[Serious] Once believers, now atheists/agnostics of reddit, what made you change your mind?

A number of things. For one, I was raised in a quasi-religious house, with a Jewish mother and a Methodist father (who was really an atheist the whole time but never talked about religion until fairly recently). Growing up in the Bible Belt, as a "Jew" I always felt different for my "beliefs," and sometime around middle school I really started questioning religious doctrine - it was really apparent to me that I easily could have been raised fully Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Amish, whatever, and would have believed I had the "correct" religion; the idea stuck out to me that nobody's religious beliefs have significantly more proof than another. My parents both also raised me to really have a love and passion for science, so I naturally question everything, I can't really accept anything without intensely scrutinizing it first.

Also, the whole Santa thing bothered me. People think it's so silly when an older child believes in Santa - how ridiculous it is to believe a magic man could do all of those things! - then they go tell them they must believe in another magic man who is everywhere at once. To me, Santa is no more believable than Yahweh or the giant from Jack and The Beanstalk.

Religion itself doesn't really bother me, nor do religious people. Many of my friends are fairly religious. I just hope people realize that I don't wear my atheism on my sleeve and if they don't wear their religion on their sleeve, then it's nobody's business. But when you wear it on your sleeve, you're putting it in the public domain, it is now subject to discussion and ridicule.

Also, nobody is trying to get into your child's Sunday school class to teach science, so how about staying the fuck out of my child's science class? That's all I ask. I want my children to be excited by learning about how the universe really works. I want them to have answers after they ask questions, not the other way around. Science should not be threatening, I wish more people were enthusiastic about figuring out what the hell we're all doing here.

/r/AskReddit Thread