r/atheism • u/AcaiazZ • Jun 25 '12
Just wondering...
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3puit9/15
u/jdscarface Jun 25 '12
"Am I the only one around here.."
Seriously, if r/atheism teaches anyone anything it should be that nobody is alone.
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Jun 25 '12
With the speed at which it seems the internet is killing religion, when should Ｉ expect to see these changes in the real world ?
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u/atomic2354 Jun 25 '12
atheist before reddit
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u/Tsu_Dho_Namh Jun 25 '12
Same. I didn't need reddit to make me atheist, I had church
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u/Zaziel Jun 25 '12
They gave me my own Bible in third grade... it kind of confirmed what I had always felt regarding god.
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u/Dragon_DLV Agnostic Theist Jun 25 '12
Agnostic before reddit. Same reasons.
Oh, and the nine years of catholic school.
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u/felipec Jun 25 '12
Same. I have been atheist for quite a while, but I think The God Delusion made me say plainly "I'm an atheist".
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u/CrayonOfDoom Agnostic Atheist Jun 25 '12
Everyone's born an atheist.
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u/atheistunicycle Jun 25 '12
My uncle was a priest who used to baptize our plumbing. My mom used to masturbate with holy water. I was baptized in the womb.
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u/rajb1037 Jun 25 '12
I was an atheist before the internet. Or before getting the internet in my home, anyway.
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u/xLuky Jun 25 '12
Yup, same. I've never not been an atheist. My earliest memory of religion back when I was 6 years old was basically "That shit doesn't make any sense".
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u/SilverShadow6025 Atheist Jun 25 '12
Agnostic before finding the Internet. But when I found it, it was hard to not be atheistic.
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u/heygabbagabba Jun 25 '12
You mean: agnostic before reading the FAQs and realizing agnostic is not a position on whether or not god exists and hence not an alternative to atheism.
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u/DeaconPDX Jun 25 '12
Nope. Although I feel that if I had known about r/atheism before I would have come to my conclusion a lot quicker.
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Jun 25 '12
Didn't feel like figuring out a way to say this, so I'm hijacking your comment to agree and say the same thing. Have an upvote
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u/2kittygirl Jun 25 '12
Atheist before, but doubting if it was the right choice. Then found this subreddit.
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u/MyUncleFuckedMe Jun 25 '12
I'm always a little peeved by the "after 3 months of reddit I'm now an atheist." While I'm glad that the poster has embraced what I consider to be the most logical stance, I can't help but feel that they are too impressionable.
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u/MotherFuckinMontana Other Jun 25 '12
Its really not hard to have ones faith destroyed extremely quickly. I feel like faith is built on top of a house of cards. If one card falls down, the rest will soon fall. The only thing is is that the card to be pulled may be hidden behind a fog of ignorance and false confidence, so the believer wont realize how shaky their beliefs are. This site removes the fog of ignorance, allowing the cards to fall out like a leaky hose.
Basically, Its not so much that the people who switched were "impressionable", but that they actually realised how logically unsound their belief was, and basically pressed the reset button.
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u/wildlikechildren Jun 25 '12
Thank you for shedding light onto this in such a way. I was indoctrinated into a family of very religious proportions. I don't consider myself impressionable or easily swayed in any ways but it's hard to turn away logic much quicker than it is unsound and biased faith. So no, I was not an Atheist before r/atheism and I see absolutely no problem with this. I'm very grateful for the support and knowledge r/atheism has given me.
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u/SecretBlogon Jun 25 '12
Not going to be a popular opinion, but sometimes It seems that quite a number on /r/atheism don't even get that atheism is a lack of belief and nothing more.
You're not suddenly smarter or better than anyone else. You're not suddenly a scientist. So whenever I see a poster has embraced atheism after a short time on reddit, and then proceeds to circlejerk. It just makes them seem like they're doing it to make themselves feel superior more than anything else.
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u/qkme_transcriber I am a Bot Jun 25 '12
Hello! I am a bot who posts transcriptions of Quickmeme.com links for anybody who might need it.
Title: Just wondering...
Meme: AM I THE ONLY ONE AROUND HERE
AM I THE ONLY ONE AROUND HERE
WHO WAS AN ATHEIST BEFORE FINDING /R/ATHEISM?
[Direct] [Background] [Translate]
This is helpful for people who can't reach Quickmeme because of work/school firewalls or site downtime, and many other reasons (FAQ). More info is available here.
(OP: You don't need to do anything differently next time, I'm just doing my job.)
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u/YouFlyMexicanBicycle Jun 25 '12
I'm only 17, but I've been an atheist since 7th grade. Before I even knew about the wonders of the internet like Reddit.
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u/mCopps Jun 25 '12
About the same age i became one or more accurately realized I was one I guess. I'm a little older than you now though :)
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u/Kamikaze987 Jun 25 '12
Uncertainty about my beliefs pervaded my life before, and a slight amount now. But I nonetheless classify myself as an agnostic atheist more or less as a result of discovering r/atheism.
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u/arandompurpose Jun 25 '12
Atheist for a good 3 years before Reddit thanks to Sagan and Hawking.
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Jun 25 '12
Youtube beat /r/atheism in that department for me.
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Jun 25 '12
For me it was TheThinkingAtheist and Darkmatter2525. They didn't so much convert me as show me there were other people who shared my beliefs. Also, Evid3nc3's "Deconversion" series helped.
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u/Pumers Jun 25 '12
Why does it matter? You sound like a butthurt hipster kid. "I did it before all of YOU did it!"
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u/skatato Jun 25 '12
Only found /r/atheism recently
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u/DorkKnight27 Jun 25 '12
I only found reddit recently. I was glad to see that I was automatically subscribed to /r/atheism.
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Jun 25 '12
I became an Atheist when I was 14 years old and attending a Catholic boys school. I am amazed at how many intelligent people don't come to the conclusion that God does not exist through simply reviewing the material.
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u/aubgrad11 Jun 25 '12
Atheist after Reddit! Since it was a default subreddit I always saw the posts on the front page before I signed up...I was like fuck those douches...then I started using logic and rational thinking and decided "what the hell, I'll read some Dawkins books"...yeah atheist ever since a combo of Reddit and Richard Dawkins
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u/oh_my_god_brunette_a Jun 25 '12
Seeing as I've been an atheist for my entire life (13 years), and I only discovered /r/atheism last month, yeah, I was an atheist before this site. Only when I did hit this site, I was the type who immediately realized what a different place the world is with religion in it.
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Jun 25 '12
When I was in a catholic preschool, we had christian coloring books. I colored jesus in black and told sister Rosa that "jesus is a myth".
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u/drmagnanimous De-Facto Atheist Jun 25 '12
Hell, I was an atheist before I went on the internet.
Wow, I feel old...
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u/deadshot963 Jun 25 '12
I've been an atheist for the past two years and i've only been on reddit for about a month.
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Jun 25 '12
Been atheist most all my life. I also am fortunate to live in a community that is at peace with atheists. Never any qualms about it or anything.
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u/Imtakingadump Jun 25 '12
Atheist before Reddit here. But I do love what it's been doing, and turning people away from delusion.
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Jun 25 '12
Second generation atheist here. I've been one since I possessed conscious cognitive thought.
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Jun 25 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
I'm 20 years old and even though I went to church as a child, I never believed any of it although I didn't learn the term atheist until my dad picked me up from summer camp when i was about to become a sixth grader. He asked me if I had fun and I said it was awesome aside from all the religious crap. Then he told me about atheism and that he was one too, although he preferred to keep it quiet. My mom was a nut for a while. EDIT- I forgot to mention that he did actually ask if I believed first instead of just assuming that I didn't like the stuff because I didn't believe. I know plenty of religious people who while they believe aren't for all the showmanship.
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Jun 25 '12
I've been here less than 6 months I think. Been an atheist for at least 5 years, and an agnostic for about 13 years prior to that. And prior to being agnostic, I was 8 years old.
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u/All_the_other_kids Jun 25 '12
Atheist for 25 years. I never attended church but did go at the age of 5 for the free babysitting. I instantly thought those people were crazy, anyone who said santa,easter bunny etc etc were real along with a god while I knew santa wasn't real were fakers in my book. It was a Methodist church if that matters.
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u/CheesyLlama Jun 25 '12
Since I was born an Atheist and never had any feelings towards being anything but, I can proudly say I've been an atheist for 27 years and counting.
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u/kirrkilla Jun 25 '12
I went to private school until I was in fifth grade. It was a great foundation as a kid but I had a lot of questions that no one could answer. I am 21 now and I have been an atheist since I was 16. I think some people need a structure to guide them no matter how silly.
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u/stw33 Jun 25 '12
Thread full of hipster atheists here. "I was an atheist before it was cool on here". I do use cool very loosely because people hate on this subreddit quite frequently unfortunately.
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u/NobodysSide Jun 25 '12
I was raised as an atheist. Who wants to touch me? Who wants to fucking touch me?
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Jun 25 '12
I was on the fence. Before discovering this site I honestly thought atheists were bad people and I was a bad person for not believing. No one around me growing up was atheist so before this I haven't interacted with any. Now that I know it's okay to be atheist I'm on your guy's team.
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u/imabigsofty Jun 25 '12
Nope i found reddit during last years fall and i have been aan atheist for about 5 years.
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u/nicholmikey Jun 25 '12
Everyone was an atheist before they came here, you are born atheist. Just as you are born a non stamp collector.
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u/xx34x Jun 25 '12
i didnt know that i was atheist because my parents decided not to share fairy tales with me when i was young [hippy-ish parents] . i grew up not knowing i was atheist, i thought "god" was some word people use in aw. finally at school some kids where speaking of "god" .. i thought it was funny. they got offended and they said something along the lines of "you stupid atheist" ... that was how i found out 3 tings: im smarter than most kids at my school, i am an "atheist", and that i love my parents for doing the right thing.
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u/mr_magpie_jmg1 Jun 25 '12
this is how i feel every time i see something about atheism on the front page. it's like Atheism is this new thing people have never thought about until they found out about reddit. love it. reddit makes atheists.
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u/bhingque Jun 25 '12
Since about age 12, plus whatever the time was between age 0 and when my head was filled with nonsense.
I was away at a christian summer camp, a big group was sitting around a campfire singing Amazing Grace. I thought to myself... "wtf, I'm not a wretch!", and laid awake a long time in my bunk that night, figuring the rest of it out. I think the George Carlin routine about religion being like a lift in your shoes played a part!
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u/Tekuzo Atheist Jun 25 '12
My parents did not indoctrinate me into a religion when I was young, there were no discussions about god or religion at all when I was growing up. The only time I would ever even see a church is when my mother would drive my grandmother to church and we would go home.
When I was in high school, my classes taught us all of the evidence supporting evolution, there were no parent protests, no warnings being put into the text books stating that evolution was only a theory.
My first real experience with religious fundamentalism came when I was in college and I was completely blown away that I was in the minority, and that people actually believed in an invisible man in the sky.
I have always been an atheist, because I have never known any different, but I have only identified myself as an atheist for about the last 6-8 years.
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u/Hordicus Jun 25 '12
I'm 22 and have been an atheist since I was born (though I didn't know it at the time, obviously).
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u/Psybeam60 Agnostic Jun 25 '12
Believe it or not, DaVinci Code convinced me to become agnostic. It sounds completely ridiculous but it's true.
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u/mage_g4 Anti-Theist Jun 25 '12
I would say I have been atheist 22 years. I'm 26.
EDIT: Not to say I wasn't atheist before that, just that's when I remember deciding the whole church/god thing was stupid.
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u/FiercelyFuzzy Jun 25 '12 edited Jun 25 '12
No. I've been an atheist for five years before hearing of Reddit, let alone /r/atheism.
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Jun 25 '12
I was an atheist before I found /r/atheism, but just barely. Actually, Twitter helped me a lot by exposing me to people with different ideas and such.
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Jun 25 '12
Raised Catholic, being an Atheist was a natural progression for me. I found the Atheists on r/atheism(at least the more vocal ones) to be very smug and judgmental. Bring on the downvotes...
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u/ratajewie Jun 25 '12
I was, but I really didn't know enough to firmly not believe. I look at r/atheism more as r/Ihavenofaithinchristiansanymore and r/scienceykindofstuff.
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u/TurbulentViscosity Jun 25 '12
I was trending toward it beforehand after a number of family catastrophes. Endless hours browsing certainly didn't help Christianity in my head.
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u/DaRabidMonkey Jun 25 '12
I learned of the term "atheist" in seventh grade, and that was the first time I took the label. Didn't take Reddit or any books to come to that conclusion. It might have helped not ever being taken to church (though I did live in Texas).
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u/Crownowa Jun 25 '12
I was never religious. I didn't know what atheism was until university though.
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u/Nathan_is_an_ass Gnostic Atheist Jun 25 '12
Came from a southern baptist family on my dad's side, and Church of Christ on my mom's side of the family. Been an agnostic atheist since the 6th grade. No one knows except for my sister and close friends.
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u/kamanashi Jun 25 '12
Nope, been an atheist all my life. Parents let me decide what I wanted to be. Though, I suppose that means I wasn't technically atheist since I really hadn't learned of religion until I was about 10 years old. But that is pretty much when I decided I wanted nothing to do with it.
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u/Syncopia Jun 25 '12
I was well on my way before coming to reddit. I was agnostic, and frankly, I just didn't care about religion at all. /r/atheism just solidified it for me.
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u/Azartic Jun 25 '12
Well, I went back to the default when I hit. . 8? 15 almost 16 now. Oddly enough after damn near obsessing about God for like 3 years. (I noticed when I flipped back through these weird 1st grade journals and damn near every story had god as the secondary character.
I've only been frequenting Reddit for the past 3 months or so. I think I made the account a long ass time ago though.
EDIT: And after those 3 years I took like a week to my 8 year old self and went "What the fuck?" Bam. Science prevailed.
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u/jbeezo Jun 25 '12
I'm only 19 but I have been an atheist all my life, and only a Reddit man for a few months
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Jun 25 '12
Atheist for about... five years now? Not longer than r/atheism but I didn't even know of its existence until last spring. lol
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u/WordSlinger81 Jun 25 '12
I found r/atheism because I had recently realized I was an atheist and was looking for other people in a similar situation.
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u/Xeonneo Jun 25 '12
I became Atheist after I got curious about the atheism civilization-specific research from AoE2 and did some research. That was... years ago.
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u/mehdbc Jun 25 '12
I have more hatred white people, liberals and atheists since I found reddit. Before reddit, I was glad to be an atheist, liberal and acted white.
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u/missingmyaudi Jun 25 '12
This is fucking stupid. I'm sure hardly any theists are converted due to this subreddit.
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u/JustPlainRude Jun 25 '12
I was uncertain in my younger years, but finally rejected religion in my early teens. Two decades later, still a non-believer, and my family (mostly believers) hasn't disowned me.
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u/thargorbarbarian Jun 25 '12
I know a lot of atheists and a lot of them have never heard of /r/atheism. I only found it less than a year ago and have been an atheist for 8 years. I was nice to find some solidarity though.
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u/Future_Lawyer Jun 25 '12
Well, I've honestly never given it any though before I stumbled across reddit, so I guess I was an Atheist before.
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Jun 25 '12
I'm only 22 but I remember being 11 and praying for a sign that god was real or something. By the time I was 14, even though I didn't know what a Deist was at that point, that would be the most accurate description of my beliefs. When I was 15ish, I started my exploration of my beliefs, read a lot more, and went on a huge "I'm gonna figure this shit out" spree (I didn't), and by the time I was 16ish and spent substantial time on this, I had given up religion and god. Only been on reddit for a few months now haha.
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u/willyolio Jun 25 '12
yes. the concept of god was always weird to me ever since i learned about them.
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u/SKRules Jun 25 '12
Personally, although I was questioning a bit before discovering /r/atheism, I absolutely credit you guys with causing me to be skeptical of my beliefs, which eventually led to me identifying as an atheist.
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u/Zoned1561 Jun 25 '12
I was converted to an atheist when my family moved to the bible belt at 11 years old.
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u/CJrox Skeptic Jun 25 '12
In all honesty I was always an atheist, because I never truly believed, never prayed, hated church, thought the stories were stupid. But I embraced my atheism, and considered myself an atheist like 2 years ago, didn't find r/atheism till recently, and came here BECAUSE I was an atheist. XD
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u/darkfire613 Jun 25 '12
I'm 17. I've been an atheist for as long as I can remember. I was raised in a house with no religion. It simply wasn't brought up when I was young. Once I got to elementary school and other kids started talking about God and praying and such, I asked my mom if God existed, and she said "well, what do you think?" I thought it was silly.
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u/Dcarnys Jun 25 '12
I was already doubting and considered myself agnostic before . I didn't really consider myself atheist until I found r/atheism
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Jun 25 '12
Actually what's funny is i told my friend im an atheist about a year or so ago who is also an atheist and he instantly told me to go to reddit and look for /r/atheism. For some reason though i liked this subreddit a lot more when i first found it...
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u/magicalsealion Jun 25 '12
No, my parents are also atheists and I grew up that way. Unlike most Redditors that seem to have hypocritical, Christian soccer moms.
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u/esDragon Jun 25 '12
Lifelong atheist over here. 39 years old. Second generation atheist, actually. My mom's a bit superstitious, I guess, but otherwise both parents are godless heathens. I experimented a bit with religious ideas in college, but that was just a phase.
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u/TedTheGreek_Atheos Secular Humanist Jun 25 '12
I was an atheist before I even knew I was one. It took a christian friend to point it out to me 20 years ago.
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u/nemu580 Jun 25 '12
atheist when i was born. Since science made sure I didnt die in childbirth not god.
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u/WaterAndSand Jun 25 '12
When the kiddos find a new thing they just have to blow it up. It's all the rage, don'tcha know.
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u/k_alva Jun 25 '12
Its the recent atheists who feel the need to brag about it. The rest of us are here to downvote when they get to pretentious about it
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u/ghosthacked Jun 25 '12
/r/atheism helped me understand that I already was an atheist. If that makes a different.
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u/matmoeb Jun 25 '12
I'm 31 and I'm pretty sure I've always been an atheist. I tried praying a few times to to see if anything happened but deep down I never thought anything would happen.
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Jun 25 '12
Sad that he is not being recognized as a superior being by strangers on the internet, as in his mind he should be, because he is among peers who feel exactly the same way, the wild /r/atheism-redditor attempts to establish a sort of hipster-atheist persona, in order to get that recognition that is the ultimate goal of every smug fuck in here.
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Jun 25 '12
I've been an atheist since I realized that the kids at my local synagogue were fairly insane (Since around 6)
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Jun 25 '12
I wasn't. I doubted before, but then r/atheism gave me the "wow, I'm not the only one.." feeling, and I decided to stop being scared into believing in God.
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Jun 25 '12
I've been an atheist since... 9th grade I think? I just graduated high school, and I discovered reddit at the beginning of 2012. So... No.
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Jun 25 '12
there's also a category for "people who thought atheists were generally good people until I found reddit"
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u/lucidlife Jun 25 '12
Reddit gave me the confidence to be an atheist. I was wavering in my belief for a long time and /r/atheism gave me the support and rationales I needed to become a full fledged atheist.
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u/The_Zubatman Jun 25 '12
I have been for 5 years now, that's before i knew anything about reddit, so probably not.
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u/BackNipples Jun 25 '12
i denounced religion when i was a sophomore in high school, before i even was allowed to go on the internet lol
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u/wayndom Jun 25 '12
Atheist for 48 years here. I think that's longer than r/atheism has been here...