Leaving mormonism was difficult. When I focused the same microscope that I had focused onto Religion as a whole I realized that the idea of a God as taught in all religions didnt jive for me. How many of you went atheist/agnostic or found faith in an alternate religion.

I went from mormon to Christian to atheist. Once I had deconstructed Mormonism I kept on deconstructing until Christianity fell apart. It is hard but now I am at peace.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2014 12:12AM by orange.

It's hard to believe that humans are here just for some morality test. There is no evidence for any of the belief systems. Humans may even have evolved a "need" for religious beliefs over the last several hundred thousand years. Is there good that comes out of religious organizations...yes, but that does not mean it's real. I won't fault anyone for looking into another religion. It is a huge burden for humans to know more about the universe than any other animal. It really is just too much for some people. I say, if you need it go for it...just don't force anyone else around you to believe in your new belief system.

I skipped the deconstructing Mormonism part and went straight to atheism. I rejected faith and theism, and only later discovered the extra crazy stuff about Mormonism. The BOA alone, however, would have been enough to make me leave Mormonism even if I had not yet become an atheist. I was in total shock when I learned that anyone could see that evidence and remain a believer -- it was just so concrete and obvious!

Leaving mormonism was easy for me when I came to realize it was nothing but mythology and superstition. Education fairly rapidly replaced voodoo. I think I was a Junior in High School.

It is pretty incredible to me how so many can maintain faith in basically any religion when looking at the facts surounding their belief system. There is a reason I believe that "the intellectuals" turn towards more of a science based atheistic approach. I have always been curious and a reader, but am not an educated man. I know many believers who are highly educated but who dont seem to have the same level of inquisitiveness when it comes to gaining knowledge on a broad range.

Excellent point. Being intellectual and intelligent are different qualities than being inquisitive and curious. Being highly educated is no guarantee of an augmentation of willingness to seek out and face the truth.

Yep. Same thing here. Once things I thought were true kept turning out not to be true, I couldn't just stop there. I started applying the same tests to my other beliefs and everything just kept crumbling.

I have found that one of the many difficulties of holding religious beliefs is spending a great deal of time being surprised and confused by reality.

Pista Wrote:
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> I have found that one of the many difficulties of
> holding religious beliefs is spending a great deal
> of time being surprised and confused by reality.

So true Pista!

The basics of atheism is admitting you don't know and that there is no way you can know......

Some Atheist actively dis-believe....But the truth is not knowing.......

That's more Strong agnosticism (also called "hard", "closed", "strict", or "permanent agnosticism")

The view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a deity or deities, and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience. A strong agnostic would say, "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you."

Atheism is basically a lack of belief.

Well put. Anything really is possible. The most liberating thing for me when I left the church and consequently ceased my belief in GOd was being unburdened from feeling like I had to apply BS answers to lifes problems.....Answers that never jived

I wouldn't recommend it

i do not believe in gods or goddesses as in super human beings. i reject that notion completely. therefore i'm an atheist.

i do believe in a creative force, energy, vibration, frequency, consciousness..whatever the hell people want to call it. that peppered with buddhism practices such as "live the now", "be present", meditation, etc.

i do recommend it.

I went atheist. I always liked atheists, very sensible people (the one's I’ve known). I like atheism because it is a strong defensible position that doesn’t depend on allusions to superstition, emotion, and quackery. Viewing the world from an atheist, naturalist, skeptic perspective has put me on a whole new level of clarity and mental sobriety. I’m thinking freely at last and all it took was the will to start.

Skeptic instead of cynic,,,,,,,You are right......Love your point of view....

I have a weird path. I actually lost belief in Christianity before mormonism. Like if the ground disappears under a plane, but it was still supported by the wings or the excuses of mormonism. Then I researched and found the crazy mormon shit from various websites and then finally the ces letter. Read Godisimaginary.com Thats what I read and it's saved me from going on a mission and getting stuck a mormon through my teen years.

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For westerners atheism is easy to embrace.

For those of other cultures whose main existance experience is rooted in suffering and oppression atheism is cruel cruel

The need to believe and hope that there is more to this life and for them this unjust life is rooted in that their life will not have been in vain

For westerners atheism is easy to embrace.

For those of other cultures whose experiences are rooted in suffering and oppression under religious rule, atheism is punishable by death.

Hard core life long suffering makes religion more palatible than atheism.

It gives some sort of hope that in a next life things will be better.

Otherwise their lives their complete existsnce is without any value or meaning. Theyvare without hope

It's been said that religion is the opiate of the masses.

That doesn't mean some people don't need opiates.

for me, the idea of God fell apart, taking Mormonism with it. I was in my mid-twenties and began thru informal study of religion in general and Christianity, and alot of deep thought: that the story of Jesus Christ just didn't make sense to me. It sounded very much like Mary & Joseph got pregnant out of wedlock and made up a fantastic story. It seemed like the obvious KISS solution to me. I also became more humble, realizing that my very existence is pure luck, that I'm really noone special in the grand scheme of things, either there is some all knowing supreme being or the KISS answer is the that God is something we made up to explain things. Those near-death experiences that people cling to? Just the flashes of the brain burning out while we pump every drug and try everything to restart you. Our very being resides in our brain and when it dies, you cease to exist. There's no evidence of a benevolent supreme being at all. If there is a God, he/she/it is an asshole and certainly not worthy of my time or attention.

I put christianity to the same scrutiny as I had put Mormonism and got the same results.

What I saw when I stood back from religion was a lot of people asking God for favors, wanting God to make everything all right for them, wanting to be his favorite, and then wanting to get the big prize of Heaven when they die.

That scenario seemed very much like a bunch of spoiled brats raised by rich parents who constantly bail their children out since they never made it on their own and are just waiting for their grand inheritance when their Big Bucks Parents die. I know that sounds harsh.

However, not everyone is strong enough to make it on their own in this complicated world, so a little false hope can go a long way, I suppose. I just see religion as a placebo now.

For me atheism is life without the training wheels.

I think most people raised christian are only aware of these anthropomorphic, judeo-christian types of "god". So most people become atheist.

I am a humanist/pantheist. On the molecular level we are all just an extention of everything else. Like a wave is just one part of the ocean, we are one inseperable part of the universe. If you want to call that which unites us all god, go for it.You don't need to pray to it. Just be with it because you are it.

If someone asked me today if I believe in God, and forced me or answer yes or no, I'd say "no". However, I personally don't consider myself atheist, I prefer to label myself as "non-religious". After my experience in mormonism I just don't want to think about this sort of thing anymore tbh.

Also, in my TBM days some (not all) atheists were really harsh to me, constantly asking me to justify my beliefs, calling me stupid, talking down to me as if I was inferior, etc. I know not all atheists are like this, but some of them just need to learn to live and let-live. I never pushed my mormonism onto those people (I know a lot of mormons do, but I didn't), so they shouldn't have tried to push their atheism onto me. So even though I'm not a mormon anymore, I would find it difficult to align myself with people who were so nasty to me when I was younger...

I love reading about theories of existence now. Some of them make me think it's possible there's a "creator" of some sort.

I'd just recommend do what makes you happy. That's what life is all about. We all have our beliefs, but I don't think anybody truly knows what we're doing here or why we're here. I say just enjoy this experience and believe in what works for you.

I'm sorry the atheists of your childhood were so rude. I had the same experience growing up with Southern Baptists. Even though I've met several lovely people of that faith since, it's very hard to get past those horrid ones. It forever colored my whole perspective of their faith, and not in a good way. Very few people know of my atheism (I was raised that you don't debate religion, politics, or your momma's cooking if you want to be polite.) but when people find out they usually say, "But you're so nice!" like I'd normally be eating babies for dinner lol.

My philosophy on life is: The Golden Rule and do what you will but do no harm. It seems to work for me.

I guess I'm a deist. I believe in some sort of higher power or force, but I don't know what it is and I don't care. I'm enjoying my freedom and have never been happier.

After the shelf collapsed Christianity went down too. The Jesus story/atonement never made sense to me as a TBM. I never understood it and had so many questions that no one could answer. It's ironic that it took leaving religion to finally get an answer.

The crazy Old Testament was a major contributor to my way out of Mormonism. A 6000 year old earth, the flood myth, a late developing notion of a devil, an Old Testament god that is very different than the New Testament version, etc. In the end, the Jesus story crumbled under the same logical scrutiny.

I settled on naturalism as a world view. That's automatically atheism I guess. I simply do not believe in gods, devils, angels, ghosts, ESP, souls, spirits, etc. and also I have ceased the concept of whole belief in anything. I assign various degrees of probability to things instead. I think that's more in line with how the universe actually works.