Ex-believers, what made you quit your religion/cult?
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I was always kinda skeptical but the event that triggered my way out was when I asked my mom how can God expect people, who were raised with other religions, to believe in him instead when they simply have no idea. She said they know about God and it’s their own fault for not believing in him. And that for me was not logical because I knew from my own experience that I only believed in God because that’s all I knew.
But it took a while for me to completely stop believing in any deity or whatever supernatural power because I kept looking for reasons why we exist. Now I don’t care for that. Sure the Big Bang is mysterious and we might never solve it but there is no sense in making things up either. Everything else can be explained by science so let’s just go with that.
If the Christian God wants me to believe in him, he should stop being so vague and contradicting. Turn the moon into cheese. Pluck a mountain out of the ground and float it in the sky. Whatever, he is almighty, he should do almighty things.
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I worked as a researcher and started applying the scientific method to the bible and faith, and it fell apart. before i tried to "disable" critical thinking on many issues in the bible and push those issues away.
Also, I realized that my faith kept me from accepting responsibility for my actions and kept me externalizing responsibility to god and/or the devil and other people. -
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I was a nerd, so I tried really really hard to prove logically that my religion was the correct one... and failed.
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I was a nerd, so I tried really really hard to prove logically that my religion was the correct one... and failed.
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It was not answering the questions that science could answer
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I dunno, it just made no sense. If people find out you're an atheist, they don't argue with facts, they argue with morals.
I'm sorry you need to believe in something with zero evidence to be a good person/find beauty in the world/be at peace with yourself/whatever, but I can just do those things anyway. I don't need to convince myself of certain facts for it.
It is so very frustrating when some one elevates their indefensible personal feelings to the level of cosmic law.
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What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
At that moment, the student was enlightened.
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I admit I haven't read the entire Bible. I'm not a particularly pious Christian, and I certainly don't mean to try to convince anyone towards or against religion. That said:
I also love science. I'm an engineer, not a conspiracy theorist. I know the dinosours existed, I know evolution happened, I know the Big Bang was a thing. However, that doesn't mean Jesus wasn't a man who lived approximately 2000 years ago. It doesn't mean he wasn't a great teacher. It doesn't mean there aren't lessons to learn in any of the Bible's stories.
Because that's what they are: stories. They're not 100% perfect recounts of events that happened. Heck, they're most of the time not even 1% perfect recounts of events that happened. But some of them still have some wisdom worth sharing, just the same. At least, I think so.
I appreciate your response and the other person who replied to you is right as well, but I wanted to add that I can "appreciate" Bible stories the same way I can appreciate other myths or legends, many of which the Bible stories originated from. I love mythology, it fascinates me, especially seeing who borrowed from who, but that doesn't make them real or worth worshipping.
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The question doesn't directly apply because I'm not an ex-believer, but I am sort of ex-church (attendance).
After years of praying for healing, for myself and others, and seeing nothing happen (beyond the natural healing that would have happened anyway had I not prayed for it), I prayed for someone to be healed and he died.
So that's how healing manifests through me. You aren't or you die. This seems in direct contradiction to Jesus' claim that all who follow him will do greater things than he did, which I interpret to mean at least the same as what he did, one of which was that everyone who came to him got healed.
So my church attendance is on hold for now while I work out why God doesn't want to involve me in his work. I'm still a believer, but obviously I can't preach "God heals" when my only direct evidence is that he doesn't. I'll go back when it's clear what he wants me to do.
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I was a Christian.
I was an "everything has an explanation" type of kid/teen and was always asking why/how.
This led me to looking into different denominations of Christianity with different explanations but none of them sat right.
Eventually I gave up and decided that this must not be true and became a sort of "reddit atheist".
I left that because I eventually found things that I also could not explain within this understanding and also found new explanations for things that didn't make sense as a Christian.
This led em to looking deeper into many other religions and I eventually found one that satisfied me (which I will avoid saying to not draw hate/accusations of propagandizing which I don't want to deal with)
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My brain started working.
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I appreciate your response and the other person who replied to you is right as well, but I wanted to add that I can "appreciate" Bible stories the same way I can appreciate other myths or legends, many of which the Bible stories originated from. I love mythology, it fascinates me, especially seeing who borrowed from who, but that doesn't make them real or worth worshipping.
Absolutely not, I 100% agree.
To your point about who borrowed from who - one of my favourite examples is the story of Noah's Ark, or less specifically, "The Great Flood". So many religions and mythologies have a Great Flood story. It's fascinating to see how similar or different certain people's recounts were of historical events like that.
Like I say, at this point in my life I'm still of the opinion that a good chunk of the Bible means well, but who knows? One of these days I might run out of sci-fi novels to read and go cover to cover, old testament to new. It's certainly possible my mind might yet change.
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I was always kinda skeptical but the event that triggered my way out was when I asked my mom how can God expect people, who were raised with other religions, to believe in him instead when they simply have no idea. She said they know about God and it’s their own fault for not believing in him. And that for me was not logical because I knew from my own experience that I only believed in God because that’s all I knew.
But it took a while for me to completely stop believing in any deity or whatever supernatural power because I kept looking for reasons why we exist. Now I don’t care for that. Sure the Big Bang is mysterious and we might never solve it but there is no sense in making things up either. Everything else can be explained by science so let’s just go with that.
If the Christian God wants me to believe in him, he should stop being so vague and contradicting. Turn the moon into cheese. Pluck a mountain out of the ground and float it in the sky. Whatever, he is almighty, he should do almighty things.
Similar here, region locked gods lol.
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I used to attend church with a small following (50-60 members). The pastor seemed very kind at the time and still does some charitable things... But when my grandfather was dying in the hospital, he suggested that suffering brings you closer to God and any kind of hospice or pain-relief was a sin.
The next Sunday I attended, the pastor starting mocking the medical staff during a sermon, basically airing my family business and likened my family to Judas. I walked out and never came back.
Some of my family still attends his church. I saw the pastor a few years ago and extended my hand for a handshake and he walked away.
My mom and I talk about this whole situation sometimes (she attends a different church). "If you hear something at church you don't agree with, don't bring it home with you." That was her way of saying that the pastor is just a person, too. Take what you can from a lesson and apply it for good in your life.
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Does it count if you live in a very religious state that has pushed religion down your throat all your life but you resisted? For me I think I was about 22 when I started to see religion as not just a personal belief, but as a tool used by power hungry men to hurt and control others. I used to respect my religious peers, now I feel sad for them, because I know that they were raised into it so hard that I can't really blame them. The sad thing is, even though I live in one of the most developed nations in the world. I am still in a part of it where criticism of religion, past not believing it, can come with a high social price.
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My super religious wife cheat on me and get knocked up. Followed by all our church friends throwing her a party. All the scandals didn’t help also. So I’m done. I now consider myself an atheist.
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My brain started working.
This. Your faith is presented as normal when growing up in religious family. As you get older, there is opportunity to question those beliefs and, for some people, you realise those beliefs are mental and insane.
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I was always kinda skeptical but the event that triggered my way out was when I asked my mom how can God expect people, who were raised with other religions, to believe in him instead when they simply have no idea. She said they know about God and it’s their own fault for not believing in him. And that for me was not logical because I knew from my own experience that I only believed in God because that’s all I knew.
But it took a while for me to completely stop believing in any deity or whatever supernatural power because I kept looking for reasons why we exist. Now I don’t care for that. Sure the Big Bang is mysterious and we might never solve it but there is no sense in making things up either. Everything else can be explained by science so let’s just go with that.
If the Christian God wants me to believe in him, he should stop being so vague and contradicting. Turn the moon into cheese. Pluck a mountain out of the ground and float it in the sky. Whatever, he is almighty, he should do almighty things.
he should stop being so vague and contradicting.
"He" can't do that because "he" doesn't exist. Just like the other 5000 or so gods that humans have invented over the millennia.
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he should stop being so vague and contradicting.
"He" can't do that because "he" doesn't exist. Just like the other 5000 or so gods that humans have invented over the millennia.
Thanks, that's what I obviously concluded too.
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I thought doubting God was a sin and I'd go to hell if I died with doubt in my heart, so I avoided atheist material out of fear that it was Satan working through them to tempt me to doubt.
But eventually I just couldn't resist, and figured the atheist arguments would clearly be false, and God's truth or whatever would show through and then I could always refer to that event to shake any doubts.
The first video I watched was a debate between a pastor and Christopher Hitchens.
Absolutely shook my faith to core, and for a couple days afterward, no matter how I tried to twist it, I couldn't find the fault in Hitchens arguments.
After that, I began to research the history of Christianity with a more open mind, and it became clear what a shit show the whole thing was. I became agnostic, and I suppose in a way I still am a bit, in the sense that the existence of reality itself is quite puzzling, but I can say with certainty that no religion on earth has any answers toward that end.
