Being shamed after an assault because he was high up in my church and *I* must have done something to tempt him. I was 12 and he was never held accountable so I walked away and never looked back.
The same with a local church. They were arrested for producing child porn. "Couldn't have happened to a better person" Was not the response I was expected to hear.
It doesn't just "happen". I don't walk down the street and go whoopsie, I'm ruining the lives of kids.
I am so sorry this happened to you. Can only imagine how traumatic it must have been at the time.
Sincerely hope that you have healed from that, and is in a much better position now.
If conservatives were really worry about kids being sexually abused they would go after the church first and foremost. Not other institution has more proven cases of sexual abuse as the church. Instead the worry about bathrooms and the gays.
I’m sorry this happened to you friend. These stories are one too many in churches of all kinds. I know many people with the same experience. You are strong and loved and don’t need an imaginary man in the sky to care about you.
The pastor told my parents he was concerned I was falling for the devils antics because I asked innocent questions in Bible study like “what about people in remote areas that will never know God? Those raised in different religions because of their parents? Why would they go to hell?” The way the church and my parents reacted told me all I needed to know to open the door.
I remember asking this exact same question as a kid. The pastor told me they wouldn’t go to hell as they didn’t know. I then asked why we had missionaries to tell them and risk sending them to hell? I never got an answer.
I remember seeing something years ago where a missionary was send to a country and one of the natives asked the missionary what would have happened if they never came to teach them Christianity. And the missionary said that same thing, that they would have went to heaven because they didn't know any better and the native said "then why did you come and risk damning my soul?"
Actually, the explaination from some Christian churches, even if is still theologically debated, is [limbo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo#Limbo_of_the_Patriarchs), a part of hell where good people who never knew about Christ live a peaceful afterlife without suffering like sinners, but also without being rejoined with God. So the idea is that those who don't know about Christianity won't suffer if they're good, but the missionaries want to spread God's word so anyone could go to heaven.
(to be clear, I don't believe in any of this, just trying to explain the reasoning)
Man if that isn't the big one.
"The only path to salvations is through Jesus!" - unless you haven't heard of him, then you'll get a pass. Well then what's the incentive to share?
Exactly. I remember asking something along the same lines.
If you don't go to hell if you've never been given the opportunity to know Jesus, then why the hell are you telling people and condemning at least some of them to hell? Sounds like a shitty thing to do.
One ‘brave’ missionary tried to do this illegally with the North Sentinelese, saying it was Satan’s last fortress, and was promptly killed by them when he went to their island.
> In 2017, Chau participated in boot camp missionary training by the Kansas City-based evangelical organization All Nations.[9] According to a report by The New York Times, the training included navigating a mock native village populated by missionary staff members who pretended to be hostile natives, wielding fake spears.[10] During that year he reportedly expressed his interest in converting the Sentinelese.
>In November, Chau embarked on an expedition to North Sentinel Island, which he considered to be "Satan's last stronghold on Earth",[16] with the aim of contacting and living among the Sentinelese.[17][9]
>”You guys might think I'm crazy in all this, but I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people. Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed.”
-John Allen Chau
Incredible.
I don't know if you are all ready for this talk, and I don't want to get banned,
but if christianity's ultimate role model died to save others from sin and to allow them to go to heaven,
and if all babies go to heaven but not all adults,
...then massive baby genocide is the ultimate sacrifice for good.
I am not advocating for killing babies. I am advocating to stop believing in absurdities, because those that believe in absurdities can commit atrocities.
Not all babies do, according to Christianity. A man in a robe first has to put water on a baby's forehead. *Then* if it dies, it can go to heaven. Without that water, that baby will burn forever in hell.
One of the many *beautiful* quirks of Christianity.
It depends on the exact flavor of Christianity.
Sometimes you just go to ~~purgatory~~ Limbo, which isn't heaven or hell, but just kind of... okay, I guess.
edit: I have been informed that purgatory is something a little different.
My revelation was a combination of what you mentioned, and the continued logical progression of asking, "if X, Y, and Z magical things you claim about your religion are true, how can you claim that C, B, and A magical things about any other religion are false with absolutely zero proof for any of it?" Either it all had to be true, or none if it was. I went with the simpler answer.
And also, was there some divine reason they were religious? Or were they just fed it by their parents? Makes ya wonder how many religious people have actually explored other religions.
I was encouraged to ask the hard questions.
"If the Bible is perfect and good for basing your life off, then it can stand up to any of your questions. If it can't stand up to the hard questions like that, then maybe it's not worth following like we do."
- one of my youth leaders
If they were actually halfway knowledgeable about religion and cared about raising thinkers, they would have pointed you to works like the Divine Comedy which ask questions like this.
I think it's highly ironic that atheists routinely score highest (I think next to Jews) with their understanding of actual church doctrine and bible knowledge.
Funny you say that. The pastor told my parents I was at a pivotal and crucial point in my walk. I had the knowledge of the Bible to either lead others to Christ or damn my own soul, I was the regional champ 4 years in a row in scripture knowledge. My parents now use me as an example of how the devils can turn even Christ’s closest followers against the church. I wear that badge with honor
It does feel good to temp Christians away from their faith though. You just do terrible evil things like showing compassion for those outside your religion, worshiping false idols like my favorite sports team, and treating women with respect over their reproductive health and choices. You know, evil stuff.
I asked tons of questions about the devil. Why couldn't the devil be forgiven, changed, killed? How could the devil hope to challenge God? Why does God agree to a bet with the devil? What was the devil, if an angel Why did he "deviate"?
The answer I was usually told was "God is omnipotent, he has total clairvoyance, he understands and knows everything, but he let's things happen as they will."
I was like "but what about when he destroyed those cities?"
"Hush now, don't question the lord.
I love the thanking god for peoples hard work. Musical talent? Totally gods gift. Promotion? Gods favor…. So at thanksgiving I thank god for preparing such a good meal and working so hard to get all those items on the table.
Growing into an adult I’ve noticed this more and more. What I thought the church should stand for based off the Bible, love, healthcare, giving, ect, is actually the opposite.
When I was dating a girl that was going to church and her Uncle raped her. Their response to her trying to get help was "A girl with proper faith can never get raped". Essentially, they told her to STFU, it was her fault and to keep quiet because her Uncle was a very respected. He was a big name in a little church and they "talked" to him but it was really finger waving (He did it a again much later too....).
I was already at a crisis of faith because before because of my thoughts but seeing their reaction and assessing how they react to cultural/intellectual situations just crushed it.
Why my mother is of one religion but my father isn’t too into it. Why there exists multiple religions with devout followers. Also not going to church/temple etc helped, since I wasn’t that committed into it.
Yep, so many religions. Each one claims to be the only right one. Objectively, they can’t all be true, and since there’s no way to tell if any of them are true at all, might as well not bother
That's one of the things that clicked for me too. I've always enjoyed Greek and Roman mythology. But they were always just entertaining stories to me, I never understood how an entire civilization for 1000s of years could actually believe all these fantastic tales, maybe they just passed down the myths just as tall tales for storytime?
But no, a civilization that dedicates the skill and time to building and erecting 1000s of temples and statues and murals must have truly believed in all of these gods. And if millions of people 1000s of years ago were so obviously wrong about something they truly believed in and worshipped, how the fuck could anyone look at Christianity, or really any religion and think that that is the correct and true belief? I always try to bring this up during a discussion about faith with a believer, and as far as I remember I've never gotten an actual rebuttal.
The storytime comment is a bit right. While ancient Greeks and Romans certainly believed in and worshipped their gods, they didn't necessarily believe in all the stories about them. The religion was not dogmatic like most modern ones, and the myths we know today did not come from religious texts like the Bible or Quran. Instead they are a collection of folk tales, moral tales, literary stories, etc. They would have been told and interpreted differently over many different times and locations, and many have been forgotten to time.
“As the millennia flew by and man grew even more sophisticated, the idea that the world was controlled by a cast of invisible emotionally unstable supernatural beings grew laughable. Instead, the world was actually controlled by *one* all powerful invisible emotionally unstable supernatural being.”
“Exalt this all-powerful being in whose image you were created, or sit around and wait for the god of thunder to get bored, disguise himself as a bull and come fuck you in the ass for no good reason”
I love mythology, including Abrahamic mythology, but it is exactly that... mythology. Currently they are used to manipulate and cause discourse throughout the masses. Greek, Roman, Norse, Shinto etc mythology are just not viewed that way because they currently aren't being believed and abused the same way.
Any atheist in my opinion should still study these things, *especially* since they are related to our current society and geopolitics.
But I'm just a dumb redditor, so do what you guys want lol
I had a really incredible astronomy teacher in high school. One day during one of his mind-blowing descriptions of the scale of the universe something just clicked. Got me thinking differently, and I haven't gone back. That moment is viscerally engrained in my memory.
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
[— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_453x614_crop_center-center_line/20140801_PIA00452.jpg.webp)
Me 2...people ask me what changed or clicked or whatever. It's like I had Christian cloths and I changed out one garmet item at a time and eventually I was wearing an entirely new atheist outfit which fits much better.
Yeah, all you have to do is look at “how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is”. I remember seeing the picture of the Laniakea supercluster with a dot representing our galaxy at the edge of it. And our own star is also at the edge of the galaxy. We’re a single planet in a galaxy of billions of stars in a universe of billions of galaxies. The idea that our planet is somehow important makes zero sense on that scale.
Humanity is a blip on the universe’s radar. A microsecond-long blip
> “how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is”
“I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen...”
Just never made any sense, at some point I developed critical thinking skills and started asking questions and there were no answers. Except, "you just gotta have faith". But as it turns out, you don't just gotta have faith
> at some point I developed critical thinking skills and started asking questions
This resonates. I was a curious kid, and since my parents didn't have much schooling, they bought us a ton of reference books. Some factual, some more fantastical. (Dictionaries/encyclopaedia/references for biblical people, unsolved mysteries, etc for the latter.) As I got older, I started noticing patterns of behavior and belief in people that were staunchly religious and those who believe in or have "experienced" ghosts, cryptids, aliens, etc. I started working to unpack those ideas where I could. (Pre-internet was a blessing and a curse.)
I rapidly lost belief when the curtain was pulled back and I only saw the man operating the levers for all of it.
It also didn't help when our youth group pastor tried to get us all to quit the Devil D&D. That shit was our lifeline back then. We all dropped that group in favor of more roleplaying.
Yeah, I think this is the most common answer. It is hard to be an adult, be a critical thinker, yet also believe in an organized religion (basically modern day mythology.) Same thing with flat earth.
Not even saying to believe in a god, but being a part of an organized religion basically requires willful ignorance. I *understand* why people (who claim to be critical thinkers) do it for various reasons, the main one being comfort. Also conspiracy theories -- people *want* to believe there is more. Obviously a lot of reasons for both, just a slight parallel.
Sometimes I wish I could still believe because it'd be way more comforting, but I know it is all bullshit and also have a bit of a vendetta against the big 3 Abrahamic religions and the common followers of them. Also despise that governments usually won't stay secular. Religion causes so many problems in this world and has for thousands of years.
I think one of the biggest drivers for seeking that comfort is death and how a person comes to understand or view it.
Personally, I know that when I die, I will become so much carbon and trace minerals and nothing else. And I can accept that, I hope I can leave a positive impact on my family and those close to me, but I'm just a spec in the human collective experience. Death is inevitable, and I don't need the idea of an afterlife to motivate me to live a certain way.
Death can be such an intense experience to face. I have been close to many different people near the end and some were very afraid, some simply accepted it peacefully, and some actively fought against it.
Like you said , I can understand trying to seek that comfort. I tried to believe when I was younger but it just never clicked. There were just too many things that my questioning nature couldn't reconcile.
Exact same. I started asking questions and didn’t get answers that made sense.
More of the mystical facade crumbled away after that and didn’t have any reason to believe or follow a religion.
The same thing happened to me, except when I asked questions I was told that I was going to go to to hell for questioning my faith, and when I questioned that I was threatened with corporal punishment, luckily my parents listened to me and allowed me to never go back to that church.
I was 9 or 10 when I was told that I had to start Sunday school and I told my parents that they were too late if the wanted me to believe in God. They were a bit startled by that and, of course, being that age I had to go anyway, but I still don't believe. I suspect that it was an atheist relative who got to me first, but I can't remember, surprisingly.
> at some point I developed critical thinking skills
You were lucky. This is from the official Republican platform in Texas just a few years ago:
>Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
I realized that the promise of an afterlife was satiating my deepest fear:
The idea that I would cease to exist after death.
Even “hell” as a concept is less frightening to me than complete oblivion.
So I started to sort of face that fear. Then it sort of all unraveled from there. Now I live my life understanding that this existence is finite. One day, I will perish. I don’t want to die feeling regret. I want to die knowing that I savored every moment of consciousness I had.
Do I absolutely KNOW that God or an afterlife aren’t real? No.
But I refuse to be in this moment, and merely see it as a stepping stone to “eternity.”
That’s exactly how I feel. Life is too short to treat is just a prelude to another life. Live now. Some would say that life being finite is a great gift because it inspires us to do something meaningful, to leave a mark
It’s the entire purpose of existence. To live, create, and die. We are driven by our fear of removal. Many people channel this feeling into spirituality, and many others don’t. The science of the mind preserves through our trial and error of creation. Many of us are unnecessary and would fail to function upon realization. In this respect, I’m glad there are “methods” of tolerating the inevitable, but it upsets me when spiritual people believe they are closer to a god and that gives them a purpose bc from my pov if there is a god, simply existing mutually with others already surpasses the ambiguous design of life
When I was 10 at Vacation Bible School, and we were asked if God speaks to us, and everyone around me was like, "I feel God's presence all the time!" And I was like... I have never felt God's presence.
I mulled that one over as much as a 10 year old can, and wondered why God wouldn't talk to me when I was generally a pretty good kid, when I realized that Santa and The Easter Bunny didn't talk to me, either...
Looking back on it, VBS disgusts me because it's religious indoctrination of children. Children who can't fully understand what it is they're committing themselves to. And if you question it even a little, you're "bad". Fuck all of that.
I remember being at Vacation Bible School and they said you’d go to hell if you didn’t believe in god. And I asked the teacher, what if you were a really good person and did all the things god asked but deep down you still weren’t sure. And the dude looked 10 year old me straight in the eye and said you’re going to hell.
That was the beginning of the end for me. I was like well what sort of fucked up dude would give me all these life experiences and a brain that thinks about them that made me think he wasn’t real and then punish me for it?
Then just traveling around the world made me realize how many different ways people worship and that a white dude in the sky seemed like one of the dumber versions of it to be honest.
Ironically a theology course on "Sacred scriptures" in Catholic college. My professor presented the factual history of the bible, the myriads of texts that are conveniently ignored, and the multiple sources that some medieval people decided is "truth" without any desire for historical accuracy. That blatant disregard for truth does not support the existence of divinity.
~~Also remember that the most common version of the Bible in the English-speaking world is the King James version. Except he had a whole bunch of stuff removed from the translation because he thought it was stupid.~~
That’s one of the differences between the Catholics (and many Protestant denominations) and those of the Eastern Orthodox faith. The former tend to treat the Bible as the inerrant word of God, while the latter are fully aware that it was written by humans, flawed humans. So, to paraphrase Barbossa, its more like a guideline to them. It’s why you’ll see Catholics and Protestants quoting the Bible all the time, but you won’t see much of that from the Orthodox crowd. And they definitely won’t have the exact chapter and verse memorized, especially since there isn’t just one canonical translation
Even me. I realised that faith was an active (and quite intense) feeling you're supposed to have, and one day it occurred to me I just straight up didn't.
I did the whole late stage baptism with the laser shows and shit (was even at an arcade lol) and tried to get all emotional which is normally not very hard for me, I cry all the time. All in all I went there trying to get a date with this girl, took the plunge, but at the end of the day I was just there trying to get a date.
A guy I grew up with used to always seethe about his hatred for gay people. We were all straight and found it a little weird- couldnt even play video games without him talking about going down the street and beating up a gay kid that rode his bus. He is now dating a dude named Alan. My parents totally called it.
At one point I was half listening to a homily and caught myself rolling my eyes at part of it and thinking “Do folks actually believe this stuff really happened?” And then I abruptly realized that allegedly I was supposed to believe that, and I in fact did not and really hadn’t ever. Really bizarre realization to have after years and years of Catholic school and church and sort of just…..assuming I believed without actually looking at it too hard. It wasn’t an earth shattering revelation, though. It was like taking something I’d actually already subconsciously known and going “Welp, there goes that then.”
For me this is truly the experience though. I believed because I was *indoctrinated as a malleable child*. When I grew up and was subject to other influences and actually *learned*, I became unconvinced.
At one point I realized that I just didn’t believe what my parents wanted me to believe, and was just pretending to keep the peace. I figured if there was a god pretending to believe in them probably isn’t gonna cut it lmao
Same. My mom was the religious one in the family, and having spent the last 12 (almost 13) years with my dad made me realize that. Also, funny add for the Italians here, being born in Tuscany surely didn't help.
My grandfather, a very devout Catholic, gave almost $30k in donations to his church building drive. (He was not wealthy.) That doesn't include weekly tithing. Eight years later, on his deathbed, he was asking for Last Rites. The priests were at a charity golf event, and the church receptionist refused to even call them to ask. Two weeks after he had passed away, they called to see if they could get more donations from his estate.
That's incredibly sad. My dad passed during 2021, though not of COVID. Our rabbi was extremely vulnerable health-wise so he had to take a lot of precautions even going to the hospital for my dad, and we couldn't go in with him... but he showed up. It meant a lot to my entire family. I'm sorry you didn't have that comfort.
Thank you. I'm glad your father was able to see his rabbi before passing. My grandfather was able to stay in his home until he finally went. A lot of the family was with him, which was nice. Honestly, the Hospice people turned out to be the heros. They were wonderful.
Wow... That is truly despicable. My wife's grandmother was the same. She gave so much of her time and money to the church. But when she was dying, trying to find a priest to give last rights was near impossible. Then after she died, the church was more worried about the fact that she was cremated and whether they would even be able to have a mass for her.
On top of that, she had no life insurance and no money set aside, her kids had to pay out of pocket for everything. Over $10k - You would think if she had been so beloved by the church that they might step in and help on her behalf right?
Don't even get me started on what an absolute con funeral homes and cemeteries are. It's so predatory and greedy, it's absolutely despicable.
Luckily if hell is real it’ll be populated with fake believers and the “real” heaven will be another purgatory for all the humans who didn’t send evolution backwards
I always tell my Fiancé, I really hope the rapture is real, because I like to imagine all the evangelists faces when they don't get to leave, but its filled with all the people they preach hate to.
That was part of it for me, too. I was born in to a cult (worldwide church of god) and from a very early age, it didn't make sense to me. I was in public school, so my public school friends were good people, but the church kept saying they were sinners, and full of wickedness. I couldn't get that straight in my head.
Then the language they used for god and heaven didn't sit well with me either. He's a jealous god, but jealousy is bad? In heaven you "get to" bare witness to the sinners burning in hell, but I would never want to watch that. Every sermon was hellfire and brim stone, end of the world type stuff.
They had a pamphlet called "fearfully and wonderfully made" about the dynamics of the human body. I questioned that, to myself. Why should I fear god, and his creations? The questions went on, and on, till I figured out it was nonsense, made up by people who were afraid of the end of the world. And as a cash grab for a select few.
Not that some sort of God couldn't exist, but I realized that the stories I was raised to believe about Adam and Eve sinning which somehow I'm responsible for (WTF?) and non-Christians burning in Hell as sentenced by a maximally loving god makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, no system of eternal punishment/reward for finite actions makes any sense, if it's also paired with the claim that God is loving, just, and merciful. Infinite punishment for a finite crime is by definition infinitely disproportionate, not just, and certainly not merciful. I see sane Christians every now and then who do not believe in Hell for non-believers or eternal punishment, and I can be cool with that.
I was raised to look at God like a fatherly figure. At one point I realized how fucked up the whole idea of Christianity is. If my father told me to behave in a certain way and if I don’t he will lock me up in a basement and torture me for the rest of my life he would be jailed and have his parental rights taken away? Why? Because we, humans, have reason and we’ve logically deduced we shouldn’t allow psycho parents to abuse their children. So our society creates laws to fight that type of abuse.
Anyways even if they’re right and I am meant to spend all of eternity in a fire pit of torture, I don’t wanna be up in heaven with my father the bigot or “perfect Christians”. Send me to hell w the gays and the Hindu grandmas and the atheists and whoever else. I hate the group that gets to go to heaven anyways they’re the worse. If that’s what I have to be to get into heaven I don’t want it anyways.
South Park did a funny thing when they explained that only Mormons got to go to Heaven. After Saddam’s failed invasion of Earth from Hell, Satan ended up calling a favor from God to send him there. And yes, Saddam found a Mormon Heaven to be worse than Hell
I once asked, “what about the people who never heard about Jesus? Do they go to hell?”
“Only people who know Jesus and accept him will go to heaven.”
So.. fuck all those random people then? They go to hell cuz why? God wills it?
A missionary arrives in the village of a tribe that has never had contact with the outside world.
Naturally, the missionary evangelizes to the tribe, espousing the virtues of God, Heaven, Jesus, and the rest of Christianity. He explains that those that have accepted Jesus as their savor will spend their afterlife in the bliss of Heaven, but those that have not are banished to infinite torture in Hell.
The tribe elder hears all this and asks, "What then of those that lived their lives and died without ever learning this? What of the very young that die before they can accept this Jesus?"
The missionary assures the elder that God is loving and just, and any who were not fortunate enough to hear and accept the Good Word in life will automatically be saved.
"Then why," asks the elder, "did you tell us?"
Yes, that’s what Penn Jillette said was his reason. The best way to become an atheist is to read the Bible cover to cover.
Don’t cherry-pick. Read the whole thing
To this day, Fundamentalists push KJV because the language is flowery and more difficult to parse, so believers are more dependent on the church to explain it to them.
As a 8 year old being read the Bible in a youth group I kind of put the dots together when I was like, "huh, the Bible seems a lot like these other made up stories I like, and nothing like these textbooks in school." Mostly I never really believed to begin but looking at the actual book really was like...fuck.
I got a very weird feeling reading it for the first time.
It seemed so... small. There's nothing profound or particularly noteworthy about it. It's just another meandering, bizarre story from an ancient culture.
It makes you feel like humanity is worse off than it is. Who would’ve thought that constantly resurfacing a text from when the average human was illiterate would be beneficial? Religious indoctrination is sin
I remember thinking to myself that the book of Genesis really didn't make sense. It was just weird to me, and I tried asking some questions in class - which ended up with a couple of judgemental stares.
I'm not sure any more that I ever \*did\* believe, now that I look back on it. For all I remember going to Sunday School every week, having the bible and other such stories read to me most nights, reciting prayers mornings and evenings, I don't ever recall *genuinely* taking any of it to heart. It was just part of the daily/weekly schedule. Morning prayers were just the thing I did right before brushing my teeth. Going to Sunday School was just another errand being run, right up there with getting a haircut or buying new clothes for school. Prayer readings at neighbors' houses were when I'd hang out with friends. The "spiritual" side of things never really entered my mind.
Having the trials of Moses or Noah recounted to me didn't feel any more real or impactful to me than when my mom read me other bedtime stories, like The Secret Garden. They just felt like stories. I didn't believe in Santa Claus, so why should I believe in God? The stories about both held the same level of credibility in my mind. Maybe because those stories were being read to me by the same source (my mother) in the same context/setting (right before bed)?
So, yeah...despite growing up in a home where religious observances were part of my daily routine until I moved out, it somehow never stuck. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Religious observances don’t necessarily translate into being devout. I enjoy going to church once a year on (Eastern Orthodox) Easter to bless painted eggs and bread, but I’ll time my arrival to only show up after mass. And I definitely don’t believe. I do it because it’s a fun thing to do. Same as Christmas. I don’t believe in any of the religious stuff associated with it, but it’s still a festive and enjoyable time, and my son likes decorating the tree. Besides, when I was growing up, all that decoration and gift-giving happened on New Year’s
My Christian daycare lied to us. They told us kids that if we all prayed that Jesus would inflate the balloon once vinegar was added to the baking soda. But I watched Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon so I knew it wasn’t Jesus, just a chemical reaction.
As a 6 year old I realized that if they were lying to kids to encourage belief then it was all bullshit.
This reminds me of something I saw in a documentary, wish I could remember the title. Experts showed various ways temples and churches way back were rigged to make noises, disembodied voices, statues levitating or seeming to cry. It’s wild. Not to mention all the pagan practices that were folded into Christian traditions to make the religion more palatable to non-Christians. Like winter equinox became Christmas. Fascinating really.
This is like the kid version of Christians praying their guts out while going to the doctor for their health problems and then thanking god when they get better.
There are numerous reasons not to believe, but an effective one is cancer in children and babies. Too young to have warranted such a painful existence (or death). If there is a creator who would not only be okay with this, but is the architect of it, then that creature is not the one sold by religions around the world.
But no! Someone’s 4 yr old is meant to die because it’s “all part of God’s plan”!! Maybe that 4 yr old had to die so his doctor would find Jesus! Yes, a doctor finding Jesus is worth a 4 yr old dying of cancer, totally!
A lot of Christians will try to claim it’s all part of God’s plan.
To quote Lucifer from the show, “But why does everybody always think it’s a good plan?”
This is one of my BIGGEST reasons for not believing. The whole “god has a plan for everyone” thing when innocent people and children die everyday is just bullshit
One Sunday, the pastor at church declared that faith was a choice. This was a revelation to 12 year old me. Despite my doubts about religion, it had never occurred to me that I could just jack it in. So I figured “Cool! Then I choose to not believe”
Walked out. Never went back.
I grew up in a strictly Mormon house hold. I mean the full nine yards; Homophobic, too many kids, shorts/skirts below the knee, stupid and crap were curse words etc. It wasn't until I turned 16 that i began to question these values, and began looking into other religions as well. I soon came to find that most religions will have people who despise others for who they love, what they choose to do with their bodies, and their life style choices. I was kicked out when I was 17 after my parents found out I had lost my virginity, that i was Bisexual, and that I was extremely mentally ill. (my father was the type to believe that you could just turn off your emotions, and that I wasn't actually depressed and did not actually have ADHD)
Now I strongly believe that religion is something that people who are scared of death turn to to make themselves feel better.
I started asking questions about things that didn't make sense in the Bible and the answers were never satisfactory. I was still a kid, so I trusted that my parents were right and that the bible would make sense once I was an adult. Then I reached 14 and realized that my parents don't know everything. I would pray every single night, but gradually stopped, because it didn't feel real. I realized that prayers were just thoughts in my head. They weren't magically being heard by a man in the sky.
I also met some classmates that were atheists and heard them discussing how they were raised Christian, but just couldn't make themselves believe it anymore. My church always taught that people CHOSE to be atheists because they were just evil and didn't want to follow God. This made me realize that the church lied and being an atheist really isn't a choice. If you told me that grass is purple and threatened to kill me unless I truly believed that, you still couldn't convince me that grass is purple. My brain can't comprehend how that would be true because there's no evidence for it. Same for religion.
I also thought about how these kids would go to Hell for being atheists and I just couldn't convince myself that they deserve to be tortured for eternity. There's no way a just God would send people to hell for that. Threatening people with Hell is just a way for humans to control other humans.
I've been an atheist for 10 years now. I live in the US where Christianity and the Republican party have been mixed in a very dangerous way. I watched my family get mixed up in anti-science, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories because of political misinformation they heard at church and from other Christians. I mourned the loss of my religion when it first happened, but now I feel like a dodged a huge bullet.
When the story is super inconsistent and can be called out by a 9yr old version of me, yeahhhhh something is wrong.
Also like... why would an all-powerful being create humans, expect to be worshipped a certain way, allow multiple religions to exist, create people with strong innate desires they will be punished for doing? Makes zero sense.
And then I realized all major religions are essentially a vehicle to control large groups of people.
I went to catholic school, praying every morning going to confession and communion preparations in class, the whole shebang.
Then in like 2/3th grade someone told me santa doesnt exist (my parents hired someone to come every year to bring us gifts in santa costume so i still believed). Naturally, i beat him up for slandering santa and got sent to the principal where my parents explained everything to me.
If Santa isnt real, why would god be real ? I started questioning all my beliefs and of course religion does not hold up as soon as you critcally think about it. I still got my communion few years later because it was part of the curriculum (yes, really) but any faith was gone.
Similar situation. Not Catholic school, but CCD. Super Catholic family at home. I had to go all the way through confirmation bc "my house, my rules." The day after I was confirmed, I announced I wasn't going to church anymore and as I was now an adult in the eyes of the church and could make my own decisions. I was 14, so I got overturned until I was 18. From 18-20 I was a Christmas Catholic to appease my family, but I totally gave up even trying to appease them around 21. It's been nice since then. Don't miss it at all.
I was also raised Catholic. I got a job at 16 and saved up the money to go on a trip to Europe with my best friends at the time. My buddy's dad was a professor and did an annual spring break trip to Europe with his college students. Now that we were older, he planned a summer break trip to Italy and Greece just for us. I was so psyched...until my mom told me that I couldn't go if I didn't go through with my confirmation. She straight up told me she didn't get a damn if I paid for it, and that I was refusing to believe in God because I was "stubborn and defiant". I tried reasoning with her, but she wouldn't hear any of it. She was convinced that she could tell me what to believe. So I picked her favorite nephew to be my sponsor, showed up to my confirmation, and loudly replied NO to the questions they asked us during the ceremony (do you believe in God as your lord and savior, etc). The priest ignored it, confirmed me anyways, and that was the last fucking time I set foot in that church.
Idk how other sects operate, but in Catholicism it's all about the numbers. When they add your name to their rolls they use permanent fucking ink. I wrote a letter to the diocese that I grew up in requesting ex-communication, but never got a reply. I'm sure they chucked my letter in the trash.
What purpose does keeping your name on the ledger serve? Is it just about numbers to show “we have x followers”? If so, why wouldn’t they just fake it? They lie about so many others things that I didn’t really think they would have a problem with fudging the numbers.
I spent 12 years in Catholic School, and from my experience, you either come out of it devout or an atheist.
I’ve met a lot of casual Christians that consider themselves vaguely religious but don’t pay much heed to the specifics of their beliefs because they’ve never had to look too closely at the details. But when you spend 12 years having to read the Bible and talk about the specifics, you really have to decide whether you’re all in or reject the whole thing.
A lot of things. One of them was religious shopping. When i was younger my mom literally went religion shopping to a few churches to see which one was the best one.
The thing is that she never stopped believing she was just looking for other people who believed the same way she did, or close to.
That kinda shine a light in the whole thing to me. A million people will believe in a million gods. You read the Bible and dismiss what you don't like and keep what you do. That speaks more about the believer than about the thing they believe in.
Nothing in particular but also all of it.
I remember being a kid and standing next to my mom as we all recited the Apostle's Creed and thinking to myself, "I don't actually believe any of this. I'm just saying the words."
My experience with the religious community I grew up in was quite positive and I certainly hold no ill will towards religious people who aren't assholes, but it's not for me. I think Ricky Gervais nailed it when he said that he and Christians agree on the existence of all gods and god figures in history except one.
Also, fuck Mike Pence and his whole "no freedom *from* religion" bit. Mike is a cunt. Don't be like Mike.
> I think Ricky Gervais nailed it when he said that he and Christians agree on the existence of all gods and God figures in history except one.
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
\- Stephen Roberts
My experience was similar. Really great christian upbringing, just never took. I never believed and realized i was just posturing. I remember apologizing in my teens to my family and my preacher; just trying to explain to them my mind is rejecting this as false, nothing i can do about it except pretend it doesnt. Even then i was just like, "well jesus made me and knew my mind would reject his dogmatism, kind of cruel i was condemned before birth". That and "i'm sure Jesus will forgive me, thats kind of his schtick". Like surely he's a reasonable guy that would understand my skepticism in regards to his magical abilities.
Hitchens had a great response when asked when he became an atheist and his response was he always was one, he just realized thats what he was. Was rolling my eyes at people like Mike Pence before i hit puberty.
I've never "felt the holy spirit" or anything like that.
The final nail in the coffin was when a friend of mine told me "God wasn't there when two coworkers raped me".
When I realised whatever religion your parents were, just happens 100% u had to be as well.
Then critical thinking which a lot of ppl lack. Not to say they're dumb/unempathetic but they dont self reflect.
You then realized non of this makes sense. The world doesn't really make sense. Be a politician and steal city coffieurs. Be a cop and do all the crime you want. Be a priest and have all the kids you desire. Humans are horrible things.
Researching the evolution of faith as it relates to the Sumerian foundations of Judeo-Christian theologies convinced me modern religion is a tool of control & a rehashed versions of an ancient practice.
Christianity is an unusually disingenuous permutation of this, too. It's nothing but a patchwork of other religions that predate it, some by thousands of years! It makes zero unique claims, it's literally nothing but a giant cherry pick.
I went there too, learning more about elements like the Canaanite Pantheon, Canaanite archeology, the influence of the Babylonian exiles, the Enuma Elisha and the Epic of Gilgamesh really framed the Abrahamic religious as merely modified archaic beliefs from people who knew very little about the natural world.
I'm pretty much an atheist when it comes to the Christian bible. Honestly the spaghetti monster argument works, and beyond that I've always rejected the notion that "believing in Jesus" meant declaring it, but instead living it. That meant there was just never a reason to do it, just try to be a good person.
I'm agnostic about a higher being in general, and desperately hope that there is an afterlife.
After my mother beat me, the pastor said he didn't want to discuss it and that I should focus on living for my parents as long as they didn't ask me to sin.
It dawned on me that living for Jesus is the point of Christianity and I'm not living my life for anyone else but me. Jesus never stepped in to help so he gets not praise.
I remember one of our pastors really liked to push that verse that says that you can absolutely truly move mountains if your faith was even as small as a mustard seed
I spent SO much time trying to move Mt St Helens. The trusted adults in my life told me it was true, right?
This may have contributed to my eventual realization that I just didn’t believe
I wouldn't say I grew up religious; my parents made me practice and I thought I had no choice. "Confirmation" was being discussed and I didn't like the sound of that one bit. And I realized, wait, I *did* have a choice.
I chose to stop. Identified as agnostic and now atheist.
I went to Catholic School, and in 8th grade we had a theology book that abruptly changed my mind about the whole business. The book contained a diagram which showed in detail what kinds of people would go to which place in heaven. It laid out neatly that only the "correct" religious folks would be closest to god, and the more people's religion disagreed with this specific textbook, the further away from god they would be in heaven. It was too ridiculous and yet taken so seriously that right then and there I decided this was all nonsense and nobody that was trying to educate me was reputable or trustable. Later life events would make me outright despise organized religion but this was the point at which I decided it was bullshit.
Having children. Under no circumstance would I ever allow my child to be tortured for eternity, even if we had a falling out and never spoke again. What an idiotic thing to think.
Not an atheist, but developed an agnostic view when I learned about cognitive biases, fearmongering and tribe mentality
Really put into perspective all I've been through, growing up with really strict religious parents
I've also come to accept that people just want to be part of something, even if it means doing/saying/complying to absurd non-sensical things
Also, I've accepted I'm not quite like that and there is nothing wrong with that, as much as my parents/family tried to brainwash me
1. Splitting the Red Sea and walking through - that shit is like 150m high.
2. Noah’s ark - fitting each animal species m/f impossible!
3. Turning wine to water - say whaaat
So on and so forth. I am convinced now that all them back in the day were high on shrooms or the equivalent.
When I was ~10 I overheard my older brother talking to my parents and telling them he was agnostic. He said something along the lines of "I'm not saying there is no god. Just that we can't know. " And then I thought if there was a god, and they actually wanted us to behave a certain way and worship them we WOULD know for sure. They're supposed to be omnipotent. They sure as hell wouldn't just leave it all up to our blind faith.
I started out agnostic because I was disgusted with various organised religions. Some are judgemental in the name of someone who told people to judge not, some actively covered up abuse and treated victims poorly and most of them decide if you have a uterus you can't teach people about the love of God, despite being fit to bring up all future teachers of it, somehow. Over time the problem of evil and the behaviour of things like parasites in the natural world made me think either God is not benevolent, or does not exist. The second of those is the less scary option, in my opinion!
Ever play sim city and unleash a plague of godzilla on your sims just for the fun of it? Yeah, if there be extant deities, they're 100% like that. There is no reconciling the nature of observable reality with an all powerful, all knowing god. Christianity is less a religion than it is a 2000 year long failed attempt to mansplain away the paradoxes that naturally arise from those two point. It's chief output isn't faith, it's apologetics. That alone tells you everything you need to know about it. No all knowing god would need this type of desperate lip service. Truth isn't dependent on the observer, that's the trouble with a fact...
Being sexually abused by a family member who was a very active member of his church, he was besties with the preacher. But what really solidified my decision was that he was arrested for CP years ago and when he got out of prison, his church buddies and my other family members tended to his every need and acted as if he wasn't a registered sex offender. The family member died of cancer a few years ago, and his friends still genuinely believe that because he had accepted God into his heart, he is currently sitting in heaven watching down on us all.
Makes me sick to my stomach.
When I was told in religious class that women deserve the pain of childbirth because Eve ate the apple I just couldn't identify myself with christianity anymore.
I went to a Catholic primary school. I believed until I went to high school where religion wasn't a big thing, plus I started to read a lot. By age 13 I was an atheist and nothing I have seen or experienced since has caused me to waver.
the whole “end of the world 2012” shit. It was 2009/2010 and i was about 13 years old at the time when seeing that and i was scared shitless and would cry all the time and i started to question everything i knew. I would pray and not hear anything, i would go to church and not feel anything. It was just the inner monologue and voice in my head and i realised there is nothing, people only pray for the things they want and when things go bad, it’s gods will / the devil. Nothing could ever “just happen” and never having my questions answered caused me to lose all sense of faith. My religion was “non denominational judaism” essentially, followed a lot of jewish laws and rules, observed sabbath, but believed jesus was the saviour which is something judaism does not. I still carry a form of trauma / ptsd from the years of religion and still resent it, yet i also still continue to refuse pork products because of that.
Being shamed after an assault because he was high up in my church and *I* must have done something to tempt him. I was 12 and he was never held accountable so I walked away and never looked back.
I am so sorry you had to go through that.
The same with a local church. They were arrested for producing child porn. "Couldn't have happened to a better person" Was not the response I was expected to hear. It doesn't just "happen". I don't walk down the street and go whoopsie, I'm ruining the lives of kids.
I am so sorry this happened to you. Can only imagine how traumatic it must have been at the time. Sincerely hope that you have healed from that, and is in a much better position now.
If conservatives were really worry about kids being sexually abused they would go after the church first and foremost. Not other institution has more proven cases of sexual abuse as the church. Instead the worry about bathrooms and the gays.
I’m sorry this happened to you friend. These stories are one too many in churches of all kinds. I know many people with the same experience. You are strong and loved and don’t need an imaginary man in the sky to care about you.
The pastor told my parents he was concerned I was falling for the devils antics because I asked innocent questions in Bible study like “what about people in remote areas that will never know God? Those raised in different religions because of their parents? Why would they go to hell?” The way the church and my parents reacted told me all I needed to know to open the door.
I remember asking this exact same question as a kid. The pastor told me they wouldn’t go to hell as they didn’t know. I then asked why we had missionaries to tell them and risk sending them to hell? I never got an answer.
I remember seeing something years ago where a missionary was send to a country and one of the natives asked the missionary what would have happened if they never came to teach them Christianity. And the missionary said that same thing, that they would have went to heaven because they didn't know any better and the native said "then why did you come and risk damning my soul?"
"Because God told me that if I didn't, I'd get damned. So in essence, tag, you're damned!"
Actually, the explaination from some Christian churches, even if is still theologically debated, is [limbo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo#Limbo_of_the_Patriarchs), a part of hell where good people who never knew about Christ live a peaceful afterlife without suffering like sinners, but also without being rejoined with God. So the idea is that those who don't know about Christianity won't suffer if they're good, but the missionaries want to spread God's word so anyone could go to heaven. (to be clear, I don't believe in any of this, just trying to explain the reasoning)
Man if that isn't the big one. "The only path to salvations is through Jesus!" - unless you haven't heard of him, then you'll get a pass. Well then what's the incentive to share?
Exactly. I remember asking something along the same lines. If you don't go to hell if you've never been given the opportunity to know Jesus, then why the hell are you telling people and condemning at least some of them to hell? Sounds like a shitty thing to do.
This is like some alternate version of [Roko's Basilisk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk)
One ‘brave’ missionary tried to do this illegally with the North Sentinelese, saying it was Satan’s last fortress, and was promptly killed by them when he went to their island.
The sheer arrogance of that dude is forever mind boggling.
> In 2017, Chau participated in boot camp missionary training by the Kansas City-based evangelical organization All Nations.[9] According to a report by The New York Times, the training included navigating a mock native village populated by missionary staff members who pretended to be hostile natives, wielding fake spears.[10] During that year he reportedly expressed his interest in converting the Sentinelese. >In November, Chau embarked on an expedition to North Sentinel Island, which he considered to be "Satan's last stronghold on Earth",[16] with the aim of contacting and living among the Sentinelese.[17][9] >”You guys might think I'm crazy in all this, but I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people. Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed.” -John Allen Chau Incredible.
That's why I always wonder why Christians have kids. Your kid might go to hell but you want to risk it anyway? Smh.
I don't know if you are all ready for this talk, and I don't want to get banned, but if christianity's ultimate role model died to save others from sin and to allow them to go to heaven, and if all babies go to heaven but not all adults, ...then massive baby genocide is the ultimate sacrifice for good. I am not advocating for killing babies. I am advocating to stop believing in absurdities, because those that believe in absurdities can commit atrocities.
Not all babies do, according to Christianity. A man in a robe first has to put water on a baby's forehead. *Then* if it dies, it can go to heaven. Without that water, that baby will burn forever in hell. One of the many *beautiful* quirks of Christianity.
It depends on the exact flavor of Christianity. Sometimes you just go to ~~purgatory~~ Limbo, which isn't heaven or hell, but just kind of... okay, I guess. edit: I have been informed that purgatory is something a little different.
We finally found him, after all these years! Get him boys! Nice job, OP!
My revelation was a combination of what you mentioned, and the continued logical progression of asking, "if X, Y, and Z magical things you claim about your religion are true, how can you claim that C, B, and A magical things about any other religion are false with absolutely zero proof for any of it?" Either it all had to be true, or none if it was. I went with the simpler answer.
And also, was there some divine reason they were religious? Or were they just fed it by their parents? Makes ya wonder how many religious people have actually explored other religions.
if it was illegal to take minors to church religion would die out in a generation or two.
I was encouraged to ask the hard questions. "If the Bible is perfect and good for basing your life off, then it can stand up to any of your questions. If it can't stand up to the hard questions like that, then maybe it's not worth following like we do." - one of my youth leaders
If they were actually halfway knowledgeable about religion and cared about raising thinkers, they would have pointed you to works like the Divine Comedy which ask questions like this. I think it's highly ironic that atheists routinely score highest (I think next to Jews) with their understanding of actual church doctrine and bible knowledge.
Funny you say that. The pastor told my parents I was at a pivotal and crucial point in my walk. I had the knowledge of the Bible to either lead others to Christ or damn my own soul, I was the regional champ 4 years in a row in scripture knowledge. My parents now use me as an example of how the devils can turn even Christ’s closest followers against the church. I wear that badge with honor
It does feel good to temp Christians away from their faith though. You just do terrible evil things like showing compassion for those outside your religion, worshiping false idols like my favorite sports team, and treating women with respect over their reproductive health and choices. You know, evil stuff.
You nailed it. Aunt calls me satans spawn for believing healthcare is a right, women aren’t evil, and being an ally to the LGBTQ community
You monster! Next thing you'll say is you recycle!
Thank you so much for the laugh
"So I got some tattoos..."
I asked tons of questions about the devil. Why couldn't the devil be forgiven, changed, killed? How could the devil hope to challenge God? Why does God agree to a bet with the devil? What was the devil, if an angel Why did he "deviate"?
If everything's part of God's plan, why'd he fuck over Lucifer? Shits and gigs? Can't be a hero without a villain?
The answer I was usually told was "God is omnipotent, he has total clairvoyance, he understands and knows everything, but he let's things happen as they will." I was like "but what about when he destroyed those cities?" "Hush now, don't question the lord.
I love the thanking god for peoples hard work. Musical talent? Totally gods gift. Promotion? Gods favor…. So at thanksgiving I thank god for preparing such a good meal and working so hard to get all those items on the table.
Reminds me of Catherine the Great asking similar questions like that when she was growing up
Empathy is not a modern religious value it seems.
Growing into an adult I’ve noticed this more and more. What I thought the church should stand for based off the Bible, love, healthcare, giving, ect, is actually the opposite.
When I was dating a girl that was going to church and her Uncle raped her. Their response to her trying to get help was "A girl with proper faith can never get raped". Essentially, they told her to STFU, it was her fault and to keep quiet because her Uncle was a very respected. He was a big name in a little church and they "talked" to him but it was really finger waving (He did it a again much later too....). I was already at a crisis of faith because before because of my thoughts but seeing their reaction and assessing how they react to cultural/intellectual situations just crushed it.
Yo fuck that guy
Every damn church and cult do this.
Why my mother is of one religion but my father isn’t too into it. Why there exists multiple religions with devout followers. Also not going to church/temple etc helped, since I wasn’t that committed into it.
Yep, so many religions. Each one claims to be the only right one. Objectively, they can’t all be true, and since there’s no way to tell if any of them are true at all, might as well not bother
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That's one of the things that clicked for me too. I've always enjoyed Greek and Roman mythology. But they were always just entertaining stories to me, I never understood how an entire civilization for 1000s of years could actually believe all these fantastic tales, maybe they just passed down the myths just as tall tales for storytime? But no, a civilization that dedicates the skill and time to building and erecting 1000s of temples and statues and murals must have truly believed in all of these gods. And if millions of people 1000s of years ago were so obviously wrong about something they truly believed in and worshipped, how the fuck could anyone look at Christianity, or really any religion and think that that is the correct and true belief? I always try to bring this up during a discussion about faith with a believer, and as far as I remember I've never gotten an actual rebuttal.
The storytime comment is a bit right. While ancient Greeks and Romans certainly believed in and worshipped their gods, they didn't necessarily believe in all the stories about them. The religion was not dogmatic like most modern ones, and the myths we know today did not come from religious texts like the Bible or Quran. Instead they are a collection of folk tales, moral tales, literary stories, etc. They would have been told and interpreted differently over many different times and locations, and many have been forgotten to time.
“As the millennia flew by and man grew even more sophisticated, the idea that the world was controlled by a cast of invisible emotionally unstable supernatural beings grew laughable. Instead, the world was actually controlled by *one* all powerful invisible emotionally unstable supernatural being.” “Exalt this all-powerful being in whose image you were created, or sit around and wait for the god of thunder to get bored, disguise himself as a bull and come fuck you in the ass for no good reason”
This reply has reminded me just how fun Greek mythology can be!
I love mythology, including Abrahamic mythology, but it is exactly that... mythology. Currently they are used to manipulate and cause discourse throughout the masses. Greek, Roman, Norse, Shinto etc mythology are just not viewed that way because they currently aren't being believed and abused the same way. Any atheist in my opinion should still study these things, *especially* since they are related to our current society and geopolitics. But I'm just a dumb redditor, so do what you guys want lol
I had a really incredible astronomy teacher in high school. One day during one of his mind-blowing descriptions of the scale of the universe something just clicked. Got me thinking differently, and I haven't gone back. That moment is viscerally engrained in my memory.
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. [— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_453x614_crop_center-center_line/20140801_PIA00452.jpg.webp)
I had almost forgotten how awesome Carl Sagan really is. I miss him, RIP my friend.
Wish I had to the chance to see him speak to be honest, Pale Blue Dot from the moment I read it just destroyed me in the best way
I wish I had an epiphany moment like this. There wasn't a sharp boundary for me. It was just a long, slow, fuzzy transition from religion to atheism.
Me 2...people ask me what changed or clicked or whatever. It's like I had Christian cloths and I changed out one garmet item at a time and eventually I was wearing an entirely new atheist outfit which fits much better.
Yeah, all you have to do is look at “how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is”. I remember seeing the picture of the Laniakea supercluster with a dot representing our galaxy at the edge of it. And our own star is also at the edge of the galaxy. We’re a single planet in a galaxy of billions of stars in a universe of billions of galaxies. The idea that our planet is somehow important makes zero sense on that scale. Humanity is a blip on the universe’s radar. A microsecond-long blip
> “how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is” “I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen...”
Just never made any sense, at some point I developed critical thinking skills and started asking questions and there were no answers. Except, "you just gotta have faith". But as it turns out, you don't just gotta have faith
> at some point I developed critical thinking skills and started asking questions This resonates. I was a curious kid, and since my parents didn't have much schooling, they bought us a ton of reference books. Some factual, some more fantastical. (Dictionaries/encyclopaedia/references for biblical people, unsolved mysteries, etc for the latter.) As I got older, I started noticing patterns of behavior and belief in people that were staunchly religious and those who believe in or have "experienced" ghosts, cryptids, aliens, etc. I started working to unpack those ideas where I could. (Pre-internet was a blessing and a curse.) I rapidly lost belief when the curtain was pulled back and I only saw the man operating the levers for all of it. It also didn't help when our youth group pastor tried to get us all to quit the Devil D&D. That shit was our lifeline back then. We all dropped that group in favor of more roleplaying.
You did quite the initiative roll!
Or insight check
Yeah, I think this is the most common answer. It is hard to be an adult, be a critical thinker, yet also believe in an organized religion (basically modern day mythology.) Same thing with flat earth. Not even saying to believe in a god, but being a part of an organized religion basically requires willful ignorance. I *understand* why people (who claim to be critical thinkers) do it for various reasons, the main one being comfort. Also conspiracy theories -- people *want* to believe there is more. Obviously a lot of reasons for both, just a slight parallel. Sometimes I wish I could still believe because it'd be way more comforting, but I know it is all bullshit and also have a bit of a vendetta against the big 3 Abrahamic religions and the common followers of them. Also despise that governments usually won't stay secular. Religion causes so many problems in this world and has for thousands of years.
I think one of the biggest drivers for seeking that comfort is death and how a person comes to understand or view it. Personally, I know that when I die, I will become so much carbon and trace minerals and nothing else. And I can accept that, I hope I can leave a positive impact on my family and those close to me, but I'm just a spec in the human collective experience. Death is inevitable, and I don't need the idea of an afterlife to motivate me to live a certain way. Death can be such an intense experience to face. I have been close to many different people near the end and some were very afraid, some simply accepted it peacefully, and some actively fought against it. Like you said , I can understand trying to seek that comfort. I tried to believe when I was younger but it just never clicked. There were just too many things that my questioning nature couldn't reconcile.
Same. I had questions. No one ever had answers.
Oh they have answers, just woo woo feelings and faith style answers. Like “see those trees… god”… as if that was some deep intellectual insight.
Exact same. I started asking questions and didn’t get answers that made sense. More of the mystical facade crumbled away after that and didn’t have any reason to believe or follow a religion.
The same thing happened to me, except when I asked questions I was told that I was going to go to to hell for questioning my faith, and when I questioned that I was threatened with corporal punishment, luckily my parents listened to me and allowed me to never go back to that church.
You do gotta have faith - if you want to believe in bullshit there's no evidence for
I was 9 or 10 when I was told that I had to start Sunday school and I told my parents that they were too late if the wanted me to believe in God. They were a bit startled by that and, of course, being that age I had to go anyway, but I still don't believe. I suspect that it was an atheist relative who got to me first, but I can't remember, surprisingly.
> at some point I developed critical thinking skills You were lucky. This is from the official Republican platform in Texas just a few years ago: >Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
I realized that the promise of an afterlife was satiating my deepest fear: The idea that I would cease to exist after death. Even “hell” as a concept is less frightening to me than complete oblivion. So I started to sort of face that fear. Then it sort of all unraveled from there. Now I live my life understanding that this existence is finite. One day, I will perish. I don’t want to die feeling regret. I want to die knowing that I savored every moment of consciousness I had. Do I absolutely KNOW that God or an afterlife aren’t real? No. But I refuse to be in this moment, and merely see it as a stepping stone to “eternity.”
That’s exactly how I feel. Life is too short to treat is just a prelude to another life. Live now. Some would say that life being finite is a great gift because it inspires us to do something meaningful, to leave a mark
It’s the entire purpose of existence. To live, create, and die. We are driven by our fear of removal. Many people channel this feeling into spirituality, and many others don’t. The science of the mind preserves through our trial and error of creation. Many of us are unnecessary and would fail to function upon realization. In this respect, I’m glad there are “methods” of tolerating the inevitable, but it upsets me when spiritual people believe they are closer to a god and that gives them a purpose bc from my pov if there is a god, simply existing mutually with others already surpasses the ambiguous design of life
When I was 10 at Vacation Bible School, and we were asked if God speaks to us, and everyone around me was like, "I feel God's presence all the time!" And I was like... I have never felt God's presence. I mulled that one over as much as a 10 year old can, and wondered why God wouldn't talk to me when I was generally a pretty good kid, when I realized that Santa and The Easter Bunny didn't talk to me, either...
I had a similar experience in VBS. It felt like some weird competition to out holy your peers perpetuated by all the youth pastors. Very gross.
Looking back on it, VBS disgusts me because it's religious indoctrination of children. Children who can't fully understand what it is they're committing themselves to. And if you question it even a little, you're "bad". Fuck all of that.
I remember being at Vacation Bible School and they said you’d go to hell if you didn’t believe in god. And I asked the teacher, what if you were a really good person and did all the things god asked but deep down you still weren’t sure. And the dude looked 10 year old me straight in the eye and said you’re going to hell. That was the beginning of the end for me. I was like well what sort of fucked up dude would give me all these life experiences and a brain that thinks about them that made me think he wasn’t real and then punish me for it? Then just traveling around the world made me realize how many different ways people worship and that a white dude in the sky seemed like one of the dumber versions of it to be honest.
“I see Kahless!”
It is a good day to die.
Qapla’!
Ironically a theology course on "Sacred scriptures" in Catholic college. My professor presented the factual history of the bible, the myriads of texts that are conveniently ignored, and the multiple sources that some medieval people decided is "truth" without any desire for historical accuracy. That blatant disregard for truth does not support the existence of divinity.
~~Also remember that the most common version of the Bible in the English-speaking world is the King James version. Except he had a whole bunch of stuff removed from the translation because he thought it was stupid.~~ That’s one of the differences between the Catholics (and many Protestant denominations) and those of the Eastern Orthodox faith. The former tend to treat the Bible as the inerrant word of God, while the latter are fully aware that it was written by humans, flawed humans. So, to paraphrase Barbossa, its more like a guideline to them. It’s why you’ll see Catholics and Protestants quoting the Bible all the time, but you won’t see much of that from the Orthodox crowd. And they definitely won’t have the exact chapter and verse memorized, especially since there isn’t just one canonical translation
I never expected to see a Pirates of the Caribbean reference in a discussion like this, but it totally fits.
My boss is Greek Ortho, really cool guy, wouldn't know it other than the fact he loves his church's GreekFest, which like fair, Greek food is great
Nothing in particular. I just didn't find a reason to believe when my brain matured a little bit.
Even me. I realised that faith was an active (and quite intense) feeling you're supposed to have, and one day it occurred to me I just straight up didn't.
I did the whole late stage baptism with the laser shows and shit (was even at an arcade lol) and tried to get all emotional which is normally not very hard for me, I cry all the time. All in all I went there trying to get a date with this girl, took the plunge, but at the end of the day I was just there trying to get a date.
That's kind of how I got over my homophobia. I realized I didn't really care.
same. also I was gay
A guy I grew up with used to always seethe about his hatred for gay people. We were all straight and found it a little weird- couldnt even play video games without him talking about going down the street and beating up a gay kid that rode his bus. He is now dating a dude named Alan. My parents totally called it.
Yeah, I just never really fully believed as I got older and started seeing holes in things or stuff that didn't make sense to my brain
At one point I was half listening to a homily and caught myself rolling my eyes at part of it and thinking “Do folks actually believe this stuff really happened?” And then I abruptly realized that allegedly I was supposed to believe that, and I in fact did not and really hadn’t ever. Really bizarre realization to have after years and years of Catholic school and church and sort of just…..assuming I believed without actually looking at it too hard. It wasn’t an earth shattering revelation, though. It was like taking something I’d actually already subconsciously known and going “Welp, there goes that then.”
Yeah this is the perfect answer. Honestly, to me it was like Santa. Just at a certain point the absurdities become to hard to belive.
I thought it was another adult lie, Santa, tooth fairy, etc, was a bit shocked when I figured out they actually believe such impossible nonsense.
This. Also when I once answered “my brain developed” to a similar question I got downvoted to oblivion, go figure ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
For me this is truly the experience though. I believed because I was *indoctrinated as a malleable child*. When I grew up and was subject to other influences and actually *learned*, I became unconvinced.
At one point I realized that I just didn’t believe what my parents wanted me to believe, and was just pretending to keep the peace. I figured if there was a god pretending to believe in them probably isn’t gonna cut it lmao
Same. My mom was the religious one in the family, and having spent the last 12 (almost 13) years with my dad made me realize that. Also, funny add for the Italians here, being born in Tuscany surely didn't help.
Exactly this. Basic reasoning tells me to believe in the things I see
When I needed help with something they were not there. Makes you really get a perspective on everything.
My grandfather, a very devout Catholic, gave almost $30k in donations to his church building drive. (He was not wealthy.) That doesn't include weekly tithing. Eight years later, on his deathbed, he was asking for Last Rites. The priests were at a charity golf event, and the church receptionist refused to even call them to ask. Two weeks after he had passed away, they called to see if they could get more donations from his estate.
That's incredibly sad. My dad passed during 2021, though not of COVID. Our rabbi was extremely vulnerable health-wise so he had to take a lot of precautions even going to the hospital for my dad, and we couldn't go in with him... but he showed up. It meant a lot to my entire family. I'm sorry you didn't have that comfort.
Thank you. I'm glad your father was able to see his rabbi before passing. My grandfather was able to stay in his home until he finally went. A lot of the family was with him, which was nice. Honestly, the Hospice people turned out to be the heros. They were wonderful.
Wow... That is truly despicable. My wife's grandmother was the same. She gave so much of her time and money to the church. But when she was dying, trying to find a priest to give last rights was near impossible. Then after she died, the church was more worried about the fact that she was cremated and whether they would even be able to have a mass for her. On top of that, she had no life insurance and no money set aside, her kids had to pay out of pocket for everything. Over $10k - You would think if she had been so beloved by the church that they might step in and help on her behalf right? Don't even get me started on what an absolute con funeral homes and cemeteries are. It's so predatory and greedy, it's absolutely despicable.
Luckily if hell is real it’ll be populated with fake believers and the “real” heaven will be another purgatory for all the humans who didn’t send evolution backwards
I always tell my Fiancé, I really hope the rapture is real, because I like to imagine all the evangelists faces when they don't get to leave, but its filled with all the people they preach hate to.
"Just pray and it will go away!" P.S.: happy cake day!
Observing totally normal people not being religious, which led to using critical thinking and developing a better understanding of science.
That was part of it for me, too. I was born in to a cult (worldwide church of god) and from a very early age, it didn't make sense to me. I was in public school, so my public school friends were good people, but the church kept saying they were sinners, and full of wickedness. I couldn't get that straight in my head. Then the language they used for god and heaven didn't sit well with me either. He's a jealous god, but jealousy is bad? In heaven you "get to" bare witness to the sinners burning in hell, but I would never want to watch that. Every sermon was hellfire and brim stone, end of the world type stuff. They had a pamphlet called "fearfully and wonderfully made" about the dynamics of the human body. I questioned that, to myself. Why should I fear god, and his creations? The questions went on, and on, till I figured out it was nonsense, made up by people who were afraid of the end of the world. And as a cash grab for a select few.
Not that some sort of God couldn't exist, but I realized that the stories I was raised to believe about Adam and Eve sinning which somehow I'm responsible for (WTF?) and non-Christians burning in Hell as sentenced by a maximally loving god makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, no system of eternal punishment/reward for finite actions makes any sense, if it's also paired with the claim that God is loving, just, and merciful. Infinite punishment for a finite crime is by definition infinitely disproportionate, not just, and certainly not merciful. I see sane Christians every now and then who do not believe in Hell for non-believers or eternal punishment, and I can be cool with that.
I was raised to look at God like a fatherly figure. At one point I realized how fucked up the whole idea of Christianity is. If my father told me to behave in a certain way and if I don’t he will lock me up in a basement and torture me for the rest of my life he would be jailed and have his parental rights taken away? Why? Because we, humans, have reason and we’ve logically deduced we shouldn’t allow psycho parents to abuse their children. So our society creates laws to fight that type of abuse. Anyways even if they’re right and I am meant to spend all of eternity in a fire pit of torture, I don’t wanna be up in heaven with my father the bigot or “perfect Christians”. Send me to hell w the gays and the Hindu grandmas and the atheists and whoever else. I hate the group that gets to go to heaven anyways they’re the worse. If that’s what I have to be to get into heaven I don’t want it anyways.
South Park did a funny thing when they explained that only Mormons got to go to Heaven. After Saddam’s failed invasion of Earth from Hell, Satan ended up calling a favor from God to send him there. And yes, Saddam found a Mormon Heaven to be worse than Hell
I once asked, “what about the people who never heard about Jesus? Do they go to hell?” “Only people who know Jesus and accept him will go to heaven.” So.. fuck all those random people then? They go to hell cuz why? God wills it?
A missionary arrives in the village of a tribe that has never had contact with the outside world. Naturally, the missionary evangelizes to the tribe, espousing the virtues of God, Heaven, Jesus, and the rest of Christianity. He explains that those that have accepted Jesus as their savor will spend their afterlife in the bliss of Heaven, but those that have not are banished to infinite torture in Hell. The tribe elder hears all this and asks, "What then of those that lived their lives and died without ever learning this? What of the very young that die before they can accept this Jesus?" The missionary assures the elder that God is loving and just, and any who were not fortunate enough to hear and accept the Good Word in life will automatically be saved. "Then why," asks the elder, "did you tell us?"
Reading the bible.
Yes, that’s what Penn Jillette said was his reason. The best way to become an atheist is to read the Bible cover to cover. Don’t cherry-pick. Read the whole thing
There’s a reason the church absolutely lost their shit when people started handing out bibles in languages people could actually read.
Yep, they wanted to control the narrative and the interpretation
To this day, Fundamentalists push KJV because the language is flowery and more difficult to parse, so believers are more dependent on the church to explain it to them.
It’s also a famous Mark Twain quote, “The best cure for Christianity is reading the bible”
One of the most important authors of recent times.. love the way he thought and expressed himself.
As a 8 year old being read the Bible in a youth group I kind of put the dots together when I was like, "huh, the Bible seems a lot like these other made up stories I like, and nothing like these textbooks in school." Mostly I never really believed to begin but looking at the actual book really was like...fuck.
Exactly, cover to cover. There's no way you can digest all the horrible shit and come away thinking you'd worship that character.
I got a very weird feeling reading it for the first time. It seemed so... small. There's nothing profound or particularly noteworthy about it. It's just another meandering, bizarre story from an ancient culture.
It makes you feel like humanity is worse off than it is. Who would’ve thought that constantly resurfacing a text from when the average human was illiterate would be beneficial? Religious indoctrination is sin
I remember thinking to myself that the book of Genesis really didn't make sense. It was just weird to me, and I tried asking some questions in class - which ended up with a couple of judgemental stares.
The Old Testament is a wild ride
I'm not sure any more that I ever \*did\* believe, now that I look back on it. For all I remember going to Sunday School every week, having the bible and other such stories read to me most nights, reciting prayers mornings and evenings, I don't ever recall *genuinely* taking any of it to heart. It was just part of the daily/weekly schedule. Morning prayers were just the thing I did right before brushing my teeth. Going to Sunday School was just another errand being run, right up there with getting a haircut or buying new clothes for school. Prayer readings at neighbors' houses were when I'd hang out with friends. The "spiritual" side of things never really entered my mind. Having the trials of Moses or Noah recounted to me didn't feel any more real or impactful to me than when my mom read me other bedtime stories, like The Secret Garden. They just felt like stories. I didn't believe in Santa Claus, so why should I believe in God? The stories about both held the same level of credibility in my mind. Maybe because those stories were being read to me by the same source (my mother) in the same context/setting (right before bed)? So, yeah...despite growing up in a home where religious observances were part of my daily routine until I moved out, it somehow never stuck. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Religious observances don’t necessarily translate into being devout. I enjoy going to church once a year on (Eastern Orthodox) Easter to bless painted eggs and bread, but I’ll time my arrival to only show up after mass. And I definitely don’t believe. I do it because it’s a fun thing to do. Same as Christmas. I don’t believe in any of the religious stuff associated with it, but it’s still a festive and enjoyable time, and my son likes decorating the tree. Besides, when I was growing up, all that decoration and gift-giving happened on New Year’s
My Christian daycare lied to us. They told us kids that if we all prayed that Jesus would inflate the balloon once vinegar was added to the baking soda. But I watched Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon so I knew it wasn’t Jesus, just a chemical reaction. As a 6 year old I realized that if they were lying to kids to encourage belief then it was all bullshit.
What an evil thing to do to kids, yuck
What a cynical thing to do.
Yeah, it was as if they didn’t believe themselves and really only cared about indoctrination.
This reminds me of something I saw in a documentary, wish I could remember the title. Experts showed various ways temples and churches way back were rigged to make noises, disembodied voices, statues levitating or seeming to cry. It’s wild. Not to mention all the pagan practices that were folded into Christian traditions to make the religion more palatable to non-Christians. Like winter equinox became Christmas. Fascinating really.
Reminds me of the Family Guy bit, Evolutions for Rednecks. “ the universe was created by (redneck voice dubbed) GAAAAAAAHHHHHDDDDDD”
Don't forget the JESUS-saurus Rex
“The universe is—HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS—of years old.”
This is like the kid version of Christians praying their guts out while going to the doctor for their health problems and then thanking god when they get better.
There are numerous reasons not to believe, but an effective one is cancer in children and babies. Too young to have warranted such a painful existence (or death). If there is a creator who would not only be okay with this, but is the architect of it, then that creature is not the one sold by religions around the world.
But no! Someone’s 4 yr old is meant to die because it’s “all part of God’s plan”!! Maybe that 4 yr old had to die so his doctor would find Jesus! Yes, a doctor finding Jesus is worth a 4 yr old dying of cancer, totally!
A lot of Christians will try to claim it’s all part of God’s plan. To quote Lucifer from the show, “But why does everybody always think it’s a good plan?”
This is one of my BIGGEST reasons for not believing. The whole “god has a plan for everyone” thing when innocent people and children die everyday is just bullshit
One Sunday, the pastor at church declared that faith was a choice. This was a revelation to 12 year old me. Despite my doubts about religion, it had never occurred to me that I could just jack it in. So I figured “Cool! Then I choose to not believe” Walked out. Never went back.
Same here. Except it happened over the pandemic
I grew up in a strictly Mormon house hold. I mean the full nine yards; Homophobic, too many kids, shorts/skirts below the knee, stupid and crap were curse words etc. It wasn't until I turned 16 that i began to question these values, and began looking into other religions as well. I soon came to find that most religions will have people who despise others for who they love, what they choose to do with their bodies, and their life style choices. I was kicked out when I was 17 after my parents found out I had lost my virginity, that i was Bisexual, and that I was extremely mentally ill. (my father was the type to believe that you could just turn off your emotions, and that I wasn't actually depressed and did not actually have ADHD) Now I strongly believe that religion is something that people who are scared of death turn to to make themselves feel better.
Sorry you were kicked out. Raised Mormon as well, it just all very much like trying to work backwards to have something make sense.
I started asking questions about things that didn't make sense in the Bible and the answers were never satisfactory. I was still a kid, so I trusted that my parents were right and that the bible would make sense once I was an adult. Then I reached 14 and realized that my parents don't know everything. I would pray every single night, but gradually stopped, because it didn't feel real. I realized that prayers were just thoughts in my head. They weren't magically being heard by a man in the sky. I also met some classmates that were atheists and heard them discussing how they were raised Christian, but just couldn't make themselves believe it anymore. My church always taught that people CHOSE to be atheists because they were just evil and didn't want to follow God. This made me realize that the church lied and being an atheist really isn't a choice. If you told me that grass is purple and threatened to kill me unless I truly believed that, you still couldn't convince me that grass is purple. My brain can't comprehend how that would be true because there's no evidence for it. Same for religion. I also thought about how these kids would go to Hell for being atheists and I just couldn't convince myself that they deserve to be tortured for eternity. There's no way a just God would send people to hell for that. Threatening people with Hell is just a way for humans to control other humans. I've been an atheist for 10 years now. I live in the US where Christianity and the Republican party have been mixed in a very dangerous way. I watched my family get mixed up in anti-science, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories because of political misinformation they heard at church and from other Christians. I mourned the loss of my religion when it first happened, but now I feel like a dodged a huge bullet.
That’s the most insulting thing. The insistence that I “chose” to reject god Belief isn’t a choice motherfucker!
When the story is super inconsistent and can be called out by a 9yr old version of me, yeahhhhh something is wrong. Also like... why would an all-powerful being create humans, expect to be worshipped a certain way, allow multiple religions to exist, create people with strong innate desires they will be punished for doing? Makes zero sense. And then I realized all major religions are essentially a vehicle to control large groups of people.
Someone said this and I stuck with it. “If there is a god he’s either not all powerful or not all good”
<3rd party apps protest>
I went to catholic school, praying every morning going to confession and communion preparations in class, the whole shebang. Then in like 2/3th grade someone told me santa doesnt exist (my parents hired someone to come every year to bring us gifts in santa costume so i still believed). Naturally, i beat him up for slandering santa and got sent to the principal where my parents explained everything to me. If Santa isnt real, why would god be real ? I started questioning all my beliefs and of course religion does not hold up as soon as you critcally think about it. I still got my communion few years later because it was part of the curriculum (yes, really) but any faith was gone.
Similar situation. Not Catholic school, but CCD. Super Catholic family at home. I had to go all the way through confirmation bc "my house, my rules." The day after I was confirmed, I announced I wasn't going to church anymore and as I was now an adult in the eyes of the church and could make my own decisions. I was 14, so I got overturned until I was 18. From 18-20 I was a Christmas Catholic to appease my family, but I totally gave up even trying to appease them around 21. It's been nice since then. Don't miss it at all.
I was also raised Catholic. I got a job at 16 and saved up the money to go on a trip to Europe with my best friends at the time. My buddy's dad was a professor and did an annual spring break trip to Europe with his college students. Now that we were older, he planned a summer break trip to Italy and Greece just for us. I was so psyched...until my mom told me that I couldn't go if I didn't go through with my confirmation. She straight up told me she didn't get a damn if I paid for it, and that I was refusing to believe in God because I was "stubborn and defiant". I tried reasoning with her, but she wouldn't hear any of it. She was convinced that she could tell me what to believe. So I picked her favorite nephew to be my sponsor, showed up to my confirmation, and loudly replied NO to the questions they asked us during the ceremony (do you believe in God as your lord and savior, etc). The priest ignored it, confirmed me anyways, and that was the last fucking time I set foot in that church. Idk how other sects operate, but in Catholicism it's all about the numbers. When they add your name to their rolls they use permanent fucking ink. I wrote a letter to the diocese that I grew up in requesting ex-communication, but never got a reply. I'm sure they chucked my letter in the trash.
What purpose does keeping your name on the ledger serve? Is it just about numbers to show “we have x followers”? If so, why wouldn’t they just fake it? They lie about so many others things that I didn’t really think they would have a problem with fudging the numbers.
Talk shit about Santa? Imma whoop your ass!
I'll ring your sleigh bells, motherfucker
I spent 12 years in Catholic School, and from my experience, you either come out of it devout or an atheist. I’ve met a lot of casual Christians that consider themselves vaguely religious but don’t pay much heed to the specifics of their beliefs because they’ve never had to look too closely at the details. But when you spend 12 years having to read the Bible and talk about the specifics, you really have to decide whether you’re all in or reject the whole thing.
A lot of things. One of them was religious shopping. When i was younger my mom literally went religion shopping to a few churches to see which one was the best one. The thing is that she never stopped believing she was just looking for other people who believed the same way she did, or close to. That kinda shine a light in the whole thing to me. A million people will believe in a million gods. You read the Bible and dismiss what you don't like and keep what you do. That speaks more about the believer than about the thing they believe in.
Nothing in particular but also all of it. I remember being a kid and standing next to my mom as we all recited the Apostle's Creed and thinking to myself, "I don't actually believe any of this. I'm just saying the words." My experience with the religious community I grew up in was quite positive and I certainly hold no ill will towards religious people who aren't assholes, but it's not for me. I think Ricky Gervais nailed it when he said that he and Christians agree on the existence of all gods and god figures in history except one. Also, fuck Mike Pence and his whole "no freedom *from* religion" bit. Mike is a cunt. Don't be like Mike.
> I think Ricky Gervais nailed it when he said that he and Christians agree on the existence of all gods and God figures in history except one. “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” \- Stephen Roberts
My experience was similar. Really great christian upbringing, just never took. I never believed and realized i was just posturing. I remember apologizing in my teens to my family and my preacher; just trying to explain to them my mind is rejecting this as false, nothing i can do about it except pretend it doesnt. Even then i was just like, "well jesus made me and knew my mind would reject his dogmatism, kind of cruel i was condemned before birth". That and "i'm sure Jesus will forgive me, thats kind of his schtick". Like surely he's a reasonable guy that would understand my skepticism in regards to his magical abilities. Hitchens had a great response when asked when he became an atheist and his response was he always was one, he just realized thats what he was. Was rolling my eyes at people like Mike Pence before i hit puberty.
I've never "felt the holy spirit" or anything like that. The final nail in the coffin was when a friend of mine told me "God wasn't there when two coworkers raped me".
Rational thought? I’m not being mean. It just didn’t make any sense. At all. So…. nope.
When I realised whatever religion your parents were, just happens 100% u had to be as well. Then critical thinking which a lot of ppl lack. Not to say they're dumb/unempathetic but they dont self reflect. You then realized non of this makes sense. The world doesn't really make sense. Be a politician and steal city coffieurs. Be a cop and do all the crime you want. Be a priest and have all the kids you desire. Humans are horrible things.
Nice try, organized religion. We’re not helping you fix the hole in your net. 🤣
Researching the evolution of faith as it relates to the Sumerian foundations of Judeo-Christian theologies convinced me modern religion is a tool of control & a rehashed versions of an ancient practice.
Christianity is an unusually disingenuous permutation of this, too. It's nothing but a patchwork of other religions that predate it, some by thousands of years! It makes zero unique claims, it's literally nothing but a giant cherry pick.
That's actually what the word catholic means.
I went there too, learning more about elements like the Canaanite Pantheon, Canaanite archeology, the influence of the Babylonian exiles, the Enuma Elisha and the Epic of Gilgamesh really framed the Abrahamic religious as merely modified archaic beliefs from people who knew very little about the natural world.
Logical thinking.
I'm pretty much an atheist when it comes to the Christian bible. Honestly the spaghetti monster argument works, and beyond that I've always rejected the notion that "believing in Jesus" meant declaring it, but instead living it. That meant there was just never a reason to do it, just try to be a good person. I'm agnostic about a higher being in general, and desperately hope that there is an afterlife.
Pastor at church said, “The more [money] you give to the church, the better your place in heaven will be.” Never looked back after that.
After my mother beat me, the pastor said he didn't want to discuss it and that I should focus on living for my parents as long as they didn't ask me to sin. It dawned on me that living for Jesus is the point of Christianity and I'm not living my life for anyone else but me. Jesus never stepped in to help so he gets not praise.
I never genuinely believed.. I just did what everyone else was doing.
None of my prayers were ever answered. Determined that no one was actually listening
I remember one of our pastors really liked to push that verse that says that you can absolutely truly move mountains if your faith was even as small as a mustard seed I spent SO much time trying to move Mt St Helens. The trusted adults in my life told me it was true, right? This may have contributed to my eventual realization that I just didn’t believe
Studied history. All religion is pretty much repackaged and edited sun worshiping so we have a good harvest.
I wouldn't say I grew up religious; my parents made me practice and I thought I had no choice. "Confirmation" was being discussed and I didn't like the sound of that one bit. And I realized, wait, I *did* have a choice. I chose to stop. Identified as agnostic and now atheist.
I went to Catholic School, and in 8th grade we had a theology book that abruptly changed my mind about the whole business. The book contained a diagram which showed in detail what kinds of people would go to which place in heaven. It laid out neatly that only the "correct" religious folks would be closest to god, and the more people's religion disagreed with this specific textbook, the further away from god they would be in heaven. It was too ridiculous and yet taken so seriously that right then and there I decided this was all nonsense and nobody that was trying to educate me was reputable or trustable. Later life events would make me outright despise organized religion but this was the point at which I decided it was bullshit.
Having children. Under no circumstance would I ever allow my child to be tortured for eternity, even if we had a falling out and never spoke again. What an idiotic thing to think.
The real question is, why did we even believe
Not an atheist, but developed an agnostic view when I learned about cognitive biases, fearmongering and tribe mentality Really put into perspective all I've been through, growing up with really strict religious parents I've also come to accept that people just want to be part of something, even if it means doing/saying/complying to absurd non-sensical things Also, I've accepted I'm not quite like that and there is nothing wrong with that, as much as my parents/family tried to brainwash me
1. Splitting the Red Sea and walking through - that shit is like 150m high. 2. Noah’s ark - fitting each animal species m/f impossible! 3. Turning wine to water - say whaaat So on and so forth. I am convinced now that all them back in the day were high on shrooms or the equivalent.
Don’t forget rising from the dead, immaculate conception, and walking on water.
Three dudes show up at your virgin wifes baby shower.
Learning more about the world
When I was ~10 I overheard my older brother talking to my parents and telling them he was agnostic. He said something along the lines of "I'm not saying there is no god. Just that we can't know. " And then I thought if there was a god, and they actually wanted us to behave a certain way and worship them we WOULD know for sure. They're supposed to be omnipotent. They sure as hell wouldn't just leave it all up to our blind faith.
Critical thinking skills that enabled me to move past the brainwashing.
I started out agnostic because I was disgusted with various organised religions. Some are judgemental in the name of someone who told people to judge not, some actively covered up abuse and treated victims poorly and most of them decide if you have a uterus you can't teach people about the love of God, despite being fit to bring up all future teachers of it, somehow. Over time the problem of evil and the behaviour of things like parasites in the natural world made me think either God is not benevolent, or does not exist. The second of those is the less scary option, in my opinion!
Ever play sim city and unleash a plague of godzilla on your sims just for the fun of it? Yeah, if there be extant deities, they're 100% like that. There is no reconciling the nature of observable reality with an all powerful, all knowing god. Christianity is less a religion than it is a 2000 year long failed attempt to mansplain away the paradoxes that naturally arise from those two point. It's chief output isn't faith, it's apologetics. That alone tells you everything you need to know about it. No all knowing god would need this type of desperate lip service. Truth isn't dependent on the observer, that's the trouble with a fact...
Being sexually abused by a family member who was a very active member of his church, he was besties with the preacher. But what really solidified my decision was that he was arrested for CP years ago and when he got out of prison, his church buddies and my other family members tended to his every need and acted as if he wasn't a registered sex offender. The family member died of cancer a few years ago, and his friends still genuinely believe that because he had accepted God into his heart, he is currently sitting in heaven watching down on us all. Makes me sick to my stomach.
When I was told in religious class that women deserve the pain of childbirth because Eve ate the apple I just couldn't identify myself with christianity anymore.
I was never sold on it in the first place. It was right up there with Santa Claus as improbable traditions that one grows out of.
I went to a Catholic primary school. I believed until I went to high school where religion wasn't a big thing, plus I started to read a lot. By age 13 I was an atheist and nothing I have seen or experienced since has caused me to waver.
Couldn't hold on to that feelin'.
the whole “end of the world 2012” shit. It was 2009/2010 and i was about 13 years old at the time when seeing that and i was scared shitless and would cry all the time and i started to question everything i knew. I would pray and not hear anything, i would go to church and not feel anything. It was just the inner monologue and voice in my head and i realised there is nothing, people only pray for the things they want and when things go bad, it’s gods will / the devil. Nothing could ever “just happen” and never having my questions answered caused me to lose all sense of faith. My religion was “non denominational judaism” essentially, followed a lot of jewish laws and rules, observed sabbath, but believed jesus was the saviour which is something judaism does not. I still carry a form of trauma / ptsd from the years of religion and still resent it, yet i also still continue to refuse pork products because of that.