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I know some of the people here were raised as atheists, so this obviously isn't directed at them. What I'm interested in is, for the people who were raised religious, was there anything in particular that first made you doubt your religion?  It's a subject I've always found to be interesting when discussing it with atheist friends of mine.
For me, it was studying history, particularly World War 2. Seeing the atrocities committed in the name of religion, by the Japanese in particular, really shook me. What I remember the most is seeing footage of local families flinging themselves off the cliffs on Saipan. Of all the suicide stories from the pacific war, that was the one that stuck with me the most, and it was a pretty huge factor in making me doubt my Catholic upbringing. It wasn't religion specifically that caused them to jump, but that devotion and unthinking obedience to authority that is characteristic of religion that does.
Here's the video: (warning, it's graphic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDUy0uzmaU4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDUy0uzmaU4)

I started to apply logical thinking in my life during my teenage years and how the religious teaching I had to suffer and endure through wasn't adding up.

Although I was raised secularly, and religion was never even talked about in my household, I still was exposed to religion as many of my friends growing up came from religious families. It became something that I was so unsure about, I ended classifying myself as an agnostic until I was about 17.

I remember at one point when I was 14 or 15, something was going on with my body and I was freaking out about it, so for the first and only time in my life I prayed. I prayed for this thing to be fixed and that I'd never ask for anything again, yadda yadda. Obviously nothing happened, and upon a doctor's visit it turns out there was never anything wrong with me I was just going through puberty.

After that I kept the term agnostic, never really knowing what it meant, and watching my friends and their lifestyles to see if their belief might be right. Eventually I started to do some research and read the bible, and around that point I was also informed of the true meaning of atheist and agnostic, and finally took on the title atheist.

I look back now and realize, even though I prayed that one time, I never truly believed in god. That was a desperate attempt to get some help without violating my own privacy. I didn't want to tell anyone what was going on, but it turns out the good doctor had an answer ready and waiting.

I got curious

I researched, I questioned. I denied and finally found peace.

Because I don't believe, I was brought contentment, odd isn't it?



The long version is that I began to question things, and I began to wonder why God didn't do much considering the sorry state of the world. I looked at religious fanatics and I hated them. I abandoned religion when I was young, as I've always hated someone pushing shit on me. And I stopped believing years ago.

During my childhood, I had never practiced religion by going to church. My protestant family hadn't pushed a strict religious lifestyle so I wasn't severely "brainwashed". The bible intrigued me, yet it always conflicted with what I was taught in school. However, its structure and mysterious choice of words captivated my full attention. Whenever there was turmoil in my life, I prayed; it was what I was taught to do. Fortunately, there were occasions where I did not pray and situations continued to conclude in my favor. I realized that praying was meaningless, and instead I was in control of my life. I began doubting God and did research. After a month of nonstop research (it took a toll on my grades!) I began claiming atheism. I chose metaphysical naturalism as my philosophy of choice and have been happy ever since.  Definitely, one of the best decisions I have ever made.

The irreconcilable ethical problems of Christianity became more and more obvious once I took an interest in learning about them.

Problem of Hell, problem of evil etc. To worship a god who only obeys his own rules when it suits him doesn't make much sense.

Too many unmistakably human characteristics, I imagine that whoever came up with the idea figured god ought to resemble the Pharaohs or Warlords of the time, except one that cannot die or change. (Yahweh)

The whole thing seems like one big mistake. Sometimes the past needs to stay in the past.

Edit: Great subject by the way

I was a fundamentalist and went to a private school where we were taught the world was 6000 years old and evolution was a lie. Once I began to explore the internet and went to public school, I realized that was bullshit and started to wonder how much else of Christianity was a lie and found that almost all of it was rubbish.

Quote from: "Krisyork2008"Although I was raised secularly, and religion was never even talked about in my household, I still was exposed to religion as many of my friends growing up came from religious families. It became something that I was so unsure about, I ended classifying myself as an agnostic until I was about 17.

I remember at one point when I was 14 or 15, something was going on with my body and I was freaking out about it, so for the first and only time in my life I prayed. I prayed for this thing to be fixed and that I'd never ask for anything again, yadda yadda. Obviously nothing happened, and upon a doctor's visit it turns out there was never anything wrong with me I was just going through puberty.

After that I kept the term agnostic, never really knowing what it meant, and watching my friends and their lifestyles to see if their belief might be right. Eventually I started to do some research and read the bible, and around that point I was also informed of the true meaning of atheist and agnostic, and finally took on the title atheist.

I look back now and realize, even though I prayed that one time, I never truly believed in god. That was a desperate attempt to get some help without violating my own privacy. I didn't want to tell anyone what was going on, but it turns out the good doctor had an answer ready and waiting.

See now, I didn't even know what not believing in a god was called other than devil worshiping according to my dad. I didn't go out and try to find out what something was called either. It was defined by someone that should have known better and actually took the time to explain what exactly my point of view I shared with them was in not believing in a god. Instead it was another tool of his religion to try to strike fear of something into me in getting me to follow the bullshit of his definition of god. It wasn't until my early 20's that I found out it actually wasn't devil worshiping but actually called atheism. To add I never did some weird devil worshiping shit either, ever, as I found that to be as silly as praying to god.

Though I really didn't care to research what it was called at this point in my life, if someone would have said agnostic or atheist to me I would have most likely chalked it up as some type of occult anyways. I really didn't care what people had to say about anything to do with belief, which knowing myself would have just figured it is just another angle to throw bullshit against the wall and when it stuck saying see what you believe in? My dad really had his views that always seemed to trump all.

Science.

I was in highschool gym class making fun of scientology because of some tv special. I said something about how scientology wasn't a real religion. and my friend looked at me and said, what makes your religion any more real than scientology?

I thought about that question for days and weeks. Also I always faked sick so I could stay home and watch tv. But after I heard that question, I noticed that I started watching history channel specials on cults. I started to not notice a difference.

I started just by asking questions.  After witnessing the Revolution in Iran, I realized that so much of life is complete happenstance and that there is no guiding hand.

I went through a few years of mysticism, trying to hang onto my magical thinking, but having received a decent education in critical thinking, I eventually applied reason to all the aspects of my life and abandoned any form of magical thinking which made me the center of the world, be it Protestantism or New Age bullshit.

But at root, it was the Problem of Evil which started the erosion of my faith.

I read the Bible.

Thanks for the video! A good example of why following blindly authority, or culture and tradition is evil. So sad what mankind inhumanly does to others believing they Know without a doubt when all they have is ignorance from an higher authority not believing in themselves.  :roll:  :cry:  Solitary

My sophomore year in high school (14/15 years old) I started taking baptismal class and the more I learned the more I kept thinking "When I tell people I'm a Christian I'm saying that I believe that? I need to believe what in order to be an SDA?" I decided that, instead of finishing the class and getting baptized, I better actually read the bible--not just the sermon on the mount and the ten commandments, but the whole damn thing. The more I read the more I doubted--which, I can tell you, I was not very happy about at first. That's how I started to lose faith, but it took something like 7-10 years to finish loosing it.

There were many reasons, most revolving around the parts of Christianity that make no sense.  There was also no evidence for a god that struck me as credible.  Then there was this bitter hateful Christian fundamentalist woman that lived a life unbecoming to the Christian image.  She cackled over how everyone else would burn in Hell.  She made an odd impression that had a strange effect.  That should not have made a difference in my search for truth.  Actually, it didn't have to since there was so much else about the stuff that didn't make sense.  Then of course, there were other religions, most of them claiming all the other religions were wrong, even Christians claiming other Christians were wrong.  It made my head hurt.  The simplest explanation seemed to be that the whole thing was just made up, and everyone was tweaking it to fit their personal needs and desires.

I was raised in church, well at least partially. And I always thought something was so wrong with me bc I lacked that "fire" that some people display in church.  I thought if I gave ten percent then god would bless me, yada yada.  I fell for some of those breakthrough television ministry shows, donate 67 dollars for 67 days of breakthrough.  You know the routine.  Well as I got older, I started doing even worse things, and I really thought something was wrong with me.  Why doesnt god Change Me??!!!??  Well, things spun out of control, and I ended up for my 3rd rehab experience, in a christian "faith based" program in Anniston, Alabama.  That was the most terrible experience I have ever had!!!  I am so thankful that I was awakened to the brainwashing of religion and church that infested me.    Post religion, I have cleaned up, gotten married, and become a productive citizen!!!  Losing my religion has been the best thing to ever happen to me.

I was raised as a Christian..I became an atheist because I started researching and thinking so I realized that the idea of God makes no sense to me.I believe that all religions were created by humans

Quote from: "fingerscrossed2013"I was raised in church, well at least partially. And I always thought something was so wrong with me bc I lacked that "fire" that some people display in church.  I thought if I gave ten percent then god would bless me, yada yada.  I fell for some of those breakthrough television ministry shows, donate 67 dollars for 67 days of breakthrough.  You know the routine.  Well as I got older, I started doing even worse things, and I really thought something was wrong with me.  Why doesnt god Change Me??!!!??  Well, things spun out of control, and I ended up for my 3rd rehab experience, in a christian "faith based" program in Anniston, Alabama.  That was the most terrible experience I have ever had!!!  I am so thankful that I was awakened to the brainwashing of religion and church that infested me.    Post religion, I have cleaned up, gotten married, and become a productive citizen!!!  Losing my religion has been the best thing to ever happen to me.

I am originally from the Anniston, Alabama area. I have a family member that went to a similar place in Anniston and came out very damaged.

As for the OP, hard to say when I finally admitted it, but I never truly believed. I tried and fought for it, but in my heart I never really bought into it.

I wasn't raised atheist, my mother tried to get me to go to Sunday School, but I was asked to not return after three visits. She gave up then. She still goes to church I think, not that she'd remember if she did.

Around when I was 13 I noticed on my 5th re-reading of the Bible that there were 2 versions of The Ten Commandments, and I asked myself (paraphrasing) "Why would God have 2 versions of The Ten Commandments? Wouldn't God get it right the first time?" It was just what got the ball rolling. After 4 years of self-doubt and fear of Hell for doubting my Christian upbringing, I finally accepted I did not believe in a deity.

As an added note, it was quite a feeling of relief that there was no celestial Peeping Tom judging my every move and even thought, and that there likewise was no Hell to suffer eternally. Plus there's a bunch of issues with the concept of living forever, even in some supposedly eternal blissful state.

AthletesFeet, the place that I went to was the Center of Hope. I cant even describe to the full extent of just how awful the abuse and brainwashing is. I was taught to believe that when I got out (8 months in I was kicked out...lol) god would take me from 1 glory to the next.  And then when I actually got out, and time started moving on, and life still sucked ass, I finally started to realize that god was a bunch of bullshit. And I had just been exploited for someone else's financial gain. All the staff at that church and all involved were terrible, Terrible humans.

The thick brainwashing after 8 months locked up in a church was painful to break through. The people there, I can't stress enough, were just as terrible as all other xtians in this world. Man that was awful and I'm still bitter. Lol.    But part of me is thankful, bc life after religion, has been fucking fabulous!!!

I lost my faith when decided to stop being such a prideful asshole.

There is no faith without pride.
Faith is an act of pride.

Quote from: "fingerscrossed2013"AthletesFeet, the place that I went to was the Center of Hope. I cant even describe to the full extent of just how awful the abuse and brainwashing is. I was taught to believe that when I got out (8 months in I was kicked out...lol) god would take me from 1 glory to the next.  And then when I actually got out, and time started moving on, and life still sucked ass, I finally started to realize that god was a bunch of bullshit. And I had just been exploited for someone else's financial gain. All the staff at that church and all involved were terrible, Terrible humans.

I don't know that place, but it sounds the same. Teen Challenge is the place my relative went. It has more adult members than teens. He went through the year long process, and is now unrecognizable. They did a number on him, and how he didn't wake up and leave is beyond me.

I think for me it wasn't a defining moment.... Even when I was very young I always asked why??? I clearly remember being a young child thinking "if lambs and lions will be friends in heaven - what would the lion eat???" There were many incidences like that... But I started to question god's love....when someone tried to explain how blessed Job was.....my brain could not bend to accept that Job had any blessing whatsoever! I thought it was the cruelest joke possible to bestow on any human being! Since then distancing myself and reading awesome books like Godless....and seeing how intolerant the religious right is.... Has made me conclude that there is no God.

Did any of yall that had faith for years, experience heartache letting go of religion? Dumb question I guess. I felt so damn foolish!! And felt like I had been tricked!!!

I tried to have faith when I was younger, but it was hard work. Maybe if I hadn't asked so many questions.  Honestly, I don't think I ever really had it, in spite of being raised catholic.

Quote from: "fingerscrossed2013"Did any of yall that had faith for years, experience heartache letting go of religion? Dumb question I guess. I felt so damn foolish!! And felt like I had been tricked!!!

No, I felt no heartache or sense of loss at all.  And I don't recall ever feeling foolish.  My negative emotion was just the long period of frustration, either trying to prove the god issue one way or the other, or in waiting to be shown some sign of his existence.

That period of struggle went on for so many years that when I finally let go, it was just pure relief.  I gave it an honest shot.  No Christian could judge me for not trying (but of course they do).  I endured needless frustration over an unanswerable question that a more reasonable person would have just accepted.  It was ecstasy to just accept that knowing was impossible and that I could move on.

A friend of mine grew up in a ridgidly Christian family, with a close knit group of families and friends all with the same belief. He was never a true believer until we were 14, at which point he got caught smoking weed with and hooking up with this girl.

His parents sent him off to a Christian teen rehab camp for the summer, and he came back a changed man. Didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't date, didn't flirt, didnt joke, didnt laugh, didnt smile. With the good comes the bad.

We remained on and off friends throughout highschool, but didnt talk much for the first few years after graduation. Then just recently, I heard that he went away to missionary school, and after 8 months of it came home an agnostic.

Now he gets paid to rockclimb all over the US, and hes never been happier.

My main emotion as I was losing my faith was fear.  I was afraid of going to hell, I was afraid of losing my bearings, and then one day I realized that no matter what I didn't believe, and that fact was not fearful at all.

I used to be so religious, I'd done 5 times prayers, Friday salat. reciting Quran, and miscellaneous prayers, etc. I also used to hate gays as they are disgusting and sinners as I've been told since I was a little kid. When I realized that I actually had "strange" feelings toward handsome guys, that's when internalized homophobia started to wreck my life. I'd ruined my possibly bright future in prestigious college cause I self sabotaged myself. I was disappointed, angry and hateful at myself for being "abnormal", sinful, disgusting. I wasted 4 years of my life going through denials and finally the college dropped me out as I was having a seriously low GPA for 4 years. Tears had been shed, relationships broken, mental and psychological scarred but I kept praying and praying and praying that when I woke up someday Allah would make me "normal", straight so that I could fit into the society. Alas, Allah never heard my prayers, or maybe didn't care about my suffering. That's when I started to ask myself, "is this Allah thing real? Does he even exist?"

Before that, I realized that actually I've been having some doubts toward Islam. The big ones were 9/11 and Bali bombings, but I just brushed it off as "extremists" who just smeared the image of Islam as the religion of peace. So, when my personal dilemma started to sink in, it was encouraging these doubts as I couldn't stand bearing the hateful feeling toward myself any longer. So I had to make a choice, be happy and accept myself and ditch my religion, or  keep my religion and can still fit into the society but feel miserable inside for the rest of my life. I chose the former and never look back. I started to watch and read things about atheism on Youtube, interwebz and surprisingly they're just aligned to what I feel and think the whole time. I felt so relieved, like the whole time I've been blindfolded by this thing called Islam. I feel free inside, though still have to face the problem of fitting into the society here in my country cause it doesn't like people who doesn't have a religion. So I entered the closet for now, for being gay and atheist, hopefully someday I could go to a place, a home, where I don't have to worry to mention that I don't believe in any gods and don't swing that way.

The only fear I had when leaving Mormonism was the effect on my family, which was huge. Once I figured out it was crapola, I was ready to leap. That is how I roll- I study the shit out of something, find it is true and am onboard for the duration. find it false, I'll drop it like a hot rock and walk. The reason it took so long for me to leave xtianity was because I caused my wife to lose whatever tenuous relationship she had with her family and took away most of her friends when we left Mormonism. I didn't have the heart to pull the plug on her twice, so it took awhile.

Quote from: "stromboli"The only fear I had when leaving Mormonism was the effect on my family, which was huge.

I don't know much about the Mormon religion so I have to ask, is this family thing built in to reduce the number of people who leave officially?

I wasn't raised in the swill of any religion, but  tired to "find gawd" only to find there really was nothing to find. I joined the moonies even for  awhile, but still nothing stuck for very long.
I can even remember being really horny over a certain young lady and "praying it away", but that piece of ass sort of sealed the deal which was WAY MORE powerful than all the hand holding and dreaming up magic in church.
I spent a good deal of my life wallowing in self destructive shit and kept hoping god would magically remove those defects, blah fucking blah, but "he" didn't do doodly squat. I ran into "christian" after bible thumping asswipe christian who were ALSO engaging in the very same self destructive behavior, drinking WAY to much, shooting heroin, stealing shit, etc., and almost every single asshole I ran with would invoke the magic words.. "It's ok to be a total shithead because I'm already 'saved'" I'm of course paraphrasing,  but you get the gist.. Any bad behavior is peachy keen as long as you believe in Big Spooky. No amount of shitheadedness is to much for god. So...I gave up on that nonsense and now when I want to be a shithead I do it 100% guilt free except for the fact I do have a shred of dignity and at least apologize for being a shithead and stop being one instead of justifying it for god.

I love that APA.  That is exactly right, "I am a total shithead, but its okay bc Ive got Gawd!!!" I was always the type that didn't enjoy being a shithead, so when I did fk up I thought I was the only one.  Once I got the opportunity to live in the church, I learned first hand that they are the biggest shitheads of them all.  And the have no remorse about it.

For me it started with the zeitgeist movie. Even though things in that movie may not be true, the message I got from it was that my beliefs could be wrong. Then I slowly started questioning if this Jeebus dude was legit with it. Mind you, I went to a all boy seminary during 4 years of my high school.

I took a year off after graduating because I wanted time to make up my mind if I were to give up my life for this Jeebus guy. So after 1 year of doing nothing but sitting home and playing games, I realized that if I dont get up and get a job, im going to starve to death. So it hit me, if its me thats getting my ass off and getting a job with my own strength and nobody elses, whats the point of Jeebus? guurrrrl O NO YOU DIDENNNNT.

I was scared of going to hell for questioning god so I keep regressing and going back to my old beliefs. But I keep going to websites like this and they reinforced my questions about god. Then I finally came out of indoctrination for good.  =D>

Seeing the work of "God's" weapons of mass distruction at work with famines in the horn of Africa and natural distasters such as a major earthquake in Peru in 1970. So much collateral damage and so much easier to come to terms with a God which is not there rather than making up complicated long winded excuses for him.

3 things...........

1) The realization from education that the scientific method results in working models within reality.....(aka applied technologies) whereas the faith I was raised in had no working models in reality.....such as faith healing and answered prayer.

2) The conflict of the results of scientific method working models with the claimed models of the Bible that didn't work.

3) And finally the death nail of it all............a serious 5 years study of the construction of biblical manuscripts and the canonization structure into a bible realizing it is all from oral stories by those having a vested interest not in objectivity but wanting it to be true regardless of the lack of evidence......

It took me 57 years of my life to reach the end point of #3 before I realized the emperor has no clothes..........until then I had been an evangelical apologist to varying weakening degrees over that time..........

My first science class in 8th grade was when I first thought............this is reality and what I'm taught in church isn't........

.......but I hung on from all the indoctrination and fear of hell for all that time............

...........silly now but serious then

Also the concept of an anthropomorphic entity in the sky "making the world" and "making us in his image" sounded increasingly more ridiculous and stupid the better scientifically informed I got.

I didn't fully lose faith until quite recently. I was christian when younger, agnostic from late teens to early 20's, but i'm definitely an avowed atheist now. I recently read a book in the UK that has been pushed by Dawkins and that had a major impact in finalising the ludicrous nature of the whole subject. I'll put a link to the free first chapter online as it's got a speech in there on religion that is genius - http://thechroniclesofhope.com/preview/ (http://thechroniclesofhope.com/preview/)

I wish i had jean-paul sartre's attitude towards religion as it frustrates me a little, hopefully that's the next stage of my religious evolution! He was a man so atheist he considered the whole topic beneath his level of intelligence to discuss

The first time I got really perplexed about religion was around age 5 or 6.  A friend who went to Catholic school told me what his nun taught him about how the world got here.  What puzzled me is that this nun told him the sun and planets formed from spiraling gas and dust millions of years ago.  

I asked my friend, who was not the sharpest tack in the box, "Don't the priests and nuns teach us that God created the world and Adam and Eve a few thousand years ago?"

My friend's response, "Go ask her.  She knows everything," didn't help much.  In any case, as a child I got my first education about how mainstream Christianity flips between science and religion the way an electron slips between a particle and a wave.

Just as maddeningly frustrating as it is trying to figure out of if electrons are particles, waves, neither, or both as they mess with our heads each different way we interact with them, Christian denominations change from being grounded in science to superstitious, to both, to neither depending on how we interact with them.

Quote from: "aileron"The first time I got really perplexed about religion was around age 5 or 6.  A friend who went to Catholic school told me what his nun taught him about how the world got here.  What puzzled me is that this nun told him the sun and planets formed from spiraling gas and dust millions of years ago.  

I asked my friend, who was not the sharpest tack in the box, "Don't the priests and nuns teach us that God created the world and Adam and Eve a few thousand years ago?"

My friend's response, "Go ask her.  She knows everything," didn't help much.  In any case, as a child I got my first education about how mainstream Christianity flips between science and religion the way an electron slips between a particle and a wave.

Just as maddeningly frustrating as it is trying to figure out of if electrons are particles, waves, neither, or both as they mess with our heads each different way we interact with them, Christian denominations change from being grounded in science to superstitious, to both, to neither depending on how we interact with them.

Wow, that says a lot about your religious upbringing when a Catholic explains the real origins of the solar system to you.

Back a few years ago when everyone was reading the Da Vinci Code, I was reading my copy at a train station, and a kind of grumpy looking guy next to me asked gruffly, "Is that book any good?"  I replied, "Well, it's a page turner for sure," and for some reason, I added, "It's pretty hard on the Catholic Church."  So this guy says, "Well, somebody needs to be," and looked quite satisfied with himself.

I laughed out loud, and thought to myself he was probably a fellow atheist, but later I decided it was more likely that he was a pissed off fundamentalist who hated Catholics.  It seems that few people can agree on anything about religion when you get right down into various aspects of doctrine.  These differences played a role in causing me to begin questioning all religions many years ago.

Quote from: "SGOS"Wow, that says a lot about your religious upbringing when a Catholic explains the real origins of the solar system to you.

I was raised in a Catholic family too, just mercifully went to public schools.  Even at the tender age of 5 or 6 I had already heard from other sources the scientific explanation of the origin of the solar system.  So it wasn't that I was surprised to hear this origin, but rather I was surprised to hear it coming from a nun.

What baffled me was why the Catholic nuns and priests would tell us out of one side of their mouths "Garden of Eden" and tell us out of the other side of their mouths "accretion disk."  

They're still doing it.  They scare the living shit out of kids with "eternal fire" to keep them in line, but when questioned how a loving God could create a scheme that casts people into such torture, they explain hell 2.0, the one where the "primary punishment is separation from God."  But does that mean, since hell 2.0's primary punishment is separation from God, that there's no fire in hell?  Yenosorta is the answer there too.

Quote from: "aileron"What baffled me was why the Catholic nuns and priests would tell us out of one side of their mouths "Garden of Eden" and tell us out of the other side of their mouths "accretion disk."  

LOL  I think that's covered by the "God works in mysterious ways" apology.

I didn't lose my faith. I chose to abandon it based on reasoning and logic. I think that should a god exist, it will require nothing on my part to "believe" in him/it. He will exist, period. When I was a kid, I believed in Santa. It required me to believe in the fantasy for the fantasy to exist in the first place.

If a god exists, there wouldn't be 10000000 religions "describing" him, all contradicting one another. This tells me that he exists only in what our imaginations allow.

If a god exists, he will not require me to "have faith." He will exist regardless of what I think. Religion has a way of making faith sound mysterious and secretive. lol Guess it wouldn't attract people if it told the truth.

Quote from: "Gawdzilla Sama"

Quote from: "stromboli"The only fear I had when leaving Mormonism was the effect on my family, which was huge.

I don't know much about the Mormon religion so I have to ask, is this family thing built in to reduce the number of people who leave officially?

Yes.

I started off as an agnostic, probably a 50/50 agnostic. I found that there was no evidence for God that I could see so I sided with the "there is as much evidence for God as there is for fairies" crowd like Richard Dawkins.

I never had faith, in the religious sense.

Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"I never had faith, in the religious sense.

And you enjoy throwing that to our face... :twisted:

Quote from: "Deidre32"Religion has a way of making faith sound mysterious and secretive.

Think back when you were little.  It was fun to say magic words with your friends and see if anything would happen.  You may have attempted conjuring up dead relatives, or just any old spirit in general.  Oh, sure there might have been some giggling.  You didn't really have to expect something to happen.  It was just fun doing it.  

I think this is part of religion, too.  Religion is too complex of a psychological issue to pin down to specifics, but people love mystery and unexplainable things.  And everyone likes magic, even if they know it's not real, because it's fun to go, "Wooooo," and imagine you just saw something defy reality.  Humans seem to be attracted to it.  And of course, no small number take it to the next level, and embrace it as true.  Eventually, they might find themselves having to defend it, and the next thing you know, they push themselves right off the edge of reality.

Quote from: "josephpalazzo"

Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"I never had faith, in the religious sense.

And you enjoy throwing that to our face... :twisted:

You're damned right. :twisted:

Quote from: "Insult to Rocks"What I'm interested in is, for the people who were raised religious, was there anything in particular that first made you doubt your religion?

Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"I never had faith, in the religious sense.

The short version:

I recognize that there's nothing that happens in the world that demands a supernatural explanation.

Quote from: "SGOS"

Quote from: "Deidre32"Religion has a way of making faith sound mysterious and secretive.

Think back when you were little.  It was fun to say magic words with your friends and see if anything would happen.  You may have attempted conjuring up dead relatives, or just any old spirit in general.  Oh, sure there might have been some giggling.  You didn't really have to expect something to happen.  It was just fun doing it.  

I think this is part of religion, too.  Religion is too complex of a psychological issue to pin down to specifics, but people love mystery and unexplainable things.  And everyone likes magic, even if they know it's not real, because it's fun to go, "Wooooo," and imagine you just saw something defy reality.  Humans seem to be attracted to it.  And of course, no small number take it to the next level, and embrace it as true.  Eventually, they might find themselves having to defend it, and the next thing you know, they push themselves right off the edge of reality.

I agree, you put that really well.
At first it was hard to see myself without religion defining me. But now I'm more at peace than I was when I followed religion.

I lost faith because even though I was raised to be religious, but I never felt anything when saying prayers or reading Quran , and when I grew old enough to read serious books, I found out that all religion's offered is based on nothing. I mean nothing actual or factual backs a religion's claims, so that was the last nail. Simply put, a religion's claims are true because that religion says so! Even a 5 year old kid finds this stupid, and believe me lots of them do but they'd get shut up by their parents.

Quote from: "Maldini"Simply put, a religion's claims are true because that religion says so! Even a 5 year old kid finds this stupid, and believe me lots of them do but they'd get shut up by their parents.

I had those doubts back at that age too, but I stuck with it because it was so important to my parents.  My parents didn't exactly shut me up, not in a mean way.  I did it for them.  

The praying seemed especially  stupid, and I felt stupid doing it, because I couldn't sense anything at the other end.  And this thing about getting on your knees and putting your hands together didn't seem to have any effect, either.  It wasn't easy convincing myself that it was all real.  Although I think it's much easier for some people.

My parents said some people had too much pride to pray.  I was only 5. I didn't know what pride was, so for most of my life, my definition of pride "was not wanting to do something because it makes you feel stupid."  But then why do we ask someone who is doing something so stupid that people laugh at them, "Don't you have any pride in yourself?"

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"

Quote from: "Insult to Rocks"What I'm interested in is, for the people who were raised religious, was there anything in particular that first made you doubt your religion?

Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"I never had faith, in the religious sense.

I felt left out. :)

it's quite simple, really. It just took me realizing my disease, this disorder, was playing mind-games on me. If I shared my story, and if I was honest enough, you'd all think I was the unluckiest person on earth. Let's just say when I was saved from my "evilness", a voice came to my ear and spoke to me. Let us just say that it was the worst timing ever, since at the time I wasn't aware of my diagnosis and never had voices before. There are a ton of other things, with virtually every single one of them lining up with me being one of the most unlucky bastards of all time. But yea, once I got over no better days from this illness, I got over religion pretty fast. I mean, christ-insanity, really? The most unbelievable religion of all time? I will one day type out of my entire story, but until then, just know that even charles darwin would have believed. It just takes 5 minutes of sanity to realize religion is retarded.

I had a 5 year agnostic phase after leaving school/college when I wasn't really sure what to believe and then went full atheist for about 6 months before deciding this may not actually be right or a good thing to believe to be true. I did some research into the various religions of the world before deciding the religion I had been brought up with was perfectly good and reasonably compatible with the the other religions in a way that atheism wasn't. Therefore a much more open minded, liberal and multicultural mindset was attained. Even say the Muslims I can dig what they're all about this point even if I would disagree on a couple of small points, they believe you only go to heaven if you impress God enough. God isn't particularly impressed at all by anyone he just loves everyone.

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"God isn't particularly impressed at all by anyone he just loves everyone.

What god do you propose exists? What is the evidence for said gods supposed existence?



By the way, the LACK of any evidence for ANY god is the reason I have no faith.

I remember when I was around 6 asking my mom where God came from, and she told me that God was eternal and didn't have a beginning. That stuck me as odd for the moment, but I didn't dwell on it.

My doubts started when I was around 12, maybe a bit younger. I started to realize that I felt absolutely nothing in church. I didn't feel the heavenly joy that one is suppose to feel when praising God, I just felt like I was talking to empty air.

I also realized how similar Jesus/God was to Santa Claus. Both promised rewards for good behavior, punishment for bad, and you never saw either (at least Santa had the guys dressing up like him in malls thing). Any "evidence" for them was either hearsay or lies. Asking critical questions about them got non answers, or even reprimand.

After that it was the total ineffectiveness of prayer. I was fucking scared of my doubts; I didn't want to burn forever in hell (btw thank you makers of the children's bible for including that whole "wailing and gnashing of teeth" bit, you fucking assholes). I prayed often and earnestly. I prayed to God that he would fill my heart with his light and make me a good Christian. I prayed with tears in my eyes that he'd remove the doubt in my mind and that he would save me from myself. I still felt absolutely nothing: no voice from the sky, no relief of emotional burden, just me in an empty room begging to empty air.

I also started discovering my sexuality - puberty had taken hold of me. While I still had very little faith left I tried to suppress who I was. I'd watch straight porn, talk about how awesome boobs are, and other such things, but inside it was still killing me.

I'd say the my faith dwindled completely by the time I was 13 or 14. I came to terms with my sexuality at 16 (religious internal homophobia is hard to get rid of. I was never mean to other homosexuals, I just assured myself that I wasn't like them and vagina was awesome). I came out at 19.

Now I'm 2 days away from being 23 and I couldn't imagine myself being as happy as I am now with the shackles of religion upon me.

For me:

- Socialisation, since the UK is a more rationalist culture (has been when it was more religious even)

- Critical thinking, since religion is distinct from God so we can't know what God is fully.

- No need, since morality exists for group regulation and empathy.  No Bible or Koran is needed for that.  I don't kill out of empathy, humanity, and well it's not good to make enemies.

I've never had faith. My neurology and personality don't lend themselves to religiosity.

Many similar stories to mine, was exposed to it early, but not often (grandparents). Neither parent was religious, although dad became more so in his 60's, and noww god has blessed him with alzheimers to allow him to forget he ever believed.
For 6 years I played for a touring christian basketball team - we were paid $200 per game plus expenses, and expected to witness at halftime to the crowd. Never did that siting huge fear of public speaking. Coach bought it! The basketball experience is something I would have done for free. Playing ncaa div 1 opponents in spectacular facilities in front of about 5 thousand was so much fun. Coach was an avid true believer, nice guy, great parent to 7 kids and I faked it to play basketball! No regrets except the acl tear that ended it. I moved to australia 13 years ago, and suspect there are many back home that still think I believe, but I never did, even as a child I couldn't muster an ounce of belief.

When I didn't get what I wanted for X-mas.......oh wait, you don't mean Santa, do you?

I started to watch James Randi debunking videos :D  =D>   [-(

My parents were atheists so I never was exposed to religion. When I was in my teens I read the bible from front to back and that was enough for me.

Once being a Christian pretty much speaks for itself, how can I possibly believe in a great almighty God who created the entire universe of unfathomable scale take time out to be so small minded as to plant his sperm into a certain Middle Eastern female primate on some insignificant little planet in one of the billions of galaxies he created? It just does not make sense quite frankly.

Quote from: "HomophobicAtheist"My parents were atheists so I never was exposed to religion. When I was in my teens I read the bible from front to back and that was enough for me.

If you read the Bible from the point of not believing in God then you won't believe in God by the time you finish reading you're just begging the question. The Bible wasn't written for atheists/non-believers it was written for people who believe in God.

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "HomophobicAtheist"My parents were atheists so I never was exposed to religion. When I was in my teens I read the bible from front to back and that was enough for me.

If you read the Bible from the point of not believing in God then you won't believe in God by the time you finish reading you're just begging the question. The Bible wasn't written for atheists/non-believers it was written for people who believe in God.

But isn't it important to know your enemy well? :P

Quote from: "Moriarty"But isn't it important to know your enemy well? :P

God isn't your enemy he's the reason why you exist.

Quote from: "Moriarty"

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "HomophobicAtheist"My parents were atheists so I never was exposed to religion. When I was in my teens I read the bible from front to back and that was enough for me.

If you read the Bible from the point of not believing in God then you won't believe in God by the time you finish reading you're just begging the question. The Bible wasn't written for atheists/non-believers it was written for people who believe in God.

But isn't it important to know your enemy well? :P

Yea o.k. you totally convinced me and I will change my ways.......................

Quote from: "Moriarty"Yea o.k. you totally convinced me and I will change my ways.......................

You will have to convince yourself you can't rely on others to do it for you.

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Moriarty"Yea o.k. you totally convinced me and I will change my ways.......................

You will have to convince yourself you can't rely on others to do it for you.

Thank God!? Hahahahaha

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Moriarty"But isn't it important to know your enemy well? :P

God isn't your enemy he's the reason why you exist.

God isn't the enemy to those who don't believe because he can't even be shown to exist.  

The enemy is any religion that wants to shove its imaginary god on everyone else.

Quote from: "Moriarty"Thank God!? Hahahahaha

You will have to look at the evidence, the arguments, soul search, do some prayer and contemplation and let the power of Holy Spirit guide you and all that good stuff. Don't just believe whatever Richard Dawkins tells you, he doesn't know Jack outside of evolution/biology.

Quote from: "SGOS"

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Moriarty"But isn't it important to know your enemy well? :P

God isn't your enemy he's the reason why you exist.

God isn't the enemy to those who don't believe because he can't even be shown to exist.  

The enemy is any religion that wants to shove its imaginary god on everyone else.

Even the ones that don't want to shove it on others are. Anyone that teaches their children bullshit are basically abusing them and are bad people in my book.

Quote from: "Moriarty"

Quote from: "SGOS"Even the ones that don't want to shove it on others are. Anyone that teaches their children bullshit are basically abusing them and are bad people in my book.

Children should be taught about religion, different religions than their own and why it faith and moral values are important but ultimately be given the choice to believe or not. Rather than raised in a sterile religion free bubble or told it's some kind of myth from ancient times "but now we have science".

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Moriarty"

Quote from: "SGOS"Even the ones that don't want to shove it on others are. Anyone that teaches their children bullshit are basically abusing them and are bad people in my book.

Children should be taught about religion, different religions than their own and why it faith and moral values are important but ultimately be given the choice to believe or not. Rather than raised in a sterile religion free bubble or told it's some kind of myth from ancient times "but now we have science".

That's actually how they did it in my school. Unsurprisingly, everyone turned out atheist.

Quote from: "Plu"That's actually how they did it in my school. Unsurprisingly, everyone turned out atheist.

There's no good reason why they should end up not believing in God if given the choice, particularly as God is more rational than the alternative if you really get into it.

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Plu"That's actually how they did it in my school. Unsurprisingly, everyone turned out atheist.

There's no good reason why they should end up not believing in God if given the choice, particularly as God is more rational than the alternative if you really get into it.

Now you're just trolling.

You can say there's no good reason all you want, I'm merely stating what I observed actually happening. We learned a lot about various religions and we all came out atheists.

Quote from: "Plu"You can say there's no good reason all you want, I'm merely stating what I observed actually happening. We learned a lot about various religions and we all came out atheists.

So there was no reason for you to come out atheists beyond just what simply wanting to believe what you believe? There was thought real thought process involved?

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"Children should be taught about religion, different religions than their own and why it faith and moral values are important but ultimately be given the choice to believe or not. Rather than raised in a sterile religion free bubble or told it's some kind of myth from ancient times "but now we have science".

No one is raised in a religion free bubble.  People learn about religions because they are surrounded by them.  They learn about other religions because information about other cultures exists and we don't live in a vacuum.  And everyone has a choice to believe, unless they have been brainwashed as a child.

All you are doing is pointing to a straw man.

The thought proces went along the lines of "Well people told me about the easter bunny, but it isn't real. And they taught me about santa clause, but he isn't real. And they taught me about god..."

That's about where I gave up on it. I was about 7 or so. I could really see no reason why god would be any more real than the easter bunny; the exact same reasoning we used to  convince ourselves the easter bunny existed when we were kids was used by adults to convince themselves god existed, and the exact same arguments against the easter bunny our parents gave us as proof he wasn't real, was used by those same adults to convince other people their god wasn't real, and I found no real reason to believe the god they themselves believed in was any different.

It sounds really silly when you put it like this, doesn't it? And yet I've tried looking for information on religion on and off for years and this is really all it boils down to. As children, we believe freely in santa clause, and most people only stop believing because their parents tell them he isn't real. Imagine how you would feel about santa clause today if people hadn't told you he was fake, but instead every street corner had a man shouting "santa will give you coal if you don't repent", every third building was dedicated to writing gift-lists for him, and every time you said "you know, I don't think this santa guy is real", you'd receive the gaze of death.

If people openly say the believe in santa clause, they're declared fools. The only reason people can openly say they believe in god is because they're not alone. This is also exactly why in highly secular countries people look at you funny when you say you believe in god. They really don't see the distinction between believing in god and believing in santa clause.

Quote from: "Moriarty"Anyone that teaches their children bullshit are basically abusing them

Agreed.  I experienced it myself as a child.  I have no doubt my parents loved me, but they fed me enough bullshit that it took many years to leave it behind.  This is what I mean by brainwashing.  It's exactly what happened to me.  And it was most definitely abuse.  It's teaching lies, instilling fear, and teaching kids that ghosts and spirits are real.

Quote from: "SGOS"

Quote from: "Moriarty"Anyone that teaches their children bullshit are basically abusing them

Agreed.  I experienced it myself as a child.  I have no doubt my parents loved me, but they fed me enough bullshit that it took many years to leave it behind.  This is what I mean by brainwashing.  It's exactly what happened to me.  And it was most definitely abuse.  It's teaching lies, instilling fear, and teaching kids that ghosts and spirits are real.

I was always determined to keep my kids away from that bullshit until they could decide on their own. Then the relationship fell apart when the boys were 6 and 8 and the new guy decided to tell them about "god" and "god's love". It's the closest I have ever come to killing anybody. By the time I was done with him he understood that the kids had one father and he had no right to do what he did. I had to go into damage control and tell them my Atheistic views well before I had planned on it but made certain to tell them that in the end the decision was their own.

Quote from: "SGOS"No one is raised in a religion free bubble.

That's what atheists seem to want or if they are taught about it they should be taught it as a historical fictional literature like the Iliad or a Shakespeare play. To suggest that there actually is a God would be child abuse seeing as God doesn't exist and you don't teach children to believe in things that aren't real, or at least you would tell them at some point. Atheists may have a traumatic experience when they were told Santa doesn't exist perhaps and this lead to their atheism in later life or something.

[youtube:1ajfet6l]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyWUn_bj5rM[/youtube:1ajfet6l]

QuotePeople learn about religions because they are surrounded by them.  They learn about other religions because information about other cultures exists and we don't live in a vacuum.

You can learn about your own religion as well no harm in that. Yes it's culturally transmitted but that doesn't stop it from being true/better than the alternatives. Muslims believe Islam is the best and most pure religion and they teach that to their children and they're perfectly right to do that, as long as they teach them about the alternatives and give them a free choice which I don't think they do. There's no death for apostasy in Christianity you know, they did burn heretics at the stake in the middle ages but Jesus never instructed anyone to do this so we can let that slide.

QuoteAnd everyone has a choice to believe, unless they have been brainwashed as a child.

If you don't teach children a religion chances are they won't end up with one though this would be through ignorance and naivety rather than their free choice. Atheists know a bit more about religion and have made an informed choice though, many of them were raised in a religion and lost their faith for whatever reason. So it's better to bring children up with whatever belief it is their culture has though there's no need to drill it in relentlessly to some kind of fantastical extreme, you can just be normal.  

QuoteAll you are doing is pointing to a straw man.

I don't even see the straw man I'm supposed to be pointing to.

QuoteIf you don't teach children a religion chances are they won't end up with one though this would be through ignorance and naivety rather than their free choice. Atheists know a bit more about religion and have made an informed choice though, many of them were raised in a religion and lost their faith for whatever reason. So it's better to bring children up with whatever belief it is their culture has though there's no need to drill it in relentlessly to some kind of fantastical extreme, you can just be normal.

That's what they started doing in the Netherlands in the 50s. I think we're in the top 10 least religious countries in the world now. Funny that. When you take away the extremist indoctrination, kids just don't buy it anymore :)

It's really quite simple, I object to a god on so many levels. Scientifically, Philosophically and the mere fact that if by chance a god did exist I would want nothing to do with that prick bastard mass murdering son of a bitch.

Quote from: "Plu"That's what they started doing in the Netherlands in the 50s. I think we're in the top 10 least religious countries in the world now. Funny that. When you take away the extremist indoctrination, kids just don't buy it anymore :)

Christianity is on the wane in Europe for various reasons but European civilization is also on the wane it's a dying culture you're looking at. One that will eventually be replaced by something else but it's still a destruction of something that was essentially good, and you are trying to help it!

[youtube:1lz8xf7z]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDHBZlSNO6w[/youtube:1lz8xf7z]

A bit of Neverending Story there.

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Plu"That's what they started doing in the Netherlands in the 50s. I think we're in the top 10 least religious countries in the world now. Funny that. When you take away the extremist indoctrination, kids just don't buy it anymore :)

Christianity is on the wane in Europe for various reasons but European civilization is also on the wane it's a dying culture you're looking at, one that will eventually be replaced by something else.

You're out of touch in my view. I'd prefer to live in Europe than the U.S. anymore. They've gotten past their god complex mostly. U.S. is full of crazy f'n radicals.

Maybe, but in the meantime we'll continue to top all of the charts in terms of happiness and education while it lasts :)

Europe has pretty much discarded it's religious identity and also seems on the way of discarding it's cultural and national identities. Time will tell if we'll eventually replace it with a global identity, or if the whole joint will collapse in on itself. Either way, I'd rather experience these times and that downfall over having to live anywhere else. We're making a jump to a new era, and whether we fall short or make it; at least we got our feet off the ground. You might never be able to experience that.

Quote from: "Plu"Maybe, but in the meantime we'll continue to top all of the charts in terms of happiness and education while it lasts :)

Europe has pretty much discarded it's religious identity and also seems on the way of discarding it's cultural and national identities. Time will tell if we'll eventually replace it with a global identity, or if the whole joint will collapse in on itself. Either way, I'd rather experience these times and that downfall over having to live anywhere else. We're making a jump to a new era, and whether we fall short or make it; at least we got our feet off the ground. You might never be able to experience that.

Look at political movements in the U.S., both coasts are generally liberal. Change is coming, just going to take time to move across the country and the batshit religious people are going to fight it tooth and nail. Personally I don't have time to wait for it and Europe really does look like a better option to me.

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Moriarty"But isn't it important to know your enemy well? :P

God isn't your enemy he's the reason why you exist.

Something that doesn't exist can neither be your enemy nor the reason you exist. The "enemy" Moriarty is referring to is religion. God may not exist, but his followers do, and a lot of them bite.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk. Titty sprinkles.

Quote from: "Moriarty"You're out of touch in my view. I'd prefer to live in Europe than the U.S. anymore. They've gotten past their god complex mostly. U.S. is full of crazy f'n radicals.

The crazy radicals are a result of people reacting strongly against people like yourself and places like Europe. You're part of that problem not the moderate believers who accept science/evolution and all that business.

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Moriarty"You're out of touch in my view. I'd prefer to live in Europe than the U.S. anymore. They've gotten past their god complex mostly. U.S. is full of crazy f'n radicals.

The crazy radicals are a result of people reacting strongly against people like yourself and places like Europe. You're part of that problem not the moderate believers who accept science/evolution and all that business.

Because I believe with every ounce of my fiber that religion is BAD BAD BAD. The only way to advance and evolve as a species is to shed religion completely. I'm all for outlawing stupidity......errr religion.

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Moriarty"You're out of touch in my view. I'd prefer to live in Europe than the U.S. anymore. They've gotten past their god complex mostly. U.S. is full of crazy f'n radicals.

The crazy radicals are a result of people reacting strongly against people like yourself and places like Europe. You're part of that problem not the moderate believers who accept science/evolution and all that business.

Dude , you haven't  a better thing to do than to  troll a atheist website? You are that pathetic really ? :roll:

Quote from: "Plu"Maybe, but in the meantime we'll continue to top all of the charts in terms of happiness and education while it lasts :)

Making yourself comfortable before you die as there is nothing else of importance beyond that is the atheist mindset and collectively this will become the mindset of a civilization. People start to not have children and focus more on disposable income for themselves while they're alive. This results in a rapidly aging and declining population as you see in Europe and Japan. The US has been spared from this as they haven't been impacted by this cultural trend, they are heavily focused on wealth but they would tend to see it as a blessing from God to be used for a good purpose which is the traditional Protestant view, they still think their culture, lifestyle and values in terms of future generations beyond their deaths matter. Atheists have no reason to care if we're all going to end up in the ground anyway and ultimately "buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins". Though of course what you believe is mistaken, we're all part of something that has a purpose and will last forever. Not forever in it's current form but this is a small part of eternity, this part still matters greatly this as it is what God created.

QuoteEurope has pretty much discarded it's religious identity and also seems on the way of discarding it's cultural and national identities.

And then it will descend into an economic downward spiral, which has already started look at what will happen to Great Britain some time in not so distant future.

[youtube:2xkxbwyk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ibcORs4I4[/youtube:2xkxbwyk]



As well as rapid population decline and eventual death of the civilization.

(//http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.608029157140203879&pid=15.1)

What you will have in place of this in the future will not be atheism but some form of Islam, Islam isn't necessarily all that bad as long as it isn't the Wahhabi version. It does have the advantage of maintaining a very strong group identity it's not something they would get into a habit of doing every Sunday or going to the odd funeral they're fully stoked 24 hours a day. Technically Christians should be doing that as well but there was a decline there and you have the fruits of this decline you can see.

QuoteTime will tell if we'll eventually replace it with a global identity, or if the whole joint will collapse in on itself.

No you won't replace anything, Islam will replace European culture.

QuoteEither way, I'd rather experience these times and that downfall over having to live anywhere else. We're making a jump to a new era, and whether we fall short or make it; at least we got our feet off the ground. You might never be able to experience that.

The new era will be Islam. I'm not Islamophobic though it's a reasonable religion, as long as it's in a certain form which most Western Muslims seem to practice.

QuoteMaking yourself comfortable before you die as there is nothing else of importance beyond that is the atheist mindset and collectively this will become the mindset of a civilization. People start to not have children and focus more on disposable income for themselves while they're alive. This results in a rapidly aging and declining population as you see in Europe and Japan.

Which is probably a good idea, considering we need less and less people to operate societies and having an excess population tends to result in all sorts of terrible things for both that excess and the world as a whole.

QuoteAnd then it will descend into an economic downward spiral, which has already started look at what will happen to Great Britain some time in not so distant future.

Maybe. We'll see. For now, the biggest economic downward spiral seems to be caused by the US and their hyper-corporatism. Which means it's coming from a religious place.

QuoteNo you won't replace anything, Islam will replace European culture.

That might just be. Maybe it's their time to shine again. It's been a while. Or maybe we'll get a new rising star religion. Or maybe just nothing at all. Who knows. The rules have changed a lot lately. We're still at the dawn of trying to figure out how this new society thing works. I wouldn't be so quick to fall back on old systems, though.

"No you won't replace anything, Islam will replace European culture."
 :shock:
This is probably true, because Islam has turn the Middle East from a land of science and enlightement into the New Dark Age with superstitious nonsense and deniel of reality and science just like Christianity is trying to do in the world to bring us to perdition because of Scripture, the supposingly word of God  (Allah). Talk about having your head in the sand.
Solitary

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"

Quote from: "Plu"Maybe, but in the meantime we'll continue to top all of the charts in terms of happiness and education while it lasts :)

Making yourself comfortable before you die as there is nothing else of importance beyond that is the atheist mindset and collectively this will become the mindset of a civilization. People start to not have children and focus more on disposable income for themselves while they're alive. This results in a rapidly aging and declining population as you see in Europe and Japan. The US has been spared from this as they haven't been impacted by this cultural trend, they are heavily focused on wealth but they would tend to see it as a blessing from God to be used for a good purpose which is the traditional Protestant view, they still think their culture, lifestyle and values in terms of future generations beyond their deaths matter. Atheists have no reason to care if we're all going to end up in the ground anyway and ultimately "buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins". Though of course what you believe is mistaken, we're all part of something that has a purpose and will last forever. Not forever in it's current form but this is a small part of eternity, this part still matters greatly this as it is what God created.

Can you actually give any proof as to your claims here? You are just ranting on and on making one empty claim after the other,with no objective evidence to validate your finger tapping. You seem to be too stupid to realize that 99 percent of what you post is anecdotal speculative subjective opinions based on what you want to believe. You say we will last forever because you want to last forever and you don't have the balls to admit that.

Worse yet, you say we will last forever because you think you want to last forever, because you don't even realise what eternal life would mean. Every time you ask christians to explain how a human being would cope with having to live forever, you get bullshit answers. It can't be done; we aren't built to last forever. We're barely built to last a century.

Quote from: "Passion of Christ"The crazy radicals are a result of people reacting strongly against people like yourself and places like Europe. You're part of that problem not the moderate believers who accept science/evolution and all that business.

The crazy radicals are the result of two things: They are crazy and they are radical.  It ends there.

After my grandmother died, I looked up both atheism and Christianity, the arguments for and against. I realized that the Christianity and religion in general didn't have any good arguments for it.

Atheism didn't bring me much contentment, but then again neither did religion. I WAS content with the fact that no one was going to burn me forever in the afterlife for the dreadful sin of being human.

I started to loose my faith when I realized that church was boring. I started to come up with excuses not to go to church any longer, and eventually just realized that Roman Catholicism was just bat shit crazy.

I think it also may have something to do with an argument I got in with my religion teacher in grade 4 when she told me that animals don't go to heaven because they can't "think". That argument lasted about 3 classes worth of religion, in the end, of course, I won and proved to a vast majority of my class that my religion teacher really wasn't that smart.

I completely lost faith my freshmen year of High school when I learned about quantum physics and figured out that a higher being of power made no logical sense.

That and I'm also autistic, so I think logically instead of with "faith" or with my "emotions", as my one friend puts it.

Quote from: Glitch on March 20, 2014, 02:34:46 AM
I started to lose my faith

(http://www.quickmeme.com/img/26/263bbec66d658ba0d962dc655b429e9c14fe15afcd9e4598db25ef316d34b0f0.jpg)

Quote from: Glitch on March 20, 2014, 02:34:46 AM


I think it also may have something to do with an argument I got in with my religion teacher in grade 4 when she told me that animals don't go to heaven because they can't "think".

When my dog died, that's what my mother said when I asked about it.  It really bummed me out.  But when she realized how it bothered me, she confided that she thought dogs probably did go to heaven.  Then I was OK.  If thinking has a damn thing to do with it, tell me why a creationist deserves to go to heaven.

Quote from: Glitch on March 20, 2014, 02:34:46 AM
I started to loose my faith when I realized that church was boring. I started to come up with excuses not to go to church any longer, and eventually just realized that Roman Catholicism was just bat shit crazy.

I think it also may have something to do with an argument I got in with my religion teacher in grade 4 when she told me that animals don't go to heaven because they can't "think". That argument lasted about 3 classes worth of religion, in the end, of course, I won and proved to a vast majority of my class that my religion teacher really wasn't that smart.

I completely lost faith my freshmen year of High school when I learned about quantum physics and figured out that a higher being of power made no logical sense.

That and I'm also autistic, so I think logically instead of with "faith" or with my "emotions", as my one friend puts it.

.                                                                                                                                                  Animals don't get to heaven because they can't think ? How the hell this people know the mind of animals ? Chrisrdars are experts of making shit up.

For me, I didn't grow up in a religious family, but was converted in high school by friends. I found it a way to escape my terrible childhood(lots of abuse, in every way possible.) I then went to bible school for pastoral ministry, and then got married as a good Christian. Well, marriage is not all its cracked up to be in the circles I was in. The man I married is so against science, when it doesn't agree with what he wants. He doesn't respect or acknowledge my intelligence. This annoys me. I began researching why Jews don't believe in Jesus, then found out those terrifying old testament things. Then one day I was like, dear God, I'm an Atheist. I believe in science. I am a rational, intelligent person of reason. Why would I believe a book that mirrors the other myths throughout history? I couldn't rationalize my beliefs any longer. So I am here now. :)

I still keep the faith.

Quote from: renasimplified on April 05, 2014, 04:16:32 AM
Why would I believe a book that mirrors the other myths throughout history? I couldn't rationalize my beliefs any longer. So I am here now. :)

I took a mythology course in college, and it was fun to read the stories of the gods of the ancients.  The stories were totally preposterous.  But, it was easy to forgive the ancients for their ignorance, because well, they were ancient.  Yet none of us ever came to the point of suggesting that maybe the myths were actually true.  They were preposterous and all fell into the category of mythology, and rightly so.

With that understanding of mythology, now read the Bible with it's talking snakes, petulant god, fantastic tales of walking on water, parting seas, living in a whale's belly, an evil doing spirit called Satan, and finally 7 headed dragons with 7 tongues of flame. 

What possible justification is there for rejecting the gods of the ancients if you accept the preposterous stories of the Bible?  There is absolutely no difference between the believability of either one.  They were both concocted by the ancients, they are both impossible, and both are entirely silly when held up to the light of reason.

As you say, one mirrors the other.  I used to except the Bible stories, if only as metaphors, when I called myself a Christian, but the farther I get from Christianity, the more confoundingly absurd the stories have become.  I look at them now as any person, Christian, Jew, Hindu, or atheist would look at a book of ancient mythologies.

I started losing my faith after I went through puberty. That's a weird marking, but I think that puberty had me very self-absorbed and had me thinking I was the smartest guy in the world, so I couldn't possibly be wrong.
After puberty however, I started looking at my claims more rationally. And I realized that what I believed in could be dismissed with the same ease as astrology or reading tea-leaves or other religions. 
I still didn't want to admitt i was wrong so I went from moderate christian to somewhat christian to agnostic christian to agnostic with christian mindset to agnostic hoping for a God... but I still said I was a Christian. And I kept looking for evidence.
But the more I searched for proof, the less I found and the more atheists on youtube and in texts and so forth started making sense. And I couldn't find anyone who presented the god-argument in a good way. I wanted to find someone, but I couldn't.
So eventually I figured. I'm seventeen (or eightteen or something) and I haven't even read the bible though I proclaim myself to be a Christian. I even like reading, so what's stopping me? Any self-respecting Christian should have read the bible at least once and if any place has the goods to back it up, it's got to be the good book, the source material.
I had to put it away after the third book. I no longer had any problem with calling myself an agnostic after that. (I actually felt natious for a few days, which was weird.)
Over the years this 'agnostic' lable has evolved further. I now call myself atheist (agnostic atheist if we invoke Dawkins' scale) and sometimes anti-theist. And I'm happier than I ever was as a Christian.
I had luck though. Belgium is on the whole occupied by people who believe and is denoted as a 'catholic country'. But most who believe, believe in the vague 'something'. And everyone at home is atheist, except perhaps my brother who perhaps believes in 'something'. So I didn't have any troubles admitting my atheïsm, except to myself.

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on April 05, 2014, 08:26:35 AM
After puberty however, I started looking at my claims more rationally. And I realized that what I believed in could be dismissed with the same ease as astrology or reading tea-leaves or other religions. 

This strikes very close to home for me.  After puberty is about right.  However, I don't think puberty has as much to do with it, as I understand that certain cognitive abilities of our brains don't manifest themselves until well into our lives, just like puberty or sexual drives are not present early on.

But what really parallels my experience is your own specific observation:  " And I realized that what I believed in could be dismissed with the same ease as astrology or reading tea-leaves or other religions."

The key words here are "dismissed with ease."  At some time in early life, I realized what I had believed on authority, could be "dismissed with ease".  Suddenly, I found myself confronted by an array of alternative explanations for my beliefs, and so many of these alternative explanations made much more fundamental sense.  They did not require leaps of faith.  I had never recognized these alternatives before then.  I assume my brain just began to process information with a greater clarity and awareness of 1)other explanations, and 2)lack of basic evidence to support what I had previously believed.  I was also able to accept my own ignorance without the certainty of beliefs to fill in the information for which I had no answers.

It's a function of human development and a maturing brain, I think.  Partly, we do learn to process information better, but partly it's just the physical development of our brains.

As an afterthought to my previous post, I started wondering about why not everyone suddenly realizes alternative explanations and then processes them.  I don't know for sure, but my first guess is that is has something to do with the intensity of the sociological imprinting that is done on us earlier.  I certainly experienced the imprinting.  My Grandmother was a raving Baptist.  However, mostly she just scared me.  My mother was religious, but on a very few occasions in my childhood, she would question something about OUR beliefs, or at least point out the question to me, without actually providing the answers.

My father was a fundamentalist, strongly influenced by my grandmother (his mother), but I remember what might have been my first trip to the zoo.  Going to the zoo became a frequent weekend activity with my father, but one day there I was in the primate house face to face with some kind of monkey hanging onto to the bars of his cage and staring directly into my eyes.  He was so intent in his eye contact that I knew he was thinking (about what exactly, I don't have a clue).  I probably mentioned that the monkeys looked like little people.  Now this wasn't even one of our closest ape relatives.  It was a two foot long monkey with a long tail.

My fundamentalist father told me that a lot of scientists said that we descended from monkeys millions of years ago, but he never added (as far as I can remember) that the scientists were wrong.  He just let it hang there for me to think about, which of course, I did.  The point of all this is that in spite of my religious upbringing there were a few times when I was allowed to process information without the encumbrance of a strict religious training.  Those occasions were not common, but they happened in such a way that they made a rather enormous impression on me.

Quote from: Insult to Rocks on January 20, 2014, 03:13:28 PM
I know some of the people here were raised as atheists, so this obviously isn't directed at them. What I'm interested in is, for the people who were raised religious, was there anything in particular that first made you doubt your religion?  It's a subject I've always found to be interesting when discussing it with atheist friends of mine.

Oddly, it's never been human atrocity that has brought me down. I'm a realist and accept that in a world where people can make decisions, bad things are going to happen because some people will make terrible choices that can directly and indirectly result in suffering upon themselves and others. It's inevitable. (Watch The Matrix: "Choice" -- it automatically ensures eventual chaos.)

The reason I shifted to an agnostic position is because of the impossibility of "knowing" something for certain + it turns out that all the evidence my CHristian subculture told me was true, convincing me their blend of Christianity made the most rational sense, ended up being incorrect. I followed and argued for Christianity before because I thought it was the most supported; I now don't see the evidence being clear at all, and the Bible is mostly just a collection of writings that are historically off in many ways. The ideas are useful, and there's various types of writing within the Bible (poetry, prophecy, etc.) so it's an interesting collection of documents, but it has no special authority to state defined is historically and factually true.

Now, at that point, one can still choose to "believe" whatever one wants -- and I suppose that is "faith" -- and the reality is I don't see the need to believe that a lot of specific details are true if there is no actual dependable proof. People who comb scriptures and try to live according to all of its specifics, just to adhere to it? I don't see the point, if you can't show it's all actually true. (It's also kind of ironic how many Christians I run into who I can tell don't think particular things are wrong, and even can't explain why they are wrong, but still feel compelled to be against them simply because they think the Bible tells them they have to be.)

However, the process of living has led me to decide what things I want to do live for and what things I personally value and are important to me. So I can make a choice there to dedicate myself to those particular values. Values can be part of many different religions, incidentally -- it's not like you have to believe a particular faith's doctrines and claims to believe and accept certain values and want to support them with your life.

And there is also the reality where Christianity was my initial framework and shaped me (kind of the "mother tongue" for me), so I tend to still think of things in terms of it. So when i think of Jesus, I think he's a great example of sacrifice for others. So it's not like I've jettisoned the language and concepts I grew up with; I just reject this specific doctrine that makes a lot of implausible historical demands, claims to be exclusive, and seems to operate in practice far more out of guilt and punishment than higher values.

I suppose I was raised in a religious family. Not fanatical but moderate christian. I received my sacraments except marriage (I'm "only" engaged). We never were big on going to church, studying bible etc. We didn't really think about god and stuff. And in time, when I was about 13-14 maybe, I realized that christianity was more like a sect with all the sitting down, standing up, kneeling, singing in the church, the whole "his father's son, the holy ghost, thy kingdom come" type of nonsense. I didn't understand the meaning of the words they (the godly) used like sin, soul, and other stuff. It was becoming more and more crazy. Like the guilt of being a sinner, that no matter what good will come to You it's god but something bad happened? - it's Your fault, you worthless human.
Also I realized I don't need church or faith to be a good human. I'm not sad god is not with me, I've never felt worse because of it. So you might say I was an atheist all along but didn't know it.
I didn't really thought about all this until recently when I stumbled upon debates of Hitchens, Dawkins and others with some religious nutbags, watching stand up of Carlin, Maher and the like. All the arguments against theism took shape, as I am not the most literate person around :) So once again I knew I was an atheist "by instinct" and now I can even write a post or hold a conversation for a minute or two on the subject.

I think it all started when I got into a drug addiction. I got clean by the sweat of my own brow, Actually I was just really lucky. While I noticed all the people around me who couldn't get clean were praying for god to help them while I did nothing and got clean. I thought that was weird that god wasn't helping all those people praying to him. That's when it started.

after that I got into science and started looking at how illogical religious arguments tend to be and how science conflicts with religion. Personally I'll take science over religion. It's a lot more trust worthy in my personal experience.

I was always a pretty skeptical person. I was easily able to refute other supernatural claims with ease.

At about the age of 20, I noticed that I never applied the same level of scrutiny to my god beliefs that I did to other claims. I decided if I wanted to be intellectually honest, I was compelled to examine them. When I did, they quickly collapsed. 

There was no rebellion, no 'hate toward god', no emotional crisis. It was strictly due to skepticism correctly applied to the god claim.

babble says, "if you pray, believing, you shall receive". I believed, I prayed, I no receive...fuck em! They broke the deal, not me!

Quote from: doorknob on April 09, 2014, 07:19:02 PM
I think it all started when I got into a drug addiction. I got clean by the sweat of my own brow, Actually I was just really lucky. While I noticed all the people around me who couldn't get clean were praying for god to help them while I did nothing and got clean. I thought that was weird that god wasn't helping all those people praying to him. That's when it started.

after that I got into science and started looking at how illogical religious arguments tend to be and how science conflicts with religion. Personally I'll take science over religion. It's a lot more trust worthy in my personal experience.

I've brought that same observation up in regards to my experience with Alcoholics Anonymous so many times that I hesitate to mention it again.  If there is some sort of psychological link between recovering from illness and praying to a higher power, it was not evident to me in AA.  Some devout believers got better.  Some did not.  In addition, those who most strongly insisted that recovery was dependent on, or even impossible without relying on God, appeared to be the ones who continually failed most often.

I've thought about why, and I hypothesize it's because they are expecting recovery to come from outside themselves.  Rather than strengthening their own determination and responsibility, it's like they are expecting those necessary attributes to be given as a gift or a handout.  They would deny this of course, saying God is giving them strength and resolve, but the telling observation is that they don't appear to have strength and resolve as they don't make solid recoveries.

Some of the devout do recover, but I think it's because those that do, also tap their personal resources and become responsible for themselves.  The spirituality thing is just a perk that makes them feel good.

I know when I couldn't get clean it was because I was waiting for some one to rescue me. Eventually I realized that there is no knight in shining armor if you want saved you have to save your self. And you have to believe you can do it. And you have to believe you are worth saving too. If you don't believe that then you won't get clean.

Quote from: doorknob on April 11, 2014, 02:40:39 PM
I know when I couldn't get clean it was because I was waiting for some one to rescue me. Eventually I realized that there is no knight in shining armor if you want saved you have to save your self. And you have to believe you can do it. And you have to believe you are worth saving too. If you don't believe that then you won't get clean.

Gawd. I have written that part I've bolded in my journal. I was stuck in a bunch of stuff for a long time and finally realized it was up to me, and I could do it, and I was worth doing it for.  I was so passive for such a long time, though... waiting. But no one came. So I engaged my own life and made the changes.

Faith is a redundant concept and is devoid of practicality. Reason and a rational perspective are superiorly more pragmatic and more robust than faith. Both of my parents are christian and imposed their religious dogma unto me during the first 14 years of my life. I attended church regularly every Sunday and practiced prayer before meals and was even baptised. I have never been concerned with substantiating God via attaining evidence however, I gradually became fairly skeptical regarding the text of the Bible and the claims asserted by others. Two years ago I occupied an apartment with another individual in college who portrayed and adopted more of a philosophical perspective rather than a scientific approach. This individual inspired and influenced a copious number of questions regarding the universe and subsequently resulted in me questioning and contemplating the existence of God directly. Any faith that I may had possessed in relation to the existence of a Christian God had diminished completely after cogitating the probability of God and the reason why I had faith in the entity. I am currently applying reason and adopting rational thinking to better understand the world I live in rather than dogmatically insert faith into the existence of entities.

I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic school until I was 19 years old. In high school some of my instructors were priests. Having said all that, my parents were never fundies. The school thing was because they thought the education at those particular schools was better.

As to losing my faith, I can honestly say that I never accepted any of the supernatural stuff. Even as a little kid I remember thinking that the bible stories were the same as the Santa stories. They were there to make us feel better, they weren't literally true. I started losing interest in religion in high school when it became apparent that many people took the stories literally which just seemed so dumb to me. I became interested in science and found that history was full of mistakes by the truly faithful so I just dropped the nonsensical beliefs probably by the time I was 17 or so even while remaining at a private Catholic school.

Quote from: Berati on April 13, 2014, 06:57:53 PM
I started losing interest in religion in high school when it became apparent that many people took the stories literally

I experienced the same dynamic in myself.  Even though I considered myself a Christian at the time, I knew most of the Bible stories were so obviously metaphors or just bits of plain myth.  When I saw that some people were absolutely convinced they were real, I reacted by distancing myself from the whole package, at least distancing myself enough to step back and look at the picture as a whole, followed by the recognition that I had no sound reason to accept the parts I actually had been believing.  Strange how that chain of events happened.

I have not lost faith but i did get rid of religion. I hate religion it is the cause of so many wars and deaths. I believe in Jesus and everything that goes with him. I realized Jesus even preached against religion. Religion is either made up (example Hinduism and Jediism)  or it takes from or adds to  the bible (example Catholic and Baptists). I lost it when i was actually an atheist to be honest and looked into all of these religions and realized it was stupid. When i was looking for reasons Jesus came into my life. I realized what i was and asked for repentance. I follow the Jesus alone nothing added or taken. I reject religion because of what it does.

Quote from: Walker_Lee on April 19, 2014, 03:04:41 PM
I have not lost faith but i did get rid of religion. I hate religion it is the cause of so many wars and deaths. I believe in Jesus and everything that goes with him. I realized Jesus even preached against religion. Religion is either made up (example Hinduism and Jediism)  or it takes from or adds to  the bible (example Catholic and Baptists). I lost it when i was actually an atheist to be honest and looked into all of these religions and realized it was stupid. When i was looking for reasons Jesus came into my life. I realized what i was and asked for repentance. I follow the Jesus alone nothing added or taken. I reject religion because of what it does.

So where is your source of information about Jesus? Is it by any chance the bible? If yes, which one, and Why that one? If not, then from what other source?

Quote from: josephpalazzo on April 19, 2014, 03:15:07 PM
So where is your source of information about Jesus? Is it by any chance the bible? If yes, which one, and Why that one? If not, then from what other source?

The bible as in the holy bible as some of these Christians call it. Because that is the book of history that tells the story of our past.

Quote from: Walker_Lee on April 19, 2014, 04:13:45 PM
The bible as in the holy bible as some of these Christians call it. Because that is the book of history that tells the story of our past.

So you made your own religion of bull-shittery?

Sent via your mom

QuoteThe bible as in the holy bible as some of these Christians call it. Because that is the book of history that tells the story of our past.

The bible is a bunch of writings by people. Other people then decided which writings they wanted included in the bible and which they didn't want.

So you see, you ARE following a religion that was made up by other people.

Quote from: Berati on April 19, 2014, 05:47:58 PM
The bible is a bunch of writings by people. Other people then decided which writings they wanted included in the bible and which they didn't want.

So you see, you ARE following a religion that was made up by other people.

What religion? I do not see why this is hard to understand like atheists i have no religion. I personally hate religion. So i am not some religious person. Do not get me wrong i love all people no matter there belief. If the bible was made up of a bunch of bull crap tell me why it stirs up so much tension even now? 

Quote from: PickelledEggs on April 19, 2014, 04:15:38 PM
So you made your own religion of bull-shittery?

Sent via your mom

Same answer for you i have no religion. I follow Jesus alone nothing added or taken. I am a follower of Jesus not some religious person.

Quote from: Walker_Lee on April 19, 2014, 10:03:44 PM
What religion? I do not see why this is hard to understand like atheists i have no religion. I personally hate religion. So i am not some religious person. Do not get me wrong i love all people no matter there belief. If the bible was made up of a bunch of bull crap tell me why it stirs up so much tension even now?  Same answer for you i have no religion. I follow Jesus alone nothing added or taken. I am a follower of Jesus not some religious person.

Yeah..... And the stories of Jesus are from the bible. What makes you think the bible has any validity? How are going about your cherry picking of what you think is real from it?

Do you refrain from washing your hands before dinner, btw?

Quote from: Walker_Lee on April 19, 2014, 10:03:44 PM
What religion? I do not see why this is hard to understand like atheists i have no religion. I personally hate religion. So i am not some religious person. Do not get me wrong i love all people no matter there belief. If the bible was made up of a bunch of bull crap tell me why it stirs up so much tension even now?  Same answer for you i have no religion. I follow Jesus alone nothing added or taken. I am a follower of Jesus not some religious person.

Well appearantly some atheists do have a religion.
You guys remember that 'cultural Christian' from a few days ago? *shudder* Now there was a guy with his fingers tucked deep in his ears.

You may hate religion, but that does not excuse you from being a religious person. No more than a guy I once met who hated men wasn't a guy himself.
Not feeling like you fit in with a greater denomination of Christians does not excuse that.

It's stirs up tension because people like you are still buying it and proclaiming we should too. The Thora is also still stirring up tension, especially if you concider it's kind of part of the current Bible. It's had a longer run too, but that does not lend credit to it. The Koran still stirs up tension. I dare you to find one argument to dismiss their holy book that can not be turned around and used on the Bible with minor adjustments. In other parts of the world you have Hindu's still following their ancient texts are called and it doesn't lend an iota of credit to their beliefs.

Why does it still stir up tension? You need only look in the mirror. We're ready to move past it.

I come from a Scottish Protestant background, was put in Sunday school and recited the lords prayer in school. My mum is an elder in the Church of Scotland but isn't really in any way overtly strict in her religiousness. When was around 13 up until I was about 18 I was obsessed with protestantism, was anti-catholic and intersted in Orangeism( http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Order). I still have sentiments left behind just now with my politics as a unionist and still sympathise with this side in Northern Irish politics but this does not affect my atheism as I think Catholicism and Islam as more of a threat to my country than half-hearted Protestants.

Anyway, as my interest in Science and logic became more profound I started to become more agnostic because I hadn't really read any arguments againt a deity. I decided to buy "The God Delusion" which I read around the time I was 19 which had an effect on my outlook on life more than anything and then continued with writings by Hitchens, Harris and also watched debates with "the rational responders" and videos of "Atheist Experience".

Now there is no doubt in my mind, as certain anyone could be that there is no such thing as deities or the supernatural,  the universe is far more beautiful and wonderous than a bronze age book of fairy tales could ever proclaim. I'm happily married(a month ago) and had a great Humanist wedding, instead of saying vows to a God that doesn't exist I made a promise to my wife.

Well that's my story.

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on April 20, 2014, 03:30:04 AM
Well appearantly some atheists do have a religion.
You guys remember that 'cultural Christian' from a few days ago? *shudder* Now there was a guy with his fingers tucked deep in his ears.

You may hate religion, but that does not excuse you from being a religious person. No more than a guy I once met who hated men wasn't a guy himself.
Not feeling like you fit in with a greater denomination of Christians does not excuse that.

It's stirs up tension because people like you are still buying it and proclaiming we should too. The Thora is also still stirring up tension, especially if you concider it's kind of part of the current Bible. It's had a longer run too, but that does not lend credit to it. The Koran still stirs up tension. I dare you to find one argument to dismiss their holy book that can not be turned around and used on the Bible with minor adjustments. In other parts of the world you have Hindu's still following their ancient texts are called and it doesn't lend an iota of credit to their beliefs.

Why does it still stir up tension? You need only look in the mirror. We're ready to move past it.

I have no religion, if you think i do then you are mistaken. I am not telling you to follow anything but there is a God whether you like it or not.

Quote from: PickelledEggs on April 19, 2014, 10:08:38 PM
Yeah..... And the stories of Jesus are from the bible. What makes you think the bible has any validity? How are going about your cherry picking of what you think is real from it?

Do you refrain from washing your hands before dinner, btw?

I believe it is real because it is. After research i realized it is true because i know Jesus is real.

Still waiting on that argument, religion boy.

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on April 21, 2014, 11:20:34 AM
Still waiting on that argument, religion boy.

Look religion is a man made set of rules that has now started stupid arguments and wars. I do not follow anything man made. I am a follower of Jesus and i preach the message of the Gospel. No religion.

Quote from: Walker_Lee on April 21, 2014, 11:37:40 AM
Look religion is a man made set of rules that has now started stupid arguments and wars. I do not follow anything man made. I am a follower of Jesus and i preach the message of the Gospel. No religion.

(http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/o-rly.gif)

What if I told you that all religions are man-made (duh!) and that the "not-a-religion" that you follow is actually very much a religion.

Quote from: Walker_Lee on April 21, 2014, 11:37:40 AM
Look religion is a man made set of rules that has now started stupid arguments and wars. I do not follow anything man made. I am a follower of Jesus and i preach the message of the Gospel. No religion.

Perhaps you're not understanding the argument I'm waiting for.
Give something that verifies the validity of the Bible or whatever scripture you get your information concerning your Gospel from that can not be tweaked and used for the validation of other holy books.
OR
At least give something that discredits the other holy books and can not be tweaked and used for the Bible or whatever scripture you get your information concerning your Gospel from. (This second argument of course would not prove the validity of the scripture concerning your gospel.)

If you can't prove the divinity of the scripture containing your gospel, it's most likely manmade. You know, it would be such as actual studies indicate. Which would make you, by your own definition, 'a follower of religion'.

Still waiting for that argument.

Must be the statement of the year: "I follow Jesus, but I don't believe in religion."

Quote from: josephpalazzo on April 21, 2014, 02:26:41 PM
Must be the statement of the year: "I follow Jesus, but I don't believe in religion."

There was a big old poster at Green River CC advertising that very stance. So yeah, it's a thing.

Don't make fun of the mentally challenged person! The only book mentioning jesus is the holy bible which is true, so jesus is true. If the bible wasn't true then jesus wouldn't be true, but that's ridiculous because it's all true. He KNOWS it, so tadaaaa, here's Your precious proof.
Now stop kicking the carcass of the one true follower of jesus, because it's not funny anymore, and gives him much more attention he deserves.