Member Testimonials

The following personnel have provided "testimony" as to why they are atheist. You'll find most never became atheist so much as discovered that they had always been atheist.
Also see our list of atheists in foxholes

Norman Tremblay
Growing up in a Pentecostal environment made a true skeptic out of me. Years of waiting for the rapture that was supposed to come any day, faking receiving the "holy ghost", and speaking in toungs to name a few. I remember listening to people speak in toungs, and fantasizing about recording them, and exposing their fakery. The interpretations of their utterances by other church members always rendered the same basic message. The message almost always began with "my little children", and would than go on to say we all needed to be better christians, and that "I" will be coming soon. The thing that always struck me as strange was that people's utterances in toungs always followed the same pattern, along with the similar message. To my young mind it seemed strange that god would be telling us the same thing over, and over. As soon as I could I stopped going to church. Because we were Pentecostal I never had a television growing up, and read on a daily basis. My reading eventually lead me to authors like Carl Sagan, James Randi, Richard Dawkins, Thomas Paine, Bertrand Russell, to name several. You can probably guess that I was greatly influenced by their writings. To sum it up, I guess I can say that I am a non-believer due to my skeptical nature, and first hand experience with the occult, and my continuing education.

Brian Gibbons
Like many of us, I was raised a protestant. I had no doubt that there was a god, but I had a problem with organized religion. It just seemed to be bogus. We were a lower middle class family but my father dragged us to a church that catered primarily to the upper middle and upper class. The church had a whole "staff" of preachers who dressed very well and drove Lincolns. I was confused as to why the preachers would flaunt such luxuries and yet plead to the congregation to give generously each Sunday. My dad was not wealthy but he seemed to have no qualms about giving money to folks who were obviously much better off than ourselves. I think this is were my contempt for religion began. Over the years, as I grew up, I still believed in god but I couldn't reconcile life's experiences with what religion taught. Absolutely NOTHING made sense. I began to hate god for his blatant and inexcusable incompetence. I was beginning to think that for being an omnipotent, benevolent entity, his performance factor was considerably and consistently below expectations. I reached the conclusion that as a supreme being, god was pretty much a screw-up. For many years I coasted with the belief that there was a god but that he was not really a factor in my life. It was after several years in the military that my atheism really started to gel. I began to notice how "authority" figures would spew obvious and blatant lies, expecting "subordinates" to believe them soley on the basis that it was voice of "authority". This was an interesting concept. Believing something to be true, which obviously wasn't, because someone in authority had proclaimed it to be. How fiendishly simple and effective. Could this equate to religion, I thought? Damn if the whole thing didn't hit me in the face all at once. THERE IS NO GOD...NEVER WAS...IT'S ONE BIG HUMONGUS LIE. Wow!!! Absolutely everything all of a sudden made sense. I feel my life is much the same as most people. We all endure heartache, loss of loved ones, disappointments galore, but somehow when you subtract the god/religion factor, it all becomes understandable. There is no scorekeeper in the sky. Life just is and that is all there is. I have watched my father drive himself half crazing trying to understand life's inequities and cruelty. He thinks that he is somehow being punished and he does not understand why. This is truly one of religion's many faults. The failure to rationalize itself or satisfactorily explain any of each teachings. I don't feel I need to elaborate any further as to why religion "just don't make any sense" as I feel, if you will pardon the expression, that I would just be "preaching to the choir" ...

Todd Dart
I honestly can't pin a specific date or even period of time on when I exactly became an atheist. I attended protestant service and bible school as a child only because my mother sent me; I was too young to really understand what this stuff was all about. But even as a child it never appealed to me. My father never attended church. Although I've never directly asked him I know he's an atheist, so I guess a little nurture was there. My mother later became what I call an "angry atheist" after the death of her mother. As I got older I discovered an interest in science which sent me down the path of reason, although that path was far from smooth. But, by the time I reached my teens I was, for all intents, an atheist. I recall a conversation with my mother (who was still a believer at this time) when I was in my mid-teens. I told her I didn't believe in a god and her reply was, "Science is your religion." I didn't disagree at the time, but I would today. I've thought long on how to address that question and came up with a 15 second sound bite: Religion is a system of belief; Science is belief in a system. Obviously you can't condense these down without losing something, but that's where good debate comes in. While I've pretty much been a closet atheist most of my life, my closest friends knew my belief. But I'm sure none accept it. I had one friend who, on my graduation day from college no less, promised to take me to a concert that evening but didn't tell me who was playing. It turned out to be a revival meeting. I didn't speak to her for a year. My opinion on religion is to each is own. But don't try to push your religion on me. I've pretty much down-played my beliefs over the years in deference to my wife, who's a devout Catholic. She knew when we were married I was an atheist and I thought she respected my beliefs but I recently found out she secretly hoped I would "change my ways." Guess what, didn't happen. Which is one reason she's divorcing me. So, my belief has affected my life, it will result in the loss my wife and kids (another big factor is she's tired of military life, which is another area I know you can all relate). Seems we don't have that "spiritual connection" she desires. Lord knows I tried going to church to make her happy, but I just couldn't buy into it all. Actually, the opposite occurred. I'm even more convinced there is no god.

Matt Ward
I was not heavily indoctrinated in Christianity growing but was pretty regularly exposed to it growing up (both the Protestant and Catholic versions). In my teenage years I considered myself an Agnostic, somewhat trying to fit Scripture and real life together. For a short while I considered the Bible from an allegorical viewpoint, i.e.. that most of it was composed of stories that had to be interpreted. Then I realized, the whole basis of Christianity is predicated on the inerrancy and clarity of the Bible. If any part is shown to be in error in any way that undermines the whole belief in Christianity. Applying this sort of logic to other religions gets the same result -- no hard evidence = no belief.

Gloria Lilley
All I know is that, much like Don, it just doesn't make any sense to me....I was raised in a protestant home and turned out to be the only atheist in my family....All of their lives revolve around church activities and they think their minister is next to their god....(I always called them by first name much to my mother's horror)....they all think I'm "going through a phase" which is quite amusing considering my age. They also insist I've have lost my spirituality and won't be happy until I find it again.....they don't realize that I'm happy just the way I am. Of course, they all insist I really do believe in god (because everybody does). I think the idea of "is this all there is"? is more than they can bear. Most of them just don't talk to me about my lack of belief anymore. Considering the fact I have a son who is aspiring to become a christian preacher....that's just fine with me.....my relationship with him is more important to me than how he practices religion....so we agree to disagree (only I disagree more).... Why me and noone else in my family?? I'll be darned if I know....and I'm sure not going to change it just to get along with them....

David Clark
I was raised in a small town that had the church as the center of community life. I was a fundamentalist xian. I gave sermons and performed baptisms etc. and this was before I had graduated high school! After graduation I attended a xian college with the intent of becoming a minister. it was there that my questioning nature finally got the better of me. I first looked at the bible with an objective eye and was horrified to see all the cruelty and atrocities committed by my god that I had somehow missed before. It was just the beginning of a long road that led to atheism. I am glad for my previous studies because it just makes me more convinced of my position and of the harmful nature of religion. it is also quite helpful when arguing with xians to know more about the bible than they do.

Dana Hall
I'm one of those people who grew up without the indoctraniation (sp). My father, brother, and I are atheists. My sister and mother are not. My first two years of schooling was in a christian private school, but I was pulled out of there and sent to public school because it got expensive. When I was 13-15 I went to a christian summer camp. I remember arguing with the counsellors about religion and evolution. I went to church with my mother when we lived in California, but when we moved to Texas, when I was five, we quit going. i don't remember much about it, but i do remember that i never really believed in any of it. it was more like stories, not unlike any other story i was told (read: snow white, Cinderella, etc). Now the entire concept just amazes me. how anyone can belive it. i think many just do not think about it. i mean REALLY think about it. they go on believing it because that's what they were told, and they are happy with it. kinda like the saying, if it ain't broke....

Jean Rice
I'm probably one of the very few people here who didn't *choose* Atheism, I simply never learned to believe. I went to church with my grandparents for as long as I could remember, but no one ever bothered telling me that I was supposed to believe the stories were true. I thought of it as storytime, just like as preschool, and assigned no particular importance to the stories of Noah, David, Moses and Jesus. My family didn't realize I didn't believe until I was a teenager. I'm not a logical thinker by any strech of the imagination, I learned science and understand the basic premises only because I needed an answer to "where did we come from" and I have a deep curiosity about everything. Science only affirms my disbelief, it is not the cause of it. I guess I'm unusual here in that while I do not believe in gods of any kind, I do have beliefs some forms of "supernaturalism".

Chad Hetman
I was one of those atheist cases that started at a young age. From the very start, I put all the tales told by my parents and adults at the church ( protestant) in the same category as Peter Pan, Goldilocks and the 3 bears and the big bad wolf and the three pigs. At the age of four I was already questioning the priest on the book of genesis with my dinosaur and prehistoric life book in hand, "Were Adam and Eve cavemen?", "I don't know they might have been.", "How come dinosaurs aren't in the bible?", "Well the bible mentions the beasts", etc. And thats all it took to confirm my doubts. After that, I thought that the church was nothing more than a social group that would tell cute, little, mythlogical stories as metephors and lessons, mostly to keep children from misbehaving, just like Santa Claus and the easter bunny rewarding the good kiddies. Eventually I found out that the adults were living in the same fantasy world as their children. Needless to say I was the wrench in the gears of sunday school, always pointing out the cruelty and injustices of god, the primitive concepts of religion, the similarities to other mythologies, and the facts of anthropology, biology and chemistry. Of course this also brought routine punishment from both the church and my mother; fortunately my father, an agnostic raised catholic, was indifferent. So what is religion? A cultural obsessive - compulsive disorder? An evolutionary - pschological defense mechanism of an animal that not only has self awareness, but awareness of its own mortality? A social structure that gives people a sense of identity and purpose as well as social acceptance? Or the concentration of most of the lies and myths that are lives are saturated with and readily accepted by the unthinking and gullible? Well, its fair to say that people want a sense of belonging/acceptance; I think this chat group proves that.

Emory Adams
I trace my atheism back to my father. I was looking at his dogtags when i was little and asked him what "Atheist" meant. He said that it meant that if he was wounded he wanted a doctor not a preacher. It convinced me, and I quote it often, especially when talking to my classmates here at USMA.