I was raised in a culture where everyone that I knew was a theist. I was raised in a fundamentalist community. The only mentions of atheism that I recall from childhood were that there were some truly evil and stupid people in the world who did not believe in god at all. When I was in my teens, there were occasional mentions of Madalyn Murray O'Hair - that she was obviously a demon. I first went to a public school in the 10th grade where I was taught about evolution. My parents said it was a lie, that the devil had buried fake bones to try to confuse the righteous and that scientists were demons.
But then I went off to college. I did my own studies in comparative religion. I started to question.
Oddly enough, though, it was by working in the Catholic Church and really READING the Bible that I became an atheist.
Only after that did I read Dawkins, and Hitchens, and others. The internet did not influence my de-conversion. Reading the Bible (with some background scientific knowledge of the real world) made me an atheist.
So yes. I became an atheist without reading atheist authors and without searching the internet.
But then I went off to college. I did my own studies in comparative religion. I started to question.
Oddly enough, though, it was by working in the Catholic Church and really READING the Bible that I became an atheist.
Only after that did I read Dawkins, and Hitchens, and others. The internet did not influence my de-conversion. Reading the Bible (with some background scientific knowledge of the real world) made me an atheist.
So yes. I became an atheist without reading atheist authors and without searching the internet.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
