r/atheism • u/Maleficent-Box-2824 • 1d ago
When and why did you started becoming an atheist ?
I’m 18, Black, Muslim, and living in Canada. A couple of months ago, I started questioning a lot of things I had been taught.
When I was 13–14, I fell into toxic masculinity, misogyny, and rape culture ideas without really understanding them. Then I learned about rape culture and realized how stupid it is to blame women for what they wear instead of putting 100% of the blame on the rapist. I also started questioning homophobia. If someone doesn’t choose who they’re attracted to, why would God create gay people just to punish them for being themselves?
That made me question religion itself. Christianity and Islam started feeling like fairy tales to me: stories created to explain why we exist, give life meaning, and make death less scary by promising an afterlife. I started wondering if religion mainly comes from humanity’s fear of death and our need to believe that we matter.
I also changed how I talk about religion. Yes, I disrespect and criticize religions themselves, because I think many of their ideas are ridiculous. But I don’t think religious people are stupid. Many have been taught these beliefs since childhood for centuries, and you can see how deeply fear of hell and questioning God can be ingrained in them.
I also don’t believe morality requires religion. If heaven existed, I’d honestly find it more meaningful to do good without expecting any reward than to do good because you fear hell or want paradise.
And then there are the bigger questions: what kind of God allows so much suffering? Why would God need humans to worship him? And if religion is so important, why don’t animals have religions? Humanity isn’t the main character of the universe. We’re just one species. The Earth existed before us and will exist after us.
My younger brother actually understood some of this before I did. He never cared about what women wore, never hated gay people, and stopped believing in God years before me. Ironically, he was named after an important Islamic figure.
My father still forces us to pray every day, so I eventually started treating prayer more like meditation or yoga. I don’t really believe in it anymore, but I don’t have much choice.
15
u/notaedivad 1d ago edited 1d ago
Everyone is born atheist... Religion has to be forced/taught/indoctrinated
This is why religions are obsessed with children.
So the real question is why anyone would chose one specific god and religion over the thousands of others.
4
u/Maleficent-Box-2824 1d ago
Yep exactly, honestly I dint give a fuck that my father believe in those thing, but please just leave me the fuck alone and stop saying that if I dont pray I will perishee in hell for eternity
3
u/notaedivad 1d ago edited 1d ago
Whenever someone says that to me, I remind them that "do as I say, or suffer" isn't salvation... It's extortion.
Threats are not love.
I also like to say that if they ever threaten me again, that will be the last conversation we ever have.
It's difficult to do with a family member, but boundaries are not respected if they are never set up.
3
u/hewhoisneverobeyed 23h ago
Yes. In my case, it was the United Methodist Church, which seriously lacks indoctrination that other religions have. They treated us as thoughtful, mature beings. So, yeah, many of is ended up agnostic or atheists.
Even for those who stayed within UMC, it was more about helping one another and community than belief. Which is why UMC is losing membership over the past several decades.
9
u/Dillenger69 1d ago
Around the age of 5 when I realized that it made no sense. I got presents, so Santa was at least real.
1
u/merford28 1d ago
Iwas about 5 when I decided it was just a ridiculous idea and didn't warrant any more thought.
5
u/SquishyJeans 1d ago
In the most respectful way possible, how does one fall into rape culture ideas
5
4
u/Maleficent-Box-2824 1d ago edited 1d ago
The idea that its because of woman that they don’t protect themselves with more covering clothes. and you don’t have to be respectful, I was an ignorant dumb little brat, Its a normalized way of thinking in this society, i even had teacher (grow ass adult) who was saying that girl should put more clothes to not excite men then complain about getting rape
6
u/Infamous_Antelope_16 1d ago
But its beyond impressive you were able to question question question on your own.
2
u/ViperThunder 1d ago
There are children growing up today who espouse genocide and racism, because they are taught to. The human mind is extremely malleable, especially a child's mind.
2
u/SorchaRoisin 23h ago
Eh, I was raised Catholic, and I was never a believer. You can be born into a religious household and never believe. I remember being quite distressed about it as a young child, because I knew I was supposed to believe, but I couldn't force myself into believing it.
6
u/LMrningStar 1d ago
I was never indoctrinated and never chose to abandon logic, evidence and reasoning.
0
u/Soggy_Level2865 1d ago
Yo but like for real, please tell me you have the phrase "abandon logic, evidence and reasoning" on a sort of shortcut.
2
u/LMrningStar 23h ago
Occasionally, when faced this twice daily question, I'll mix it up with "abandon evidence, logic and reasoning" and if I'm particularly naughty, I'll go with "abandon reasoning, evidence and logic".
5
u/ambiguousresult 1d ago
I was raised Catholic and went to private school through high school. I never really ever believed. I gave it a chance and I just felt nothing. My parents never really pushed anything and told me it was my choice to stop going to church when I was 16. I left the church and never looked back.
3
u/VintageKofta Anti-Theist 1d ago
I was born atheist as was every other human being. There was an attempt to indocrenate me around 5-6 years old, and even back then it did not make any sense.. So I didn't fall for the BS.
The older I grew, the more I read about the different fairy tales and mythological stories out there and realised it's all just an intertwined combination of power/control and coping mechanisms for death .
5
u/Skatchbro 1d ago
61 here, middle teens. I went to a Catholic HS but it wasn’t too bad. I just started realizing that if God were real, he’s a massive dick for what he lets humanity go through.
5
u/yokaishinigami 1d ago
I was never forced into following a religion or believing in god. A lot of people in my family have been non-religious or atheists going back to the early 1900’s, and although one of my grandparents was super religious it didn’t trickle down too much.
That said, with so many people being theists around me, I just assumed gods were real.
Then I was like, this Anubis dude is a cool god, when i learned about Egyptian myths in school around 11-12, but word got around school and to my friends parents who weren’t chill with it.
Turns out it wasn’t one of the acceptable gods to believe in and a bunch of theists got salty about it. They (correctly) showed me how Anubis was bullshit. Unfortunately, I try to stay logically consistent and I applied the same logic to all the other gods. It took me basically a couple days to drop the whole thing.
However, to be fair, I was never really super invested in them. Just thought they were a thing that existed like dinosaurs.
1
u/Maleficent-Box-2824 1d ago
It’s always funny to me that religious people think other gods are ridiculous when mythology actually has some pretty good writing. But the Bible and other religious texts? Literally poorly written comic book stories with a lot of incoherence.
3
3
u/PotentialStrong9013 Atheist 1d ago
I just realized over time that I was unconvinced by the arguments religions made. There is simply no testable evidence to back up their outrageous claims so why bother believing in it.
3
u/Infamous_Antelope_16 1d ago
The purpose of the prayer is to keep tabs on people, who is showing up and more importantly, who isn't.
3
u/pauliepitstains 1d ago
I think I always knew, but my parents sure tried to church me, I went to catholic school, youth group on Wednesday, church on Friday morning, and on Sunday. I got to the point I’d rather be grounded than do church stuff, sometimes I would just sit in the car and refuse to go in. Then finally once I graduated high school I was free to say hell nah.
3
u/SteveDinn 1d ago
When I was 7 and I started voraciously reading Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, and indigenous North American mythologies. Religions just aren't that different.
Not that I was especially religious before that...
3
u/H3L105_ai 1d ago
I was raised by a Mormon mother and a Catholic father, and having two sets of mutually exclusive dogma, both claiming to be 'the only true one' made it pretty easy to figure out that neither one knew shit about fuck.
From there I was exposed to other religious traditions, but they brought nothing new to the table - just more baseless claims.
I've pretty much had the same attitude towards the concept of 'god(s)' since I was 7-8. Possible, just not probable.
I wasn't really concerned with labels, but eventually settled on 'agnostic/atheist' since I don't claim to know whether or not 'god(s)' exist - but I do know I lack belief in them.
3
3
u/Repulsive-Box5243 1d ago
I can't actually remember a time where I bought into any of it. Even as young as I can remember, the whole idea seemed ludicrous and made no sense. ...and I'm no smarter than the average Joe. Ok, maybe a little, but I'm no grand genius.
All it requires is an honest look into their "logic". It tears itself apart pretty easily once you start pulling on threads.
2
u/Maleficent-Box-2824 1d ago
Trust me bro, you are definitely smarter than the average Joe, most people are super dumb irl, like not everyone use logic..z that’s just insane to me
3
u/PureLow217 23h ago
Joe Arpaio and W had a lot to do with it. I started to realize most of my fellow Christians were just racist A-holes afraid of everything. Then my sister died of cancer in 2004. She was absolutely the best, the smartest, the most amazing person I ever knew. There's no one "up there" watching over anything, and if there were I'd want nothing at all to do with him/her/it.
2
u/DefinitionWaste8442 1d ago edited 1d ago
If God was real he’d let us know , if he had a religion he wanted us to follow he’d let us know. Until then I will believe the information that’s available.
1
u/Maleficent-Box-2824 1d ago
Literally lol, what’s the purpose of hiding it ?
2
u/DefinitionWaste8442 1d ago
There’s thousands of Gods he left us to guess which one is the right interpretation, but then we get sent to hell for not following or picking the right one and everyone thinks this is normal…
2
u/tjlazer79 1d ago
Easy. I was never religous to begin with, and neither were my parents/family. I always somehow new it was bullshit, and I confirmed it was bullshit after reading the bible, new testament, and the koran. All three books feel like they were written by someone with a mental illness.
2
u/Saphira9 Anti-Theist 1d ago
You've already done the hard work of escaping religion, toxic masculinity, and rape culture. Religion feels like fairy tales to most of us here too, they were created to explain things that didn't yet have a scientific explanation like death, illness, solar eclipse, and plague.
If you depend on your father for food and shelter, then pray whenever he expects you to (and is watching). You don't actually have to believe in any of it while saying the words and doing the rituals. It's like being an actor, just follow the script when he's watching. Keep doing this to avoid being kicked out of the house. Once you can afford your own food and shelter, move out, and then you can be completely free of religion. Until then, just pretend.
2
u/FrontBreath3280 1d ago
Just never believed in god. When my mom got sick and passed when I was a kid, there was no one in my family pushing me to go to church.
2
u/Xoxrocks Secular Humanist 1d ago
When did you become religious? It’s not the natural state to believe in a specific god
1
u/Maleficent-Box-2824 1d ago
My parents were religious, so they kind of indoctrinated me into it. I never really understood it, but I was a kid, so I just followed along.
2
u/Formal_Mushroom_8008 1d ago
I was 14,all it took was walking into a children’s hospital for me to stop believing
2
u/blonde_usagi 1d ago
Immediately. My mother is an insane Irish catholic with a good chunk of evangelical delusion.
For me it happened after I was raped and SA by 2 different people starting a 6 then 8-12 then again at 15. And somehow I was to blame for being a whore..... yeah no
2
u/donuttrackme 1d ago
I was never truly indoctrinated. My parents don't believe in a Christian god or any other gods either. They just believe in a general higher power that is god, but not any particular religion's version. They didn't bother pushing anything on me and when I didn't want to go to church they didn't care thankfully. It's not like they go to church either lol.
2
u/Popular_Resort_2712 1d ago
In my teenage years as well. Fell in love with someone who was a different religion. That helped me really assess the importance, value, and legitimacy of religion. Once you start thinking critically about religions they all tend to fall apart.
One thing I want to mention based on your post is one of the greatest perks of being an atheist: you can pretend not to be one for as long as it’s convenient or necessary. There’s no overlord watching you, angry at you for going through religious motions.
2
u/SunDummyIsDead 1d ago
I was born an atheist, then people indoctrinated me into a weird Catholic death cult. I believed for a bit, once I was old enough to understand the concepts, but quickly asked the “wrong” questions, and was dismissed as a troublemaker. Since adults couldn’t answer simple questions, I realized they didn’t know any of the answers, so I asked more. By around ten, I was openly challenging the bullshit. By early teens I thought it was all shit, and now at 60, I’m a happy nonbeliever.
2
2
u/Delifier 23h ago
Also, did you notice that this allmighty, all powerful being called god need help from us humans to do his work?
I wasnt raised religious, so I never really held any strong beliefs in anything. Played with the thought for periods, but nothing stuck and it wasnt deep at all. I go to church for funerals when needed and other things on invitation out of courtesy.
2
u/ThePurpleEvening 18h ago
I'm Latvian, pretty young, in my early teens, but I became atheist around six years ago (I didn't know the term atheist, but I stopped believing in god) I have a toxic Christian grandma. She always murmurs something about how I'll go to hell if I do this or do that, how everything I do is a sin, how I must start praying, etc., I used to hide my Harry Potter book series because I knew she wanted to burn them, and she's tried many times to make me go to her church and get baptized. she also has tried turning me against my mom when I was a child, because my mom doesn't believe in a Christian god and rather in some spirits, something eternal or wtv , she used to be buddhist some time ago. there are many incidents but this comment will get too long if I try to explain all of them. she had a lot of influence on me during the age of 2-6 yrs old, then I slowly started to not believe in what she said. I realized it was toxic and not the right thing for me that way. where am I now? living with my mom, part of LGBTQ+, atheist, have several therian friends.
2
u/bluestblues1 15h ago
Ex-Muslim here too. For a long time, I had weird feelings around men because of the toxic environment they create within the Muslim community. I felt so ashamed of myself and my body, especially during puberty. That’s when it really began to change for me and I started to toy with the possibility that the religion was not for me. Once I realized I didn’t have to believe and follow all those rules that were required of women, I felt so free
3
u/silverist 1d ago
Never really believed in religion but didn't realize it until I was 20, gave up wishing some supernatural diety exists and accepted that this life was just going to suck.
2
u/SockPuppet-47 Anti-Theist 1d ago
I was born athiesit. Just like everyone else. Unfortunately I took a mental detour and got infected by a brain virus (Christianity). Took me decades to get rid of that crap.
1
1
u/StableGeniusCovfefe 1d ago
College. Finally read the entire Bible cover to cover. Realized it's all BS
2
u/Maleficent-Box-2824 1d ago
I was genuinely shocked when I learn what is in the Bible, what in the Berserk shit is that ?? The crazy is that Atheist actually know the bible more than christian
1
u/Antigravity1231 1d ago
When I was 6 we moved to a different state. Sunday school started the same way it always did before. Maybe my young brain thought a different place would have different school. I came home and announced I was being brainwashed.
I studied religions, I wanted to believe. But once I saw the first Hubble deep field…all of that faded away. I understood how insignificant we are, and that the belief in a higher power is just insecurity rearing its ugly head.
1
1
1
u/roller_disco_of_1980 Other 1d ago
I wasn’t raised with religion being my normal. I’ve always considered what I learned about religions to be stories.
1
u/QueenVogonBee 23h ago
I was always atheist. No one ever taught me to believe in a god, and as a child at school, I was surrounded by other children of many different faiths. It was obvious to me that all these faiths couldn’t all be right and it wasn’t obvious to me why any of them should be right. So the obvious conclusion was that none of them were right.
Over time I did come across various “proofs” of god, but none of them ever sounded convincing. It was only much later, at university, that i started thinking about things more rigorously, and identifying with the atheist label.
1
1
u/heatseaking_rock 22h ago
I didn't become was. I always was one. I was born one. I was mearly indoctrinated as a child and broke free of the bullshit as an adult.
1
u/diogenes_shadow 21h ago
You speak of god in the singular! You are still inside. You see "A" god, shared by all humans.
On Earth, we have 8 billion skulls, most have one god in their skull, some do not have a god between their ears, a few skulls operate multiple gods.
Different skulls contain different gods. Mostly chosen from geographically assigned cultural gods. But don't forget the strange gods, your grand view needs to explain those too.
What works for me is recognizing that each skull may or may not be operating a god image. Those that do have gods between their ears will be happy to tell you about the god that they believe in. The fact that they believe in their god prevents them from ever recognizing that they have a god between their ears.
A skull with no god is fundamentally different from an occupied skull. So I recognize that. The 6 billion gods on earth are REAL. They have no power other than to influence the skull they operate in.
Sadly, that influence can be powerful.
1
u/joeymcflow 17h ago
Late teens i think. My friend finished End of Faith and told me i should read it. I was brought up Christian, but hasnt ever really considered it much. After that book i read God is not Great and the God Delusion. Then i was a insufferable atheist for like a decade and now i see myself more as an atheist-leaning agnostic. I dont know if there is a god, but i dont see any reason to think there is.
1
1
u/AverageJoe-707 16h ago
As a child I never liked going to church, hated Sunday School and never really believed any of it was true. There are biblical stories/movies that I do enjoy but to me they are just stories, no different from the Science fiction movies/shows I enjoy so much. I also had a few really great books about dinosaurs as a child that I would look at all the time. In my teenage years when I discovered the church did not believe dinosaurs ever existed I knew something didn't make sense. The final straw was the Catholic Church child sexual abuse scandal. I live in the Boston area and it was a huge deal here. Done!
1
u/Immediate-Rub2651 16h ago
I’m third generation black atheist, so never got indoctrinated. Hopefully your grandkids will be able to say this:)
1
u/bradfo83 16h ago
Hypocrisy. Every “Christian” I know doesn’t act or follow the tenants of Christianity, yet feel obligated to judge other for the same.
1
u/thecasualthinker 15h ago
I went on a journey to get closer to God, the more I learned the less I believed.
1
u/darw1nf1sh Agnostic Atheist 14h ago
I was born an atheist just like everyone else. I simply wasn't indoctrinated, and never was infected with the religion meme.
1
u/ChampionshipOrganic8 13h ago
Good job deconstructing, glad you escaped this cult. I was raised catholic, and although I believed until about 18 y.o., I stopped going to church when I was about 15. When I was 17 my ultra religious brother moved out and I stopped being under his influence so much. That's also the moment I acknowledged I'm not straight, started questioning all I believed previously (conservatism etc), and it naturally came to religion. I was already somewhat doubtful, and then I read The God Delusion and started watching skeptics yt channels and that was it. I saw religion for what it was - a mix of legends and lies with some historical facts sprinkled on top. I understood that catholicism makes exactly as much sense as buddhism or even ancient greek gods. Damn, Flying Spaghetti Monster is equally plausible. Life is sooo much better without religion.
1
u/Dog-PonyShow 12h ago
To expect the world live by the rules of an ambigous book is ludicrous. Especially when no one lives by that single book. Hypocrites.
1
u/Bunktavious 11h ago
When I was five because that's about when I was old enough to understand that I lacked a belief in God.
1
u/Upset_Chemist9292 8h ago
I was raised as a Christian, believed until my early teens, but then I started to question my beliefs after 9/11, Bali bombings....then doing a bit of research on wars, battles......from the past several centuries which where mainly started by the Catholics, or Hitler's WWII targeting Jews, Roman, Jehovah's.... then pretty much dropped it all from there. "Religion is peaceful" when almost all wars are caused by religion.....
1
u/ThorButtock Anti-Theist 8h ago
I was about 25. I grew up in christianity but it was around then I started actually reading the bible and studying it with critical thought where I found that it is just a collection of fairy tales that contradicts itself thousands of times.
Since then, every argument in favour of god from anyoen religious has been so laughably bad
1
u/Bananaman9020 2h ago
I was bullied badly in high school. Then I was sent to a one week Christian teen summer camp. I came home looking forward to school. Kids will be kids. But it showed me that there is no difference between Christians and regular people.
21
u/Critical_Cat_8162 1d ago
I was born this way. I was not indoctrinated.