I was raised in what was supposed to be a secular household, but in practice was Christian. My father has always been an atheist and my mother was Christian, so they decided to always try to let the children "decide for themselves", etc. What this ended up with was my mum going on about god and about how god loves me, but also that it's up to me whether I believe in him or not.
I think I realised that it was all nonsense when I was 15. My cat died, and it was at that point that I finally started to question my views. I had always been sceptical of some of the claims made in the Bible, but had never been an atheist - I held that the Bible could be full of rubbish but God can still exist. At experiencing this first loss in my life, I realised that the benevolent god whom I had been defending throughout my school classes, friends, etc., wasn't real. And once I realised this, it was only a matter of time before my faith collapsed entirely.
The one thing, however, that drew me to theism was Pascal's Wager. My mum had always told me that I should believe in god because of it, and for years I had thought about it. If you accept Pascal's premises at face value, then mathematically he is correct, and theism logically is better than atheism. Even as an atheist, I was very scathing of people who used the traditional Atheist's Wager in response, because I knew, as a maths-geek, that Pascal must be right. Fortunately, a couple of months ago I was thinking about maths and had a 'eureka!' moment; I had beaten Pascal's Wager, and finally I am a comfortable atheist. I mean, I've been an atheist for a while now, but Pascal was rather tempting.
I think I realised that it was all nonsense when I was 15. My cat died, and it was at that point that I finally started to question my views. I had always been sceptical of some of the claims made in the Bible, but had never been an atheist - I held that the Bible could be full of rubbish but God can still exist. At experiencing this first loss in my life, I realised that the benevolent god whom I had been defending throughout my school classes, friends, etc., wasn't real. And once I realised this, it was only a matter of time before my faith collapsed entirely.
The one thing, however, that drew me to theism was Pascal's Wager. My mum had always told me that I should believe in god because of it, and for years I had thought about it. If you accept Pascal's premises at face value, then mathematically he is correct, and theism logically is better than atheism. Even as an atheist, I was very scathing of people who used the traditional Atheist's Wager in response, because I knew, as a maths-geek, that Pascal must be right. Fortunately, a couple of months ago I was thinking about maths and had a 'eureka!' moment; I had beaten Pascal's Wager, and finally I am a comfortable atheist. I mean, I've been an atheist for a while now, but Pascal was rather tempting.
