My conversion story is as follows:
I lived the first 13 years of my life convinced I was a devout Catholic. I was sent to Sunday School for about 9 years. During my early childhood, my family would go to church every Sunday, but as it slowly became more and more inconvenient, that stopped, and church was reserved for Christmas and Easter.
My conversion is probably based on my interest in science. In 7th grade (for those unfamiliar with the American education system, 7th grade is taken when you are about 13), I was enrolled in a basic biology class. About midway through the year, we began briefly talking about the origin of life, and we were allowed two basic viewpoints - bacterial evolution and divine creation. A very close friend of mine, who I'd long known to be a skeptic, immediately decided upon bacterial evolution.
It was at this point I was pretty much forced into thinking about my beliefs seriously - a process which seems to be the key to conversion. He's my friend, he's very smart...how could he be wrong? But then again, how have I been wrong all this time?
I pretty quickly realized what I had been believing, or what I thought I had been believing, for most of my life. I observed that I had never felt any sort of response while praying, and I prayed a lot. I was never truly invested in God, and when the choice was God or scientific endeavor, it was clear to me at that point. Soon after, I bought the God Delusion, and never looked back.
Slowly but surely from that point on, I became, essentially, an evangelical atheist. I'm fortunate enough now to be in a school with a majority of the student base being at least agnostic. I am however, an American, and am faced with religious people every day. I've noticed a lot of young people being agnostic or atheist, and am optimistic that the next generation will contain a large amount of such opinions.
Cheers,
~Nick
I lived the first 13 years of my life convinced I was a devout Catholic. I was sent to Sunday School for about 9 years. During my early childhood, my family would go to church every Sunday, but as it slowly became more and more inconvenient, that stopped, and church was reserved for Christmas and Easter.
My conversion is probably based on my interest in science. In 7th grade (for those unfamiliar with the American education system, 7th grade is taken when you are about 13), I was enrolled in a basic biology class. About midway through the year, we began briefly talking about the origin of life, and we were allowed two basic viewpoints - bacterial evolution and divine creation. A very close friend of mine, who I'd long known to be a skeptic, immediately decided upon bacterial evolution.
It was at this point I was pretty much forced into thinking about my beliefs seriously - a process which seems to be the key to conversion. He's my friend, he's very smart...how could he be wrong? But then again, how have I been wrong all this time?
I pretty quickly realized what I had been believing, or what I thought I had been believing, for most of my life. I observed that I had never felt any sort of response while praying, and I prayed a lot. I was never truly invested in God, and when the choice was God or scientific endeavor, it was clear to me at that point. Soon after, I bought the God Delusion, and never looked back.
Slowly but surely from that point on, I became, essentially, an evangelical atheist. I'm fortunate enough now to be in a school with a majority of the student base being at least agnostic. I am however, an American, and am faced with religious people every day. I've noticed a lot of young people being agnostic or atheist, and am optimistic that the next generation will contain a large amount of such opinions.
Cheers,
~Nick
"The finality of death is the coldest truth one must face. Religion makes the perfect distraction." - Anonymous
