Question for atheists...

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OK, so Im assuming that most of you guys/girls grew up under a certain religion, so my question is...what drove you to atheism? Did you look into other religions first or just go straight to atheism? Im just curious...

I never was religious. It always seemed illogical with no basis in reality.

Both my parents are non religous (but they grew up in religious families), so I was never exposed to religion apart from other people.

I never decided to become an atheist. I don't have any believe in atheism.

Much like Sand, it just didn't seem logical. Though technically I'm agnostic leaning towards atheism.

I couldn't understand what religion was until I was 13. Afterwords, Atheism and Christianity used to play Ping-Pong with my faith (that means I would go from A to C to A again to C again etc.). During my junior and senior years of high school, I honestly thought that Christianity was the one true faith. Now I'm delusional and think that all beliefs and all of history is wrong.

On a side note, I have some friends who used to be atheists, but are now die hard Christians. I've asked them what evidence they have of God's existence and the said there is no evidence, there is only faith. I have also asked them what if their religion turned out to be wrong and they responded by saying that Christianity has totally change their lives for the better, and they refuse to go back to being atheists, because they were miserable believing in nothing.

Even though I don't believe in ANYTHING, the one thing I do believe is that everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe in, even though everyone else thinks that their beliefs are rubbish.

This will sound like the pinnacle of irrationality and cultural influence. But, in all honesty, I must say.

My single father was never (and still isn't) really religious but he wasn't particularly nontheistic either. He seemed largely disinterested in the whole affair, though my grandparents were religious. I do recall one instance of discussion, though, which may (partially) lay the seeds of my future atheism.

I was having a discussion with my paternal grandfather, I think either before Nursery (Pre-Kintergarden) or during Nursey. It went somewhat along these lines...

Me: Does God know whose going to hell before he creates them.

Granfather: Yes.

Me: Then why does he let them be bad?

Grandfather: Because they decide to.

The whole line of reasoning did not make sense to be at the time. I had found it odd that God would make someone just to burn alive. Nevertheless, even after my grandparents death, I remained nominally Christian (This case may explain my early adolescent fixation of philosophy).

In Grade Four I became intensely interested in evolutionary biology. It was my first somewhat "academic" interest [I was not a bibliophile or even keenly read child, my earlier interests had been based on decadent television: Jurrasic Park, The Mask, Pokemon (for a short time), and finally (most intensely of all) Digimon. Then again, my infinitesimally small working poor family was not one full of readers.].

Well, one Sunday I was watching a televised surmon from "Church of the Rock". On that surmon, the pastor mocked evolutionary theory in such a misrepresentative manner. I was furious and that set in my mind a sort of false dichotomy between evolutionary theory and Christianity.

One of my favourite websites (for my introduction into the world of reading occured more through web browsing than books) was No Answers in Genesis. While the site itself had no position on the relationship between science (specifically, evolutionary biology) and religion, I read some of their links. Every once in a while a link would come up to a netroots atheist site. Reading, what to me seemed reasonable, positions of the netroots atheists caused me to gravitate towards their beliefs (atheism even became a special interest of mine).

So that, in a nutshell, is how I became an atheist. My recent (starting in early adolescence) atheistic views no longer hold supernaturalism or the existence of God as mutually exclusive with evolutionary theory, just that a godless universe is more parsimonious. My later atheistic views were heavily influenced by my exposure to philosophy, especially the Principle of Parismony.

When i was younger i was an atheist, religion just seemed stupid to me. I couldn't understand how a benevolent god would ask his people to sacrificially kill goats and smear the blood on their doors to avoid a plague (Only to have religious people saying not to hurt animals because it is wrong). I couldn't understand how god could say murder is wrong, yet in several parts of the bible he mass-slaughters people.

I've grown up to be an agnostic, i've realised that nearly all religions are inherrently flawed in some way, but that doesn't mean there isn't an higher power out there and there's no way we could ever proove there was or wasn't. Technically i can't truly proove that other people are real, or that what i am sensing right now is a hallucination. Who knows, i might actually be dreaming.

I grew up in a catholic family. They fact is I never really believed, I didn't believe in Santa or the tooth fairy, etc. I didn’t have a problem with some of the routine to start with apart form the social aspect but I quickly tired of it.

More recently I come to the view that maybe there is a personality that make people more likely to believe in supernatural stuff. It makes sense. I just see these people as different rather then necessarily wrong.

I wasn't exactly raised from a religious home.

My dad was an atheist...but not a staunch atheist. He was brought up in a very religious oriented home which I think is the reason why he was opposed for us kids to go to church or teach us about the bible. My grandma did most of that whenever she had us over.

My mom wasn't not a religious person per se. She believed in god but not in a conservative christian way. Her mom was the same way....she use to call god her higher power or something like that. I'd describe her as more pagan than religious though.

I grew up believing some of the bs but I wasn't religious or went by the book. Ever since I was a kid, I shuttered and just couldn't believe god would invent hell if he was suppose to be a loving god. As I got older, my cousin came out of the closet and I remember my grandma from my dad's side of the family preaching to him that homosexuality was looked down upon by god. Well I knew my cousin better than that and I just couldn't see why again...a "loving" god would put someone into hell based on their sexual orientation.

Anyway, I began thinking more deeply about the issues in christianity. It dawned on me that like any rule and religion, it was written by men whom ostracized most of the minority. I began reading historical stuff about most females being accused of witchcraft and the crap they did to them...all in the name of god. The same with the wars and abuse to people who didn't suit their rank. The whole thought of historical devastations due to people who believed their religion was better than another person's. The mere thought of people being accused of things deemed "unholy" and therefore punished or executed. Something that is even still going on here today.

Basically I lean toward agnosticism only that I think spiritual and religious dogma are two different things. Maybe that sounds delusional of me, but I don't see anything wrong in someone who believes or has fuzzy feelings about certain things. Just as long as it isn't opposing or hurting another person. I notice that monotheistic religions tend to dominate and discriminate more than most polytheistic religions.....but don't quote me on that since I know that polytheistic religions have their fair share of sacrifices!! !

Since my parents were so awesome they told me "Hey, believe in anything you want. That's OK with us". I've never been religious. I've always treated the subject as something of a funny rambling of some old farts, being heavily interested in religion. As it has become clear to me what sort of hinder it is to human progress, and what needless suffering it brings upon people, my hatred towards it has increased. I for one can only hope that somewhere in the future the churches will stand empty, in the same manner as the temples of the Greek Pantheon, a reminder of times where we were more primitive.