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to answer bluescityleon's questions, no specific event happened to make me lose my faith, it was just a natural progresssion of realizing that there is more out there. i do not believe in anything religious. for me, catholicism is very unprogressive. they are intolerant of gays/lesbians, do not believe in birth control, have priests molesting little boys. i believe if you are a good person and have morals and values and act ethically, i think that is more important than having a religion. how many people go to church on the weekends because they feel they have to and get nothing out of it? im sure the number is quite high.
I've taken the long road from being raised in a practicing christian family to being an agnostic....dabbled in atheism and now am very spirtual.
To me religion and many if not most religious practices just never made much sense to me. It never gave me any peace of mind...only fear that if I didn't march in lock step with my church....well, let's just say I'd be spending enternity in a terrible place :-)
I put all things religious out of my mind during college and for years after. My wife and I haven't been to church (other than for funnerals, weddings etc..) for probably 12 or 14 years. About 6 years ago I met a disabled gal (by chance ???) who engaged me in a conversation about her past which was very similar to mine regarding her experience with organized religion. She was very spirtual which peaked my interest. I've done a lot of reading and soul searching and now feel so happy to have experienced something that works for me. No dogma, no fear, no man made church rules etc... just listening to my interenal guidance mechanism put there by the universesal power...whatever you want to call it matters not to me.
I've recently discovered Converts' corner (http://richarddawkins.net/convertsCorner - broken link) on Richard Dawkins' website. It's a list of testimonies by believers who became atheists, in part due to Dawkins' books.
I was Episcopalian but "lost my faith" in mid-HS. Not because of any specific event, but because of my need to not obscure possibilities from myself. Although an event that was disturbing did happen:
At church camp a priest liked to play a trick on the kids by throwing cold water over the shower stall on them while they were showering. I knew what would happen so I laid in wait with a bucket, filled with shower water. The disturbing part was I saw him peer over the wall, after he had climbed up on the sink. I'm showering and completely naked, and the dude looked at me. I soaked him and he immediately walked out of the bathroom, as my peers recounted. This was at Camp Cross in Couer de’ Alene, Idaho probably 10 years ago.
However, this had little to do with my atheism. I see the logic and reason of disbelieving unproven claims, and likewise see the error in choosing one faith over another.
.......THIS event altered your church affiliation but what do you believe?
I was a Christian for more than half my life. I had too many questions, felt a lot of the lessons I was being taught seemed frail, and no one could really give me a better answer than "you just have to have faith". That, among a lot of hypocritical behavior within not one, but many churches, and I came to the conclusion that spirituality is divine,while religion is man made and flawed. I've done a lot of searching, and have come to a place where I'm very content and at peace with what I believe. I'm neither agnostic or atheist, but I'm nowhere near Christian or any other religion out there. I'm spiritual. And if Im going to screw up, allow me to do so on my own, and not through misguided interpretations made by mankind over the course of millenia.
Reading the thread about atheists who turned to God got me curious about the opposite. I rejected Christianity many years ago, because it just seemed too mythical to me. I'm wondering how many others share my experience.
I came from a very religious family. Very nice people. They just live in fairy land.
I was raised Christian (baptist). My parents were devout, more like chreasters and my mom was most religious when her very devout sisters were visiting. Our family reunions were filled with everybody sitting out in the front yard playing/singing gospel music, and alot of my extended family are traveling gospel singers. As a teenager I was saved and baptized, and even went away to a private Christian college on a full scholarship.
While in college I started studying other religions, and the more I studied the more I realized that I thought what I was reading was ridiculous. Eventually I settled on the conclusion that there's no proof for a supernatural deity (or deities) and that while religious doctrines are good stories and even interesting reads, there's nothing in them that makes any of them worth more than any other fictional work.
And you guys really believed that this whole universe thing was by chance?? Gracious me
You believe it has a magical source? Gracious me.
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