What made you turn atheist or agnostic? (page 2)

Landy

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo

Finkelstein

An interesting summation by C Hitchens concerning Christianity and perhaps all religions .

Part 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYaQpRZJl18

Part 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkHuvErbpd0

HowTheBibleWasCreated

I can answer that.:

1. The bible stories I found out were borrowed from Babylonian and Greek stories

2. ERVs showing a common decent between other great apes and humans

3. Chromosome #2 showing the same as above.

4. Once the above 3 points were in place it was obvious.... we choke on our food, goosebumps, hair on our bodies, male nipples.... No sense if we were disigned.... all explained by evolution.

For me, finding out the evolution/creation book which I keenly studied was full of problems, misquotes, bad science and outright lies. Researching 1975 was a eye opener too. Further study with greater objectivity meant I could no longer follow the bible let alone a religion. Also, some of the WT values conflicted with my liberal/left leaning values but it was loss of belief in god that really did it for me.

Phaedra

I didn't intentionally "turn" agnostic. It just naturally appeared after the equal sign (=) beyond a long, exhaustive, honest search encompassing nearly two decades of my life searching for the existence of God and other entities through prayer, born-again study, meditation, higher self workshops, afterlife forums, chakras, spiritualistic churches, and ghost hunting. I got nothin'.

When I first "left" JWs, I could' t NOT be a believer.

Now I can't explain why I'd be a believer.

An existential crisis encompassing more than a decade has led me to where I currently am.

The God who I believed in from age 3-40 is silent and non-existent.

Nature does what it does. Life flows and will flow without my presence. My thoughts, actions, intentions, or love doesn't change what life is programmed to do.

Despite my agony, no God has helped me to rethink it's presence. His or her presence, love, or concern for my life is non-existent. I can only conclude that my being here doesn't matter.

Exiting early has been my plan for many years. For the last decade, there has been no interference, besides my own procrastination. I have double checked on this.

I have begged for validation from anyone out there. It remains zero. My life, in the big picture, is irrelevant.

I am on my own. Whether I'll stay or not until my natural demise.... don't know. What's the point? None that I know of.

Simon

Education and information

prologos

I am still one notch beyond agnostic, although we are not certain, even in science, of all things; I am still a Deist, my turning ?:

1) watchtower is wrong about the bible,

2) the bible is wrong about reality . wrong compounded. the two witness rule at its best.

3) all book-,tablet- based beliefs are wrong, except the readers of the "book of nature". we just need more time and better glasses; hopefully that will shift the four groups into the better camp either way.

DATA-DOG

I'm a natural born sceptic. I have the unfortunate fate of being born into a cult where critical thinking skills are considered rebellious. So, I suppose it was only a matter of time before I started to examine the cult of my birth.

When you are raised to believe adults, and they say,"We have the truth! You won't get old!", you believe it. That is, until you have evidence to the contrary. Then a rational mind ( THAT'S IMPORTANT!! ) begins to weigh all the evidence. That marks the end of the fairy-tale....

An objective person considers all the options. So I began a new line of research, based on the premise: The WTBTS is wrong, but the Bible is right. I can't speak for ones such as Cofty, but I would imagine that a similar line of reasoning is what caused them to become "born again."

Born again?? That means that I am "anointed", so to speak. I then began another phase of intense study. Seeming answers simply raised more and more questions. One major question was,"Why did the All-knowing creator choose to share his ultimate message in Koine Greek, an extremely nebulous language that is open to interpretation." Worse yet, " God is going to judge me on my ability to decipher scriptures that no one has deciphered since they were written? Jesus will come in a flaming fire and kill me because I don't do the right thing; which is impossible to determine?" Finally, "God will kill me when I fail to perform in the meat-grinder that he allowed to exist because he chose to permit evil."

Then I actually gained access to all the old publications of "Truth." I laughed and cried, "WTF?!?!?" What a crock of deluded crap! How could any of this come from the "God of truth?" It was all human delusion.

Why would a God of love allow this behavior to continue unchecked for thousands of years? Meanwhile, children starve.... The list goes on and on..

Now, I want to ask this "God" some questions. If there is a God, there better be some answers. If this God chooses to kill me for asking logical questions, then I would rather die than live in their Universe.

DD

RubaDub

I'm still in the Borg but I bet the tipping point in many cases is when the Society implemented the One Towel Rule.

Rub a Dub

never a jw

never been a JW. I must have turned atheist in my early teens, during junior high. I never liked the mean God of Catholics (I remember some sort of capital sins that guaranteed your trip straight to hell and, one of those sins, I believed, was missing mass) and felt that science had better answers than religion.

What made you turn atheist or agnostic?