How I Became an Atheist

And millions of other former Christians who did the same

Published in

ExCommunications

12 min readFeb 10, 2023

To make a long story short, here are several issues that many Christians struggle with when trying to objectively analyze whether their religion is actually true. It took many years for me to fully conclude that the faith I was taught as a child was not only false but also extremely dangerous. The long hours of reading and “deep” contemplation were not easy. This examination included reading the Bible cover to cover seven times during a two-year period along with dozens of Christian books including several by prominent apologists, hoping that I would find the answers to justify my faith. It amazes me just how long it actually took to realize what should have been a clear and no-nonsense conclusion. (I will provide footnote links for a more detailed discussion of each issue.)

To avoid a major misunderstanding in our society, atheism IS NOT a denial that a god exists. It is the lack of evidence to support the belief that any does. Should evidence to the contrary ever surface, few atheists would remain atheists. While we have been demonized and slandered, the fact is, most of us just want to know the truth. The vast majority of them that I have encountered are good, honest, and passionate about making the world better and more just for everyone.

Many have lost family, friends, and jobs for moving away from religion, including numerous evangelical pastors.

1) I could no longer ignore or explain away the Bible’s numerous contradictions, immorality, cruelty, or absurd scientific errors.

There are just too many blatant contradictions and immoral and inhumane conduct that was directly authorized and condoned by its God. How could a good and perfect God inspire a book that had so many ambiguities and confusion that hundreds of denominations arose due to the many possible interpretations it contained? With a better job at basic communication, so many deaths and torture could so easily have been prevented. Why not simple commandments against slavery and viewing women as mere property? Why the killing of innocent babies and animals in a flood that was supposed to eliminate the world’s evil but didn’t? Cliches such as “God works in mysterious ways,” or “we will understand everything in the by and by,” became less and less satisfying. This single issue should have been enough for me, but it wasn’t, as I definitely did not want to go to the hell that I was warned about numerous times.

2) If God really loved all people, including children, why did He allow so many other religions and gods to be accepted as true by the vast majority of them who lived throughout history?

I was taught that not only was Christianity true, but my denomination was superior to most. Some of them, including all Catholics, were bound for hell as they were not true believers. The thought struck me (some would say it was Satan whispering in my ear) that we “right” believers seemed to be a very small percentage of humanity. Why and how did I become a lucky one? Billions of people are alive now, and many times that have already died. The vast, vast majority (well over 90%) believed other religions and worshiped a host of other gods that they obviously believed were true.

Their sincerity should not be questioned, given the degree of sacrifice required of them along with the massive buildings and monuments they built in honor of their gods.

Images from Britannica.com and Wikipedia.org

It did not seem possible that God could love all people and then allow them to be deceived at the cost of their eternal souls. It seemed so easy for God to have prevented the birth of the Buddha or Muhammad, and thus millions of other people could have been saved. I asked WHY didn’t he many times.

An undeniable fact is that almost all people have the same religion as their parents and the culture or subculture they are in. Almost all Christians today would be Muslims if they were born in Saudi Arabia and vice versa. We become what our parents teach us, especially if that is something that occurs before we have any ability to critically think. It becomes ingrained into our very fabric. It has the same effect of being brainwashed…because that is exactly what it is. It also explains how very smart people can believe the most absurd things and why they often refuse to accept facts that cannot be reasonably denied.

Do not doubt for a minute the reality of cognitive dissonance. It is worthy of a detailed study that is linked at the conclusion of this article.

While my parents were good and caring people with the highest of intentions, the fact is, what they taught me was nothing more than the indoctrination that they themselves were taught and fully believed was true. Whenever that ugly head of brainwashing surfaces from some neurons stored deep inside my electrical brain, I tell those lasting remnants of doubts that were implanted there before I had any ability to critically think, just where they can all go.

3) “Fool, don’t you know that something cannot be made out of nothing?”

We hear this often by apologists and their “victims,” trying very hard to defend their faith. Most of them are very sincere people. Yet, just ask them where God came from. While most will not try to answer, their claim boils down to this: that billions of years of ever slow-moving evolution is an impossibility, yet their God, who is all powerful, is in every place at all times, who knows every single thing there is to know about every single thing imaginable, including the number of hairs on every head, who hears and answers millions of prayers every minute; and who by the way, always existed without even having a beginning or creator. He did not just appear out of nothing, He ALWAYS existed. The more I thought about this, the more absurd and nonsensical it became.

The fact that He would have lived untold trillions of billions of millions of years, before creating Adam and Eve, (which many of them claim was less than 10,000 years ago) is completely mind-boggling. It seemed that what the scientists were saying in clear and calm words, backing them up with reasonable documentation and incredible detail, was much more plausible than what I was hearing being angrily shouted in church and on the television. But, I still tried very hard to believe the preacher. No way did I want to burn in hell.

And then, after all those infinities of trillion of years, the all-powerful, all-knowing God who was everywhere in the universe at all times decided to create what was the most sadistic cruelty imaginable. He created beautiful and amazing animals and insects of all sizes, but then required over 99% (99% is not an exaggeration) of them, that if they wanted to eat or feed their babies, they were required to mercilessly kill other animals to do so. See next issue.

4) That perfect, good, and loving God then segregated his newly created animals into a regulated Food Chain that necessitated nearly all of them to live in fear 24 hours a day. And, should they have any desire to live longer or to feed their babies, they were required to kill other animals to do so.

If He did not enjoy watching millions of His creatures being eaten alive every minute of every day, all He would have had to do was add a solar panel to their ears in order for them to get the energy they needed to live. Could it be…hold on…that humans are actually smarter than their God because they themselves invented Him, usually in their own image. Where did the thousands of gods that were worshiped and sacrificed to throughout history come from? Were they real or were they invented by people? What are the chances of any one person being lucky enough to pick the right one? Of the thousands of gods ever worshiped, most of us were taught that ours was the only real one and the other 99% were just fake and utter nonsense (or from the devil). Almost all of us, me included, believed that, without a doubt or need for even a tad of evidence.

5) It became apparent that the Holy Spirit really was not at work in people’s lives as the Bible so adamantly promised.

This for me at least was a very big issue. Becoming a Christian was to change everything. We were to become new creatures; the old passed away and all things become new. We were going to become more like Jesus as we grew in His word.

The fruit of the spirit is often used as the scorecard. Galatians 5:22–24 states “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Here we see what the Bible (GOD’S INSPIRED PERFECT WORD) states would be on display in the life of a Christian.

The fact that we were not being changed ”to be more like Jesus” added to the question of whether Christianity was even true. Some preachers even suggested “fake it until you make it.” Others taught that “goose bumps” was a sure sign that the Holy Spirit was very close by.

The Bible states that Christians are promised eternal life in a paradise of absolute joy and bliss. They are promised protection and the assurance that God will never leave them. They are further promised to be guided into all truth by the Holy Spirit. So, my big problem was why in the world do most of them worry and fear so much, and outside the four walls of the church, are really no different than everyone else. WHERE IS THE CHANGE that the Bible said would be real and noticeable to the whole world? How was it possible that my preacher was more racist and almost hateful of those who did not share his beliefs? There really was no fruit and the world would not have known him by his love. He certainly was not being led into all truth.

Today, this problem is much more evident, given social media and the expansion of news. We do not just see a few individuals, but we see the vast majority, millions of confessing Christians on full display (the same is seen in all religions too). At least the loudest of them see no problem supporting pathological liars and racist leaders; engage themselves in slanderous attacks against good and caring people; they literally espouse hatred for foreigners and the down-trodden and advocate for more guns that kill innocent people by the thousands, while voting to strip health care and safety nets away from millions of fellow human beings.

85% of white evangelical Christians voted this way in 2020, after they knew exactly the type of person for whom they were voting for. The lust for power and money is their number one motive. For many it is their ONLY motive. No love, no compassion, no truth, no fruit. Their “god talk” seems to be nothing but insincere rhetoric and is often purely fraudulent. Caring for the unborn is not a bad thing, but not caring for the born is.

It is not my desire to discuss politics, but since it has become so much a part of American Christianity, it is valid to compare that with what their Bible says will be the visible fruit in the life of Christians. Remember, ALL things were to become new. The Holy Spirit was promised to lead us into all truth, and to produce visible fruit while the world would know us by our love. Fruit such as love, goodness, kindness, and gentleness.

The disconnect between what is clearly observed with what is promised in the Bible is just more evidence that it was not a book inspired by a good and perfect god. There is not a trace of evidence that any supernatural power is at work in people’s lives. Any positive change in one’s life generally results from maturity, education, mentoring, or just plain self-discipline.

6) Broken Promises:

John 14:13–14 promises, unconditionally, that if we ask anything in His name, that we will have it. James 5:14–15 promises healing to sick bodies. Philippians 4:6–7 promises that God will guard the hearts of his people and that peace which passes all comprehension will be theirs. Many other examples can easily be given of Biblical promises that are not fulfilled as advertised.

Not one of those promises is true. Accordingly, either the Bible is not true, or the words that it uses have entirely different meanings than its readers generally understand them to mean.

Yes, I heard many thrilling accounts of people loudly declaring that God did something supernatural in their life. Lots of healed headaches, vanishing cancers, finding lost keys, getting a much-needed job or money, and numerous other miraculous occurrences. BUT NEVER was it something that could be objectively observed or did not have another plausible cause. Cancers usually came back and those who obtained money or jobs were still almost always as poor as before. Never has anyone come back to life, after being clearly dead nor have missing arms and legs ever grow back.

Oh how I wanted to witness for myself a great miracle which I thought would defeat my doubts. I watched healing service after healing service and NEVER, EVER witnessed a thing. The internet is full of the tricks and psychology many of the miracle workers use in conning viewers of what took place. In all of human history, there has never been a documented case of a missing arm or leg that grew back, nor a poor person’s old car receiving a new engine or new tires from thin air. The rich get richer (even if they are evil) and the poor generally get poorer (even if they are kind and good). That, of course, is exactly what you would expect to see in a world without a good god intervening in the lives of his devoted followers. The fact is clear, that the natural laws of physics and gravity have always worked without ever having been overruled by a documented supernatural act.

Summary:

While there are other reasons why religious people have discarded their previous faith, such as why there is mass suffering to good people including helpless babies and children, environmental catastrophes that a good god could have with a mere thought prevented, I did promise a short version. There are links below to articles that expand on these issues.

There are literally millions of people who were indoctrinated as young children who are questioning their faith, who are frightened, and guilt stricken that even those doubts and honest questions that they have, may be enough to send them to an endless hell of pain and torment. Religious Trauma is a real thing. It has the same effects as child abuse and other types of traumas that can be helped with professional assistance. Many are very distressed and have nightmares, believing that a parent, sibling, or good friend is now burning in an endless hell, just because they could not believe what was to them, illogical or who may have been indoctrinated in another religion.

If you are one of these, Recovering from Religion has a wealth of information available to assist you in fully understanding that things you were taught are just not so. Recovering from Religion has a 24-hour chat line that can be accessed at https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org to chat by texting or call 844–368–2848 to talk with a trained volunteer. Recovering from Religion also has the Secular Therapy Project that can refer persons who seek mental health services with outstanding mental health professionals, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and others who have been diligently screened to deal with this problem.

Keep studying. It usually takes a lot longer than it should, but millions have successfully escaped the terror and grip of childhood indoctrination. Join a like minded Meetup group and attend conferences of Humanists and Free Thought groups. Seek out the numerous podcasts and books that address these issues more fully. You will quickly see that you are not alone.