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My words exactly. I tell people ALL the time that I was at the height of my Christian faith when the wheels fell off. It was not the "hypocrites in the church" nor did the pastor run off with someone else's wife nor did I become angry with god nor did I just want to get buck wild crazy. I just happened to one day come to grips with years of doubt in what I KNEW deep inside was a very weak position. I just could NOT lie to myself anymore - end of story!
Same here. Once I got over the fear of an "angry God", walking away from faith was easy.
The tough part was learning how to deal with the fact that there are no "safety nets" in life. Life is what we make of it. It is all about self responsibility (not saviors in the sky). Today, I feel like a much stronger (and wiser) person now that I don't believe in "Santa" any more! For I am strong enough to treat people right, love myself as well as my neighbors, respect my elders, try not to lie, and refuse to steal all without believing in a sky dude. Now that is worthy of an AMEN!!!
Even as a child I could see that religious faith and a belief in gods didn't add up. I've been an atheist ever since I was old enough to think for myself. I was born an atheist, my parents tried to indoctrinate me, and it just didn't take. I remember even as a small child thinking that going to church was a waste of time, and being bored to death. Saying prayers and bible verses by rote because it was expected of me. When I actually got old enough to critically examine and think about what I was being told (perhaps nine or ten years old), it was glaringly obvious even to me that nothing added up. I didn't know the term 'atheist' for several more years, but that's what I was.
Even as a child I could see that religious faith and a belief in gods didn't add up. I've been an atheist ever since I was old enough to think for myself. I was born an atheist, my parents tried to indoctrinate me, and it just didn't take. I remember even as a small child thinking that going to church was a waste of time, and being bored to death. Saying prayers and bible verses by rote because it was expected of me. When I actually got old enough to critically examine and think about what I was being told (perhaps nine or ten years old), it was glaringly obvious even to me that nothing added up. I didn't know the term 'atheist' for several more years, but that's what I was.
This could be my post . . . except I entered the martial arts and atheistic Buddhism in my teens. After 18+ years of meditation . . I had an "end state" experience (my epiphany) and I was no longer an atheist. You cannot encounter God and remain one.
My words exactly. I tell people ALL the time that I was at the height of my Christian faith when the wheels fell off. It was not the "hypocrites in the church" nor did the pastor run off with someone else's wife nor did I become angry with god nor did I just want to get buck wild crazy. I just happened to one day come to grips with years of doubt in what I KNEW deep inside was a very weak position. I just could NOT lie to myself anymore - end of story!
WOW, that's what happened to me too. It was during the darkest days of my life. I reached out to God and mini miracles starting happening in my life. It's been a journey but I'm more at peace then I've ever been and happier.
I am sure every atheist will tell you that if some god DID actually step out from whatever rock he or she is hiding under and revealed him/herself and did JUST some of the amazing things attributed to them in various myths and holy books, they would just as easily believe. No, not reveal them to just a solitary soul or a few folks in some backwater country a billion years ago and then go on to play peek-a-boo, exisiting only in the magical realm of "faith," there would hardly be such a thing as an atheist on the planet.
I honestly don't know whether I agree with you or not. For a very long time, I've felt as if some people were just genetically wired to believe in God and some were wired not to. That's over-simplifying it, I realize, but that's the general idea. I seriously don't think I could possibly convince myself there is no God, no matter how hard I were to try. I'm equally certain that there are probably a lot of atheists who would have just as hard a time convincing themselves that there is a God. I don't see belief or lack of belief as resulting from stubbornness, at least not in a great many cases. I think it's just a very deep-seated conviction on both sides that can't always be explained.
I think it's just a very deep-seated conviction on both sides that can't always be explained.
June tends to think that it is more a matter of what goes into those "deep seated convictions" that either holds the potential for one to be a believer, or a nonbeliever. June tends to believe that it's mostly a systemic dynamic. Much has to do with one's family of origin, where one was raised, family "culture" and so forth. June honestly believes that if every single "staunch Christian" on this forum had been born and raised in Tibet, they would all be Tibetan Buddhists....
June became an "atheist" at the age of five or six. She remembers it vividly, as she was studying her catechism. When she got to the part about who does and who doesn't "go to heaven" that nailed it for her. It made no sense to June's five/six year old mind that in the preceeding chapter she had learned that God created all mankind in his "loving image and likeness" out of that "love" and yet, if you weren't a "Christian" that there was no heaven for you. June had non-Christian family members at the time, and the whole thing struck her as bizarre, and sealed the deal: No God. --Granted, her disbelief evolved from there, but to the mind of a child, well....The likes of June was obviously looking for inclusion as opposed to exclusion.
~As she still continues to do so, even now...As a nonbeliever.
June tends to think that it is more a matter of what goes into those "deep seated convictions" that either holds the potential for one to be a believer, or a nonbeliever. June tends to believe that it's mostly a systemic dynamic. Much has to do with one's family of origin, where one was raised, family "culture" and so forth. June honestly believes that if every single "staunch Christian" on this forum had been born and raised in Tibet, they would all be Tibetan Buddhists....
I'm not talking about the choice of which religion a person embraces, though. I totally agree with you that we are the products of our environment. If I had been born in Iraq, I'd almost certainly be a Muslim today. I'm speaking more generally in terms of the feeling that there is or is not a Higher Power. Of course, as your own story shows, it's obviously at least partly how that Higher Power is introduced to you. But see, that wouldn't explain why my sister and I, my parents' only two children, raised almost identically with respect to exposure to the idea of a God, took two such different paths. I ended up believing in Mormonism, the religion in which I was raised. My sister was an agnostic, leaning towards atheism for about thirty-five years. It's only been within the last couple of years that she has decided that she believes in God after all.
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June became an "atheist" at the age of five or six. She remembers it vividly, as she was studying her catechism. When she got to the part about who does and who doesn't "go to heaven" that nailed it for her. It made no sense to June's five/six year old mind that in the preceeding chapter she had learned that God created all mankind in his "loving image and likeness" out of that "love" and yet, if you weren't a "Christian" that there was no heaven for you. June had non-Christian family members at the time, and the whole thing struck her as bizarre, and sealed the deal: No God. --Granted, her disbelief evolved from there, but to the mind of a child, well....The likes of June was obviously looking for inclusion as opposed to exclusion.
Well clearly, June dear, you weren't raised in the right Christian denomination. Who knows where you'd have ended up if you'd been told that God doesn't work that way at all.
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane My words exactly. I tell people ALL the time that I was at the height of my Christian faith when the wheels fell off. It was not the "hypocrites in the church" nor did the pastor run off with someone else's wife nor did I become angry with god nor did I just want to get buck wild crazy. I just happened to one day come to grips with years of doubt in what I KNEW deep inside was a very weak position. I just could NOT lie to myself anymore - end of story!
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Originally Posted by SandraMoore66
WOW, that's what happened to me too. It was during the darkest days of my life. I reached out to God and mini miracles starting happening in my life. It's been a journey but I'm more at peace then I've ever been and happier.
In some ways that seems not to follow, but it really is a similar sort of thing. Faith or belief can go one way or the other and one can either find more and more that religion doesn't add up or one can go the Faith way and find 'little miracles' that convince one that their faith is true.
Me: "So what makes you think He'll actually give you the money if you've never talked to anyone who got the money?" Mary: "Well, He gives you a little bit before you leave. Maybe you'll get a raise, maybe you'll win a small lotto, maybe you'll just find a twenty-dollar bill on the street." Me: "What's that got to do with Hank?" John: "Hank has certain 'connections.'" Me: "I'm sorry, but this sounds like some sort of bizarre con game." (Google J. Huger Hank's)
But the con is done by the individual in finding patterns in random occurrences and seeing meaning in them. 'Little miracles' have occurred in my life, too, some good, some bad. But I KNOW they are just coincidences.
The happiness thing is neither here nor there. Both theists and atheists say they are happier and more fulfilled as whatever they are.
What it comes down to is whether one values the mental tools we use in every other area of life to find out what's true or one does not and partitions off 'Faith' in another mental area where those human rules don't apply and only 'God's logic' is valid.
I'd say that we all owe it to the brains we were given (by a god or by evolution) to start with no preconceptions and ask what makes sense.
Of course there's the 'Epiphany' thing as Mystic says above. I am convinced that it exists and I don't know whether I have experienced it or not. I've got pretty ecstatic at times, but it's never felt like 'god' to me.
Now Mystic and I disagree on a lot..well no, just one thing...but perhaps we'd agree that the 'Epiphany' or Mystic experience, which I accept as real, is no proof of any one of the religions on offer or of their particular personal god.
'Which god?' would require appraisal and, as I say, the evidence doesn't stack up. The Experience stands alone as a feeling that humans get. We get a lot of feelings and I see no reason to leap to the conclusion that it's a god talking to us.
Sorry for the length but it's a big discussion and quite an interesting one, too.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-18-2010 at 03:34 AM..
Okay, riddle me this: if I'm doing "exactly what he said we would do" then why do you people try to convert me? According to your comment, that would mean you're trying to go against god's will, because he made me an atheist.
No you misunderstand my point, God know what we will do, right or wrong, and He conveys these things to His prophets who then write them down within the Bible. It doesnt mean it is Gods will that we do wrong but it is His will that we be warned so we can avoid such wrong doing. This is what is meant by properly dividing the word. He did not make you an atheist you did.
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Who knows where you'd have ended up if you'd been told that God doesn't work that way at all.
