Question142

. If you became an atheist after some kind of disappointment, why did you remain an atheist after you gave up the disappointment?

• Yea, because God seemed illogical after thinking about it. If he's gonna send me to hell for my nature(that he supposedlty created!), and he's supposed to be all loving... O.o; The contradiction seemed to cancel him out, you know? (Animeg)

• The only disappointment involved in my becoming an atheist was disappointment with religion. I wanted to believe. I prayed for faith. I did all of the things that a true believer is supposed to do, but in the end, I received nothing.

  I did feel disappointment for a while after my deconversion, but in time even that went away. (John Hachmann #1782)

• For the same reason I remained a non-believer in the Tooth Fairy (el Ratoncito P�rez in Spain, something like Little Mouse Smith): once you realize it does not make sense, you can't believe it anymore. (Angel Arnal #1443)

• I didn't stop being disapointed with god, untill I stopped believing in him - those two connect. If there was a god,, I'd still be disapointed in him, to say the least - not only on my own account, for letting me down so often, but also for all of the people who suffer today, and who get no help or support from him. Being an atheist is, however not directly connected with disapointment, not anymore - because I can't be disapointed in someeone, I don't believe exists - So far I haven't seen any evidence or arguments indicating or convincing me about the existence of any deity/ies - actually, the more I talk to theists, the more convinced I become that there is no such argument or evidence. (Nikitta Riber #1759)

• Why should I get over being disappointed in the non-existence of Jesus as a god? I remained an atheist after spending nearly a year looking for any reason to return to some sort of belief. It was a no-go. So it appears that atheism is the most sensible stance. (Nemo #1331)

• I admit it, I became an atheist after some kind of disappointment. But it wasn't a disappointment with religion itself, and certainly not disappointment at any sort of "god" figure. Rather, it was a disappointment with the frail human minds which give rise to theism. The disappointment began when I put 2 and 2 together, and realized what a crock of shit theism is - at least, any flavor of theism that I've ever encountered. Sure, some forms of theism aren't as evil as, say, Christianity or Islam, but a crock of shit is still just a crock of shit, even if it's not a necessarily *evil* crock of shit. Believe me, this was *very* disappointing to me. I wanted it to be true in the worst of ways, but I'm just too honest to lie to myself about something like that. Why did I stay an atheist? Specifically because I value the truth above anything else, and I'm not willing to lie to myself just to keep those wishy-washy "warm fuzzies".

  If some kind of "mad at god" scenario is implied by the question, then the question does not apply to me. How could one get mad at God? One might as well get upset at their child's imaginary playmate when they say something like, "My, how *fat* Auntie Helga is looking these days..." (Avender #88)

• When I was 14 years old, I was essentially an atheist. I only thought that since a lot of very intelligent people such as my uncle think that religion is highly important, there must be something to it which eludes me.

  I decided I would use a "rite" of the protestant church: At the age of 17, you attend regular discussions and are then officially a member (the Catholics do it at age 6-8). The protestant church I am talking about is the Evangelische Kirche H.B. (Austria) which is really progressive.

  Needless to say, although the discussions were rather interesting, and any doubts or signs of freethinking were encouraged, I didn't find what I had set out to find.

  It wasn't a huge disappointment, though. I did not come up empty. I learned that religion need not contain even a grain of truth to work and I met someone who is now a good friend. Those were the first words we spoke: "Do you believe any of this?" "No." "Me neither." (darwinian #1727)

• I did become an atheist after a disappointment, but I don't think that it's the kind of disappointment you mean. I became disenchanted with religion when I tried as hard as I could to see what it was that made people believe in a religion.

  I truly wanted to believe. I thought that I was the only one who didn't believe. The disappointment ended when I realized that I wasn't. I didn't realize just how many atheists there were until I started posting here. Then I became more confident with being different in this respect and became more open. Being more open allowed other to be more open with me and I found that people all over the place were actually atheists, they just didn't talk about it. In other words, they were like me.

  I realized then that the religious people I knew had it backwards. You always hear them talk about how much peace religion brings and that atheists much not know peace. I see it as just the opposite. They are constantly talking about tests to their faith, fear of an angry god (ie hell), and how they reconcile, on a regular basis, their faith with their reality. Often this last seems to take a lot of work.

  This hardly seems like peace to me. Sure they can always make themselves feel better when someone dies, but their are a lot of ways to do that.

  As an atheist, I feel more peace because I stopped "trying" so hard to make god make sense. I would be willing to bet I'm no more alone on that than I was on being an atheist in the first place. (ClayeSkye #4)

• I didn't become an atheist so much as a non christian, so that might not count, but here it is anyway. There is a passage in the bible which goes something like this:

  "Ask and you shall recieve, knock and the door shall be opened."

  Well, after I was raped, naturally the only question I asked was; "why?" Now keep in mind, up until this point, I has always asked and always gotten what I thought was an answer. I now realize that the answers came from my own deductive thinking processes, but at the time, I got no answer, and was mystified.

  So I went looking, and studied the bible intensly, and found no answers. And no relief. If you ask god to end the pain, to take the edge off some of the suffering, would god be a liar if he didn't do it? After all, Jesus said, "Anything you pray for, shall be given to you."

  Well, the pain never went away. It still hasn't gone away. The only difference is I stopped praying. It was this event in my life that changed me. In fact, I can say with great confidance that had I not been raped, I probably never would have doubted my faith. That is the ONLY good thing I can pull from the experience, it took the blinders off me.

  I went back years later, because I was still unhappy. But I found I could not sit in a church and let my lips speak a lie. The whole thing disgusted me and I was very angry for a long time. But the anger died away and I was able to approach the subject with a calm mind. I studied the bible even more intensly and discovered the god therein to be a hateful monster. I renounced christianity for good.

  I studied Islam, Judaism, and Budhism to a point. I even delved into some New Age stuff. But it all sounded the same. Finally I deduced the mystery was too big for me and called myself agnostic.

  Then one day I realized that the god question was, for me anyway, irrelevant. If there is a god (which I see no evidence of), it has no meaning to me personally and has no impact on the world that I can discern. What is the difference between this and no god at all? There really isn't one.

  This is where I came to atheism. I suppose I expected something to change within. And something has. I am discovering long held reserves about the idea of god that I never knew I had. I am very uncomfortable with the word 'atheist' in reference to myself, and I am pondering why. I think it's because somewhere deep down I have stepped over some invisible line, or broken some long held taboo, and this is the source of the discomfort.

  Last night I had a dream which I believe illustrates this point beautifully - I left my grandmother's home after a long talk, and a dog attacked me. I asked the *dog* what he was doing and he replied, "Sending you to hell." And I said, "Why?" And he said, "because you denied ME." And I, laughing at his silliness, "There is no such place as hell." And the dog said, "Yes there is." And I said, "Where is it then?" And the dog said, "It's In YOUR MIND." Suddenly I found myself alone in an almost completely dark hallway. I was running down this dark hallway and was very afraid. I calmed myself by saying it was only a dream, and this was not hell, but rather some part of myself I had yet to face. After I said these words I woke up.

  I ran into the darkness and faced it.
  There is no god.
  Hell is only in your mind.

  There is nothing to fear. (Julie Kale #1029)