What made you...

[PetreyDish]

Originally reject religion?

Was it any certain idea or comment that did it? Or was it a gradual process?

Hopefully I'm not repeating someone else's thread. I'm sorry if I am.  

[Dark_lord_15]

I don't think I was ever a very religious person... I mean, I prayed until the cows came home, but that was always in case god was there, not for god... but I guess I finally admitted that I didn't believe after thinking about the entire concept. Sure, I was 10, but I mean, it was still kinda obvious that I didn't really believe. And the more I tried to make sense of it, the harder it became to hold on. So I didn't. (and believe me, I'm much happier this way)

Also, the people at our church thought I was spawned from the devil because my parents didn't go to church and I read harry potter during the sermon one time... they were complete assholes and still are, from my recent observations.

 

[fhbnfghnbfgbsnbg]

I never went to church that often, so I didn't think too much about religion. It just didn't factor much into my life; it was a boring place where you went for a couple hours and listened to people talk.
Well, then I went to church camp and believed for about a month.
Then I started looking at the bible and thinking about how it didn't make a lot of sense, with a lot of contradictions.
I thought deeply for awhile.
Then I decided not to accept it.
And that was the end of that.

Pretty melodramatic, I know.
I later went back to that church camp (It's a week-long event.). Reaffirmed my descision.
Except I felt alienated.

I suppose that had greater emphasis on God and religion been placed when I was young, it would have been much different.  

[Henneth Annun]

I never bought into the idea of a higher power, never. I got older and thought about it deeply, and poked around for religions, and then decided that I didn't accept it, like what KuroFur said.  

[Sanguvixen]

I don't know if I so much rejected religion, as much as I grew indifferent to it's claims.

It claims it knows how we came to be. It claims how our earth came to be. It claims were created by a god. All I can think...is how can you honestly know anything of that? No, you cannot know.

So I disassociated myself with religion, and now fall under the label of Atheist. I don't like to be that pretentious that I can claim I know how our earth came into existence and how life came into existence with the 100% certainty that all religions hold up. Therefore religion is not for me.  

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

I used to be a pretty devout (though admittedly brainwashed) Christian, but in college I started to realize that the faith wasn't working for me. I got away from the kids from high school who had pushed me into a very hypocritical area of the faith, and I started to notice that certain parts of the dogma didn't ring true to me anymore. The idea of any god at all was ceasing to ring true.

I went on a search for the reasons why I believed in God, and I found none aside from emotions and a childhood of hearing that "this is the way it is" but I had no compelling evidence to justify a belief. I found it dishonest and disrespectful to try to believe just to get myself a "get out of Hell free" card, and I knew that believing because it gave me a fuzzy feeling that I was "doing the right thing" wasn't a good reason either.

Emotions are too volatile to be trusted when it comes to questions like this IMO. I lack belief because I lack any better evidence.

 

[Prince Rilian]

not applicable. My mom's an atheist, my dad is non-religious. It's like asking a hindu why they rejected christianity.  

[Dark_lord_15]

Rilian Reilly Sharp

not applicable. My mom's an atheist, my dad is non-religious. It's like asking a hindu why they rejected christianity.

not necessarily... both of my parents are atheists, but I was raised christian. Obviously, it didn't help much, but they refused to talk about religion with me, and once a week I was shipped off to my weekly brainwashing session and renewed in my faith. Ech.

 

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

Why were you raised as a Christian if neither of your parents believed in the religion?

 

[Dark_lord_15]

Daffodil the Destroyer

Why were you raised as a Christian if neither of your parents believed in the religion?

grandmother insisted I go to church and be raised christian.
boy is she disappointed now.

 

[Celestial Fireflies]

Well, I was raised around religious people, but I only recall being a strong believer when I was still young enough to believe that Santa was bringing us presents and the Easter Bunny was still hiding our eggs. I went to classes on Sunday, and when I got older, I had classes on Thursdays to get my first communion. However, the more I started thinking for myself, the less sense God, and more specifically The Bible, made to me.

I saw that what I learned on Sunday based on faith wasn't matching what I was learning Monday through Friday based on evidence. That's what began drawing me away, I suppose. It didn't help that I've never had any experiences in which I thought I felt or heard God. Whenever I prayed, I felt like I was talking to myself. Somewhere along the lines, I just went, "Well, what if God doesn't exist after all? What if people just made it up to explain what they couldn't?"

From there on out, my belief in God just faded away and now I just see him as another mythical character.  

[Athena_Ritashe]

I was raised Christian and when I was in middle school I was teased and ostracized by my peers. I had a strong belief and I wondered if I was being tested or punished. I prayed for God to just make my depression go away, or make the harassment stop but it never did. I didn't see how I could have been punished for doing anything because I was just too young to have done anything wrong. Since all I requested was peace of mind, and God never answered my prayer I lost my faith in Christianity. I migrated to Paganism for several years, but I couldn't differentiate between what was real and imaginary and I went into Buddhism.

I was Buddhist but I still believed in God because I felt some sort of presence. Then I stated wondering if the feeling I felt was not from God but just a feeling. That's when I became atheist, when I realized all God was to me was a feeling. Still Buddhist, but now I don't believe in God. It's quite new to me and I love the simplicity of it all.  

[Falhalterra]

For me, it started when I was just coming out of my shell during the summer before I went to 7th grade. I was pretty fanatic over Marilyn Manson and I was deeply interested in the meaning of his music and his actions. So I went through many quotes; ranging from AntiChrist Superstar, Mechanical Animals and Holy Wood.
And then I was particularly smart enough to grasp finally that there really wasn't a God. I was skeptic from the start, as from going to church once in a while didn't really bring up my hopes in Christ and God. So over time, I spent most of my years on the internet, and watched many videos that showed the hypocrisy of Christianity and many other religions, and how silly it was to depend on something that wasn't true or there.

And now, I'm much more skeptic than I used to be.

It's not a really exciting story. razz  

[Kngz]

mha ha ha i like beating the s**t out of preachers!!
they killed most of my tribes and it was legal to hunt us till 1964 and the abuse was going on till 1980  

[Athena_Ritashe]

solomon_ears222

mha ha ha i like beating the s**t out of preachers!!
they killed most of my tribes and it was legal to hunt us till 1964 and the abuse was going on till 1980

Are you talking about a Native American tribe? Or what tribe? You have confused me. You have earned a quarter for your efforts since it doesn't take much effort to do so.