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If you are an atheist or agnostic, at what age did you become one, if you weren't always one?
And no, I don't need useless snarky remarks like "When I grew up" or "When I got a brain". I want to hear about what AGE you became atheist/agnostic, and how.
I think I always was one.
Grew up in an agnostic household. The hymns we sang at school were just fun songs, the Bible stories just entertaining fables. When we performed The Nativity at Christmas, it was just a play.
Honestly, I don't remember ever really thinking any of it was real.
I did believe in Father Christmas at one point, though :P I prayed for presents.
Im not an atheist more of a Deist, I feel that whatever God there is rarely interferes or intervenes in people's lives. But there are occasional miracles.
I stopped believing in organized religion in 2001 when I became aware of all the perverted stuff between priests and little boys in the catholic church. And researching the history of Christianity, Im finding nothing but a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites. For people who claimed to be Christian I think the historical Jesus would have been disgusted with most of them.
As a child, religion sounded like shallow advertising to me. It never adequately explained life, creation, or the universe as well as science did. I gave it the benefit of doubt until I could see that believers never tested their beliefs by looking for contraindications. University classes in Logic and Statistics finally enlightened me to see that religion has always been a useful tool to control the masses.
Belief in a God may be grounded in philosophy, but belief in religion is just stupid.
Well my mother was not religious, and did not raise me with any particular religion. She let me grow up and decide for myself what I wanted to believe. For a while in primary school (so ages 8 to about 12 or 13) I tried to do the whole christianity thing, and it was around age 14 where I realised that religion really isn't getting me anywhere. I started watching and reading scientific programes/articles and realised that not one single thing based on religion can be physically proven, while scientific based facts can and so hence me becoming atheist. I must say that all those muslims or whatever they are, killing and raping in the name of religion really did contribute significantly towards my utter loathing towards anything religious. The very idea of religion insults my intelligence and common sense, therefore I believe it is logical to believe in what can be seen and proven by facts and not by simply believing it exsists.
The world will never be perfect. Even I know that. As long as humanity exists, so will corruption (It doesn't mean the world can't be better though). And yes, I do find the things difference, identity, and distinction to be important. I never said these things weren't important.
However, if humans do become a homogenous group that acts and thinks similiarly to each other, you can't really stop it. In some cases, that's just how evolution works. In many cases, one must conform in order to survive. Heck, if one's to be born, they're already conforming to their species (By breathing, eating, sleeping, etc just like everyone else).
I suppose I am more of an agnostic than anything, but I do have some beliefs that I find likely. I think people should base their beliefs off their experience and not what they are told. I would say I have spritual beliefs but am not religious. My parents were both non practicing christians, meaning they identified as christian, bur didn't go to church or participate in much religion.
Personally I find a lot of organized religion as corrupt and brainwashing. I always disagreed with a lot of the morals of religions I have learned about. If there is a God, he either does not interfere with our lives, or he doesn't care. I cannot understand how an all powerful and all loving God can exist at the same time. I do think that the idea we have developed as God could be an interpretation of a collective consciousness. I think it is likely our brains run off an energy that flows through our atmosphere and our bodies are only a vessel of thoughts. Obviously other energies flow through our atmosphere such as satilite signals, so it seems only likely that thoughts are all around us as well. When we die perhaps our thoughts simply reintegrate with the collective, and God is a manifestation of the collective thoughts of everything living which flows all around us. That is what I believe, and I would never make a religion for it because we should not have to submit to ideas other than our own.
I honestly can't remember, I was raised in a Christian household, not particularly strict, we went to church on Easter and that was it, I didn't question it I didn't actually think about it at all, we were a Christian family and there is a God
I gave no thought as to what God meant or how I perceived him/it or about the teachings of the religion itself until one day I was old enough to think for myself and realised I didn't think I believed in a God or a religious way of thinking and probably never really had.
It was at this time when my school gave out copies of the king James bible and I made a point to read it cover to cover, once I finished it I knew I wasn't a Christian, thinking about it it was early middle school so I must have been about 10
I spent a while after thinking about progressive religion, not thinking of ideas from specific religions but the idea of A creator whatever that might mean, I came to the conclusion that I believed in science and only science and it's a belief that's gotten stronger since
It was somewhere early on. I think I thought something to the effect of "if God is all knowing, He knows who is good and who is bad, so He doesn't need trials to prove someone's devotion, so why would He make trials that make people suffer, so He makes people suffer for no reason: He is either not a good God or that a good God wouldn't let that happen and died long ago."
Never had any religion at home, it started being imposed on me at school. I didn't think anyone actually believed in it. Some of my friends and I started refusing to sing hymns and pray at school when we were about 9 (and got punished for it) because we didn't believe and neither did our families, I found it all very weird.
when I was about 9-10 someone told me the big bang could be real but would need god to make it as the universe couldn't come from nowhere. even at that young age that didnt make sence to me so I asked where god came from then and was told he has just always been there. Again this made no sence to me and I got the same answer of other people. That's when I decided the whole religion thing was nonsence and not for me.
when i was seven my mum took me to church and i asked the priest "if god created me, then who created god"
From then i told my dad (who was divorced to my mum) that i thought god was stupid and that i was scared to tell mum that i didn't think he existed.
My dad said it was ok to believe what i wanted so from then on i was an atheist, even though my mum continued to make me go to church.