Were you converted?

[almisami]

I never was baptised a christian, but I never actually bothered to go to church. Secular philosophy ftw.  

[Colm-kun]

I can say I always had the doubt.  

[[-Erik-]]

Well, when I was a little kid my parents introduced me to God, and me, being a little guilible child, belived in their word, beacuse parents are always right! (a kid's ideology, you know), but as I grew up so did my intelligence and perspicacy, so I started asking questions in order to get answers to those things I didn't understand, and the "Beacuse God wants it to be like that" answer just didn't do it, not anymore.

When I finally decided to read the bible (or at least a really small part of it) to see if I could find the answers to my questions, well... the results were ironic.

 

[In Search of a Dream]

I was baptised and all that, but I never went to church or sunday school. I did believe in God, though, and to learn more about Christianity and stuff(instead of reading the bible) I watched a couple religious documentaries on the History Channel. The contradictions game me a lot to think about, and unofficially, I've been an Agnostic for only a year. So I can't say I was converted, I guess. I'm probably still in the conversion process.  

[RestlessRenegade]

I was baptized a Christian, and it's been a very slow and gradual process that brought me to this conclusion. I started by asking questions, then having political views that opposed my parents. When I realized they were different from me there, I realized that we might be different in other ways. My thoughts kept getting more and more atheist as time went on.

"Well, maybe the Bible is wrong."

"Okay, so Christianity doesn't have all the answers."

"Maybe there isn't a god."

"I'm an atheist."

XD Also, The Amazing Atheist and philosophy classes were involved in there somewhere.  

[Eccentric Detective]

I'm a very suspicious, questioning, skeptical person.
When I was little, I thought that the priests' real motive to get people to come to church was so that they could blow it up someday with all the people in it.
I was a very diligent student and always got good grades in religion class. I really tried VERY hard to understand Catholicism.
Finally, in middle school, I fell under a severe case of depression. I didn't know why the world suddenly seemed so dark. I considered suicide, and while I was thinking about that, I wondered what would happen afterward. Looking around the Internet, I found some great arguments for the Void; that is, when you die your soul ceases to exist. I was kind of scared to die then, and I'm glad I didn't drown myself like I planned.
Doing some more inquiry on those same websites led me to Atheism. Not needing to believe in God was the most liberating feeling I had had in a long time.
I'm proud of myself for seeing the truth, though I was raised in a Catholic family that goes to church every Sunday and sends me to Catholic schools.
Kind of a strange discovery story, but there you go.  

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

I grew up in an Episcopal church, was baptised when I was 6 and confirmed at 12 or 13. I went to church camps and weekend retreats and was very comfortable with my beliefs, but never remotely fanatical. Church was something I enjoyed doing, and it was a serious thing to me, but it didn't consume my existence and I didn't judge others who felt differently.

In the first couple years of high school, though, I got really depressed... borderline suicidal. I wanted to die so, so much - but I was afraid of killing myself because I hated the thought of that much pain. So I used religion as my crutch. For a few years, this was not too big of a problem. Then in my last year of high school I started going to Bible study with this group of Southern Baptists I knew from school. Then, I started going to their prayer meetings they had during the morning break. I figured since they were studying the same Bible, they must be good to hang out with. rolleyes

They brainwashed me to think that the Bible should be taken literally (yes, I became a creationist!) and to think that questioning these beliefs was wrong and would send me to hell, and to think that listening to too much secular music would corrupt me, and to think that I needed to work God into every conversation I had. I thought atheists were the devil and people who believed in other religions were confused and needed to be saved from their folly. I freaked out other Episcopalians with my fundamentalism.

Then I went to college, stopped seeing those Baptists from high school, became best friends with a pagan, and gradually started to see where my narrowminded ideas had been wrong. I'm not sure exactly how it all happened. I realized in my junior year that Christianity wasn't working for me, so I started looking at pagan religions. I was scrambling to find something that felt right; religion was like a drug and I thought I needed to find one to replace Christianity.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I didn't actually have any real reasons to believe in any gods. I had an emotional desire for them to be real, and I had a fear of eternal punishment of some sort or other. That was it. And emotions without any evidence backing them up are never a good thing to base important decisions on. I decided that I'd start from square one: looking for evidence that any of these gods existed - I'd believe in whichever one(s) had the strongest evidence.

Three years later and I still don't have any reasons to believe. I do notice what seems to be a lack of divine presence, however.

 

[Prince Rilian]

[Satan]

I was never baptised, so I can't exactly say I had to convert.

Unless you mean a figurative baptism, I don't see what that has to do with anything.  

[Labtech Soosh]

I was born with in a family that was pre-dominantly Christian, and had a LOT of disappointments in my life.

First there was the bullying, I got my a** beaten EVERY single damn day because I was weaker than all the other kids (and white in a poor, pre-dominantly [wow I like using that word, hm?] black neighborhood) I prayed for it to stop but to no avail. Then there were the sicknesses, I have ALWAYS been incredibly thin because of my high metabolism, as such I get sick and weak very often...I still do... I used to pray for it to stop but to no avail.

Eventually I grew a hatred for this deity I once believe existed, and reformed myself to Satanism, vowing complete revenge on the Christian god (Mental torment mixed with teenaged hormones, whatcha gonna do?). I remained Satanist until one faithful day on Cartoon Network, Toonami aired the final episode of the ENTIRE dragon-ball series (GT). Now I grew up as a little kid feverishly watching this show so it was very traumatic for me when it's eventual end came. When the words "The End" popped up on the screen I had a realization, it was probably the most brilliant moment in my entire life (says a lot about how smart I am, hm?): Everything ends! Nothing can keep going on forever, there could be no existence beyond this one because what happens to our old one? Is it one we could look back on or do we continue on forever into the depths of madness? Dragon Ball ended right then and there and the concept of death reached me, I mean the LITERAL concept of it. It finally hit me that one day I'm going to die and I'm not even going to know I'm dead...

It frightened the ******** out of me. I was bawling tears and everything.

Eventually I got to live with the idea of there being an end to everything, and Darwinism PLUS the primordial soup theory's made MUCH more sense to me than the whole "god made this" crap. I started thinking of god as nothing more than a tooth-fairy or Santa Clause made up by crazys who didn't know what science was.

 

[chemos32o8]

Me, I just nagged my mom when I was little to not take me to church any more because it was boring as hell. Slowly I learned to appreciate science and discovered that knowing stuff pisses stupid people off and since I'm a bully I just love mocking stupid people.  

[Lily Shaw]

i wasnt ever really into religion. it didnt make sense 2 me.  

[I Am A Mountie]

Colm-kun

I can say I always had the doubt.

 

[Ayumila]

I always just assumed that you had to believe in God and it was... just the thing to do. I didn't go to church or a strictly religious school but we had the occasional prayer on Easter etc.
Regardless of this I was like "but that doesn't make sense" when we discussed the bible, then when I was like 12 my brother said that he was an atheist and then I found out that my mum and dad didn't believe in God either but they didn't want to influence my decision in religion in anyway (which I love them for btw) and when I heard that I was like "that's an option?!?!?!" and kinda switched instantly =)

I have a quote which I kind of relate too but it may anger some other atheists:
I'm the world's least happy atheist. I miss having religious faith, but trying to have it seems like trying to be in love with someone that you're not in love with. - Lisa Williams, Learning the Lessons of Nixon.

The feeling of being secure in the knowledge that death was nothing to worry about and everything would always work out because God would make sure it did, that's what I miss about religious.