The Official Why Are You An Atheist Thread

This will be a thread for the atheists on this forum to talk and discuss why they became or chose to be atheist. Theists are welcome also.

I grew up in south Louisiana, which is predominatly Catholic. My family never really went to church but they are believers. I was always interested in science(especially space) and I guess as I got older and learned more about the universe(the big bang, relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, etc) I realized as Stephen Hawking said "Do we even need a god?".

Not to mention the logical part of it.

Mom, Mormon.

Dad, agnostic I think?  We really never talk religion.

Schooling, Born Again Christian.  Eh, long story which doesn't really make sense to me so I won't repeat it here.

I think what really started my departure from Christianity was 9/11. Christians believe God tells you to do it, that's morality.  But the hijackers supposedly believe that God told them to murder all those people.  That made me realize that maybe the voices in people's heads aren't really a good standard for what's right and wrong.  And it was all downhill from there.

These days I don't specifically deny the existence of a god.  But it's clear to me that if there is a God then he's very hands off.  So figuring things out is strictly up to us.

Mom, Mormon.

Dad, agnostic I think?  We really never talk religion.

Schooling, Born Again Christian.  Eh, long story which doesn't really make sense to me so I won't repeat it here.

I think what really started my departure from Christianity was 9/11. Christians believe God tells you to do it, that's morality.  But the hijackers supposedly believe that God told them to murder all those people.  That made me realize that maybe the voices in people's heads aren't really a good standard for what's right and wrong.  And it was all downhill from there.

These days I don't specifically deny the existence of a god.  But it's clear to me that if there is a God then he's very hands off.  So figuring things out is strictly up to us.

I'm more of an empirical evidence kind of guy.

I'm kinda agnostic, but as I said, I just somehow stopped believing at about 3rd grade. Not sure why, I don't remember.

Actually now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it was before 3rd grade. It was probably 2nd.

For me atheism is just the null hypothesis.  I need a reason not to be, and I've not heard it yet.

For background my dad is a self-described agnostic, and my mom is nominally Methodist but...She's never seemed at all religious to me so I guess that's how I grew up.

I started out technically atheist, but just didn't really care one way or the other. Then became Christian in high school. Then turned agnostic in college. I guess I'm somewhat agnostic now, but I don't firmly believe we can never know. I'm open to the idea of a higher power, but like Lord Cruton, sire of the Stale Bread, that higher power necessitates a hands off approach if he is to be all-good.

I'm a science guy

Omg, we have a celebrity in here! Bill Nye himself!

Omg, we have a celebrity in here! Bill Nye himself!

But unlike Bill, I don't read my stuff off a cue-card

Was raised a christian catholic because of my mom. My dad was very very VERY anticleric and wasn’t pleased when I got good grades for bible study.

I later realized that I don’t like for someone to always eyeball me whenever and wherever I was, even it was a deity. So I kinda went “well, Jebus, it was fun while it lasted but I’d appreciate it if you turn your back whilst I yank my doodle, thank you.”

I think I stopped believing when I realized it all seemed a huge waste of time and a gigantic loss of potential fun.

I think I stopped believing but it seemed to me like a huge waste of time and a gigantic loss of potential fun.

There is that.  Good God church is boring.  Especially Mormon church.  It's like a 4 hour visit to the doctors office.

Quote from: Lamaface on August 13, 2018, 02:12:27 PM

I think I stopped believing but it seemed to me like a huge waste of time and a gigantic loss of potential fun.

There is that.  Good God church is boring.  Especially Mormon church.  It's like a 4 hour visit to the doctors office.

Catholic church is a boring sermon with constant kneeling down and getting back up.

At least Catholic churches usually look cool.  Mormon churches really do look like giant doctor's offices.

At least Catholic churches usually look cool.  Mormon churches really do look like giant doctor's offices.

I had a coworker who was Mormon, but he was cool as shit. Liked rock music and video games and shit. I would always mess with him by saying I didn't know Mormons could have such and such.

Putting aside the logic and debate of religion.... I believe some degree of religious education is important

I went through a Catholic Primary School... I was not indoctrinated but it does give you an insight to a faith and religious ideology (regardless if they are Abrahamic or not) that is important to more than half the worlds population

The problem with Atheism and the active shunning of anything religious be it education or in our language such as saying 'Happy Holidays' because heaven forbid we say 'Merry Christmas' etc, is simply breeding ignorance which begets intolerance.

So after going to church and the school for so many years, it has not made me some indoctrinated slave, but it has given me understanding and perspective. Something that shunning me from would not have given me.

Religion or the idea of Gods or power beyond our realm or understanding has intrigued humanity for thousands and thousands of years. It is a part of who we are and how we came to be. I wont shun religion from my kids lives either. The path they choose to follow, is totally up to them however.

I'm a science guy

Luke and Wesker are the 2 science guys here. They should debate something sciency.

Where are the true believers?

I'm talking about the devout pastafarians,  who worship the one true god,  in all his noodly goodness.

https://pastafarians.org.au/

Quote from: Crouton on August 13, 2018, 02:49:17 PM

Quote from: Lamaface on August 13, 2018, 02:12:27 PM

I think I stopped believing but it seemed to me like a huge waste of time and a gigantic loss of potential fun.

There is that.  Good God church is boring.  Especially Mormon church.  It's like a 4 hour visit to the doctors office.

Catholic church is a boring sermon with constant kneeling down and getting back up.

You should see greek orthodox sermons. They're in Greek, but no one understands anything because they're in like really old Greek and it's all mumbled, and you just stand there watching some dudes in black robes making weird noises.

This is really dumb. Not only is it not even close to being an argument, one person there wasn't even particularly evil and another wasn't even an atheist.

I've never not been an atheist  - it wasn't an active choice, I've just never believed.

My parents were non-believers and I don't think either set of grandparents had any faith - one granddad was definitely ant-religion.  This isn't that strange in the UK - we're generally pretty apathetic towards religion.

We even have Church of England, which is pretty chilled about whether you actually believe in god or not 

I've never not been an atheist  - it wasn't an active choice, I've just never believed.

My parents were non-believers and I don't think either set of grandparents had any faith - one granddad was definitely ant-religion.  This isn't that strange in the UK - we're generally pretty apathetic towards religion.

We even have Church of England, which is pretty chilled about whether you actually believe in god or not 

There's a trend I remember reading about.  America, as you might know, is very religious compared to the U.K.  The theory is that because America has a strong separation of church and state we have no formal religious education in our public school systems.  So any kind of religious education we get tends to be of the be more indoctrination and less educational.

Separation of church and state doesn't imply there shouldn't be religious education in public schools.

Separation of church and state doesn't imply there shouldn't be religious education in public schools.

The religious here have a difficult time separating education about religion, and preaching their personal religion.  Separation of church and state in the US means that the govt isn't supposed to endorse one religion over the other, we're supposed to be free to choose our own faith.

Quote from: Albert Wesker on August 13, 2018, 01:46:15 PM

I'm a science guy

Luke and Wesker are the 2 science guys here. They should debate something sciency.

I believe Luke is a young earth creationist, so good luck there

Separation of church and state doesn't imply there shouldn't be religious education in public schools.

Theoretically yes.  In practice we have an extremist subgroup of Christians, almost a cult really, who are constantly scheming to try to turn school into church.  The counter balance to this secularists and non insane Christians who treat anything remotely religious in a public institution as toxic.  We'd probably be better off if we covered world religions in school.

I'm atheist, but I am for keeping "Under God" in the pledge and things like that. I am also pro-life.

Nice thing about not being religious is that the presence of religious things in public life has no reason to bother me.

Also I grew up with and still celebrate Christmas.  It's fun.

Nice thing about not being religious is that the presence of religious things in public life has no reason to bother me.

Also I grew up with and still celebrate Christmas.  It's fun.

And my name means "of Christ" so lol.