#born atheist

[stardust2dust2dust]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

How did you become an atheist? Were you raised without a religious upbringing, or were you raised in a particular tradition before deciding to leave? If the latter, what was the turning point?

Let’s first remember that nobody is born with a belief in gods, just as nobody is born with a belief in racial superiority. God-belief is learned. Absence of belief - indeed, absence of the entire concept - is the default. So, many former believers will tell you they returned or reverted to atheism.

That said, I was raised only loosely Catholic-ish, which included some Sunday School, and church most weeks. None of it ever stuck or made sense to me. I knew the words - able to regurgitate enough of it to adequately pass a test - but they were empty to me. I pretty much sleepwalked through it, completely untouched.

Even when I hadn’t put together a lot of the logic of the stories - such as the hypocrisy of “god” blaming Adam and Eve for not knowing right from wrong while denying them knowledge of right and wrong, and the immorality of vicarious redemption though blood sacrifice - it all just seemed really silly. Especially with these supposedly powerful entities wandering around doing magical tricks that were really limited and unimpressive. You’ll ruin a perfectly good carafe of water by turning it into some unspecified varietal of wine (was it shiraz, merlot, who knows?), for no good reason, but you won’t feed the starving people in the Ethiopian famine. Or can’t. From lack of existing.

I was a voracious reader, and literally none of the bible stories that are actually suitable for kids are compelling tales; for that, you have to go to the really slaughtery-Game of Thrones-ey incest, genocide stories that I didn’t find out about until much later, which showed the god I already didn’t believe in was an immoral thug. There were far more stories, from Roald Dahl to Transformers, that resonated and were much more meaningful to me, Optimus Prime taught me more about morality, integrity and doing the right thing than every character from those Sunday School fables combined.

Having talked about this more recently with my father, he and my mother only did the minimum that was socially expected. We didn’t pray at night, didn’t say grace. There were certainly no crucifixes anywhere, and I don’t recall us even owning a bible. We were told that at 16 we would be allowed to choose for ourselves. When my eldest sibling turned 16, she immediately opted out of church, and pretty soon after, we all stopped going entirely (she’s still rather sore about that, but I had to attend her recitals, whereas she was never dragged to anything of mine, so I call it even).

So, in short, I’d say I was always an atheist.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

What religion were you from before? Clearly you are an atheist now..or are you from an atheist family?

Uncommitted Catholicism:

https://religion-is-a-mental-illness.tumblr.com/post/187798081102

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Belief is nurture, not nature.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Funny how nobody has “religious dysphoria” from being brought up in the “wrong” religion (aka not yours).

Except the atheists who aren’t buying any of that shit.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Every child is born atheist.

Religion is nurture, not nature.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

You deserve better than religion.