At what point did you realize that god is not real

[Tysilio]

At least I'm convinced that the earth exists and that we should take far better care of it.

Yes, indeed -- we have honest-to-Go actual evidence for this, which makes all the difference.

[whatismylife]

when i started questioning and reading and learning

[kelly_1979]

My family is / was rather religious  (basically my grandmother was) . Like many of us, I was naive enough to pray to God to turn me to a girl...until puberty, when it was obvious my dream wasn't going to happen

[pollypagan]

If we are the product of intelligent design then the designer must have had the mother of all hang-overs the day he designed humans.

"Oh >-bleeped-<, I've put the drain holes for sinuses at the top. That's never going to work. Bugger it nobody will see them anyway. Oh worse! No air access to the lungs. Damn  it, I'll just use the same tube food goes down. Can't see that causing any problems."

There is no evidence that persuades me that there is a god. I'm not saying there isn't because that would be no more valid than  asserting that there is. At what age did I become an atheist? About 20 or so.

[mmmmm]

What do you mean by that God is not real? Of course she's real, and she's black. Take a night off, go far away from any lights, literally like 30, 40 miles from nearest enlightened town, and look around... mostly up.

[Tripdistrans]

When I was a young child my patents were Christians, we went to church with their friends, and we went to church kids groups, and later a Lutheran school. I am also fairly sure that I have been baptised. That being said, I can't say exactly how old I was, because I feel I was simply too young to remember.

I do remember, however, that in early grades of primary school, I got in trouble for telling kids at school that god isn't real. In kindergarten, I was thinking with the mind of a teenager, eg, we made ttelevisions out if carboard boxes, and on each of my channels was a different of our teachers (the hot ones) dancing naked. Highly inappropriate for a 4/5 year old, but I had also already learned how to manipulate situations to get my way and lie to get what I want.

I wish I could say I never believed in god, or the idea of God's at all in my own case,  but I know that I must at some stage have believed it, simply because it was taught to me since birth. But it is definite in my memory that I did not believe in God from the age of 10.

[Jayne]

I was street preaching for a Pentecostal church in my late teens and got faced with a series of questions

Q. Is it true that god says its wrong to see suffering and do nothing?

A. Yes

Q. Is it true that god is all seeing and all powerful?

A. Yes

Q. So is it true that god can see all suffering and has the power to end the suffering but allows it to continue?

A. ERM.......

Over the following days and weeks my faith crumbled

[Mackan]

Im from Sweden and i Think we are classified as the most atheist country in the world or something like that. So I never believed in god for as long as I can remember and none of my friends or classmates did either. And no one ever went to church or anything, at least not that I know of. Only time you spend in a church was if someone was getting married, we don't believe in god but we get married in the church for some reason. I guess it only has to do with tradition.

[Terra13]

Anybody still here? Atheism subforum seems pretty dead.

Anyway, I'll throw in my experience, in case anyone is still around.
I wasn't raised religious at all so I was mostly a blank slate religiously, but growing up in the U.S I defaulted to a vague notion of the Christan God. I found criticisms of religion as I began exploring the Internet as a young teenager, and began wondering. Soon after, I came across Wicca and paganism, and was interested, and then I ended up with a group of friends who were exploring pagan beliefs and practices, so I ended up being pagan for a while.
I always thought critically of beliefs so over time, more and more of my beliefs shifted towards secular ideas, and even moreso as I found out several of my pagan friends outright lies about supposed mystical occurrences.
I had been trying for years to experience the spirituality others supposedly experienced to no avail, yet I held onto my beliefs anyway.
Eventually I just let go.

Learning the history of religions helped, too. Religions always claim to be absolute truth, and yet they change their ideas when old ones are disproven(Worse yet, sometimes they don't). That and the idea that a god that began as just a god of a specific people, Hebrews/Jews, is somehow the one true God and created everyone and everything is kind of odd.

[Tessa James]

Anybody still here? Atheism subforum seems pretty dead.

Yes still here and still a Humanist!  Being an announced atheist may subject one to further harassment, proselytizing and enmity from believers.  There are apparently no declared atheists elected to national office in the usa??  Yup there may even be discrimination at work, gasp;-)  I think that's funny as the fundamentalists (of all kinds) will often see themselves as the persecuted minority.

Your experience seems familiar in that we are often exposed to the lies and hypocrisy of the righteously religious.  That happened for me as a child and colored my perceptions.  I was literally beaten by catholic nuns, (the brides of christ) lied to and hurt by priests.  I witnessed near constant abuses of power and outrageous claims.  I became very cynical in puberty realizing "gods plan" included a life of torment for being a sissy girl in a boys body.  I could go on but suffice it to say I was once angry about organized religion and the suffering that results.  Now I have decades of life free of the nonsense about what "gods plan is" or if I can make it to heaven.  The apologists and those wanting to rationalize the ignorance of centuries are legion.  I am happy to consider the dustbin of history is filled with discarded religious"truths."  Yesterdays dogma is todays dog do do.   It really is OK not to have all the answers and therefore welcome new discoveries that help us know more of the cosmos and the human condition.  Live free!

[suzifrommd]

Anybody still here? Atheism subforum seems pretty dead.

Suzi present and accounted for. 

Religions always claim to be absolute truth, and yet they change their ideas when old ones are disproven(Worse yet, sometimes they don't). That and the idea that a god that began as just a god of a specific people, Hebrews/Jews, is somehow the one true God and created everyone and everything is kind of odd.

It's this sort of analysis that tends to move me toward atheism. I call myself an emphatic agnostic (I think the Origin of Things is unknowable), but if I had to bet my money either on (1) God being a creation of man to fulfill a need, or (2) God being an actual reality, I'd go firmly in the direction of (1). Seems a far more likely explanation.

[amber roskamp]

I actually ended up becoming an atheists while in church. I was 18 just got done with calculus class and my church ended up trying to prove the literal creation story, and they came up with some number like 1/some massive number (without showing how they came up with the number), and those are the odds that a planet would be able to sustain intelligent life. To me, a kid who just took a high school math class, the number that they put up told me that not only was it possible, but it was actually very likely that it would happen multiple times given the estimated size of the universe. They somehow came to the conclusion that in our universe that could never happen because they fail to understand basically math and science....

Then the truth of them not understanding or down right ignoring science became super obvious to me.

Their own lessons did the rest. I was taught by them consistently that if the creation story isn't true then the rest of the bible can't be true either. They said the bible stated it was God breathed and you can't pick parts to believe and not believe other parts. I actually agree with that. Unfortunately they use that logic to do massive mental gymnastics in order to believe that the book is factual and they use it to hurt so many people, rather then using real critical thinking and looking into their own beliefs.

[stephaniec]

I'm here, but I'm a Jesus freak

[VeryGnawty]

I wouldn't say that I realized that god is not real, because that implies certainty.  I would say that I realized that there's no good reason to believe in a god or gods.

[Terra13]

There are apparently no declared atheists elected to national office in the usa??  Yup there may even be discrimination at work, gasp;-)  I think that's funny as the fundamentalists (of all kinds) will often see themselves as the persecuted minority.

Politicians like to pander to religious people at least a bit, or at the very least they try to avoid alienating them, so even if we had an atheist politician they probably wouldn't identify themselves as such. For all its supposed progressiveness, the U.S. is still a surprisingly religious country.

Your experience seems familiar in that we are often exposed to the lies and hypocrisy of the righteously religious.  That happened for me as a child and colored my perceptions.  I was literally beaten by catholic nuns, (the brides of christ) lied to and hurt by priests.  I witnessed near constant abuses of power and outrageous claims.  I became very cynical in puberty realizing "gods plan" included a life of torment for being a sissy girl in a boys body.  I could go on but suffice it to say I was once angry about organized religion and the suffering that results.  Now I have decades of life free of the nonsense about what "gods plan is" or if I can make it to heaven. 

That's terrible, I'm so sorry you had to endure that sort of thing so young in life. Unfortunately things like this are all too common. I hope you've found more peace in your life since then.

I wouldn't say that I realized that god is not real, because that implies certainty.  I would say that I realized that there's no good reason to believe in a god or gods.

I'd say the two are one in the same.
I mean, sure, technically we can't know with 100% certainty that God/gods is(are) not real. But so far as I'm concerned, there's no more reason to believe in a god than there is to believe in a giant invisible radioactive pig monster if someone tells me there's one standing outside my window. And I would say that I'm fairly certain that pig monster is not real, enough where I could say with confidence that it's not real. But that's just me.

I feel like religion is afforded much more leniency than any other myth, superstition, etc. just because there is still a large number of people who believe in it, but I wonder if it would still be given so much leniency if not for the large following.

[Tessa James]

Politicians like to pander to religious people at least a bit, or at the very least they try to avoid alienating them, so even if we had an atheist politician they probably wouldn't identify themselves as such. For all its supposed progressiveness, the U.S. is still a surprisingly religious country.

That's terrible, I'm so sorry you had to endure that sort of thing so young in life. Unfortunately things like this are all too common. I hope you've found more peace in your life since then.

I feel like religion is afforded much more leniency than any other myth, superstition, etc. just because there is still a large number of people who believe in it, but I wonder if it would still be given so much leniency if not for the large following.

There is no denying the historical, cultural and social significance of organized religions.  There is value in being part of a shared community and I once loved singing in the choir.  The largess afforded religious institutions in the USA through tax codes means that we subsidize them and that helps to ensure the nonsense will continue.  We can appreciate the good some believers evidence but the overall damage is incalculable.  Consider the impacts on reproductive freedom alone and it just doesn't add up as a net benefit IMO.

I appreciate your kindness relative to what is "all too common" but my heart and mind are no longer troubled by myths and I am at peace with my past.  Part of working through that was to find a different way to be in communion with others without recourse to the supernatural or magical thinking.
  I found that in the Humanist philosophy and was a local chapter leader at one time back in the 80s.  Part of our social justice action was to be physically present and assist people running the protesters screaming gauntlet at clinics that provided reproductive care, including abortions.  Talk of rabid terrorists reminds me of one encounter when the faithful were bused in to overwhelm us at the Lovejoy clinic in Portland.  We needed the police to protect us from "the love of god" as the protesters described themselves.  Yes, save us from that love!

[VeryGnawty]

I'd say the two are one in the same.

Nope.  Not the same at all.  Saying "I don't believe in gods" and saying that "There are no gods" are two completely different things.  The latter is an assertion of the absolute non-existence of gods.  That would be gnostic atheism.  The former would be agnostic atheism.

[Colleen M]

Nope.  Not the same at all.  Saying "I don't believe in gods" and saying that "There are no gods" are two completely different things.  The latter is an assertion of the absolute non-existence of gods.  That would be gnostic atheism.  The former would be agnostic atheism.

No reasonable hypothesis requires a divine being, but it's true we can't say definitively that there is no divine being any more than we can say there isn't a teakettle orbiting Mars.  We're quibbling over how bad the odds are, but there's at least a 1 on the other side of that betting proposition.  As a practical matter, I do feel quite confident betting against divine beings, teakettles orbiting Mars, or giant radioactive pig monsters based on essentially similar odds and I tend to view the reservations as more philosophical than useful.     

Having said that, certain specific religions can be definitively excluded from consideration.  There is no conceivable scenario in which the xian god actually exists, for example.  If you have to plagiarize your origin story from somebody else, you've failed one of the requirements for divinity pretty much by definition before you even got started.     

[stephaniec]

I don't know if its proper for me to replay because I'm a deep believer in God, but I will. To me it's just plain common sense. whether or not we are the only ones occupying empty space(which in it self is quite cool) or there is an infinite progression of life through out an even more infinite void there is something that is giving us  a magnificent ride and I like the idea of giving thanks for that ride.

[jessical]

I was street preaching for a Pentecostal church in my late teens and got faced with a series of questions

Q. Is it true that god says its wrong to see suffering and do nothing?

A. Yes

Q. Is it true that god is all seeing and all powerful?

A. Yes

Q. So is it true that god can see all suffering and has the power to end the suffering but allows it to continue?

A. ERM.......

Over the following days and weeks my faith crumbled

This played a large part for me.  And the belief that if I was a model Christian, and asked God for something repeatedly I would get it.  At some point I realized that would never happen.

I would go as far as saying god is not real.  I think it is likely god does not exist, but if a creator does exist, it does not influence the world in anyway.

In many ways I just don't care either way, as the belief or disbelief has no bearing on my life.