Coming Out Godless Perhaps one of the most moving types of stories are ones of personal experience. The idea here is to encourage atheists, freethinkers, and other unbelievers to come out, in my hopes of normalizing humanism. I'm not trying to deconvert anyone. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 15 0 22 2397

Articles from Coming Out Godless

Story #57: "My atheist story" 2008-02-05 16:29:00 (Via Kevin Forbes)When I was a young man, I existed in that realm of what could be called "Sort of Christian." That is, I believed in God and Jesus, but I didn't study the Bible and I didn't go to Church.When I reached the age of fifteen, my family decided to become 'religious' and as a result I was brought to Church for the first time that didn't involve weddings or funerals. That summer I became a born again Christian. In that time I got to experience the joys of religious hypocrites. I eventually abandoned the idea of Church, which was the first nail in the religious coffin.Although I abandoned church, it would be much longer before I abandoned god. I lost my actual faith in the early twenties. I don't remember why I initially abandoned Christianity. It might have been my budding interest in Philosophy or my problems with depression. I do remember that it was for the wrong reasons-I abandoned Christianity because I was mad, not because I didn't believe in it.Flounderin ...

Story #56: "Confederacy of Dunces" 2008-02-04 15:39:00 (Via Michael Bunn)I was not raised religious. My family's religious background is Unitarian Universalist, a faith that I truly respect for its inclusiveness and beautiful message of peace, as well as its uniqueness among Judeo-Christian sects in its adherence to the message it espouses. Its focus is not on Jesus or God, but on general respect for life through friendship, love, and charity. I grew up with not a Bible, but a thin guidebook containing messages of morality. God was never mentioned in my house until my younger sister and I heard about him from neighbors and friends. When I inquired about it, my mother told me that 'God is the light in our hearts that shows us how to be good people.' Had my best friend growing up not been a stalwart Christian, I doubt I would have even heard that.I grew up loving science: exploring the woods behind my house, looking up at the night sky, and knowing the Latin name of every dinosaur. I knew what a quark was before I could write in cursive, ...

Story #55: "Questioning Young" 2008-01-29 12:01:00 (Via Matt)So, I will start off on a funny note. When I was 7 and I was a fully indoctrinated christian, I read the bible cover to cover. I actually ended up stopping 3 book in. I was of course at Leviticus (Since then I have read it cover to cover for educational value). Specifically Leviticus 11:12.I decided I liked squid better than I liked God. This is when I began to question religion. In my naivety I asked my Sunday school leader If I would go to hell because I like squid. Naturally, she had no idea what I was talking about. I showed her the verse and she said no, because Jesus died for me. To this day I wish the question I had asked was 'Why does God hate squid?'. I went on with my life with a little less trust in religion.So now on to when I was a bit older and could make these serious decisions for myself. The setting now is Middle school biology. Of course here is where many people could be expected to turn atheist if they had any doubt in religion. I learned about evolution ...

Story #54: "Too Much of a "Good" Thing" 2008-01-28 21:53:00 (Via Derek)I was never really "rooted" in a church for most of my life, but my family, in no uncertain terms, subscribed to the Christian tenements. It went so far as to my attending a private Christian academy for 5th and 6th grade, a very critical stage in social development, I'd say.Note, however, that we were not actively attending church. It was always the boring thing we had to wake up on Sunday to go to and carry out the rituals and all that jazz. Even while I was at this Christian school, I slept in on Sundays.When I was in 7th grade, my mom found a church home and immediately dragged us along with her. She's still happy there, now an ordained minister of two years, and if it gives her justification to carry on, good, she's my mother and I love her as much as a son is entitled to love his mother.Throughout high school my faith slipped more and more, as I befriended more rational thinkers and shirked on my devotion to church more every week.Then my brother told me in no u ...

Story #53: "Never a Believer" 2008-01-21 15:25:00 (Via Rob)My story is rather short, since I was never indoctrinated and was never made to attend church I never received the full effect of religion. I am grateful my parents were never church goes, even though my grandparents were, for some reason we never attended church.My mother said that we were supposed to be Baptist, but even as a wee lad I do not recall ever going to church. While growing up, my religious aunt would take me along with my cousins to church functions when I stayed over. But that was not on a regular bases and it was never for regular service.As I write this, the more I think about it, the question comes to mind, why didn't my mother send me to church? I need to ask her this, I am sure there has to be an underlying reason for it. But none-the-less, I am thankful she did not send be church, what kind of mindless drone would I have become if she did?Even though I never was indoctrinated with the poison of christiandom, my friends all seemed to have some sort of 're ...

Story #52: "From fundy to freethinker" 2008-01-02 12:21:00 (Via Kathleen)I grew up in the northeastern U.S. and my parents converted to a fundamentalist sect of Christianity when I was about five. Heavily indoctrinated from an early age, I thought I too was saved and heaven bound. I was so intense as a young child that I proudly became the youngest child to be Baptized in my church, at the age of 7. It wasn't easy to convince the pastor that I understood the Christian teachings and wanted to demonstrate my public admission of faith by Baptism.As I grew into a teen, I remained faithful but not as involved with my beliefs. Still, at the insistence of my parents, I spent my Sundays in church from early morning to late evening. It became quite a burden to a teen that had discovered more interesting things in the secular world. Despite this, I maintained my strong beliefs throughout my teen years.When it was time to think about college, I was given the choice of attending one of several conservative Christian colleges. I don't remember why I chos ...

Story #51: Charles' Story 2007-12-26 12:31:00 I was raised as a Christian, but never really felt a "relationship with god". I basically ignored my own faith for a while, but never thought about giving it up. Then I began dating a girl my sophomore year, and she happened to be pretty serious about religion. One day she was telling me about her church experience, and brought up speaking in tongues. Now, I had grown up in a relatively moderate church, and tongues had never even been mentioned. So my first thought was, "that sounds like a cult activity". So I began thinking, and realized that large organized religions are indeed nothing more than overgrown and somewhat domesticated cults. It took me about 3 weeks of confusion to come to that, but I can proudly say I did so by the power of my own mind, without even reading any of the wonderful books available, such as the End of Faith or The God Delusion. I read those months later, and of course my atheism was strengthened. I live a happier life now, knowing I only have a short time on ...

Story #50: "A Godless Life" 2007-12-19 18:57:00 (Via Christ Davis)I have been atheist my entire life, as far as I can tell. I remember in Sunday school when I was six or seven, being more interested in the pronunciation of the multi-syllabic names. I also remembering that the books I was reading from the library were better written. My mom had been teaching me words since I was about ten days old ( really, only a slight exaggeration ), so I guess the see-spot-run level indoctrination was transparent. In any case, by the time I was eight years old I was allowed to opt out of that, although we still attended services every week for political reasons having to do with my Father’s job aspirations. All I was expected to do was stay awake; my mind was always far away. Over the years I was pestered by various entities who had possession of my case file to attend the church of their choosing, mandatorily. If I asserted that I had no religious beliefs I received a stock-issue look of bafflement. The annoyance of hearing regularly that “o ...

Story #49: "Journey of an Atheist" 2007-12-17 11:07:00 (Via vjack, Part I)I've really enjoyed reading personal accounts from several atheist bloggers about their journey from religion to atheism (e.g., Steve Wild at Dailyspeech.net), so I figured it was time to share mine. If nothing else, it will be a good excuse for some self reflection around how I came to believe what I do.I was raised in the Methodist church by parents who were not particularly religious but who thought that it would somehow be good for me to be exposed to religion. They also attended church for the social networking, but the primary reason was that they wanted their child exposed to it.My earliest memories of religion involved fear. Like our primitive ancestors, I was afraid of the unknown. As a young child, just about everything is unknown. Added to this, I was a bit more neurotic than most. I prayed because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't. Nobody really threatened me with hellfire and damnation; it was just the idea that if there was this invisible ...

Story #48: "My 'conversion' to atheism" 2007-11-19 11:20:00 (Via askegg) ...

Story #48: "My 'conversion' to atheism" 2007-11-19 11:20:00 (Via askegg) ...

Story #47: "An Admission" 2007-11-14 11:53:00 (Via Evan)I am atheist.Okay, so I know this comes as no surprise whatsoever to any of my friends. The point is, I've not said it before in a public forum. The reason is that I have hopes of running for political office at some point down the road but conventional wisdom holds that openly non-religious people cannot get elected to major office in the USA.Doubtless there are atheist people in political office right now (with ~14% nonreligious in the country, and a higher proportion of atheist among the educated, statistics insist that some have even made it to Congress at some point), but they either lie about their beliefs or avoid talking about it.At some point recently I decided that if I can't be honest and run, I'm not going to. So I felt like making a clear statement and getting it out of my system. Is that weird?Anyway, there you have it: I limit my beliefs to those things that can be convincingly demonstrated through evidence and reason. In my opinion, the supernatural entitie ...

Story #47: "An Admission" 2007-11-14 11:53:00 (Via Evan)I am atheist.Okay, so I know this comes as no surprise whatsoever to any of my friends. The point is, I've not said it before in a public forum. The reason is that I have hopes of running for political office at some point down the road but conventional wisdom holds that openly non-religious people cannot get elected to major office in the USA.Doubtless there are atheist people in political office right now (with ~14% nonreligious in the country, and a higher proportion of atheist among the educated, statistics insist that some have even made it to Congress at some point), but they either lie about their beliefs or avoid talking about it.At some point recently I decided that if I can't be honest and run, I'm not going to. So I felt like making a clear statement and getting it out of my system. Is that weird?Anyway, there you have it: I limit my beliefs to those things that can be convincingly demonstrated through evidence and reason. In my opinion, the supernatural entitie ...

Story #46: "The Making of an Atheist" 2007-11-11 13:05:00 (Via David Yanez, 12-14-2003)I’m writing this in response to several insinuations over the years that since I am an Atheist that I’m incapable of grasping how a spiritual person sees life and the bigger picture. Or that I’m incapable of grasping the idea that there exists something higher than myself or that there is something higher than man.I’ve even been accused of being an Atheist just for the sake of being different.Being an Atheist doesn’t mean one has abandoned their moral conscious or that they’ve lost the ability to feel compassion or wonder and amazement for life. Atheists are not unfeeling and single minded. The only difference between us is that you believe in a God and the Supernatural and I don’t plain and simple.This is my attempt to shed some light on what makes an Atheist or should I say one Atheist tick and to give people a better understanding of who we are. It is also meant to give hope to people who are without hope and who are contemplating suicide a ...

Story #46: "The Making of an Atheist" 2007-11-11 13:05:00 (Via David Yanez, 12-14-2003)I’m writing this in response to several insinuations over the years that since I am an Atheist that I’m incapable of grasping how a spiritual person sees life and the bigger picture. Or that I’m incapable of grasping the idea that there exists something higher than myself or that there is something higher than man.I’ve even been accused of being an Atheist just for the sake of being different.Being an Atheist doesn’t mean one has abandoned their moral conscious or that they’ve lost the ability to feel compassion or wonder and amazement for life. Atheists are not unfeeling and single minded. The only difference between us is that you believe in a God and the Supernatural and I don’t plain and simple.This is my attempt to shed some light on what makes an Atheist or should I say one Atheist tick and to give people a better understanding of who we are. It is also meant to give hope to people who are without hope and who are contemplating suicide a ...