Religion
In reply to the discussion: Question for atheists. [View all]muriel_volestrangler
(101,322 posts)It started during confirmation classes (I went through with confirmation anyway - my best friend was doing it, I thought "he's sensible - if he thinks it makes sense, it probably does"; I found out a couple of years later he was thinking exactly the same thing, about me - and I also thought pulling out at the last moment would disappoint my mum a lot). The most memorable thing was they put up a slide of a pattern of light and dark in snow, and said "what do you see?" - everyone chorused 'Jesus!', and I had just thought "a man with a beard". So I started to realise the others had Jesus on the brain, pretty much (or wanted to look that way, at least), and I didn't; and I started observing them rather than just joining in.
As I learned more science, and read more literature, I thought about standards of evidence, and story-telling and the motives of authors, and thought it less and less likely that the Christian message was anything like metaphysical reality. When our class had to give the morning assembly, the school chaplain and the guy in the class who was a future priest wanted me to say stuff I didn't think, but that followed their pre-planned script, and that pretty much stopped me having anything more to do with religion at school. Eventually I decided I didn't see any good evidence for any form of higher power, afterlife or reincarnation, and no point in living my life as if there was something like that, and that seemed 'atheist'.