I have to admit, I've gone from a full blown Tee BuM to an agnostic atheist in just 8 weeks. It sort of went like this.

Week 1: Mormonism really doesn't make sense, but oh well.

Week 2: Gonna prove it's true! *tries, gives up* Mormonism even contradicts itself multiple times in it's own writings. Okay, this is bullplop. I am just a Christian.

Week 5: Hmm, the Bible doesn't make much more sense either. i.e. Jonah's ark. Okay, I am just a deist.

Week 6: Hmm, this whole God picture painted by everyone doesn't make much sense either. Where is this omnipotent God in this crazy world? Okay, I think I am an atheist now.

Week 8: Well, I can't prove he doesn't exist yet, so I guess I am an agnositic atheist.

This week isn't week 8, I have been an "AA" (Agnostic Atheist) member for a little while now.


I ask because I know of a few people who left the church but went straight into another Christian church and defend the Bible to the earth's end. In fact, I would be considered the only atheist person in my family had they found out of my desertion of the church. I've already got a little flak (just a slight chastisement) from my good friends that I've told, about abandoning my belief in JC and God.

Anyone out there gone from TBM to atheist?

EDIT: Sorry, I was randomly cutting out words here and there to avoid the banned word which I finally found.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2012 11:04PM by notsurewhattothink.

oh yeah

Anti-theist here.

I didn't see through Mormonism, I saw through ALL RELIGIONS.

I was a TBM, all the way. I stopped going to church, felt like a real person, and honestly, never looked back.

As far as the atheist/anti-theist title... I guess after I left, it just seemed so freaking ridiculous to me to go to any other church. I mean, they all have their crazy shit, and NONE of it makes sense.

Logic won out VERY quickly, along with a lot of reading (Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett) and an ANTI-theist was born.

Another small point:

When people say to me "You'll believe again someday." I not only shutter to think I'd regress so much mentally... but I honestly would feel foolish to ever state I believed in a god.

Just typing it makes me feel slightly more... de-evolved. Gross.

When I declared to myself that I no longer had faith in ANY religion, I felt so much less confused about everything.

notsurewhattothink Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I declared to myself that I no longer had
> faith in ANY religion, I felt so much less
> confused about everything.


Exactly. I felt like I was no longer duplicitous. I mean, I stopped believing in Santa over 20 years ago... not sure why it took another 18 to stop believing the Jesus version... same story in a lot of ways... less snazzy of a dresser.

Exactly. It would be like going back to kindergarten.

“A mind, once expanded by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Once I quit trying to make the world fit into the God stories, it made a whole lot more sense.

From evolotion to astronomy, everything is exactly what we would expect if there were no god driving the bus. It's nice not having to make up convoluted excuses to explain the character traits of a god who created such a bizarre universe.

It's easier now to accept that I don't get to have all the information and answers I want. It just is. I don't need to make up a visit with a god in an afterlife to finally get answers.

I can't even imagine believing again someday. I don't think it's possible. It's like asking an adult who has experienced the wonders of the world to go back to being a dependent and naive little child, happy to scribble with crayons and play in the sandbox. Can't be done. You can go from a limited world view to an expanded one, but not the other way around. I can't be squeezed back into the box, because I don't fit in there anymore.

I went through the evolution from a BIC TBM to atheist in about a month. When I first realized that TSCC was a complete fraud, I wasn't ready to let go of Christianity. It was scary at first. But seeing through TSCC made me able to see through all religions. There's just nothing there for me anymore. Now my only religion is an unrelenting pursuit of the truth.

Kismet that was beautifully put! I have experienced all of those same things and could not have put it better myself. Going back to Mormonism or even religion for that matter would certainly feel like scribbling with crayons.

Yep. That's pretty much the path that I took too, but maybe not quite that quickly. It was fairly quick though.

I went through identical steps except it took me about 5 years! (Hey, I was big on due diligence.)

I tried to evaluate Christianity from scratch without using the Mormon bias. It collapsed under scrutiny.

Then I tried to evaluate other religions from scratch without using the bias I got from studying the Bible and Christian God.

Then I tried to evaluate the deist thing and new age thing from from scratch (think Ishmael books) without the bias of organized religion. I used all kinds of slippery definitions for god (god is everything, god is energy, god is unknown, etc.). I was making stuff up just like everyone else.

Then I studied world mythology and it became obvious to me what the role of religion is and how god are created.

I am an atheist, but I can't prove gods and flying faries don't exist with 100% certainty. Therefore, I am an agnostic atheist.

I don't know if it took a matter of weeks or not, but definitely the cracks showing in Mormonism made all religion suspect to me after I'd finished dissecting it (didn't even do all the history and doctrinal research stuff for another decade, the religion just contradicts itself too much). AA myself now.

Kind of funny how long it's taken me to understand the conception other Christians have of God, particularly the more serious theologists.

I still don't believe all of the arguments that even the most transcendent conception of god is necessary to this universe, though.

When I discovered that the LDS religion was false I didn't know what to believe, but I knew I couldn't be Mormon anymore.

So I became a searcher, but I still desperately wanted to believe in some sort of God, mostly to validate my faith in belief.

Eventually I delved into a study of evolution and saw how belief in God is not relevant to the real world. I accepted myself as an atheist (this acceptance took years, actually)

However, a desire to believe in some sort of God is terribly important to the world of human society, so I have recently begun to open myself to the idea that what other people call "God" may be real and meaningful, even if there is no way to prove anything about it.

It took an enormous leap to actually read things that would lead me to abandon LDS inc. It took almost as much to read things that would lead me to a Godless world view. After having most of my world crushed there was a desire to not crush the rest.

I wouldn't call myself an atheist, but I surely don't believe in the gods of organized religion.

Self-awareness raises a lot of interesting questions about this mortal life and beyond.

Someone did some unscientific research of how many on this board were non-believers. I think it was something like 60%. And there is recurring questions that pops out now and then, such as why BICs seem to end up atheist much more often than converts.

Is this some sort of spin off of the coffee enema?

Just my way of saying TBM. :)

atheist here

We do not have to disprove God. It is up to those that claim there is a God to prove that God does, in fact, exist.

I was atheist when I investigated TSCC. Strange as it sounds, at the time I was looking for a reason to believe in God. TSCC could not give me reasons that made any sense at all. They could not give the evidence that I required for belief.

I used to be hard core TBM. I believed in it all, and would do all kinds of mental acrobatics to make it all fit. Then one day, all the complex theories I had built to rationalize the conflicts between Mormonism and reality came crashing down. It didn't happen all at once, but every time I found a way that was acceptable to me in order to make it all fit, some apostle would say something stupid that would move the goal post even further away from reality.

Your situation was similar to mine, but mine was a bit shorter.

I think I was always an atheist; it just took a little research and facing my fears to relize it. I was always facinated my history, human psycology, and science, which I guess means that me becoming atheist was basically only a matter of time.

Patterns throughout history of dieties, the *true* history of tscc, thirst for scientific explanations, desire to understand why humans acted the way they did and a subconscious distrust of everyone helped, haha. :)

I think your last step is significant. I don't understand why we pretend to have the answers, no matter what form of doctrine they come in. Some people go from fundamentalist Mormonism to fundamentalist atheism because they crave the emotional comfort of unmerited certitude. When atheism becomes its own religion, with its own fundamentalist rhetoric, when it dismisses alternative viewpoints as inferior or unworthy of consideration, it very easily fall into the same category that religious fundamentalism falls into. I'm going to be excommunicated from rfm for saying this, but Harris and Hitchens and Dawkins are probably no less dogmatic (and yes, often without evidence) than Mormons. Their worldview depends on unseen, unfalsifiable brute facts just like theists' claims. And demanding that theists have to "prove" that there is a god is just as absurd as demanding that atheists prove there is no god. These are both propositional claims. One can say the universe created itself. Another can just as easily demand that you prove it. Perhaps one could demand that you prove the existence of an infinite multiverse, or that materialism is true, or that something does indeed come from nothing, or that matter is eternal. I think it doesn't make much sense for us to say we won't believe something until it is proven when, as atheists, we are sort of forced to believe at least a few of these completely unfalsifiable things.

There is nothing wrong with disbelieving a higher power, but isn't pretending like our answers about metaphysical realities are in fact grounded in scientific, universal truth and demeaning others for being so naive just as small-minded as the Christian who believes that those who don't accept Christ will go to hell? Is this just our Mormon desire for certainty and hubris carrying over?

no and no

too tired to deal with the myriad problems above

Hasn't science sort of already proven there is no God and the Universe is capable of creating worlds without one? I think that there is more solid quantifiable against a God than for one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2012 03:48AM by turnonthelights.

Hmm. I don't know how science has proven that there is no god.

I think most theists can comprehend how the universe can create a planet. Perhaps most would find it silly that a god just sort of zapped it into existence without using consistent, natural laws. Perhaps a more significant question might be,'What created the universe?' Or, perhaps, why does it work in rational, ordered, seemingly purposeful ways? Why is it that if even one of the universe's initial constants were tweaked in any way, nothing fruitful would ever arise? Why did it produce its own self-consciousness--beings that, deep down, seek transcendence and perhaps even give up their own lives in the pursuit of it?

You could, of course, use an infinite multiverse to help explain the fine-tuning problem, but how is that a more grounded claim than an intelligence? And if an infinite multiverse is in fact a reality, what do we use to explain its existence? Does this not just push some of the questions further back?

To be sure, something in (or outside of) the universe is self-existent, self-contingent and without time. Could the universe, the laws of physics and the initial constants fit that description? I don't know. But if so, I don't see why it is any more reasonable than an intelligence.

That being said, this is just my opinion, and I respect and value other opinions on the matter (even Mormon opinions).

excellent. This is for Carson.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2012 04:13AM by bona dea.

Once I left the church I really wanted to believe in a god, but the more I learn about science the less logical a god seems.

Carson, I think you have a really awesome viewpoint on this whole situation! I think more people should read your comment!

Being agnostic really does seem to be the way to go but one thing I wanted to say is that I honestly have never really had trouble in my mind with God working with science. It's not that I had to jump through hoops in my mind or anything, it's just always worked that way for me.

The only thing I've really ever had trouble with was the idea of people going to hell who are perfectly good people but are atheist.

Is it possible to be an Agnostic Christian?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2012 02:14AM by nickson.

I explained it in depth once, but the short answer is yes, technically.

Of course, it raises questions: if you're not sure, how can you subscribe to a specific religion? Can you have faith in Christ as an agnostic Christian? I'm not sure about that one.

Of course you can be an agnostic Christian. There are plenty of them. Technically, I would say all of them are, even though they don't always act like it. Subscribing to a religion doesn't require certainty. This, I think, is the attitude that creates fundamentalists--which is often why people come to hate religion just as vehemently as they once cherished it. Perhaps one chooses to hope for and live according to the world that they believe Christ teaches, but does not know whether he was divine (this was, after all, formally decided 300 years after his death) or whether the god that he taught about exists. This also does not exclude your respect for other religions (if that does indeed exist) and even their ability to teach important truths about existence and even ways to approach god.

I went immediately from TBM to Atheist, with no middle steps. When I first started to truly investigate Mormonism, I sat down to set up a list of things I absolutely knew were true regarding religion. Of course, by this point I had already determined that the warm, fuzzy feeling was not proof of anything's reality, and how else can you know God exists? So God was off the table. I sat there for a second... well I guess that pretty much does it for religion!

I am an Atheist. I believe that there is no God. I do not know for sure, because that would be impossible. I am pretty sure the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God doesn't exist; even if he did exist, he's a total jerk who I would never worship anyway.

I'm agnostic, since I still think there's a chance there's a non-interventionist God who created evolution, but I'm definitely anti religion.