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If there was one thing you read that accelerated your doubt in religion what was it?

If there was one thing, a statement, a quote, or a paragraph you read that accelerated your doubt in god and religion what was it?

What is one written thing that brought together a question that you couldn’t seem to formulate on your own, or answered an question that nagged at you, or made you realize something was wrong.

If possible please provide the statement, the source, and a brief description of the moment.

Answer 918

the bible, my family is very catholic and as a child I was interested in reading it, but it wasn’t very helpful, it just created many more unresolved questions.

Answer 930

When I had decided to leave Christianity I was riddled with doubt And guilt. I was worried I was wrong and just missing that key piece that would give me peace. I couldn’t find it anywhere. One day I was reading an article in a Maxim magazine that was an excerpt of a book.

The book was called “Skinny Legs and All”, it was written by Tom Robbins.

I was at the point I did not know what to believe. All I knew there was something wrong with religion, when I read this:

I found that religion was a improper response to the Divine. Religion was an attempt to pin down the divine. … But the puny of soul and the dull of wit, weren’t content with that. They wanted to hang a face on the divine. They went so far as to attribute petty human emotions (anger, jealousy, love) to it, not stopping to realize that if God were a being, even a supreme being, our prayers would have bored him to death long ago.

The divine was expansive, but religion was reductive. Religion attempted to reduce the divine to a knowable quantity with which mortals might efficiently deal, to pigeon it once and for all so that we never had to reevaluate it. With hammers of can’t and spikes of dogma, we crucified again and again, trying to nail to our stationary altars the migratory light of the world.

Thus since religion bore false witness to the divine, religion was blasphemy, and once it entered into its unholy alliance with politics, it became the most dangerous and repressive force the world has ever known.

I now know that even the concept of the divine is wrong too, but it was what helped me slam the door shut on religion.

Answer 949

I remember the very moment it snapped, exiting a Metaphysics course at a Jesuit University, which was taught by an overt atheist. We had just read an argument that showed me that all of us, atheists and believers are in the exact same position regarding KNOWLEDGE of things, but that where we differ is in how we deal with that knowledge, or how we try to expand it.

The text said effectively, “If a Christian confronts a non-believer about where the universe came from, the atheist will say “The Big Bang.” THe Christian will then say, “But how did the material required for the big bang come into existence? Hm?” The atheist replies, “Well, it either has been there for eternity, or it sprang into being out of nothingness.” The Christian chuckles at the absurdity! So the Atheist asks, “How do you think it came about?” to which the Christian responds, “God, the omniscient and all powerful, and eternal made everything.” “Well,” says the atheist, “What made God?” The Christian replies without an ounce of irony or awareness, “He has either always been there or sprang into being out of nothingness.”

So if we’re on the same footing we have to say, “Given that the absolute origin of everything is unknowable (so far),” which of these is a legitimate position: Saying “I don’t know but I will keep exploring” or saying “I don’t know, therefore God.” Occam’s razor favors the former.

I left the class that day absolutely certain that I could no longer claim to believe in a creator God. There was no way to justify it.

Answer 950

Growing up.

And I don’t mean just chronologically, but maturing in many aspects. Travelling, meeting different kinds of peoples and cultures, reading, eating different stuff, experiencing different things, being creative. That is what showed me, once and for all, that religion is plain silly.

Answer 1006

The Bible, the Qur’an, the Bhagavad Gita. All three are morally repugnant.

Answer 1517

Comparative mythology, specifically the Joseph Campbell stuff and Frasier’s Golden Bough. When I saw how clearly the myth of Jesus mapped on to all the other myths I began to be an atheist. When I read about mithraism pre-dating christianity and the parallels between them it was the nail in the coffin of religion for me.

Answer 919

Initially, I began to doubt Christianity whilst reading the Bible (at around the age of 10, I think). But the one thing that accelerated my doubt immensely was questioning the Bible and observing how religious people gave answers that did not make any sense at all: listening to them was the equivalent of being boxed in the head repeatedly.

Answer 921

I was already at the point of doubting when this happened. I probably self-identified as an agnostic at the time. My grandmother asked me if I believed in Jesus, I didn’t answer fast enough and she proceeded to shake me a bunch while rambling about hell and what have you. That was pretty much the last thing I needed to think religion provided a benefit to society. Something about having a lot of respect for her, thinking of her as an example of a good Christian, then having her prove me wrong in such an unexpected way, just did it in for me.

Answer 922

I ended up thinking (in a naive fashion) about the problem of evil in my early teen years, and that began my trek towards atheism. To be fair, I did not have a deep fervor for any particular religion to begin with - my family was only weakly Christian - so it did not take much to derail me.

Answer 924

I think the fact that a modern society that can believe in a man from 2000 years ago, that rose from the dead, was the son of a never seen deity, whose body the ritualistically eat and at the same time can’t believe in a man who flies around in a sleigh pulled by a certain type of deer, giving presents to children, would accelerate anybody’s doubt in religion.

Answer 927

Its not what I read it was what I listened to on my ipod while I worked. I listened to the skeptics guide to the universe, skeptoid, skepchick and others, I then applied the logic I had learned to my sloppy, wishy washy religious view and came to the logical conclusion I was an Atheist.

Answer 944

The question formed in my mind: “If god is omniscient and has a plan, how can we have free will?” - as I think has been discussed elsewhere on SE.

If we have free will, the future hasn’t been decided and we will make our own decisions. But if god knows all, and if he/she/it has a plan, how is it that we are free to make our own choices? Either we’re making the choice god knew we would, and had planned for us - ergo, no free will; it was predestined - OR we’re going against his/her/its plan, and he/she/it didn’t plan accordingly - OR he/she/it didn’t know what we were going to do, and isn’t omniscient.

Answer 1008

I was brought up Jehovah’s Witness. I don’t know what made me doubt first: religious debates on h2g2 were part of it, but there was more than that. They were atheist vs Christian, mainly. Later, learning the beliefs of other branches of Christianity was part of it. All these religions, so different, all claiming to be based on the same book. And none of them made any sense.

A friend of mine, with whom I’ve since lost contact, was also questioning this stuff. Unlike me, he was feeling guilty about his doubts. (I was pretty much out as an atheist at this stage.) I showed him this quote, which may not have helped him come to any conclusion, but it certainly helped him to feel more comfortable while exploring:

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson

Answer 1519

The Good Soldier Švejk is a great book to read. It is neither specifically about atheism or religion, it is mostly about how human idiocy wins over big ideals, no matter what they are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_%C5%A0vejk

Answer 1598

“50 Voices of Disbelief”. A book of essays by non-believers. The question of the book was “Why don’t you belief in an all powerful god?” This limited the discussion somewhat, but a few of the responders went beyond that simple question. The classic arguments for and against were covered as well as some great personal stories of dealing with a variety of beliefs of parents and communities.

That and my attempt to teach the Bible to children. I knew it would problematic. I tried to teach it an open minded way, revealing the moral truths within, but the belief system actually gets in the way of doing that.


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