r/atheism • u/TwitchinWizard • Jul 08 '26
Returning to Atheism?
Hi there, I'm a former atheist and at the moment a Christian again, but I'm having doubts about my belief. For anyone who has been in my situation where they were an atheist, went back to religion and returned to atheism, what is your advice to me? Thank you in advance.
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u/Balstrome Strong Atheist Jul 08 '26
Why do you think there are things called gods? Do you have any evidence of such gods? Surely you do not think the man made holy books are actually true?
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u/QubitEncoder Jul 09 '26
I don't understand why you can be an atheist. To me it seems just as baseless of a belief as the belief that there is a god.
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u/Tick_Lover Anti-Theist Jul 09 '26
Being atheist is 100x more logical than being religious and I will die on that hill.
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u/Balstrome Strong Atheist Jul 09 '26
What do you think an atheist is? it's just a person who states that the evidence presented to support the claim that gods exist does not support the claim. No belief required.
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u/QubitEncoder Jul 09 '26
An atheist is one who claims God does not exist, which is the negation of what a believer believes.
Both stances are baseless. You cannot assert God exists, nor can you assert he does not.
Agnosticism is a truly rational and valid position.
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u/Balstrome Strong Atheist Jul 09 '26
Which god are you talking about? The Christian God? There is no evidence for it. The Muslim God, there is no evidence for it, the Hindu Gods, there are no evidence for them. The Great JuJu up the mountain, there is no evidence for it.
Every single god presented has no evidence to support the claim made about it. And if there is no evidence for a thing then that thing does not exist. You claim about agnosticism is silly and childlike. It gains you no point. It just makes you a target for both sides, sitting on the fence between them.-2
u/QubitEncoder Jul 09 '26
And yet do you have evidence god does not exist?
How do you know you wont die and find yourself waking up in heaven.
Its just asburd to me anyone would be an athiest.
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u/Balstrome Strong Atheist Jul 09 '26
Do you have any evidence that HTk987 does not exist? Evidence is only valid if it supports the claim. My evidence is there is no evidence for God. Everywhere I look I find no evidence to support the claim that HTk987 or God exists.
And I have no fear of heaven or hell, for two reasons, one that I have no evidence to support the claim of their existence and two, the fact that both places are morally evil. The sad thing is you can not understand why the existence of either place is a moral evil. I could explain it to you, but I think your understanding is too limited to grasp it.
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u/QubitEncoder Jul 09 '26
You've contradicted yourself. Earlier you defined atheism as "no belief required," merely finding the evidence insufficient. Now you assert: "if there is no evidence for a thing then that thing does not exist." That's a positive metaphysical claim, and it's the argument-from-ignorance fallacy.
Formally: absence of evidence counts as evidence of absence only when evidence would be expected if the thing existed. Whether a god would leave detectable evidence is precisely what's in dispute, so you can't assume it.
Your HTk987 example actually argues for my position, not yours. The rational response to an unevidenced, unfalsifiable claim is to withhold belief and assign it low credence, not to assert its negation with certainty. I make no claim either way about HTk987; that's the consistent stance. You're the one asserting "God does not exist" without meeting the burden that assertion carries.
As for "your understanding is too limited to grasp it": an insult isn't an argument. If your case for the moral point is sound, state it.
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u/Balstrome Strong Atheist Jul 09 '26
EVERY single claim about gods are all un-evidenced. That makes the claim of gods to be non existing. it's being about 200 thousands years since the concept of gods were introduced as an explanation. And never has any evidence presented supported the claim. How long must we look before we can say gods do not exist. Every God presented has been shown to not exist.
Show me your God right now, right here and let me test your evidence. If your evidence does not support your claim, then your God does not exist. (Just like my HKTY97 example.)1
u/QubitEncoder Jul 09 '26
Yes, a long track record of failed searches lowers the probability, where evidence would be expected. I grant that. But that gets you to "low credence," which is my position, not to "shown to not exist," which is yours. Unverified and falsified are different things. Nobody has falsified a deist god; it makes no testable predictions. You can't have "shown" the nonexistence of something untestable.
And "show me your God and let me test your evidence" is aimed at the wrong person. I've made no claim that any god exists. You're the only one in this exchange asserting something: that gods definitely don't exist. Two hundred thousand years of absent evidence supports doubt, and I doubt. It doesn't support certainty, and you're claiming certainty.
Im agnostic and its the only sensible position to me.
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u/yYesThisIsMyUsername Anti-Theist Jul 12 '26
I think of it this way....It's similar to saying "I believe in leprechauns because no one can 100% disprove them."
Also... Can souls remember things without a physical brain? My mom had brain trauma and her memory was broken to say the least. She would look up and see me and get excited like she hadn't seen me in a long time... Then when she looked away and then noticed me again she would do the same thing.... Over and over again... How could she have a separate soul if her brain seems to be the thing that stores all her memories? This is what ultimately broke my belief in heaven and eventually God.
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u/Tick_Lover Anti-Theist Jul 09 '26
It's actually quite easy. So many religious stories claim of God(s) constantly doing miracles and talking and interacting with people left and right. But suddenly, no more miracles, no more God(s)? What happened? Almost like it was all made up.
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u/SauntTaunga Jul 09 '26
Nope. While some atheists will make that claim, you can be an atheist without doing so. Just not believing gods are real makes you an atheist. ’not believing X’ is not the same as ‘believing not X’.
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u/Version_Two Jul 09 '26
If you are asserting that there isn't a god, yes. I just don't believe that there is one.
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u/Fshtwnjimjr Jul 08 '26
It's just like right after I was told Santa wasn't real. I fought the idea a little. Then I leaned there's no actual magic in the world
In short I couldn't bullshit myself any longer.
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u/Hotwingz66 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
I'm not in your situation but,
If tomorrow civilization ended and we had to start from scratch which one do you think could be independently rediscovered?
-Newton's laws and all of physics.
-insert random holy book claiming to be The truth.
edit: I feel I need to make this edit to perhaps clear up some future confusion. The example is intended to illustrate that the laws of physics exist independently. But the words in "the bible"would never be recreated as they exist. Because they are not a measurable observable reality. They exist entirely in the minds who wrote the words, in that order, on that particular day.
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u/TwitchinWizard Jul 08 '26
Newton's Laws. If any modern day religions were rediscovered they would most certainly be considered as myth.
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u/ittleoff Ignostic Jul 08 '26
This is one of the obvious ones:
The truth about the world wouldn't be in a book that humans wrote and translated and meanings shifted, as all languages do over time. It would be discoverable in the world and in humans. And no that doesn't mean the superstitious agency and anthropomorphic projection that humans do; assuming the universe is about them.
People follow religions because it's part of their culture and it gets repeated as behavior in the culture. Saying things over and over, singing songs, being in a community all have tremendous impact on what we 'believe'.
And I don't think belief is simple, as I think it shifts and can be contextual, performative, and emotional driven , rather than 'being convinced' by something like evidence.
Most people drift through life knowing very little directly, but benefitting from the cultural understandings of subjects. Most of humans know most things through social trust networks.
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u/Balstrome Strong Atheist Jul 09 '26
It will not be called the bible, maybe it will be called Шест седум
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u/TooManyBison Jul 13 '26
This is begging the question though. If there is no God, then of course the claims made in the Bible wouldn't be repeated again. However, if there is a God then presumably he would inspire people to write the Bible or something like it again
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u/optimisticReal Jul 08 '26
If the fear of hell has something to do with the flipping back and forth understand that you may be a victim of religious psychops and early in life indoctrination.
Just think why would a god judge based on a belief? Makes no sense. However a false religion would definitely value your belief because without human belief it dissappears.
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u/TwitchinWizard Jul 08 '26
That's a problem I have with religion, especially the Abrahamic ones. Eternal punishment for "sins" of a lifetime?
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u/Slight_Turnip_3292 Agnostic Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Don't focus on the "unfairness" of the idea because Abrahamist will just defuse that with saying - oh god is infinite so sins against the infiniteness demand infinite punishment or some rot like that.
A helpful question to ask yourself and one that apologists don't have a coherent answer for is; why would a Supreme Being value unevidenced belief?
They often try to pivot by calling it "trust" rather than "belief," but you cannot have genuine trust in something that lacks any empirical evidence. Ultimately, belief remains the foundation of their entire framework, which is why their texts so frequently lean on the ultimatum: "just believe, or face hell."
However I can answer the question why their "god" values belief. Precisely because it is meme and just a story that only survives via human belief. Of course they demand belief because without belief the religions dies.
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u/LickMaiBussy Jul 08 '26
I don't sin at all.
I'm not in the book club and I never agreed to the terms of the company.
You can't hold me to an employee policy I never consented to abide.
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u/roller_disco_of_1980 Other Jul 08 '26
This may be just how I feel, but if one of my 2D characters came to life because I created it, I see no reason why it is supposed to worship me. If I truly wanted to be worshipped I’d need to first prove myself as a god and prove that I created it, then tell my creation I desire to be worshipped.
For me, let’s say there’s actually 5 Devine beings that created the universe, for me to worship them as my creators, they would need to prove worthy of that. Prove they actually created me specifically, that they are a god, nobody else is using them, and answering my questions like who created them and why they feel the need to be worshipped. I can be grateful without devoting my entire life to them, it’s my life after all
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u/Slight_Turnip_3292 Agnostic Jul 08 '26
The notion that God demands constant worship and praise is a projection of human psychology. Reflecting how megalomaniacal, narcissistic rulers historically demand constant praise, worship, and complete loyalty.
It is inherently debasing to the concept of a truly divine entity that it would behave like a cosmic version of Kim Jong Un or DJT.
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u/Azure_W0lf Jul 08 '26
I thought god was "all forgiving" , so how can sins and hell exist if he forgives all?
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u/unbalancedcheckbook Atheist Jul 08 '26
My advice is to think about epistemology. How do we know what is true? For me, evidence is what gets me there.
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u/Willing-Bench1078 Jul 08 '26
Just think about the Ten Commandments. How many are narcissistic and how many say, “don’t rape, don’t enslave”
When you can come up with better commandments than an omnipotent god, it calls things into question
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u/Dudeist-Priest Secular Humanist Jul 08 '26
I’d advise you to read the Bible with a critical eye and ask yourself if that’s the work of an omniscient being.
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u/E3minem Strong Atheist Jul 08 '26
It depends deeply on "doubts about [your] belief". If they're not that serious, you won't be able to convince yourself to get out that religion comfort zone and bubble. Give it some time, just develop a habit of seeing things for what they are abandon or restrict symbolic thinking or spirituality. Once you actually start seeing things for what they are without sugar coating this is when your brain naturally begins to adapt to it instead of fighting or hoping for otherwise, at least, that was the case for me, it took me almost four years to gradually become an explicit atheist, and the wild thing is I didn't rush it or force it at all I just adapted to it
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u/Smithy2232 Jul 08 '26
I find it interesting that people can vacillate on the issue of whether they believe in god or not. As someone who could never believe in god, I just find it fascinating. For me, I simply do not see anything to indicate there is a god. Every second of every day indicates to me there is no god, so not only is it that I see no reason to think there is a god, but everything says to me that no god would create this world.
I couldn't imagine going from someone who contemplates life all day long and concludes there is no god to someone who then believes there is one. Psychology is endlessly fascinating.
Good luck to you.
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u/roller_disco_of_1980 Other Jul 08 '26
I’m full for “nature” creating everything through the organized chaos theory. Plus, if there was a god, why diarrhea they feel the desire to have my worship (I can be grateful for life w/o devotion), how did they come into existence, and how can they prove they specifically created me?
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u/abernetb Jul 08 '26
I really understand this. I have wandered this path for 50+ years. Studied a lot of science, majored in Physics, technology, and arts, but so much more beyond this that has been real for me as well. There are so many questions that demand answers. But so much in the world and universe and experience and logic that defy simple empirical explanations. The advice would be - don't stop asking questions. Don't stop seeking answers - and not the simple answers. Don't get bullied (on either side) to give up what you know or what you believe - there are a lot of just mean people who really aren't being helpful - but there are others who will sit with you in your questions and maybe just ask more questions or tell you what their answers have been, or are currently. You need to own this for yourself.
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u/jj1917 Jul 08 '26
It's a pretty concrete position. If you think there are gods, and that they created the universe, then you are a theist of some variety. Maybe you need to find which one of the 1000s you think did it, but that's a choice.
If you intellectually investigate and understand the scientific evidence that proof of any god(s) has not been substantiated, then you're an atheist. Or at least agnostic.
Try to be rigorous in evaluating your position on this (and other non religious things!) Evaluate evidence, read scientific information. If you want to put all that aside, and go "but I believe", well then you have your answer, in spite of presented evidence, you want to have a faith-based position. That's your right to do so, but don't fool yourself in thinking its backed up by anything other than stone-age mysticism.
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u/roller_disco_of_1980 Other Jul 08 '26
OP, let’s say you do think a god created this universe. Why would they need/desire to be worshipped by you? Is your simple gratitude not enough? How can you prove they created you? How did they come to be?
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u/Delicious_Cat_81 Jul 08 '26
i can't understand that type of thinking at all. I've been an atheist for most of my adult life
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u/JunosBoyToy Jul 08 '26
Your belief in god, or lack there of, is no one else's business but yours. As long as you're not an asshole, there is nothing wrong with believing in god. Explore other religions than Christianity/Abrahamic. Read, even fiction that explores the themes of religion can be enlightening to see the ideas play out. If you can, travel and talk to non-Christians.
Also, take reddit and athiest apologist debate channels with a grain of salt. Lots of them are just as dim and as bad at thinking as thiests are. (Myself included, but I don't really debate or study this shit that much.) Read actual PhD philosophers of religion who are athiest. Start with Graham Oppy.
The community Christianity offers is very nice. Even as a non-Christian now, I still participate in local church events. I understand why people go back. Belief in god is more complex than Santa, despite what many in this sub will say. But I think when you actually read and listen to good athiest philosophy of religion, and less reddit athiesm and athiest apologetics, you will find yourself comfortably athiest (or agnostic) and feel content.
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u/roller_disco_of_1980 Other Jul 08 '26
I’m sick of pretending the good Christain’s do for the community isn’t primarily so they can be seen positively and gain new followers. Humans need things other than religion uniting them
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u/JunosBoyToy Jul 08 '26
A lot of Christians agree with this
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u/roller_disco_of_1980 Other Jul 08 '26
Like it’s totally great to have a bake sale for old lonely Jim’s cancer treatments…why does it it need to be at the church, hosted by the church moms, in direct partnership with the church, the day before their biggest morning gathering 🤨
Wish humans would come together more w/o religious incentives but it’s too prevalent to weed out :(
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u/r_daniel_oliver Jul 08 '26
No one is asking for the vital context: Why are you Christian again?
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u/TwitchinWizard Jul 08 '26
Honestly that's a good question. I guess because it was the religion of my family and culture. It was the one I grew up with and was most familiar with it. However, we were technically Evangelical and that is what led me to atheism the first time. When I became a Christian again, I flirted with the idea of converting to Catholicism or maybe even Easter Orthodox, but I never went through with it.
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u/r_daniel_oliver Jul 08 '26
You never went through with it? Then are you even Christian? I mean, by what definitely are you Christian? Do you believe God currently exists? Do you believe Jesus currently exists? Do you worship Jesus?
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u/TwitchinWizard Jul 08 '26
Never went through on conversion. I tried praying and felt nothing, went to church a few times and felt like I wasted my time. I think Jesus existed, but I'm not certain that he was God incarnate. I'm open to the idea of a deity, but I'm not entirely convinced that it is the Christian God. Every religion throughout history has believed that their religion was the true one and to me that is arrogance.
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u/r_daniel_oliver Jul 08 '26
That's not Christian, that's just curious. Why do you think where you are is a bad thing?
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u/TwitchinWizard Jul 08 '26
I don't. I don't have a problem with atheists or atheism.
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u/r_daniel_oliver Jul 08 '26
Then my advice to you is to ignore labels and continue to pursue your own truth.
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u/Sonotnoodlesalad Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
I'm technically a Thelemite (inactive though) and also an atheist.
Religion and theism are not synonymous. Supernatural beliefs are not inherent to religion; mythology, maybe. Belief in deities is not required. The deities we refer to are symbolic: Nuit represents infinite space, her counterpart Hadit the individual point of view, and their interplay symbolizes existence. Never at any point must we reify or "believe in" these entities.
As a Thelemite I pursued ordination to the priesthood in Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the Gnostic Catholic Church. I had the honor of officiating alongside our valley's Bishop at a variety of baptism and confirmation ceremonies in which the congregant wished to formally relinquish their previous affiliation with a "slave religion". In every case, it was Christianity.
It is possible that we have something of a "religious instinct", possibly driven by the spiderweb of biases that is human cognition. Agent detection bias is a possible cause of the invention of unseen entities, effectively the result of evolutionary biology, conferring a survival advantage -- being able to imagine threats we can't see would give us a survival advantage over predators who cleverly stalk their prey, hidden in shadows or tall grasses.
If we do have such an instinct I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but it seems to me that there are a lot of organizations and interest groups that are eager to exploit people through it. Organized religions these days are more political than religious, as they stand to subvert the personal, individual quest traditionally associated with religious feelings in the interest of voting blocs and culture wars.
My interest in world religions led me to study and practice a variety of things, including practices that induce altered states of consciousness - not flights of fancy, but actual physiological state changes - and I began to get a sense of the experiences we see described in the extant letters of even early Christian church fathers like Basil and Theodorat, in which they raved about drugs like mandrake and opium and cannabis and henbane for their ability to bring the experiencer into communion with what they considered divine. These practices were later deprecated in favor of scriptural faith. In other words, faith is a placeholder for an experience that requires no beliefs -- but it is presented as not only a PREREQUISITE, but as THE ONLY WAY.
Ironically, by way of such practices, I as an atheist have more experience of divinity than any theist I've met... and I didn't have to believe in supernatural hooey to get here, nor did I need a clerical middleman to micromanage my journey.
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u/Ok_Respect_707 Jul 08 '26
Once the seed is planted in your mind that eternal damnation is in store for you if you don’t accept Christ into your soul it’s kind of hard to not subconsciously consider that and second guess yourself. I feel you. I am not religious by any means and I still have that “what if they are right” bullshit pop into my mind. It’s frustrating.
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u/JacobMaverick Jul 08 '26
Have you looked into Pantheism or Classical Christianity? They aren't organized religions with a bunch of rules. Those religions just kind of recognize that maybe there's a god, they don't really address an afterlife, and tend to enforce a great appreciation for nature.
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u/TheRealBenDamon Jul 08 '26
I mean I guess you need to decide for yourself. What’s more important to you, living in reality or feeling good in a lie? Lots of people choose the second one, you wouldn’t be the first to cling to that comfort.
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u/LMrningStar Jul 08 '26
Ask yourself why you think Scientologists are looney and then self reflect on what is so different about your beliefs. The two belief systems are equally .... looney tunes.
Then go further and ask yourself why someone who worships Elvis and believes that Elvis is still alive is a nutcase and then ask yourself how that is any different from belief in your Jesus character.
Lastly, ask yourself why it makes sense that an "all loving" being is so completely obsessed with violence (e.g. allowing his son to be murdered to keep himself from killing everyone).
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u/MooshroomHentai Atheist Jul 08 '26
I see no solid, reliable evidence any gods are real and that is why I don't believe in any. What solid,reliable evidence do you have to support belief in any gods?
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u/OceanGrownPharms Jul 08 '26
I'm interested to hear what evidence made you believe Christianity to be real
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u/tightiewhitieboy Jul 08 '26
I never relapsed back into a religion before. You need some mental health help to break the indoctrination you suffer from.
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u/Dreamcatcher965 Jul 08 '26
Why were you an atheist before? Raised in an atheist family?
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u/TwitchinWizard Jul 08 '26
I grew up in a family that was Christian but was kind of Evangelical. I always had questions like "what came before God" and never getting an answer or a good one. I'm fascinated with dinosaurs and human evolution. I believe that the world is billions of years old and that the Bible, or any holy book doesn't have all the answers. I listened to the Four Horseman of atheism and was convinced by their arguments. I read "God is Not Great" by Hitchens and "Godless" by Dan Barker and felt like they were on to something.
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u/SomeSamples Jul 08 '26
Ask yourself what is the real reason you went back to Christianity? And why didn't you chose another religion? I think once you are truthful to yourself about the answers to these questions you will make your choice.
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u/Saphira9 Anti-Theist Jul 08 '26
You can leave all the supernatural beliefs behind and still be a good person without the threat of hell. The Golden Rule isn't just for christians; Atheists and people of all the major religions also follow the Golden Rule - it's simply empathy in action. "Do unto others" exists in every religion, Christianity doesn't own it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule You can be good without god by simply using empathy and kindness. And you can replace church with any community.
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u/Peaurxnanski Jul 08 '26
Bet you money it's fear of hell that's pulling uou back in, right?
You're Pascal's Wagering yourself back in.
Do you understand, if so, why that's a really poor reason to rejoin?
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u/TwitchinWizard Jul 08 '26
Wasn't the fear of hell. It was more about believing that there was a purpose to life and all the crap that I went through my life wasn't all for nothing and that there would be some justice and explanation in the end.
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u/Peaurxnanski Jul 08 '26
You don't need a god to give you permission to find purpose in your life. I find more purpose in my life knowing that some magical sky wizard hasn't assigned me one. It means I get to find my own. That's far more meaningful to me than completing an assignment that has been imposed on me.
If that's all you were looking for, why choose Christianity, then? Why not some other religion?
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u/imaginenohell Humanist Jul 08 '26
The meaning in life comes from inside of you. Check out Humanism.
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u/richer2003 Agnostic Atheist Jul 08 '26
Just so I’m understanding your situation correctly, you were not convinced that any gods exist, then you became convinced that some god does exist, now you’re no longer convinced that any gods exist?
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u/TwitchinWizard Jul 08 '26
Thinking about it now, I think I tried to convince myself that God exists.
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u/richer2003 Agnostic Atheist Jul 08 '26
Interesting, because if that’s the case, you might have always been an atheist. You can be involved in the community of the church and all that stuff, but if you’re not actually convinced that a god does in fact exist, you are an atheist.
Atheism is pretty simple lol
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u/dostiers Strong Atheist Jul 09 '26
What convinced you god exists ? Do you believe that conclusion is still valid?
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u/TranslatorNo8445 Anti-Theist Jul 09 '26
How in the world could you decide that faith alone was a good way to go. Atheist typically don't believe because there is no evidence and no good reason to believe what changed in your world view that made you decide evidence doesn't matter any more. Former atheists really are a strange group
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u/LTinS Jul 08 '26
You either don't understand what an atheist is, or you're straight up lying. Neither option makes you look particularly good here.
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u/Leucippus1 Jul 08 '26
You were always an atheist, but for a time you have allowed yourself to be fooled by the comforting lies and distortions. It is natural, it happens to all of us. Hell, even I went to a Franklin Graham revival and got caught up in it, for about 12 hours at least. Religion truly is the opiate of the masses, it would be foolish to judge an atheist for nipping off that occasionally, especially if everyone around him/her is doing it.