Hope for a brighter and better future helps us get through these tough and trying times. However, some would argue, hope isn’t tied to spirituality or religion, and is an innately human experience. Atheist or not, hope is pretty much all we’ve got.
A whole bunch of internet users who grew up in religious families opened up about what made them lose their faith and turn into non-believers. Scroll down to have a read about these honest stories from real-life atheists. And if you’re feeling up to sharing a bit about yourselves, dear Pandas, you can drop by the comment section to share your own relationship with faith, whether you’re religious, atheist, or spiritual in the broadest possible sense.
Bored Panda reached out to Reverend Adam Ericksen from the Clackamas United Church of Christ in Milwaukie, Oregon, and to Reverend Patrick Gahagen from the Journey of Faith Church in Baltimore, Maryland, to talk about religion, atheism, doubts, and how it is normal to struggle with faith. “Interestingly, my sister is an atheist/agnostic even though she was raised in the church. She is an atheist AND a wonderful mother and great teacher,” Rev. Patrick shared with us.
“Religion is not necessary for being a moral person. In fact, religion can make someone immoral when we use religion to divide the world into good guys and bad guys, sinners, and saints. Jesus didn’t use religion that way. For Jesus, religion should motivate us to love others more boldly, not to accuse others of being sinful. When Christianity leads us to divide the world into good guys and bad guys, the most faithful response is to leave Christianity,” Rev. Adam said. Read on for their other insights.
#1
I was raised/indoctrinated into Protestant Christianity. But once I learned about other religions, I realized the chances were small that I had happened to be born into the correct religion. Then I learned about mythologies, that they were religions that people stopped believing in. It seemed obvious that all religions were simply myths people still believed in.
This was about 40 years ago, and nothing I’ve seen or heard or read since has changed my mind or even made me doubt that all religions are just man-made myths.
Image source: revtim, Pierre Bamin
#2
Read the Bible. Realized 99% of the Christians around me had never read it. Then realized that the vast majority of people have no idea of what’s in its pages. American Christianity is a joke.
Image source: stayathomepop7, Rod Long
#3
The problem of evil. If God refuses to stop evil and suffering, they’re not benevolent. If they’re incapable of stopping evil and suffering, they’re not really God.
The universe simply makes more sense when you view morality as a human construct. A bunch of dumb animals were trying to survive and find purpose in their existence, and inevitably they created the concept of a higher power.
Image source: Anubis343, Jackson David
#4
A priest shaming a 7-year-old me for my parent’s divorce. That was a good start into rethinking all the religion.
Image source: recklessiga, Caleb Woods
#5
When I was 10, the swami (Hindu priest) at my local temple asked me who my favorite God is and I replied ‘Thor’.
He laughed and my family laughed and everyone around laughed and told me that these are imaginary characters made to fool kids and make money.
Image source: Typical-Type-408, Kristijan Arsov
#6
Working with “Christians” and watching them adore a man like Trump. You know it is a shame and about maintaining white male power.
Image source: Final-Distribution97, History in HD
#7
ex Muslim here. lots of misogynistic things in both the Quran and habits that never sat right w me
Image source: aelinivanov, Malik Shibly
#8
Grew up and started asking questions. They didn’t like that.
Image source: goatsandwich43, Artem Maltsev
#9
Being forced to go to church as a kid and be part of all the holiday plays. All the while getting physically and emotionally beat at home by my stepdad and praying every second of the day for change only to be let down time and time again.
I moved out when I was 13 and never looked back.
Image source: Sour_Sunrise, Kat J
#10
Nothing makes people anti theist faster than theists.
Image source: akugyaku, Pedro Lima
#11
Imagine telling a kid that they’ll be forsaken and tortured for an eternity if they jack off or eat shrimp.
Image source: DeltaSolana, Benjamin Voros
#12
I was raised Southern Pentecostal. My grandmother was insanely religious, so I was always at church. The church I went to believed in “speaking in tongues”, laying of hands, miracle healing, taking up serpents (handling snakes), and all other kinds of dumba**ery. I went with it for a long time. About 13 I went to a revival summer camp. There was a whole ceremony about pledging yourself to Jesus and not having sex. That spun into kids my age going to a microphone and confessing they had sexual thoughts or what they had done with other people. Then the pastor would pray for the kid and they’d “pass out” on the floor. Pastor comes to me and prays and like pushes me off balance so I play the game and lay on the floor. I’m laying there and just kinda took stock of the actual insanity of this service. I think I lost faith then. After going home I paid more attention to the actions of the people in the church during the services and realized how utterly insane it was. It wasn’t long and people actually started acting differently to me because I wasn’t doing what they were and I was asked to not return.
Image source: paythefullprice, Elliot Sloman
#13
Listening to Southern Baptists and their lame arguments about why women should submit to their husbands and defend slavery and watch them acting and speaking the opposite of what Jesus actually preached.
Image source: NotMyRealName814, pixabay.com
#14
I was 11 or 12 and knew a toddler that had contracted HIV from a surgical procedure in the 1980s when AIDS hysteria was at fever pitch. Soon afterward, I heard a pastor say that AIDS was God’s way of inflicting punishment upon sinners, and those who contracted it deserved it.
I knew the preacher was an idiot, but that didn’t do it for me on its own. It was after the sermon when everyone was getting their coffee and donuts when I heard all the parishioners were saying how refreshing it was to have a preacher who was not afraid to speak the truth and tell things the way they really are (it was language eerily similar to that used by people to describe why they liked Trump more than three decades later).
I figured that if there was a God, he’d figure out a way to set things like that straight. I suspected that religion was less about salvation than it was about control.
Image source: reddit, Mitchell Leach
#15
If you should “come as you are”, why are we getting all dressed up to the nines? If it isn’t for God, it’s definitely for fellow churchgoers. Every time I went to church people would have this fake smile plastered upon their faces. Shake each other’s hands and sing grace. They’d turn around and get drunk at the bar and run cars into buildings and people. One of the Sunday school teachers molested one of the kids. Besides, religious people use God as a reason for everything, including a scapegoat when things go wrong. “God, if you do this for me I’ll never do wrong again”.
If I were God, no child would have cancer. God does not work in mysterious ways. No lesson can be learned from giving a kid cancer and letting them suffer until they die.
God’s forgiveness: “accept me into your heart so I can save you from what I will do to you if you don’t”
Image source: ReaperDanny666, Gabriella Clare Marino
#16
I read one of Steven Hawking’s books and became terrified I was going to hell for opening it. I was 12. Some years later I realized that it was all bs, went back and finished the book and that was that.
Image source: i_like_cars_alot, Quinton Coetzee
#17
I read the Bible & also because they couldn’t answer any of my questions. Do animals have souls? If yes, isn’t that murder when we eat them? If not, then what keeps them alive? The bible says slavery is okay??? But it is NOT? The bible says women should remain silent & never be teachers but my pastor is literally a woman? And don’t mothers TEACH their children? If all the old testament is wrong or the old rules or whatever then why did God include it in the first place? Why was God so cruel to Lucifer when all he asked for was understanding – God admits humans are flawed, Lucifer says why love such a flawed thing, & then yeets him down to damnation?? Did hell already exist without Lucifer? And if Satan wants us to commit sins then why would he punish us for doing what he wanted??
And then there’s the whole “end times” battle where Satan is a guy covered in light & God has gouged out eyes & is wearing blood-drenched clothes – like??? Surely he understands human FEAR?? We SUCK at judgment calls! And if God can turn water into wine so easily he can’t grow fruit trees for the starving people all around the world??
Evolution just makes way more sense.
Image source: WerewolfHowls, Eugene Zhyvchik
#18
Second grade teacher told us we’ll go to hell for swearing. Once. Imagine the kind of person telling second graders they are all going to hell. (And we didn’t have religion taught in school. That teacher was a nut that probably hated children)
[Kid: “Well s**t, if I’m damned to hell for just cursing one f**king time, then I guess the a** is out of the stable, isn’t it? No f**king reason to hold s**t back now!”]
Image source: Hedgehog_Owl, Taylor Wilcox
#19
I read the Bible in-depth. I asked questions in bible study and was punished for not blindly accepting. The final nail in the coffin was the minister who performed my wedding had been moved from a previous parish for having affairs with the women parishioners. He was having affairs here and was moved again to a new parish where he did the same.
He droned on and on about fidelity and trust in marriage while unapologetically having affairs and the church just moved him knowing what he did.
The rampant hypocrisy sickened me.
Image source: Magnus_40, Josh Applegate
#20
Well, spending my earliest childhood years in a literal cult in the 70’s, then being gay in a family of right-wing Evangelicals was kind of a perfect storm to turn me off of religion for life. My parents are gone now and my oldest sister has gone full QAnon, further validating my own position that it’s all a steaming pile of crazy.
Image source: David Grove, Joshua Stitt
#21
It just didn’t make any sense to me, and I was tired of being told that I’m going to hell.
Image source: DeltaSolana, Jon Tyson
#22
Ex muslim.
I struggled understanding how I will inevitably go to hell (even if just for a little bit) because I am unable to perform prayer on time, especially the sunrise {fajr} prayer on time.
I have ADHD, and was unmedicated till my late 20s. Doing anything in time was an absolute uphill battle compared to other people. Ireally struggled to wake up in the morning all my childhood, my teen and my adult life. Looking at 23andMe, It’s almost like my genetic formation is destined to go to hell.
Also, I felt like being native in Arabic gave me an insanely unfair advantage over any non-arabic speakers. Even the most religious muslims from countries like Pakistan were inferior in understanding a lot of what came insanely easy to me.
So it didn’t really feel so fair of an ask.
Finally, some rules in the religion didn’t sit right at all and were basically the last nail in the coffin.
That being said, I still viciously protect the right of religious people to practice their religions without being looked down upon or discriminated against.
Image source: iRimmIt, Levi Meir Clancy
#23
When I asked a religious education teacher what Noah and his family fed the carnivores on the ark and the ‘teacher’ stared at me like I was a cockroach. She then came and stood over me and said “Little girls should be seen and not heard.” Until then I had always been encouraged to ask questions by the adults in my life. Decided that God wanted me to ask if I had the question and told her as much.
Yeah….. She asked me not to come back.
Image source: Becca Parsons
#24
Went to college, started thinking for myself as opposed to blindly trusting who I was told to trust.
I used to think that religious folks had good intentions, at least, just misinformed. Now I know that to be wrong. Religion is a plague among the dull-minded.
Image source: senor-churro
#25
I was never big on it though I was raised Catholic. One day I remember thinking “Why does an omnipotent, omnipresent entity need me to go to a church and listen to a priest? Why tell him (the priest) my sins? Surely God would know what I did and if I’m truly sorry… Then I started realizing what hypocrites the supposedly “pious” were in day-to-day life. Then our Bishop came up as a kiddy diddler…
Image source: Ryan Kristoff, Romain Dancre
#26
Family are Jehovah’s Witnesses. They had me at “144,000 people will live forever in a land of all good, just like the garden of eden was, but everyone else is sol and will simply not exist” what makes them better than me? Why does this god creature only love 144,000 out of billions?
I always asked questions that were answered with bible scriptures irrelevant to what I asked.
My grandma, my mom, and aunts and uncles were shunned from the Kingdom Hall after my grandma had an affair. He was straight up considered dead and my grandma and had children still went to the Kingdom Hall but no one was allowed to talk to them. They had to sit at the back of the hall. They had to come late and leave early so there was no contact with other members of the cult, I mean congregation. My mom and her sisters lost their friends.
Image source: closetedho, Mikey
#27
Constantly being told that I was going to hell just for missing church once in a while was the start of it for me.
But if they actually believed that then they are in hell too for judging me.
Image source: Affectionate_Pea_811, Virgil Cayasa
#28
When I had to put on my private school bible final that the earth was 6000 years old I really started to dig in what the hell I believed. The whole Abraham sacrificing his son on a mountain is just so f**ked up too. It started with “Even if he was real I wouldn’t want to worship him.” It snowballed from there. Great moral teaching book though for the most part.
Image source: Princess_leia1993, Tim Wildsmith
#29
I was always told that If I prayed, god would answer me. My parents fought a lot, so I prayed every night that god would make it stop. He never answered.
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#30
I hated the judgment. I can think of one example that turned me off religion: I remember there was a sermon made by a pastor around Christmas time. I don’t remember what it was about, only the guilt I felt afterward.
Image source: eschuylerhamilton, Stephen Radford
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