Was your becoming (or being) an atheist influenced by a particular
person in your life and, if so, would you please tell us something about that person?
Carl Sagan, Robert Ingersoll and almost every Creationist who ever debated
Creation/Evolution... (Roy Sinnamond #1798)
My father. He got really involved in in-fighting in our presbyterian church.
The sheer amount of hostility between the elders who disagreed on finer points of
obscure biblical doctrine baffled me. I look back on it and laugh - it is like
falling out over whether the tooth fairy prefers to wear white or pink. (arky)
>>> Scooby Doo was the major influence WRT my atheism. Need I say more?
>> Yes, doggone it! ;-)
Okay, it's pretty simple really. It was my favorite cartoon, and I watched 'em
debunk all the ghosts and monsters and stuff, and I realized there was no such
thing as ghosts, etc, and I figured the same thing applied to gods as well.
Scooby's my hero! (Elroy Willis)
My father is a scientist and an atheist; the college textbooks he taught from were always laying around, and I was terribly precocious, reading everything I could get my hands on from 3 years old. He was also a fan of Greek and Roman mythology, and bought me books like Bullfinch's Mythology.
My mother had always raised me to believe that any time I didn't agree with her, was because I was bad or trying to make her life difficult. My father helped me by letting me know that I wasn't "bad" for thinking this way, and that I had a right to use my mind and come to different conclusions than my mother. (Michelle Roberts)
No. Once the Santa story was uncovered (and let's face it, from a kids
perspective there *is* actual evidence of a Santa...ask Santa for a particular
item and, damn, there it us under the tree with a note that says it's from Santa.)
and I started to read mythology and science fiction my not-so-fervent belief in a
god was not long for the world. (Mike Dahlke #1600)
Two persons did actually have influence, but Neither of them was an aquaintance
of mine.
The first one was the psycho analyst Immanuel Velikovsky. I was a little depressed,
and though a crazy book like "worlds in collision" might lift my spirits. But
despite the foolish theory it came up with, there was more logic in the book than
I had ever seen before, and I was wondering, if all these "miracles" have a natural
explanation (however outraging and improbable), could it be that there is no God?
The second one was the Editor Arie Kuiper, who run a Catholic Weekly. Incoming
letters about Nuclear Weapons, made me ponder, What Jesus might have thought on
this subject, and I wrote a letter, asking the Weekly to print Chapter of Matthew
to settle the arguement. Arie refused, claiming debates should not be settled by
calling on authority. Realizing he was right, I became an Atheist within five
seconds. (Peter van Velzen #1107)
I credit my deconversion to my 10th grade Bible teachers. See, I went to a
private school that required a certain amount of religious education: a year-long
course in 7th grade, and term-long courses for 10th grade. The first semester in
10th grade was a mandatory class on the OT and NT, and the teacher actually talked
about how the books were put together. (Yeah, the four-source hypothesis in high
school - can ya believe it?) The revelation that the inerrantist position I'd been
taught was completely unsupportable started me thinking, and the second semester
("Christ and the Cults" - aka comparative religion as a way to claim that all
non-Christian religions are wrong because they don't adhere to this or that part
of the Bible) just accelerated the process. I'm still not a "strong atheist" as I
see that position as being just as unsupportable as theism, but I am a strong
non-Christian and non-Jew.
Granted, this probably isn't the outcome those teachers had in mind....;) (Rev. Bob
#1850)
I could thank the nuns and priests who taught me in grade and high school, but
I arrived at being an atheist pretty much on my own. At about the time I cknowledged
my atheism, I began dating a woman who was also an atheist. The relationship didn't get very far, but she gave me the confidence to "come out" and admit my lack of
belief. (John Hachmann #1782)
No one insofar as teaching me specifically about atheism, but my mother taught me to read, and to love reading books. That has been the biggest single thing in my life leading to my being an atheist. (kalle.helenius #907)
"My becoming an atheist was most clearly influenced by my rabbi, Rabbi Fink. I got to the age where I started studying the Bible and really *thinking* about what it said rather than just accepting unthinkingly ... and there were things in there that just didn't make any sense to me once I thought about them. So I went to Rabbi Fink and asked him if he could explain some things in the Bible that didn't make sense to me. Rabbi Fink told me 'I'm too busy - figure them out yourself!' So I did ..."
"If Rabbi Fink had been more willing to talk over such things, there's a non-zero chance I'd be a rabbi myself now. I've got the personality of one, or so many
people have told me." ;) (Abner Minz #154)
