Aethiests that used to be religious - how did you loose your religion?

[JammySplodger]

Just wondering... how have any other aethiests that were brought up with a religion lost that religion?

I was brought up Catholic, went to Catholic school & 6th form, gradually doubted more and more of it but finally, definitely, with a big full stop after it, decided that there is no such thing as god during childbirth.

It was during the last half hour or so of 'aaargh I can't do this I'm going to die', when I just needed some reassurance (besides that from my lovely DH and great midwife) and comfort that it would be okay, opened up my mind and ... nothing. The one time in my life I'd actively reached out for some sort of presence/feeling and there was absolutely nothing. Decided once and for all it was all just down to me, and got on with giving birth to a lovely son.

It's not something I've ever really talked about, so am just wondering if anyone else has had any great 'moment of clarity' like that?

I used to be religious as a child but in my teens my parents split up very messily, we went through some terrible times including alcoholic mother, being homeless and so on & at that point I decided there couldn't possibly be a God as why would they let all these dreadful things happen to me.

Am still fairly undecided about what is out there, but pretty sure it's not a benevolent man with a long beard.

That sounds really tough. I think it's the dreadful things that either happen us or that we see around us that are so hard to reconcile with the idea of a god, caring or otherwise.

I'm atheist but was brought up in a Catholic household, went to Catholic schools, lived in a Catholic area, so completely immersed in the culture.

I left because I want to be treated according to my behaviour not my gender.

I grew increasingly unhappy with the attitude to women. Every year the week after Christmas you'd have the 'wives be submissive to your husbands in all things' lecture. The previous week it was all 'Holy Mary, wondrous woman', the next week 'back in the box!'. Regardless of one's ability, intelligence or knowledge the one with the vagina had to obey the one with the penis.

I was taught by nuns who explicitly stated that as Sisters they were not allowed independent thought. Girls couldn't even be altar servers - I questioned this and was told they would "pollute the Sacristy". It was the time of that pregnant child rape victim in Ireland who was refused an abortion, and the Catholic church was all over the issue. We had a sex education lecture by an outside Catholic provider who stated that in America feminists got pregnant deliberately in order to have abortions at 8.5 months to make a political point. Girls were banned from certain lessons in school due to their sex. Priests talked about women like they were some sort of different species. A multitude of different things, but all predicated on the assumption that women are a lesser form of life.

I kept going (due to family pressure) until a sermon in the early nineties when the priest actually said "The Devil is at work! The Devil is at work in the Church of England and you can see him in its female priests". I walked out and have never been back.

As for why I didn't join a softer fluffier religion, I just don't get the supernatural aspect - I suspect your brain either 'gets' spirituality or doesn't. I'm a hard core-rationalist, I want evidence, I'm a 'Doubting Thomas'.

I've noticed recently that Catholic commentators on the news keep using the phrase "the Catholic Church is the most feminist organisation on earth". And I laugh. But it's not my problem - Catholicism is a voluntary club and I choose not to be a member.

Crikey Catkins, that sounds extreme! I'm not surprised you left.

I think I must have been lucky to go to really quite a liberal Catholic school. I still feel a bit of resentment that we were taught a bunch of lies, but at least they concentrated on the nicer bits of the nicer testament about tolerance being kind to each other, etc.

Oops, clumsy sentence ... nicer bits of the new testament. I still think there are some good things about Christian (and I'm sure other religions that I'm woefully ignorant of) teachings, just so long as you leave out the bits about god.

Jammy, the misogyny was one big problem, but I was always a supremely irritating child asking questions, and being disgruntled with the answers.

How do you know the Bible is true? It says so in the Bible. That's rubbish!
The world had to have been created by God. Who created God? God needs no creator! That's rubbish!
God never gives us more than we can cope with. Ummm, there's a big famine in Ethiopia right now. That's rubbish!
and
Why didn't Jesus come down to earth after they'd invented TV, because there'd be proof of God's existence and he could get his message out to a wider audience?? (I was particularly proud of this one aged 9).

However, as I said earlier, Catholicism is voluntary and it can't really affect people in the West in their everyday life. I've traveled a lot in Muslim countries and Islam is far worse for (a) women and (b) non-Muslim residents.

I do think the internet has helped the drive towards secularism. If you're brought up in a closed religious community and you're doubting, you can feel like a freak. Online you can meet like-minded people who can challenge or refine your arguments as well as support you.

the realisation that (most) organised religion is utterly misygonist (sp?)
the realisation that I can't believe in god.
(I think there is plenty of evidence that jesus existed, but the virgin mary story is just ridiculous as are many other biblical stories)

I think I grew out of it. That sounds really rude, and I don't mean it to at all, but I could feel my faith slipping away and then I just suddenly thought "er, none of it makes sense".

I truly believe that religion is the opiate of the masses.

I was also brought up a Catholic, although I have always had a problem with it's teachings, I always believed in God. When my son was born, he was in NICU for a while, with babies who were much sicker than him. It really made me question God. Some of those babies probably never came home. If there is a God, why would he do that? "It's God's Will" always irritated me as an answer, and given in that context made me boiling mad. The only thing that made sense to me was that it was just one of those horrible things that happens. It made more sense to me than believing in a supreme being who would put children through such pain for no reason or to see the point of a God who could not or would not do anything about it.

I was raised in a Nonconformist family and totally bought into it. It wasn't misogynist at all - one of the first denominations to have women ministers slightly ahead of women getting the vote. Loved it. Went to university, was a member of the CU. Loved it.

But then some sort of iterative process of being challenged to think about things, and gradually 'falling out of love' with God. I prayed earnestly as I felt my faith dwindling and ... nothing. No one there. Until finally one night I lay awake thinking through the whole thing and coming to terms with the fact that the only rational explanation was that everything I'd believed up till then had been a delusion. And it was like being freed - everything made so much more sense. There were no more difficult conundrums like 'how can a good god allow suffering'. I don't think I've ever really doubted my unbelief since that point. I sometimes try the thought experiment but there's just nothing there.

I recall first having doubts aged about 12. I felt hugely guilty about it, and smothered the doubts for a few years, to the point where I not only went every week to Bible Class but also taught at Sunday School and joined the Church aged 16. (Church of Scotland) At the joining ceremony each of us new members were to shake hands with each of the Elders, as a welcome. Only one Elder, who taught me at school, looked interested and pleased that I'd joined, the rest gazed over my shoulder or into the middle distance, and plainly wanted to get home to supper.

I left school, home and town about a year later and didn't attend Church. Another 18 months and I was reading the Xmas issue of Spare Rib which pointed out that Genesis chapter one has a different Creation story to the one related in chapter two (the rib one) and then went on to point out the misogyny inherent in Xtianity. I still wanted to believe...

There was no "moment of revelation" for me, my belief wavered and has now gone completely. I see all religions as superstitions, though I understand they have their comforts, and people do good works in the names of their various deities.

I now identify as a secular humanist.

I am also very comfortable not believing.
my father is a parish priest and whilst I like going to services that include music I just don't feel comfortable praying. it just feels wrong to me, hard to describe.

Aged 14, looking out of the window, I think I probably thought about it for the first time and realised that to me, none if it made sense. Very exciting moment, and felt very relieved not having to do mental gymnastics anymore to try and make it make sense. Was shaking when I told my mum I wasn't going to church anymore, but she was fine about it.

I'm also very comfortable not believing - or rather believing that there is no god I guess. It's nice to not be doubting, to know that everything around is is shaped by us or natural processes, and that's it.

I did doubted for a long time, I guess because it was so intrenched, and it was the one moment of clarity that really decided it for me.

I'd say I'm definitely much happier for it, and grateful that I live in a society/community where that's absolutely fine.

I wanted to be a nun when I was 12 but by the time I was 16, I was well on the way to being an atheist, although identified myself as a pantheist at the time (i.e. god is in nature and the universe). To me, the 'moment of enlightenment' came as I was at Mass and the priest was giving some sermon about the 'special' place that women had in the Church, which he then went on to elaborate was arranging flowers and cleaning up basically.

It made me think: hold on, there's an omnipotent god out there whom we'e supposed worship but who's so crap that he created two types of human being, one of which is utterly inferior in every way to the other and fit for nothing but cleaning and baby-making?? Why?? Why would any omnipotent, all-seeing being do something that inefficient and illogical? Why not just create one human being that reproduces like a plant instead of wasting creative energy on a female of the species who is, according to sick male celibate woman-haters Church teaching, a waste of space and not fit for any use at all??

Misogyny in all organized religion is the main reason that I remain and will forever be an atheist.

I would love to be religious again in some form, but am pretty scarred from being part of fundamentalist Christianity, with all the attendant sexism and oppression. Atheism sort of fits me now, although I think I do have a certain latent spirituality, based around Jungian archetypes and stuff like tjhat. Sort of like religion without god

I was desperate enough to believe that I joined a cult for a while. Suspension of disbelief failed. It just didn't make sense. Speaking in tongues was utter bollocks. Meaningless twaddle "translated" into other meaningless but also self-congratulatory twaddle.

Anyway, there was no big revelation, but I came to a series of realisations over a few years. The inherent misogyny, homophobia and lack of any real, actual compassion (as opposed to "ooh, that's sad, I ' pray about it") in Christianity cemented it for me. If these people are right, and their god exists as they say - it doesn't matter. I still wouldn't worship him. He's not worth anything.

As it is, I am 99.9% convinced that the evidence does not suggest that the god hypothesis is accurate. Therefore I am happy as a clam to live my life religion free, as far as one can in this society.

Hi Jammy.

Although my parents weren't religious I did go to church regularly from about 9/10 until my teens and then on and off up until about 7 years ago. Even though I had periods where I didn't go to church I thought I still believed it and considered myself 'backslidden'.

I think it all started to unravel at about the time off the boxing day tsunami, however it's only been in the last year that I've really thought long and hard about it and come to a place where it just makes no sense to me.

Another thing that led me to think about god was dabbling in astronomy. Somehow thinking about the universe and physics seems to have brought a lot of logical clarity to my beliefs and as such has lead me to conclude that if there is a god, whatever that may mean, it isn't interested in mankind.

I had a lot of Protestant-style religion at school, but not really very much at home beyond bedtime prayers.

Religious doctrine always seemed very finger-wagging - the sort of thing to keep you in line, not anything remotely 'joyful'.

I never felt any kind of positive association with a god or Jesus, and although I felt guilty about it at first, I think I just grew to realise that it's all about social control and cultural bonding. I think I grew out of believing, or wishing to believe in something, I suppose.

Agree it's very liberating, no more cognitive dissonance.

I was brought up as catholic in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

As soon as I was capable of a single independent thought I knew it was bullshit.

My best friend being blown to unrecognisable mince by a bomb in my hometown was confirmation.

ANYONE who believes in ANY religion is a fucking IDIOT.

Protestant upbringing, was very into it for a while in my early teens until I made the mistake of actually reading the bible in its entirety not just the usual 'selected highlights'. Didn't last long after that. Having spent a lot of time on a kids' cancer ward in the last few years has done nothing to rekindle a feeling of there being a benign deity looking after us from above.

I was brought up as a practising Catholic. mY mum still attends mass every week and volunteers at the church every week too.
I stopped believing when I found out at 21 weeks my beloved baby daughter had a fatal condition 'trisomy 13' her brain hadn't developed at all and there was no chance of survival. It broke me and I gave birth at 22 weeks. I just couldn't believe after that. I loved my baby so much and yet people who abuse and neglect children seem to be able to pop them out just like that. Grace would've been 8 last Saturday.
I have since had a healthy son. He has autism, ADHD and dyspraxia. I love him dearly but seeing how much he struggles in so many ways has done nothing to restore any faith in there being A God.

I was brought up as a tacit C of E, but my father became increasingly interested in spiritualism, so I was exposed to psychic and spiritual ideas in my early teens. I just assumed the culture I was exposed to, like most do, I suppose. I used to dowse, and give Tarot readings, and used to believe in God.

I did a science degree (well, three actually) at respectable Universities but they didn't teach critical thinking or the rationality of science - I guess it was just assumed. A little while later I read Carl Sagan's 'The Demon-haunted World' and something went 'pop' and I guess you could say 'I saw the dark'. :) It just made so much sense - all the nagging questions came out and all the little cracks I had been papering over in my world view got to be clearly thought about for the first time in my life.

One phrase that I came across (somebody said it on a discussion progamme) was "I don't think there is a need for a God. I think a man should be able to live within the width of his own shoulders" - in other words, we can, and should, all take responsibility for being our own good person. This should be done without the threats or promises from religion, simply because it is the good and right thing to do.

Now, while I no longer believe in God and don't belong to any religious group, I do like to celebrate the turning of the seasons, to appreciate life, to live by the cardinal virtues of temperance, prudence, courage and justice in my life choices - because they feel like good things to do. And I still give readings (hence my pen-name) but in a non-woo woo way, to allow people to think about their circumstances and to talk through the choices they do have in front of them.

Opening our hearts to communicate with each other honestly and compassion is, I believe, my own way to try to bring about a heaven on earth.

I was a born-again Christian through my late teens and early twenties, but looking back I think I was desperate for acceptance, and possibly also friends.

I never did 'feel the spirit' like others in the church did, and I cried out to god on more than one occasion for him to show his love to me, as he seemed to do for everyone else.

Eventually I figured out that the overwhelming silence and emptiness I got back was a very clear sign that there was no god, I gave up on religion, took chatge of my own life and I can tell you the honest truth - I have never felt such inner peace as I did at that moment!!

My closest friend killed herself, and my then boyfriend told me that I should pray for her so that 'God would forgive her'. He was a Catholic and thought suicide was a sin, but couldn't give a shit that she'd had mental health problems for years.