Another fact finding poll: How did you arrive at your beliefs? (read the first post before voting!)

[Tigrul]

Lol... even more dishonesty and lack of maturity thank to powerwizard tm.

YOU are the one who has failed to make a point, and you still fail at presenting any valid arguments. He isn't dodging anything. It's you who's dodging decency.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Man, I almost nodded off... wha... *snores*

[Manoflooks]

When will the results be shown? How about at 100 voters?

[uos_spo6]

I was born to 3rd generation Polish (father) and Irish (mother) immigrants, so naturally, come from two extremely Catholic rooted families. My mom was pretty devout in terms of our family belonging to the local parish, and attending church on sundays. My father didn't much care for religion. In an ironic twist, my father was the much stricter of the two when it came to anything else.

I went to Private Catholic school from the Pre-Kindergarten age. Up until around 5th or 6th grade, I was a good little sheeple believer, accepting everything I was told. As I came to the rebellious age, I grew to see the many hippocricies in the school setting going on around me. Two of our school/parishes Pastors were mysteriously removed (you can guess why now!) throughout my tenur there. Several members of the PTA were criminally charged with misappropriation of funds type offenses.

The more I questioned the authority at the school, the more I was singled out and shown to be an example of a bad Catholic, merely for posing questions and ideas. My atheistic beliefs took full hold by the time I was a Freshman in high school. I refused to participate in mass with the student body and just sat there smirking. This naturally brought "The hammer of God" down upon me from every imagineable authority figure at the school. It took me up to Junior year to get my parents to allow me to go to Public school AND OH BOY!!!

As soon as I got there it was like an orgy. I have to admit, there is a huge difference in the quality of education. I'm 27 now and wish I had stayed there only for academic purposes.

I've met all kinds of people, read up and take interest in all cultures across the globe. Have a keen interest in science, philisophy, politics, spirituality. Everything. Originally, my question of religion and God came from teenage angst and rebellion. It eventually came from reason and logic, experience and study.

I see religion as a safety net, a crutch if you will. Belief in God will not change anything in the here and now. I see what people do and how they act either under the patronage of their God or in contempt of him. I see that people claim God to be Good, and I see all the wrong that exists. I hear their arguments, most of which are likened more to a riddle than a coherent thought and realize that it is all word play.

Looking back at history and the role religion has played. The evolution of man and society. The technological race. None of it makes sense. I am not the type of person that can take something that doesn't make sense, and simply explain it away with something else that doesn't make sense.

At times I laugh at people who hold these religious beliefs. At other times I envy them. It must be so easy and simple to live allowing God and religion to carry all the weight for you. I've always been a person who accepted responsibility and had the idea of being accountable beat into my brain from infancy, so I cannot do this.

To me religion is like art. It exists, and it's nice to look at and contemplate, but it doesn't do anything tangible for us. I think religion is an attempt to prove the importance of man, and that the fabric of most religion hinges upon an idea that the Earth is Gods creation and people are Gods beings. There is nothing special about people to me. What we've done with the world around us and complex societies and cultures we've created truely are amazing, but none of it hints at the existence of divinity to me.

I cannot take any religious claim seriously so long as I consider the entire history of the planet Earth, a mere footnote in the history of our entire universe. And the history of man on Earth, a mere grain of sand in the hour glass of Earth's history.

To believe that the ancients thousands of years ago were closer to God and to truth than we have come to this point, from thinking germs and plague were caused by demons to discovering molecules, and atoms and cells and developing science and taking man into space and potentially supplanting human life on foreign worlds. . . no. Religion is outdated, and clung to out of comfort, tradition and fear of acknowleding our worst fears. That there is no purpose, and that when we die, it's all over.

Get over your fear of that, and suddenly religion doesn't seem so lucrative. It infact, loses it's greatest marketing ploy. Eternal life and salvation. Religion offers man the one thing we cannot have and the foolish yearn for, eternal existence and salvation. This to me is the proof of religions falsehood. It's like offering a child candy. Religion uses the most lucrative bait possible against mankind to lure us in. This to me is proof that religion was crafted by man, not God.

[Lazy-Hamish]

I was raised an atheist i suppose but my parents said i have always had a choice to believe if i wished to, but when i started learning the sciences (especially biology and zoology) i confirmed my athiest beliefs in myself, so i ticked the box for raised but i am now certain i am athiest through reason

[CtrlAltDe1337]

You should have made this a multiple choice poll. I was raised in a Christian family, but a few years ago I had a series of several different kinds of events happen which, together with my own exploration into spiritual matters, has confirmed my beliefs. So although I was raised Christian, I don't consider myself to be such simply because of my upbringing, but through the combination of upbringing together with reason and personal experiences.

[Dayman]

It isn't a multiple choice poll, because this is an attempt at an experiment which has results I am interested in knowing.

We're about 1/3 of the way there as far as votes go.

[gambit]

Raised Christian but my parents were never very extreme about it. It was mostly my Mom who kept us going to Church, my Dad and brothers being pretty apathetic. As a child I put little thought into it, it was just an inconvenience really, then as I matured and started actually caring I became too skeptical for it all and went atheist. So irreligious through personal reason/thought

[Adhamh Ashashi]

I was raised in a religious family but as I grew older 16 or 17 I began to question my religion but I beecame more religious, don't know what it was but just did. So I picked option 2 for religious.

However even now I still question things in my religion, like why or how something happened but I still feel that I made the right choice.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Raised Hindu, converted to Christian at around 13, became weak atheist from around 14-15.

Man, I almost nodded off... wha... *snores*

Is funny because is not answer to post! Ohoh! I like! You have more?

[Khora]

One does not arrive, one becomes.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

That's why there should be options:

I arrived at the airport through mass transport (religious).
I arrived at the airport through aeroplane (religious).
I arrived at the airport through Reason (irreligious).

[Groenepuntmuts]

I was raised a protestant christian, mostly by my dad, as my mother didn't , and still doesn't care what I believe, and thinks "there must be something." when I went to high school, and started growing more intelligent, I started asking questions nor the church, nor my dad could answer. for a while, I think I sought excuses, to defend my faith against a heavily anti-christian friend, but when I reached 14, I decided to be atheïst, altough that was more because I was doing things a bit extreme at that age, discussing the by then "ridiculous" idea of a god with any I could find, in particular a few christian girls that were in my class. ( I gave up on them 2 years ago ) however, in the past year I've really started knowing myself, and partially because of the militant atheïsm you see nowadays, I decided for agnost. mostly because I think it's the most reasonable. there is no proof, and probably no god, but there still could be. for reference, I'm 17 years old now.

Edit: also, I'm glad I used to pray, and was a christian. it has taught me how "they" think, and this helped me understand people, and to nuance the discussion. something I often miss when I hear born atheïsts.

Edit2: aren't most atheïsts atheïst because they don't know there's also the agnostic option? I find this to be true in my own enviroment very often...

[The Count(er)]

Edit2: aren't most atheïsts atheïst because they don't know there's also the agnostic option? I find this to be true in my own enviroment very often...

Well Actually I think it's the other way around, most people claim to be agnostic, because they're neither aware of the definition of atheism or agnosticism.

Agnosticism (Greek: α- a-, without + γνώσις gnōsis, knowledge; after Gnosticism) is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims — particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deities, spiritual beings, or even ultimate reality — is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently impossible to prove or disprove and hence unknowable. [1] It is not a religious declaration in itself and the terms are not mutually exclusive.


So as you can see agnosticism, really only deals with whether or not you think it's possible to know what the real answer, atheism is simply the disbelief in deities, or the belief that none exist, since you appear not to really believe in any god/s you would easily fit under the disbelief in deities, which is weak atheism, of which the majority of atheists are, which doesn't make the definite claim that god/s don't exist, but just finds that the proof is not sufficient to follow any given god or idea of god, you of course could be an agnostic atheist, by not following a god and thinking that it's impossible to know whether or not one exists, or even be an agnostic theist, by following a god, but thinking it's impossible to know whether or not one exists. So really it can be a bit more complicated than a simple yes, no or maybe answer.

[Tankbuster]

The Counter is correct. Most agnostics are atheists who are confused about the terminology.
An agnostic simply says that we cannot know about the existence of God. That's fine, but he still either lives his life like there is a God or not. Every agnostic is either a theist or an atheist.
Agnosticism simply specifies the extent to which you are sure about your position (i.e. not at all); it's not a belief system.

I decided for agnost. mostly because I think it's the most reasonable. there is no proof, and probably no god, but there still could be.

Sounds exactly like an atheist. Congratulations, and welcome to the club.

Hey, I think there's a possibility that there is a God too. But I, like you, don't actually believe in it: making you and me atheists.

[Groenepuntmuts]

The Counter is correct. Most agnostics are atheists who are confused about the terminology.
An agnostic simply says that we cannot know about the existence of God. That's fine, but he still either lives his life like there is a God or not. Every agnostic is either a theist or an atheist.
Agnosticism simply specifies the extent to which you are sure about your position (i.e. not at all); it's not a belief system.

Sounds exactly like an atheist. Congratulations, and welcome to the club.

Hey, I think there's a possibility that there is a God too. But I, like you, don't actually believe in it: making you and me atheists.

Well Actually I think it's the other way around, most people claim to be agnostic, because they're neither aware of the definition of atheism or agnosticism.

Agnosticism (Greek: α- a-, without + γνώσις gnōsis, knowledge; after Gnosticism) is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims — particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deities, spiritual beings, or even ultimate reality — is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently impossible to prove or disprove and hence unknowable. [1] It is not a religious declaration in itself and the terms are not mutually exclusive.


So as you can see agnosticism, really only deals with whether or not you think it's possible to know what the real answer, atheism is simply the disbelief in deities, or the belief that none exist, since you appear not to really believe in any god/s you would easily fit under the disbelief in deities, which is weak atheism, of which the majority of atheists are, which doesn't make the definite claim that god/s don't exist, but just finds that the proof is not sufficient to follow any given god or idea of god, you of course could be an agnostic atheist, by not following a god and thinking that it's impossible to know whether or not one exists, or even be an agnostic theist, by following a god, but thinking it's impossible to know whether or not one exists. So really it can be a bit more complicated than a simple yes, no or maybe answer.

Hm... I see. so should I call myself an agnostic atheïst then? "weak" atheïst sounds so ...weak.

[A pimp named Slickback]

I was raised in religion and then became an atheist. Well I tend to fluctuate between agnosticism and atheism.

I largely left religion due to reason and science. But personal experiences also helped ease the way. Plus, I had satan come to me in a vision beckoning me to defy god, which I thought was pretty cool.

[Tankbuster]

Hm... I see. so should I call myself an agnostic atheïst then? "weak" atheïst sounds so ...weak.

Or just atheist. Or non-believer. Or agnostic theist. Doesn't really matter what you call yourself, if people care about the details, they'll ask you to clarify your position anyway

[.K.]

I'm an Atheist, and, honestly, I arrived at my "belief" through a process that involved all of these options, though, ultimately, I guess you could call it "reasoning", even though I feel like that's really not the full gist of it.

REASONING: I think this was the biggest contributing factor. It's not like I set up an algorithm on a legal pad and chunked out some sort of Socratic math equation for God not existing, but if you count skepticism and thinking organized religion is just logically ridiculous as "reasoning", this is where I fall.

Proselytization: It wasn't like one person convinced me, because, being the contrarian I am, I'm a bit suspicious of most people's spelled-out philosophies and automatically seek out their flaws. However, I found myself, more often than not, more in the same ball-park as many of the Atheists I've talked to, and their input/ my discussions with them moved me closer and closer toward whatever brand of Atheism I fall under.

I was raised in a household WITH religion: My family is adamantly Catholic. At the same time, they are politically very liberal and generally seem to promote free-thinking, blah blah blah. Though they are opposed to my Atheism, sometimes I wonder if it's a product of their not-brainwashing-ness. They taught me to "think for myself", but contradicted themselves, assuming "still be Catholic" was still in the mix. I'm certainly GLAD they promoted me to think about the world without just accepting everything I hear, but I think it may have been one of the reasons I "lost my religion".

Life-changing event: I suppose in some ways there WAS an event that really kindled my skepticism. I started out in Catholic School and had a lot of trouble. I didn't have many friends, didn't fit in, and I always felt stupid. When I transferred to Public School, I made LOTS of very nice, very interesting, very not-Catholic friends and I found myself in Honors classes, and just as capable as anyone else. It turns out the group of people at the first school were douchebags. This seemed counter-intuitive to me because they were supposed to be the "better people" the "good christians"--I now think that the fact that they think they fall into a "better people" category actually makes them WORSE people, ironically enough.

So there were contributing factors from each, but I guess, since it was a long process mostly fueled by skepticism, "reasoning" is the answer I should give.

[Tigrul]

Hm... I see. so should I call myself an agnostic atheïst then? "weak" atheïst sounds so ...weak.

Strong atheism can be seen as a particular case of weak atheism. I guess weak atheism is the most general kind of atheism, so weak atheism is really just atheism. We only need to specify the "weak" because people are used to wrong definitions, or because theists want/need to use definitions which allow them to place us all in the same group and try to invalidate our lack of belief.

Also, if you don't like "weak atheism", you might use "negative atheism", but I guess that's too... negative?