How I Became an Atheist
March 2, 2013 at 11:18 pm
(This post was last modified: March 2, 2013 at 11:18 pm by hockeymonk.)
Hey, new to the forum. I guess a good 2nd post is telling about my coming to atheism
Starting from the begining-
Ever since the age of 4 or 5, I was very into Christianity and the Bible. Hell, when I grew up I wanted to be Jesus! Little 5 year old me always admired the self sacrifice of Jesus that I had been told by my church and school. Also, who doesn't want to be the hero of the story?
In grade school, some things happened to me that made me cling to religion even harder,. I wanted to be a missionary when I grew up, it seemed like a good fit for me. Even in elementary school though, some things started to bother me. Things such as the injustice of starving people (how could a good god allow that?) and the treatment of homosexuals by the church didn't sit well with me.
Flash forward to middle school, and I am still a Christian, but I honestly can't follow my church or school's teachings. Things like evolution, the age of the earth and the big bang theory caused me to doubt the inerrancy of the Bible. Yeah, a VERY loose reading of the Bible allowed me to still believe in Jesus, but it just never felt right. Couple that with my schoolmates and church's treatment of homosexuals and women, something that has always bothered me, and my faith was shaken. Like I said, I still believed in Jesus, but it just never felt right.
Flash forward one more time- the scene is a high school biblical ethics class. I am reading a chapter of the old testament about the ark in Genesis, and I remember saying out loud "This is stupid". It all hit me at once! The Bible was silly, chauvinistic and cruel. Above all though, it was really silly. An ark with EVERY animal? Come on. After that I lost all faith in god, and was stuck publicly saying I believed in god at school so as I did not get kicked out. Maybe it was silly, but I liked my friends at the school and had a girlfriend I really liked.
I'm an atheist now, and feel much better about my morality and sense of self. I"m a college student and find it interesting to learn about how religion influences the way people perceive and interact with the world. I guess my religious upbringing isn't all bad. I still admire self-sacrifice and want to go into a service oriented job eventually and at the very least it made me actually reflect on things like morality. Even though I've been an atheist for over 5 years, I still sometimes fear going to hell or talking sacrilegiously about god. Logically, I know its hogwash, but I guess it is just hardwired into me. On the whole though, much happier and much more at peace with myself and the world around me.
If you are still reading and I haven't bored you away thanks for reading my story, it's nice to lay it all there. I'm sure if you were brought up religious you can probably relate to some of the same things.
Starting from the begining-Ever since the age of 4 or 5, I was very into Christianity and the Bible. Hell, when I grew up I wanted to be Jesus! Little 5 year old me always admired the self sacrifice of Jesus that I had been told by my church and school. Also, who doesn't want to be the hero of the story?
In grade school, some things happened to me that made me cling to religion even harder,. I wanted to be a missionary when I grew up, it seemed like a good fit for me. Even in elementary school though, some things started to bother me. Things such as the injustice of starving people (how could a good god allow that?) and the treatment of homosexuals by the church didn't sit well with me.
Flash forward to middle school, and I am still a Christian, but I honestly can't follow my church or school's teachings. Things like evolution, the age of the earth and the big bang theory caused me to doubt the inerrancy of the Bible. Yeah, a VERY loose reading of the Bible allowed me to still believe in Jesus, but it just never felt right. Couple that with my schoolmates and church's treatment of homosexuals and women, something that has always bothered me, and my faith was shaken. Like I said, I still believed in Jesus, but it just never felt right.
Flash forward one more time- the scene is a high school biblical ethics class. I am reading a chapter of the old testament about the ark in Genesis, and I remember saying out loud "This is stupid". It all hit me at once! The Bible was silly, chauvinistic and cruel. Above all though, it was really silly. An ark with EVERY animal? Come on. After that I lost all faith in god, and was stuck publicly saying I believed in god at school so as I did not get kicked out. Maybe it was silly, but I liked my friends at the school and had a girlfriend I really liked.
I'm an atheist now, and feel much better about my morality and sense of self. I"m a college student and find it interesting to learn about how religion influences the way people perceive and interact with the world. I guess my religious upbringing isn't all bad. I still admire self-sacrifice and want to go into a service oriented job eventually and at the very least it made me actually reflect on things like morality. Even though I've been an atheist for over 5 years, I still sometimes fear going to hell or talking sacrilegiously about god. Logically, I know its hogwash, but I guess it is just hardwired into me. On the whole though, much happier and much more at peace with myself and the world around me.
If you are still reading and I haven't bored you away thanks for reading my story, it's nice to lay it all there. I'm sure if you were brought up religious you can probably relate to some of the same things.
