Hopeful Monsters

Science and engineering proved more convincing to me:

I'm more persuaded by evolutionary theory & evidence than magic wand creationism; I'm more deeply convinced by the Big Bang theory and its latest variants than by a God created universe; I'm more persuaded by insight derived from modern psychiatry than third rate 'wisdom' in scripture.

Modern, cutting edge, cosmology and astronomy alone are FAR more wondrous to me than any tired old religious notion.

The evidence point is vitally important - I'd only be convinced if I experienced that evidence myself directly (like encountering my father's spirit and hearing him tell me 'There IS a Heaven - and they've got cable').

Selsaral

Studying humanity is what got me. Human beings are innately superstitious, gullible creatures. Our minds work in convoluted ways and our consciousness is complex. People have been making up 'god of the gaps' and feel-good theories since the beginning of our species. By the time I really heard about christianity, I had already learned all about scientologists, moonies, david koresh-style cults with poisoned koolaid, doomsday preachers, witchdoctors, ancestor worshippers etc. The list goes on and on. When I learned that this particular group of people think this ancient book of parables and folkstories was literal truth and there is a big sky-daddy watching everything we do SantaClaus-style, giving eternal life in bliss to the 'good' people, and punishing the 'bad' people eternally, I wasn't even vaguely surprised. It's human nature to believe in such things, and christianity is no different than any of the other thousands of religions that exist or have come and gone throughout human history. After having several long conversations with scientologists, it became quite clear to me that most human beings are gullible enough to completely fall for whatever wacky cult that catches their imagination (or pushes the right psychological buttons, or they were indoctrinated as children with).

With it clear that human beings are gullible, superstitious creatures, testimony about the supernatural by other humans becomes essentially worthless. And isn't it convenient that 99% of most religions is based upon human testimony. This fact destroys any legitimacy of supernatural claims, putting the burden of proof soundly on those making the claim. I have never demanded stupendous evidence or proof (tho it wouldn't bother me), but it's pitiful that all there is to offer is yet more completely shady human testimony about images of the virgin Mary in the side of a taco or whatever. It's not that I have never seen convincing evidence of the supernatural, I have never even seen evidence that pushes such concepts out of the pure imagination of the unreliable humans who make them.

rdalin

Since I'm a life-long atheist, raised by two atheist parents, I never chose atheism. I can't imagine anything else, since the concept of a supernatural entity is to me not worth considering. All of the reading and thinking that I've done in recent years has only served to reinforce my position.

JaeIsGod

When I was a little boy sitting in church it hit me once: If people would ever think up a religion , it would look exactly like Christianity.
Now I wasnt able to draw the right conclusions at that time , but later it became clear to me that all religions were simply man-made things.

And if all religions are bogus either

1:God does not exist
2:God ignores us
3:God doesnt want us to know about him

In all 3 cases believing would be a useless thing , so why bother

Heathen Dawn

History and and historical science convinced me: both history and prehistory show an indifference which is best explained by assuming all events are direct causes interacting with each other without an overarching ruler intervening. This is not enough for ruling out Deism, but Deism amounts to atheism as far as practical life is concerned. Couple that with the fact that science has found no trace for the supernatural, and you have a complete case against God.

Howard

I grew up Jewish (conservative) and read all the stories about how God smote the enemies of Israel whenever they became a problem. However, when I needed God to do something similar for me, he didn�t come through.

What happened was this: At the age of nine I went out for Little League baseball. I really wanted to play shortstop but there was this Catholic kid who was better than me. So I did what any God-fearing Jewish kid would do: I prayed for God to smite his ass, or at least to injure him such that he couldn�t play. But it didn�t happen that way, and I ended up in right field - where the only balls you get are the occasional dribbling grounders.

I figured if God couldn�t smite one lousy gentile on behalf of a bona fide Chosen Person, he was either useless or non-existent.

Jobar

What started me on the way was reading the Bible all the way through. After that, I suppose it was realizing how many gods there have been in our history, and Jehovah is little different than any of the rest.

So, 'other'.

And let's put this in, mmmm, GRD.

Carlos

What started it for me was apathy with a dash of rebellion. That made me read about opposing viewpoints for the first time. What clenched it was lack of evidence.

parkdalian

What has always made me an unbeliever was the gamut of religions, sects, and cults all over the world and all the various contradictory beliefs within them.

dimpledop

When I was a kid, I eventually concluded that a god was as likely a reality as Santa Claus. And then it didn't make sense that there could be so many different religions in the world, and even different versions of christianity - and all of them be right. The concept of a god flew in the face of my daily experiences. In my teens I became an agnostic, and then with a bit more confidence to go against convention I became an atheist.