Steve Jobs: The Apple CEO Became An Atheist Because of Biafra's Agony

Steve Jobs is the late American magnate and renowned founder of Apple products like iPhone before his death. And it would seem surprising to see his name appear alongside Nigeria, but in 1968 during the first years of the Nigerian civil war, Steve Jobs whose father was a Syrian immigrant from Aleppo , saw pictures of malnourished children in Nigeria that would change his life forever.

And his journey away from religion began after seeing pictures of two kids emblazoned on the cover of Life Magazine.

Jobs who was just 13 at that time and living with his adopted parents, accosted his Lutheran Church pastor with the magazine and wanted to be made sure if God actually knows everything and does everything in his acclaimed capacity as omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, to which the preacher replied in the affirmative.

As a teenager, it would appear, Jobs wasn't patient enough to understand why God would permit evil to happen to kids , and the preacher didn't do enough to enlighten Jobs about the inevitability of the occurrence of good and evil. Jobs walked out of the door in 1968 during the Nigerian Civil War and never looked back till his death in 2011.

An incerpt from his biography reads:

"Even though they were not fervent about their faith, Jobs’s parents wanted him to have a religious upbringing, so they took him to the Lutheran church most Sundays.

"That came to an end when he was thirteen. In July 1968 Life magazine published a shocking cover showing a pair of starving children in Biafra.

"Jobs took it to Sunday school and confronted the church’s pastor. “If I raise my finger, will God know which one I’m going to raise before I do it?”

"The pastor answered, “Yes, God knows everything.”

"Jobs then pulled out the Life cover and asked, “Well, does God know about this and what’s going to happen to those children?”

"“Steve, I know you don’t understand, but yes, God knows about that.”"

"Jobs announced that he didn’t want to have anything to do with worshipping such a God, and he never went back to church."