What turned you into an anti-theist?

  1. Comrade Rage
    Comrade Rage
    I thought that if people here shared their experiences with rejecting superstition, it could help us in our daily efforts of getting people we know to do the same.



    As for me: It was odd, but I dropped religion suddenly. One night, seven years ago I was listening to a radio program where a guy was talking about biology. Suddenly I thought of the Christian explanations of the universe, and realized that there is no possible way that trash could be true.
  2. Raúl Duke
    Raúl Duke
    My atheist turn was very slow but I could say it began probably around the beginning of high school.

    Actually it was through RS2k papers and this atheist friend of mine ideas/facts that got me into anti-theism
  3. RHIZOMES
    RHIZOMES
    I don't actually remember how I turned atheist the first time, I just know it was early 2004 somewhere when I was 13. I realized it was all bullshit and made no sense.

    Then I forgot and lapsed back into religion but I got out and it's made me hate religion even more and realize it has no place in any sort of rational society.
  4. Bilan
    Bilan
    I just...never believed in a god. I couldn't fathom such a thing. I remember wanting to believe when I was in year 5 or 6, and feeling terrible because I couldn't.
    I juggled for some time (15-16 years old, etc) with agnoticism and athiesm, on whether there is a god or not: I am not certain either way, and don't believe anyone can be definite either way, but I think there's a reasonable enough doubt to believe there isn't.

    My anti-theism is derived from largely from how I just plain didn't understand why the things that occurred because of religion occurred - like wars, prejudice, bigotry - and how it could be justified.
  5. mykittyhasaboner
    mykittyhasaboner
    i was never religious, never went to church, nothing. when i was younger, i liked to believe in a "god" or something of the sort, just for comfort/assurance i guess, since i didnt know any better. i really started to hate religion as soon as i started to hate capitalism.(in the 8th grade)i began to think its absolutely ludicrous that people believe theres some "heaven" you go to when you die, and some asshole in the sky is watching, waiting to smite you. it was obvious to me that this was all crap created to control people, to teach them their version of "morality" and such, thus im an anti-theist.
  6. Dros
    Dros
    God made me do it.

    Seriously, I was brought up without religion. I got interested in science and then seeing all the shit that religion does. Then, I learned about Israel and that did a lot to turn me against it. Then I became a Marxist and got a better scientific understanding of religion. From there, the only sensical thing to do is fight it.
  7. F9
    F9
    Mine turn to anti-theism happened after i started searching of anarchy's documents,i found some really interesting parts of Emma's and Bakunin's writings about gods.That was the start of becoming an anti-theist the continue was i ended from a christian to a truely Anti-Theist.I realise all the lies behind those shits called religions.So Anarchy made another good for me!

    Fuserg9
  8. Holden Caulfield
    Bakunins works were a factor but mainly it was the fact most Christians (im sure the others cant either but my town aint very multicultural) cannot put up a decent case when you say that their God is a negative factor,

    i love using Bakunins "if god did exsists it would be necessary to abolish him" as a counter to their 'you have no evidence god doesnt exsist'
  9. BurnTheOliveTree
    BurnTheOliveTree
    Well, I had waves of doubt:

    1. I realised at like, 9/10 that religions are mutually exclusive - only one can be right, and there are lots to pick from, so I best find which one suited me best.

    2. As a consequence of that, I suppose I developed a bastardised scientific method in my little child mind to differentiate between the various religions I found, and I started asking awkward questions of the vicar at school - "Why isn't Allah the real god?". Because I never got good answers, I grew suspicious.

    3. I figured out the paradox of omnipotence and omniscience by myself, go me. Then I stumbled across the problem of evil. After that I was really interested and started looking for more "internal contradiction" arguments, and from then on it was a flood. I decided I didn't want to settle for any of them yet, and would be a temporary atheist.

    4. I considered Deism, but then found the infinite regress problem - "What made god?".

    5. After that I just gradually came to the view that there really was not a shred of evidence for gods, at all, and if I ever brought that fact up, I was not seriously challenged.

    -Alex
  10. Colonello Buendia
    Colonello Buendia
    well i started out an athiest, just because I hated my faith (catholicism) and statred seeing problems with God at every turn. I became anti theist when I saw what religion makes people do
  11. Raúl Duke
    Raúl Duke
    a counter to their 'you have no evidence god doesnt exsist'
    If they've used that counter to assume that "than god exists because you have no evidence on the contrary" they are committing a logical fallacy called argument from ignorance.

    I would like to add that for a much longer period of time (Since I was like 13) I had a similar experience to what pTiT had. I thought I had to little faith because barely any of my prayers came through and saw that the "bad" did get away with anything while the "good" suffered (contrary to what I was told), which undermined my faith anyway. I started to feel guilty for my lack of faith, etc (I didn't feel worthy enough) ever since until I dropped religion entirely, in which since than I feel free from such guilt that religion usually induces. Atheism basically freed my mind.

    Actually, I shudder every time I wonder what if I didn't turn out that way...
  12. al8
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  13. ÑóẊîöʼn
    ÑóẊîöʼn
    I became an anti-theist when I realised that religion is nothgin but a harmful influence on society when you take away all the "good" things, which can be done just as well if not better than religion.
  14. al8
    I got a quite diverse religous upbringing. State lutheran, Buddist and New Age. The first thing I remember of religion effecting me was when I threw a fit because a girl in my class drew an upside down cross on the classroom wall. I was about 11 then. I tryed to clean it, couldn't so I took a gum and piece of paper and stuck it on the bacwards cross to hide it. I was furious and bought up, yelling at what a blasphemous and ungodly act that desicration of the holy cross was. Not surprisingly I didn't get a good response. What struck me somewhat was how completly devoid I was of reasons for my actions while I was being grilled. The situation was quitly hushed and defused by another girl in the classroom and I sat thereafter in my chair cunfused, startled, anxious and somewhat gripe.

    Before that my mother said prayers together before sleep. The funny thing was I learned to say the lords prayers so fast that it was over in seconds. I only took one breath. And up to this day its the fastest thing I can recite, (exept for that standard copyright claim that appears before movies which are on video casettes.)

    My mother and stepdad where liberal nondenominational christians and I was taken to church often which I found extremely boring and pointless. The singing of hymns and the reciting of old verses did strike me as very uninteresting.

    Though my eventual deconvertion process was gradual I did have few experiances that where startling.

    Later up in my early teens I don't remember religion being a particular issue or a big part in my life. But then came time for my confirmation. My mother offered me a secular alternative but a churchly confirmation in the home country seemed propper and I chose that in stead. I went to a special seminar for confirmatory education in my mother tounge in the City. I was given a book "A Life with Jesus" which was mostly about how to deal with greif with Jesus. It was so tacky it metaphorically pinched your neck. In the seminar that grief-pervert of a priest only wanted to hear greif stories. And his approach was rediculous, we were supposed to wallow in sentimentalities instead of taking on issues sensibly. I had a gut reaction to this. But then when it came to the confirmation ceremony that mighty liberal clergyman that was confirming me started to rambling about the evils of drug use and that I should watch out not to become a dealer. And then to tromp the rediculousness I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. (...with lips only)

    Later in my teens I became spiritual. Started practicing yoga, introspection, contemplation, having interest in "spiritual traditions" -- spiritualism, psychic powers, almost the whole plethora of superstition. And I confess this was more near, more real, then the devoid christianity of my youth. Around yoga, spiritual healing and spiritualism I had qenuine spiritual experences that where impossible to ignore and fed my interest.

    Once in a guided meditaton (in motion) on a beach, I experienced a calmness and peace of mind I've never experinced before then. All self conversation in the head was subdued. And the perculiar thing was that I didn't mind the flies, wich I had normally hated. And it seemed that the flies didn't bother me if I was not bothered by them.

    Later I was given a spiritual healing. I sat on a chair. I felt the movements of hands, via the wind current that it produced, up and down my body. Then it happened. Slowly but surely it was as if my mind expanded, in all direction beyond my head for about half a meter. This concentrated feeling or self-awareness in my head, this strange but pleasant sensation then slowly lead down into my chest which when it was struck felt like it expanded to outside the body. This lasted for what felt half a minute.

    After this I came to the conclusion that there had to be something to this. So I began to read, a lot. Mostly the literature of the spiritual traditions at first. That later played a big part in my deconvertion, but more on that later.

    ... to be continued.
  15. The Intransigent Faction
    The Intransigent Faction
    I hate to be simplistic but I'm not feeling like typing a lengthy reply to night so I'll update this later and simply say that as a former Liberal Christian I don't have any personal experiences with serious religious intolerance..However, I realize that it's out there and that it does harm based on what I've seen the bourgeoisie use it to justify. That and I may just be cynical tis way but I've seen no evidence of an omnipotent/omnibenevolent God.
    As for faith..well nobody's given me a satisfactory explanation as to why I should believe in their God and not, say, the Flying Spaghetti monster.
    I've met some very tolerant religious people..but it still follows that religion is not necessary and is an element of society that can manipulate otherwise tolerant people based on bourgeois interests.
    Oh and there is also the unfortunate presence of the "Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses" down the street from here. I'm sure that everyone here knows what they're like.
  16. Renewed Revolution
    Renewed Revolution
    Being a smart person and coming to my senses after a brainwashing education in the Catholic school system. I started realizing the contradictions in the religions that were taught to me, and the hypocrisy and lies of the Church. I started to realize that God was just a comfort for people, like the lies of the Capitalistic media that comfort people in the world, and make them feel like the Capitalists care about them. Religion is the largest excuse that mankind has ever used for all its mistakes, for if it is in the name of religion, it is unquestionable. I hate how people talk about how "wonderful" their faith is and how God loves "each and everyone of us." If the world came to their senses, we could actually stop waiting for heaven and to create one on earth.
  17. InTheMatterOfBoots
    InTheMatterOfBoots
    The deeply contradictory experience of going to a CofE school and having an atheist and pretty politically radical father.
  18. The Feral Underclass
    I thought that if people here shared their experiences with rejecting superstition, it could help us in our daily efforts of getting people we know to do the same.
    The German Ideology and God and the State to a lesser degree firmly cemented my rejection of god and religion. I became an anti-theist over the last few years by personally reflecting on the political ramifications of irrationality and idealism.
  19. eyedrop
    I had a lot of dinosaur toys when I was a child and ended up immensely interested in dinosaurs as i kid. Read all the books the library had on dinosaurs as fast as I could read, or rather look at the pictures. When going to sunday school and I heard the creation story that was just an absurd lie and didn't fit into my worldview. Why should the rest of it be true then?

    Later it's just concluding that most homophobic and sexist attitudes comes from persons who are in someway religious. It must be a reason. And it's in the way of a clear understanding of how the world is.
  20. The New Manifesto
    The New Manifesto
    I rejected religion in 7th grade, as my parents pushed me into "Confirmation". I had some faith in a god when I started, but as time went on, and I heard some of the ludicrous "interpretations" of these passages I separated myself from the church more and more. Eventually, I just realized that there was no god. When I began to read Marx it all came together and I officially began to call myself an atheist.
  21. Bandito
    Bandito
    Atheism just seemed as normal.
    Even when i was a child, i used to laugh at kids my age for performing some religious rituals( i live in mostly Orthodox christian surroundings).
    Than came biology at shool,which totally turned me to scientific view of the world,than came Dawkins to make it a more organised thinking.


    Than i got really pissed off,and became a Communist.
  22. Holden Caulfield
    became a communist, argued with religious types that if God did exsist i had more chance of going to heaven than any of them i do not act out of fear of hell but out of humanity,

    developed from there
  23. Hyacinth
    Hyacinth
    I was more or less an atheist all my life, even if not explicitly so. I became explicitly an atheist at the start of high school; even though I attended a public school, it just so happen to be full of fundamentalist protestant Christians. Up until that point no one had ever asked me my views on religion. I had plenty of opportunity to debate Christians throughout high school (though I quickly grew out of it, it simply started to bore me after a while when none of them were coming up with new or interesting arguments). I had always found religion to be an insult to human reason and intelligence, and viewed it as belittling humanity.

    The more research that I did into the social phenomenon of religion the more I became convinced of its harmfulness, and the more of an anti-theist that I became. Not only has religion been throughout history a force for reaction, and stood in the way of progress whenever it could, but even on a more personal level religion is extremely psychologically harmful (the psychological effects of which I had a chance to observe first hand with a friend of mine who deconverted from fundamentalist Christianity, and his struggle to overcome the puritanical guilt that was instilled into him during childhood).

    So, in short, there was no one event that market my transition into atheism or anti-theism, it was a whole slew of factors.
  24. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    I started to "ignore him" when after been confronted with the horrors of society I concluded that he would have to be an asshole if he would exist. After some months I simply rejected the idea of the existance of a god.
  25. Mala Tha Testa
    Mala Tha Testa
    my mom trying to cram as much religious bullshit down my throat as possbile within the length of like, 6 months really got me annoyed and then all of a sudden when i was digesting all that crap i realized that non of it made sence. this all happened in 6th or 7th grade.
  26. RebelDog
    RebelDog
    I became an anti-theist when I when it became clear to me that religion and superstition are a traditional part of the apparatus of domination of the ruling classes. That is to say there exists no scientific or biological justification for class society, and so the withering away of idealism is a thoroughly desired situation from the standpoint of the left. Religion is reaction and it cannot ever be anything else. Religion is about a universal set of ideas that cannot be challenged no matter how much they hold back progress and lead to human misery across their grotesque sphere of influence. It teaches kids hierarchy and dominance and saps their energy and will in adult life, much like electoral politics does. I hate it with passion , the dustbin with it all.
  27. marxistcritic
    I was born an athiest. My dad always showed me the stupidity of any religious things that we happened to see. In elementary school, I had some heated arguments with other students about the existence of a god. In the 4th and 5th grades, I became a satanist. I soon grew out of it. In middle school, I found out more about the stupidity of religioun. I am at that point right now, I will update this after I graduate...
  28. puke on cops
    puke on cops
    You can't hang around with Sheffield AF and not have some of that spiteful anti-theism rub off on you..
  29. Decolonize The Left
    Decolonize The Left
    I never had an urge to become religious to any extent - have been an atheist my whole life. I became an anti-theist upon reading Nietzsche (the greatest anti-theist I've ever read), Goldman, and Berkman.
  30. CommunityBeliever
    CommunityBeliever
    I read the god delusion. After reading the first few chapters though I started thinking about it for a while and I moved to something like "god is the universe" or something stupid like that and then I read the part in the god delusion where he basically says if that is true then the word god is meaningless and that pretty much did it for me.

    It is amazing that I was actually so stupid that I believed this rubbish and it also very sad because I was very fearful of imaginary things which is kind of child abuse isn't it? I mean teaching children about hell is definitely child abuse and the people who do that should be persecuted.
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