what age did you stop beleaving in the religion you where raised with?
 

i was watching Bill Maher and he mentioned he stopped beleaving in the religion he was raised with at sixth grade, this struk me as thats when i stopped beleaving as well. so it got me thinking, could the age you stop beleaving be corilated with the age you start having rational discriminating thought?

I stopped going to church around 11, but I don't think I really stopped believing until 13 or 14, before 15 all the same.

sorta the opposite for me, i stopped believing way before my parents stopped making me go to church

Probably about the same age I learned how to spell the word Believe. :p

i always had questions growing up catholic in a muslim country, but was too scared to ask my parents, namely my mother cos she's uber catholic...

then i moved to the philippines and saw how stupid religion got (it's fucking everywhere here. i hate it.) and i stopped going to church and became atheist.

amen.

12 ... It involved a tent revival meeting and a fucktard showing movies of volcanoes that he claimed were pictures of hell.

I stopped believing around 10 or so, but my mother made me go until I was about 15, in part because I just didn't ever tell her until I was 15, and even when I told her I was atheist, she insisted I go lest I change my mind. This, however, cemented the fact that I can lie fairly well, given that I gave a speech professing my dedication to the Presbyterian Church, and despite the fact that I had laced it with some contempt and disdain for religion, the pastor like it so much he made me read it to the congregation, people cried, I laughed. I'm so going to metaphorical hell :)

I can pinpoint the exact moment I lost my religion. Our very own Scotticus hit me up with a fact: Life is a state of disequilibrium. Everything clicked and I lost my soul. Thanks, Dr. Scotty!

i was never raised with it, not babtized/confirmed..... but my parents claim we are lutheren for some reason.* I never really believed in religion, i knew it existed because friends of mine would go to church but i never really knew what church was or why they went.* When i was about 12 yrs old i was snowmobiling with some neighbors and they started making fun of me for not being babptized, calling me the devil and what not.* It really upset me to the point of balling in the bathroom at home. NOt because i was ashamed to be unreligious, but because i was different from everyone else.* Thats probably the only experiance i have had regarding god.* But im very thankful now for the way i was raised and wish everyone would respect everyone elses religious choices with a little more tolerance.

I have always been an atheist. I never believed any of the crap churches or crazy people told me. You can be jealous and try to deny that that's possible and include accusations of ego in the only applicable poll choice, but I still talk about how much I actively hated going to church as a kid. I remember having to bullshit my way through some Jesus talk in Sunday school, trying to pretend that I believed well enough so that none of the crazies would try to talk to me before the bell rang and I could go get a doughnut. And on the days no one brought any doughnuts I was a pissed little kid. I very much remember cringing at all the stupid babble about what Jesus did for them and meant to them, and having to force the word Jesus out of my mouth with some sort of serious tone fucking killed me.

Going to church was, as I felt at the time and still feel, the single worst and most dreaded experience in my childhood. It was even grating when I did YMCA shit and they'd mention God. I hated that crap.

The only thing that has changed with age is my respect for and aggression against Christians. I find them decreasingly tolerable.

dupe.

Richard Feynman on Boltzmann Brains | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

I <3 fisiks.

i was asked not to come back to church around 14 or 15 cos i was an evil child. i stopped believing before then but that was the icing on the cake.

It was drilled into me pretty hard most of my life and leaving my former beliefs behind has been really difficult for me. It's really been just in the last year that I decided to leave the LDS church for good. It sucks when you come to that epiphany that what you've thought of as the truth for the last 20 years is bullshit and you start questioning everything you believe about life and death, right and wrong and have to start fresh from square one (well mostly. Some of that shit is pretty obvious across the board). It kinda fucks you up a bit but I hope I'm going to be better for it in the end.

Neato! I'm still on board with flucuation because it's what I'm observing and I'm more concerned with my own tangible existence than the monster universe in total. My own little inner box of black/white molecules.

However the universe does work, I feel pretty safe in assuming it doesn't run on Divine whim.

xoxo

Still working on your PM, busy with school at the moment.

Friend, you made the right decision. The LDS presents a particularly bad version of Christianity. It asks you to give up your own ability to reason and self determine to the 'wisdom' of the church; which itself is built on the shakiest of foundations. By leaving the church, you have increased the likelihood that you will find the true nature of life and reality.

Happy trails.

Which begs the question:

Do you watch Big Love?

I do, and god damn, that cute one sure is a goer.

I think I started to not believe half-way through college. It was a slow process of going from Christian (Methodist) to some from of believing in God but not attending organized church services, then to Deism, then to agnosticism and finally to atheism. Which goes over REALLY well here in the South.

I went to catholic school for the first few years of my life. After that I went to public school but still left early every weds. for ccd class. I'd say I probably started thinking religion was bullshit before I made my confirmation which was round 9-10. However, t took an additional 10+ years for my mother to accept that I "kinda don't believe in god".

In truth, I don't think I ever believed. But I didn't accept that until I was 18 and actually had the choice of going to church or not. I hadn't even heard of Atheism at the time and thought I was alone in my thinking.

My mother never did accept that I'm an atheist. She was always shocked whenever me or my brother bring it up.

I was 'born again' at age 7, never stopped believing until around 40 or so.

This just means I have a lot of drinking and partying to make up for. Keep that in mind when you see pics of me putting KATG temp tattoos on someone's cleavage. It's not my fault, really.

I was raised in an Irish Catholic family (not super hardcore about it but definitely a prevalent factor of weekly life)

I remember being in CCD and never understanding why coloring books had anything to do with some guy who died but didnt die and became three things at once but then came back and gave me gifts for believing in his story.

I remember trying to pray and just feeling like a fucking moron, then I never tried to pray ever again. I knew right away that nobody was listening.

My parents forced me to go through first communion, so I shaved horizontal lines in the side of my head so that all the pictures taken during the event I would look like a jack ass.

Then they told me that I wont get the money from my 1st communion unless I got confirmed. I agreed with them that I don't deserve the religious based donations, They took out the 900 dollars of cash and ask me if I was sure. I did not get confirmed, the whole idea of confirmation disgusted me and they already bought me a sega for xmas and I knew that money was going to college tuition no matter what religion I did or didnt believe in.

Still an atheist 13-14 years later, and they still think its a phase. **EDIT** still think I will turn coat once I have a wedding/family (of which I don't even plan on having). Ignorance is old.

I also refuse to go to any family Easter gatherings, still show up for xmas but never ever call it xmas. Have not taken communion since the day I ditched my confirmation either.

Next step is making a living will that will strip all religious references from my eventual death/funeral. If my family wants religion to be a part of my death they must find their own church/time and place to do so.

It's always amazing to hear how hard it is to be in atheist in the USA.Over here in England, religious people (well, christians anyway), always seems kinda half-assed about it.It's like they are religious 'just in case', rather than because they genuinely believe in it all.

My parents werent really religious (which is strange as my grandfather was a priest), but I was introduced to it through school/sunday school and got really into it of my own accord for some of my early teens.Eventually I realised that praying does nothing, the Bible makes no sense, and that any change I felt had occurred was just an illusion in my head.

13. .

See this little guy.

http://www.hemmy.net/images/arts/cutebaby02.jpg

Both him and I are atheists. All babies are atheists. They have no concept of God and it has to be taught to them. Everyone knows this but seldom talk about it. They know if a baby was born in America there's a good chance that it will be a Christian and if it was born in Afghanistan there's a good chance it would be a Muslim.

I remember sitting in the pews at church and looking around at all the adults listening to the preacher (who was my grandfather) and thinking "this is nuts"

As a child I couldn't believe. I never once remember praying to God. I'm thankful I don't have all those lies bouncing around in my skull. Jesus is Santa Clause for adults.

I'm 17 I stopped going to church when I was around 11. My dad took me on a spin of agnosticism, and I ended up being an angst ass hole who wouldn't say the pledge because it had the word God in it.

Now I follow spiritual occultism, meditation techniques that allow one to achieve different forms of enlightenment. You don't have to be in an organized religion, and even if you are an atheist its healthy to have a little bit of soul searching.

Currently I'm working on symbolism that can slowly represent the world. The Tree of Life (kabalah) works in basically the same way. For all of you atheists and agnostics, I just want to say that even though you had a bad experience with Christianity, doesn't mean you can't be spiritual. I found in contrast to atheism, that occultism branches off into practically any belief system there is. You can do whatever the hell you want, including weird abnormal shit that wastes time, or grants deep deep insight.

I replaced the unknowing and unfeeling God with my own determination to become a better person. I believe that God is an important entity or thought form, and even though he may or may not exist, he still holds weight whether he's merely an idea or a real physical entity. I am a mix of extrovert and introvert.

It's fucked up but I like it.

somewhere around 13, 14 but I gave it another go in my late 20's and gave up on it again around 30.

I've always had a curiousity about religion, and I still do. I was baptized anglican, but never was part of a family that went to church. I went with some friends sometimes, and I was a little brat in their Sunday School classes because I kept arguing with the teacher.

At weddings/funerals I have to shake my head, at the hypocrites that take communion, and kneel when they don't practice.

I don't care what you believe, just ain't it harm none.

(yes that's a clue to what I am now.)

Also, realize that beLIEve...just a thought.

Please read a book.

I was never really taught to believe any religion. My mom wanted me baptized, but my dad, who really didn't like the concept of organized religion, wouldn't and they let me make up my own mind.

My mom would tell me her opinions if I asked, tried to make a case to believe in God, and I researched all the other religions out there, with none really satisfying me in any way.

I guess I'm somewhere between an agnostic and diest. I'm not sure if there is a God, but if there is, I think it's very unlikely that it's one of the ones that are being preached and people kill over on Earth.

My upbringing was kind of odd. It was one of those "we go to church on Sundays, but we don't pray/have bibles laying out/etc." It was if the whole family was posing. I got clued in to my own view very young (e.g. "hmm, something's fishy here") and informed myself as the years went on.

Unfortunately, my sister is a god-fearing woman who is instilling "don't do that, God wouldn't like it" into her two daughters, my nieces. I'm the cynical uncle of the family, so when they get a bit older, I'll start breaking them down. :p

I was raised Roman Catholic and went to both a Roman Catholic junior and high school.

I was around the age of 12 that I realised it made no damn sense and got in trouble constantly for asking 'why?' during religious education lessions (not to be confused with religious studies) and getting annoyed when I didn't get a good answer.

The punchline being that - after all this trouble - I talked to my parents and they told me they didn't believe either and the schools were just better. It came from a good place and, hey, catholic school girls!

I've never found a better piece of evidence of the existance of God then a gorgeous girl in a Catholic school girl uniform.

Which, details aside, isn't all that far from the diest philosophy, from my understanding (that God created the universe, has little to no interest in belief, and leaves us to our own devices).

I was going to type a response to the thread, but you already wrote EXACTLY what I was going to type! Well put.
However, I will say that for some, I don't think it is a question as to when you quit believing, but more one of when did you have your non-believing "coming out"? Everyone around you can make you feel like your a total reject when you're the kid that doesn't believe in the invisible sky daddy. Sometimes I only wish I was ignorant enough to believe, after all, "ignorance is bliss"!

//Ryan

I started writing a response to this thread and it grew into a monster. If you want to read it, go to my blog Marina Rose Martinez. Otherwise, good day.

what she said, first off. thank you sparrow :D i recommend 'the god delusion', even if Dawkins does a lot of ranting in it, it makes sooo much sense

and second: WOW you sound like my mother. now fuck off.
music is my religion, and whatever the fuck you're doing is fine and yes, still fuuuuucked up however you see it.
amen.

I went to a religious school (well Anglican but we pretend we're a real religion) and between the ages of about 12-15 I read the the bible while bored in Religious Education (It was compulsory to buy, I might as well use it).

From reading the Bible I decided that Christianity was full of shit. I would be interested in how many Christians/whatever have read the actual book?


p.s. My Good News Bible was fierce! I had X-Files stickers from Girlfriend magazine, pictures from Romeo+Juliet the movie and flower stickers covered in clear contact.

pshaw! I had a "One Way" bible w/ a denim cover.