Atheists Who Deconverted- Earliest Source of Doubt?

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The earliest I can remember was reading "Candide" by Voltaire. I was in High School. "Candide" made me start thinking about the problem of a less than perfect world. If god created everything... Hmmm.

When I became an Atheist, it was because I was pissed off at the world when I was a teenager.

When I found out that people don't choose to be gay... At that point I start just doing my own research and realized that the bible couldn't possibly be true was so full of s**t it isn't even funny... Although now while I guess I'm still an atheist I'm trying to force myself to be an agnostic right now with my depression to hope that maybe I'm not so alone... But i know for a fact Christianity is BS...

When I encountered evolution as a kid in science classes and that as a consequence the stuff I was being taught in religious education classes about our descent from Adam and Eve was merely mythology but being presented as fact. It opened the floodgates of doubts. More scientific enquiry further relegated the Bible to the realms of mythology and legend.

Some people think of Atheists as being "mad at God." You can't be mad at an entity that you recognize that doesn't exist. The recognition of the unfortunate nature of many things in the world can certainly make one open to the possibility that reality is not designed by an all powerful, omniscient, benevolent creator.

Last edited by Rocky on 25 May 2012, 4:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

I wasn't mad at God, I never blamed God for my problems, but I did get very angry at people that believed in God.

Recognizing the fact that we don't live in "the best of all possible worlds," can be depressing. I prefer to appreciate the fact that, despite the odds to the contrary, I was fortunate enough to be born to enable me enjoy that which is good about reality. The fact that it was not designed makes the good things easier to appreciate. Reality could have been a lot worse. For one thing, I am very glad I wasn't born in an earlier age, before science could explain reality without resorting to any god. Also, before the wwweb, finding anyone with a compatible viewpoint would have been very unlikely.

They can be frustrating. I try to remember when I thought that way. Also, overcoming indoctrination from a very young age can be difficult to overcome. Not everyone has had the opportunity to learn enough science and logic to recognize that a god is not needed to explain reality. (Before anyone replies, I recognize that there are some knowledgeable people who believe in a god despite a good education.)

Nonsense! Everything is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.

ruveyn

Ruveyn aka Pangloss.

What the bible said versus what preachers tried to tell me it said. I read through the bible for the first time when I was only ten or eleven years old, and I had a lot of questions. I went to the priest of my church, and asked them. His answers simply didn't line up in my mind, and so I began to research things on my own. A few years later, I decided that even if the biblical god was real that christianity was a bunch of bull and I wanted nothing to do with it.

I have read the Bible all the way through. I would guess that most Believers never have. I have heard atheists who say that is what deconverted them. Not surprising to me. There are things in there that are not taught in Sunday school. No wonder that the Catholic church didn't want the Bible translated to English, and previously only performed the services in Latin.

Wasn't raised religious. I read a few pages of a Bible once in a hotel room and was sickened by it.

If I wasn't so bored I would have more important things to complain about, like most atheists.

I also read the Bible all the way through in my younger days and was similarly dismayed at the hatred and violence therein. The God of the Bible seemed like a megalomaniac psychopath to me.

Modern Christians hardly follow their holy book, even if they defend it and the atrocities their god commits in it. Their religion can be summed up as "Good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell, and Jesus is awesome." And many Christians don't even believe in hell.

The ones who actually do follow their holy book more closely are considered mildly insane.

Frankly, I liked the idea of religious asceticism and meditative prayer, and the idea is still something of a turn-on for me. However, when I realized that most religious people who talk big about it are really the most materialistic and mercenary jerks on the planet, the glamour of it fell away pretty quickly. Hypocrisy is really what did religion in for me.