What age did you become agnostic/atheist (meaning, believe, born)

[twinkletwinkle22]

My switch to agnosticism began age 14 to 15, not wanting to attend church (Catholic). I was at Catholic HS and taught by nuns from grade 1-12. Nuns were GREAT! I still admire them, they taught us to question what we were told and to think for ourselves. Some of them left their order during the 70s but many stayed.

I did not advertise my agnosticism at school but at home it caused big problems with my Irish Catholic mother who herself was not completely sold on Catholicism but wanted me to adhere. She eventually became a Unitarian but had a brief hook-up with Scientolgy in late 60s, I remember a device brought home to "go clear."

When did you separate from organized religion?

[Northsouth]

Separation from organized religion happened when I became a teenager at 13. I didn't know I was leaning toward atheism the whole time. I detested church, (fundamental evangelical AOG) and I was so embarrassed by my relatives and their fanaticism.

It never felt right. I tried to adhere, but it wouldn't stick. I had no clue I was becoming agnostic. Not until I came here to C-D. In 2008, after a very long journey out of indoctrination and religion, I became an agnostic atheist. Then, atheist. It was a progression.

I've said this before, but the Universalists and Atheists and few others here were so good to me and helped me. I have never met an atheist in person so I had never talked to any. I was always told that they were to be shunned and that they were of the christian Satan. I live in the deep South and everyone is a "born-again" Christian, and most of the churches here are Southern Baptist. I'm way outnumbered.

Atheism and being free from religion has been pure joy since 2008. I am free from guilt, free from fearing a god and that mythical eternal hell thing, and my head is clear. I can finally think straight. What a jumbled up, confused mess I was in the beginning. Thanks to the great people at C-D, you know who you are. The others....meh. There's always someone ready to steal your joy here too. I'm sure you already know that.

It would have been great to have non-radical non-Christian people in my life, but since I knew nothing or no one, I remained in that state of "if everyone else believes it, maybe I'd better too just to be on the safe side". Pascal's Wager is NOT a valid argument.

Just because the majority believes something to be true, does not mean it is. Atheists are just a small minority, I can't believe how much the christians here are threatened by that. They all live in fear, and they lash out at us because they know we are onto something. I will no longer be associated with something like organized religion, it is poison and toxic to the mind and body. It's just not healthy.

Nice thread.

[Nefret]

I was somewhere in my 40s when I read the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It got me to thinking and questioning everything I had been taught. I grew up in the south and had never met anyone who wasn't an active church member until I moved to Atlanta after college and was exposed to a wider variety of people.

I'm now Unitarian. One of the principles of Unitarianism is "the free and responsible search for truth and meaning". Not to simply accept dogma that was handed down to us as children by adults who had never given deep thought to their beliefs.

I think that, for many people, going to church is what "nice people" do on Sunday morning.

[phetaroi]

For me, hard to say.

I was 18 or 19 when I went to confession and in my little list I mentioned masturbation. The old fossil of a priest said (exact quote) "Next time you think about it, take a **** and forget about it. Now go and say ten our fathers and ten hail marys". I went out and kneeled in a pew, but instead of doing the ten our fathers and ten hail marys, I thought was an jerk that old fossil was. Did he think that provided any spiritual help?

Never went to confession again. And slowly but surely moved more and more toward agnosticism. Then, about 7 years ago something happened in my life one day that shattered me. The one time I really asked god for help. And what did I get? Nothing. That was the brutal end of any belief in god, and I would call that the day I became an atheist.

[DesertRat56]

Originally Posted by twinkletwinkle22

My switch to agnosticism began age 14 to 15, not wanting to attend church (Catholic). I was at Catholic HS and taught by nuns from grade 1-12. Nuns were GREAT! I still admire them, they taught us to question what we were told and to think for ourselves. Some of them left their order during the 70s but many stayed.

I did not advertise my agnosticism at school but at home it caused big problems with my Irish Catholic mother who herself was not completely sold on Catholicism but wanted me to adhere. She eventually became a Unitarian but had a brief hook-up with Scientolgy in late 60s, I remember a device brought home to "go clear."

When did you separate from organized religion?

I was about 17 when I started claiming I was agnostic. I did not talk about it to family. My parents did not seem religious though and at that time we had moved and no longer went to church. After I left home my parents joined another church and became deacon and elder (elder is essential a member of the board of directors). The younger kids were sent to summer church camps etc. But I still never got that they were religious, it must have been mostly social for them. When I was very young we were going to a southern baptist church which ended badly (minister ran off with the church money leaving his wife and kids destitute). Later my dad took us to a presbyterian church and we all liked that a lot better. We were allowed to ask questions and expected to think for ourselves.

Anyway. Eventually I gave up sitting on the fence and jumped off to the atheist veiwpoint, but not normal flat out atheist, I still know that we are more than the sum or our physical parts, but I don't believe there is any benign, omiscient entity making rules for how we should live. Religion is not about any deity, or actual facts, it is about selling someone else's beliefs to large numbers of people, often in order to control them (either thier money or thier lives).

[eddie gein]

Mid 20s.... after reassessing Biblical doctrine, noting the lack of agreement consensus amongst the various Christian groups, realizing that Christians didn't really have the "inner peace" that they claimed compared to anybody else. Discovering that random things happened to people randomly. Realizing that "miraculous claims were either not true or not actually miraculous."

All that stuff kind of happened all during the same period of time.

I will say that one thing unique to my time of growing up was that when I was in seventh grade (1970) Hal Lindsay came out with the "Late Great Planet Earth" book. Because of that book there was a lot of Rapture fever around that time.

Lindsay's book emphasized that the last generation would occur after Israel become a nation. That happened in 1948. Lindsay further claimed that a Biblical generation was "forty years"...

Therefore the Rapture was to come no later than 1988. Well that didn't happen and now we are almost two generations past Israel becoming a nation. Yet Lindsay (last I checked) is still around and is still considered an expert on Biblical prophecy. Somewhere a while back I just figured out that this was a long con.

Jesus could make this all a lot easier by just returning like he said he would. But I don't see any point in having "faith" in that happening anymore thanks to Hal and others like him.

[WoodwindsRock]

I began in my mid teens. I believe age 16 or 17. However, I fell back into progressive Christianity for a while, until I couldn't hold that belief at all anymore at age 23.

[mordant]

I usually date my atheism from my late 30s, although that's debatable because the transition was gradual. First inklings probably 10 years earlier, full clarity in my thinking maybe up to 10 years later. So more or less I have been an atheist for, at a bare minimum, 25 years now.

[Frostnip]

I wouldn't say I became agnostic. I'd say I finally admitted that I was agnostic in my mid-20s. Prior to that, I tried very hard to be a good Catholic like I was raised. "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!" and all that.

It was quite a relief to let go of that cognitive dissonance and that feeling that I was being dishonest. Ironically I'm doing a better job of following certain commandments (e.g. no false witness) now that I'm not trying to be a Christian.

[Theresa_N]

Over the years I waivered in my belief in god. The first time I identified as atheist was during confirmation classes from the Catholic church. I finally became a committed atheist after transitioning from male to female. Now I identify as a nontheistic Quaker.