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Question 83

Is there any one part of the Old or New Testament, Quran, Vedas, any other religious writings that was a strong reason for your becoming an atheist?

• Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. Psalms 137:9 (Randall Gorman #1339)

• I think the first major crack in the defensive wall I'd built up in order not to think was when I read Heinlein who pointed out the story of Lot and his daughters and the angels. I looked it up in the bible and couldn't believe what it was really saying. From there it was just one thing after another. Beautiful, beautiful avalanche! (Diem #1459)

• In grad school, in 1976, I participated in a thing called Plato Notes, a kind of precursor to Usenet. There was a religion group on this, and I stated that I considered the bible to be science fiction, and since I read all science fiction books I owned, I would read it and post notes if someone sent one. Someone did, and reading Genesis, with the obvious contradictions, changed me from being apathetic to being an atheist. (Scott Davidson #1045)

• No. I stopped believing in the (Roman Catholic) version of the Xian god about the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus, and for similar reasons (I actually remember thinking how silly grown-ups were for believing in either! ;) ). However, thoroughly acquainting myself with the Bible (under the gentle and loving tutelage of the Irish Christian brothers before I got my ass thrown out of Catholic High School for openly deriding the faith and inciting students to rebellion) did help to confirm my realization that it was all utter nonsense.

  I still find it a source of amusement to this day, BTW, that I'm usually more familiar with the Bible than most Christians, and virtually always more familiar with it than the fundies. I've noticed, in fact, that it seems to be a fairly common phenomenon on aa that we infidels are better acquainted with what the Babble actually says than its purported adherents do. Any thoughts on this, anyone? (raven1 #1096)

• No. In my case was the fact that when the political system in Spain changed, so did the educational. We first heard of other religions, evolution... I thought that if that was hidden to us until then, could be that it was more appealing, thus dangerous for the church's interests, for being closer to the truth. I found the other religions were nonsense in everything which wasn't the regulation of peaceful social coexistence and then took a closer look to catholicism. There was no difference, a lot of bullshit to wrap some basic coexistence rules. (Angel Arnal #1443)

• I grew up without any religious instruction. As I got older I decided to read the bible from cover to cover, just to see what the big deal was. The part I found so preposterous was having a god, that could create an entire universe, decide to kill his son in order to save us. I could never get over the morality, for any reason, of using death as a vehicle to save. The god of christianity is a mirror image of the leaders of that time and still is. (Steve Knight #855)

• A formative book for me was "Man and His Gods" by Homer W. Smith. It is out of print but is in some of the larger public libraries.

  By reading this book I saw that much that is in the Bible and other ancient books are related and come from human sources and myths. The book also covered the ways that the Bible has been used for human purposes of persecution and conquest. This helped me place the Bible in its proper perspective. (Red Foster)

• Not really. It was just the total irrelevance of the Buybull as it pertains to life today. Trying to live your life (and trying to force others to live their lives) based on a 2,000+ year old ethics code is just preposterous. (Michelle Martin #1474)

• Not to become an atheist per se, but definitely to leave Christianity. There's a bit in one of the epistles in the New Testament about how it's wrong for a Christian to marry a non-Christian. As it happens, my parents did precisely that. In addition, I had just started a relationship with a non-believer skeptical of all things religious. I saw the passage as reinforcing the worst sort of bigotry, judging folk by only a litmus test of what they believe.

  Examining that passage led me to the conclusion that I could not operate with a morality based on revelation, authority, or whatever you want to call it, but rather that I had a need to use my own mind to make any sort of moral decision or judgment. I decided at that point that it would be hypocrisy to claim I was still a Christian; I was (and still am) of the opinion that Christianity necessitates submitting to the will of God. Of course, it's discovering what that will is that presents a problem to the Christian, but I was able to see that even if I could know that will with complete accuracy, I was still unable of following it based solely on faith.

  In the long run, the non-believer and I are now married, and we both identify as atheists. (Natalie Ramsey #222)

• When I were a wee sprat, I was raised in a Catholic family and went to parochial school. I was for some unknow reason, a natural skeptic. I quickly found out Santa Clause did not exist, the Easter Bunny did not exist, the Tooth Fairy did not exist. By the age of 4 I was acutely aware of these sorts of lies and very quick to pounce on such lies. Of course, grown ups found it fun to see me try to tear their flimsy tissues of lies apart.

  Then I got into my first catechism class in the first grade. And tales of God, Jesus, Mary and some saints. The nuns were big on saints and Mary.

  But I think the one that soured me permanently on nuns and Christianity was the tale of St. Christopher. It was outrageous swill and I knew it at the age of five and at that point, started resenting such lies.

  I still do. That was the straw, I tuned them out from thereon and became the class heretic, to be shuffled to the back and ignored. In the 5th grade I started going to a public school, my mother was divorced and out of the RCC and was unchurched. I did not miss any of it.

  I have never in my life believed in god or Jesus or Mary et al, to me it was just another of these games the adults played with their amazing and convoluted lies. Its just as far as religion, they never winked or admitted it was a game like the Easter bunny or Santa.

  But as far as I can remember, Saint Christopher was the final straw that placed me far over the edge forever. It was then that I decided it was all lies, lies from nuns. I didn't even trust them when they said there was a man called the Pope after that. (Pope Charles #109)