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Question 42

How many of you were followers of a religion before becoming an atheist? Why did you leave that particular religion?

• My parents raised me to be an evangelical Presbyterian. That lasted until I started thinking for myself (about age 14...I was a late bloomer *blush*).

  I remember quite clearly the day I decided to break with religion. I had been growing progressively more uncomfortable with the whole idea of faith and self-sacrifice, but only in a general, ill-defined sense. One evening, at a middle-school church group, the youth pastor very seriously passed around a box of pamphlets purporting to discuss evolutionary biology. Hey, I know... but I was young, OK?

  Anyway, I took one look at those dirty little screeds and chucked the whole lot right on the spot. The presentation of the material (with which I am sure we are all familiar by now) was so blatantly anti-rational that they threw the nature of the philosophy which produced them into sharp relief against all that I held dear. I could not, in good conscience, continue to support it.

  I spent a number of years as an agnostic, which I decided is not a philosophically tenable position beyond the indeterminacy of teenagerhood.

  I now consider myself a strong atheist, as those who have read my modest little polemics around here probably know.

  So, the answer to the second question above is: I don't have any religion now.

  The only positive side effect I retain from having once been religious is that I can speak from first-hand knowledge about the nature of Christianity in my criticisms of its positions. But, for the most part, I have had to spend an enormous effort to expunge all vestiges of religious nonsense from my life. (J. Gregory Wharton #1162)

• I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church, was very active in youth groups, musical activities, summer missionary work, and the like. My turning point was in my 20s, when I worked as part of an investigative team assigned to child abuse. It's impossible to reconcile the belief that there's an all-knowing, all-powerful entity, who answers prayers all the time... when you meet face-to-face a beaten and raped 4 year old, and the monster who did it. Other things went into my change of view, but this is the high point. (Alan Hall)

• I escaped from the Catholic and Lutheran slave chains. Didn't have a choice, was forced to go until junior year of high school. [urinates on both rabid superstitions] (Stoney #9)

• I don't know how many else were , but I was for a long time. In South Africa Xian is pretty much default through indoctrination (although its changing a lot now, thank some omiscient being or other). I left because it made no sense, and I could not reconcile it with what science was showing me any longer. To try and do so would have been hypocritical. What really annoys me is that people will still try and convert me. I made this decision over a period of time, with lots of thought. I mean, its a damn important decision, is it not? (Keith Norris #1202)

• Hmmmm... started out as a strong atheist, converted to Islam, became a weak atheist, and am now a strong atheist.

  As for why, I had to eventually make a choice between reason and absolute faith. Faith lost. (Andrew Lias)

• I was Roman Catholic. I left that religion because I found myself unable to sustain belief in something that didn't exist. I have better things to do with my mind than mental masturbation.

  I also left the religion, because I consider religious training and indoctrination to be tantamount to psycological abuse. I consider such abuse, especially when applied to the malleable, vulnerable, growing young minds of children, to be the purest evil imaginable. I consider myself lucky to have survived relatively intact. (Paul J. Koeck #360)

• I was raised Methodist. Baptized when a babe. Took Confirmation classes when I was 13 and was confirmed. Only got confirmed because I had to, even at 13 I knew it was a bunch of crap, just didnt want to go to hell. Dropped those beliefs in college and have never been happier. (Jason Cunningham #1126)

• I hang my head and admit that that yes, I was a christer for 36 god-forsaken years. And I'm only 37 now! And I will be 38 on ~July 27~ - the holy day. I trust that you all will remember that day, to keep it holie. ;-)

  Anyway, the last seven years were spent as an independent baptist. They are like the southern baptists used to be, before they went liberal! Verrrry fundy and 'verrrry' conservative. I would be extremely interested to know if anyone else 'did time' in an ind. baptist church, especially if it was connected to the Jack Hyles cult, as ours was. (Krisha #1200)

• As many of you know, I deconverted with the help of alt.atheism. Last year I dropped out of confirmation a week before the ceremony, and I have been doing quite well since then. I had spiritual feelings in my heart and tried to strengthen my faith with apologetics, but I gradually came to realize that I was deceiving myself. One must have faith to "understand" because it really doesn't make sense, and one must "draw near to God" because God is an imaginary sky daddy. I brushed off all conflicting evidence with the wand of faith, like other believers. But I finally decided to face my fears and dare to follow my own mind wherever it may take me.

  I am a strong atheist because of two simple observations: the world is natural and the gods are mythology. (Peter Kirby #16)

• I was nominally Jewish. Got bar mitzvahed and the whole bit - but then all my friends were and 7th-8th grade was spent going to each others parties.

  I actually finished all 5 years of Hebrew school (never learned Hebrew very well, though) and never went to temple again, except when I was pulled in to complete a minyan during boy scout meetings. (My troop was sponsored by the temple, and met there.) (Scott Davidson #1045)