How did you become an atheist?

I grew up in a very Catholic community in Mexico. Went to a boy's only Catholic school. I was very faithful and very interested in religion. I would constantly disagree with my religious teachers when it came to science vs religion. However, I what the Popes and many Christian scholars have written is incredibly intelligent and there is almost never a disagreement with science, so this did not weaken my faith at all. For me, it was simply that my teachers did not understand the Church's positions themselves. As a child, I dreamed of becoming a priest and a scholar. At the time, it made no sense to me why anyone would rather do anything else than dedicating their lives to serving God! At this time I had never been exposed to people with different religions, or to people who did not believe in God.

When I became a missionary around the age of 13 I finally began meeting people with different faiths. I thought that, if I wanted to defend my religion against others, I had to understand it very well - so I began studying the differences between Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Mormons, and Jehova's Witnesses - as these are the most common denominations in my area.

I would select a specific difference between Catholicism and another denomination and try to follow the sources until the point in which I could definitely find why Catholics were right. In the end, it is usually something along the lines of 'A pope during X council said...' or 'A theologian in his book written in year 750 interpreted this passage... ', but this was true for both denominations! I realized that it did not make any sense to try to convince a protestant that catholics are right, because Catholics believe in the infallibility of the pope while protestants reject it. At this time, I still believed in Catholicism, but became much more humble in accepting other people's beliefs because they were just the same as mine. We all had the same 'faith'. I realized that missions were more about showing love and compassion - and not about changing people's minds. My faith was not weakened much at this point, but I became more alert.

As a teen involved, I would go to a lot of spiritual retreats. They always seemed rather brain-washy to me. Eventually, it was my turn to become one of the team leaders, so I was sent to the camp to be trained. I swear, they don't even try to hide the fact that the goal of the spiritual retreat is to brain wash the kids. We had seminars about human psychology and behavioral economics. Ever heard about about 'Consacration'? Met several of these in the retreats. The whole idea is that they are professionals trained by the church BUT are not priests. They can occupy government positions and push the church's agenda. This I found very sketchy, because I could very clearly see how those techniques had been previously used on myself.

When I was 15 I went to a boarding school in the U.S., and made my first atheist friend. When he told me he did not believe in God I was confused. I had never before even contemplated the possibility of someone not believing in God. It was simply not something present in my community or the media I was exposed to at the time. I now had a new battle that, to me, seemed easy to win: show that God exists. I read St. Thomas Aquinas, Dawkin's, John Paul II, Hitchen's, and others... In the end, I had nothing. Starting from scratch I could find no reason to believe in God. My faith was weakened considerably by the time I returned to Mexico.



Then, this happened:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcial_Maciel#Controversies

This is the priest who founded our school, who we actually had to call 'our father', whose ring we had to kiss when he visited, and who we had to pray his own prayer to every day. It was quite a shock when the vatican accepted that he was guilty. The head of our school, a priest, went crazy and was discovered to be sleeping with a norwegian woman (Which, honestly, good on him! But not very catholic), plus other erratic behavior.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment when I stopped believing. By the age of 16 it was simply already obvious to me that the whole religion thing was a scam. I have no reason to believe in a God, so I don't. If anyone else read all of this, wow, thank you.

Διαμονδ I am not sure about how to answer that. I am happy now and I was happy before. My life is constantly becoming 'better' in the sense that I am continuously learning, creating, experiencing, and meeting new people. Moving away from religion did free up a lot of time that I have used in more productive ways, so definitely better in that regard! :-) I also now live in a country where most people are atheists, so the community aspect is not an issue.

Διαμονδ No, I live in the Netherlands now!

Is your family Anglican? Just wondering since I know at times if someone in the family abandons the faith it can cause some issues in the family. :(
Hopefully was all well for you though!

You should make a thread link it. Sounds like an article some would like to read here.

And just believe in whatever you want despite what others say or think. Religion just isn't for everyone and forcing it doesn't work despite some who try this method

So it's just you and your sister with your parents? And both rejected the religous upbringing? Usually I would find at least one sibling willing to stay in the beliefs of their parents. But yeah it actually isn't always the case Shrug