Was there a defining moment for you?

diddley wrote: »

Was there a defining moment or turning point for you where you decided to reject religion or were u born like that? Since this is Ireland and relatively religious still I'm guessing there were 'moments' for some of you. It would be interesting to hear them...

For me it was a gradual process that started when I was around 14 and didn't really resolve itself until I was about 20. My younger brother was an atheist by the time he was 14 and had a huge impact on me. He used his own version of the flying spaghetti monster argument and that started the ball rolling.

Being brought up in a non-religious family agnosticism was the default position. Through school and life in general I've been exposed to many religious beliefs none of which I found very convincing. In my late teens I reached the stage where I completely rejected the idea of a personal god or a god who has any daily influence on the universe and especially one who concerns themselves with the well-being of man. I am now at the position where I would say the possibility of the existence of a creator is very slight but can not reject it out of hand without a further understanding of how the universe came into being.

There wasn't any one defining moment for me either but rather a series of events that spurred me into thinking. I never really had a convincing and deep sense of God like other kids my age, though there was always this fear of God in my mind. I guess the brainwashing just wasn't thorough enough. I always had questions at school for my beleagured teachers. I simply couldn't ignore or accept facile explainations to these perplexing mysteries and blaring contradictions inherent in religion. How could we have both destiny and freewill? How could we write off as nonsense a lot of other religions when their followers believed as fervently as we were supposed to? Lots more questions besides and the more I pressed for satisfactory answers the more I was fobbed of with the usually dismissive lines of 'God works in mysterious ways' and 'why do you have to question everything, can't you just have faith?' etc, etc.

Eventually it dawned on me that these people I had trusted simply didn't have any answers, and worse still, were unprepared to give me any, so I was left to my own devices to explore the mysteries of the faith. Freedom of mind is a religion killer as I subsequently discovered. Once those tethers of blind faith in my mind had been cut a fearless new inquiry began. I was now able to explore my own thoughts and feelings without being terrified of going to hell for my silent inpiousness. There was no sign of God anywhere and he never revealed himself to me or anyone else I knew so I quickly began to apply the same logical thinking to God as I did to the other mystery man in my head five years previously - Santa. Atheism for me began with a hugh 'Oh yeah........now I see'. For years after this I still felt the odd frisson of fear and guilt. I now realise that this was simply the psychological scarring coming to the surface. My (dwindling) feelings of fear and guilt were my OWN and not placed there by any god in order to frighten me back onto a path of righteousness. Freedom came in great increments and continues to grow.

When I realised that there was little difference between the major religions I had encountered and any other clique or club "follow this set of arcane rules that make no sense in todays world or you can't play and we'll say stuff behind your back" my distrust and questions were founded.

Later, after spending a lot of time reading various occult books (AE waite, crowley and lots of squiggles attributed to King Solomon) and found that none of it worked at all my suspicions deepened.

Then I read the Satanic Bible by LaVey and realised that he pretty much hit the nail on the head - and had used the same tactics himself to establish his own dogmatic system (though non-deity ridden).

After a while I finally managed to shed the last of the supersitions I had from indoctrination by overzealous (if well meaning) aunts and grannys to become the well-rounded human being I have become

I was a pretty devout catholic until I went to college and stayed in catholic run on campus accomodation. On certain nights they had services on that invited the most indoctrinated, lost without god, people on board. After about 6 months of being in contact with these people I realised it was mostly a containment system for people who had become insane, although I couldnt have put it into those words at the time. Around then I realised I had been too gullable throughout my life and an open mind and critical thinking was the way to go.

I do suspect that my second level experiences had lessened my beliefs too in many areas over a long period of time, but the most defining period was those six months after starting college.

Edit: just to clarify I didnt go to the services, these people just came into our living area and ate our toast while we were there paying for it

all the stars wrote: »

i've always just been more into the earth.. and all that sort of thing. Noticed how it provides what we need..
Always been a bit of a hippy :cool:
Just didn't fully grasp the concept of not questioning, or not having very good questions awnsered.

Its whatever floats your boat.

Zillah wrote: »

You'll fit right in, I'm sure.

very nice of you.
but i never fitted in. its my cross to bear (it somes in pretty colours too!)

No defining moment for me either. I never believed it. Even when primary school teachers were teaching biblical stories and all I just thought of it as some kind of "story time" the same as you’d get when you went home and watched bosco on RTE. Tele gave you good stories. The books I read from an early age gave good stories. The bible to me was just another load of good stories. Still is.

The only defining moments that make me more militant is when you try to take an interest in human affairs, education, politics, morality, science, health issues or ANYTHING and you constantly meet religion. You want to leave it alone and just let it be but it just.... won’t.... let.... you.

It is everywhere and it is used as a conversation stopper to win any argument that you antagonist wants to win. "I am right, god says so too, so you are wrong and you will burn in hell".
No matter what your agenda you can cite your gods support and sit back smug as if you have just won something but you are not expected to provide any evidence for your god even existing... let alone PROVE it does.

I guess it was a question a friend asked me in college. I was a very devout Christian and defended my beliefs openly, a lot of the time most of the people who claimed to be Atheist that I debated with usually ended up actually being agnostic and backing down when I'd give them one the plethora of misleading Christian analogies.

One person however actually was Atheist and the only topic he'd argue was the global flood. He stuck to it because it is probably the only story from the bible that is easily testable and refuted without it relying on faith or Gods power to accomplish it.

I remember the first question that clicked something in my brain was "How did all the marsupials get to Australia in 1 generation without leaving a fossil record of their migration" and "why did they need to go to Australia?"

These questions started me into researching the scientific evidence behind the flood, initially to refute my college friends claims, and how, if it actually happened, there would be overwhelming evidence to support it. What I found was just more questions. The Christian evidence was flaky at best whereas every other scientific field pretty much refutes that the biblical flood every happened on a global scale.

This article on the flood was pretty much the cornerstone of when my faith started to die and I started to accept reality:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html