Deconversion stories and their causes

In a recent discussion, a fellow debater and I came across the question of what causes deconversion, ie. the turning from various types of theism to atheism or similar non-religious stances.

Thus, I would like to ask those among you who have left various religions how that happened. In particular, I would like to know what kind of things you think had most impact. Harsh arguments, like the ones one can often find on places like this? Conversations with mutual understanding and respect? Questions and thoughts that appeared in your mind on their own? Theodicé-like considerations?

I'm primarily interested in what it was that sparked the idea, what it is that makes someone go from someone who dismisses non-religion out of hand to someone who's still a theist, but who is willing to research the matter in a broader way. Not so much where you turned one the interest was already sparked.

 

My conversion from Christianity to a more agnostic/atheistic stance was a slow process that happened over decades, but the event that started it was an article I read in Discovery magazine. In it, the author talked about how this parasitic species of wasp paralyzes caterpillars to lay its eggs which then hatch and devour the helpless caterpillars from the inside out. He said that while the toxin paralyzed the muscles, there was no evidence that it also paralyzed the nerves which means the caterpillar was conscious and aware, feeling everything as the larvae slowly ate its body. The author went on to say that if a caring, loving God created the wasp, wouldn't He have created the toxin in a way so that it would numb the caterpillar so it wouldn't feel pain? Evolution on the other didn't care. Unless the numbing agent gave the wasp some type of evolutionary advantage, there would be no reason for a numbing agent to evolve in the wasp toxin.

I dismissed this at first, but it started me questioning. Why would God let people starve to death? Why would a caring and loving God create diseases that would kill children in unusually painful ways? Why punish people for eternity for simply not believing? Eventually, these questions led to more questions and the answer always seemed to be that there is no God. Now many years later, I am still questioning, and while I am unsure if there is some godlike creator or not, I am sure that even if there is, it will be nothing like the God of the Bible or any other religion I have come across.

 

I was tired of looking like an idiot with an immoral invisible friend.

 

Somewhere I posted a link to an article that said that Muslim children were starting to feel bad about being different than other people expressly because of all the recent intellectual attacks on Islam lately (it was talking about Trump/Carson's calls to not have a Muslim US President and to not let in Muslim immigrants.) Obama is clearly NOT getting Muslims to question faith like this, as he's empowering them, empowering faith, empowering Jihad/Sharia (at least indirectly.). Those attacks do indeed get people to question their illogical and immoral belief systems - ideally those attacks would focus on the horrific texts of the belief system and less on the people themselves being "bad".

 

If you believe belittling someone's beliefs will get them the change, then you have obviously never been to the conspiracy section of this forum. In any case, it never has and never will be about what someone believes, it is about what they do.

 

For me it was knowledge. As I learned more about Christianity I began to notice flaws and eventually my mind would not allow me to believe anymore. After many years of arguing the atheist point of view I saw that I had not as much knowledge as I thought and started to look at all the possibilities. Once I was open to the possibly of a god it explained everything. Then going through a personal crisis where I saw God working miracles in my life I became a believer again.

 

I can somewhat relate with this. While I still believe there is a God and that Jesus was his son, I have lost faith in the bible as being his completely inspired word.

I started attempting to reason out many doctrines of Christianity that do not make sense. One was the eternal torture doctrine, of which I have discounted now as a false doctrine. I'm not concerned with nature and the sufferage of our existence, but with the condoning of things like slavery and abuse. I just can't accept the bible as a true reflection of God, but it seems to give an overall message of charity, principles and morality. If being a Christian meant I had to accept several religious doctrines, I could not be one any longer.

 

The first thing that led to everything else was the question of what happened to good people who never had a chance to convert. Meaning they lived and died without ever being taught about Christ.

If they went to heaven based on being decent people and never hearing about Christ why tell them in the first place? If rejecting christianity would condemn them to hell when they were on their way to heaven, why take the risk?

On the other hand if they go to hell, no exceptions, how in the world is that fair? How does living in a place that is never touched by christianity make a person deserve eternal punishment?

It made no sense and never stopped bothering me. By the time I was 14 I was just pretending for my parents, who were fundamentalist. Since then other basic things have convinced me that theism can't work like it does in the bible in real life. I do find a lot of wisdom in the bible though, and cannot find the determination to be completely atheist/materialist. Stuck with agnosticism.

 

People who never hear about Christ or those not mentally able to understand automatically go to heaven.

 

Beliefs lead to actions.....they believe they get 72 virgins if they kill cops (like the Philly Muslim - the cops were not enacting god's law he said), then we're gonna have problems. Besides, belief in unscientific things is just WRONG ("a Jinn could be living in my nose right now, maybe that's why I've been feeling bad this last week".) I care about their minds, and about the truth.

 

Then obviously, since when people DO hear about Christ not 100% of them go to "heaven", let's all work hard to get people to NOT hear about Christianity in the first place at all, then those poor people will have a 100% chance of going to "heaven"!!!! Also, I'm now praying that my next child is born severely retarded so he is "not mentally able to understand and will automatically go to heaven"!!! Sounds good to me!!!

 

I was a very 'soft' theist all along, so the drift away was not dramatic. Religions all tend to base themselves on a version of 'miracles' and include stories based on a supernatural and extraordinary event or two, and a higher power that had a capacity to do things, I did not see in nature. I could not suspend my disbelief and got tired of trying. Accepting something as big as a deity or an afterlife or a resurrection on faith, when I could not really accept a man who could part the sea for a few minutes, or heal the sick with his touch was just not going to happen. I like reasonable and plausible explanations and prefer no explanation to an implausible one.

Past this, I look to solve problems. If the faith of others inhibits solving them, I get concerned. Insofar as theism and organized religion stays out of the way of solving them , or indeed can be at times a useful tool to motivate or inspire people to act resolutely to solve problems, I stay out of theism's way. Heck, I'll even embrace it's adherants, when it works as an ally in the fight for reform, for mercy, for peace, or for compassionate responses to social problems.

 

I don't accept this. There are plenty of evil people who do not know Christ.

 

Just for grins please enlighten us as to how you could possibly know this as a fact.

 

The problem is that people will say one thing, believe another and do something totally different. How do we know that the guy in Philly got pissed off about something completely different and killed the cop out of for the heck of it and then blamed his religion? How do we know that ISIS themselves aren't just using Islam as an excuse to rape and kill people? Heck, the 9/11 conspiracy buffs believe the US government blew up the twin towers just so they could start a war to get cheap oil (or something like that).

 

Yes, maybe it's just best that we don't take them at their word and that we put our head in the sand. There was this guy in germany in 1939, can't remember his name ("Adolfo", or something like that, anyway) and they didn't take him as his word, didn't believe he was saying what he meant....they paid the price for not listening to his own words.

 

I just want to apologize to Swensson. I didn't mean for your thread to be hijacked. I'll back down now.

 

It is what the bible tells us.bi doubt you will very many people who do not have the slightest idea of God. You would basically have to have zero contact with the world.

There is also a theory that god appears to different groups in ways they are likely to believe in. God may appear to the old native tribes as a different God because in the end, God cares about you accepting his grace and believing in him, what name he goes by does not really matter. This would mean that most of the population of earth is going to heaven since the amount of believers is somewhere around 75%.

 

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7:13-14

 

And you are speculating about how God defines few.

 

I don't play these games. The scripture is clear.

 

Not at all. Freedomseeker was the other poster I mentioned in the OP, he brought it in the direction that I intended to explore. I hope others will add to the thread as they go along.

I am slightly surprised at how few people mention others, teachers, priests, religious and non-religious friends and so on, and their impact on the process. What social forms influenced you? And how did you come across the information that started the questioning?

 

The biggest impact an individual has had on my deconversion was my mother, which is ironic since she's the one who also taught me about Christianity and was the more religious of my parents. Even though she taught me about religion, she also taught me about science and fostered in me, an insatiable curiosity. She also taught me tolerance for other beliefs.

Most of my friends were not overly religious. Most didn't even go to church on Sundays. Even in my own family, we usually only went to church on religious holidays.

It was in college that I started seeking answers to the questions "where do we come from?" and "why are we here?" and I started taking classes in religion and science. I also subscribed to several tech and science magazines. I think the article that started me on my path to deconversion was in Scientific American magazine, though I'm not 100% as I subscribed to several.

 

If a terrorist group says they are going to kill us, we go after the terrorist group. If a terrorist group says that their god is commanding them to kill us, we go after the terrorist group. Who we don't go after is those who read the same book or believe in the same god because we cannot read their minds to know if they want to kill us or not and in America, you cannot be persecuted for what you think.

 

I would like to know more about your background. What made you realize that there was no god or gods?