[2020-08-16]是什么让你成为了无神论者？

Sushovan Shakya
What made you become an atheist?
The family I was raised in practiced a mixture of Hinduism and Buddhism, and several festivals included in worshiping deities. However, I was raised as an agnostic, because neither my parents nor any of my relatives ever told me to believe specifically in a God.
It wasn’t until I was 7 years old that I started questioning religions. I was on the 2nd grade, and on this particular day, we were taken to a local church, where the father explained to us about Christianity, how Jesus died for our sins and all those stuffs. Then I read Jesus’s biography, and the history of Exodus, where Moses led the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land. This story, to me, felt like a fiction, exactly like the Oliver Twist novel I had read. There was one question inside my head: the Egyptians worshipped their own gods, while Moses came across the Abrahamic God. Now, why did the Abrahamic God punish the Egyptians? For exploiting the Israelites? And when the Egyptians were punished by the Abrahamic God, why didn’t their God came to save and help them? Or is the Abrahamic God and the Egyptian God same, only the interpretations were different?

【回答】
是什么让你成为一个无神论者？
我成长的家庭信奉印度教和佛教的混合教派，还有几个祭祀神灵的节日。然而，我从小就作为不可知论者被抚养长大的，因为无论是我的父母还是我的亲戚都没有告诉我要特别相信神。
直到我7岁时，我才开始质疑宗教。我当时在二年级，在这个特殊的日子，我们被带到了当地的一个教堂，在那里，父亲向我们解释了基督教，耶稣是如何为我们的罪而死，以及所有这些事情。然后我读了耶稣的传记，以及出埃及记的历史，在那里摩西带领以色列人从埃及来到应许之地。这个故事对我来说，感觉像是虚构的，就像我读过的《雾都孤儿》小说一样。在我的脑海里有一个问题：埃及人崇拜他们自己的神，而摩西遇到了亚伯拉罕的神。那么，为什么亚伯拉罕的神要惩罚埃及人呢？为了剥削以色列人？当埃及人受到亚伯拉罕神的惩罚时，他们的神为什么不来拯救他们呢？或者亚伯拉罕神和埃及神是一样的，只是不同的解释？

As a child, I wanted to be an astrophysicist, and was extremely interested in astronomy and the universe. This interest again intensified my question: if the universe is infinitely big, then why did God only chose the Earth? Aren’t there any other life forms on other parts of the universe? Or is the concept of God universal?
It took me quite a long time to answer this question myself.
However, at the age of 12, I renounced God and became an atheist, yet I was afraid to tell my parents about it. However, I did tell them that I was an atheist indirectly, but the reaction was totally unexpected- they weren’t shocked at my decision. I realized that my parents were atheists themselves.
I was 16 when I read the Bible, and honestly, it didn’t felt like the words of God to me. It felt more like fiction, something that was a product of human mind. What more surprised me was the concept of Satan. Satan was a being to be feared, because he is the cause of all evil. Now, just because Lucifer revolted against the God, he was cast out of the Heavens, while God himself committed so many atrocities. In that case, why is Satan not acknowledged and God is glorified? And if Satan just asked Adam to be more rational and knowledgeable by eating the Forbidden Fruit, the what’s wrong with that? Or is critical thinking totally forbidden in Christianity, as God commands us to remain sheeps?

小时候，我想成为一名天体物理学家，对天文学和宇宙非常感兴趣。这种兴趣再次强化了我的问题：如果宇宙是无限大的，那么为什么上帝只选择了地球？难道宇宙的其他部分就没有其他的生命形式吗？或者上帝的概念是普遍的？
我自己花了很长时间才回答这个问题。
然而，在我12岁的时候，我放弃了上帝，成为了一个无神论者，但是我却不敢告诉我的父母。然而，我间接地告诉他们我是一个无神论者，但他们的反应完全出乎意料，他们对我的决定并不感到震惊。我意识到我的父母也是无神论者。
我读圣经的时候是16岁，说实话，我觉得这不像是上帝的话。它更像是虚构的，是人类思维的产物。更让我惊讶的是撒旦的概念。撒旦是一个可怕的存在，他是一切邪恶的根源。只是因为路西法背叛了上帝，他被赶出了天堂，而上帝自己却犯下了非常多的暴行。在这种情况下，为什么撒旦不被承认，而上帝却得到了荣耀？如果撒旦只是要求亚当通过吃禁果来变得更加理性和丰富知识，那又有什么错呢？或者批判性思维在基督教中是完全被禁止的，就像上帝命令我们牧羊一样？

Then I made a decision to study all the religions. I started with Buddhism, and then Hinduism and Jainism. Then, I went into the Abrahamic faiths, particularly Islam and Christianity. I found a stark difference between them, and realized that the Dharmic religions were more rational than the Abrahamic ones, while also clearing my misconceptions on Hinduism. However, I still haven’t managed to read the Vedas, Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita in its entirety, nor the Pali Canon.
The question that remained on my head for a long time, I finally managed to find an answer to it.

于是我决定研究所有的宗教。我从佛教开始，然后是印度教和耆那教。然后，我开始研究亚伯拉罕信仰，尤其是伊斯兰教和基督教。我发现了他们之间的巨大差异，并意识到达摩宗教比亚伯拉罕宗教更为理性，同时也澄清了我对印度教的误解。然而，我仍然没有读完《吠陀经》、《奥义书》和 《薄伽梵歌》的全部内容，也没有读完《巴利正典》。
这个困扰我很长时间的问题，我终于找到了答案。

The Universe is totally indifferent towards us. Our planet Earth, and the Solar System, is like a grain of sand in the Sahara desert, and our galaxy, the Milky Way itself, is like a grain of sand compared to the local group. Since the Universe is infinitely large, this implies that our galaxy is nearly negligible when compared to the entire universe. This implies that we, too, are totally negligible. It’s equivalent of dividing a certain number by infinity, because no matter how large the number is, the end result is always close to zero, because the number is closer to zero than infinity.
Also, all living beings are born and are meant to eventually die in several ways. We humans, on an average, have 70 years to live, while other organisms may live longer or shorter. No matter how long they live, everything must come to an end in one way or the other. This could imply that life doesn’t make any sense at all.

宇宙对我们完全漠不关心。我们的地球和太阳系，就像是撒哈拉沙漠中的一粒沙子，而我们的银河系本身，相对于宇宙中的星系而言，就像是一粒沙子。由于宇宙是无限大的，这意味着我们的银河系与整个宇宙相比几乎可以忽略不计。这意味着我们也是完全可以忽略不计的。这等价于将一个特定的数除以无穷大，因为无论这个数有多大，最终结果总是接近于零，因为这个数比无穷大更接近于零。
而且，所有的生命都是以不同的方式出生和死亡的。我们人类的平均寿命为70年，而其他生物的寿命可能更长或更短。不管他们活多久，一切都会以这样或那样的方式结束。这可能意味着生命毫无意义。

As a matter of fact, I got stuck in an existential crisis, which is why I ended up becoming a nihilist. Hopefully, Sartre’s philosophy rescued me from this crisis, and I concluded that while life itself is meaningless, we can find meaning in life by doing what we love.
So, long story short, constant questioning and critical thinking led me to be an atheist.

事实上，我陷入了存在主义危机，这就是为什么我最终成为了一个虚无主义者。希望萨特的哲学把我从这场危机中解救出来，我得出结论，尽管生命本身毫无意义，但我们可以通过做我们热爱的事情来找到生命的意义。
所以，长话短说，不断的质疑和批判性思考让我成为了一个无神论者。

Nirmal Kumar B Happy Atheist
READING HISTORY.
After my College I took up to learning something new and History became my favorite subject. But all I could find is 5000 years of wars and massacres in every little part of our Earth. No need to find faults in religious texts to become atheist. Our own history in itself is full of faults.
* Crucification and Impalement of Armenians
* Jews killed in Concentration camps. I remember reading that a victim in concentration camp carved in its wall: “When I reach heaven, I will make God to beg for my mercy”. Can’t think about the trauma the person underwent.
* Torture to Native Americans. They were systematically tortured to induce more fear into them. Daughters were raped in front of their parents. Adults were bit by dogs. Many were roasted alive like barbecues. Columbus was perhaps the biggest assholes in History.

【回答】快乐的无神论者
阅读历史。
大学毕业后，我开始学习一些新的东西，历史成了我最喜欢的科目。但是我能找到的只有五千年的战争和屠杀，遍布在我们地球的每一个角落。成为无神论者不需要在宗教文献中揪出错误。我们自己的历史本身就充满了错误。
* 钉死在十字架上的亚美尼亚人。
* 在集中营被杀害的犹太人。我记得曾经读到过一个集中营里的受害者在墙上刻着“当我到了天堂，我会让上帝乞求我的怜悯。”无法想象这个人所遭受的痛苦。
* 折磨美洲原住民。他们受到系统性的折磨，以引起更多的恐惧。女儿们在父母面前被强奸。成年人被狗撕咬。许多人像烤肉一样被活活烧死。哥伦布可能是历史上最大的混蛋。

Above bullets are just tiny examples from our long History.
So theists, where was your GOD when so many millions were tortured? Don’t give shitty answer that torturers will rot in hell and suffered will go to heaven. Who needs eternity of heaven after watching their family being raped, tortured for days and die slowly.
For people who say all these are Man’s work and not God’s, it clearly means God is incapable of stopping Man from doing this, inferring Man is powerful than God. Why would I pray incapable God?
Get me the most pious person on Earth who has all blessings from God, I can still torture and kill him using a Kitchen knife.

以上只是我们漫长历史中的几个小例子。
那么有神论者们，当数百万人遭受折磨时，你们的上帝在哪里？不要轻易回答说“施暴者将会在地狱腐烂，而受苦者将上天堂。”看着自己的家人被强奸，被折磨了好几天，然后慢慢死去，谁需要永恒的天堂？
对于那些说“所有这些都是人所做的而不是上帝所做的”的人来说，这显然意味着上帝没有能力阻止人这样做，可以推断人比上帝还强大。那我为什么要向无能的上帝祈祷呢？
帮我找到世界上最虔诚的人，他拥有上帝所有的祝福，我仍然可以用菜刀折磨和杀死他。

Cathy Raiser
When I was 13 and my closest, perfectly healthy brother was 18, I woke up one night and went into his room. He was still and cold, and I understood him to be dead. I sat by his side and held his hand for a bit. Then I went back to my room and knelt on my knees beside my bed. It was 3:00 in the morning and I had a great deal of work to do, contacting God and negotiating the situation.
I believed in God absolutely. I believed in God like I believed the grass was green, the sky was blue. Not believing was never an option or even a passing thought. I wanted to educate myself about God and his powers, his abilities, his purposes, his magic.
I had attended many churches in my short life. I often got up early on Sundays and left the house alone, starting around the age of seven. I also frequented churches on weekdays, really whenever the opportunity presented a chance to investigate a new church. (They were all churches to me and the men were all ministers).

【回答】
当我13岁的时候，我最亲近、非常健康的哥哥18岁，一天晚上我醒来，走进他的房间。他一动不动，浑身冰冷，我意识他已经死了。我坐在他身边，握了他的手一会儿。然后我回到房间，跪在床边。当时是凌晨3点，我需要做一系列事情，要与上帝联系，谈判情况。
我绝对相信上帝。我相信上帝，就像我相信草是绿色的，天空是蓝色的。不相信从来不是一种选择，甚至不是一个短暂的想法。我想让自己了解上帝和他的力量，他的能力，他的目的，他的魔法。
在我短暂的一生中，我参加过许多教堂。我经常在星期天早早起床，一个人离开家，从七岁左右开始。我也经常在工作日去教堂，真的，只要有机会我就会去调查一个新的教堂。(对我来说，它们都是教堂，他们都是牧师)。

They all had the same God, all the same rules applied regardless of which house of worship I was in and I usually explained this to whichever minister was in attendence. Sometimes the ministers would shoo me away, but usually they were up for a little talk about God and his ways.
I always believed God was with me, guiding and protecting me. Looking back, I feel astonished by my mobility and drive to go to so many different churches. I am amused by the reactions of the priests, rabbis, and ministers who would often be alarmed by the presence of an unaccompanied little girl, one who was proclaiming to just want to collect as many viewpoints about God as possible. I now laugh to recall some of the comments that I do remember saying—of course I remember little of those conversations specifically.

他们都信仰同一个上帝，不管我在哪个教堂，都遵循同样的规则，我通常会向任何一位出席的牧师解释这一点。有时候牧师们会把我赶走，但通常他们都想和我聊聊上帝和他的行为方式。
我一直相信上帝与我同在，指引和保护我。现在回想起来，我对自己开车前往那么多不同的教堂的机动性感到惊讶。神父、拉比和牧师们的反应让我觉得很有意思，他们经常被一个无人陪伴的小女孩(我)的出现吓到，这个小女孩声称只是想尽可能多地收集关于上帝的观点。我现在笑着回忆起我记得说过的一些评论——当然，我几乎不记得那些对话的具体内容。

There were many repeat visits over the years. It was a good way for me to teach myself more about God so as to obtain a better understanding of the supernatural manners in which God worked. I was an innocent, absolute believer in the reality of God.
What I disagreed about was the nature of God. The “rules” seemed pretty grey to me, so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the whole scheme of things—could he do everything? Were you supposed to only ask for what you needed, not what you wanted? Regardless of the details, God was absolutely a real entity to me, of that I had no doubt.

这些年来，多次重复到访。对我来说，这是一个很好的方式，来让我自己更多地了解上帝，以便更好地理解上帝超自然的工作方式。我是一个单纯的信徒，完全相信上帝的存在。
我不同意的是上帝的本性。对我来说，这些“规则”似乎相当模糊，所以我花了很多时间试图弄清整个事情——他什么都能做吗？你是否应该只要求你需要的东西，而不是你想要的东西？无论细节如何，上帝对我来说绝对是一个真实的存在，这一点我毫不怀疑。

So back to the early morning of January 8, 1969: I was praying feverishly, disallowing myself the luxury of crying, as that would only waste time. I made deals, he was just really sick and I was mistaken. He would be fine when my Mother awakened at six. I would be so good, so helpful, not be a smart-alek. I would work harder in school, I would do more chores at home. And on and on it went.
Then I heard my Mother’s alarm clock snd listened closely as she went to awaken him. I was pretty sure he’d be ok, but knew instinctively to stay quiet and out of sight.
There were gasps, screaming, then footsteps as she ran to the telephone. She called for an ambulance, and I was so relieved until she started shrieking that he was dead. However, she could have just been fooled, as I had been.
There was an ice storm so the sirens seemed to take hours. Pounding on the front door and then the sound of men and equipment entering his room. More gasps. It had looked pretty bad, but they could still be wrong even now, right? The God that I knew would not allow things to play out this way. Impossible. Impossible. There was no God at all. And that was that.

那么回到1969年1月8日(哥哥去世)的凌晨：我疯狂地祈祷，不让自己落下眼泪，因为那只会浪费时间。我祈祷着“他只是病得很重，我错了。妈妈六点醒来时，他就会好了。我会变得更好的，更乐于助人，而不是自作聪明。我会在学校更努力地学习，我会在家里做更多的家务。”一遍一遍地重复着。
然后我听到了母亲的闹钟声，当她去叫醒他的时候，我仔细地听着。我非常肯定他会没事的，但是我本能地知道要保持安静，走开了。
当她跑向电话时，传来喘粗气的声音、尖叫的声音和脚步的声音。她叫了救护车，我松了一口气，直到她开始尖叫着他死了。然而，她可能只是被哥哥戏弄了，就像我一样。
因为有一场暴风雪，所以警报器似乎响了几个小时。砰砰敲打着前门，然后是医护人员带着设备进入哥哥房间的声音。更多喘粗气的声音。看起来情况很糟糕的样子，但是即使是这样，他们仍然可能是错的，对吧？我所认识的上帝是不会允许事情这样发展的。不可能，不可能的。原来根本一直都没有上帝。仅此而已。

S. L. Qian
Also answered: Are atheists afraid of reading the Holy Bible that they may believe in God?
Okay. I’ve wanted to have a rant like this in a damn long time, so here we go.
I grew up in the most lovely Christian home, my parents were great, and we went to church every week. And I was a completely devoted follower of Christ from the literal moment I was born - as in, I prayed every night, knew basically all the most important stories of the bible, so much that I found at times that I knew more than my church teacher.

【回答】
又有人回答说：无神论者是不是害怕读圣经来信仰上帝？
好吧，我很久以前就想这样咆哮了，现在我们开始吧。
我在最可爱的基督教家庭长大，我的父母很好，我们每周都去教堂。从我出生的那一刻起，我就是基督的忠实信徒，比如，我每天晚上都祈祷，基本上知道圣经中所有最重要的故事，我发现有时候我知道的比我的教会老师还多。

Questions non-believers asked, often felt like I experienced ‘God’ and believed that all of my successes and any good fortune was therefore because I was such a strong Christian. I believed and knew that there was God, that there was Christ Jesus like I knew that water was liquid, that the skies were blue, or the earth was round. In short, 100%. (I’m not a flat-earther, thankyouverymuch.)
To answer the question, I read the entire New Testament at the age of ten, and then set about reading the entire Old testament the same year.
I was the most motherfucking Christian ever.
I managed to get about half way through, skipping some particularly tedious chapters such as Numbers, before I got tired of the Old Testament.
They always tell you to read the bible, but holy shit, does that thing bring up more questions than answers. You try it, darling. Seriously.

对于非信徒提出的任何问题，我通常都会给出合乎逻辑的答案，常常感觉自己经历了“上帝”，并且相信我所有的成功和好运都是因为我是一个强大的基督徒。我相信并知道有上帝，有基督耶稣，就像我知道水是液体，天空是蓝色的，地球是圆的。简而言之，百分百相信。
为了回答这个问题，我在十岁的时候读完了整本《新约》，然后在同一年开始读《旧约》。
我是最他妈虔诚的基督徒。
在我对《旧约》感到厌倦之前，我读了一半，试着跳过了一些特别乏味的章节，比如《民数记》。
他们总是告诉你要读圣经，但是我的天啊，那东西带来的问题比解开的答案还多。你来试试，亲爱的。我说真的。

So now, here was the turning point in my life.
Because when I first started having doubts, I was terrified.
I was absolutely petrified.
Because every time I managed to bring up a good point concerning how the bible, the rock on which my precious religion was founded on could be flawed or not real altogether, I convinced myself that it was the effing devil testing me.
And I never really got anywhere, because I was too scared of not believing.
In the end, I decided that everything that didn’t make a shred of sense within the bible, everything that was flawed, every piece if evidence that had the potential to disprove Christianity, didn’t matter.
I was scared to not believe, because it would mean that if God was actually real, I would go to hell.
And I didn’t want that to happen. Keep in mind, of course, that I was around ten, or eleven or so at the time.
It went up and down. Sometimes, I didn’t believe, sometimes I still believed. Arguments on either side of the spectrum were observed, and I floated between the two. In the end, the reason I didn’t immediately scrap the religion altogether despite all the logic that disproved it was because I thought, but what if, in the end, it was still real? What can I lose, being a Christian?

所以现在，这是我人生的转折点。
因为当我第一次开始怀疑的时候，我很害怕。
我完全吓呆了。
因为每次我试图提出一个关于圣经(我宝贵的宗教依赖的基石)有缺陷或不完全真实的好观点时，我都会说服自己这是该死的魔鬼在考验我。
我从来没有真正得到答案，因为我太害怕不相信的后果。
在最后，我决定，圣经里所有没有任何意义的东西，所有有缺陷的东西，所有可能反驳基督教的证据，都不重要。
我害怕不相信的后果，因为这意味着如果上帝真的存在，我会下地狱的。
我不希望这种事情发生。当然，请记住，那时我大概十岁，或者十一岁左右。
这心态起起伏伏。有时候，我不相信，有时候我仍然相信。看到了两派之间的争论，我在两派之间徘徊。最后，我之所以没有立即完全抛弃这个宗教，尽管所有的逻辑都在反驳它，是因为我认为，但是，如果，在最后，它是真实的呢？作为一个基督徒，我会失去什么？

Then one day, perhaps a year after I started doubting, I’d grew up a bit. And though most of it was a gradual process, my decision to finally stop was an abrupt thing.
One day, it just clicked, like a light bulb.
There is no God.
There is no God.
I felt a lot better than I had in a long, long time.
Later that month, I started going through the Old Testament and bookmarking everything that was flawed, illogical and downright impossible. With little stick-it notes. I can’t find it anymore, but goddamn, was I proud of it.
But yet, I was not exactly an atheist. Not yet. I simply identified as a non-believer.
Then, I go to a Christian School. Like a really, really Christian school. And every Thursday morning, we have chapel. This is basically where the school chapel band goes up on stage, sings some contemporary rock songs about God and Jesus, and then someone preaches for twenty minutes or so.
The next chapel, the band started.
And I started literally crying.
Okay, crying is a bit of a stretch.
I basically just got really damn mad that so many people blindly followed and worshiped this stupid non-existent God, and I was watching the happiness of the singer’s faces and I started tearing up. I suppose that I just felt kinda sorry for them. I don’t think anyone noticed, but still.
So then, I became total an atheist, at the age of eleven.
Fourteen years old now, and still a solid atheist. I attend bible studies sometimes, even church, and every time I go, I’m even less and less convinced of God’s existence.
So, yea.
(I’m not as emotional nowadays, though, so I’ll be glad to have a nice, calm debate with a Christian if anyone offers.)

然后有一天，也许是我开始怀疑的一年之后，我长大了一点。虽然这意识大部分是一个渐进的过程，但我最终决定停止相信是突然发生的。
有一天，就像灯泡一样的咔哒声。
没有上帝。
没有上帝。
我感觉好多了，比以前好多了。
那个月晚些的时候，我开始翻阅《旧约》，把所有有缺陷、不合逻辑、完全不可能的东西都标记在书签上。还有小小的贴纸。虽然我再也找不到这些了，但是卧槽，我真为此感到骄傲。
但是，我当时并不完全是一个无神论者，至少还没有，我只是认为自己是一个不信教的人。
之后，我去了一所基督教学校。就像一所真正的基督教学校。每个星期四的早上，我们都要上礼拜课。这基本上就是学校教堂乐队上台，唱一些关于上帝和耶稣的当代摇滚歌曲，然后有人宣讲二十分钟左右。
有一次的礼拜课，乐队开始唱歌了。
然后，我开始哭了起来。
好吧，哭得是有点夸张。
我基本上非常生气，因为那么多人盲目地追随和崇拜这个愚蠢的不存在的上帝，我看到歌手脸上洋溢的幸福，我开始流泪了。我认为我只是为他们感到遗憾。虽然我觉得没有人注意到。
所以，在我11岁的时候，我成为了一个彻底的无神论者。
我现在14岁了，仍然是一个坚定的无神论者。我有时候会去参加圣经的学习，甚至去教堂，但每次越去，我就越不相信上帝的存在。
所以，就是这样。
(不过，我现在不那么情绪化了，所以如果有人愿意的话，我会很高兴和一个基督徒进行一场友好而平静的辩论。)

Frank Kirby Attorney (2010-present)
I grew up going to church (Baptist) and both of my parents are still very religious to this day.
Then I began to learn about other religions in school: Hinduism, Islam, Shinto, Norse and Greek mythology, etc. I wondered why, if there really is only one true god, do we have all of these other religions? And not only that, why are there so many different versions of Christianity? Surely if there was a god that existed and he wanted us to know that he existed and that he was the one true God, why not tell every single person on Earth of his existence and definitively settle the question once and for all? And why would such a god decide to threaten people will hell if they decided not to worship him? The more I thought about it, the more I came to realize what religion really was, and what it had always been: a means for the powerful few to control the masses.

【回答】律师(2010年至今)
我从小就去教堂(浸礼会) 。我的父母至今仍然非常虔诚。
然后我开始在学校学习其他宗教：印度教、伊斯兰教、神道教、北欧和希腊神话等等。我想知道，如果真的只有一个真正的上帝，为什么我们还有其他所有的宗教？不仅如此，为什么会有这么多不同版本的基督教？当然，如果存在一个上帝，他想让我们知道他的存在，他是唯一真正的上帝，为什么不告诉地球上的每一个人他的存在，并最终一劳永逸解决这个问题？如果人们决定不崇拜他，为什么这样的上帝决定要威胁人们，他们将会下地狱？我越想越明白，宗教究竟是什么了，它一直是：少数权贵控制群众的手段。