Did you ever believe in a god?

[josephpalazzo]

I have some fond memories of those monsters.

I've been an atheist as far as I can remember, but it's not from lack of trying. Because my attempts were honest, I was agnostic. Those honest excursions into the state of mind known to believers as the spiritual world, is the abandonment of fear. Feels nice to be surrounded by accepting, forgiving, well off people when abandoning all fear.

Well when you have a man wearing a piece of garment, acting like he knows it all, telling you will fry in hell, it ain't no pleasant memories. So fond memories was not my experience. Quite the contrary.

[gentle_dissident]

Well when you have a man wearing a piece of garment, acting like he knows it all, telling you will fry in hell, it ain't no pleasant memories. So fond memories was not my experience. Quite the contrary.

Oh, I thought we were talking about women.

[josephpalazzo]

Oh, I thought we were talking about women.

LOL

No in those days, transgender and sex orientation had not enter society's vocabulary. I was raised as a catholic, and the priest wore those awful clergy garments. So who knows what was going on underneath all that.

[PickelledEggs]

I don't really know when I stopped believing in god, because it didn't just happen. I didn't even look for it to happen, it just eventually did and I noticed it. I had a vague belief in god around the 2005, but I still kind of believed in god. This was back in highschool. I didn't think about it, but I would say, back then I did believe.... enough to pray if I was really upset about something. It would be really rare for me to pray for something even when I believed, but I still did it up until around then and maybe a little later.

Around 2005, there was a news story on 60 min or something about scientology. Tom Cruise just jumped on Oprahs couch and people shined a spotlight on this new brand of crazy that is scientology. I don't know if his visit to oprah/jumping on her interview couch was related in anyway, but all this happened around the same time, so I always relate them to each other. In the news story, they showed some other families and the affects Scientology had on them and needless to say I said to myself "wtf is wrong with these people".
That week in gym class, while we're getting ready for class, I turned to a group of kids that I was friends with at the time and said. "did you see that scientology thing the other night. That stuff is crazy. They're calling scientology a religion too. Scientology isn't a religion"
One friend turned to me and simply said "What makes scientology any less of a religion than being a jew or christian?"
I didn't know what he meant by that, but it got me thinking. I still don't know what HE meant by that, like if he was implying that they all were bullshit, or that they all are true... I don't know and probably will never know because we aren't friends really any more and have lost touch.
That question though... That was the question that started everything. It was in the back of my head. Implanted. It didn't have me "looking" for atheism. Over the next couple of years, I learned "energy healing" and how to use a pendulum to cure illnesses... I went to a few reiki semenars. (One of which, was a 2012 death cult, probably... don't know what reiki has to do with death cults, but I can't help but have that impression from that one group...).... I leaned about "charging" white cloth and water with positive energy. The whole lot. Eventually my faith just broke.
I started researching the occult for a painting I wanted to work on. I wanted to do a nice big painting of a god that the normal population wouldn't know about. I went to the library and checked out a few books. I found a book that just was a 2 inch thick book with each page full of gods and goddesses. These weren't picture descriptions either. each god was just... listed there. There were probably a ratio of 10 gods per page. With a book that thick, I can't even count how many there were. This got me thinking about how there are so many religions but a lot of these gods... NO ONE believes in anymore. The god I picked to paint for my senior presentation at college, Hel, no one even knew who that was. Probably only 5% of the people there even knew that the Norse had their own mythology. Even a lot of people outside of school, not many people know of the goddes Hel and what her role was.... but way back when. A whole civilization knew it to be the truth. Just like our civilization "knows" that Yahweh, Jesus, Muhammad, Moses to be the truth.

Maybe that is when my faith broke. With that painting. Shortly after that, maybe half a year to a year after, I realized that I'm an atheist. I didn't "decide" it, I just realized "Oh. Yeah I guess that's what I am. A skeptic, atheist"

[FaithIsFilth]

I stopped believing at 15 years old. My brothers don't believe either. My parents are 0/3 in getting the religion stuff to stick with us.

[Hydra009]

Raised Methodist.  The congregation was a somewhat liberal (except when it came to the gays and never failed to hand out Republican-only "election guides" during election years) and well-meaning bunch.  They came down pretty hard against creationism, which is good.  I first noticed that something was wrong when the main pastor was ill and the assistant pastor took the reins - apparently her being female and heading the church was controversial.  I didn't and still don't understand why that'd be a problem.

I didn't become an atheist until I was 20.  Reading Thomas Paine's Age of Reason really helped sow doubt about Christian beliefs, while reading Demon Haunted World and talking with atheists online helped push me towards atheism.  There was never a day that I woke up and decided to become an atheist.  I just noticed that I no longer really believed the stuff that I used to believe.  Richard Dawkins and the rest of the Four Horseman helped me explore and cement my position.

[Munch]

I did, but I also believed in Santa too.

[Jack89]

When I was young, I believe in God and thought of him as a sky-daddy figure.  As a young adult I dropped the sky-daddy image and sort of believed in something, but didn't think about it much.  In my mid-30s I actually started thinking about it, and after a lot of reading and discussion I realized that there was no evidence whatsoever for any god, and became a non-believer.  Even though I intellectually reasoned that there was a remote possibility that something akin to god could exist, I knew deep down that there was nothing. 

Until just recently.  I've done a 180 and believe in God.  Not in the sky-daddy version, but the unknowable God that isn't a he, she or it, but a vague, indescribable perfection that's at the heart of being and goodness.  I know, it sounds silly.  I'm still trying to figure it out.   

[Mr.Obvious]

When I was young, I believe in God and thought of him as a sky-daddy figure.  As a young adult I dropped the sky-daddy image and sort of believed in something, but didn't think about it much.  In my mid-30s I actually started thinking about it, and after a lot of reading and discussion I realized that there was no evidence whatsoever for any god, and became a non-believer.  Even though I intellectually reasoned that there was a remote possibility that something akin to god could exist, I knew deep down that there was nothing. 

Until just recently.  I've done a 180 and believe in God.  Not in the sky-daddy version, but the unknowable God that isn't a he, she or it, but a vague, indescribable perfection that's at the heart of being and goodness.  I know, it sounds silly.  I'm still trying to figure it out.   

Kind of reminds me of my brother. The belief in the 'something'.

[Mike Cl]

When I was young, I believe in God and thought of him as a sky-daddy figure.  As a young adult I dropped the sky-daddy image and sort of believed in something, but didn't think about it much.  In my mid-30s I actually started thinking about it, and after a lot of reading and discussion I realized that there was no evidence whatsoever for any god, and became a non-believer.  Even though I intellectually reasoned that there was a remote possibility that something akin to god could exist, I knew deep down that there was nothing. 

Until just recently.  I've done a 180 and believe in God.  Not in the sky-daddy version, but the unknowable God that isn't a he, she or it, but a vague, indescribable perfection that's at the heart of being and goodness.  I know, it sounds silly.  I'm still trying to figure it out.   

Yeah, it is rather silly.  But Paul also believed in the gnostic type ethereal figure he called Christ.  So, grab some of his writings and you may become enlightened. 

And ask yourself, when you plug into this 'indescribable perfection' can this come from another source other than supernatural ways?

[gentle_dissident]

the unknowable God that isn't a he, she or it, but a vague, indescribable perfection that's at the heart of being and goodness.  I know, it sounds silly.  I'm still trying to figure it out.   

I hear that voice. It is the voice of everything around me showing me the way, whether it intends to or not.

[Baruch]

I hear that voice. It is the voice of everything around me showing me the way, whether it intends to or not.

The way of the predator?  Go natural ... attack and eat other humans ... while nude.  Got bath salts?

[Mike Cl]

Until just recently.  I've done a 180 and believe in God.  Not in the sky-daddy version, but the unknowable God that isn't a he, she or it, but a vague, indescribable perfection that's at the heart of being and goodness.  I know, it sounds silly.  I'm still trying to figure it out.   

Now that I've had a chance to reflect a bit about your 'vague, indescribable perfection' I remember where I first encountered it and where I tried to make it my own.  It was while I was in the Unity Church.  Charles Filmore, it's founder, suggests that all humans have the 'Christ Consciousness' within.  That is the route to our true nature, our spiritual nature.  The more we dwell upon it and search for it the more it will guide us down our path to perfection--the perfection that all of us are.  Google his name and then research the Unity Church.  I think you will be happy with what you find.  And he wrote a very interesting tool to tackle the Bible with--The Metaphysical Bible Dictionary.  Google that as well, and read a bit of it.  It is very interesting in that you can render any and all Bible stories into a lesson about your own internal state. 

I was involved in the church for about 8 yrs or so, but I eventually recovered.  But there are those who are still there and have not recovered.  But they are not of the fundamentalist sort.  Anyway, it seems to me this is a better fit for what you are seeking than a more rigid, fundamental type of religion.

[widdershins]

When I was young my parents never attended church.  They were too busy raising 8 kids and both working.  But mom was always religious.  It wasn't like she made a point of being religious or anything, it was just a fact of life that there was a God and he wanted us to be "good people".

Then around 14 they re-joined their old Pentecostal church.  That's when things got nutty, and for a while I was the creamy nougat which held all that nuttery.  I am the black sheep of my family.  Not to brag, but I'm smarter than the rest.  Not too tough, though.  I have two brothers with mild learning disabilities.  As a late teen there was a conflict between what I had believed to be true all my life and what I knew to be true now that I was more mature.  I got hit with it right in the age where my intelligence was taking over and killing the nut within me, but I wasn't mature enough to understand what was happening.  It was the most difficult time of my life.  The Pentecostal church is no place for ANY kid.  It's certainly no place for a smart kid.

[gentle_dissident]

The way of the predator?  Go natural ... attack and eat other humans ... while nude.  Got bath salts?

So far, it hasn't turned out that way. It's more like Tarot cards. The signs follow one's intended nature.