Why don't you believe in God? If you used, what changed your views? If you now have a radically different concept of God, what did it become and why? Let the adventures begin!
I mean the western concept of God espoused by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Big Three and variations there of.
Last edited by Keith Whitener; November 24, 2008 at 7:20 PM.
I lost my faith in a pulpit. I was 17, training to be a preacher, doing 15 minutes and about 5 minutes in, I realized I didn't believe any of it. An anti-epiphany of sorts. I finished my time, cuz I'm a pro, and the next weekend, I was in a trailer park getting wasted. I waited for years for my faith to come back (which it didn't) before I admitted I was an atheist.
If a god does exist, he/she/it hates us so much, so fuck that guy/girl/thing.
I don't know if I ever thought it was real. It was one of those things where someone said, "Do you believe in God?" and I thought for a split second and realized, "Nope."
The concept of God seems so monumentally stupid to me that I have a hard time believing that other people actually believe it.
When I finally came to grips to there not being a Santa Claus (age 12 - yeah, I know), I realized that if this one thing is actually fake, then this other thing probably is too.
I was raised as a Lutheran. I had to go to a Lutheran elementary school every week day, including Sunday school. Even though I did believe when I was younger, I fought my mother on it the whole way (just because I loved sleeping in on weekends when church was, and I was tired of the same teacher for every grade/every class through sixth grade). Eventually it just stopped clicking. I thought, what a waste of time -- fearing someone or something that never has any effect on my life at all. I would pray for this or pray for that but nothing ever changed. But really, it all boiled down to none of it making any sense anymore.
Only recently have I broadcast that I do not believe in religion or god or any of that nonsense.
If you believe -- fine -- but I might debate/argue with you about it.
I'm here, trying to have a good time. Worrying about an afterlife, and all that goes along with that is really, really silly.
We can all be good people to each other without the "law" of some "higher being" telling us to do so. And why should we have to worship something? Bleh!
I never really bought into it. I went to Catholic School on and off, and it isn't the result of a "bad experience with it" or whatever, I just always felt like God was something adults were trying to sell me, no matter where I heard it. When I was about 8 I realized I was born with a sense of morals, and that I didn't gain anything from pursuing this God thing.
Sometimes I tell people I'm an agnostic if I think it will end a particular kind of conversation (sometimes people think all atheists are assholes and you can't change their mind), but I'm an atheist. If there is a God, great for him. But I can find beauty, joy, and self-fulfillment without praying or humbling myself to anything but this kick-ass outer-spacey universe.
This whole thread needs a hug.
I disagree.Originally Posted by Theyear2525now.
I'm much happier knowing that there's nothing out there than I ever was as a "believer."
(My dad is super religious so if he comes in here everybody act cool.)
I started having my doubts when my mom stopped going to church with us. I felt that if she didn't go why should I. i would ask her everyweek why she didn't go and she would tell me she was too tired or that she didn't like the pastor. the more i thought about it though the more i felt like she doesn't belive and she is just being diplomatic.
then in highschool i just got fed up with the youth group all of them were backbiting and shallow they acted like they cared about what i had to say but would compltely ignore my existance outside of church. my parents made me go every week until i turned 18 then they didn't mention it ever again.
·'No, you're wrong Shmee. They're not bad people. They love me. They don't really mean it when they tell me to get kidnapped.'
I believed in god when I was a kid, in sort of a comic book fashion. He was the guy that got me all of my good luck and the one who I turned to whenever I really needed something.
I lived in Idaho, and I had a friend (miraculous, huh?). He was a devout episcopalian, and I started going to church with him. He believed he was filled with the holy ghost, and that apocalypse was coming soon, and that everyone who didn't believe what his church adhered to was going straight to hell. "What about buddhists and people who generally do good things?" "Doesn't matter." Soon after he was expelled for regularly selling morphine in the school.
I didn't lose god then. I claimed I did, but when I moved, and I started biking in the city, I noticed that I had a lot of close calls with cars and such. Started placing faith in god again, but in not a conventional way. God was the guy who looked out for ME, and that's all that mattered.
As time went on, I soon noticed the similarities between god and an imaginary friend. My view of god was based on a protector that I desired. I stopped believing in my idea of god.
Cut to now. Getting in touch more and more with reality by letting go of ideas (this idea is going away, and so is this one). God is going out the window along with most everything. I'm waiting to see what happens.
What are you even talking about when you say "God?" Most people don't have a clue. Lots of people throw that word around like it inherently means something, but the more I thought about it over the years, the fuzzier the concept became. I've never met anyone who could offer me a simple definition of God that didn't have some kind of built-in paradox.
Can something (or non-thing) be both infinite, yet limited enough to be or have a definable and separate entity/personality? If something is everything and everywhere at all times, why would it feel the need to create anything? I doubt such a thing would have any needs at all, since there would be no lack of anything. Or is this "God" a white bearded old Grandpa who lives in the clouds and might help me when I need the answer to a math test question if I pray really, really hard? Is that what we're talking about? Is God "everything?" Because I don't believe in everything.
As a result of this, I can't actually say that I don't believe in God, or that I do believe in God, because any more, I just don't understand what people are asking.
i went to catholic schools my whole life and had a pretty good time believing in god and all of the trimmings without really thinking too much about it. sometime in high school i decided that organized religion probably does more harm than good in the world. then in college i went on a religious retreat that gave me a lot of time to examine my personal faith, and i realized that i didn't believe in any of it. for a while i claimed to be agnostic, taking the humble "you can never really know either way" attitude. finally i realized that i could "never really know" anything at all, but that doesn't stop me from believing in things or professing to know certain things. so now i call myself an atheist, and feel much more comfortable than i ever did when i called myself catholic, spiritual, agnostic, etc.
When I was younger, God used to look like my gradnfather. I didn't realize this because my granddad died before I was two... Anywho, that's who far my religious beliefs went. There was a god that just existed and did stuff.
I promise this is how I became an atheist: I went to see "Remember the Titans" when it came out in theaters. I was 11 when it came out. The next day after watching that movie, I did not believe in God at all.
I think it had to do with the guy getting in the car accident and I asked my mom what happened to him after he died and she didn't know. I overthought it that night and bed, by next morning, I was an atheist.
It's funny because my godmother is really religious and the rest of my family does believe in God, so I never mention it at all. My godmother got pissed because I though a Hail Mary was a football play.
Estoy jodida...
My parents put me up in a christian school environment all my life, but after I left high school I figured it didn't make sense to blindly believe in one religion without researching what else was out there.
I don't necessarily rule religion out, but I'm also not looking for the truth.
So I guess I'm more of the lazy agnostic.
You guys just don't believe in Christianity. The Christian idea of a god clearly doesn't exist, but don't let that stop you from pondering prankster lords, depressed and/or anti-social behemoths creators, and bastard sun beings (to name but a few).
What atheists don't believe in is the happy ending with gates and a crazy thing sitting there nodding his head saying "Shit is awesome forever, c'mere you, I love you a lot."
But who fucking knows? The idea that life in this universe is this giant mistake or the greatest of coincidences is just as weird and mind-blowing as this universe being created by a giant, anarchist whale-god with no agenda besides visual entertainment due to god-boredom.
Can you imagine this entire universe just sitting "there" / "nowhere" with no life to even know it's there? Just sitting there... nothingness and somethingness rolled into one and forever unknown. Just a thing sitting there. That is so weird, guys.
This is probably a video game, you know. We really know everything and are beyond causality/time and we created this to understand the joys of being temporary idiots. This is drugs for god, is what I'm saying. This is what I think about.
I realized religion had little or nothing to do with god in my early teens. A belief in a rational universe came in college. Working as an archaeologist showed me that people are pretty much all the same. While I can say there is a possiblity that evidence could be produced at some future date that would indicate that god exists, I feel that it is not probable. I am an atheist.
Belief in a god to me is like believing astrology, tarot, or that aliens built the pyramids, why ascribe the better (and worse) things about man's nature to invisible wigeeboos in the sky? Can't this life be majestic and mysterious and ultimately understandable by our odd, complex, beautiful, kludgy brains? Deus ex machina are for shitty novels and movies.
We're thinking animals, built to be social and create things, that's our literal raison d'etre. We should create, live, help, and argue dumbass motherfuckers down on the interwebs. Wait, scratch that last part.
Last edited by Gene George; November 24, 2008 at 4:52 PM. Reason: Scratch that, I am a Suavepebblist now.
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I don't believe because the whole thing seems incredibly transparent to me. Like...insultingly obvious.
I've never come across a "religious insight" so profound it must have come from the Ultimate Being. It's all shit damn near anybody could have come up with. Not just that but usually there's an obvious, manipulative reason for them to say it. Means, motive and opportunity.
Thought experiment for religious folks: start with the premise that it's all a racket designed to control people. Examine thoroughly and get back to me with something, ANYTHING, that doesn't jibe.
So yeah that's why I don't believe, feel free to skip the rest of this post. It's a bunch more of my dumb rambling about why Jesus is bad for you. I could have ruined the Comedy And Everything Else thread way more, I showed uncharacteristic restraint.
The Bible is an inkblot. Christians even sort of admit it, there's a saying that the Devil could quote scripture to serve his purposes.
You take an inkblot and you say it's the word of God...so whatever you decide it means (it looks like a butterfly!) is perfect, just and true. That way you don't really have to use it to challenge yourself much, you can use it to justify whatever you already think. You might try out a few different churches in your area and see which preacher tells you what you want to hear. Or you might stick with the Church you were raised in and just ignore certain rules you don't like (premarital sex, anyone?)
If you did follow the Bible word for word (apart from the bits that directly contradict one another of course) that would be pretty horrible, but I'd respect it more. At least it'd be consistent.*
I don't like the idea of evangelists going to third-world countries and trying to bribe people into believing. I don't even like them knocking on my door. But I do have a grudging respect for it because it makes sense. If you REALLY think I'm just blinding myself and I'm gonna burn for eternity as a result...shouldn't you be trying to help me?
I WANT to have this conversation with religious people. Religious people by and large DON'T want to have this conversation at all. When I say too many bad things about their faith they get all emotional and the conversation ends. They can say whatever the hell they want to me, how I'm a dirty heathen hedonist and I'm going to be punished...that I just want to sin because I'm weak of character...it would be impossible to hurt my feelings with any of that because I'm confident in my ideas.
I feel like the defensiveness is partly something that's been programmed in to stop the faithful from listening too much to people like me, and partly the natural reaction of a person who's walled something off in their mind.
Let's say you tell someone you have reason to suspect that their significant other is cheating on them. Their immediate reaction is to blow up at you (or cover their ears and hum). What do you take that to mean? That they're utterly confident in their partner's love and faithfulness?
So many people are so deeply fucked up (in part) because of religion. The plus is that sometimes it sows the seeds of kinky sex, but that's only if they snap out of it. When they stick with it, that's where you get those tragic souls who never explore their real desires. Or worse, you get the Haggards, Foleys and Santori.
Religion slows the evolution of ideas. People will disregard or feel ashamed of their own real feelings and thoughts when they conflict with what they've been told God thinks or wants.
Religion gives you an excuse to avoid uncomfortable issues. Instead of considering ideas on their own merits they're passed through a lens of faulty premises. Religion helps you internalize whatever fucked up garbage your parents did to you, so you can pass it on to your own kids. Perhaps worst of all it teaches you NOT to question authority...because if you question it enough you'll see through it, and they certainly can't have that.
I wonder how many members of the clergy have the same anti-epiphany as Bucky, only after it's too late. They're just as much pros, and their whole lives are tied up in the church, so they're finishing their time. I was gonna try to make a dumb joke here about "getting the light" and "going into the light" or whatever but I couldn't make it work.
I can't make a short post about religion, sorry.
*It's like how people got on Sarah Palin about being anti-abortion even in cases of rape. I'm very pro-choice, and if women who were raped had to carry the kids to term that'd be awful, but I respect that stance more because at least it has an internal logic. When someone says "A fetus is a person, abortion is murder! Unless the mom was raped!" that's just them admitting that they don't really believe abortion is the same as murder. Because they don't. I guarantee that if a group of pro-lifers found out a friend had had an abortion they wouldn't treat her the same as if they found out she'd killed an infant.
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