/atheism/ - Atheism

>>13363

Read the bible, thought about it.

Either this horrible vicious thing exists and I have to kiss it's ass forever or it doesn't.

I choose the more comfortable vision of reality.

>raised Catholic

>had raging borderline alcoholic authoritarian dad

>fear of god worked well on me

>wasn't until I hit adolesence that the logical contradictions and moral hypocrisies started to pull me out of it

One of the biggest things was the whole pedophilia scandal.

Grew up atheist. Parents are both deists but they wanted me to figure it out on my own. I experimented with different religions during puberty, gave up, then again in my late teens, didn't get it still.

Still waiting for an angel of the Lord to reveal to me why he makes believing in him such a consuming mental effort and why the world makes so much more sense without him.

>>13372

>tfw when raised catholic

>tfw cultural christian today

Was never a believer. My parent don't believe in anything but my grandma does. A childhood friend lured me into the church and my parent were ok with that. But it all sounded like tales to me: Things that are told so you will learn to act in a certain why not because it's true. I'm a vocal atheist because I think religion is bad for society and individuals.

>>13367

I just realized I've made a logical error there.

This is the appeal to consequences fallacy.

Just because something is horrible doesn't mean it is not true.

This is like denying the health risks of smoking because I like my cigs.

God may be an amoral hypocritical tyrant, but that doesn't mean he is not real.

I admit my error.

The other reason that I don't believe in god is the failure of the Catholic doctrine of spiritual grace.

I was taught that receiving the sacraments, prayer and reading the bible would make me a better person. I would not become stronger or healthier nor would I be protected from accidents or misfortune.

But I would be less vulnerable to temptation and become filled with love for god and my fellow humans.

It did not work. I am still just as lazy, greedy, prone to anger and lust as I ever was.

But I'm sure a religious person will tell me that's my fault.

Funny how when God fails to deliver it's always your fault.

>>13397

Religion can sometimes promote good behavior but sense it's morality is based on authority rather than reason it's basically nasty.

Things are right because god says so. Not because they benefit anyone.

My father is a former catholic and my mother is Lutheran. I was raised mostly Lutheran but I never really believed in the Christian god.

I guess that I had some kind of unclear deistic notion(before knowing this term at that time).

One day I bought a copy, spontanously, of Dawkin's God Delusion as a young impressionable teenager and it just made sense to me. I was like 'hey I guess that I'm an atheist now', followed by reading more books written by the four horsemen and binge watching debates on youtube and I also started reading the bible.

So no fancy story, just a gradual progression.

You guys are lucky to have figured it out earlier or to have read the god delusion as teenagers. I literally majored in a materialistic and competitive Machiavelian field I'm not suited for, and came to dislike, because I thought I had a duty to heroically improve the world by fixing the system from the inside. I resent religion for limiting my mindset and horizons.

In hindsight I might have felt more personal satisfaction if I had either majored in science so I could altruistically advance mankind without making dog-eats-dog economic choices, or if I had exited the rat race altogether. I could have by applied myself to a quieter field, like teaching where I would be free to study to as much as I wanted in my free time and to show off my mastery to my students. (I would be obligated to continue studying beyond the requirements so I could answer questions, because I dislike your average lazy teacher.)

Don't lie people. The real reason you people became atheists was to rebel against your parents.

>>13435

>implies parents are always believers

Not everyone lives in the bible belt.

>>13363

i was raised roman catholic. my old smartassness eventually led me to read more about the philosophy of religion and secular theology. first i espoused pantheism and deism as better and less full of shit versions of theism, but soon I realised that atheists were in fact the most honest of all

>>13446

Can you tell something about that fear?

How does it work when you don't believe?

>>13451

Its not really a conscious fear, as in something I know posses a danger. I'm also terrified of snakes, even if I know its just a harmless gardener snake and posses no real threat. The idea of hell still scares me at some level even though I don't think it posses a real threat. I just does after believing in it all those years even if there is no good reason to be afraid of something that can't effect you in harmful way(or at all in hell's case), just like a gardener snake

>>13457

Well I still have an aversion for horror movies. Not because I believe they will cause things to haunt me, but because they can trigger nightmares or make you imagine creepy silhouettes in the dark.

>>13451

Fear is an irrational belief but it's one of the strongest emotions a person can have. It's been an evolutionary advantage to be afraid of things even if you are sure that it's safe because caution is that fine line between living and dead.

People can be damn sure that they're alone in a house but a shadow on the wall might unnerve them or a loud noise might completely scare them. Their mind races through all the possibilities of what it could be including ones that are totally unrealistic.

>>13399

>I would be less vulnerable to temptation and become filled with love for god and my fellow humans.

>It did not work. I am still just as lazy, greedy, prone to anger and lust as I ever was.

In my family and school relationships the more religiously outspoken and blasphemy-intolerant persons I've met usually are the most evil, mundane and uninteresting of all. I have never tried to express pretension, but throughout all of my life as a theist I was praised by adults and friends for my human qualities. To be clear I never bought into the moral argument, not even when I was a Christian, but now that I'm not, I think it can be quite shocking to those persons to know that their all-time favorite guy despises their religion. Still, some of them dare play the moral argument against my lack of religion. This is how fucking brainwashing and dangerous religion is.

BTW, is there a noun to describe intolerance of blasphemy or intolerance of other faiths/no faith? If not, we desperately need to get one in circulation and make it as pejorative as racism or any other standard kind of bigotry.

>>13379

>>13424

That's nothing to be ashamed of. The age that you come out of theism has nothing to do with intelligence and everything with the level of brainwashing that occurred at an early age.