When Did You First Suspect???

[Autolite]

Many of you have written describing when you first realised that you were Atheist but I am curious to know as to how it all began. I am asking, when did you first suspect that religion was bogus?

I was sent to Sunday school as far back as I could remember but I had always had this buried feeling that the whole thing was somehow fake. Like watching a Disney movie, it was meant to be entertaining yet it wasn't supposed to be believed as factual.

The odd part of the situation was that my parents would repeat the Sunday school stories as if they had actually happened. In elementary school we were taught about dinosaurs, whales and the animal world, yet these lessons seemed to conflict with the bible stories. The 'Noah's Ark' deal and the 'Jonah-in-the-whale' story could not be reconciled, even in a kiddie brain, with what we had been taught the rest of the week.

As a youngster, I had no concept of Atheism and was unaware that anyone would be "allowed" to disbelieve so I kept my suspicions hidden. There didn't seem to be any upside to letting my parents know that I was doubting what we were being told in Sunday school so I just kept my face shut. After all, it didn't make much sense to contradict the ones keeping me clothed and fed.

So, have any of you had these suspicions at an early age? Did you tell your parents? If you did, what was their responce? I would guess that I was not the only kid that ever had to deal with this type of doubt...

[slingblade]

Yes, I also thought there was something funny about it all, from an early age. But to question was to doubt god, and worse, it likely meant you had demons inside you, twisting and controlling you so you couldn't properly worship or appreciate god.

I was too young to understand the insidious control in such statements, but I did know it didn't seem fair that god could allow us, against our wills, to be possessed, and then blame us for our demon-generated lack of faith.

Or being told that if bad things happen to you, the christian, it means:

You lack faith. (except, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, it's supposed to move mountains. Why isn't my small, childish faith enough, then?)

God is testing you. (but you are not supposed to test him, and worse, he never seems to read the results, 'cause he just keeps testing and testing and testing....)

God is disciplining you. (now, in the future, and even after your death)

You have sinned. (didn't they say that being born again would remove your sinful urges? Mine are still here, and going strong. Maybe I didn't do it right; I'll get saved again. And again. And again. Darn it--still want to sin. Why isn't it working? They can't be lying to me, can they?)

You are possessed by demons. (the protection of the lord is on you, except when it's not)

Yeah, a lot of it seemed hard to understand, to reconcile. Eventually, it became impossible.

[Wauthan]

I guess it's almost too simple an explanation but I first suspected something was amiss the very moment I found the "Myths & Religions" section in the local library. I must have been about eight years old at the time.

Hint to all of you that want your childrens relation to christianity to be nice, quiet and unquestioning. Don't let them read books about other religions on their own. Also, if you fail to stop them from being exposed to nonbiblical texts, use better counters for their questions then "because it says so in the bible".

Then again it still took me a couple of years to stop praying altogether. Amazing the kind of shenanigans kid resort to just to keep their grandparents happy. Even went through with the whole confirmation business for their sake. Felt really strange professing my faith to a god I did not actually believe in, but I guess that's fairly common in Sweden.

But it's not like I don't understand. Both pairs of grandparents were fairly miserable, each in their own personal quirky way, and all of them felt that their religion was the backbone in what made them "good people". And what grandparents don't want their grandchildren to grow up to be good people?

[Digital Shadow]

I was somewhat lucky in that aspect. My parents are Unitarian Universalist and mostly went to church for social reasons. They also encouraged me to think for myself, especially in matters of religion so I never really remember a point in my childhood where I had faith, or even remotely believed in God.

I guess that would be a sad story from the perspective of the religious, but I'm quite happy it turned out that way and I'd like to think I would have eventually come around to atheism even if I had been indoctrinated into a religion, but who knows.

[Undesired Walrus]

Three years ago when I saw a moth fly into a candleflame. I realised that they do this because humanity didn't invent the candle until quite recently in Earth's existence.

I admit it is a poor argument for atheism, and I didn't realise how thin the arguments are for theism until about a year ago, but it all seemed so clear and obvious at that moment.

It's strange. If anyone else was a Catholic, they may know what I mean when I say this, but I don't think I ever really believed God existed. The strange thing was that catholicism was so deeply ingrained in me, eating bread, drinking wine and kneeling to Mary was simply a very deep, unwavering instinct. I often wonder what it would be like to really, really believe in God, and I'm somewhat sorry I missed out on that.

Perhaps it was helpful growing up in a catholic school that had about 15% Muslims and about 5% Sikh pupils. I'm quite certain that different faiths allowed me to always believe Noah's Ark to be nonesense, for example.

[Irony]

I think I was around 6, I'd heard in church that Jesus dying allowed people to go to heaven, so naturally I asked about the people who died before that. I don't remember the answer, but I do remember realizing that it didn't jive with the notion of a loving and all-powerful God. That wasn't really the point where I started to question whether God was real, but it was the point at which I became realized that the church didn't actually know anything about him.

[Foster Zygote]

For me, real doubt began in my late teens when I stumbled upon the problem of evil. I didn't even know that that's what it is called, it just occurred to me that there were serious logical flaws in the model of God as omnipotent and omniscient and infallible. The idea that this perfect consciousness had created something so displeasing to itself made no sense. Even the "free will" apologia failed. If God's creation chose a path that displeased him then it cannot have been a perfect creation.

[Pardalis]

We never really went to church, and my parents sure never forced me to. I got through all that first communion and confirmation thing but that was mostly a cultural thing, and I just followed the herd. I watched Franco Zeffirelli's "Jesus of Nazareth" every year when it was shown on tv near Easter time, and always liked it and was inspired by it (and still am, it's a pretty damn good picture), but I never really gave it too much thought.

I think the thing that made me become an atheit/agnostic/apatheist was that as a child, everytime something bad happened or I wish something specific to go well I used to pray. It almost had become a reflex. I finally realized what I was doing and how selfish that was, and also how illogical. Why would god listen to me when thousands of people are in far worst situations?

And then I saw Nuit et Brouillard (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/)in high school.

[slingblade]

Hint to all of you that want your childrens relation to christianity to be nice, quiet and unquestioning. Don't let them read books about other religions on their own.

That's exactly the way I was reared. It backfired spectacularly. :D

[skeptifem]

despite going to catholic church for a long time i didnt know that the communion was supposed to LITERALLY be flesh. i thought it was figurative and when i found out that they thought the priest blessing it made it into jesus i remember thinking 'what? no way". i was pretty young then probably about 10ish. thats the first thing i remember

[Foster Zygote]

That's exactly the way I was reared. It backfired spectacularly. :D

I find it amusing that people can dismiss the preposterous stories of other religions while accepting their own faith's preposterous stories as historical fact.

"Bodhidharma crossed a river standing on a leaf??? Come on! But we all know for a fact that Jesus totally walked on water."

[Tricky]

When I first heard, or at least understood the words to Cole Porter's "It Ain't Necessarily So". I guess I was about five.

[Wauthan]

I find it amusing that people can dismiss the preposterous stories of other religions while accepting their own faith's preposterous stories as historical fact.

"Bodhidharma crossed a river standing on a leaf??? Come on! But we all know for a fact that Jesus totally walked on water."

Great example. Though to be honest I must admit that it was mainly the myths about the aesir that sort of blew Jesus right out of the water. I mean some of the local myths contained landmarks I had seen myself, while the bible was about some strange faraway land with really exotic customs and people. I remember finding the idea of a readily visible, all to human, god like Thor to be far more appealing then the omnipotent omnipresent God in the bible. Sort of like how I liked spider-man a lot more then superman.

Come to think of it, it was kind of odd just how much of the aesir faith I was exposed to as a child. During the early eighties there were a lot of TV shows, comics and even special classes in school about the old norse religion. I propably know a whole more about that mythology then I do about the Old Testament.

[Kiosk]

When my father taught me about the Big Bang, and showed me his copy of "The Last Two Million Years", which I believe was a Reader's Digest history of evolution. We'd already learned about fossils and such at school, so it wasn't a surprise or anything. I must have been about 7 or 8, I suppose.

Not long after that, we had a morning assembly at school where another class put on a play based on the story of Creation. As we were filing out afterwards, I remarked to the kid sitting next to me, "that's not really how it happened, you know" (probably with that special kind of smugness unique to small children). He clasped a hand over his mouth and informed me that he was going to tell the teacher what I'd just said. "Miss Tovey!" he cried in an outraged tone, "he just said he doesn't believe in the Bible!" Miss Tovey raised an eyebrow and smirked. "So what?" she said. "You don't have to believe it if you don't want to."

Still prayed until I was about 12 though. Just in case. Then we did comparative religions, and I realised that a really thorough bet-hedging would be too much trouble for a growing lad. Praying to a whole Rogues' Gallery of gods every night would, after all, leave no time for masturbation.

[Autolite]

I remember finding the idea of a readily visible, all to human, god like Thor to be far more appealing then the omnipotent omnipresent God in the bible.

When you think about it, it's somewhat astonishing how effective religious indoctrination can be when it has been initiated at an early age. By the seventh and eighth grades, I was very much into Greek mythology and read as much as I could about Zeus, Athena, the Minotaur and all.

The odd thing about it was that it had never occurred to me that these myths were anything other than fantastic fiction yet I still thought that the existence of the christian god was plausible and likely. Kids, go figure ...

[Autolite]

"Miss Tovey!" he cried in an outraged tone, "he just said he doesn't believe in the Bible!" Miss Tovey raised an eyebrow and smirked. "So what?" she said. "You don't have to believe it if you don't want to."

Oh my! I would imagine that such a statement today in the USA would cost the teach her job, at least, in most states. How long ago did this happen???

[sackett]

At the age of practically zero, I found religious talk embarassing. I recall wondering if Jesus went to the bathroom -- and knowing the answer, and finding that the grownups' propaganda made me uncomfortable because of it. "Gentle Jesus meek 'n mild went pee 'n poop just like the rest of us." Call it a child's understanding, as it no doubt was -- but it can be translated into an adult realization of the man-made nature of religion.

About religion in general, an ex-preacher of my acquaintance put it simply: "You didn't belong there."

Oh man but I was so lucky compared to some of you. Please don't resent me for it.

[bruto]

I don't know whether there was any time after the age of 10 or so that I didn't somehow think theism was, if not bogus, just not quite believable. I still went to Sunday school, sang in the choir, etc. and never had much problem with the social end of Christianity, at least as it was taught to me. A pretty liberal bunch, my childhood Christians; they would blush with shame at what passes for Christianity these days. The question of whether agnosticism or atheism makes religion bogus is another matter. I carried on for quite some time with a sort of unworried, don't ask don't tell deism, and still find myself not quite willing to say that just happening not to believe in any kind of definable god makes one entirely non-religious.

My Christian education was the flip side of Slingblade's, I think. My last Sunday School teacher was a rabble rousing old peacenik, who firmly believed that the only faith worth having was what you have left after you've asked all the hard questions. He had strong faith, and lived long and well with it, but he'd rather you ended up an atheist than an unthinking follower.

[Kiosk]

Oh my! I would imagine that such a statement today in the USA would cost the teach her job, at least, in most states. How long ago did this happen???

About 1980, but this was in Britain, where schools operate on a strange double standard. Morning prayers are de rigeur - then you toddle off to learn things which directly contradict those prayers. As much as I admire the idea of separation of church and state, putting God into schools (without copping out on the actual education whenever it contradicts the Bible) never did us any harm over here. On the contrary, it highlighted the silliness of the Bible. Not keeping God special, in some sort of churchy bubble impervious to knowledge and reason, seems to work for us.

(It's probably also worth noting that British Teacher Training Colleges in the 1970s were notorious havens for hippies, Commies, anti-establishment rabble-rousers and worst of all, intellectuals. I'm not sure it's the same today, but between 1972 and 1985, pretty much any British teacher under 40 was almost guaranteed to drive a VW Beetle with a CND sticker in the back window, and while they didn't usually propagate their opinions via teaching, they were certainly unlikely to turn stone-faced at budding atheism.)

[Minarvia]

When I ponder on the OP I guess I really never believed in any god or gods at all for as long as I can remember. I tried to be religious as a young adult but I never could feel comfortable with it. I tried the prayers and the services and the books but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was all bull. I asked questions and could never get any reasonable answers. I then decided it was okay to just chuck it all and embrace my life for what it was and stop cluttering it with religiosity.

[Nim Chimpsky]

It's strange. If anyone else was a Catholic, they may know what I mean when I say this, but I don't think I ever really believed God existed. The strange thing was that catholicism was so deeply ingrained in me, eating bread, drinking wine and kneeling to Mary was simply a very deep, unwavering instinct. I often wonder what it would be like to really, really believe in God, and I'm somewhat sorry I missed out on that.




EXACTAMUNDO!!!

I used to sit there in church as a young lad and let my mind ramble aimlessly, sitting, standing, kneeling, scratching butt, picking nose. Catechism was equally as boring, but at least there you could cut a joke or 2 with your buds and laugh when someone farted.

This is HONESTLY, one of the few memories that I have of going to mass EVERY Sunday for 15 years:

We always sat on the right side of the church and I always sat on the aisle. I used to take my hands and stretch them out as far as I could, I would place my left pinky against the vertical end side of the pew, touch my right thumb to my left thumb, stretch the right hand out and then mark the spot that I could reach with my right pinky. Then I would take the next 5 or 10 minutes scratching a mark in the wood with my thumb. I "marked" my territory this way for about 12 of those 15 years. And it was utterly fascinating to see, year over year, how much further I could reach and how I'd grown.

I went back there, nearly 20 years since I last sat in ANY of the 12 or so pews that I "marked"....and sure enough, you could still see my scratches...very faint now that a new coat of varnish and poly urethane probably cover my marks.

That's the impact gawd and jeebus had in my life.

I NEVER gave any thought whatsoever to whether god even existed. My parents never discussed it and all things religious were more ritual and tradition than anything else.

I found atheism when I was looking for reasons to argue with my then wife (ex now) who had a major conversion to "shiite catholicism". I was in my mid 20's and honestly never even knew that atheism existed and that people actually WROTE books about it!!! When I found the treasure trove of resources available to me via the internet, the library and Borders and fell in love with skepticism and critical thought and the rest is history!

So put me in the "never REALLY believed it" camp, went with the flow, shut my mouth, went through the motions....with 100% verification coming at about age 28.

[lupus_in_fabula]

Well, my family was not religious and neither was the culture I grew up in (Scandinavia). I remember reading the story about David and Goliath, and though it was kind of a cool story. Anyway, I am a cultural Protestant so I was sent to a “Confirmation school” (which is perhaps something like a Sunday school, but a as week long camp) where the priest told us straight away that we can forget about hell; it’s all just a fabrication anyway, she told us. Henceforth it just seemed like an acting class – but it was great fun to be there anyway; I still liked the general message and everyone seemed to have a great time. I also prayed once in a while, although it felt more like a ritual, as in feeling sorry about myself.

The interesting thing about atheism for me is that I have never though about myself as an atheist, mainly because everyone I knew seemed to understand that religiosity was not something to be literal about anyway. Obviously learning about other religions, as a compulsory a subject in school, furthered that inclination. I still find it hard to label myself as an atheist because it feels so natural, as something that needn’t be attached a label to. I can’t seem to understand what role belief can play anyway. I mean, if there’s a god, it wouldn’t be anything I could understandably believe in anyway; I don’t think belief is the proper way of approaching such thing anyhow. If there’s a God, everything is that. I think pretending to know the will of God would indeed be absurd. I’m a “numinous person” but I get such feelings when understanding something profound (like watching Car Sagan’s Cosmos). Listening to Joseph Campbell or Alan Watts gives me the same kind of feeling too.

[juniper_ann]

I always understood the old testament stories to be parables, and the Catholic church keeps the really disturbing stuff out of the Sunday cycle, so that didn’t bother me.

When I was 7, I decided that anyone who would send someone to hell forever with no hope of repentance or reprieve was evil. My parents told us that you could only go to hell for really bad stuff, like murdering people, but that didn’t seem to justify eternal torture. Jesus and Mary and the saints were still good guys, but not so much this God fellow. However, I managed to talk myself back into the fold, and I didn’t become an agnostic until I was 22.

I never questioned God’s existence until I was about 12 (as a very small child, I even thought that that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus lived in our church attic part-time). However, I thought that God only rarely interacted with the world. Oh, sure, he had sent Jesus, and he’d made a couple of miracles since then, but he was mostly biding his time, waiting for us to die…so he could send the bad ones to hell! Mwahahahaha!

[PAC]

I has taken a long time to get to Atheist. I guess I didn't want to give up at least some form of hope that this is not my only life. But I'm there.

I remember when the first crack appeared. I was in religious ed class at my Catholic church in fourth grade. Some kids asked questions without easy answers and the nun replied "God does not mean for us to understand these things"! That hit me like a brick. And the process began.....

[Silentknight]

I don't think I had any kind of epiphany, so to speak. It was more a gradual accumulation of doubt based on questions I had, that any child would ask, which went unanswered for me.

When I first heard the term "God" used, e.g. "God only knows..." I kept asking who that was, but nobody could give me a clear definitive answer. When I attended a Lutheran elementary school, the unanswered questions kept stacking up, as did the doubts. I discovered the problem of evil on my own, when I wondered how a good God can let terrible things happen to decent people. I realized that, given how abusive and apathetic the pastor and some of the teachers were, religion does not necessarily make you a good person.

I attended their church service, sang and prayed with the rest of them, but I never really felt anything because I couldn't see the point. Why would a God who exists everywhere require you to go to a specific building just to talk to him? Why does God play favorites? Why do we need to pray or sing if he knows what we're thinking and how we feel at any given moment?

The whole God concept never really sank in for me. All it did was saddle me with arbitrary guilt, and the paranoid feeling that someone was always breathing down my neck, watching everything I do. After I left that school and started attending (a much better) public school, I lapsed in my beliefs. I was liberal Christian for a while, although this likely had nothing to do with the Christianity part, then agnostic / deist.

Several years ago I found out what atheism was, and decided that most of my views already coincide with atheism and humanism. I adopted the label; it didn't adopt me. I went back and studied Christianity on my own terms, which I believe is how anyone ought to approach it, and have also recently taken an interest in Buddhism and Shamanism. My current stance is best described as agnostic / atheist.

[Chimera]

I am asking, when did you first suspect that religion was bogus?



So many things just didn't add up. I remember learning about primitive man in my social studies class in 3rd grade public school, then learning about Adam and Eve in my Wednesday evening Catholic catechism class. I didn't know how to reconcile the two ideas, and neither did my parents or teachers.

I also remember my mother explaining to me the concept of "Limbo" (the weird place where unbaptized babies were thought to go). I was horrified at the idea of helpless babies being deprived of heaven because of a stroke of bad luck. My mom tried to make me feel better by telling me..."but the church doesn't teach that anymore; they did away with it", as if the Catholic Church could just cancel their teachings however they saw fit. It seemed hypocritical and strange indeed.

I discarded Catholicism pretty early on, but it took me well into my 30s to discover that it was OK not to believe. I started noticing that the smartest people I was meeting were atheists. Not to mention the sexiest. :p

[Autolite]

Some kids asked questions without easy answers and the nun replied "God does not mean for us to understand these things"! That hit me like a brick.

HOLY COW (if you'll pardon the expression)! This is the first time that I've ever heard of that sort of rationale being used. "God doesn't want us to understand"? I wonder what the substantiation for that reasoning would be. God is testing our faith? True belief doesnt require understanding?

I must admit that that is certainly the most fiendishly clever, indisputable catch-all answer to keep thinking folks in their place that I've ever heard. The ultimate theistic coup-de-grace if there ever was one...

[bruto]

HOLY COW (if you'll pardon the expression)! This is the first time that I've ever heard of that sort of rationale being used. "God doesn't want us to understand"? I wonder what the substantiation for that reasoning would be. God is testing our faith? True belief doesnt require understanding?

I must admit that that is certainly the most fiendishly clever, indisputable catch-all answer to keep thinking folks in their place that I've ever heard. The ultimate theistic coup-de-grace if there ever was one...I'm surprised you haven't seen that one. For many people, true belief doesn't only not require understanding, it requires not understanding.

[Loss Leader]

I went to quite a religious sleepaway camp when I was 12. I remember that a friend told the Rabbi that I was having doubts about God. The Rabbi advised me that we can only imagine things that we have experienced. Since God has no physical appearance, the idea of God must have originated by him placing it in our minds. Otherwise, we never could have thought him up.

At the time, I nodded and thanked him. Now, of course, I wish I could go back and tell him how idiotic that Cartesian nonsense was.

By 15, I was able to publicly admit that I did not believe in God.

[Quinn]

I was still a kid, probably pre-teen, when I first thought, "What if all this God stuff is all wrong? What if somebody just made the whole thing up? But no, all the grown ups believe it, and they're all pretty smart, so there's no way they could all be wrong about something like that."

The joke was on me on so many levels...

[JoeEllison]

I've told this one before. I started reading early, and my mom explained to me that stories with talking animals and monsters and magical stuff weren't real. They also told me flat-out that there was no Santa, and adults just pretended to believe in it for their kids. I made it to about 11 years old before I found out that adults weren't pretending to believe in Jesus. Scared the crap out of me that the whole world was filled with crazy people who believed in talking animals and monsters and magical stuff, INCLUDING MY PARENTS!!!

[Autolite]

I'm surprised you haven't seen that one. For many people, true belief doesn't only not require understanding, it requires not understanding.

Well, I've heard the explanation that god's reasons are sometimes beyond our capabilities for comprehension, (god is smart, humans are stupid), but this is the first time I've heard that god doesn't WANT us to understand. I think it's a marvelous elucidation! It can be used to trump almost any imaginable query one might have.

It's so simple and universally applicable. Of course christianity and the bible make no sense. God doesn't want us to understand! Absolutely brilliant...

[Autolite]

But no, all the grown ups believe it, and they're all pretty smart, so there's no way they could all be wrong about something like that."

I suspect that this could be one of the major reasons that christianity persists. Even today, for me as an adult Atheist, it's still befuddling. How is it that so many people could be so wrong???

[Nogbad]

I went through a happy clappy Christian phase for a couple of years in my very early 20s. I was at a concert being delivered by a Merkin group called YWAM. (Youth with a Mission). They got us to sing along to a song about not being kin to a monkey (or something). I had a sort of an odd experience where I watched myself sing this nonsense (metaphorically watched obviously) and it was disconcerting. I was aware that the more I sang the more I didn't believe it. I didn't finish the song and thereafter started to look at what I was doing and what I believed in a much more critical way. It all unravelled from there really. It was a Damascus Road in reverse - I had been offered a place at a Bible College - instead I went to Uni and studied History.

However, I would not describe myself as anti-religion as such but I can't subscribe to anything approaching a literalist interpretation of texts. I think religious belief can be a useful tool in helping people order their lives - it just becomes less useful when they use it to order other peoples' lives.

[bellonax]

IT was kinda weird for me cos my parents were "fringe members" of the unification church (moonies) and therefore taught us stuff that I later found out other members didn't accept, such as the Big Bang really happened (except it was an explosion of god's love *cringe*), evolution was real (but god kick-started it) and that no matter what you believed, if you were a good person you'd go to heaven (you just wouldn't be in such a nice part of heaven as us good moonies).

So for the time I was in it, until I was 15, I didn't have much to question. I probably would have doubted sooner if it had been more fundamental. We eventually left due to the blatant corruption and I got into science. About a year after we left I was reading Desmond Morris' book on Body Language (of all things) and there's a paragraph where he writes why he thinks people would invent a soul and I thought "Hmmm, that makes sense. Oh! I don't believe in god anymore!".

And that was that.

[kellyb]

I was about 7 when I started wondering if the theology I was being taught was bogus, but it wasn't until I was in my mid 20's that I seriously considered the possibility that the entire concept of god and a soul, etc. was completely bogus.

[This Guy]

I was a late bloomer, so to speak. I've mentioned in at least one other thread, I think, that when I was growing up there wasn't a lot of religion in the house. Mom and Dad divorced when I was very young. Dad was Catholic, and Mom wasn't really much of anything. We would go to church on Easter, and maybe a few other odd times, but very rarely. Mom considered herself Christian, but again, it was hard to tell.

I only went to a Catholic church three times that I can recall. When my Aunt was married (I was about 5 I think), about a year later, when she was buried (drunk driver ran a red light), and when I buried my Father.

Mom sent me to Vacation Bible School a few summers, at a nearby Baptist church. I have only very vague memories of that. What I do remember is that around the house, God was mentioned, from time to time. The bible was also mentioned. Mom had this 20 - 30 pound monster bible that set on the coffee table in the living room. I don't recall ever seeing her read it, but she would from time to time make comments about things in the bible. My maternal Grandmother was very religious. Pentecostal. Speaking in tongues and all that stuff. I did go to church with her a few times, again, when I was very young. Again, only vague memories of any of it.

Thing was that God was just assumed to exist. I wasn't fed a lot of religious stuff, it was just little comments and what have you that indicated he just was. Growing up, I never had a reason to doubt his existence.

After I married, and was in my late 20's or early 30's, the wife and I got to talking about religion. She had been brought up in a religious house (preachers daughter). We had never really talked about religion, but I think I can say that we both just assumed there was a God. We basically discussed what we should do about God. The question being, was there something we should do to be right with him, or are all religions crap? She felt that her family's religion was probably about as close to what the bible indicated as any of them, so we decided to contact a local congregation, and get some learn'n. A guy came out, and explained the church's beliefs, using bible passages to back them up. It made sense. So we joined, got dunked, and had a gay old time. We were both pretty active. The church was rather small, and had just gone through a bit of a falling out of sorts. Seems a split of some sort had happened a year or so before we came along. But it was nice. Because of the small size, we quickly learned all the members. We both started teaching Sunday school classes (for kids). I was a member of the Mens Leadership Group (forget what it was actually called). The church didn't have any Elders or Deacons, because of the split, it seems. The Mens group got together every week to discuss the finances and needs, desires and what have you to do with the church. We basically voted and majority ruled. Point is, I was pretty active, and involved.

Then I got this idea (usually works out bad for me;)). My Father-in-law published a church magazine. I thought I would try to write an article or two for it, and send them to him to see what he thought. Problem was, I wanted what I said to be biblical, so I was reading a lot of bible on topics like baptism, the holy spirit, and other big topics in the church. The more I read, the less sense it all made. I ended up with more questions the more I read. I think that was when the first seeds of doubt were planted.

The road from that point to me taking the weak atheist* stance I have today took nearly 20 more years.


* I don't claim there is no god, I only claim that I don't believe there is.

[Autolite]

The road from that point to me taking the weak atheist* stance I have today took nearly 20 more years.

Here is another aspect of the issue that raises a few questions. Why does it seem to take so long for so many of us to realise the truth about what we might have often suspected? As stated in the OP, I had always felt that religion was somehow fake yet I didn't claim my Atheism until my mid thirties. The impetus to believe can indeed be unrelenting and insidious...

[bruto]

Here is another aspect of the issue that raises a few questions. Why does it seem to take so long for so many of us to realise the truth about what we might have often suspected? As stated in the OP, I had always felt that religion was somehow fake yet I didn't claim my Atheism until my mid thirties. The impetus to believe can indeed be unrelenting and insidious...It takes a certain amount of self-confidence to go against such a strong current. Faith is easy and socially acceptable, and even when you lack it, it's usually easier simply to ignore it than it is to deny it outright.

[Kiosk]

I was at a concert being delivered by a Merkin group called YWAM. (Youth with a Mission). They got us to sing along to a song about not being kin to a monkey (or something).

Was it this one: http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/mind/20_-_Robin_and_Crystal_Bernard_-_The_Monkey_Song.mp3

I'm no kin to the monkey no-no-no
The monkey's no kin to me yeah-yeah-yeah
I don't know much about his ancestors but
Mine didn't swing from a tree

It seems so unbelievable and yet they're saying it's true
They're teaching us about it in school now, that humans were monkeys once too

Although it's so ridiculous, they're teaching us now that it's true
The teachers who came from a monkey would be better off in a zoo

It seems so much more believable, and surely surely it's true
That God made Man in his image, no monkey story will do

This monkey business has to go, because it just isn't true
It's such a disgrace to the monkey, a disgrace to the human race too

I'm no kin to the monkey no-no-no
The monkey's no kin to me yeah-yeah-yeah
I don't know much about his ancestors but
Mine didn't swing from a tree
Mine didn't swing from a tree
Mine didn't swing from a tree

...originally sung by the woman who played Helen in that series "Wings", and her sister. Words and music by their father, a preacher. Nice.

[Gate2501]

I was still a kid, probably pre-teen, when I first thought, "What if all this God stuff is all wrong? What if somebody just made the whole thing up? But no, all the grown ups believe it, and they're all pretty smart, so there's no way they could all be wrong about something like that."

The joke was on me on so many levels...


I have been an atheist pretty much my entire life. I never had any sort of religious pressure growing up, and as a kid was totally obsessed with dinosaurs.

However, I always did think that maybe the adults did just know something that I didn't. By my logic, it seemed like if they believed something THIS stupid, then what was to stop them from forgetting to go to work, or pick me up from school? What was to stop them from drinking drain-o because it is a pretty blue color? I always figured that they probably knew something that I didn't, something that I couldn't understand yet.

Now I am 28, and have a 2 year old of my own. I realized long ago that yes, unfortunately, most adults believe this nonsense. Compartmentalization allows for them to keep it in a nice little mental box, away from the naughty logic and critical thinking that would shred it.

I was very disappointed in them (adults).