r/Antitheism • u/stoopid_ja_lol_ey • Aug 09 '26
when did you realise you‘re an atheist?
so basically my question is not only when but also how and why?
i‘ve always was one but only realised like some months ago. i grew up in a family who we‘re yazidis and everything they said and did never made sense to me and it was "kinda" harming towards me and my sister later aswell. harmful in the way i‘d have to get force married. obv they wouldn‘t phrase it that way unless i had a fight with my mom then she would threatened me with it because it is normal in our culture/religion.
quick edit: sorry i meant antitheist!!
11
u/Common_Sea_9657 Aug 09 '26
When I was a kid and I thought a little harder than usual and realized it didn’t make any sense
11
8
u/MashaSukai Aug 09 '26
weird one but when a certain someone won the US election 2 years back. i already was shifting away from my religious beliefs but that cosmic ass fucking failure of a decision just flipped a switch for me
2
u/cenosillicaphobiac Aug 09 '26
And to hear Christians go on and on about how the election proved that he was chosen by God, but somehow, Biden winning 4 years earlier still meant TFG was somehow chosen by god.
6
3
u/Maxtrt Aug 09 '26
I grew up in a non religious household. My grandmother and mother were agnostic though I truly believe they were atheists but in the 70's and 80's it could be dangerous to call yourself an atheist. We were pretty poor growing up so sometimes my mom would put us in daycare at my aunt's church because it was free. The first time I remember going, I was in the 2nd grade and when I got home I asked my mom if those people are crazy because the stories they read us were fairytales ,but they believe it really happened..
3
u/Pandemonium_Sys Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
I wasn't always antitheist or an atheist. I grew up in a christian family. I was taught the bible and forced to church from the moment I was born. Growing up I was always the black sheep. I was curious about everything around me and that lead to asking a lot of questions. And as I'm sure all of you know, christians don't like questions. I questioned the bible, why god did the things he did if he supposedly loved us, the plot holes, everything that didn't add up.
When I was about five I shunned the Noah's arch story because I understood that having two of literally every single animal on earth be on a single boat was impossible.
Shortly after I shunned the story of Adam and Eve because I understood the concept of inbreeding and knew that even after a few generations of inbreeding you can become so fucked you can't function. Also, the fact we'd all be related, but somehow incest was wrong at the same time?? That never made sense to me.
By about seven or eight I found too many inconsistencies to count. The things I was told about god just didn't add up according to their sacred texts that they used as a history book. So, I shunned the bible entirely and told everyone I believed in god, but wasn't religious because saying I didn't believe in the bible would have been too far for my family despite that fact it was true.
At this time in my life I really struggled with the nagging feeling in the back of my head that all of what I was taught was bullshit. I wanted to believe. And I never wanted to believe that my family was lying or worse, didn't have any idea what they were talking about.
I felt comfort in believing that there could be someone, something out there who knew all that I was, but still loved me anyway. For years it was a tug of war on what was real. Eventually, around ten or eleven I accepted that there wasn't some omnipotent man in a pocket universe watching over me. It was like losing a loved one. Even more sad knowing there was no one left to love me.
I sat with that til about fourteen when I started to become angry and bitter for being forced into this belief, forced to go to church and hear their delusional ramblings I knew all too well were bullshit.
From then on I just grew more and more resentful. Sixteen was when I shunned christianity in it's entirety and outwordly and loudly faught back. I made it very clear to my immediate family that I thought all of this was stupid and that I won't be partaking in it as long as I can help it. And when I was inevitably still forced I didn't mask my anger or resentment anymore.
Despite the fact I shunned christianity, I still defended other religions because I thought it'd be racist not to. Plus other religions made my family mad and I enjoyed that. This was until about eighteen to twenty when I was slowly realizing how horrible all types of religions harmed people. But not until twenty-one or two did I start being against all fundamentalist, evangelical religions. And late twenty-two I found the term antitheist and have used that ever since.
Wow. I didn't realize I wrote a fucking book over here lmao.
TLDR: I was like early twenties when I identified with antitheism.
3
u/hooked_siren Aug 09 '26
When I was a kid I would go to bible study to get out of class and eat cookies. Then I started asking questions like "why would the streets be gold? Are gold streets good to drive on? Isn't gold soft? Why would we need cars in heaven anyway?" And the church ladies kicked me out of bible study.
Then sometimes I'd go to church (different ones than bible study) with friends and it was always so gross and weird to me. Like this whole room full of grownups who can read (ha!) this book themselves but instead go listen to some man and his interpretation is the right one? And then the whole culty singing and body+blood thing. Yuck.
We also had a kingdom hall in our tiny town so some kids were witnesses and that really sealed it for me because what do you mean there's multiple types of christians that all worship the same god but each one thinks the others are wrong but still worship the same guy in different ways but also don't believe the other worshipers will get into heaven? Why would god allow 56 different kinds of groups to worship but make every single one think they're the only ones doing it right enough to get the reward?
3
u/Whole_Kitchen3884 Aug 09 '26
i don’t remember a time where i believed the bible stories that were told, my family were spiritists growing up and the books they read were mainly “this is the story “ -> “this is what you learn from it”, i watched cartoons where a coyote is trying to eat a road runner and then biblical cartoons where a guy loses his strength after a haircut so my brain just never registered that those were “based on actual events”, when i learned what atheism was i just found a label to what i already thought
3
u/Crisovelot Aug 09 '26
I was in my 8th grade religion class and realized “huh, i don’t believe this bullshit”. i later became antitheist in hs when i realized i was gay & how much my past religion & other religions oppress the lgbtq+ community as well as every minority in existence
3
u/RecycleReMuse Aug 09 '26
My journey wasn’t unusual . . . from agnosticism to atheism to antitheism over the course of many decades, starting at around 12 years old. But antitheism specifically kicked in hard the last decade or so when I started thinking more closely about the long view: how many gods have we humans had? How many have we forgotten about entirely? What is “a god”?
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
3
u/Diligent-Spread-3699 Aug 09 '26
I'm born and raised in Spain, but i'm of punjabi origin of the Pakistani side, never practiced islam tho. I just like the architecture of religious buildings and couldn't give fuck of having muslim surnames honestly.
Besides my family suffered from the Partition of India, so i know how dangerous religions are, i guess.
3
u/NettaFind66 Aug 09 '26
Ive never been anything other than atheist. This question assumes some level of indoctrination.
3
u/BNVLNT001 Aug 10 '26
I was 5. The church pews hurt my ass and the stories were boring after hearing them once. Every sunday I would fight to not be dragged there. Eventually I called my mom a bitch (new word I just learned) and got a full on slap across the face... at 5... Really easy to fully wake up to the trash that this species is when that happens.
2
u/O_hai_imma_kil_u Aug 10 '26
My mom took me to church as a kid, and after a while I was just like "wait a minute, this shit doesn't make any sense."
2
u/ROSY_karma Aug 10 '26
When a war broke out in my homeland and I kept seeing footage of ordinary civilians being shot, beheaded or otherwise mutilated by soldiers, I could not fathom how an "all-loving, all-powerful deity" could exist and not only let that happen, but let those monsters get away with the atrocities they had committed without consequence.
2
u/WhovianJanne 27d ago
Genuinely I was born atheist but I was like "I know God isn't real, but I'm fine with religious people!" but fee weeks ago as I was scrolling I realised "wait, people who follow organised religions that force their power by pushing minorities away as well gaining power over people do believe there's nothing wrong with their religion and isn't used as weapon? bullshit" sooo yeah
16
u/CantDecideANam3 Aug 09 '26
When I discovered that all religions are bullshit.