To my fellow atheists: (page 3)

Tuesday

I don't know if it's really steps per-say but here goes

1.) Raised as a JW since birth

2.) Started learning about Evolution in school in 5th Grade after finishing the Evolution book the previous year

3.) Evolution sounded very reasonable and had evidence but I thought it was all misleading evidence until...

4.) Questioned myself why I was a Jehovah's Witness and Why I served God

5.) Thought that I might not have the whole truth regarding many things and started learning WHY people believed certain things instead of WHAT they believed (and subsequently how to circular reason them into having doubts)

6.) Learned all the evidence involving evolution, once I learned about abiogenesis a HUGE pillar of my belief that evolution wasn't true came crumbling down. Once I found observed evidence of speciation the other pillar came crumbling (learning that not only had macro-evolution occurred but it had been seen was devistating)

7.) From then I became agnostic for a while, when I was searching for the true religion I started asking for proof of various beliefs. Once I applied that same process to religion itself I realized it was all BS.

See folks a perfect 7 step process according to Revelation I must be divinely inspired :)

Larsinger58

Thanks for sharing your process. I find many atheists definitely have a disdainful view of God, focussing on his decisions of justice for some of the nations that were wiped out by the Jews.

I'm not an atheist, of course, but I'm curious how someone who used to believe becomes an atheist.

xchange

I have as much disdain for God as I have for Thor or Siva the Destroyer or tiny little fairies.

The disdain is reserved for those individuals who used the God concept to the detriment of their fellow humans.

wyorobert

I still can't see myself as an atheist, so I prefer Secular Humanist even though it is about the same. I'm willing to leave the door open to the possiblity that life was created by someone or that there could be life after death, but as of this writing, no such evidence exists for me.

I started by questioning my own Mormon religion, which took very little time using their literature to prove that it was just fiction. When I finished that journey I went next to the Bible, and unfortunately for me the same logic that led me to leave the Mormon religion applied to the Bible. At least the Bible was rooted in real events, but I could see no proof of God having a hand in any of it.

I asked myself if the Bible stories would withstand close scrutiny from modern sholars. I came up with an idea that Faith was something all religions used to make us believe that which shouldn't be believed. My mantra became "Faith is the absolute belief in something that may or may not exist". Since I saw faith as unreliable, I was left with nothing else to prove the existence of God. I decided to try and prove the existence of God or even the divinity of the Bible. I accept only the Historical proof of the Bible and that leaves me with even less still. My Sunday school teachers used to love to quote Josephus. Thank heavens for Josephus and other Historians of the time, but the real truth is that Josephus never wrote anything about Christ at the time. No Historian who existed during the time of Christ even mentions him. The one small reference he makes about Christ is so obviously added by another writer that people don't even pretend anymore that he said anything about Jesus.

I won't bore you further, but the journey I started on which requires logic and not faith, leads further away from the existence of God and not closer. For some reason I feel more peace having this knowledge, than I ever did trying to force myself to believe things that made no sense at all. Even in my youth, I struggled with so many Bible stories. Not the least of which is poor old Lot being taken advantage of by being seduced by his daughters. That is just one of a long list of scriptures that just didn't work for me. I don't care how drunk Lot was, it was his daughters for crying out loud. I do however miss my Sunday School teacher asking which scripture was my favorite. I always said 1 Tim. 1:11,12. At least on those days it was never boring. It was just my way of saying, "Hey some of these scriptures are a little odd".

jam

Galileo said, I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who

has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect, has intenden us

to for go their use. So that been said, there are many reasons why

people become atheist, aside from the obvious (flood, ark, man

6000yrs old, talking ass,man in the belly of A large fish etc.) one

of the most common is the sharp decline of previous faith in God(s)

or some hierarchal religious structure. Some atheists believe that

the existence of god(s) can be disproved logically or empirically.

wyorobert

Quick Correction. I meant to say 1 Tim. 2: 11&12 instead of 1.

Scully

Having been raised in the JWs from early childhood, what I knew about evolution was what the WTS wanted us to know about it.

Once my faith in the WTS was shattered and I came to the realization (after many years) that I was an atheist, I felt that evolution was probably true, but I really didn't think about it too much until the last couple of years. My knowledge of it was still limited to what the WTS taught about it, and when I realized that I figured that I owed it to myself to go to reliable sources for information about the process of evolution. I'm so glad that I did, because not only did it prove, yet again, that the WTS completely misleads people regarding the teachings of evolution, but I learned about the scientific evidence for evolution and the various means that are used to date fossils, locate them and predict what fossilized remains should look like for given time periods and rock formations.

I still have a lot to learn, but I have far more confidence in the evidence for evolution than I ever did for any so-called prophecy that the WTS attempted to explain.

NomadSoul

Thanks everyone for sharing their experiences. Hope to read more posts from all of you.

wobble

I don't like labels, people straight away assume they know what you do or do not belive, because of the label. Like Lars above, they do not realise it is possible to be an Atheist and still leave open the door to possibilities, in fact every Atheist I know is like that.

I am reasonably happy with the label Secular Humanist too, if you need a label.

My journey was from being born-in,and in for 58 years, yet never swallowed all the WT crap, I came to appreciate that 1914 was not in the Bible in any way. So then the WT came under scrutiny, and the house of cards that is its teachings came tumbling down.

I then looked at a number of christian religions, but found problems with them all. i then looked at the Bible without WT specs on, and found it to be NOT the word of God, not inerrant either.

I then began to question if there was indeed aGod, and found no evidence for His/Her/Its existence that stands up to even rudimentary scrutiny or critical thinking.

I am not at all closed minded, I am just not prepared to spend any more of my life on unsubstantiated things.

Even a personal experience like the one that the Apostle Paul had would be enough for me to investigate further, but nothing has happened, so I am where I am, without God, and quite happy with that.

Nickolas

It was a slow process of erosion.

Strict Irish Roman Catholic mother, lax father. We used to attend church as a family but I later learned he did so for appearances. A requisite value for a businessman in the community. KG to grade 8 in Catholic school. Hated the nuns. John XXIII's ecumenical council changed things around a lot to make the religion more accessible to the common folk. Backfired. I saw the fallacy of Roman Catholicism as a consequence but could not shake off all those years of indoctrination. Became a phoney agnostic - still prayed to God when my life went into a foxhole. Hibernated during four years of university, enjoying sex, alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. Sported a full beard and shoulder length hair. Met a nice Anglican girl and married her. A year later her reprobate druggie philanderer convicted fraudster brother has an ephiphany and becomes a Jehovah's Witness and a dedicated husband and father. The transformation is so remarkable I decide to investigate. My wife wanted nothing to do with it. This was 1974. Started studying and attending meetings and assemblies. Read the Bible cover to cover then again piecemeal, along with WT literature, of course. Graduated in 1975, clean shaven and short hair. Talked to my father about it and he looked me in the eye and calmly said "There is no god, son". 1976 arrived with no red sky. Started asking my own questions during the book studies, generating heated reactions. Light came on and I fled. By then my wife was hooked. She got baptised a couple of years later, against my wishes. Periodic arguments. Got real busy climbing the corporate ladder over the next few decades. Became a believer in the evolution of species but could not wrap my head around abiogenesis. Professed strong agnosticism but still prayed to Jehovah in my head at night when life got heavy. Prayed to him to take my mother when Lou Gehrig's finally paralysed her completely and she died that morning. Moved cross country to wind down my career and spend time with my dad. One week before I took early retirement he contracted pneumonia. I spent the week by his side and the day after I retired his eyes locked on mine and with a look of serene peace and wonderment he died. The meaning of life and existence of God now had a more urgent quality to it. I picked up the Bible again and put it down before finishing Genesis knowing that I was atheist. Started reading Hawkins, Holloway, Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris. Closed the door, never looked back.

To my fellow atheists:

Share this