Religion isn't for everybody.
That may seem like a controversial statement, but it's just fact.
And that is ok. They have that choice.
People lose faith.
Hence the birth of the atheist.
It's always fascinating to learn about when someone chose to change beliefs.
So let's discuss it.
RedditorSuspiciousStranger10wanted to hear about some people ended up losing faith, they asked:
"Atheists from religious families, what made you a non-believer?"
I'm still on the fence.
I believe in miracles.
I also have a strong Catholic background.
But I have questions.
Within the Pages
"Read the Bible. Realized 99% of the Christians around me had never read it. Then realized that the vast majority of people have no idea of what’s in its pages. American Christianity is a joke." ~ stayathomepop7
Damnation...
"It just didn't make any sense to me, and I was tired of being told that I'm going to hell." ~ DeltaSolana
"Constantly being told that I was going to hell just for missing church once in a while was the start of it for me. But if they actually believed that then they are in hell too for judging me." ~ Affectionate_Pea_811
Simple Things
"Imagine telling a kid that they'll be forsaken and tortured for eternity if they masturbate or eat shrimp." ~ DeltaSolana
"That was another one. I was 12 or 13 and accidentally left the bottle of baby oil in in the living room after a late night of watching Cinemax. My grandma said something about 'spilling semen' and going to hell. I think my fate was sealed at that point because I had already decided that I was going to be watching Cinemax as often as I could." ~ Affectionate_Pea_811
Nut Speak
"Second grade teacher told us we'll go to hell for swearing. Once. Imagine the kind of person telling second graders they are all going to hell. (And we didn't have religion taught in school. That teacher was a nut that probably hated children)." ~ Hedgehog_Owl
"Kid: 'Well s**t, if I'm damned to hell for just cursing one freaking time, then I guess the butt is out of the stable, isn't it? No freaking reason to hold shit back now!'" ~ BronzeAgeTea
No Q & A...
"Grew up and started asking questions. They didn’t like that." ~ goatsandwich43
That Bible.
So many authors.
So much soap opera and drama.
It feels less like proof and more Soap Opera Digest.
I Learned
"I started reading the Bible." ~ DeXyDeXy
"Read it once around age 14 to prove to myself God existed. That backfired. Read it again in my 20s but skipped the 'begats' that pretty much sealed in my atheism." ~ Annual_Rooster5678
Abraham you Crazy!
"When I had to put on my private school Bible final that the earth was 6000 years old I really started to dig in what the hell I believed. The whole Abraham sacrificing his son on a mountain is just so f**ked up too."
"It started with 'Even if he was real I wouldn’t want to worship him.' It snowballed from there. Great moral teaching book though for the most part." ~ Princess_leia1993
'youth pastor'
"I just gradually... stopped. I kinda always knew it was BS, but imprinting is a thing and it stuck with me for years. All those endless years of church and bible camps, the rantings about hell and the devil, it stays with you."
"Social control... But now, nothing. I want proof, not the bullcrap from some 'youth pastor' that just says believe. Until I see actual proof, I'm an atheist." ~ TheGoodJudgeHolden
'speaking in tongues'
"I was raised Southern Pentecostal. My grandmother was insanely religious, so I was always at church."
"The church I went to believed in 'speaking in tongues' laying of hands, miracle healing, taking up serpents (handling snakes) and all other kinds of nonsense. I went with it for a long time. About 13 I went to a revival summer camp."
"There was a whole ceremony about pledging yourself to Jesus and not having sex. That spun into kids my age going to a microphone and confessing they had sexual thoughts or what they had done with other people. Then the pastor would pray for the kid and they'd 'pass out' on the floor."
"Pastor comes to me and prays and like pushes me off balance so I play the game and lay on the floor. I'm laying there and just kinda took stock of the actual insanity of this service. I think I lost faith then. After going home I paid more attention to the actions of the people in the church during the services, and realized how utterly insane it was."
"It wasn't long and people actually started acting differently to me because I wasn't doing what they where and I was asked to not return." ~ paythefullprice
I Like a Hero
"When I was 10, the swami (Hindu priest) at my local temple asked me who my favorite God is and I replied 'Thor'. He laughed and my family laughed and everyone around laughed and told me that these are imaginary characters made to fool kids and make money." ~ Typical-Type-408
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Have you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ...School Days
"Catholic school." ~ arianleellewellyn
"This. I knew by 8th grade that religion was not my thing. I do think that Catholic school was partially responsible for my femdom thing though. So not a total loss." ~ vidfail
Never Stuck
"I was raised in church and catholic school. But it never really seemed to be part of the culture, just my surroundings, if that makes sense. Some students, teachers, families were religious, some weren't. I didn't really absorb the religious teachings, but tried to take it seriously at some point in high school just to think for myself... And it never really stuck. It was just private school, but also church." ~ Specific-Cook1725
The Cure
excited star wars GIF by Hyper RPGGiphy"Studied 'history of the Enlightenment' at university for a year. Was cured within two weeks or so." ~ Dork_from_New_York
Life on Fire
"I had a lot of bad things happen in my life and if there is a God why would he let this all happen." ~ Chris0nF1re
"Same. After a lot of things I started to think why it is happening, why god isn't doing anything about it. In this process I also read a lot of books on philosophy, self-help, psychology etc. So I slowly moved from religious to agonistic and then atheist." ~ lawlietxx
The rampant hypocrisy...
Big Boi Smh GIF by OutkastGiphy"I read the Bible in depth. I asked questions in bible study and was punished for not blindly accepting. The final nail in the coffin was the minister who performed my wedding had been moved from a previous parish for having affairs with the women parishioners."
"He was having affairs here and was moved again to a new parish where he did the same. He droned on and on about fidelity and truth in marriage while unapologetically having affairs and the church just moved him knowing what he did. The rampant hypocrisy sickened me." ~ Magnus_40
So called Christians...
"It just all seemed like bull to me. I noticed from a young age that most so called Christians around me were the most judgemental and unloving people. They weren't kind to people truly in need. They were kind only to people like them. I was really turned off by the hypocrisy. While I have met a few Christians who seemed genuine, they are few and far between." ~ aydeeachdee
'damn, where's the love'
"I am tired of hearing things like god is absolute good and all powerful, everything god does is for good, god loves all. But when I read history, religious war, tortures, brutality and stuffs, my brain asks 'damn, where's the love'. Get to watch news and read stories of murderers, pedophiles and so on. Also religion doesn't make any sense."
"All the religious people are quite scary, when some of them fails to turn me into religious, I see the irritation and anger there (even my mom). Plus all the religious conflicts still going on, it feels bad for the powerless innocent people who suffers because of it. To get into an imaginary heaven, people are destroying themselves and others even though we call ourselves intellectual beings." ~ Weary-Ad-6162
Evil
"The problem of evil. If God refuses to stop evil and suffering, they're not benevolent. If they're incapable of stopping evil and suffering, they're not really God. The universe simply makes more sense when you view morality as a human construct. A bunch of dumb animals were trying to survive and find purpose in their existence, and inevitably they created the concept of a higher power." ~ Anubis343
Done by 13...
"Being forced to go to church as a kid and be part of all the holiday plays. All the while getting physically and emotionally beat at home by my step dad and praying every second of the day for change only to be let down time and time again. I moved out when I was 13 and never looked back." ~ Sour_Sunrise
Research
Think About It Reaction GIF by IdentityGiphy"Went to college, started thinking for myself opposed to blindly trusting who I was told to trust. I used to think that religious folks had good intentions, at least, just misinformed. Now I know that to be wrong. Religion is a plague among the dull minded." ~ senor-churro
I have no answer.
Just faith that there is something better.
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In this day and age, there's a lot to be upset about. Humanity seems to be fast tracked into doomsday given the pandemic, climate crisis, social and economic injustices, and wars waged across the globe.
Sometimes, even with all that is around us, we are given first hand reasons to lose faith in humanity. Without hesitation, people will show their true colors.
The Scientific American journal says we are in an empathy deficit in the U.S. They recommend that we remind ourselves how everyone is at the end of their ropes these days, which can bring out the worst in us.
Redditor TastyTwix asked:
"What has made you lose all of your hope in humanity?"
Hopefully this doesn't completely destroy your faith in humanity.
Being a server.
"Guys, I worked as a waitress, and bartender for years..."
"And still, nothing prepared me for the level of a**holery I've encountered over the pandemic period."
"I sincerely hope someone like Gordon Ramsey teams up with Louis Theroux to make a f*cking docuseries about this."
"Fellow waitress, it was bad before the pandemic but damn after, it's like people forgot how to manners. It's terrible, my biggest problem personally is, I'm female, and I guess people take that as an invitation to do/say whatever they damn please."
- Emmy1369
"Yep, I did deliveries for a restaurant till mid 2020, when I wasn't out doing deliveries i basically did security for the waitresses since I got the qualifications. The sheer level of entitled a**holery is off the charts. I'm glad I got out of hospitality and now I work security."
"Honestly, the restaurant industry as a whole needs to institute a zero tolerance policy for abuse towards staff."
"We had that at my last workplace for a whole f*cking week, before one of the people mouthing off actually got kicked out by a manager for being a d*ck and complained. Suddenly the owners were claiming we had to be 'more hospitable.'"
"To paraphrase Dave Chapelle: 'Don't be a hero, because heroes don't die comfortable deaths.'"
"'Heroes happen because someone made a mistake. We don't want any heroes today.'"
"-Unnamed unit commander, Persian Gulf War"
"Grocery worker, here. I feel this in my soul. The worst thing I've heard this past year is, 'The job is essential, not the person doing it.' It's clear they'd rather let us all die or lose our minds and just hire replacements to keep repeating the cycle. Humanity sucks."
"Teacher Hero reporting in."
- Badloss
"You actually got called a hero? In the UK, teachers got sh*t on constantly, being told we were lazy and just didn't want to work. It got really bad over Christmas, when teachers went to their unions and began refusing to go back after the holidays because the UK was in the middle of the deadlier second wave. I can't tell you the amount of people in my life I had to explain to that schools weren't closed, we were always open for keyworker and vulnerable children throughout, while also juggling full time online learning. It was a f*cking sh*t show and a lot of long serving staff members have left."
Adoption and foster care.
"The fact that you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to adopt a child. Like what the f*ck, they are basically just set up to never be adopted."
"AMEN. Most people have NO idea what a broken, convoluted, expensive and set up for failure system it is. When faced with infertility, my husband and I looked into adopting and were quickly turned off. Domestic and international adoption is ultimately babies for sale. Foster to adopt is also tough - there are few babies or young children available, most have already been the victims of severe abuse and neglect (children are in foster care for a reason, and it's never a good one) and reunification is usually the goal. You could foster a child for years only to have some parent or relative show up and the child is then removed from your care. Termination of parental rights takes forever and is never guaranteed. Plus, for fostering or adoption you need to open up your entire life to various third parties - your finances, your marriage, your extended family, your career -- to determine if you're 'worthy' of being a parent."
"My husband and I ended up going the IVF route - we had 2 babies over the course of four years for about $5K out of pocket, which would not even have covered a home study and a lawyer's retainer fee if we wanted to adopt. Everything was just between us and our doctor. We knew our babies' genetic backgrounds, I was able to take care of myself during my pregnancies and had proper prenatal care. When those babies were born, they were 100% ours - no 'open' adoptions (which is the setup for most domestic adoptions these days), no birth parents changing their minds at the 11th hour, etc."
"The system is so, so broken and it's the babies and children who lose out the most, by far."
"This actually just happened to someone I know. She had three children in her foster care and she was set to adopt all three of them. She did all the necessary steps and petitions to have them adopted. Then out of no where, a family member wanted them to come live with them. So these poor children who never knew anyone in this family suddenly want them back in their lives."
"The children she was going to adopt already called her Mom. When I heard that these children were being ripped from a very safe and loving family with great schools to go live somewhere not safe broke my heart. The social worker failed the children."
The TikTok commenters defended a killer.
A 24-year-old killed a mother and child while he was street racing and TikTok teens defended him.
"People on TikTok saying a person who killed two innocent lives should not go to jail bc 'he's too young and handsome.'"
"He deserves the full sentence. It makes me sick to hear people trying to justify his crimes. It was not the first time he was punished for Street Racing."
- gaggnar
Sandy Hook deniers.
"Sandy Hook deniers were harassing the parents. I didn't know I could hate so much. Humanity is doomed with a**holes like them in this world. They live among us."
"This one of the worst things I ever did read on Reddit."
- gaggnar
"When people deny the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting, claiming it's about gun control I just wanna say, 'People didn't give enough of a f*ck to take your guns when 20 five year old's were killed, you really think they would try it again using teenagers?' It makes me sick."
Can we eat the rich yet?
"Seeing NFTs sell for millions of dollars."
"Don't worry, they are just tax scams."
"It's like art, a semi liquid asset that rich people use to quickly move funds around."
- marekelu
It's just exhausting to witness.
"Sheer exhaustion of witnessing some peoples' behaviors towards others and the lack of kindness in general."
- kmcp1
If you feel like you need to restore some faith in humanity after reading this, take a look at this list that came out this year. Now all hope is lost!
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We're all familiar with the feeling of losing faith in humanity. It's that feeling that makes you facepalm at your desk when you read the latest nonsense in your newsfeed.
Some people, though, seem to feel the need to be extra and go out of their way to be as ridiculous as possible. Sometimes they're socially tonedeaf or just having an off day, and sometimes they're just a really horrible person.
Redditors StannistheMannis96 asked:
"What was your biggest 'I hate people' moment?"
We've collected some of the best, and worst, replies.
Some replies edited for content or clarity.