Age of Deconversion

[John 6IX Breezy]

For those that stopped believing, or never believed, before the age of 14, have your reasons for not believing change since then? Arguably, our knowledge of the world is very limited at that age. We barely know what taxes are, let alone have any deep scientific or philosophical foundations to arrive at a reasonable conclusion on such a topic. Yet, many arrive at one anyway, whether it be for or against the belief in God.

So, my question isn't weather your conclusion changed as you got older, since most of you stayed atheist. Rather, I'm wondering if the reasons for that conclusion have changed and grown since that point? Looking back, do you feel that your reasoning was correct or incorrect?

For example (and I apologize if I singled you out) Chad32 said he thought everyone in the world was Christian, and learning that this wasn't the case played a partial role in losing his faith. So I would ask him if, looking back, he feels he was wrong to have thought that in the first place? And if so, how did that affect his stance on the matter later on?

Hope my question makes sense.

[The Grand Nudger]

No. Nothing about my atheism has changed over the course of my life. I hear the stories, and I don't believe them. I didn't believe them then, I don't believe them now.

[arewethereyet]

For those that stopped believing, or never believed, before the age of 14, have your reasons for not believing change since then? Arguably, our knowledge of the world is very limited at that age. We barely know what taxes are, let alone have any deep scientific or philosophical foundations to arrive at a reasonable conclusion on such a topic. Yet, many arrive at one anyway, whether it be for or against the belief in God.

So, my question isn't weather your conclusion changed as you got older, since most of you stayed atheist. Rather, I'm wondering if the reasons for that conclusion have changed and grown since that point? Looking back, do you feel that your reasoning was correct or incorrect?

For example (and I apologize if I singled you out) Chad32 said he thought everyone in the world was Christian, and learning that this wasn't the case played a partial role in losing his faith. So I would ask him if, looking back, he feels he was wrong to have thought that in the first place? And if so, how did that affect his stance on the matter later on?

Hope my question makes sense.

So far, nothing has convinced me that a god or gods exist.  I have 62 years of not being convinced and I don't really think it's in my future for that to change.

[John 6IX Breezy]

No.  Nothing about my atheism has changed over the course of my life.   I hear the stories, and I don't believe them.  I didn't believe them then, I don't believe them now.

I'm mainly asking if the reasons for not believing have changed, not the beliefs themselves. Our reasons for things tend to change throughout the lifespan, particularly from childhood to adulthood. You can see this more clearly when it comes to moral reasoning; many children are very concrete and will say stealing is wrong because its against the rules, but as adults you begin to think more abstractly, dissociating rules from morals, such that stealing can be wrong regardless of the rules.

That progression in reasoning is what I'm trying to better understand when it comes to those that stopped believing in God during childhood.

[The Grand Nudger]

I didn't have any reason, I couldn't even spell reason. Atheism isn't a comment on reasons, it's a comment on a state of belief. In my case that state of belief has never changed. I don't know that there's any data to mine from me, as to what you're looking to understand. Honestly, your question could only apply to deconverts, and that makes it a fundamentally malformed question, for bias. Deconverts would be expected to have a similar experience, even if that experience was not representative of atheism, or any other demographic other than deconverts.

TLDR version..deconversion narratives have much, muich more to do with belief in god, than a lack of the same.

I'm still an atheist for the exact same "reason" I was before. I don't believe in gods. There is no other criteria or "reason", for atheism. That's all that atheism is.

[John 6IX Breezy]

I agree the thread is mainly addressed towards deconversion.

[Belacqua]

I agree the thread is mainly addressed towards deconversion.

I haven't gone through this, since I was raised without any religion. 

But I wonder if commonly "deconverting" at age about 12 to 14 has to do with the kind of God that people have been thinking of.

From infancy to maybe 12, kids will picture God as the sweet sky-daddy, and if you pray to him he'll protect you from the monster under the bed. That image of course can't survive once a child starts thinking for herself a little bit. Then the whole thing starts to seem unbelievable. 

At that point a lot of people lose their religion and assume that's all there is to it. They reject the Sunday School Happy Jesus version and walk away, and don't look at the reason that serious grownups might believe in a different conception of God. The theologians' version of God requires a little bit of effort to learn about, and since they've already walked away they don't want to bother with it. That would explain why so many of the anti-religion atheists on forums like this one can only imagine God in the same way an infant does.

[chimp3]

For those that stopped believing, or never believed, before the age of 14, have your reasons for not believing change since then? Arguably, our knowledge of the world is very limited at that age. We barely know what taxes are, let alone have any deep scientific or philosophical foundations to arrive at a reasonable conclusion on such a topic. Yet, many arrive at one anyway, whether it be for or against the belief in God.

So, my question isn't weather your conclusion changed as you got older, since most of you stayed atheist. Rather, I'm wondering if the reasons for that conclusion have changed and grown since that point? Looking back, do you feel that your reasoning was correct or incorrect?

For example (and I apologize if I singled you out) Chad32 said he thought everyone in the world was Christian, and learning that this wasn't the case played a partial role in losing his faith. So I would ask him if, looking back, he feels he was wrong to have thought that in the first place? And if so, how did that affect his stance on the matter later on?

Hope my question makes sense.

I stopped believing the believers. I have not resumed believing them.

[Alex K]

that was around 13

[LastPoet]

I was thrilled to be able to get my first communion at age 10, to finally eat those engraved cookies at the end of mass. I was dissapointed, so I became an atheist

I jest, ofc. I did believe and prayed so hard to god to save my best friend, my cousin from his brain cancer. While he was a staunch believer, that liked mass and catechism, I believed but thought church to be boring. Upon seeing him on that coffin, after a 2 year struggle, I become at peace knowing that reality. The natural world doesn't conform to our feelings, unlike the idea of an all loving god that makes an 11 year old go trough pain and misery for two years before he finally rested.

I still tried to make sense of gods, looked into other religions for answers, but all I found was the same old bullshit. Around 15 I finally accepted that I had no reason to believe. That was 24 years ago and nothing changed.