30 Reasons People Choose Atheism 8

Reason 8 - Negative Personal Experiences

 

“Personal experiences, such as hypocrisy, abuse, or exclusion within religious institutions, often lead to disillusionment. For example, someone hurt by judgmental or corrupt religious leaders may question the validity of the faith they represent. These experiences can spark a deeper investigation into the foundations of religion, culminating in atheism.”

I certainly get that a negative experience could drive you away from organized religion. I suppose I’d feel the same way. As I said in an earlier post, bad experiences shouldn’t cause you to completely turn away from God altogether. Change churches, but abandoning God altogether only hurts you, no one else. Although, having said that, I guess it all depends on your upbringing. If you grew up either in an ungodly home or a very strict religious home, that experience could drive you away from “religion”. Perhaps that’s why I tend to turn away from the term “religion” and use instead “relational”. You see, I believe we can all have a very personal, intimate relationship with the Creator of all things if we so desire.

Bad things happen to everyone at one point or another in their lives. That goes for Christians as well as non-Christians. It is understandable that those bad events would taint a person’s overall view of whatever was involved with the bad event. I’ve known people who have walked away from a church because of the way they may have been treated or ignored or even shunned, but they didn’t turn away from God. They understood the flaw(s) that can exist in church run by humans who might be overzealous or misinformed regarding their rendering of scripture and simply went to find a church more to their liking. Those who have it in their mind to find problems will indeed find problems, even if they happen to be fabrications in their mind, like “I don’t like the way the worship team sings” or “the minister preaches over my head”. 

It's sad that many churches seem to think they are THE place to go and believe they only ones who rightly divide the Word of God. I’ve known of churches like that. More times than not they tend to be judgmental as they stubbornly cling to their own viewpoint, leaving no room for change. 

If you see no need for some God to rule over you, then by all means, continue down the path you are on. But don’t blame the God you don’t believe exists for any bad thing that may happen to you. It simply doesn’t work that way. You’ll have to grapple with where evil comes from on your own. Until next time, walk with the King & be a blessing.

In His Name & for His Glory,

RL Keller

Bread of Life Ministries

Resource: An article titled 30 Reasons People Choose Atheism on a blog called Housley - written by Lisa O.; www.gotquestions.org