Anyone ever become an atheist after believing?

Between 1972 to 1976 (14 to 18) I became a born again Christian rising to be the President of The Young Peoples Fellowship and then at 19 I saw the light and became an atheist.
 
It's funny, i think i'm going atheist > pantheist > polytheist. It's not so much a case of changing beliefs, but of looking at things in a different way. Namely, the way you define 'god'.
 
used to be Orthodox as a kid. At around 13-14 I believed in Christianity but hated the church because of the stance it has. At around 16 I became a monotheist, and at 20 an atheist.
 
I grew up an atheist, in my teens and young adulthood I was a vehement anti theist, I am now a ignostic. I think everyone is influenced by their experiences in one way or another and that manifests in different ways regarding religious or spiritual beliefs.
 
Castiel said:
I grew up an atheist, in my teens and young adulthood I was a vehement anti theist, I am now an ignostic. I think everyone is influenced by their experiences in one way or another and that manifests in different ways regarding religious or spiritual beliefs.
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An interesting option, thanks for bringing it to my attention. But my recent thinking has been that the answer to the question 'what is a god?' is a personal thing rather than a universal thing. And personally, i'm coming across to the idea that gods do exist. They exist as concepts and personalities that we have created, that have the power to influence people's lives and the world through them because we give them that power. I guess as a consequence of this you could never really 'pick' a religion to be the one you think to be true, but you could pick one you wanted to follow - one you wanted to give that power to.
 
I don't hold any beliefs related to any deity one way or the other (weak atheism technically), neither do I really have a problem with belief unless it's causing harm, used to justify causing harm or when related to matters of scientific fact.

I have a problem with child abuse, bigotry & sexism - all three are common within religions but it's those specific actions & the dogmas which permit them I have the problem with - not the abstract concept.

I do agree, "what is meant by god" is an important question - one with a million replies.

For most people by god they seem to mean an independent sentient entity which exists outside of our universe & would continue to exist if we did not - the last point being different to other abstract concepts which "exist" within society but can still be called "god" as no real singular definition exists.
 
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I was a devout christian but then at the age of 10 I found out that Santa Claus wasn't real, naturally I saw the similarities to "God" and have been an atheist ever since.
 
All these categories of belief lend far too much credence to the works of fiction that are religious stories. What's the word for that? I think I'll call it ugnostic.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Haha I bet they'd be shocked to see you now, playing all that Devil music.
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My Vicar was really cool and allowed my band to play in the Church but we did rocked up gospel songs.
I also showed him the lyrics on the back of the Black Sabbath Master Of Reality album and he ended up reading out 3 of the song lyrics to the whole congregation which were Children Of The Grave, Lord Of This World and After Forever while commenting on the lyrics.
He was going to read out Sweat Leaf because he thought it was about God until I told him it was about weed.
 
I got through school having a very wooly belief in Christianity, but I grew out of it by the time I was fifteen and was an atheist by default around then.

Who cares? I don't.
 
Dimple said:
My Vicar was really cool and allowed my band to play in the Church but we did rocked up gospel songs.
I also showed him the lyrics on the back of the Black Sabbath Master Of Reality album and he ended up reading out 3 of the song lyrics to the whole congregation which were Children Of The Grave, Lord Of This World and After Forever while commenting on the lyrics.
He was going to read out Sweat Leaf because he thought it was about God until I told him it was about weed.
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Haha I would have loved to hear him reading Sweet Leaf! Sounds like an alright vicar though! I guess there are some rocking vicars around.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Haha I would have loved to hear him reading Sweet Leaf! Sounds like an alright vicar though! I guess there are some rocking vicars around.
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He was great and an ex boxer but it was during his time that I started to lose religion. I got dismayed by people making their own religious rules up (including myself) and the straw that broke the camels back was when he invited another church up from down South. There was about 30 of them and they camped out in the Church Hall and me and a mate decided to crash by going through a basement door we had keys for. Before going in we watched from a slit and it was an all out orgy :eek: I kid you not. The following day I questioned their leader and he just said that we were all children of God and it was OK because it was all love etc.
That was the moment (as well as other experiences) that made me realise it was a load of bull and I missed out on poontang.
 
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