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Question 2

What caused you to make the final decision to become an atheist? -

• I don't recall the exact moment. No light bulb suddenly turned on over my head. It was a gradual process brought about by my readings of the many bleats and the corresponding atheist responses to those bleats that eventually led to my realization that I was an atheist.

  I guess I'd have to say I owe it all to Stix, Adrian, Mickey, Stix, June, Daniel, Stix, Mark, Dan, Stix, Steve, Jeff, etc.

  Oh, and did I mention Stix? He helped a lot too.

  Basically, all of the fine, level headed, clear thinking atheists that post to alt.atheism.

  Thanks to all!

  This news group does indeed serve a very useful purpose. Your continued responses to the same old bleatings does indeed make a difference in peoples lives. It did to mine.

  While I'm still much more of a lurker than a participant, I hope to eventually begin to make more a meaningful contribution to this news group. But I still have much reading and learning to do yet. The books I order were just delivered today ("The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You To Read" and "Atheism: The Case Against God") and I'm only on page 27 of The Case Against God. I tried reading some Nietzsche ("Beyond Good and Evil" and "Thus Spake Zarathustra"), but I had a hard time 'getting into it'. The Case against God, otoh, is a much more enjoyable read thus far.

  Wait a minute! I just remembered that the day I responded to a post and admitted I was an atheist and asked "does this mean I can get a number now?" was probably the day I truly realized I was one.

  I just tried finding the post using DejaNews, but iirc, I posted it under my true name, "David B. Trout", and I think I went back and "Nuked" them in order to reduce the volume of spam I was receiving. If anyone can somehow retrieve that post, I'd have to say *that* was the day I first realized I was an atheist. ("Fish" (David B. Trout)#623)

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• Quite ironicly it was a priest that really made the difference in my final decision that I did not beleive in God. Contrary to what you might think, this preist was one of the most thought-provoking, tolerent and wonderful teachers I have ever met in my life. His name was Fr. William O'Malley (maybe you remember him from _The Exorcist_), teaching at Fordham Prep, a bastion of conservative, Jesiut thought. As a liberal and rebel, I'm glad I survived intact. Before this class, I had serious doubts, but very much like my father was still a "Catholic with reservations". Fr. O'Malley's questions about morality and his insistance of clarifying his students' beleif in God were what made me start to really think about what God was and what my faith required. I realized that I disagreed with much of what was said about God, and more important for me at that point, that I didn't need God to justify morality.

  This was the beginning of my search for something resembling the truth. I began to search for information about atheism and what atheists beleived and almost everything I found justified my new, atheistic position. I owe Fr. O'Malley a huge debt of gratitude. (Drachen #742)

• I recall being convinced that something was very wrong with the baloney everyone believed in by the time I was 12 or so (7th grade, I guess). Heaven, Hell and confession struck me as ridiculous concepts. Other details I've pretty much forgotten. However, I don't remember knowing "anyone" at that time who wasn't religious. Then, I spent the summer with an aunt and uncle who were atheists, and after that summer became quite controversial as a very vocal qtheist in a uniformly Catholic community. (Jeff Candy #179)

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• I read the bible. I was sickened. As well as bored to unconsciousness. (Keith Tiekbane #248)

• Reading the Bible. (Niall McAuley #36)

• Well, I was really into Christianity when I was little, but as I grew up, it just made less and less sense, until I was one of those people who went to church just because my parents did, and I wasn't really keen on it anyway.

  Then, I read the Bible cover to cover. That was my "moment of conversion", so to speak. (Ben Kosse #391)

• I read the bible at the same time reading a few Carl Sagan books on evolution. I guess i came to the realization that the idea of any actual god existing is just kind of silly. (Das #89)

• An essay in "Metamagical Themas" by Douglas Hofstadter about a model of brain functioning. This got me thinking about the need for a "soul" and I soon realized that there was no such thing. This conclusion called my entire theistic worldview into question, and being the skeptical, logical sort that I am, naturally the whole thing got ditched. (Steve Keppel-Jones #54)

• Can't say it was as much a 'decision' as an evolution.

  I grew up in a very religious environment with a *very* catholic mother (my father I would characterize as a humanist with a thin catholic veneer, but he worked nights nearly all the time so my mother had nearly exclusive control over me) and the requisite catholic schools complete with psycho nuns.

  I suppose one of my earliest misgivings came when I heard about how the Jews were to blame for the crucifixion and similar rot. It just didn't seem fair. And it wasn't just Jews, but the handicapped (my mother once pointed out a handicapped person and said that god was punishing him/her for SOMETHING, and that something was probably something perpetrated by some ancestor), the not-so-bright (we had a kid in school who I suspect was mildly retarded and the nuns were absolute monsters toward him, treating him like it was his fault), and the not-insignificant matter of original sin. By the time I was about 12 my elders had me convinced that this god of theirs was an unmitigated asshole.

  Of course I was told that all this ugliness wasn't the fault of religion but of human nature.

  I didn't buy this explanation then and I don't buy it now.

  It was downhill from there. (John Lewocz #699)

• The closest thing to a final decision I made was admitting to the title Atheist. My lack of belief had been with me pretty much my whole life. My family had me in the obligatory church and Sunday school only occasionally. I had considered myself an agnostic for most of my teenage years and into my twenties. I finally started considering myself an atheist when I was 23.

  There was no change in my position of the existence of a god. I was no longer shy of the title atheist. I have recently focusing more on the religion and my lack thereof around me. My personal experience with atheism has been limited with only one of my friends using the label. A good many of my circle of friends I believe are weak atheists but for whatever reasons, cling to the label agnostic.

  As I became more familiar with the case for and against a god, my atheism became stronger. I find that the different perspectives in a.a. help me understand atheism and theism better. (Dave W #1967)

• After repeated unsuccessful attempts to defend the existence of god, I finally came to the realisation that the reason i was doing so poorly at defending it was that I didn't really believe it myself. (Jeffrey L. Graham #1946)

• In my case it was the culmination of a long process. I always had some doubt about religion as far back as I remember. Growing up in a very Catholic family, and attending strict religious schools, I didn't have much opportunity to express my feelings. I even convinced myself for a while that I must be a sinner and would probably go to hell because of my doubts. However, the more I read and the more I thought about it, my doubts only became stronger.

  My breakthrough came when after a year of Catholic college, I transferred to NYU. There for the first time in my life, I had an opportunity to discuss matters with people of other religions, or no religion at all. I found that others felt the same way that I did. In particular,I became friendly with one of my classmates, a woman who was an atheist. We didn't have much of a relationship, but we had many conversations about whether or not god exists and other related topics.

  In the end, the main arguments that turned me to atheism were the existence of a good omnipotent god and the existence of evil, the doctrine of original sin (big for Catholics), the injustice of hell, and I think finally learning about all of the evil that was committed in the name of religion. With my studies in science, I very quickly became aware that we don't need the supernatural to explain the universe.

  All this happened forty years ago, and except for a few fleeting misgivings early on, I haven't looked back. (John Hachmann #1782)

• First of all, I don't think you could say I ever decided to be an atheist; in a very real sense, I've always been an atheist. I suppose what you're looking for here is what caused me to begin referring to myself as an atheist.

  I guess it was the realization that I was spending way too much time and effort trying to convince myself that I actually believed what my parents told me about God, the church, the Bible, etc.

  Once I bit the bullet and admitted that I didn't believe any of that stuff, that I was actually an atheist, it felt like the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders. (Carl Funk #1229)

• I hadn't really thought much about believing in god/s though I was brought up in the way of the traditional Chinese culture and religion (which is an intersting mix of ancestral worship, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese folklore and legends). In my early teenage years, I developed a voracious appetite for philosophy. I guess that I was intellectually curious and hungry at that age to just absorb as much as I could. My readings probably gave me a push from a position of non-decision to a point in which all that was needed was a trigger for me to make the final decision to be an atheist.

  This came by way of being harassed by a couple of Christians who were aggressively trying to convert me when I was in my mid-teens. After repeated polite attempts to tell to go away failed, I went on the offensive and ripped into their beliefs. At the end of debunking them, I walked away firmly making a decision that I am an atheist. There has not been any doubt since then. (leongsh..#1860)

• Once upon a time I entertained the notion of becoming a Baptist minister, but decided that before pursuing that goal I should become more familiar with the religion I was raised with. To that end, I read the Bible cover to cover. When I realized what kind of mental gymnastics I needed in order to even make the book agree with itself (not to mention reality), and what kind of a petty, abusive tyrant the mythical god of the bible is, I could no longer really consider myself a Christian. I looked at other forms of religious belief for a while, and found none of the major religions I briefly examined to be any better. At that point, I started exploring the case for any form of deity whatsoever, and found no rational reason to believe in one.

  I guess you could say I systematically educated myself out of religion. (WhiskeyJack)