Ovazor

I'm quite certain of it. I think it was Richard Dawkins who observed that the most significant factor in determining the religion of a person is where he happens to be born, i.e. family background.

Y.B

The way I see it, for me, it was initially lack of belief, because my parents didn't put the god-idea in my head in the first place. When I asked them about the origins of the universe, they said that it was some sort of big bang.

Perhaps it was easier for me, then, as a teenager and after that, to see how illogical the whole god concept was, and become a strong atheist.

Btw, there are plenty of deconverts (former believers from religious homes) here, you might want to read their "atheist testimonials" or "salvation stories" here to see their POW.

Cynthia of Syracuse

Welcome to the boards. You will probably find reading this thread to be very useful in answering some of your questions.

Javaman

Yes, the Atheists' Testimony Thread is stickied in the Secular Lifestyle forum and should give you plenty of info.
Perhaps. Religion wasn't a subject of discussion in my house growing up. At least not the christian religion. I remember my aunt had a 'guru' but I didn't know what that was a the time. I just never had cause to invent a supreme being. Think of it this way, did your family discuss the fact that Shiva didn't exist? How 'bout Thor? Mars? Allah? Are you a non-believer in those gods because they weren't discussed?

On a tangent, do believe it's dishonest for any parent to tell their children which supernatural belief is the correct one? As a Christian, you probably would teach your children that the Christian God exists and that other religions were wrong. Consequently, you'd expect them to believe that. But other parents with diametrically-opposed beliefs are doing that to their own offspring. Perhaps the strengths of a particular set of beliefs are strong enough to win out once a child is allowed to think the problem out.

If children nearly always believe what thier parents believe, that alone should be enough to throw doubt upon any one religion being true. An honest solution would be to provide unbiased information on all beliefs and let the child decide. The thing is, that's how we make atheists.


Well, if it hadn't taken me forever and a day to type this, I'd have seen that Cynthia of Syracuse beat me to the linky.

Krosis

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - - Stephen Roberts

I was born an atheist by default.. as we all are. I chose to remain one after the concept of the christian god(tm) was introduced to me. i found the concept wanting.

-cheers

PoodleLovinPessimist

Hard to say in my case. My father is Catholic, and I was baptised a Catholic, but he abandoned the family when I was 7. I was raised a Quaker, which is probably the most non-doctrinal religion in existence that deserves the name. My extended family are more or less religious, but also extremely educated, intelligent and rationalistic. I was always encouraged to form my own opinions; no one ever taught me to believe anything "because they said so."

I was never particularly challenged to defend my opinions mostly because (if you'll excuse the immodesty) I'm probably considerably smarter than anyone in my immediate family. (Which should say more about my family than me; my branch is not the most distinguished in my extended family.)

So who knows? What I do know is that, before about seven, I had the usual childish notions of god as this physical guy sitting around with a spyglass, basically a more pissed-off and judgemental Santa Claus. Beyond the age of seven or eight, I really didn't have much of any notion about god; I just didn't think about it. In my teenage years and early adulthood, the whole concept of a god just seemed so absurd on its face that I didn't give it any serious consideration. It's only when I came to Infidels a few years ago that I gave the issue any deep philosophical thought.

To me, it's not necessary to "prove" god false. It's enough for me that the concept seems practically meaningless; even if a god exists, there doesn't seem any way of knowing anything about it directly, and I'm much too independent to take anyone's word for what a god wants, whether the word of a priest, or the human authors of any supposed scripture. If a god wants to talk to me, it knows where to find me.

jastity

I have a pet theory, totally untested and probably quasireligious, that you have to be introduced to the idea of gods by people who believe in them by a certain age, or else you lose the power to do so yourself. I wasn't and the idea is so preposterous that I wonder how people could take it seriously for a moment.

lpetrich

I have lots of reasons. Like why an omnimax god doesn't create Heaven and be done with it. And why reveal some ambiguously-written book (to put it kindly) and then run off into hiding. Especially a book full of known falsehoods. Especially when said entity can reveal what It wants right to people's consciousnesses -- those of everybody who has ever lived.

And why let people believe so many false opinions about It, without bothering to try to correct them, when It is allegedly obsessed with correct belief. And sending people to an eternity of torment, forever and ever and ever, for finite crimes. Including the "crime" of never being able to learn about the One True Religion (whatever it might be), a "crime" which nearly all of humanity has been guilty of.

And why do miracles stop happening when skeptics show up -- it ought to be skeptics who are to see the biggest miracles, because it's they who would need the most convincing.

A non-omnimax deity avoids many of these problems, but the question remains of "where's the positive evidence?" Arguments that this or that are unevolvable are non sequiturs -- lots of other "designers" can do whatever designing is supposedly necessary.

That's not the end of it, of course.

Now to SSbyG's URL's.

SSbyG: http://www.ex-atheist.com/6.html

This was abundantly dealt with in Nutwatch #39

SSbyG: http://www.theism.net/authors/zjorda...es/02birth.htm

I'm not impressed -- this guy swallows fundie agitprop whole, including a lot of theocrat projection about how "secular humanism" is allegedly the US's official religion. "We are theocrats under the thumb of theocrats who are our evil mirror image."

And his dislike of Madalyn Murray O'Hair was entirely understandable -- she was gruff and abrasive.

He mentioned that old chestnut about how Xianity has never been tried; it had been invented by an Xian apologist, G.K. Chesterton, with the implication that Xianity's critics are too lazy to try it. But it also has the implication that all of Xianity is a fraud.

Krusty

He should try testing his methods of proof on the "Biblical Criticism & History" forum of IIDB, I bet he would get some interesting responses.

PinkPanther_04

I was raised as a Christian, although we really never talked about religion at home. We just went to church (Methodist) every Sunday, sang in the choir, went to youth group activities and church camp, etc., and didn't worry too much about the theology behind it all. I tried to believe in the Christian god because that's what was expected of me, but I just couldn't. It didn't make sense to me. I felt very much like a failure because I couldn't believe and left the church at thirteen, about a month after my baptism. I toyed with other theistic belief systems, hoping one would feel right, and finally tried to be a Deist as a last resort. But even that was too much of a stretch. The idea that there was some sort of evidence of a higher power in nature just seemed redundant and wholely unsupported. I spent several years as an apathetic "agnostic," simply because I wasn't willing to admit I was an atheist and I was tired of thinking about it so much. It was just last year that I finally realized I was an atheist, and that it wasn't a bad thing, although I'd never believed in god at all.