First topic - were you raised atheist or did you come by way of religion?

[Nero]

Share your story.

[Windrider]

I fall under "agnostic", does that count?

I pretty much came by way of religion. Went through 16 years of Catholic schools and they turned out a good little agnostic. Interestingly enough, it was their own fault. If they'd have not tried to change their "story" along the way, they might not have lost me.

See, when you tell a 2nd grader one thing, then by the time they're in 12th grade the story has changed, they start to wonder if you're changing the rules so they fit your current agenda better. The specific example is the Pope. In 2nd grade, the Pope only spoke for God in certain, very specific conditions (I've since forgotten them now). By the time I was in 12th grade, *everything* that came out of the Pope's mouth was somehow "direct from God". I'm sorry, but it sure sounds like they were changing their story to "scare" their "followers". I started looking for other religions. It was later on that I realized that the Catholic church really was rewriting/covering up stuff that happened in the past to fit their current agendas. Most religions are just ways to control people. Lots of people. IMHO, it's all about power and money. The Catholic church's history proves a lot of that.

In the end, I make it up as I go along. I'm not quite certain there's a "higher power" however, I do believe there are things out in the universe that we lack the knowledge/technology to truly understand. I find far more communion with $dieties on my motorcycle than I ever did in a church.

For all of this, I don't criticize those who believe in a religion. If someone wants to believe/follow an organized religion that's fine. I do take offense to said people forcing it on me. Actually, I don't particularly like *anyone* telling me what to do. Just my $.02

WR

[Natasha]

i was raised in a religious household.  when i was very young, church was a regular part of life, and my parents were devout christians.  later on, my family became less involved with the church, but i had been inculcated with the ideas and morals of a christian.

during my teens and early 20's i drifted away from my faith. one reason for this was a moral outrage at the inconsistent ethics of the bible. another was a growing suspicion that i was somehow being fooled by religious thinking.

i began studies in philosophy, eastern religion, and the occult almost simultaneously. it wasn't long before i was a self-identified atheist. but just because i realized that religion was all an error of thinking, it did not mean that religion was something on which to remain neutral. if false, the idea of god is a great hindrance to the progress of mankind.

as an ethical and rational woman, i find that i must not only be an atheist, but an anti-theist as well. today i identify myself as an atheist to some, an objectivist to others, but primarily as a thinking person who rejects outright the idea of subjective truth, and the valuation of anything as higher than the life we live today.

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i hope david shelton doesn't mind this forum. haha

[Ell]

also arrived by way of religion.

though once a believer, i now feel that many, many components of religion are not only false, but intentional lies perpetrated to confuse, hamstring, and ultimately control the masses.

i am especially offended by anyone trying to presume they know what will happen after death.

they know? what could they possibly know about that?

[Buffy]

I was never intrested in religion or never brought up in a religious household.

I was always encouraged to find my own meanings in life and that does not include religion.

I admire deeply admire people who have placed their faith in an unseen and unproven being, but I never have and never will believe in mythical beings.

The whole concept of living life as you wish, they either repenting through a quick visit to confession or on your deathbed is something I have great difficulty in grasping as a concept.

Many years ago I had a good friend who was a Pentecostalist, she invited me to a "bring a sinners dinner'', which was to be a group of robbers, murderer's rapists, wife beaters and people who had once been bad, but had found God and had repented and become born again Christian's. I looked on in total amazement and simply said to my friend, I am not bad enough to be a Christian and believe in God.

Yes, always been an Aetheist.

Buffy

[finewine]

I was not brought up by religious parents, I was left to make my own mind up.

I'm an atheist simply because I cannot agree with plugging gaps in human knowledge or coping with fear & uncertainty by resorting to superstition.

Wherever possible, I try to live in peace with those who believe, as long as we don't foist our worldviews on each other, then it's live and let live for me.

I apologise for the next bit, as I know it will offend but I don't know how to be honest without risking offence here...

It amazes me that anyone capable of logical, rational analysis can believe in any of this stuff unless it is via parental indoctrination or other similar brainwashing method (insert cult of choice here).  The argument always comes back to "you can't disprove it" which, simply through the stating, demonstrates an inability to think logically.

Religious beliefs are, to me, the intellectual equivalent of wearing a baseball cap backwards

[tekla]

Never did like the term atheist because it implies a belief in and of itself - I think litterly to an atheist that Nothing really is sacred.  I'm much happier just copping to 'not knowing" or in the Greek, a+gnōsis, or agnostic.

Are we alone in the universe?  I have no proof, but its highly doubtful that we are the only sentient (if you even call it that) form of life.

Are the other life forms in the universe god?  No, but it is possible we may well see them that way.

Is there a 'divinity that shapes our ends'?  You mean this is the plan? 

[NicholeW.]

... You mean this is the plan? 

Yeah, kinda an amazing thing isn't it?

Although what isn't funny is how the wild honey bee was targeted for extinction within a generation.

Had occasion yesterday to walk barefoot through a rather large patch of clover on an 11-mile bike-ride, dog-run upriver to Gatlinburg-on-the-Delaware.

I recall when I was a child being stung numerous times and being swarmed by wild honey bees and bumble-bees on a regular basis.

Nothing yesterday but small ground-bound hoppers.

Somehow I get the notion that the plan is being placed forward by more human rationality.

[tekla]

the plan is being placed forward by more human rationality

This is rational?  Somehow I would have hoped, sigh, that rational thought might have, you know, planned?

We see it in all sorts of things and places.  Your honeybees (and that is a HUGE crisis, as you know) or the disappearance of the salmon here on the Pacific Coast and up through the Pacific Northwest.  Or the opposite, non-native species the way Australia has trouble with rabbits, or how kudzu has all but taken over areas of the South.

[NicholeW.]

... how kudzu has all but taken over areas of the South.

Funny you shoud mention that. South of Philly in Chester County and further west: Lancaster, areas of Berks and Montgomery counties and yep, even up this way in central Country-Squire county we have a fair bit of kudzu. Not quite, yet, like South Carolina, central/west Tennessee and other areas south, but definitely enough to notice that the cows and horses are gone in the afternoon while they graze.

The rationality is the sarcasm part, luv.

All those spiffy renaissance men and women and other "rational" human beings who couldn't seem to manage an awareness of mutuality and interconnection much better than 8 kids in a candy-store with a hundred dollar-bill.

The rationality of nomads, hunter-gatherers and early citified peoples who were fortunate to live in their forties was much better in that regard than the rational scientific-types we seem beset with now who live into their mid-eighties.

Not sure how that all plays into "rational atheism," but for my coins give me a view of life and existence that makes me a part of what's around me, not the ruler, not the "intelligent designer," but a woman who understands that her Mother has many children, most of them unseen by me and that my acts have very real consequences for myself and for others I have never known.

I find atheistic, rationalist, objectivist and many religious povs as never quite understanding a very basic fact of life the universe and everything: know thyself. And in doing so to understand that some things are possible, but prolly best never done.   

[tekla]

my acts have very real consequences for myself and for others I have never known

Secular humanist thought, I'll have to sic the god squad on your if you keep that up.

[Bombi]

Atheist although I agree with tekla about Atheism NOT being a religion.
My experience with conventional religion began with parents that sent me to church but didn't attend themselves. i went through all the catechism and dogma until I was confirmed in the catholic church. They told me I was an adult Christian.  I attended a retreat called teens encounter Christ. It was an intense experience with people breaking down and becoming saved. I wanted to be saved too but it never happened. Due to some trouble I was expelled from HS my Junior year and was forced to attend a parochial high school and be "taught" by sadistic Jesuits. I was slapped around and took it quietly until the last days of school when Brother George Patrick started smacking me for some stupid behavior. I flipped out and beat him down. Another teacher intervened and sent me to the headmaster. I just walked out the door..
I began my personal quest of finding a religion I felt I could embrace. I drifted and studied Budd ism which for a long while thought was my path. One day I was reading, The Way of Zen by Allan Watts and had a minor Epiphany.Watts described the path of zen as a devote' rolling a rock up a hill never to be let go, with a slim chance of reaching the top.
  Since then I have practiced transcendental meditation and found a hat to categorize my beliefs. Spiritual Humanism.
I found this when I was asked by my son and his fiancé to marry them. I went on line and found SH and became an ordained minister for only $19.95. What was strange was that when I looked further I found that SH most closely described my core beliefs. So for now that is what I call myself.
I totally admire people of faith and their convictions but feel more comfortable letting nature and science guide my perspectives. Of course that could change as I learn and live.

[tekla]

I always thought that the Jesuits did more to drive people away from religion than any other religious entity.  First by treating people as they did you, second by the people they did not treat that way actually getting what they were teaching. If you really lean Jesuitical logic you're most likely going to dismiss the entire Christian deal as not being logical.

[NicholeW.]

my acts have very real consequences for myself and for others I have never known

Secular humanist thought, I'll have to sic the god squad on your if you keep that up.

O, I really don't perceive that they will need your help. I already get angry-mad notes and ridiculous responses all over the webz.

So, my darlin'-friend, don't feel the need to hurry yourself in assisting them. They do quite well already, from both ends of the belief spectrum. The danger of 'the middle path," I suppose. It's between the clashing rocks on either side.  

[tekla]

Hey, I'm just trying to get on their good side so I can make piles of tax free money too.

[NicholeW.]

Dja really think that MassResistance, West-bro, and Peter LaBarbera have mad cash to dole out to you?

Hope you're working on Dobson, 700 Club, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Ralph Reed, etc. Now those guys ... yeah, they should be able to pay you well. Plus they can prolly give you tips on prostituting your education and actual knowledge to the service of propaganda and those neat lil ole prayer hankies for someone's grandma and grandpa.

Or, in your case, perhaps a trip back to your roots, ya know Rome, would offer even larger wealth-spinning instruction.

[tekla]

Yeah as anyone who has ever toured the Vatican knows, walking through there while thinking 'vow of poverty' is a laugh riot.

[Bombi]

and what about god being wrtiiten on every thing.
the pledge of allegence
our money
i think its just wrong and totally disses the separation of church and state thing

[tekla]

and what about god being wrtiiten on every thing.
the pledge of allegence
our money
i think its just wrong and totally disses the separation of church and state thing

That's all a very modern deal, the words 'under god' were added to the pledge in 1954, which is interesting, as a Protestant Minister wrote the thing in the first place without that very public prayer added back in 1892.

"In god we trust' was added in 1957.

[lisagurl]

and what about god being written on every thing.
the pledge of allegiance
our money
i think its just wrong and totally disses the separation of church and state thing

That's all a very modern deal, the words 'under god' were added to the pledge in 1954, which is interesting, as a Protestant Minister wrote the thing in the first place without that very public prayer added back in 1892.

"In god we trust' was added in 1957.

It was the McCarthy error and they wanted to distinguish us different then the atheist Communists.