At what age did you gather your first moments of courage against god and questioned his ways and even his existence?
For me it was at 14. I experienced the death of a close friend and felt like god was unfair. I was mad and started losing faith on that day. Then progressively became less of a believerin everything related to god.
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Around 8, but I wouldn't say it was courageous - though my school taught Christianity, it wasn't very heavily focused on and I knew so little about God that I wasn't scared by non-belief. I guess we were taught the nice, cosy image of God that you teach young kids rather than the more real (as in true to the Bible, of course, not real as in physically there :P ) God that Catholic schools tend to teach. My cousin came to my house one day and mentioned a couple of things that don't make sense about the Bible and I was an atheist in a matter of minutes.
For me it had to be since I can remember because I was alwasy rebellious to anything I could not see or touch or at least feels somehow. It's very hard to believe in something and not question it ever.
I never really believed in God or Satan, or anything related to religion. I have some family that got me a Bible and took me to church with them. My paternal Mamaw took me to her Catholic church, where my father and her were members. I went to make them happy, but deep down I felt out of place. I didn't want to be there.
I was 10 years old when I had my first disagreement with religion. I remember I cursed up to the sky "I hate you god" because something I felt was really unfair happened to me, and then I felt strangely liberated about the fact that I was not damned of struck by lightning for saying that. From that point on I started questioning everything that was unfair or made no sense, even when I was basically forced to go to church every saturday by my grandparents.
I would say I was about the same age because it was around this age during my weekly visits to the church I was forced to attend after much yelling every weekend as my siblings and I were packed into the car, I started to ask the priest questions, questions they found annoying because they could not answer them. It was from these conversations I learned a lot about evasive conversation. Realizing I could not get my answers from the priest I began to study more about Catholicism and then other religions. I still go to church from time to time to make my mother happy if I am visiting and it is not to hard for me to do so or I can easily make the time. But it is best if my mother and I do not talk about our beliefs when it comes to religion with each other.
I was born and atheist, we all are. Then I was indoctrinated with the word of God. I really seriously started to question about 5 or 6 years ago and last year at the age of 40 I broke the chains. But even as a child I remember that things didn't really add up and that I never really fully accepted the whole mess. I just did it cause that's what my parents wanted me to do.
That iss true and very interesting to bring it up Lomfs24. We are all born atheists and probably would never believe in such things if we just got to be exposed to them once we are old enough.
Born atheist of course too (good point there lomfs24). Started to question all of this when I was like 12 I think.
I began questioning my learned concept of God at 18 years old after being voluntarily Christian for about 4 years. I really began to think about it when I noticed how burdened I felt by having to be subservient to some invisible phenomenon, i.e. I felt guilty for not voluntarily praying to God throughout the day which made me decide that I wanted a life of happiness, not guilt.
I just met this little kid that left me speechless. He is just 8 years old and he was telling me and his older brother how he believes that god was invented just like santa claus. His whole family is catholic and they are believers, so this leads meto think that this kid has been browsing the internet and looking at some websites that have made him open his eyes.
Just 8 years old and already more open minded than most adults I know. This kid is the future of the world and I dont know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, it's great that they are learning so much so young, but this could also be a bad thing if they stumble upon other material that might disturb them instead of helpng them.
That is interesting. I wonder if people who are put through strict religion at a young age question the system sooner? My family was not very religious at all when I was growing up. I was generally taught to believe in God but other than that did not go to church, listened to music I wanted, did what I wanted, etc. so I had a much more open mind to the concept of God and eventually was voluntarily religious. Kids who are restricted to do things other kids do are probably like WTF right away.