, while I was wrong for being gay according to them. After that I started doing my research, reading the atrocities of this 'loving' god, seeing tragedies happening 24/7, really questioning everything. For a while a considered becoming buddhist, but dropped the idea quickly. Between 2022 and the beginning of this year I considered myself agnostic, but now I see myself more like an atheist.


Larrythepuppet66

I always think of this in the opposite way. For those brought up in religion who still are. What makes you stay religious when everything you experience everyday shows there is no all loving god who created this. Prayers are never answered, your family member will still die of that terminal cancer, children will be abused and starve etc. Literally everything in life is this is this way because of this thing I can show you, and see how it works the same way every time. I.e. the scientific process. Religious belief is the one thing thatā€™s ā€œthis is this way because I said so, source, trust me broā€. As I became a teen that just didnā€™t cut it for me. Like, we stop believing in Santa clause because thereā€™s absolutely nothing to prove his existence, and yet there are stories about him written by man, heā€™s an invisible magic man who judges whether weā€™re good or bad and rewards us accordingly, just like godšŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļøšŸ˜‚ I have to think that itā€™s fear, they canā€™t face the reality that there is nothing after life.


wyvern19

It's hard to see red flags when you're looking through rose tinted glasses. They believe because they want to.. They need to. Because they love it. There's no rational explanation.


Mopnglow86

Priests fucking children, then the church covering it up.


FallenKinslayer

Religious people. For a start. Recognizing the grift religion is, how faith is unreliable to know the truth, and reading the bible and how it condones slavery.


artguydeluxe

I grew up going to church, but was heavily interested in science. The two just donā€™t match up when you start asking questions.


parallax693

I was raised Catholic, but I remember in third grade learning about the Eskimoes and their gods & myths, and also Greek mythology. I thought "if thats not true, these other religions might be the same way." Around the same time, my dad was a violent alcoholic, and he used to beat my mom up. I remember praying (begging) god to make it stop, and nothing ever happened. Learning about the Holocaust and incidents like the Titanic sinking, I wondered why a loving god would let people suffer in so many different ways? I was an agnostic after rhat, but around middle school, I got my copy of Cosmos by Carl Sagan, and it put the nail in the coffin, so to speak. I remember reading that Morher Thersa struggled a lot with faith and the lack of proof in god. For god not to give her a sign, when she was so good to the world? Fuck him and fuck that.


HackMeBackInTime

my confirmation, my 12 year old brain could not accept how ridiculous it all was. at 12. how adults continue to believe is beyond me...


jeffinbville

I was starting to slide in my teenaged years. After my bar mitzvah, and still going to Hebrew school, I started asking questions the rabbis could not answer. A few tried using Talmudic knowledge \[re: logic\] but even they knew faith isn't one of 'those things'. You either got it or you don't and as I slipped away from it no one tried to pull me back in. With that said, I once asked the Rebbe Yungries before he passed on, if we stripped everything away from Judaism, the bible, traditions, even God, what would be left of being a Jew? The old man didn't miss a beat and said, "be a mensch". That's all the religion anyone needs. Be a mensch. For those of you who don't know the word, "mensch" it means to be a good man. To treat others the way you want to be treated. Contribute to your community. Fight for justice. Care for the earth. Now I call myself a 'militant atheist' as if you push your mystical magical shit on me, I'm likely to verbally hit back - hard and not stop until your God personally stops me. Or, I get bored. Still, to this day there are sage traditions I still practice. Not because of the religious aspects, but because they're solid traditions. Like Hanukkah (a civil war fought between Hellenized Jews and traditional Jews), Purim, where you're supposed to get so drunk you don't know the difference between Haman and Mordechai, just to name two.


FuriousFister98

I was a Christian Baptist for most of my life. For me, there were several factors, but honestly one of them was due to Trump. The fact that so many people were willing to support him no matter what he said or did, and their cult-like devotion to someone who blatantly has no regard for anyone but himself. It really opened my eyes to how easy it would be to convince people that you are a messiah or prophet and start a religion, and how much easier it would've been when most major religions were founded, considering back then the majority of the population couldn't even read/write. Another factor is when I realized that the concept of free will is incompatible with a omniscient god; you can't have both. Another one is when I learned about all the people who were accredited to writing the Bible, and how all of them were typical people with their own biases, prejudices, and shortcomings. Most of them also wrote about events or stories that happened decades or centuries early that were passed on through unreliable means of communication. Basically, would you trust a book as the word of God if it was written by some average Joe who had heard the story from his second cousin's girlfriends great grandma who told it to her as a bedtime story when she was 4? And not only that, but the "Word of God" also just happened to confirm everything that Joe had already been talking about, therefore certifying that Joe is a prophet? (Thats pree much how we got Mormons btw). Sorry for the rant.


v9Pv

At 15 I figured out that most people attending Sunday mass treated it like a fashion show/status show. It all unraveled quickly for me from there.


Wild_Lettuce9967

The first step was the cognitive dissonance from trying to harmonize scientific facts with literalistic interpretations of scripture. Next was the cognitive dissonance of trying to harmonize the doctrines of love and grace I was taught with pretty much the opposite of that in the churches themselves. The next step was raising my kids to be authentic, inquisitive, unafraid, truthful and loving. The final break was the need to protect my children from those who hurt them - ie from people in the church and also my pastor father, who chose hate over loving his LGBTQ grandchild. Thereā€™s more to it but those are the mileposts. Iā€™m an agnostic Christian now - all faith, few certainties and lots of humility and acceptance for myself and others.


DoCoconutsMigrate

I couldnā€™t stomach the churchā€™s treatment of LGBTQIA+ people, so I stopped attending services. Then I stopped worrying so much about trying to avoid sinning and I realized I was much happier. THEN I realized that my whole reason for staying in the religion was due to fear of hell. So I started researching other belief systems and, well, here we are. Now I believe that religions all arose from humansā€™ different attempts to understand and explain the world around us, and more harm than good has been done historically in the name of various gods.


spaghetti_ohhs

I was emotionally and physically abused as a child in the name of catholic love until I left home and went no contact with my family at age 21.


TheOrangeTickler

I grew my own brain and was able to think for myself. I was raised Catholic by my grandma, but my parents aren't religious. I made communion for my grandma while she was alive, but those classes were awful. I remember listening to a pastor talking to us about not "straying from the Flock or else another Shepard may steal us" (i.e: don't follow another religion). I asked if that isn't exactly what Christianity does around the world with mission trips and try to steal people from their current Flock. Pastor did not like that one bit.Ā 


wdaloz

That every explanation is an excuse. When things don't make sense, when a question can't be answered you got excuses not explanations. When I'd ask or argue, it wasn't tolerated. It's not real, it doesnt make any semse at all when you think about it, and then only thing keeping folks unaware of that obvious truth is that nobody's allowed to question it


hipscarecrow

Grew up in a relatively strict protestant household, went to church every Sunday, etc. did the whole bit because THAT'S WHAT WE'RE DOING NOW, AND YOU'RE GONNA LIKE IT. I think I stopped believing when I learned about other cultures' gods and wondered first and then asked How Do We KNOW who's right? Well, we are, of course. Well... How do you know? Just do. But WHY? Because we have faith. But That's Dumb! That's what you believe and you're gonna like it!!! But yeah, I figured it out by the time I was a teenager. The whole idea of faith just seems kinda dumb.


joe_bald

Understanding that evil people did very fucked up things to natives with the bs reasoning that their sky daddy told them to. Theft and genocide is still theft and genocide and no loving deity would permit that shit.


beanzerbunzer

Despite growing up in a very religious family, I always doubted, even since I was very, very young. It all seemed so arbitrary: invite Jesus into your heart. Okay, Jesus, come into my heart. But nothing felt different, so how did I know it worked? If heā€™s so mighty and powerful, I must feel something, right? Singing ā€œJesus Loves the Little Childrenā€ in church, then going home and seeing commercials to help starving children in Africa and South America - ā€œred and yellow, black and white, theyā€™re all precious in his sight,ā€ my ass. But I did it all: church, confirmation, Sunday school, Lavaliers (evangelical Girl Scouts), youth group. Everyone around me seemed to feel it, and I didnā€™t want to not fit in with my family so I played along. Then in a high school literature class, a readers bible was on the shelf next to Robert Gravesā€™ The Greek Myths and it dawned on me that I didnā€™t believe in Zeus any more than I believed in the god in the Bible next to it. It took me many more years to fully develop my atheism and throw off the bullshit I had been steeped in for so long, but it has been a rewarding journey, and Iā€™m all the better for it.


101001101zero

Reading the literature and understanding it (12th grade reading level in 3rd grade) also the fact they started is on the Book of Mormon and itā€™s relative cultish literature before going down the Mormon version of the King James Bible (lol). Yeah I noped out of the cult young. Then as I endured that journey ended up here in my early 20s. Religion is the root cause of so many horrible historical events/periods, and itā€™s still happening today. The state of the world right now stresses me tf out and itā€™s rooted in religion and religious control, thereā€™s resources as well but coming from a cult that demands 10% of your resources to get into heaven I have a hard time not seeing religious puppet strings behind those conflicts as well.


twistedredd

I was brought up catholic and went to catholic school but no one in my family went to church except to jump through the necessary hoops like first communion. Then the contradictions like 'don't worship false idols' but do 'the stations of the cross' (praying to statues). Then the familial abuse using religion from the same people who didn't even own or read the bible. it's true what they say in my experience from my own family: 'there is no hate like christian love'. Then it became that watching religious shows was like watching a horror movie for me. and I can't watch either. Then learning history I learned that more people died due to religion than all wars combined. Like bloody mary burning people alive and the crusades and so on. now that I'm older I recognize that I live in a country based on religious freedom while at the same time being forced to give up the rights to my own body parts because of their 'religion'. It has become really obvious that religion is nothing more than a tool for those who wish to have a 'tax free' business/church that helps exactly no one, and a way to coerce people and an entire country against their own will. Even going so far as dumbing down education so none will be the wiser. Now I actually believe religion is the devil itself.


ctraylor666

I was 12 when a sermon was being screamed by the churchā€™s southern freewill baptist preacher to the congregation about how he was so proud to turn away a gay couple from joining our church. That is when I realized hate was more prevalent in religious environments than any sort of love/ acceptance. Religion is a sick cult.


MyticalAnimal

When I was a child and they tried to make me believe things like how Moses split the sea and Jesus walked on water, I knew they were bullshitting like they did about Santa.


ChewbaccaCharl

Gay marriage. If different people in church can pray about whether gay marriage is allowed, and they get different answers, then prayer *must* be useless to know God's will. Once you realize people are cherry picking Bible verses to support their opinion as well... What's even left? Everyone must just making up their own opinion and claiming it's a divine mandate. Religion can't survive that kind of discovery, so I was instantly deist and slid into atheism as I thought about it more ever the next several years


Grizzlyb64

All the hypocrisy


Comfortable-Dare-307

I was brought up Christian but I never really believed it. I have extensively studied religion of many different religions. Currently, I am on my 9th reading of the bible comparing the Spetuigint to the KJV, reading the Mormon scriptures for the second time, and I just started reading Satanic scripture for the first time. I have read many other religious texts from Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and others. I know I know more about religion than anyone I know personally. The various religions mostly contradict each other. And each claim they are more true than the rest. They can't all be right. But they can all be wrong. That, plus education in biology and studying science, is what kept me away from practicing religion.


sinchsw

Just a steady ebb and flow of logic moving through my brain from age 7 to 23. No specific moment. Just difficult to swiftly move from religious to agnostic (and finally agnostic atheist) when everyone around you is a church-going christian.


delyha6

My mother and her brother. I asked her what happens to babies if they die before they are baptized. She said they go to a special place. I asked my uncle what happens to people when they die who have never heard of jesus or god. They go to hell.


The_Philosophied

Mostly I just grew up and started thinking for myself and none of it made any sense so I walked away. I also realized my abusive parent used religion to abuse us our whole lives. Still continues to even after I walked away. That kind of narcissistic abuse where the abuser claims and believes God is on their side and if you don't do what they say you're obviously "being used by the devil" is extremely harmful and so isolating. To this day she has admitted she can't believe any of us can be successful without God. She'll purposefully be an emotional negligent checked out parent and blame it on Satan...many times her behaviors and words border in psychotic.


crossstitchbeotch

College philosophy class and finding friends who were atheists.


HomeLegal

Turns out God doesn't exist :( seems to defeat the purpose of cults built for money.


downvotefodder

Growing up


Frequent-Material273

Because it ain't true. And I \*still\* had an irrational horror of hell for a couple decades afterward.


stingertc

Tha fact growing up they preached about love thy neighbor now they preach hate of your different than us


Supercc

ScienceĀ 


CoralCum

Literally just the fact that i don't believe in magic and am not delusional in thinking sky daddy is going to accept me into his arms when i die lmao


Stonewyvvern

Went to a Pentecostal church...saw snake handling, lay on hands(faith healing) and speaking in tongues. Whoa! Culty behavior. More than enough to turn me away.


GearAble9372

I'm pretty sure I turned away from faith when i was young in grade school and I realized the implicit threat that was made by the bible saying do as we say or go to hell and that being threatened into being a good person didn't (id almost add couldn't and wouldn't) make you a good person


squashqueen

For me, I just never really got the hype. Ha, I just never vibed with it, so this say. I tested "god" by asking for signs "he" exists, but was always met with nothing, silence. Plus all the rituals of it all were just fucking boring. They didn't fan my flame, and the people around were just so phony, smiley, hypocritical, fake supportive, snobby... I've always had good manners and liked being kind to people, yet was always "othered" by these people. Probably for being interested in art and nature, instead of volleyball, dance, and church.


HotPhilly

I was bored af, around 8-9 years old, sitting in FRENCH church and it all dawned on me that all of this was complete nonsense. Watching all the adults pretending to care, the phoniness just shined on me like a light from God.


MastaJiggyWiggy

Realizing that I didnā€™t have an actual good reason to hold those beliefs


Kwantem

Grew up in a Catholic household in the 1960s and 70s, but not strict, we went to church and bible study on sundays. Dad was in the Air Force so we moved around and saw a nice chunk of the world. Watching the moon landings live got us kids somewhat interested in science. But the book that made it clear to me was Beak of the Finch by Jonathon Weiner (1995). It made me realize that Evolution is logical, like my hero Mr. Spock, and while belief in a god is a comfort to many, it just isn't reality. I did have a period of depression realizing that death is death, but turned it around by reading more about how the universe actually works.


CatLevel5116

Everytime I needed the church the most it was never theyā€™re. There was no love or sympathy in hard times, just judgment!! Fuck Christianity!!!


Hatred_shapped

I read the books. None of them made sense to explain the unexplainable things.Ā  There's no hatred behind my atheism, just a lack of faith.Ā 


RustyTromboneSoloist

Two deployments to Iraq and our government.


Cyber_Insecurity

My parents made me and my little brother go to Sunday school in order to do our First Communion and Confirmation. In those classes, we would read the Bible and have discussions about the stories. I would often raise my hand and ask questions about stuff and my teachers would always brush me off and say vague things like, ā€œThatā€™s just how the Lord works.ā€ Once we finished our classes and got confirmed, my parents asked me and my brother if we wanted to continue going to church and we both said no.


caserock

We moved to a different state and started going to a Methodist church instead of a Presbyterian one since it was the closest church to the house. In Sunday school they kept referring to god giving us free will as a test of our faith, and I asked why would an omnipotent god give us free will if he already knows the outcome of our decisions. The teacher asked me if I used to be Presbyterian and I said "yes, how did you know?" and he said that predestination was a tenet of the Presbyterian denomination. I asked him how I'm supposed to know who's right, and he said that's between me a god. It was only a few weeks before I realized church was a waste of our time.


Desperate-Ad7967

Pretty much around same time as rest of the myths. Santa, Easter, toothfairy etc


BassCuber

The treatment of Galileo.


Falcon731

Watching a video by Kent Hovind. It wasnā€™t the only thing, but that was the main trigger - the realisation that there were Christians who were totally prepared to lie in order to convert people. That led me to start questioning things that I had always kind of just assumed were self evident up to that point. And very slowly the whole thing unraveled.


TheLowClassics

I was 4. The bar mitzvah student teaching our Sunday school class explained to me that ā€œSanta Claus was a thing Christian parents invented to get their children to behaveā€ Me at 4 ā€œhow is that different from hashem?ā€


RareAd1426

For me it was realizing I was bi at a Christian school and then the realization that I couldnā€™t come out or I would be expelled. That opened my eyes to just how oppressive Christianity is and made me start questioning a lot of things, I started watching educational videos on atheism and then realized everything Iā€™d been taught at my Christian school was a manipulated scientific truth to fit what the Bible said. At first I was very afraid I would go to hell and had a hard time dropping my beliefs even though I knew they made no logical sense to me but now I realize Christianity and other cults thrive on fear and I donā€™t owe them mine.


blackcatsneakattack

Critical thinking skill. Also, being sexually abused as a child for years and begging god for it to stop, only toā€¦ not have it stop.


apostate456

It always "felt" wrong to me. I was always uncomfortable with the uber spiritualism of it. It was education (specifically: history, linguistics, anthropology, philosophy, and similar) that made me go "Oh, this is bullshit."


Background-Willow-67

Common sense.


DatBDiamond

I took World Religions in college.


despotic_wastebasket

You'll have to try harder than that if you want my Tragic Atheist Backstory^(tm)


robroygbiv

Having kids.


First-Ad5688

It never set well or made sense to me. Gave it up when I was old enough to refuse to go to church and not care about whatever punishment my parents would dole out. Surprisingly they didnā€™t put up much of a fight. Grateful for that.


Gaddammitkyle

When lies were used to compel me to convert (God will allow you to burn in the lake of fire for eternity if you do not convert, and all family members you fail to convert will burn, and at the end of time you will see their blood on your hands before they are cast down) I quickly abandoned the religion when I learned those lies were not true. The Bible was not the first book to ever exist. It was not the first creation story. It was not the One True Religion, but instead the most amorphous and most popular. As long as that recruitment lie is allowed to persist to snag young fear-converts, I will always criticize and be skeptical of Catholicism/Baptism/Methodism/etc.


Crasz

Many things over the years as I was taken to nearly ever church in the city and went to a Catholic private school for a couple of years. But what has cemented my atheism is the fact that whatever deity people worship allows 5million+ children to die every year to a variety of causes that an actual god could prevent and yet doesn't. Why would anyone worship something either so powerless or demented?


Zestyclose-Mix1270

The cracks for me started simply by watching a television program about different tribes in Africa who still live life as though untouched by the outside world. I have no idea why but it got me questioning: ā€˜Wait. These people arenā€™t Christian. They canā€™t go to Heaven because they donā€™t even know what it is.ā€™ From there it hit me that billions of people on earth RIGHT NOW never have heard and never will hear about god, the Bible or how to be ā€˜savedā€™. Something that for 30 or so years had made perfect sense no longer did. I knew it wasnā€™t real. I fought it for a while longer but I knew the truth. How could a divine being have created a message that even today isnā€™t getting to all the people? If theyā€™re grandfathered in because they simply didnā€™t know, then what was the point in the first place. Itā€™s so simple, yet the average believer wonā€™t even hear it. Itā€™s maddening but what can you do?


Substantial-Poem3382

I went to a summer youth church camp and they staged a fake terrorist takeover. That experience made me question my faith and God/churches in general. The more I read about religion the less believable it all was.


vacuous_comment

Before OP learned about the Magdalene laundries, there was still no God. I was brought up Catholic. I sat down and read through the Bible at around age 12 as part of a good faith effort to figure out what it was all about. Very quickly I judged it to be just all be garbled folk tales and mythology.


ticaloc

I grew up Catholic. I remember being creeped out as a little girl by the fact that god could see me on the toilet and getting dressed. I guess I got over that eventually and then when I was about 11 or 12 the nuns in school started having us read about saints like Maria Goretti who got themselves killed because they refused to give up their virginity ( I wasnā€™t really sure what virginity was or how you gave it up but it sounded very serious). Then as an early teenager I saw a bunch of first graders in church being instructed in the catechism with a nun chanting out questions and the kids chanting out the answers. I realized that we had all been brainwashed. Once that realization occurred I couldnā€™t un-see it. After that I just went through the motions until I could leave home and live my own life free of religion. I never ever felt bereft of purpose but rather felt a huge sense of freedom.


KMKPF

I had doubts that I pushed down and ignored until I just couldn't ignore them anymore. Mainly It bothered me that a just God would allow so many people to go to hell. It bothered me that there were so many different religions, why would a just God allow false religions to exist? Why would a God who wants us to believe in him give us no actual proof of his existence?


sushisection

the way i was treated as a left-handed child. it caused cognitive dissonance at an early age, "if god created me then why do i have to change the way i am?"


errmm

My frontal lobe developed. The dogmatic rules and hateful undertones for non-believers didn't make any sense. My questions/challenges to the rules were met with typical garbage answers that you would see from every r/religiousfruitcake The reality is that religion has 2 objectives: * A coping mechanism for existential dread. This one is innocent and beneficial for some people's mental health. * A control mechanism to keep the poor in check. It gives them something to keep chasing and look forward to. Reduces revolts because sky-daddy wouldn't like that. You'll be rich with sky daddy in the next life.


blixxic

I studied molecular biology in college and the disconnect between religion and science just became so overwhelming. The utter lack of, and even hostility toward evidence-based facts in religion is just obscene.Ā 


theUnshowerdOne

Logic


mermaidunearthed

Learning about Pascalā€™s wager in my religious theology class and they claimed that if I practiced my religion and it ended up not being true, that no harm will have been done bc Iā€™ll have lived a moral life - and I thought to myself, bullshit, it will have been a waste of timeā€¦ and then I thoughtā€¦ what are the odds that my sect of my religion of all religions out there, is the one true religion? Unlikely.


MatineeIdol8

For me it started when I started encountering christians who were contradicting each other. Why would this be if they're supposedly "reading" the same book? Later found out that christians are full of shit when it comes to reading their book. That's what started it. It went down hill from there. I like to think of myself as a "principled anti-theist." I'll respect the individual without respecting their beliefs.


call-lee-free

I got indoctrinated back when I was 11 years old. Ended up going to a Baptist Church from 91 until mid 2004. As I got into my late teens, I started to understand more of how this crap wasn't making sense. My pastor preached real good, but would throw in crap like people shouldn't listen to rock music, women shouldn't wear jeans and that they should wear dresses like the ones that go all the way down to the ankles, I was assuming. My mother is Filipino and she started going with me after my dad died but didn't really care for it. She's Catholic but she liked the people there and I did too for the most part. Then my mom in 2004, wanted to start going back to attending Catholic services and so we left the Baptist church under what I thought was good terms. At that time I was "growing" out of the make believe pretend god stuff. Then my mom passed away in November of 2005. First folks besides my brother and sister that I contacted about her passing was the pastor. He seemed like he didn't care. His father did, though. So pretty much the reason I turned away from religion was a combination of growing out of it like growing out of believing in Santa Clause, Pastor preaching about crap that wasn't even in the bible to begin with and seemingly not caring about the passing of my mother. I guess when you leave the cult, friendships don't mean jack.


ViaNocturna664

Nothing in particular. I have no awakening to talk about, no clear moment of realization, no dramatic event with a bigot that hurt me, no situation in which I suffered where the existance of a god could have helped. At a moment, over time, I simply realized none of it was true. Seriously, that's it. I just grew out of it like you grow out of a band you don't connect to anymore. First I realized that the vast majority of things written in the Bible couldn't have happened literally and historically. Then I just simply realized there was no god.


thecasualthinker

For me it was trying to find a closer relationship with God which caused me to study the foundations of my religion and learn more science and the conclusion came pretty naturally.


limpet143

Education. It's amazing how much more you can see when you take your head out of the sand.