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.
Robin Green:
This one is as succinct as it is illogical and stereotypical:
As a child, realising that there were many other religions out there in the world made me think that it was unlikely that I just happened to have been born into the “right” culture to have been educated in the “one true religion” – and made me realise that people mostly believed in religion because they’d been told to believe in it, rather than for any good reason.
Main points: No age given.
We have encountered this one numerous times within this survey and it is merely a classic example of a logical generic fallacy. Note also that Atheists will make such statements but then when they want to boast about, by golly, just how many Atheists there are in the world they appeal to majority Atheist countries such as Sweden. They fail to note that when they do so they are, suddenly, favoring the fact that all of those Atheists just happened to have been born into the “right” culture to have been educated in the “one true worldview-philosophy” and they do not care that those Atheists mostly believed in Atheism because they have been told to believe in it, rather than for any good reason.
Jennifer Zilliac:
She notes that she is “Anti-racism” and became an Atheist via a “fascinating process.” She has a “father who was (and is) an atheist” but does not even mention a mother.
Main points:
No age given but sounds like she just followed in daddy’s footsteps.
We have a Catholicism leading to Atheism again as she was “baptized in a Catholic church” and yet, to try to gain favor with my Catholic step family” and also attended “Santa Clara University — a Jesuit institution.” She notes that “the results in terms of building a framework in my mind in which God monitors all my thoughts and watches everything I do and judges me constantly were top-notch.”
Well, I do not know how fascinating her story is but this is where it gets interesting. You can discern the good old’ Catholic guilt creeping in as for some, God monitoring all our thoughts, watching everything we do and judging us is a relief as since we have a relationship with Him we know that he loves us, guides us, judges us more fairly than any human ever could and does with a mind towards grace.
She wrote that “I decided that if there was a God, I couldn’t respect him based on my values,” she is “Anti-racism” and notes that “It’s good to figure out what is right and what is wrong based on experience.”
Note another stereotypical theme: the Atheist declares themselves to be more moral than thou with the thou being God. Interestingly, she did not like the idea of God judging her but she does not mind judging God. Of course, in doing so, she sets herself up as God’s judge and thus, sets herself up as God’s god. This is another example of how Atheism leads to auto-self-deification.
In an Atheist universe there is no moral code, moral law like there are laws of thermodynamics. In such a universe there are Darwinian survival mechanisms and there are rules that humans invented (and perhaps the latter derived from the former). Thus, it may sound “good” and be a “good” thing that she is “Anti-racism” but being such is merely a personal preference, based on personal preference, etc.
In fact, “It’s good to figure out what is right and what is wrong based on experience” and Atheist evolutionists did, indeed, figure out what is “right” and what is “wrong” based on experience and that experience, based on a Darwinian worldview-philosophy, lead them to conclude that there were various human “races,” that some were more evolved than others and that the more fit could do away with the less fit. Thus, in a mere few decades, Atheists mass murdered some 200 million humans whom they saw, via their subjective experience, were useless eaters.
She notes that “We can no more understand the infinite nature of the universe than an ant can understand the nature of human beings” and yet, “Slowly, I had to become okay with that. And I did. And I am. It’s okay to not know.” Lastly, she wrote, “My neural pathways never have to bump into that ubiquitous end-point, ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ Instead, my end-point is, ‘Fascinating question, but I just don’t know the answer.’” Do you discern the substandard double standard?
“We can no more understand the infinite nature of the universe” but she claims to understand its nature enough to be an Atheist. Actually, God works in obvious ways and yet, she is happy living in ignorance because Atheism has taught her to be happy within its quaint materialistic-naturalistic box.
Gidi Meir Morris: They note “Technically a Jew, now an Atheist who believes religion is more harm than good.” Main points: No age given.
This one is very succinct and has two aspects to it, both illogical.
They note, “I was born into a religious family, but became an atheist after using common sense and critical thinking to ask question that would never receive adequate answers.” Well, this only means that they subjectively preferred to not accept the answer (whatever the answers were to whatever the questions were).
Again, Richard Lewontin noted, “What seems absurd depends on one’s prejudice” and what seems adequate depends on one’s prejudice.
Another fallacy is that “I simply reached the conclusion that” the Bible, “is nothing more than a story written by human beings…a couple of thousand years ago came up with a piece of literature” and this is a logical genetic fallacy.
Aishwarya Chaurasia:
They note, “I don’t hate God, I just don’t believe he exists.”
I have been raised in a moderately religious family. My parents believe in God but are not stoic followers of his teachings in the sense that my brother and I were never forced to believe in him; we were advised, yes, but never forced against our will.
Main points: No age given but references 19 yrs old as a key moment.
It seems that Aishwarya may not understand what “stoic” means but in any case, they ask believers some question and we will get to them below
Firstly, we run into a particular and peculiar definition of Atheism whereby “everyone is born an atheist” which is merely playing off of one of various historical definitions of Atheism.
We can discern a stereotypical childish Atheist theology in the reference to “its only after indoctrination that we start thinking that we have an imaginary friend who is invisible, has many forms and lives in the sky” thus, childish notions are applied to God and so God seems silly.
The statement above statement continues directly with that the imaginary friend that lives in the sky is “watching every action of us, mortals, but doing absolutely nothing about it except punishing us every now and then through an earthquakes and floods (which, please note, kills innocents just because we had to be punished) or cancer (but hey, God is forgiving!).”
Of course, in stereotypical manner they launch directly into brimstone and fire condemnation without providing a premise upon which to condemn anything at all.
But just how does an Atheist know when and if God is causing “earthquakes and floods…or cancer,” because occasionally big haired televangelists take it upon themselves to claim as much? Well, they should stop believing big haired televangelists.
Aishwarya notes:
I used to thank him [God] for everything good happening in my life and blame myself for offending him every time something unfortunate happened to me…Instead of giving yourself credit for your achievements and thus raising your self esteem, you end up thanking God and when something goes wrong, instead of analyzing what went wrong, you beat yourself up.
Note a few things: they merely assert that which you should do based on their subjective standards. Thus, you should give yourself credit and raise your self-esteem. It is a false dichotomy to either 1) “end up thanking God and when something goes wrong” instead of 2) “analyzing what went wrong, you beat yourself up.” This reminds me of the Seinfeld show wherein George tells Jerry, “God will never let me be happy” to which Jerry replies, “I thought you didn’t believe in God” and George answers, “I do for the bad things.”
Aishwarya notes that in her view this whole religious or rather, Christian issue is…
All because your forefathers believed that some omnipotent power made them! You are not allowed to question, because that’s questioning God, which is greatest sin.
The first sentence is a logical genetic fallacy. The second may be something that they heard from someone somewhere along the way but is un-, non- and anti-biblical. Now, if we “are not allowed to question, because that’s questioning God, which is greatest sin” why then, pray tell, do we, as merely one example, find that Paul praised the Bereans for questioning his God inspired teaching?
And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so (Acts 17:10-11)
The KJV term “noble” is also translated as “fair-minded” (NKJV), “open-minded” (NLT, HCSB, NET). They are praised for being skeptical enough to double check what they were told.
So now, Aishwarya was given The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins on their 19th birthday and “This only helped me in understanding this delusion better. My entire thinking process became more and more logical and scientific.” Note that Aishwarya wrote, “If you are religious, I won’t judge you” but will judge you as being delusional. As for “thinking process became more and more logical” we have seen that it has not. As for thinking process became more and more scientific well, it certainly became more and more materialistic, naturalistic, Atheistic and resulted in scientism. For example, they note that “I understood everything better, even things like love, emotions and righteous behavior made more sense to me.”
Yet, according to Dawkins, et al., love and emotions are merely bio-chemical neural reactions and righteous behavior is merely a manner whereby to label Darwinian survival mechanisms. For example, Dawkins refers to altruism as “misfirings, Darwinian mistakes: blessed, precious mistakes,” see Altruism or Allfalseism. In short, Dawkins may impress youngsters but he began his judgmental God Delusion campaign by claiming that believer would pick up his book and become Atheists by the time they put it down. Yet, then, when the book was picked apart for being logically, theologically, scientifically and historically erroneous on various points, he claimed that the book was meant to be “funny” and “amusing,” see here.
Finally, we come to Aishwarya’s questions, “Please believe in whatever you want to” and have then judge you as being delusional, “but have an open mind and once in a while, question” which I will post in italics and then answer. Firstly, the first answer is a question: upon what premise does Aishwarya condemn anything? In an Atheist universe Aishwarya’s condemnations amount to the interpretation of bio-sensory neural reactions occurring within the haphazardly evolved gray matter of an accidentally and temporarily existing bio-organism which sits atop a spinning work, orbiting an average star in the backwaters of a accidentally and temporarily existing universe.
Thus, since Aishwarya is merely expressing personal preferences piled atop personal preferences why should we question or ask anything?
Yet, fort the sake of Christians who may want to consider how to deal with such issues:
Why would God hate bisexuals?
1) Why is “hate” wrong? 2) Who said that God hate bisexuals? 3) God condemns bisexuality since it violates His created order for sex which is male with female.
Why would God want you to praise him, and take revenge if you don’t?
1) Why is it wrong for God to want praise and to take revenge? 2) Who said that God wants you to praise him, and take revenge if you don’t? 3) God want you to praise Him because He is praiseworthy and because we will praise something or someone and we become misguided if we do not praise Him, 4) God takes revenge, playing off of Aishwarya’s terminology, on un-repented sin and has provided a manner whereby to do away with sin via repentance as a free grace gift through Jesus.
Why would God not like you to have sex before marriage?
1) Why is it wrong for God to not like you having sex before marriage? 2) Doing so violates God created order for marriage. 3) We can appeal to many, many reason why “2)” is the case such as the very, very, very long history of STDs, unwanted pregnancies, abortions, broken homes, emotional problems from being used as a sex object, etc., etc., etc.
Or make a woman any lesser than a Man?
1) Why is it wrong to make woman lesser than man? 2) Who said that woman is lesser than man? 3) The Bible’s very first chapter notes that both males and females were made in God’s image and the Bible is saturated with women who own land, run businesses, are prophetesses, are judges, etc., etc., etc. see Find it Fast – Fast Facts: is the Bible misogynistic? and Biblical Women.
How can your God be the one true God and every other God of every other religion be farce?
1) Why is it wrong to think that your God be the one true God and every other God of every other religion be farce? 2) How can your “4” answer to “2+2=?” be the one true answer and every other answer of every other person be farce? 3) If it is true that your God is the one true God and every other God of every other religion be farce then that answers itself. 4) However, how would we know that our God be the one true God…? There are many ways from historical to philosophic and from fulfilled prophecy to textual reliability and beyond—generally speaking. Now, how can Aishwarya conclude that Atheism is the one true worldview-philosophy and every other worldview-philosophy be farce?
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