Why did YOU start to lose faith?

[stromboli]

The only fear I had when leaving Mormonism was the effect on my family, which was huge.

I don't know much about the Mormon religion so I have to ask, is this family thing built in to reduce the number of people who leave officially?

Yes.

[12Monkeys]

I started off as an agnostic, probably a 50/50 agnostic. I found that there was no evidence for God that I could see so I sided with the "there is as much evidence for God as there is for fairies" crowd like Richard Dawkins.

[Sargon The Grape]

I never had faith, in the religious sense.

[josephpalazzo]

I never had faith, in the religious sense.

And you enjoy throwing that to our face...

[SGOS]

Religion has a way of making faith sound mysterious and secretive.

Think back when you were little.  It was fun to say magic words with your friends and see if anything would happen.  You may have attempted conjuring up dead relatives, or just any old spirit in general.  Oh, sure there might have been some giggling.  You didn't really have to expect something to happen.  It was just fun doing it.  

I think this is part of religion, too.  Religion is too complex of a psychological issue to pin down to specifics, but people love mystery and unexplainable things.  And everyone likes magic, even if they know it's not real, because it's fun to go, "Wooooo," and imagine you just saw something defy reality.  Humans seem to be attracted to it.  And of course, no small number take it to the next level, and embrace it as true.  Eventually, they might find themselves having to defend it, and the next thing you know, they push themselves right off the edge of reality.

[Sargon The Grape]

I never had faith, in the religious sense.

And you enjoy throwing that to our face...

You're damned right.

[Thumpalumpacus]

What I'm interested in is, for the people who were raised religious, was there anything in particular that first made you doubt your religion?

I never had faith, in the religious sense.

[Drummer Guy]

The short version:

I recognize that there's nothing that happens in the world that demands a supernatural explanation.

[Deidre32]

Religion has a way of making faith sound mysterious and secretive.

Think back when you were little.  It was fun to say magic words with your friends and see if anything would happen.  You may have attempted conjuring up dead relatives, or just any old spirit in general.  Oh, sure there might have been some giggling.  You didn't really have to expect something to happen.  It was just fun doing it.  

I think this is part of religion, too.  Religion is too complex of a psychological issue to pin down to specifics, but people love mystery and unexplainable things.  And everyone likes magic, even if they know it's not real, because it's fun to go, "Wooooo," and imagine you just saw something defy reality.  Humans seem to be attracted to it.  And of course, no small number take it to the next level, and embrace it as true.  Eventually, they might find themselves having to defend it, and the next thing you know, they push themselves right off the edge of reality.

I agree, you put that really well.
At first it was hard to see myself without religion defining me. But now I'm more at peace than I was when I followed religion.

[Maldini]

I lost faith because even though I was raised to be religious, but I never felt anything when saying prayers or reading Quran , and when I grew old enough to read serious books, I found out that all religion's offered is based on nothing. I mean nothing actual or factual backs a religion's claims, so that was the last nail. Simply put, a religion's claims are true because that religion says so! Even a 5 year old kid finds this stupid, and believe me lots of them do but they'd get shut up by their parents.

[SGOS]

Simply put, a religion's claims are true because that religion says so! Even a 5 year old kid finds this stupid, and believe me lots of them do but they'd get shut up by their parents.

I had those doubts back at that age too, but I stuck with it because it was so important to my parents.  My parents didn't exactly shut me up, not in a mean way.  I did it for them.  

The praying seemed especially  stupid, and I felt stupid doing it, because I couldn't sense anything at the other end.  And this thing about getting on your knees and putting your hands together didn't seem to have any effect, either.  It wasn't easy convincing myself that it was all real.  Although I think it's much easier for some people.

My parents said some people had too much pride to pray.  I was only 5. I didn't know what pride was, so for most of my life, my definition of pride "was not wanting to do something because it makes you feel stupid."  But then why do we ask someone who is doing something so stupid that people laugh at them, "Don't you have any pride in yourself?"

[Sargon The Grape]

What I'm interested in is, for the people who were raised religious, was there anything in particular that first made you doubt your religion?

I never had faith, in the religious sense.

I felt left out. :)

[the2ndcominofjebus]

it's quite simple, really. It just took me realizing my disease, this disorder, was playing mind-games on me. If I shared my story, and if I was honest enough, you'd all think I was the unluckiest person on earth. Let's just say when I was saved from my "evilness", a voice came to my ear and spoke to me. Let us just say that it was the worst timing ever, since at the time I wasn't aware of my diagnosis and never had voices before. There are a ton of other things, with virtually every single one of them lining up with me being one of the most unlucky bastards of all time. But yea, once I got over no better days from this illness, I got over religion pretty fast. I mean, christ-insanity, really? The most unbelievable religion of all time? I will one day type out of my entire story, but until then, just know that even charles darwin would have believed. It just takes 5 minutes of sanity to realize religion is retarded.

[Passion of Christ]

I had a 5 year agnostic phase after leaving school/college when I wasn't really sure what to believe and then went full atheist for about 6 months before deciding this may not actually be right or a good thing to believe to be true. I did some research into the various religions of the world before deciding the religion I had been brought up with was perfectly good and reasonably compatible with the the other religions in a way that atheism wasn't. Therefore a much more open minded, liberal and multicultural mindset was attained. Even say the Muslims I can dig what they're all about this point even if I would disagree on a couple of small points, they believe you only go to heaven if you impress God enough. God isn't particularly impressed at all by anyone he just loves everyone.

[Moralnihilist]

God isn't particularly impressed at all by anyone he just loves everyone.

What god do you propose exists? What is the evidence for said gods supposed existence?



By the way, the LACK of any evidence for ANY god is the reason I have no faith.