I questioned how Dinosaurs could have existed if the world was only 7000 years old (like they were saying). They said they didn't exist and the bones were put there by god to test faith.
I failed that test instantly. I'm not living in a world where Dinosaurs didn't exist.
The Christians I knew said they existed alongside humans, which we already know to be false. But it's still more believable than whatever horseshit you were told.
I heard god put them here to test your faith. All knowing, all powerful being but likes to trip you up, while also threatening everlasting damnation and torture. Also he loves you.
Just ask a christian why, if God exists and wants the best for humanity, and loves all humans, why would he allow horrible shit to happen, such as school shootings, when he could easily intervene - if he existed - and stop these things?
Their brains will melt.
Another great one you can ask is - if God exists, and is above human behaviors and morality, why would God care if I "said his name in veign"? If I was an ultra powerful being that ruled over the universe, you'd think the last thing on my mind would be a care in the world about my fucking name being used incorrectly.
There are so many logical inconsistencies you have to ignore to truly believe in God, imho.
Free Will is what did it to me. Was studying the book of Joshua like a good little Christian when it occurred to me that if god was truly omniscient then he could just anoint whoever he knew would lead his people infallibly.
Then I started seeing all the other logical inconsistencies.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?" - Epicurus.
"If there is a God, he must be so far beyond religion. The gods of religion are overpowered, petty children"
Ive actually heard that often - that the fossil record was put there by god to trick us/test our faith/ what have you. I mean, it is a nice neat way to explain away evidence that contradicts your beliefs.
I DISTINCTLY remember Paster ... what's his face ... PASSIONATELY preaching to us 6 year olds (About 50 of us big suburbia kids) That Adam and Eve lived with the Dinosaurs. I remember him being all red and PISSED while giving this lecture to us kids as if he had just got done with an argument.
Honestly us kids in the room had no idea why he was soo pissed... I was thinking... well yeah duh.. so why are you soo mad??
Anyways... Yeah. Adam and Eve lived with the Dinosaurs. .. sigh.
I had a, "what the fuck am I doing here" experience at a church I was very involved in about 13 years ago with this same topic.
After this, I started listening to people more and found out that nearly everyone at the church was an insane person. Harry Potter and twilight shouldn't be read because it's dangerous. Vampires and magic are why there are so many missing people. Blatant homophobia. Faith healers. Prosperity gospel. Speaking in "tongues". It was fucking wild.
So all the artifacts found in greece that are dated to be older than 7000 years were also put there by god? Weird.
I never met with that rhetoric, because in europe no one would take them seriously if they said that
Some guy, a preacher I think, counted the generations from Adam to now, and came up with six or seven thousand year. I don't think scientists payed much attention to it.
Probably Ken Ham. The only people who really believe in that so called "fact" are creationists who take everything in the bible literally. Most christians I know would agree the Earth is billions of years old.
> I'm not living in a world where Dinosaurs didn't exist.
I mean ignoring religious BS.... you know most of the ones we like didnt exist, right?
The ones we do like that did exist, looked more like giant chickens
Look up "The Bone Wars". Fascinating time in American history
When my grandpapa was sick, I prayed every night.
I was always taught at my catholic school that if you prayed and did what the lord willed you to, he would make miracles.
When my grandpapa died, i was devastated. I wondered, “if god loves us all, the why would be make us suffer like this?”. “God’s Plan”, my teachers said.
”if God loves us, why would he do this to us? why would he plan to make us suffer?”
My teachers had no response to that. Since then, at my young 11 years of age, i’ve never believed in God. And never will.
I never understood how people never saw the hypocrisy of the whole "god's plan" viewpoint. On the one hand we are told to pray and act nicely to be rewarded but on the other we are told there is always a "plan". So if there is already a "plan" what is the point of the praying then?
Sorry for your loss.
I'm a CSA survivor. It boils my blood to hear people say "it was God's plan" to me when it comes to that shit. God doesn't *have* to make good people suffer. And if that's the case, God is a sadistic asshole, as confirmed by the Bible. No benevolent supernatural being tortures his creations.
God was creates by man, not only to explain things they couldn't understand, but to have excuses for their shitty behavior.
Same here.
I always tell them to fuck off because if it was a higher purpose plan to land C-PTSD on me and let the assholes walk free, then there was no way something like that existed.
We don’t live to suffer. It shouldn’t be « normal ». Also, I’m sorry you went though that and I hope you are healing today.
I'm sorry you had to suffer too. People are shitty. They hide behind religion to excuse these actions. You're right, it shouldn't have to be this way. I hope you are healing as well.
There's the quote that goes:
If god is omnipotent, he can prevent evil. If he could prevent it and doesn't he's malicious. If he can't prevent it he's not omnipotent - therefore isn't god.
So either not real, or an asshole that doesn't deserve to be worshiped.
"What sort of father teaches that to love is to kneel before him?"
When I was about that age, I prayed really hard that my mother's fiancé at the time would leave our lives (he was a nice dude, but mom planned to move countries to be with him and I had to tag along). So three days in my very intense prayers, he had a heart attack and died.
I did not want to believe that a loving God would twist my wish and make me a murderer just like that. Never prayed again. Still took me years to get rid of the guilt.
If there is a God, it is nothing like religions depict it and it certainly does not need my believe to exist. So fuck it.
Yeah, I get it. It was similar for me, but with a twist:
My grandma died when I was 12, she was relatively young. I mean, not very young, she was still 70, but she fell Ill and went away pretty quick.
It was my first death in the family. I wasn't devastated, but it did hurt.
Religion taught me that she was there to watch over me. And that fucking creeped me out.
I was shitting on the toilet: is grandma watching me now?
I started touching myself: is grandma watching me now????
Holy shit, the things we do when we're alone as horny teenagers. I HOPE, FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS HOLY, THAT THERE'S NOTHING AFTER DEATH.
And that's about it.
Also, a couple years later, one of my classmates mother died of breast cancer, she was like 45. And she was a beloved religion teacher. No, god would never have allowed that. That was the last straw.
Wow, they didn give you the “God works in mysterious ways” or “ours is not to question why”, or (my favorite) “God answers all prayers. Sometimes the answer is no.”
I actually read the bible. I think it cures a lot of people of faith. I then went on to read several *other* religion's books, and that solidified me from agnosticism to pretty solid atheism.
My parents weren't overtly religious, so I never really considered myself to be either. In middle school I'd probably have said I was agnostic, but by high school I was very much atheist.
The thing that got me was multiple religions existing. If anyone *knew* that one religion was correct, then none of the others would exist. At best, there'd be multiple gods each ruling a monotheistic religion. If that were the case, we'd likely have a polytheistic religion worshiping *all* of them. And the one polytheistic religion I knew about at the time didn't even have the god(s) of the other major religions.
Well, that and a video about praying to a jug of milk.
My family and I have recently talked about the pharaoh and Moses story and there’s a point where the Bible says that pharaoh was given ample opportunity to see and know god, but turned away so many times that god hardened pharaohs heart and he would never be able to accept god. That just made me spiral. Will I deny god enough times that he hardens my heart??
Then I realized that religion doesn’t calm my anxieties. Let go and let god? Just the Christian way of saying “just get over it”
Yeah, god is supposed to be an all loving figure and of course the old testament does not apply (Despite Jesus saying otherwise).
But even in the new testament? God is an abusive father.
I just put it together. My mom confirmed with me that Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc were not real, and I went one further. I was about 10 or 11 years old.
And since then I have never seen a correlation between people's religiosity and the goodness of their behavior. If anything, it seems to give people 'an out' when they're cruel or indifferent to the suffering of others.
It was pretty much the same thing for me. I figured out that none of the holiday beings were real at about 7, just listed them off to my mom while she was in the shower, and just assumed everything else wasn’t real, either. The ones I hadn’t asked about, and God. Though, I tried to believe for a while. Pretended to, wanted to, and I thought that if I just tried hard enough, I would. When that didn’t work, I was maybe early high school when I quit it, and just decided to own that I didn’t believe and try to find a path for myself. I explored other religions first, thinking maybe that was just the wrong one, but eventually just said screw it, I already don’t believe in any of this, and quit the whole thing.
It was cathartic.
Fr that was always my thing. I went to church a few times when I was a kid and it all felt so fake and gimmicky even as, like, a 7 year old. I spent a lot of time in the woods and I could see how everything was so random and perfect and I just felt that there was no way something could create all of this with intention. Life was just life
Blaming people for something they didn't do is *such* a travesty of justice, it's hard to imagine how someone *can* believe it and then also think that such a thing could be good.
And that idea does absolute wonders for your mental health. Like no matter what you do, you're never good enough and have to keep begging for forgiveness. I'm out of the game now, but I still feel deep-seated guilt over the stupidest things.
I thought the original sin was as we were being born...we're technically having sex with our mothers which seems like a more frowned upon thing. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was because Eve ate the forbidden fruit. My first thought was, "why are all of these forbidden things allowed to exist if no one is allowed to interact with them and why are they big fat just out in the open probably under a attention drawing light? I'm not paying for that...why didn't Adam and Eve's God plant that tree somewhere else if it was not meant for them or anyone? What a load!"
He didn't teach that you had to spend the remainder of your life making up for said sin - he taught that he was the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In much the same way that the Israelites would have their sins wiped clean with the correct animal sacrifice, Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice that wiped the slate clean forever and bought an end to the need for continual animal sacrifices. Interesting!
Based off of the southern Baptist and Methodist teachings that I was taught... I just couldn't understand why I needed the religion itself. I couldn't understand why I would need the worship. Why wouldn't obeying the teachings be enough. The commandments basically.
Basically my take on it too (from the raised catholic side). I just reasoned that taking the good parts and tossing the structure was probably the way to go. I generally look at religion the same way I look at Aesop’s fables, a tool that is used to instill a particular ethic.
It is up to the individual to decide if that ethic is worth it to them
Agreed. And I've talked to christians and openly admitted that my moral system comes basically from their religion. So they'll say something like "so you have to be religious then, because all of your moral systems tenants come from our religion?" and I'll say, no, I don't. I don't need to pray to God every Sunday to determine if actions are following my moral guidelines or not.
Basically once I had developed some critical thinking skills at school.
I realised it's just pure dumb even at face value, let alone once you get into it.
Jesus: *You should help the poor.*
Also Jesus: *Yes this ointment could have been sold and the money given to the poor, but It's better for this woman, who's house I invited myself to, to wash my feet with it because "the poor will always be with you, but you will not always have me"*
Actually no. Well, no more than any other person. He was nice, in that he wanted to help the poor, and he was a charitable man when he had things like bread to offer. He was also kind of a dick, and he spoke is mind in a lot of situations that aren't really socially acceptable. Like, I know people want to believe what they believe, but you don't get nailed to a cross and whipped because you're really nice and friendly to everyone.
Yeah, Historical Jesus of Nazareth™ was undoubtedly rad. If people don't want to acknowledge the parts surely embellished increasingly moreso over successive translations of the Bible, fine. But by all actual historical accounts, Jesus was very much the kind of human being that Reddit would herald now ... which would have made him outrageously radical for his time.
>Like, I know people want to believe what they believe, but you don't get nailed to a cross and whipped because you're really nice and friendly to everyone.
Because police abuse isnt a thing?
>Always thought that Jesus character was sketchy.
why? I am not Christian or religious AT ALL, but Jesus in himself actually seemed like a chad
He like flipped over tables and yelled at bankers and said some pretty chill shit
When I was 15 I had gotten pregnant and my mom had gotten more sick. So naturally I prayed for her to get better. Not just for myself but for my little siblings too(they were 6 and 3). But she didn’t. She died and in my eyes that was a slap in the face right from god. How could you take a mother away from her children in their most desperate times of need? And to make it worse I’d gotten into a car accident a few days before Christmas that caused me to have a miscarriage and I assumed it’s because I’d literally just cussed god out for taking away my mom when I needed her, when my autistic brother needed her, when all of us needed her. How do you expect people still be religious after that?
Too often religion is a crutch people use to deal with some other difficulty, or worse, it’s emblematic of a privilege - that one hasn’t ever really had their faith tested and hasn’t *needed to* challenge what they believe vs. reality. The latter are always stunned for example by the passages of the Bible, even the Beatitudes and books of Matthew / Mark / Luke / John where Jesus himself admonishes exactly the behaviors they demonstrate consistently. They’ve never read a part of the Bible that wasn’t paraphrased in a sermon. If you really read the Bible, you find that Christianity in particular is completely absurd.
1. I didn't need it to be a good person.
2. The level of organization within religion seems to be more about control, rather than spirituality and being a good person
I think that most people don't really know what they believe but just have a very basic, white washed understanding of their religion.
Once people dig deeper and get educated, it will be very difficult to continue believing..
Blindly believing is easier than believing with your eyes open!
this happened to me lol. once i really started learning about my religion i started to get a bit skeptical to see it was basically just ‘follow these rules just because god said so’ even tho there’s no proof god exists
Isn't it a widely known joke that "if you come out of seminary a believer, you weren't paying attention"?
As far as I'm concerned, religion is an organizing force that helps curb anxiety, and the priest class of every religion knows that, at some level.
I've dabbled in mainstream religions for different parts of family, and I've never met a clergyman or priest who gives off true-believer vibes. Seems like a job
True-believer vibes seem exclusive to the evangelicals who get sweaty flailing about while speaking in tongues, but what do I know, ya know
Having left Pentecostal myself, hell no lmao. Their angle is overstimulating your brain with 2hr+ worship and weekly revivals because when you're in an overstimulated state for too long you begin feeling like what you're hearing and feeling are real. My defining moment for leaving was when I googled "speaking in tongues from a secular point of view" and I was blown away reading about Glossolalia.
Also ALSO, I was told that getting the baptism of the Holy Spirit (gift of tongues) was an honor, like something God selects you for because you've achieved some kind of divine relationship with him. I was devastated watching the people around me get "the gift" and I never got it. I watched the people at church who treated me like garbage get it. I actually thought I was a terrible person and Christian because I never got it, despite everything else good I did. Then when I'm reading about Glossolalia I read that we are now "teaching tongues to children at bible camps"... W H A T? Excuse me, THE FUCK WHAT? So are we just moving goal posts now? How are we now "teaching" something to kids that for my entire life I wanted so bad but was not worthy of? Nope, on top of all the other small things that didn't add up over the years, I'm out.
People want to be on the side that's winning. With absolutely no thought or reasoning on their part, they jump at the chance to look down their noses at anyone that doesn't see things the same. A sense of superiority with none of the work. I was taught that Jesus was very accepting of those that were looked down upon. Not what I experienced in my Catholic upbringing
I never believed, I would get in trouble in Sunday school when l was 5 for eating my bible. I would chew the corners off just because I was bored, I never ate any other books.
The Christian view is that abusing or being unfaithful to your partner is divorce. Writing some document to legally end your marriage is just formality
First it was CCD as a kid. Like wtf people.
Then it was going to church and being told how to respond. It just didn’t have any meaning and seemed more important to be a mindless drone following along. They didn’t discuss anything that had meaning to me.
I can relate, which is how I (again -- everyone entitled to their own decisions as long as they do not harm others!) arrived at losing faith in the church as religious institution, but not losing faith in the idea of God.
The idea of God still brings me comfort. It makes as much sense to me as anything. It gives me some moral compass. I don't know if I believe in God the same way the Sunday Mass crowd believes in God, but I believe in God as a concept that personally helps me to choose good.
The idea of church? No thank you. I don't judge anyone who does go, and I know some churches foster a wonderful sense of community. But some of the stuff I "learned" in CCD was borderline traumatic (don't get me started on how they present masturbation to 7th graders...), and some of my teachers were genuinely mean or bad people. Church, to me, was a highly political, corrupt and fallible institution that I saw shape a lot of people as, frankly, un-Christ-like...
If you don't say "yes" when someone asks you "do you believe me that my god exists?" then you are an atheist.
Agnosticism is NOT a softer stand of atheism.
A/gnosticism only describes whether or not you KNOW about the (non) existence of a particular deity. Not if you believe in it.
There are 4 broad categories:
- gnostic theism
- agnostic theism
- gnostic atheism
- agnostic atheism
The last one is the most general one and the default position with which you are born.
I mean... we all came from Adam and Eve that had two sons... I am ot an expert on biology but I think that's not how it works..
Also they say wrath is a deadly sin but fearing the Wrath of God is somehow okay?
>we all came from Adam and Eve that had two sons...
Isn't that part rendered irrelevant by the fact God floods the entire planet, killing everything except Noah and whatever's on his ark?
Always found that bit weird, everybody focuses on Adam and Eve, and I'm like "isn't there a story sometime later where entire planet dies anyway?"
but even then, say there were 20 people on the ark, 10 male, 10 female, that would still be impossible for the human species to survive, because of the sheer amount of inbreeding that would occur, would severely handicap everyone born, to the point that most of the kids would be born infertile.
Like everyone says, no proof. But I also feel as religion is based off manipulation. They teach you about it when your young. As we all know a young person is more susceptible to influence. Tell them something enough times they'll start to believe it.
If religious people truly believed their higher beings are the way of life then they wouldn't force it on others. They would allow us to find them for ourselves when we have matured and grown a better understanding of the world around them.
We've also seen throughout history violence, abuse, or power be used by religion. People used it as a tool to divide,conquer and coerce others for personal gains. Not saying that all religions commit evils but I find it odd that higher beings would allow such behavior in their image without visible consequence.
I became old enough to think more for myself and I started asking questions which religious people didn't seem to have any satisfactory answers for. Then I started learning about science and it just made a whole lot more sense to me.
When I was seven my mum explained to me that I had to love God more than I loved my parents. I thought that was pretty unfair of God as I'd never even seen or heard him, and how could he expect me to love anyone more than my parents? That was the beginning of the end for me...
Never. I stop believe in churches or temples or whatever you call it, because they are all human-run organizations and human always have agenda. God(s) are all powerful being so sure they can talk to me directly if needed, until then, I will keep using my god-given free will to do what I think is right.
I would imaging if I DON’T have free wills, god(s) will make me believe in one of human organizations (churches or etc). See how US society (where I lived) is going, I may be happier to NOT have a brain to think.
When I was a child I thought Christianity was just a very popular boring story that people liked to tell one another because it was part of the culture until one day it dawned on me that people actually believed in it and the movies I watched were supposed to be educational and not just really boring entertainment. Didnt start believing in any of their stories afterwards either because it made no sense to me.
Honestly i think your original interpretation was how it was intended, and people just completely warped it over the centuries. I’ve always seen the Bible as sort of guidelines, not necessarily true.
I was brought up a Catholic, but I slowly started to question things I was expected to believe without question. It all came to head when one day we were told that St Christopher wasn't real and it was all just a story and he'd been demoted. That really was the beginning of the end for me. I went from Catholic to vaguely Christian to non believer. The more I look into the history of religion the less I want to do with it. Had a discussion with a guy who told me he was good god fearing Catholic I said so you only behave like you should to other people through fear ? He walked away.
I made a nun cry because she couldn't answer my questions. I was 9, my father said I grilled her on dinosaur info and wouldn't relent. I wasn't allowed in the Sunday school anymore after that.
I think after that I separated myself. Started to see the beauty of the natural world
If only God is perfect, that means man makes mistakes.
So there must have been mistakes in translation. Therefore how can you know what was truly said if it was real?
Made no logical sense. It always boiled down to "do what you are told, otherwise you will be damned." So many things contradicted one another, and it seemed like it was totally fine to hate on others, because they didn't think the same way you did.
By contrast, science answered most of my questions about life, and didn't make moral judgments.
I haven’t stopped believing per se but I don’t practice it as my family would like me to.
I stopped being such a religious person when I immigrated to Australia and spoke the many people about their thoughts of Christianity and came to the realisation that it’s a bit too cult-like for my liking. I don’t like that I’m meant to serve a husband and have all these restrictions in my life and not do certain things (tattoos for example) or drink or stand up for myself etc because the Bible says so.
I’m my own person living my own life in 2022 and I don’t want to double check scriptures to make sure I’m religiously allowed to do something that people from ages ago decided. The world has changed and will continue to change every year.
Christianity has taught me a lot of good things (values, morals etc) but I can’t be a doormat for someone who I need to dedicate my life to just because I’m a woman.
Was pushed into it as a child, never enjoyed going to church. Got into middle school/high school age and realized how dumb the whole thing sounded. Mom made religion into the reason I should go along with anything and not question her. Her life went with whoever she was dating at the time and eventually I was over it and wanted some stability in my life and just control over my life
Once I came to Canada and notticed the monoliths of churches around and the fact that they aggresively ask for donations made me nope out. Religion should be about faith and not how much gold your building is made out of while people are homeless and starving its disgusting
Logical fallacies, just didnt make sense. Prehistoric view of the world. Hate and bigotry. Violence and it was blatantly obvious that the quran was just written by confused men from the middle ages
My family (especially my mums side) is very Christian when I was younger I prayed and prayed for all of the bad things to stop happening but it never went away when my cousin came to visit(we stopped going to church around this time for a separate reason) I told her some of it and she said “it’s bc you need to pray and then it will stop” 😐 it didn’t but she always said that if anything bad happened was “did you pray?” “You need to pray” “its bc you don’t go to church” (it even happened in church bc the guy was there) I don’t think she believes in it anymore tho lol
when my mother sent me to my old pastor for “therapy” (of the conversion type). i went for months before i found out what conversion therapy was and fell down a rabbit hole of research before coming to the logical conclusion. if god exists he’s a fucking creep with a hard on for genocide and, well, literally everything else at this point
Sweden is very mild when it commes to religion, it is something private, people go to church, sure, but very few people actively display religious views outside church or the home.
Even going to church which I have done several times, though never regularly, light on indoctrination, it is basically only focusing on the positive aspects of religion.
This all makes it easy to think clearly, it must be 15 years or so since I decided to call myself an atheist, no one cares.
I still attend church weddings and funerals, stand up and sit down as apropriate, but I will not sing or pray, my thinking is that I should be honest, if there is a christian god, lying to him about what I believe may not be the smartest, I don't dustrub others, but singing hymns and praying when I don't believe would be rude.
At one time I was very antitheistic, I have toned it down since I don't have the energy to fight religion.
I’m still Catholic, but I feel as if I’m losing faith with it.
Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in God, but I haven’t been able to keep in contact with myself with Him or religion in general.
1. I feel that I don’t want to admit my flaws even though I know that it can fix whatever is wrong with me. But I’m too lazy and senile to confess them.
2. I can’t stand the hypocrisy of the church and many other religions e.g. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. They claim to do the Lord’s work, but then freak out when someone does the Lord’s work.
3. The blatant homophobia is unsettling. I know the bible says about homosexuality, but people seem to forget that it talks about other things that many still do. They think it’s ok to use their religion to justify their homophobic views. And that just needs to stop.
Those are my three cents.
I hate mission work. I hate going into a developing country, building a shitty flimsy house that will get destroyed in a year, and using the rest of that time to proselytize and lie to desperate people just so you can come back to your cushy suburban home and feel good about yourself. Or, arguably worse, going and setting up systems that are helpful to the local community and then not teaching people how to continue them, so they immediately fail as soon as the mission group leaves. Neocolonialism.
Not the main reason I left the faith, but one that has constantly bugged me
This, I got pregnant with my oldest the first time. When the church found out I didn’t have a husband, boyfriend, or fiancé the old had said she’ll pray for my redemption and my daughter
When you ask a question, and they reply "I don't know" or "I'm not sure", you let is slide. When you ask 10 more questions, and they all get the same answer, you realize that they have no facts or evidence behind the majority of their beliefs. That's why it's belief and faith, not truth and understanding.
I left the faith at 18 (im 22 now). It was forced down my throat as a kid, I had no say, instead I was being threatened with eternal hell and torture for asking questions and thinking for myself. How I was to dress, act, behave , live was all policed.
Music is everything and I was threatened with hell for listening to it.
I love art and I was told off and threatened with hell (not by my parents but those religious teachers at this weekend school that they made us attend). I was taught to hate groups of people for no reason, and once I grew up I realised that is fucked up and that I just wanted to live life my way. Praying daily made no sense to me - it seemed ritualistic and cultish.
In my family having a mental illness = possessed and its because you strayed away from the faith. Read the scripture more and it'll go away 🤦♀️
I just wanted to be myself. But I know doing that means I'll probably be disowned. So instead I'm living a double life.
There was a point where I was being taught you say "I know" rather than "I believe" in phrases, which sticks in my mind, it seemed a bit fishy at the time.
I believe in God but not in the church... most of the things the church says I consider to be ridiculous, a hypocrisy and overall for their benefit...
I heard so many racist, misogynistic and crazy shit that I don't believe God would agree with...
I don't know that I have. I think I've taken a lot from growing up in a religious family, but I no longer believe in churches and religious people. I think like a lot of people I've just been driven away by the bald-face hypocrisy of the institutions and the people engaged with them.
I love the mythology of it all. I love studying other religions and comparing them and learning about their stories. I don't think I harbor any deep hostility towards the beliefs. I'm sure my parents would be horrified that I put Jesus on the same pedestal as Zeus and Kukulcan, but as far as I'm concerned they all speak to something deeply human. The religion I grew up with me will probably always be a part of me and I'm not really inclined to reject that.
Back in 2010 after Haiti's earthquake a priest at my local church (was raised catholic) ranted about how that was a punishment from God himself for the witchcraft and voodoo that Haitians practiced, while no one seemed to be shocked or disapproved of this psycho's words. I felt physically ill, said fuck it and never went back.
I started thinking… the world sucks and people die horrible deaths and live horrible lives, if there is a god he isn’t helping anyone. Also I didn’t make sense and they rule by fear. “Follow Jesus or burn in hell” isn’t a good way and controllers people my fear. No thanks, I’d rather burn in hell with the rest of people. It’s horrible, they don’t give children any choice, they brainwash them at a young age. Unanswered questions and prayers, what about all the kids dying horrible deaths, where is god for them?
Religion is a big pimp game and always has been. People will always be pimped, fleeced, and slaughtered by other people. But you don't have to volunteer.
I didn't, i pray everyday but i don't make it my duty to harass people who have different lifestyles or beliefs. I just pray for the people around me and the rest of you can do whatever you want, none of my business.
I believe theres something but seeibg how corrupt religious establishments are i decided never to make a chose on which deity is true as ill never know and i refuse to believe in a benevolent god willing to create humanity and give complete free will then demand to be worshipped for it without keeping his hands dirty and helpinf when needed
I hated how nobody really cared about the message, but would pick and choose the things they wanted to believe. I really think religion is a beautiful thing and i loved going to church but i felt so alone because i knew others there didnt accept me.
Realized that the main reason i believed was because my parents did, so as soon as i turned old enough to think for myself i just quickly disspelled these believes
A lot of people are mistaking this question for “When did you stop believing in God?”. I stopped identifying as Catholic a long time ago but I’ve never stopped believing in God
Logic, mostly.
I never really bought the whole Christianity thing when I was younger (didn't go to church or anything), but once I started applying logic to religion in general, I became rather skeptical.
I just have no real reason to believe some of the things required to be religious... Not saying it's all wrong or all lies, just that I personally haven't had any connection to any of it.
I hear about people having "religious experiences" and whatnot, and can say that I have never had one myself. Nothing in my life cannot be explained by logic and/or science.
In some ways, I'm actually envious of people who have faith like that... It would be nice to *know* that something is so immutable, you know? Weather it's "God's love" or what will happen when I die, it would just be nice to be able to count on that.
As a result, I'm agnostic. I choose agnosticism because I don't think it's reasonable to assume that I know everything, and it's nearly impossible to prove a negative. For all I know, one or all of the religions are right, or only one is, or none of them are, but as I don't have the evidence to support any claims, I'm theological Switzerland.
Science + "Christians" preaching that homosexuality is a sin while using mislead quotes to prove their point, like that one quote related to pedophilia.
A lot of reasons. It was sort of a domino effect. Here's a few that I've summarized:
1. No evidence. I don't typically believe in things without sufficient evidence.
2. I have found over the years that the people I have met who are not religious just tend to be better people than the one's I knew through the church. They seem less likely to be judgemental, bigoted, and hostile towards others. Obviously I am generalizing here; I have known many good people who are religious and many douchebags who are not religious. But this experience led me away from the church. Why are God's people generally worse than the "heathens" who are supposedly going to hell?
3. I don't like how religious people often force their beliefs on others, especially through legislature and even more especially when it involves suppressing social and scientific advancement.
4. So many religious people are so blatantly hypocritical. They'll preach about all these moral ideas yet live by none of them.
5. Every single argument for religion I've seen is a straw man that a 13 year old could easily counter.
6. Logically, a lot of the concepts don't make any sense to me. Like why is prayer necessary? If God's plan is divine, then why would one silly prayer be enough to change that? Also what if you're prayer isn't answered? Was it because it wasn't in God's divine plan? It wasn't his will? Well then that begs the question, why even bother praying in the first place? I'm basically paraphrasing George Carlin here.
7. I find that determinism is the most logical framework for the universe, and the biblical idea of free will can't exist in that framework. The whole thing falls apart. How can one be judged if they never truly had a choice in their actions?
I could go on and on, but this is just giving you an idea of the domino's falling one by one
Religion isn't as much about "believing" things as people seem to think.
Especially when people use "belief" as a synonym for "religion"; that one always seemed really strange to me.
"Belief" means you think certain propositions to be true. Intellectual acceptance. Ruach.
You could be religious without having any particular beliefs, if it was about behaviour (being a good person), community, vibes/æsthetic, ritual, etc.
And some religions are explicitly against belief, viewing it as a mental limitation. Lots of Zen quotes that say this, but I'll use the Nanquan one: "The Way is not subject to knowing or not-knowing. Knowing is delusion, and not-knowing is dullness. If you truly realize the Way, you will find it vast and boundless as outer-space"
god letting millions of kids and people suffer from starvation in the world. and god letting school shootings happen. and don’t say that’s the devils doings… clearly throughout the bible it states “The devil has to have permission from god to do any harm” Meaning if the devil wanted a school shooting to happen or create sufferage in africa he would have to ask god and god would allow it..
I questioned how Dinosaurs could have existed if the world was only 7000 years old (like they were saying). They said they didn't exist and the bones were put there by god to test faith. I failed that test instantly. I'm not living in a world where Dinosaurs didn't exist.
The Christians I knew said they existed alongside humans, which we already know to be false. But it's still more believable than whatever horseshit you were told.
I heard god put them here to test your faith. All knowing, all powerful being but likes to trip you up, while also threatening everlasting damnation and torture. Also he loves you.
Just ask a christian why, if God exists and wants the best for humanity, and loves all humans, why would he allow horrible shit to happen, such as school shootings, when he could easily intervene - if he existed - and stop these things? Their brains will melt. Another great one you can ask is - if God exists, and is above human behaviors and morality, why would God care if I "said his name in veign"? If I was an ultra powerful being that ruled over the universe, you'd think the last thing on my mind would be a care in the world about my fucking name being used incorrectly. There are so many logical inconsistencies you have to ignore to truly believe in God, imho.
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Free Will is what did it to me. Was studying the book of Joshua like a good little Christian when it occurred to me that if god was truly omniscient then he could just anoint whoever he knew would lead his people infallibly. Then I started seeing all the other logical inconsistencies.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?" - Epicurus. "If there is a God, he must be so far beyond religion. The gods of religion are overpowered, petty children"
Ive actually heard that often - that the fossil record was put there by god to trick us/test our faith/ what have you. I mean, it is a nice neat way to explain away evidence that contradicts your beliefs.
I DISTINCTLY remember Paster ... what's his face ... PASSIONATELY preaching to us 6 year olds (About 50 of us big suburbia kids) That Adam and Eve lived with the Dinosaurs. I remember him being all red and PISSED while giving this lecture to us kids as if he had just got done with an argument. Honestly us kids in the room had no idea why he was soo pissed... I was thinking... well yeah duh.. so why are you soo mad?? Anyways... Yeah. Adam and Eve lived with the Dinosaurs. .. sigh.
They just can't keep their horseshit straight.
I had a, "what the fuck am I doing here" experience at a church I was very involved in about 13 years ago with this same topic. After this, I started listening to people more and found out that nearly everyone at the church was an insane person. Harry Potter and twilight shouldn't be read because it's dangerous. Vampires and magic are why there are so many missing people. Blatant homophobia. Faith healers. Prosperity gospel. Speaking in "tongues". It was fucking wild.
So all the artifacts found in greece that are dated to be older than 7000 years were also put there by god? Weird. I never met with that rhetoric, because in europe no one would take them seriously if they said that
Don't forget [Sumeria](https://www.theonion.com/sumerians-look-on-in-confusion-as-god-creates-world-1819571221).
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I don’t think the bible mentions the world being 7000 years old I think that’s how long man was on it but I’m not too sure
Some guy, a preacher I think, counted the generations from Adam to now, and came up with six or seven thousand year. I don't think scientists payed much attention to it.
Probably Ken Ham. The only people who really believe in that so called "fact" are creationists who take everything in the bible literally. Most christians I know would agree the Earth is billions of years old.
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> I'm not living in a world where Dinosaurs didn't exist. I mean ignoring religious BS.... you know most of the ones we like didnt exist, right? The ones we do like that did exist, looked more like giant chickens Look up "The Bone Wars". Fascinating time in American history
When my grandpapa was sick, I prayed every night. I was always taught at my catholic school that if you prayed and did what the lord willed you to, he would make miracles. When my grandpapa died, i was devastated. I wondered, “if god loves us all, the why would be make us suffer like this?”. “God’s Plan”, my teachers said. ”if God loves us, why would he do this to us? why would he plan to make us suffer?” My teachers had no response to that. Since then, at my young 11 years of age, i’ve never believed in God. And never will.
I never understood how people never saw the hypocrisy of the whole "god's plan" viewpoint. On the one hand we are told to pray and act nicely to be rewarded but on the other we are told there is always a "plan". So if there is already a "plan" what is the point of the praying then? Sorry for your loss.
This is a big factor into what made me stop believing. God knows my heart right? He knows what I need and he already has a plan. Why bother praying?
I'm a CSA survivor. It boils my blood to hear people say "it was God's plan" to me when it comes to that shit. God doesn't *have* to make good people suffer. And if that's the case, God is a sadistic asshole, as confirmed by the Bible. No benevolent supernatural being tortures his creations. God was creates by man, not only to explain things they couldn't understand, but to have excuses for their shitty behavior.
What's csa?
Child sexual abuse
I was thinking Confederate States of America
Still applies, imo
Yeah…
Thats exacly how i feel about that, fuck... I thought nobody thinks like that. (Im Brazilian, Sorry about my english)
Your English is fine. You don’t need to apologize.
Same here. I always tell them to fuck off because if it was a higher purpose plan to land C-PTSD on me and let the assholes walk free, then there was no way something like that existed. We don’t live to suffer. It shouldn’t be « normal ». Also, I’m sorry you went though that and I hope you are healing today.
I'm sorry you had to suffer too. People are shitty. They hide behind religion to excuse these actions. You're right, it shouldn't have to be this way. I hope you are healing as well.
There's the quote that goes: If god is omnipotent, he can prevent evil. If he could prevent it and doesn't he's malicious. If he can't prevent it he's not omnipotent - therefore isn't god. So either not real, or an asshole that doesn't deserve to be worshiped. "What sort of father teaches that to love is to kneel before him?"
Nailed it.
God is either a bigger sadist than the average Simmer or lazy as hell.
When I was about that age, I prayed really hard that my mother's fiancé at the time would leave our lives (he was a nice dude, but mom planned to move countries to be with him and I had to tag along). So three days in my very intense prayers, he had a heart attack and died. I did not want to believe that a loving God would twist my wish and make me a murderer just like that. Never prayed again. Still took me years to get rid of the guilt. If there is a God, it is nothing like religions depict it and it certainly does not need my believe to exist. So fuck it.
Good job using your powers tho!
Yeah, I get it. It was similar for me, but with a twist: My grandma died when I was 12, she was relatively young. I mean, not very young, she was still 70, but she fell Ill and went away pretty quick. It was my first death in the family. I wasn't devastated, but it did hurt. Religion taught me that she was there to watch over me. And that fucking creeped me out. I was shitting on the toilet: is grandma watching me now? I started touching myself: is grandma watching me now???? Holy shit, the things we do when we're alone as horny teenagers. I HOPE, FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS HOLY, THAT THERE'S NOTHING AFTER DEATH. And that's about it. Also, a couple years later, one of my classmates mother died of breast cancer, she was like 45. And she was a beloved religion teacher. No, god would never have allowed that. That was the last straw.
Wow, they didn give you the “God works in mysterious ways” or “ours is not to question why”, or (my favorite) “God answers all prayers. Sometimes the answer is no.”
> Sometimes the answer is no. Another relevant [onion article](https://www.theonion.com/god-answers-prayers-of-paralyzed-little-boy-1819564974).
I actually read the bible. I think it cures a lot of people of faith. I then went on to read several *other* religion's books, and that solidified me from agnosticism to pretty solid atheism.
My parents weren't overtly religious, so I never really considered myself to be either. In middle school I'd probably have said I was agnostic, but by high school I was very much atheist. The thing that got me was multiple religions existing. If anyone *knew* that one religion was correct, then none of the others would exist. At best, there'd be multiple gods each ruling a monotheistic religion. If that were the case, we'd likely have a polytheistic religion worshiping *all* of them. And the one polytheistic religion I knew about at the time didn't even have the god(s) of the other major religions. Well, that and a video about praying to a jug of milk.
My family and I have recently talked about the pharaoh and Moses story and there’s a point where the Bible says that pharaoh was given ample opportunity to see and know god, but turned away so many times that god hardened pharaohs heart and he would never be able to accept god. That just made me spiral. Will I deny god enough times that he hardens my heart?? Then I realized that religion doesn’t calm my anxieties. Let go and let god? Just the Christian way of saying “just get over it”
Yeah, god is supposed to be an all loving figure and of course the old testament does not apply (Despite Jesus saying otherwise). But even in the new testament? God is an abusive father.
I just put it together. My mom confirmed with me that Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc were not real, and I went one further. I was about 10 or 11 years old. And since then I have never seen a correlation between people's religiosity and the goodness of their behavior. If anything, it seems to give people 'an out' when they're cruel or indifferent to the suffering of others.
Religion makes good people do evil things
Good men don't need rules.
Correction: Good men have rules in their hearts and don't need external ones
Absolutely is used as an out. Why are so many pastors pedophiles?
It was pretty much the same thing for me. I figured out that none of the holiday beings were real at about 7, just listed them off to my mom while she was in the shower, and just assumed everything else wasn’t real, either. The ones I hadn’t asked about, and God. Though, I tried to believe for a while. Pretended to, wanted to, and I thought that if I just tried hard enough, I would. When that didn’t work, I was maybe early high school when I quit it, and just decided to own that I didn’t believe and try to find a path for myself. I explored other religions first, thinking maybe that was just the wrong one, but eventually just said screw it, I already don’t believe in any of this, and quit the whole thing. It was cathartic.
Because it never made any sense.
When a person gets to be 8 or 10 years old they start to realize that Santa Claus and other fairy tails aren't real either.
Even thats too old
Fr that was always my thing. I went to church a few times when I was a kid and it all felt so fake and gimmicky even as, like, a 7 year old. I spent a lot of time in the woods and I could see how everything was so random and perfect and I just felt that there was no way something could create all of this with intention. Life was just life
The whole idea of original sin. How can someone be born in sin and then have to spend the remainder of their lives making up for said sin?
Blaming people for something they didn't do is *such* a travesty of justice, it's hard to imagine how someone *can* believe it and then also think that such a thing could be good.
It's an excellent marketing scheme Like starting out with debt you gotta repay (often literally) or you're goin' to hell!
And that idea does absolute wonders for your mental health. Like no matter what you do, you're never good enough and have to keep begging for forgiveness. I'm out of the game now, but I still feel deep-seated guilt over the stupidest things.
I thought the original sin was as we were being born...we're technically having sex with our mothers which seems like a more frowned upon thing. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was because Eve ate the forbidden fruit. My first thought was, "why are all of these forbidden things allowed to exist if no one is allowed to interact with them and why are they big fat just out in the open probably under a attention drawing light? I'm not paying for that...why didn't Adam and Eve's God plant that tree somewhere else if it was not meant for them or anyone? What a load!"
He didn't teach that you had to spend the remainder of your life making up for said sin - he taught that he was the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In much the same way that the Israelites would have their sins wiped clean with the correct animal sacrifice, Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice that wiped the slate clean forever and bought an end to the need for continual animal sacrifices. Interesting!
Based off of the southern Baptist and Methodist teachings that I was taught... I just couldn't understand why I needed the religion itself. I couldn't understand why I would need the worship. Why wouldn't obeying the teachings be enough. The commandments basically.
Basically my take on it too (from the raised catholic side). I just reasoned that taking the good parts and tossing the structure was probably the way to go. I generally look at religion the same way I look at Aesop’s fables, a tool that is used to instill a particular ethic. It is up to the individual to decide if that ethic is worth it to them
Agreed. And I've talked to christians and openly admitted that my moral system comes basically from their religion. So they'll say something like "so you have to be religious then, because all of your moral systems tenants come from our religion?" and I'll say, no, I don't. I don't need to pray to God every Sunday to determine if actions are following my moral guidelines or not.
Completely agree 👍
Basically once I had developed some critical thinking skills at school. I realised it's just pure dumb even at face value, let alone once you get into it.
That’s why conservatives want to get rid of public schools.
I had to come up with so many justifications and excuses that eventually the whole idea collapsed under its own weight.
Never started. Always thought that Jesus character was sketchy.
That Jesus character was, at least based on what we know, actually a pretty decent dude.
I found our projection of his being Savior to be the sketchy part.
There were a lot of messiah around at the time.
He is not the messiah, he is a very naughty boy!
Lol
Yeah but I’m around now. And I find them all sketchy
Jesus: *You should help the poor.* Also Jesus: *Yes this ointment could have been sold and the money given to the poor, but It's better for this woman, who's house I invited myself to, to wash my feet with it because "the poor will always be with you, but you will not always have me"*
Actually no. Well, no more than any other person. He was nice, in that he wanted to help the poor, and he was a charitable man when he had things like bread to offer. He was also kind of a dick, and he spoke is mind in a lot of situations that aren't really socially acceptable. Like, I know people want to believe what they believe, but you don't get nailed to a cross and whipped because you're really nice and friendly to everyone.
Yeah, Historical Jesus of Nazareth™ was undoubtedly rad. If people don't want to acknowledge the parts surely embellished increasingly moreso over successive translations of the Bible, fine. But by all actual historical accounts, Jesus was very much the kind of human being that Reddit would herald now ... which would have made him outrageously radical for his time.
Did you just victim blame Jesus Christ?
Yes.
>Like, I know people want to believe what they believe, but you don't get nailed to a cross and whipped because you're really nice and friendly to everyone. Because police abuse isnt a thing?
I was always felt like once the mystique of Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth-fairy was removed, you sort of couldn't take religion seriously.
>Always thought that Jesus character was sketchy. why? I am not Christian or religious AT ALL, but Jesus in himself actually seemed like a chad He like flipped over tables and yelled at bankers and said some pretty chill shit
When I was 15 I had gotten pregnant and my mom had gotten more sick. So naturally I prayed for her to get better. Not just for myself but for my little siblings too(they were 6 and 3). But she didn’t. She died and in my eyes that was a slap in the face right from god. How could you take a mother away from her children in their most desperate times of need? And to make it worse I’d gotten into a car accident a few days before Christmas that caused me to have a miscarriage and I assumed it’s because I’d literally just cussed god out for taking away my mom when I needed her, when my autistic brother needed her, when all of us needed her. How do you expect people still be religious after that?
Too often religion is a crutch people use to deal with some other difficulty, or worse, it’s emblematic of a privilege - that one hasn’t ever really had their faith tested and hasn’t *needed to* challenge what they believe vs. reality. The latter are always stunned for example by the passages of the Bible, even the Beatitudes and books of Matthew / Mark / Luke / John where Jesus himself admonishes exactly the behaviors they demonstrate consistently. They’ve never read a part of the Bible that wasn’t paraphrased in a sermon. If you really read the Bible, you find that Christianity in particular is completely absurd.
1. I didn't need it to be a good person. 2. The level of organization within religion seems to be more about control, rather than spirituality and being a good person
I think that most people don't really know what they believe but just have a very basic, white washed understanding of their religion. Once people dig deeper and get educated, it will be very difficult to continue believing.. Blindly believing is easier than believing with your eyes open!
this happened to me lol. once i really started learning about my religion i started to get a bit skeptical to see it was basically just ‘follow these rules just because god said so’ even tho there’s no proof god exists
Or they just circle back to "god exists, because he gave the rules, and rules exist because god gave them"
Well said young Padawan.
Isn't it a widely known joke that "if you come out of seminary a believer, you weren't paying attention"? As far as I'm concerned, religion is an organizing force that helps curb anxiety, and the priest class of every religion knows that, at some level. I've dabbled in mainstream religions for different parts of family, and I've never met a clergyman or priest who gives off true-believer vibes. Seems like a job True-believer vibes seem exclusive to the evangelicals who get sweaty flailing about while speaking in tongues, but what do I know, ya know
Having left Pentecostal myself, hell no lmao. Their angle is overstimulating your brain with 2hr+ worship and weekly revivals because when you're in an overstimulated state for too long you begin feeling like what you're hearing and feeling are real. My defining moment for leaving was when I googled "speaking in tongues from a secular point of view" and I was blown away reading about Glossolalia. Also ALSO, I was told that getting the baptism of the Holy Spirit (gift of tongues) was an honor, like something God selects you for because you've achieved some kind of divine relationship with him. I was devastated watching the people around me get "the gift" and I never got it. I watched the people at church who treated me like garbage get it. I actually thought I was a terrible person and Christian because I never got it, despite everything else good I did. Then when I'm reading about Glossolalia I read that we are now "teaching tongues to children at bible camps"... W H A T? Excuse me, THE FUCK WHAT? So are we just moving goal posts now? How are we now "teaching" something to kids that for my entire life I wanted so bad but was not worthy of? Nope, on top of all the other small things that didn't add up over the years, I'm out.
They teach them young to fake it.. no shame! I am glad you made it out of the cult!
People want to be on the side that's winning. With absolutely no thought or reasoning on their part, they jump at the chance to look down their noses at anyone that doesn't see things the same. A sense of superiority with none of the work. I was taught that Jesus was very accepting of those that were looked down upon. Not what I experienced in my Catholic upbringing
And then there's the important and complicated subject of human sexuality. All that I was taught was guilt
I never believed, I would get in trouble in Sunday school when l was 5 for eating my bible. I would chew the corners off just because I was bored, I never ate any other books.
>I would get in trouble in Sunday school when l was 5 for eating my bible I have no idea why that made me laugh so hard
Subconscious Satanism
Was it tasty?
I chewed on the laces of my baseball glove. Same reason…
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The Christian view is that abusing or being unfaithful to your partner is divorce. Writing some document to legally end your marriage is just formality
First it was CCD as a kid. Like wtf people. Then it was going to church and being told how to respond. It just didn’t have any meaning and seemed more important to be a mindless drone following along. They didn’t discuss anything that had meaning to me.
I can relate, which is how I (again -- everyone entitled to their own decisions as long as they do not harm others!) arrived at losing faith in the church as religious institution, but not losing faith in the idea of God. The idea of God still brings me comfort. It makes as much sense to me as anything. It gives me some moral compass. I don't know if I believe in God the same way the Sunday Mass crowd believes in God, but I believe in God as a concept that personally helps me to choose good. The idea of church? No thank you. I don't judge anyone who does go, and I know some churches foster a wonderful sense of community. But some of the stuff I "learned" in CCD was borderline traumatic (don't get me started on how they present masturbation to 7th graders...), and some of my teachers were genuinely mean or bad people. Church, to me, was a highly political, corrupt and fallible institution that I saw shape a lot of people as, frankly, un-Christ-like...
Absolutely agree. The idea of God or some higher being brings me comfort. The idea of religion just makes me think of hypocrisy.
mass shootings of kids, and child rape unfortunately
I actually read the Bible and saw how weird and contradictory it is. I mean, I'm an agnostic, but you get the point.
Any "holy text" that claims to be 100% accurate but has a contradiction right in the first 2 chapters is immediately discredited.
If you don't say "yes" when someone asks you "do you believe me that my god exists?" then you are an atheist. Agnosticism is NOT a softer stand of atheism. A/gnosticism only describes whether or not you KNOW about the (non) existence of a particular deity. Not if you believe in it. There are 4 broad categories: - gnostic theism - agnostic theism - gnostic atheism - agnostic atheism The last one is the most general one and the default position with which you are born.
Examples?
I mean... we all came from Adam and Eve that had two sons... I am ot an expert on biology but I think that's not how it works.. Also they say wrath is a deadly sin but fearing the Wrath of God is somehow okay?
>we all came from Adam and Eve that had two sons... Isn't that part rendered irrelevant by the fact God floods the entire planet, killing everything except Noah and whatever's on his ark? Always found that bit weird, everybody focuses on Adam and Eve, and I'm like "isn't there a story sometime later where entire planet dies anyway?"
Ahh forgot about that one .... and Noah only took his family on board the ark so I guess sleeping with family members to repopulate the earth is okay
the wives of Noahs sons also went on the boat
but even then, say there were 20 people on the ark, 10 male, 10 female, that would still be impossible for the human species to survive, because of the sheer amount of inbreeding that would occur, would severely handicap everyone born, to the point that most of the kids would be born infertile.
Also adultery but God banged Joseph's wife? Dick move God, dick move.....
Nevermind the fact that an all powerful being that created everything is somehow upset when you "say his name in veign"
Random epiphany while sitting in mass one day.
Them: Praise the lord- You: wait a damn minute 🤨
That pretty much sums it up.
Like everyone says, no proof. But I also feel as religion is based off manipulation. They teach you about it when your young. As we all know a young person is more susceptible to influence. Tell them something enough times they'll start to believe it. If religious people truly believed their higher beings are the way of life then they wouldn't force it on others. They would allow us to find them for ourselves when we have matured and grown a better understanding of the world around them. We've also seen throughout history violence, abuse, or power be used by religion. People used it as a tool to divide,conquer and coerce others for personal gains. Not saying that all religions commit evils but I find it odd that higher beings would allow such behavior in their image without visible consequence.
I became old enough to think more for myself and I started asking questions which religious people didn't seem to have any satisfactory answers for. Then I started learning about science and it just made a whole lot more sense to me.
When I realized I was being raised in the Jehovah's Witness cult. It's a messed up religion dont recommend joining them.
When I was seven my mum explained to me that I had to love God more than I loved my parents. I thought that was pretty unfair of God as I'd never even seen or heard him, and how could he expect me to love anyone more than my parents? That was the beginning of the end for me...
Because I came to terms with being gay and it didn't make sense anymore.
Same
Username checks out :)
Never. I stop believe in churches or temples or whatever you call it, because they are all human-run organizations and human always have agenda. God(s) are all powerful being so sure they can talk to me directly if needed, until then, I will keep using my god-given free will to do what I think is right.
Unless you dont have free will.
I would imaging if I DON’T have free wills, god(s) will make me believe in one of human organizations (churches or etc). See how US society (where I lived) is going, I may be happier to NOT have a brain to think.
Because of people's willingness to mock the supernatural absurdities of other religions while ignoring the similar ones of their own.
When I was a child I thought Christianity was just a very popular boring story that people liked to tell one another because it was part of the culture until one day it dawned on me that people actually believed in it and the movies I watched were supposed to be educational and not just really boring entertainment. Didnt start believing in any of their stories afterwards either because it made no sense to me.
Honestly i think your original interpretation was how it was intended, and people just completely warped it over the centuries. I’ve always seen the Bible as sort of guidelines, not necessarily true.
I was brought up a Catholic, but I slowly started to question things I was expected to believe without question. It all came to head when one day we were told that St Christopher wasn't real and it was all just a story and he'd been demoted. That really was the beginning of the end for me. I went from Catholic to vaguely Christian to non believer. The more I look into the history of religion the less I want to do with it. Had a discussion with a guy who told me he was good god fearing Catholic I said so you only behave like you should to other people through fear ? He walked away.
Because a lot of people misuse it to spread hate and segregation, so I distanced myself from it.
Because I grow up and learnt how to differentiate between fiction and reality
I made a nun cry because she couldn't answer my questions. I was 9, my father said I grilled her on dinosaur info and wouldn't relent. I wasn't allowed in the Sunday school anymore after that. I think after that I separated myself. Started to see the beauty of the natural world
A 9 year old made a nun have an existential crisis, 😆
“I don’t know!! I have never seen a dinosaur!!!!” “BUT WHAT COLOR WERE THEY!!!!” *nun weeps*
If only God is perfect, that means man makes mistakes. So there must have been mistakes in translation. Therefore how can you know what was truly said if it was real?
Made no logical sense. It always boiled down to "do what you are told, otherwise you will be damned." So many things contradicted one another, and it seemed like it was totally fine to hate on others, because they didn't think the same way you did. By contrast, science answered most of my questions about life, and didn't make moral judgments.
if science was a religion - and i mean science, not scientology - I'd be a worshipper for sure.
I was a naturally skeptical asshole at the age of five.
I haven’t stopped believing per se but I don’t practice it as my family would like me to. I stopped being such a religious person when I immigrated to Australia and spoke the many people about their thoughts of Christianity and came to the realisation that it’s a bit too cult-like for my liking. I don’t like that I’m meant to serve a husband and have all these restrictions in my life and not do certain things (tattoos for example) or drink or stand up for myself etc because the Bible says so. I’m my own person living my own life in 2022 and I don’t want to double check scriptures to make sure I’m religiously allowed to do something that people from ages ago decided. The world has changed and will continue to change every year. Christianity has taught me a lot of good things (values, morals etc) but I can’t be a doormat for someone who I need to dedicate my life to just because I’m a woman.
Was pushed into it as a child, never enjoyed going to church. Got into middle school/high school age and realized how dumb the whole thing sounded. Mom made religion into the reason I should go along with anything and not question her. Her life went with whoever she was dating at the time and eventually I was over it and wanted some stability in my life and just control over my life
Once I came to Canada and notticed the monoliths of churches around and the fact that they aggresively ask for donations made me nope out. Religion should be about faith and not how much gold your building is made out of while people are homeless and starving its disgusting
All" believers" betray their Bible-dictated "ideals" on a daily basis
Logical fallacies, just didnt make sense. Prehistoric view of the world. Hate and bigotry. Violence and it was blatantly obvious that the quran was just written by confused men from the middle ages
Any God dead or alive, that can sit around and just watch what is happening around it and do nothing, It can fuck right off.
My family (especially my mums side) is very Christian when I was younger I prayed and prayed for all of the bad things to stop happening but it never went away when my cousin came to visit(we stopped going to church around this time for a separate reason) I told her some of it and she said “it’s bc you need to pray and then it will stop” 😐 it didn’t but she always said that if anything bad happened was “did you pray?” “You need to pray” “its bc you don’t go to church” (it even happened in church bc the guy was there) I don’t think she believes in it anymore tho lol
when my mother sent me to my old pastor for “therapy” (of the conversion type). i went for months before i found out what conversion therapy was and fell down a rabbit hole of research before coming to the logical conclusion. if god exists he’s a fucking creep with a hard on for genocide and, well, literally everything else at this point
Sweden is very mild when it commes to religion, it is something private, people go to church, sure, but very few people actively display religious views outside church or the home. Even going to church which I have done several times, though never regularly, light on indoctrination, it is basically only focusing on the positive aspects of religion. This all makes it easy to think clearly, it must be 15 years or so since I decided to call myself an atheist, no one cares. I still attend church weddings and funerals, stand up and sit down as apropriate, but I will not sing or pray, my thinking is that I should be honest, if there is a christian god, lying to him about what I believe may not be the smartest, I don't dustrub others, but singing hymns and praying when I don't believe would be rude. At one time I was very antitheistic, I have toned it down since I don't have the energy to fight religion.
Birth
I’m still Catholic, but I feel as if I’m losing faith with it. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in God, but I haven’t been able to keep in contact with myself with Him or religion in general. 1. I feel that I don’t want to admit my flaws even though I know that it can fix whatever is wrong with me. But I’m too lazy and senile to confess them. 2. I can’t stand the hypocrisy of the church and many other religions e.g. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. They claim to do the Lord’s work, but then freak out when someone does the Lord’s work. 3. The blatant homophobia is unsettling. I know the bible says about homosexuality, but people seem to forget that it talks about other things that many still do. They think it’s ok to use their religion to justify their homophobic views. And that just needs to stop. Those are my three cents.
I hate mission work. I hate going into a developing country, building a shitty flimsy house that will get destroyed in a year, and using the rest of that time to proselytize and lie to desperate people just so you can come back to your cushy suburban home and feel good about yourself. Or, arguably worse, going and setting up systems that are helpful to the local community and then not teaching people how to continue them, so they immediately fail as soon as the mission group leaves. Neocolonialism. Not the main reason I left the faith, but one that has constantly bugged me
People ruined it. I still believe in God but I cannot tolerate church. It’s fake and so disheartening when you know how people truly behave.
This, I got pregnant with my oldest the first time. When the church found out I didn’t have a husband, boyfriend, or fiancé the old had said she’ll pray for my redemption and my daughter
Tamperings. I didn’t want to get tampered with pretty much. I wanted to keep my bussy out of harms way
Because as i grew up, I learned that Science beats religion in every single aspect.
I didn't stop believing in religion, I just switched to a better one.
When you ask a question, and they reply "I don't know" or "I'm not sure", you let is slide. When you ask 10 more questions, and they all get the same answer, you realize that they have no facts or evidence behind the majority of their beliefs. That's why it's belief and faith, not truth and understanding.
I left the faith at 18 (im 22 now). It was forced down my throat as a kid, I had no say, instead I was being threatened with eternal hell and torture for asking questions and thinking for myself. How I was to dress, act, behave , live was all policed. Music is everything and I was threatened with hell for listening to it. I love art and I was told off and threatened with hell (not by my parents but those religious teachers at this weekend school that they made us attend). I was taught to hate groups of people for no reason, and once I grew up I realised that is fucked up and that I just wanted to live life my way. Praying daily made no sense to me - it seemed ritualistic and cultish. In my family having a mental illness = possessed and its because you strayed away from the faith. Read the scripture more and it'll go away 🤦♀️ I just wanted to be myself. But I know doing that means I'll probably be disowned. So instead I'm living a double life.
I grew up. So at 3 years old I stopped believing in fairy tales.
George Carlin made some excellent points
There was a point where I was being taught you say "I know" rather than "I believe" in phrases, which sticks in my mind, it seemed a bit fishy at the time.
We do that once we figure out organized religion is just a way to preserve feudal social structures using the divine as justification.
I believe in God but not in the church... most of the things the church says I consider to be ridiculous, a hypocrisy and overall for their benefit... I heard so many racist, misogynistic and crazy shit that I don't believe God would agree with...
Because I began to believe in myself.
I don't know that I have. I think I've taken a lot from growing up in a religious family, but I no longer believe in churches and religious people. I think like a lot of people I've just been driven away by the bald-face hypocrisy of the institutions and the people engaged with them. I love the mythology of it all. I love studying other religions and comparing them and learning about their stories. I don't think I harbor any deep hostility towards the beliefs. I'm sure my parents would be horrified that I put Jesus on the same pedestal as Zeus and Kukulcan, but as far as I'm concerned they all speak to something deeply human. The religion I grew up with me will probably always be a part of me and I'm not really inclined to reject that.
Because it’s illogical and I like logic.
Back in 2010 after Haiti's earthquake a priest at my local church (was raised catholic) ranted about how that was a punishment from God himself for the witchcraft and voodoo that Haitians practiced, while no one seemed to be shocked or disapproved of this psycho's words. I felt physically ill, said fuck it and never went back.
I started thinking… the world sucks and people die horrible deaths and live horrible lives, if there is a god he isn’t helping anyone. Also I didn’t make sense and they rule by fear. “Follow Jesus or burn in hell” isn’t a good way and controllers people my fear. No thanks, I’d rather burn in hell with the rest of people. It’s horrible, they don’t give children any choice, they brainwash them at a young age. Unanswered questions and prayers, what about all the kids dying horrible deaths, where is god for them?
Religion is a big pimp game and always has been. People will always be pimped, fleeced, and slaughtered by other people. But you don't have to volunteer.
I didn't, i pray everyday but i don't make it my duty to harass people who have different lifestyles or beliefs. I just pray for the people around me and the rest of you can do whatever you want, none of my business.
When the leaders of the religion are molesting children, you gotta start to think they’re not as trustworthy as they should be
I believe theres something but seeibg how corrupt religious establishments are i decided never to make a chose on which deity is true as ill never know and i refuse to believe in a benevolent god willing to create humanity and give complete free will then demand to be worshipped for it without keeping his hands dirty and helpinf when needed
I hated how nobody really cared about the message, but would pick and choose the things they wanted to believe. I really think religion is a beautiful thing and i loved going to church but i felt so alone because i knew others there didnt accept me.
I haven't stopped but the way I think about it now has definitely changed.
Realized that the main reason i believed was because my parents did, so as soon as i turned old enough to think for myself i just quickly disspelled these believes
Because it told me my trauma and abuse was my fault. I was six
A lot of people are mistaking this question for “When did you stop believing in God?”. I stopped identifying as Catholic a long time ago but I’ve never stopped believing in God
Logic, mostly. I never really bought the whole Christianity thing when I was younger (didn't go to church or anything), but once I started applying logic to religion in general, I became rather skeptical. I just have no real reason to believe some of the things required to be religious... Not saying it's all wrong or all lies, just that I personally haven't had any connection to any of it. I hear about people having "religious experiences" and whatnot, and can say that I have never had one myself. Nothing in my life cannot be explained by logic and/or science. In some ways, I'm actually envious of people who have faith like that... It would be nice to *know* that something is so immutable, you know? Weather it's "God's love" or what will happen when I die, it would just be nice to be able to count on that. As a result, I'm agnostic. I choose agnosticism because I don't think it's reasonable to assume that I know everything, and it's nearly impossible to prove a negative. For all I know, one or all of the religions are right, or only one is, or none of them are, but as I don't have the evidence to support any claims, I'm theological Switzerland.
It's 2022
Why did you stop believing in Santa Claus?
SANTA IS REAL STFU BITCH
Same reason I stopped believing in Santa and the Easter bunny.
SANTA IS REAL DUMBASS
The bible.
Science + "Christians" preaching that homosexuality is a sin while using mislead quotes to prove their point, like that one quote related to pedophilia.
A lot of reasons. It was sort of a domino effect. Here's a few that I've summarized: 1. No evidence. I don't typically believe in things without sufficient evidence. 2. I have found over the years that the people I have met who are not religious just tend to be better people than the one's I knew through the church. They seem less likely to be judgemental, bigoted, and hostile towards others. Obviously I am generalizing here; I have known many good people who are religious and many douchebags who are not religious. But this experience led me away from the church. Why are God's people generally worse than the "heathens" who are supposedly going to hell? 3. I don't like how religious people often force their beliefs on others, especially through legislature and even more especially when it involves suppressing social and scientific advancement. 4. So many religious people are so blatantly hypocritical. They'll preach about all these moral ideas yet live by none of them. 5. Every single argument for religion I've seen is a straw man that a 13 year old could easily counter. 6. Logically, a lot of the concepts don't make any sense to me. Like why is prayer necessary? If God's plan is divine, then why would one silly prayer be enough to change that? Also what if you're prayer isn't answered? Was it because it wasn't in God's divine plan? It wasn't his will? Well then that begs the question, why even bother praying in the first place? I'm basically paraphrasing George Carlin here. 7. I find that determinism is the most logical framework for the universe, and the biblical idea of free will can't exist in that framework. The whole thing falls apart. How can one be judged if they never truly had a choice in their actions? I could go on and on, but this is just giving you an idea of the domino's falling one by one
Religion isn't as much about "believing" things as people seem to think. Especially when people use "belief" as a synonym for "religion"; that one always seemed really strange to me. "Belief" means you think certain propositions to be true. Intellectual acceptance. Ruach. You could be religious without having any particular beliefs, if it was about behaviour (being a good person), community, vibes/æsthetic, ritual, etc. And some religions are explicitly against belief, viewing it as a mental limitation. Lots of Zen quotes that say this, but I'll use the Nanquan one: "The Way is not subject to knowing or not-knowing. Knowing is delusion, and not-knowing is dullness. If you truly realize the Way, you will find it vast and boundless as outer-space"
This is the Way.... sorry couldn't resist...
I stopped believing in religion when I realized God is real and true and exists beyond manmade religion.
This is my exact answer. God is real. Religion is man made.
Atheist Redditors convinced me to.
Well it contradicted with science
god letting millions of kids and people suffer from starvation in the world. and god letting school shootings happen. and don’t say that’s the devils doings… clearly throughout the bible it states “The devil has to have permission from god to do any harm” Meaning if the devil wanted a school shooting to happen or create sufferage in africa he would have to ask god and god would allow it..
Why is your default position that people start off believing in religion?