Answer 10

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Question 10

How old were you when you realized that you were an atheist?

I guess I've never been a theist, and, consequently, never thought about it. I suppose that, at about 15 years old, when I began to become aware that many people were very interested in the idea of a god, I began to apply some thought to the matter, and rejected it with a more philosophical basis soon after.

Interestingly, though (or maybe not), I've spent a lot of time since then (I'm 36 now) rehashing the idea because I kept being confronted with it.

Consequently, I was forced into the rather odd position of defending *my* position. I ended up taking religion and philosophy courses in college, and eventually obtained a double major in English and Philosophy, the Philosophy part due, mostly, to my ongoing need to defend myself against ttacks on my lack of belief in a god, and my fascination that so many people held such an odd position.

I enjoyed studying philosophy, and I believe it helped me to organize my thinking, symboloic logic in particular. But, I confess that I think all the religion and philosophy study was a waste of time. If I could get back all the time I wasted studying an absurd philosophy, I would invest it in fishing, or reading the English Romantic Poets. Maybe reading Shelly while fishing?

Not to wander too far, but sometimes I wonder why I'm here on this newsgroup. There are so many intelligent, well spoken individuals on this group, and yet, we spend so much time defending against ridiculous claims, presented in an illogical fashion. In a sense I worry that it is istracting us all from doing good in the world. Think of all that could be done if religion weren't such an obstacle to creativity. Hmmm....well, maybe that's reason enough to keep arguing.I don't know.... (Colin #866)

Myself, I was a pretty hard core catholic till my grandmother died in the 7 th grade. This put the seeds of doubt in my mind. Through high school I tried to "truly" believe again, but then I started to read Von Daniken , which now I know is largely full of BS, but it really raised doubt. By the time I left for college, I was an agnostic. Got engaged to a catholic, tried again, still didn't do it for me. The relationship went to hell, thus became an agnostic till my late twenties. As I got older, and met my first baptists, this reinforced my atheistic tendency, and by the time I hit 30, a hard core atheist. Initially, pretty quiet, but now because of the internet, much more a strong atheist. (DeeAnne #112)

24.

I was a very sincere and active Christian, a member of the strictly fundamentalist Church of Christ denomination. (My father was a Church of Christ preacher.)

I found that studying myself out of that way of thinking was at first difficult, but taking the idea of "seeking the truth" sincerely led, as reason will do (to my way of thinking), out of that religious morass. My particular pathway out of the darkness was my study of evolution (at first in the context of being in opposition to creationism, but later out of sheer interest).

I was, and still am, enamored of the idea of truth-seeking. Now, I just think that Christians who are adults and who have been Christians for quite a long time simply don't take truth-seeking seriously. (Most of them don't take religion seriously, either - I know from personal experience.) Shortly before I left the congregation where I was a member while I was attending university, I would ask people to take a look at what I had been studying to see that what I was saying (in opposition to creationism) was true. Not a single person took me up on it.

Instead, a few months later I received a letter from a Mr. John Clayton from South Bend, Indiana, an atheist-converted-to-Christian who was writing to see what he could do to help me out. By the time I received his letter, I had gone all the way "down the slippery slope" to an agnostic atheist position, so his letter came too late - not that it would have changed the outcome. (Clayton has views somewhere between that of a "progressive creationist" and a "theistic evolutionist.")

But to get back to the point. I believed and believe in truth-seeking sincerely enough to fight my way through all of the fundamentalist gobbledygook despite the circular defining of "the truth as God's Word which is the Bible." Other fundamentalists believe themselves to be truth-seekers because they never get over that circular hump.

You may notice from my post on the #9 question that it took me from the time I was in high school until about 5 years later for enough understanding and realization to build up to the point of my rejection of fundamentalism (and, subsequently, theism).

My initial reaction from the creationism/evolution debate focusing on geological dating methods I went to in 1978 (79?) was one of "all does not seem quite right with creationism." It planted a seed of doubt, but I didn't proceed to DO anything about it. Even after my astronomy course in college planted another seed of doubt, I didn't DO anything about it. This was my life-perspective we are talking about. My thinking on creationism/evolution was evolving (!), but the full implications with respect to my biblical fundamentalist beliefs did not come to a head in my mind until 1984.

I realized my thinking was changing on the creationism issue, but my biblical fundamentalism was not. "The Bible is God's Word, so it must be the truth, though our human interpretations of it are, of course, subject to error. If creationism is wrong, then I am misinterpreting the Bible if I think it teaches creationism." To see through this kind of anti-reality error took a great deal of mental effort and emotional anguish.

Once I realized what was happening (in 1984), my initial reaction was a mixture of anger at having "been had" and trepidation of ow my intellectual honesty was now going to play itself out with respect to my life - after having destroyed my life-perspective. Then it was one of depression. Finally, after about a couple of years, it was a sense of intellectual freedom (not from the iscipline of truth-seeking, but from the strictures of being held to doctrinal dogma in the face of reason). (Todd Greene #884)

By 12 I was very critical and disblieving of many religious ideas. By 14 was a strong atheist. (Jeff Candy #179)

I like to think I was born without the bad meme. There actually is some historic evidence for this. I was raised a Catholic (note the Matthew in my middle name which I write opn purpose to remind me of my burden) but I honestly didn't buy it. When I was in CCD I was the first to ask my teacher "But how did he get all those animals on the boat?", and "Why does that picture of Eve have a bellybutton?"

All this at age 8 (yeah- I was a pretty intense little kid). The answer was either "Shut up" or "pray to "god" for an answer". I never got the answers - and I knew that it was an empty "promise".

Then I met Herr Nietzsche and the rest is history . . .(Todd Matthew Koson)

I did not believe any god existed when I was around 10. After reading greek mythology I was very convienced that there were no gods in the universe at all.

I still attended church out of respect for mom untill I was about 13. Then I just couldn't take it any more and dropped out of church activities completely.

I hid my atheism from other people untill I was over 30 out of fear of their reactions. Now I don't give a damn what some theist thinks about my atheism. (Jim Griffin)

I grew up without religion and figured it was just something people did. When I joined the Army at 17, they asked me what religion I was. I said none. They said you have to be something. I didn't have the faintest idea of what to say to that. I said, just put anything down, who cares. The guy says, how about protestant? Fine. The next thing I know, every scrap of paper that had a religion space on it was protestant and I spent the next 3 years a paper protestant. I remember a chaplin seeking me out and asking me to attend services. I said I didn't believe in god. It says here, you're a protestant. I said it was the first thing that came to mind. What? (He became very confused) He asked me if I'd like to attend anyway. I said "I don't believe in god." He said if I attended my life would change for the better. "Really, you mean nobody will be shooting bullets at me." he said "I didn't mean that." I told him I would attend if ordered and he said he couldn't order me to go. I wasn't too sure what an atheist was in those days, I just didn't believe in god. As I matured and saw the horror of mind numbing control, and robot like submissiveness to a concept, it firmed up my resolve to understand who I was and what I "believed". I would say 42, but that's the answer to the universe, so I became a rational atheist at 32 years old. (Steve Knight)

Somewhere between 10 and 12, I'd say. Hard to pin down exactly, since I'd never had a very firm idea about god ( oh, right, some thingy in space somewhere that made everything... ) and dropping the whole notion just seemed like part of the process of growing up. Like not believing in Santa. I do have to say that I *never* believed in either the devil or hell. From my earliest memories of childhood, those sort of things were always relegated exclusively to Halloween paraphernalia and tales about what ignorant medieval folk believed in. I was genuinely amazed the first time I met a real live person ( a very crazy babysitter ) who *did* believe in all that. Simply blew my mind...didn't *change* it, though. ;-) (Alikhat #757)

The Big Move from theism to atheism started, for me, when I was eight years old, and a friend's mother (I lived in Bible-thumpin' Atlanta) said to me "Now you *know* that the Big Bang is just a *theory*, and that God made it all, right?"

That ludicrous statement started the process of rational thought which led me here. (Justin Maroncelli #832)

Dig this: I was eight years old when I discovered WWII books. I read about the japanese methods of torture, The Nazi death camps where they stripped all the gold teeth out of living people, and other sordid details. I realized there were no gaurdian angels or loving, caring gawd. Fundys might claim that their god had some lesson to teach. I say crap. If there ever was any god in the past, it is dead now.

Let It Be Said That Damn Is god's Last Name. (zach #33)

I have always been an atheist. I grew up in a family of atheists (my parents call themselves agnostics), and my sister is also an atheist. I also grew up in a city where atheism is tolerated and quite common, and at school it was very uncool to admit you were religious -- you would be laughed at. For a few years I also lived in England, where prayer is often conducted in schools...though my classmates and I participated in the prayer, none of us took it seriously. We often made up our own words to parody the prayers and hymns.

The only time I was ever taken to church was when we visited relatives on my father's side of the family (among whom are some fanatical fundies. I remember even at the age of five thinking that the idea of praying to a god you couldn't see was silly. I considered god to be something that silly adults believed in, but we kids were too smart to believe in.

Now at the age of 31 it still amazes me that there are people my age or younger who have been bitten by the Jesus bug. I had thought that my generation would have known better. (Chris Nelson #135)

I was an unpracticing Xian (I thought God existed and Jesus existed but never went to church) until about 9 or 10, when I learned about evolution. That perfectly-understandable process caused me to question Xianity, which turned me into a deist. At 12 I almost tricked myself into being a theist again by a form of Pascal's Wager, but that soon passed. By 14 or 15 I was an agnostic. During a lull in band class in 9th grade I and a couple of my friends were able to tear apart a couple of Xians (that's right Frank, I'm a zealous anti-theist) spiritually until they resorted to "It's just faith". At about that time I think I was almost an atheist, or was really an atheist. About four months later I found this NG and the reading of just a few posts clinched it. I realized how absurd believing that a magical superpowerful intelligent being who cared about our little planet would suddenly appear in space somewhere really was. (Cabrutus #820)

I suppose there are three times that might equally well answer your question. My first brush with atheism was at four. I was reading Bulfinch's Mythology, vol. 1, and came across the line in his introduction that the Greek and Roman gods were dead. It was inconceivable to me that a god could die, so I began to question whether or not they ever existed. The next step was unavoidable: to question whether or not any gods have ever existed. As I mulled over the statement, I realized that the fervency of belief was no indication that it was true -- would that some evangelists realize the same! I realized I couldn't say with certainty at that point that no gods existed, but I was determined not to accept other people's word about it without any adequate supporting evidence. Naturally, I didn't put it all in these terms :-) but I was thinking along those lines and questioning from a very early age. Fortunately, my parent's never raised me in a religious household, so questions of this sort weren't discouraged.

The next time may be when I really acted on my atheism, so I knew it represented me. From kindergarten, when I was five, through second grade, when I was eight, I was made to say the Pledge of Allegiance and omitted "under God" from the Pledge each morning for three years. I was surprised to learn many years later that this was in fact the original form of the Pledge, and "under God" was an unnecessary interpolation. (In my opinion, it also scans better without the added syllables. :-)

The third time was when I realized that the *word* atheist represented me. I was nine, musing on religious issues and I offended a fundy kid, who called me an "atheist". I can't remember what the substance of the discussion was, but I was curious to find out what "atheist" meant so I grabbed a dictionary when recess was over and read the definition. Sure enough, that dictionary described my disbelief perfectly. I was surprised to encounter that level of devoutness in that fundy kid (I offended him inadvertantly). I had taken it for granted that my doubts were entertained by just about everyone, and it was one of the great shocks to my pre-adolescent worldview that I was actually outnumbered by theists. I thought my thinking was perfectly natural. :-) (Nullifidian #1774)

I was 22. It was Christmas Eve, 1972. Ready-room 132 of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ranger. The bomber pilots came back from their devastation of North Vietnam, with pictures and video, and I decided then and there that no such thing as god could possibly exist. (chib)

Errrrkkkkkkk...depends.
I lost the theism by the age of 10 or 11. I still had to go and do the rituals and complete the indoctrination rubbish and the terror bit was still there. Probably the 'what if' stage.
However, I didn't know anything about atheist other than it had to do with "godless communists" until after I meandered in here. (Stoney #9)

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