“Why do atheists/others Deny God, Scriptures,

[joer]

Last week I came across something in reflection. Spirituality grows and develops as we do. There are three stages.

1. The first stage is discovering that God Exists. This usually takes place between 0-20 years of age.

2. The second stage is being led to God. You begin and develop learning about God’s purpose in your life. This happens about 20-40 years of age.

T3. he third stage is Living a Spirit led, God led Life. Now you know why you’re here and your ready for your fruits to be lived and seen. God is alive within you. Now you see yourself as Spirit within a body. This happens about 40 to forever.

So when I noticed this I thought about all my atheists friends here and I thought I may have found a cause of atheism.

Now on a normal world (The Vatican admitted last week aliens are our brothers and sisters in God) this would be our normal spiritual development. But on our world with so much error within it due to a messed up start with the negative influence of the Lucifer rebellion and the failure of Adam and Eve, our spiritual development can become jeopardized. So if we have a problem at any level of our spiritual development we can become spiritually stunted, become damaged, atrophy spiritually and suffer the consequences of our Spiritual malformation.

I further conceptualized that the level we were at when the spiritual trauma occurred might have specific symptoms or traits that are common to other atheists or non-believers

So my questions to atheists and/or non-believers are these:

1. At what age did your non-belief or denial of the existence of God begin.

2. Do you remember any specific incident or causes that precipitated that non-belief? Just use generalized descriptions if the authentic trauma to your loss of faith (if there was one) is too graphic or insidious to share here.

3. What was the course of development of your atheism?

I also think the participation in this discussion will help other Christians and believers better understand our atheist and non-believer brothers and sisters.

Peace and knowledge to all.

[Furrowed Brow]

1. At what age did your non-belief or denial of the existence of God begin?

I’ve never believed. But active denial started around age 11 and my first RE lesson at secondary school.

2. Do you remember any specific incident or causes that precipitated that non-belief?

No. Though I do remember a general vague sense of how crazy God talk was. I remembering watching Zefferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth starring Robert Powell on TV and enjoying it as a story, and recognizing the power of Powell's performance. But then I enjoyed Star Wars too.

Just use generalized descriptions if the authentic trauma to your loss of faith (if there was one) is too graphic or insidious to share here.

Joer. Unbelief is not the product of trauma.

3. What was the course of development of your atheism?

• 1/ Did not think about God at all before age 8/9 as far as I can recall.
  
  2/ Slowly dawned that people were actually being serious about God somewhere around 11, and that was my OMG moment. You are kidding right……you’re not kidding? OMG. Okay serious now…tell me you are kidding?
  
  3/ From the age of 15 a general growing dissatisfaction with the presence of religion and the way it screws up people ability to think straight. Though I’d cite micatala as the best example on these boards as a straight thinking theist with intellectual integrity and a sense of the limits of an argument. If all the theists could think like this then I probably would not hang around here. You wouldn’t need guys like me continually haranguing you.

[Fallibleone]

Last week I came across something in reflection. Spirituality grows and develops as we do. There are three stages.

1. The first stage is discovering that God Exists. This usually takes place between 0-20 years of age.

2. The second stage is being led to God. You begin and develop learning about God’s purpose in your life. This happens about 20-40 years of age.

T3. he third stage is Living a Spirit led, God led Life. Now you know why you’re here and your ready for your fruits to be lived and seen. God is alive within you. Now you see yourself as Spirit within a body. This happens about 40 to forever.

So when I noticed this I thought about all my atheists friends here and I thought I may have found a cause of atheism.

Now on a normal world (The Vatican admitted last week aliens are our brothers and sisters in God) this would be our normal spiritual development. But on our world with so much error within it due to a messed up start with the negative influence of the Lucifer rebellion and the failure of Adam and Eve, our spiritual development can become jeopardized. So if we have a problem at any level of our spiritual development we can become spiritually stunted, become damaged, atrophy spiritually and suffer the consequences of our Spiritual malformation.

I further conceptualized that the level we were at when the spiritual trauma occurred might have specific symptoms or traits that are common to other atheists or non-believers

So my questions to atheists and/or non-believers are these:

1. At what age did your non-belief or denial of the existence of God begin.

Age zero.

2. Do you remember any specific incident or causes that precipitated that non-belief? Just use generalized descriptions if the authentic trauma to your loss of faith (if there was one) is too graphic or insidious to share here.

Not really. I never had a belief. It never made sense to me. I was astounded that others believed in school those stories which were so clearly fantasy to me. When I was older (around my late teens) I went looking for this marvellous thing which so many people told me they were so joyful for having found, and came away empty handed. It seems I was unable to trick myself into believing the unbelievable. Religious belief has not been an option from that day to this.

3. What was the course of development of your atheism?

It started out as something which never really occurred to me. It was of no importance whatsoever in my life. As I got older and I realised other people saw me as a bit 'weird', I looked into religion, as described above. After a number of years of growing more and more disillusioned as no belief whatsoever was sparked in me, my atheism began to grow, and it began to bother me that others saw me as defective (hence my use of smilies in response to your words above, joer) and tried to correct me. As time goes by I find I am becoming stronger in my atheism and more annoyed at the idea that I lack something (spirituality) which cannot be quantified by those who make the accusation.

I also think the participation in this discussion will help other Christians and believers better understand our atheist and non-believer brothers and sisters.

Well I'm all for that, joer, but I gotta tell you that I'm not crazy about your theory, and I am slightly worried about a quest for understanding which begins with the premise that atheists = 'spiritually stunted, become damaged, atrophy spiritually and suffer the consequences of our Spiritual malformation'. But hey, I'm just one person.

[bernee51]

So when I noticed this I thought about all my atheists friends here and I thought I may have found a cause of atheism.

It took you long enough. The cause for atheism is obvious - the non existence of god(s)

So if we have a problem at any level of our spiritual development we can become spiritually stunted, become damaged, atrophy spiritually and suffer the consequences of our Spiritual malformation.

Why do you assume 'spiritual development ' requires a god? How do you know that you theists are not misinformed and thus spiritually malformed.

I further conceptualized that the level we were at when the spiritual trauma occurred might have specific symptoms or traits that are common to other atheists or non-believers

A good point - just when were you indoctrinated into god belief?

1. At what age did your non-belief or denial of the existence of God begin.

Around age 7.

Then around age 11 I started reading about alternate religions and philosophies.

Around age 15 I had my first 'meditative' experience that introduced me to a nascent understanding of the true nature of our being.

2. Do you remember any specific incident or causes that precipitated that non-belief? Just use generalized descriptions if the authentic trauma to your loss of faith (if there was one) is too graphic or insidious to share here.

None at all. My exposure to religion was trauma free. My movement toward atheism has filled me with hope and encouragement for mankind.

3. What was the course of development of your atheism?

I am at a position where I see no need, reason or evidence for any god. Forty plus years of knowledge seeking, contemplative practice and self inquiry have given me a firm basis for confidence in my assessment of the nature of our being. All meaning and purpose in my life derives from this and manifests with my seeking a mindful awareness of the happiness and well being of all.

Despite/ or more probably due to, the lack of any god belief I do consider I have a strong spiritual practice.





May you be happy, kind, loving and peaceful.

[C-Nub]

First, I completely reject your premise that atheism, mine or that of those around me, is the result of spiritual trauma. You cannot traumatize the intangible, (or nonexistant). There's no way you can make this claim, you can demonstrate, produce or provide examples of a wounded soul. It makes no sense. That said, I will answer your questions, despite the fact that they are asked as if some sort of negative experience or influence is required to make one an atheist.

1. At what age did your non-belief or denial of the existence of God begin.

I wouldn't point to a certain age, nor would I phrase it that way. From the earliest point in my life, I was very doubtful of my church's (The Catholics) claims regarding God and our shared histories. I was constantly asking questions, and the religious answers (God did it... he works in mysterious ways) held absolutely no satisfaction towards me. My realization that the probability of God's existance was mathmatically next to nil came from my growing understanding of mathmatical reasoning, logic, evidence, physics, astronomy, geology, biology and chemistry. I found, in the scientific method, answers that satisfied me. While they, like religious answers, often lead me to ask other questions, it wasn't the same to me, as I asked other questions to build on the knowledge I had obtained with the answers science provided, and not to, in the case of religion, fill the same gap that the answer 'God did it' completely failed to satisfy.


2. Do you remember any specific incident or causes that precipitated that non-belief? Just use generalized descriptions if the authentic trauma to your loss of faith (if there was one) is too graphic or insidious to share here.

No. It was my growing intellect and understanding of the Universe that lead me to participate in non-belief (again phrased as if belief is somehow the natural course a body will take if non-traumatized, a ridiculous assertion) and not any one particular, traumatic event. I think you'll find most atheists were not, in fact, diddled by their preachers.

3. What was the course of development of your atheism?

It started with the various counter-intuitive aspects of the church. The ten commandments were especially troubling for me, as they seemed to view natural, biological reactions as sins. I also had a lot of trouble seperating man from the animal kingdom. Why can animals do things that, for us, would be sinful? How does our enlightened position in Christ's kingdom somehow bind us more than it binds all other creatures. Why is belief in god not present amongst any of the higher animals? No one could answer any of these questions, and in the scientific world, they no longer needed to be asked. From that point on, I started to find answers, and while science is often complicated and it took me years to connect a lot of the dots that now make up my understanding of the universe and its history, I can now explain, in stages, how its development took place. I understand what happened on the atomic level as well as on the solar-scale. It's very satisfying for me to know not only what happened, but HOW, and to understand the function, origin and nature of the forces that guided it. God can never compare to that for me. There's nothing majestic about easy answers and blind faith to me, there's no miracle in it, it's just accepting a children's story because actually learning how things work takes time, effort and intelligence. 'Accepting' god takes none of these.

[Zzyzx]

.

Last week I came across something in reflection. Spirituality grows and develops as we do. There are three stages.

Did you just conjure up these “stages” in your mind or did you actually research the topic and base conclusions on evidence? What, besides personal opinion, suggests that they are meaningful?

Do your proposed stages apply to religion in general or to specific religions? Do they apply equally to all sects within a given religion?

1. The first stage is discovering that God Exists. This usually takes place between 0-20 years of age.

What percentage of the population of the US, UK, Japan, Iran and Israel respectively actually experience this “discovery” prior to age twenty?

2. The second stage is being led to God. You begin and develop learning about God’s purpose in your life. This happens about 20-40 years of age.

How do you account for citizens of the above nations who do not “develop learning about god’s (or the Christian god’s) purpose”?

T3. he third stage is Living a Spirit led, God led Life. Now you know why you’re here and your ready for your fruits to be lived and seen. God is alive within you. Now you see yourself as Spirit within a body. This happens about 40 to forever.

Do those who identify themselves as Christian actually live a “spirit led, god led life”? How can this be known? If it cannot be known, how can it be stated as though it was true?

So when I noticed this I thought about all my atheists friends here and I thought I may have found a cause of atheism.

If you actually found a “cause of atheism” you would realize that disbelief in “gods” is reasonably based upon realization that none of the currently popular “gods” (or ancient “gods”) can be known to be anything more than imaginary.

In fact, don’t Christians regard all of the thousands of “gods” as “false gods” (or imaginary) – except their favorite “god” that they defend as being “real” (with no more evidence than tales from ancient storytellers and writers – evidence no more sound than that for any of the competing proposed “gods” or supernatural beings).

Now on a normal world (The Vatican admitted last week aliens are our brothers and sisters in God) this would be our normal spiritual development. But on our world with so much error within it due to a messed up start with the negative influence of the Lucifer rebellion and the failure of Adam and Eve, our spiritual development can become jeopardized.

Those who believe that “Adam and Eve” were literal “first humans” may also believe that human “spiritual development” was “jeopardized”. Those who worship different gods, those who worship no gods and some who worship Christian gods dismiss the “Adam and Eve” story as being mythical.

Mythical events do not jeopardize spiritual development.

You are assuming that your view of spirituality applies to others. Do you also accept that their view of spirituality applies to you? If not, why not?

So if we have a problem at any level of our spiritual development we can become spiritually stunted, become damaged, atrophy spiritually and suffer the consequences of our Spiritual malformation

Is there any assurance (in the real world) that any religion is not “spiritual malformation”? How can you be sure that it is not you who is stunted?

Can you provide a basis for KNOWING that the followers of Allah or Vishnu are not the “spiritually un-damaged or un-stunted or un-malformed”?

Can you provide a basis for KNOWING that Christians are “spiritually undamaged” (or spiritually superior) to Non-Christians?

I further conceptualized that the level we were at when the spiritual trauma occurred might have specific symptoms or traits that are common to other atheists or non-believers

Perhaps in addition to “conceptualizing” it would be wise to actually research the topic before drawing conclusions. All above indicates that you have reached conclusions and are attempting to “prove yourself right”. That approach is common to theism – draw conclusions first then look for substantiating evidence. If evidence cannot be found, repeat the conclusions

It has been my observation that many accept religion (or “find god”) as a result of traumatic or emotional events in life that they find difficult (or “impossible”) to handle without “assistance” (real or imagined).

I have encountered few if any non-religionists who have become non-religious as a result of trauma in life – more have expressed disappointment or disillusionment with the failed promises of religion.

[OnceConvinced]

.
I have encountered few if any non-religionists who have become non-religious as a result of trauma in life – more have expressed disappointment or disillusionment with the failed promises of religion.

Like myself. No traumatic experiences for me either. In fact I've generally only had good experiences as a Christian. The failed promises were a huge issue.

[MrWhy]

So my questions to atheists and/or non-believers are these:

1. At what age did your non-belief or denial of the existence of God begin.

A Christian conversion at 15. Non-belief at 22

2. Do you remember any specific incident or causes that precipitated that non-belief? Just use generalized descriptions if the authentic trauma to your loss of faith (if there was one) is too graphic or insidious to share here.

No specific event, just the consequence of questioning everything which started about age 19.

3. What was the course of development of your atheism?

A personality that is basically skeptical and rebellious.

Ever increasing doubt due to personal pursuit of zero based logical analysis. Analysis with no or little predisposition. Starting from scratch.

Advancement in the ability to decompose complex problems to simple components. Determine the key or principle questions, and the questions that are irrelevant. That is, questions that are subordinate to the principle ones.

Observing the absence of evidence for a god entity, and the abundant evidence that gods are human inventions.

A more aggressive attitude after witnessing the consequence of religious political influence, the 9/11 events, and then US response to 9/11.

[McCulloch]

1. The first stage is discovering that God Exists. This usually takes place between 0-20 years of age.

Interesting hypothesis. Do you have anything other than anecdotal evidence?

So when I noticed this I thought about all my atheists friends here and I thought I may have found a cause of atheism.

Next, you might investigate the cause for the various forms of theism.

Now on a normal world (The Vatican admitted last week aliens are our brothers and sisters in God) this would be our normal spiritual development. But on our world with so much error within it due to a messed up start with the negative influence of the Lucifer rebellion and the failure of Adam and Eve, our spiritual development can become jeopardized. So if we have a problem at any level of our spiritual development we can become spiritually stunted, become damaged, atrophy spiritually and suffer the consequences of our Spiritual malformation.

Wow, every time I hear the wild speculations contained in the Urantia book, I get a feeling of déjà vu. I used to read 1950's era sci-fi.

1. At what age did your non-belief or denial of the existence of God begin.

About 30.

2. Do you remember any specific incident or causes that precipitated that non-belief? Just use generalized descriptions if the authentic trauma to your loss of faith (if there was one) is too graphic or insidious to share here.

I attempted to delve deeper into the philosophical and evidential basis for my faith.

[Furrowed Brow]

To add to my previous response. Statements like this…..

But on our world with so much error within it due to a messed up start with the negative influence of the Lucifer rebellion and the failure of Adam and Eve, our spiritual development can become jeopardized.

…make me wince. If you understand just how much and why it makes me wince then you will have a greater understanding of at least one atheist.

Also I think I can identify a specific moment when I decided that religion could be dark. I was in school around age 15. I had an RE teacher who I liked. He was a genuine guy. He was also a Christian. Baptist I think.

I also had a close friend, whose family was in crisis. His mother was seriously ill, and his father just sent to prison for 2 years for defrauding his company. As a result my friend was deeply troubled and very vulnerable. The RE teacher seeing the changes in behavior in my friend and aware of his problems reached out by first befriending and then drawing him into bible readings. I am sure the teachers motivation were genuine, that he thought he was doing the right thing, and was convinced he was only helping. Within a couple of weeks my friend had declared he had found God. He describe how the RE teacher had encouraged him (slightly forcefully) to get down on his knees and pray; my friend described how he had felt the spirit of God and was utterly moved by the experience. Never knowing anything like it, and was now certain that God loved him etc etc. The moment initiated a period where my friend came under the influence of the RE teacher, attending his church, and being drawn into a collection of people with the same self affirming world view. All the time he as trying to convince his more skeptical long standing friends that God was now his best friend and had change his life…..except it hadn’t. He was just as unhappy, and strangely his problems only began to recede when his mother recovered and his father came out of prison.

The way I saw it, and I still see it, is that the RE teacher, with the best of naïve and unreflective intentions, was still a predator that pounced on a vulnerable kid to try and impose his world view. The good he did was minimal to non existent. Whilst my friend was saying stuff like God is love he was putting on weight, his hair was getting greasier, he was smoking, dabbling with light drugs, and generally depressed until the causes of his depression were removed.

In the last couple of years I have caught up with that friend and have the discussed this period. As a 40 year old looking back he now describes the RE teacher behavior as “predatory”, and I think is slightly embarrassed to recall some of the stuff he use to say,