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Permalink Reply by Jezzy on November 24, 2008 at 12:33am

My mother offered me like $400 (I'm serious) to complete this LDS Girl's packet called "Personal Progress", that's something like the Boy Scouts eagle program only pointless, but I've been declining because the Personal Progress makes me want to vomit and insults me as a woman and a thinker. It seems like every subject begins with "read these scriptures" and ends with "now think about your role as a housewife".

Still, that kind of money is nothing to scoff at.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Morse on July 12, 2008 at 1:08pm

I grew up a Catholic. A very liberal Catholic, but a Roman Catholic nonetheless. As far as I can remember, it was never pushed down my throat. My parents never really spoke to me or my sister about god. But then, I suppose that was what church was for.

I did go to CCD at an early age. Was Joseph in a Nativity Scene in first grade. Had my first communion, joined the church choir and was confirmed when I was 18.

Then I went to college. Uh oh! This is where I was corrupted by the evil liberal establishment, isn't it!? Well, no. I am a very straightedge guy. Part of that is just being an introvert (or socially inept, either way). I never smoked, never did any drugs, had no sex (thank you social ineptness) and didn't have my first beer until I was 3 months shy of my 21st birthday. On top of that, I've only been drunk once in my life, and then not terribly.

I tell you all of this to point out that my turn to atheism wasn't some attempt at rebellion. Not that this is the group I need to tell that to.

It happened, at least in part, thanks to Penn Jillette. I started listening to his radio show, and his occasional references to atheism got me thinking. Did I really believe in Catholicism? Did I really think Jesus was god? Did I believe in a god at all?

As funny as it is I had lived most of my life and never asked the question "Do I believe this?" It was just taken for granted. I had one side of my brain devoted to reason, after all I was still a liberal in almost every respect, and the other side was my faith. They didn't touch each other.

But I decided to sit down, and think about it.

For a while I became, at least in my head, a Unitarian Universalist. Although I didn't know there was a word for it.

I still believed in a god, but I imagined that no one got it right. All the different religions were worshiping god, but just a god that showed himself in the best way for those people to believe.

Slowly, after more thinking and more research, I realized how silly that was. I was an atheist. I didn't believe in any of this nonsense. It didn't effect my life, it didn't scare me anymore, and I didn't have to believe it to appease anyone.

I've shared this with some of my family. If I'm ever asked directly, I will tell the truth. But we didn't talk much about god before, so it may be a while before I come out to everyone. Still, I'm not hiding. I'm a YouTube atheist, I talk about the subject a lot with friends and coworkers (though never in work), and I have 'atheism' as my 'religion' on facebook. And, of course, I've joined here.

That story was supposed to be why I'm an atheist. It seems more like a little biography. Though it feels good to share it, it doesn't really answer the question. So I will now.

I'm an atheist because there's no evidence for god. At least no evidence I've ever come across. And I've decided to live my life based on the evidence, for good or ill.

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Permalink Reply by Kaye on July 12, 2008 at 2:09pm

Took the words right out of my mouth.

As the old saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water, but you sure as hell can't make him drink."

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Permalink Reply by Steve Johnson on July 12, 2008 at 3:35pm

I prefer the skeptical version, "You can lead a horse to logic, but you can't make him think."

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Permalink Reply by Andreas Nicklasson on July 13, 2008 at 5:36am

Shouldn't that be a sheep rather than a horse in that example?

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Permalink Reply by The 502 on November 15, 2008 at 2:41pm

I like that - I'm using it!

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Permalink Reply by Draccataura on February 28, 2009 at 12:59am

How's this?

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Permalink Reply by Katherine on July 12, 2008 at 3:05pm

Religion never really made sense to me, even when I was a child. I never remember believing in anything when I was younger, yet I wasn't technically an atheist either. My family is Christian, but we never really went to church except for a few times during my childhood, so I didn't know much about Christianity. When I started school though and started reading, I learned a lot about other world religions and thought they were kind of silly, including Christianity. It wasn't until a few years ago until I considered myself to truly be an atheist, though.

Since then, my mom has become extremely religious and my youngest brother and her go to church twice weekly. My other brother attends a private Christian school, and even though he doesn't know much about the religion itself, considers himself to be a Christian because all of his friends are. They like making fun of my disbelief and think it to be rather amusing.

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Permalink Reply by Joel H on July 12, 2008 at 3:12pm

Well... I grew up with my Mom's Baptist Christianity my entire young life. I really believed it all up through 7th grade. I was even Baptized at one point - that summer between 6th and 7th grade. It seemed surreal, and i now understand why people are normally baptized when they are young: so they won't recognize it for what it is - a silly tradition.

I literally fought with myself about whether or not Jesus was actually in my heart or some other bizarre shit that was floating up there in my pubescent brain. Fortunately i met other skeptics in high school, one in particular, who made me feel like it was ok to question, and eventually throw away religion altogether. It was exhilarating, empowering. And it made high school more tolerable, thats for damn sure.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Bridge on July 12, 2008 at 4:07pm

Many years ago, when I was about 7, I came home from the school I was sent to which had both religious and secular education. I began repeating what I was taught, a stream of childish parrotting about god.

A very wise man then asked me "How do you know?"
Confused I replied that the teacher had said so. "
"How does the teacher know?"
Now, completely puzzled I resorted to what I had been told was the authority, the book.
"How do you know that what's in the book is right?"

Those questions had a profound impact. I didn't necessarily have the intellectual development to take that thinking very far, but as I entered adolescence I became very interested in reason and how we know what we think we know. Reading Bertrand Russell was particularly enlightening to me.

I decided that there was no way to know anything about what is not observable (directly or indirectly) and that therefore it was useless to entertain notions about such things.

I also observed that adherence to ideas not supported by fact, when regarded as actionable, causes great harm to humanity. I observed that many have been murdered because their religion was different others. In fact, I was painfully aware that had my family lived in Europe when I was born, there was a very good chance we'd all have been killed. Even today, religion provides the excuse for killing. Disputes which could be resolved by reason and pragmatism are insoluble because the emotional poison of irrational faith intervenes.

Since adolescence I have not believed in any deity. I do, unlike some I know, respect the faith that certain other people have. The faith of those who honestly decide that they believe certain propositions without the pretension to logic or fact have my respect. It is a preference in viewpoint, avowedly emotional and personal which is not irrational. Unfortunately, among the community of theists, such rational theism is rare, although there are many whose views are not totally different. What is also vital is the understanding that faith is purely emotional, and that practical matters are always best guided by fact and reason.

Well, I hope that answers the question.

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Permalink Reply by Joey on July 12, 2008 at 6:01pm

I grew up in the very heart of the bible belt (Alabama) with a southern baptist dad and a mom that didn't care about religion one way or the other.
To this day I'm not sure what my mom is. I think she's probably a deist of some sort.
I was mostly raised by my mom, and taught to question all things, especially if someone spoke as if they were an authority on the subject. (My teachers just looooved me.)
I was never much of a believer. I was probably a deist until I was about 10 or so, and an atheist from then on, once I realized religion was designed as a system for controlling people.

The area I come from admitting that publicly, which I have no problem doing, is pretty much asking to be a pariah.
The only reason most people will come anywhere near you is to convert the foolish heathen to the "truth". Then they get angry when it doesn't work, and you're granted your outcast status, again.
I've always been a pretty politically oriented atheist. If you want to know why religion should be kept out of public schools, just ask me. I've got a loooong list of reasons.

I've only been inside a church twice in my life. Once was a southern baptist church that I was told not to come back to for asking too many questions when I was about 9. The second one was a pentacostal church I went to because I was dating a girl that went there when I was around 15. The first time someone started speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor I was terrified the poor woman was having a seizure and tried to go help her. Once I realized what was going on I laughed until they threw me out. I thought that was rather unfair, since she was rolling in the floor too. Needless to say the girl never spoke to me again. I wasn't upset about it.

So pretty much atheist born, halfassed-deistyjesus raised, atheist by choice.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on July 12, 2008 at 6:56pm

Common sense.

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