Herein we will consider when and why certain personages became Atheists. We will parse these into Statistics, Influential Atheists, Ex-Catholics, Ex-Hindus and Hoi Polloi Atheists. As of now, I list the tales of 107 Atheists. You can find them all at the When and Why They Became Atheists Project page.
These examples are taken from Quora.
Nicholas Rebel:
This one contains the one authoritative and myopic restrictive definition of Atheism as per, “Everyone is born an athiest and my dad made sure I stayed that way by encouraging science and telling me bed time stories about astronomy, physics, and biology instead of religion.”
Main points:
From birth.
Seems to have followed in daddy’s footsteps from Atheism to logical fallacies as dichotomizing science and religion is a false dichotomy: at least from the stand point of the Bible, believers in which designed the scientific method, established its fields and were the world’s greatest scientists.
The only other statement is “My mother did take me to church once, a Unitarian Univeralist denomination” which is like saying that she took him to an Atheist meeting for all it is worth, see here.
Dom Kane: This is a literal one liner, “People become atheist through education.” Note that this conflicts with other definitions of Atheism we have had Atheist demand are the only true definition. For example, some demand that we are all born Atheists and yet, Dom notes that one becomes one.
Also, since it is merely asserted that “People become atheist through education” but we are not told how, why or to what so called “education” he is referring this is a meaningless assertion. Actually, people become atheist through malinformation, misinformation, disinformation, etc. see VIDEO: Are we born presuppositional theists that have to be taught to deny God? (Justin Barrett lecture).
Theis Poulsen:
Theis also “became” an Atheist, “I became an atheist when I went to a boarding school and was told to read through the bible.”
Main points:
No age given.
“was told to read through the bible” implies that Theis read it yet, “I didn’t stop there, I looked through hundreds of pages of information from Science, Christianity, Islam etc.” Theis then merely makes unfounded assertions and leaves it at that “And I made up my mind. There is no god, or afterlife. When we die there is nothing.”
Note that this is merely Atheist “faith” based dogmatheism and authoritatively asserted without argument or evidence.
Anonymous:
Anon. is from India and “my community while I was growing up consisted only of staunch believers in Christianism. My grandparents would say grace before every meal, say a short prayer whenever a friend or family member left for a short trip, tell me to read the Bible every night, and so on.”
Main points:
No age given.
Things began to go wrong when at 10 yrs old we are told that “My paternal granddad” told him that God “was there to protect us all from bad things happening,” etc. The problem is that this is far too generic.
Add to this that “My maternal grandmom was the guilt-trip expert” then “My step-dad… well he is like Russell Peter’s dad. ‘Pray and read the Bible, or somebady gonna getta hurt real bad’” (ellipses in original).
At 12 yrs old “I tried believing that God was siphoning my worries out of me…I started thinking about death for the first time, and I was scared…I remembered the story of going to heaven, and I calmed down. Death can’t be so bad.”
16 yrs old and this Atheist hits the teen rebellion stereotype on the head, “the rebel phase came. I was not scared anymore of thinking and doing things my family told me not to.” They also fall into the “science” vs. “religion” false dichotomy stereotype, “I started loving science…everything it could to find out how the world worked. And the best part? Scientists actually conducted tests and showed their theories to be true (or false). They made sure that science facts are only those statements which are true whether a person chooses to believe in them or not. To this day no one has shown me any proof of God’s existence, or lack of.”
Well, such is the manner whereby science is supposed to be done and also, Anon. stumbles into noting that science is about “how” but does not seem to note that it states nothing about “why”? As to “proof of God’s existence, or lack of” since Anon. demands proof and not evidence then they are wanting to be utterly convinced and yet, since they do not inform us as to what proof of God’s existence, or lack of would look like, what are their standards, then we are at a loss.
However, while they have a problem being religious without such proof, they have no problem being an Atheist without such proof.
And we come full circle to what good ol’ granddad told them and this was followed with “All the things that Christians told me along the way… the worst being ‘believe in Him and your troubles are gone’” (ellipses in original) which is un-, non- and anti-biblical as one mere example is enough to show, “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33).
Thus, false doctrine leads to wrong conclusions and yet, Anon. ran with it rather than concluding that such claims are un-, non- and anti-biblical. Rather, Anon. turns to the problem of evil and yet, when they condemn “hundreds of innocent children will no longer die everyday from stillbirth, earthquakes, tsunamis, hunger and diseases” they offer no premise upon which to condemn any of and it and thus gives us no reason to think that there is anything wrong, bad, evil, etc. with such things.
We should empathize with the emotive nature of the fact that, as Anon. follows from the above false claims, “Yeah sure, that’s why my granddad died in pain in a car crash, despite believing in God. Yeah sure, that’s why my own dad died when I was just 3 years old, and left my mom to take care of me all by herself.” So we have the stereotypes of the father being absentee due to death and also the pain of the grandad’s death. Of course, we are not told why any of these things are bad, wrong, evil, etc.
Anon. “soon realized two things”:
1. Some people believe in God because they are so thoroughly fooled into doing so by their elders, who themselves were fooled by someone else. And very few of them stopped believing in God when they got older because it was also taught that all atheists are ‘Satans’. Well played, Christians. I’m an atheist but I still try to be nice to my fellow human beings. I don’t need the Bible to tell me that I must do no harm.
Some people Atheists do not believe in God because they are so thoroughly fooled into doing so by their elders, who themselves were fooled by someone else. Yet, Anon. committed the logical genetic fallacy. Also, Anon.’s is merely a myopic prejudicial statement as, for example, some people believe in God because they are so thoroughly skeptical in a true and honest manner, etc.
I am unsure who it is that “taught that all atheists are ‘Satans’” but such is the nature of generic assertions. Now, he may not need the Bible to tell them that they must do no harm but it is God’s law written on their hearts which tells them such.
2. Other people believe in God because it helps them cope in difficult times, like how it helped me at the age of 12 when I feared death. I’m not an atheist anymore, but I don’t fear death either. I just manned up and accepted it at some point.
So then this is an apparent conversion to and then away from Atheism and to what have you. Anon. ends by noting “I’m a grown man now, and only logic dictates my life” which is ironic as there is no evidence of that as their statements have been utterly illogical. Also, Anon. does not tell us why reliance on logic is desirable nor what logic is nor whence it comes, etc.
Lastly, Anon. merely asserts that “If you tell me something, I will ask you why it is so. I will never accept anything just on your whims and be satisfied with the answer” and yet, Anon. did not tell us “why” various of their claims are so but merely asserted them at a whim.
Lastly, we circle back to “Show me proof that God exists, and I will believe in Him again” and yet, they want proof not evidence, do not define what such proof would be, they think that such proof will lead to belief and of course, belief in does not necessarily result in love and/or worship of God. If God was proven then Atheists would hate Him even more due to the fact that He exists.
Mike Rumore:
Mike seems to think himself clever and merely makes some assertions, “I believe in all gods equally. My atheist coming-out story is identical to my a-astrology coming-out story and my a-phrenology coming-out story and my a-numerology coming-out story. None. No story at all.”
Main points:
No age given.
Seems to imply from birth which means adherence to a myopic authoritative definition of Atheism.
Anonymous:
Another virtual one liner consisting of “I thought about religion and mythology and it stopped making sense.”
Main points:
No age given.
As we have seen time and again, this Anon. seems to think that “stopped making sense” is some sort of argument or evidence when it is merely a subjective assertion.
Also wrote, “it became really simple how religions would have been developed” which is to commit a logical genetic fallacy.
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