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

[Silver]

rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1]

People seem to think belief is a "religion word." Agnostics refuse to believe in anything specific (besides "we cannot know for sure.") Atheists believe there are no deities. If they were the same thing, we would not have different words for them.

Sorry for thread derailing.

[Nathan.]

Atheists believe there are no gods. That is a belief. A belief in something is not to worship it, it is simply an idea one holds to be true. That would make you an agnostic.

So not believing in something is a belief  lol

[Silver]

Meh, I'm done with this.

[My Name Is Ellie]

I was always told I can choose my own path.

My father is a strict Atheist while my mother is reading up on Wicca. My grandmother is a non-practicing Christian.

I'm agnostic - I don't believe there can't be a God, I just haven't seen one personally and I only believe in what I see. (I take visual recordings as seeing)

[RebeccaFog]

God said to Abraham, "Kill me that guy what looks like you."
Abe said, "Man, that's me. You're pointing at my mirror."
God said, "I wish I had a penny for every time I heard that because, then, I would have a penny."
But it was too late. Abe had left.

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?

I told them.   


Seriously, though. My parents went to church once
                                and never returned from it.


Post Merge: June 24, 2010, 02:05:07 PM

... 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.

I might prop a ganda, but I wouldn't prop a goose.

[Pica Pica]

I once goosed a gander.

[RebeccaFog]

From Wikipedia.

Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] As strong atheism, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[4] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

Religion forced atheism to exist. Without any religion there would never have been an atheist.

If someone with a God Complex were to be an athiest, they'd be in big trouble.
Post Merge: June 24, 2010, 03:32:14 PM

I once goosed a gander.

Odd. I took a gander at your goose.


The existance of God is irrelevent. Believing or not believing won't put food on your plate. It's pointless to have a belief in an irrelevant concept or to waste energy in not belieiving in it.

I'm not a believer and neither am I rational. I am a humble simpleton and proud of it too. Except maybe for the hat.

[tekla]

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61"

  some dylan guy, Highway 61 Revisited

Always like Fear and Trembling take on the whole Abe and Issac deal, which, you have to admit, is one really freaking twisted story.

[V M]

I was raised by some rather religious folks that did a pretty good job at making me realize that all that religious stuff is a load of bunk 

[tekla]

Yeah, 12 rather intense years in Catholic school gave me an inoculation that's left me pretty much immune to all of it.  Then lots, and lots, and lots of science at big huge scientific schools, and working with it for real too, kinda made me doubt it even more.  Not that that are powers out there operating that we don't comprehend.  I'm sure there are, it's not like we're all that perceptive as humans yet.  But, there has been this big huge 'metaphysics' deal throughout all human societies and cultures - some of them freaking weird - and none of it has ever been proven, and it's time to call metaphysics imagination, which is what it really is.

[KaciKip]

I'm pretty sure both of my parents are atheist. My father doesn't believe in God from what I know, and my mother is more of a science person than a religion person. Plus she was raised in two different religions. My grandmother on my mother's side is a Japanese Buddhist, while her father was Catholic. My sister is Catholic, but she doesn't really practice it from what I know.

I mean yeah, we celebrate Christmas and Easter and all those holidays, but it's more of a social thing in my family where we cast aside our differences and just...get along for once. But I will never for the life of me understand why my mother forced me to go to Catholic summer school when she herself doesn't even believe in it. o_o; I mean one year just to introduce myself to the religion to see if I like it is one thing, but I had to go for three or four years. That place just scared me so much. I had nightmares about it.

As far as I go, I don't consider myself atheist at all. I'm not sure if I consider myself agnostic either. My beliefs are all over the place, yet I don't really worship anything or practice anything. The most I do is pay respects to my beliefs.

[Savanah]

I grow up in a religious house and gone to a catholic school for eleven long years...

Maybe they talking so many times how sinfull one must be to want to be together with other person of the same gender make me hate religion.  Nowadays i just dont care anymore, i think that there is no god, to hate or love.

[Robert F.]

My mom's Christian, my dad's Catholic. I've been an atheist since I was about ten years old. There are a lot of aspects with the Bible that I just don't think a "perfect god" would say. Also, who's to say which God is the real one? Because Judaism came before Christianity. Christianity is based off Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. So why do Christians even exist, if they're supposed to be following in Jesus's path?

Also, something I've noticed recently: Religious people believe that I (and many others) are crazy for believing that the entire universe was created by the Big Bang, because there's no way something like that can just happen. They don't think that one second there's nothing, and the next there's something. Then how can they believe that God exists? Where did he come from, if things can't just appear out of nowhere? It's impossible for him to have always been there, seeing as everything must have a beginning.

And even if there is a God, I refuse to follow a religion that discriminates against homosexuals and black people. God can't say he loves everybody and then refuse to allow gays and black people into heaven.

[Nero]

And even if there is a God, I refuse to follow a religion that discriminates against homosexuals and black people. God can't say he loves everybody and then refuse to allow gays and black people into heaven.

Good point. The OT does say that black people were condemned through Ham. A point that used to be used as justification for slavery and racism. That's always kind of bothered me. Of course, the Bible also seems to discriminate against anyone who isn't a white, Jewish male. But that's another thing that points to the Bible (at least the OT) as being the historical and (mythical?) record of one nation.

[Savanah]

Not to talk about all the drama they made about stem cell research, animal rights, astronomy, teory of evolution... sometimes it´s appear that they simply hate science and equality.

[Flam]

My family is all catholic and until i had the chrism, i had to go to the church every single sunday at the morning. Also, i passed all the school and college years in a catholic school.
But i'm not a religious person since the 11's. Started to think by myself when i had 10 years old and found myself as an agnostic-atheist since 15's.
I guess all that catholic teaching is the reason for my mind being skeptical the way it is today  lol

[Bombi]

It isn't skepticism  it is just the lack of a suspended reality. There is no Santa Claus, only the myth.Perhaps the book is still open on the tooth fairy or jumbies

[Aegir]

I came by way of Catholocism. I became an apostate because I read the bible and studied it as literature. I became an areligious atheist when I realized that all religions had the same issues.

[Calder Smith]

I was not raised Atheist, but I was thankfully raised in an open minded household.

I was very religious at one point. I wanted to be a preacher when I was younger and liked going to church. I also used to read this Children's Bible at night.

Many things happened in my life and in the world, and I just thought well.. all these bad things are happening and God isn't doing anything about them and I became skeptical. At school, I did hide my doubts of religion to fit in with everybody who believed in God. I'm not out to anyone that I'm Atheist yet but I accepted that I am about last year.

[suzifrommd]

I think my mother was an atheist. She tried to teach me about God when I was a young kid, but as we grew older she confided in her skepticism.

I don't know what my father believed. He tended to be irreverent and make light of religion a lot, but I don't know what went on in his heart.