Ask Lemmy

Was raised going to church each sunday, but approaching confirmation age I realised I couldn't mesh faith with my understanding of the world. That was it for me really, I'm quite open to the idea of god(s), ghosts, magic or other forms of the supernatural, but until there's actual proof, I can't believe in it.

I was teetering from logic for years, but I watched the towers fall on 9/11 and it finally pushed me over the edge. It there is a god and he allows this shit to happen, then he is wretched. It was a small shift from there to, no... there is no good, no god

I was raised Methodist, but when I was maybe 7 or 8 I realized that I was only Methodist because I was raised Methodist and that if my parents were a different religion, I would have believed that instead.

It took me until my late teens to realize I was an athiest, but that was definitely the start.

My family was secular so I didn't have religion shoved down my throat as a kid. I got curious about church when I was around 8. I went for a year or so then had an epiphany about how nonsensical it was that a loving god would consign people to hell and stopped going.

I toyed around some with occultism in my teens but have been an atheist ever since. Nothing about religion makes sense and I live in the material, rational world.

Honestly once you learn Santa and the Easter bunny aren't real. The question about God gets testy.

Wait these things aren't real but this one thing is? God made people, but evolving from a lower form of species is heretic talk?

Give me a break

Reading. Reading about my religion. Reading about other religions. Reading about science

I was raised catholic. When the class at school had their confirmation, I refused as religion felt more like a fairytale then something to really believe in. When I saw they got gifts, I was disappointed and wanted to confirm when my sister was doing her's (to get gifts as well, wrong reason).

For that confimation I had to do bible study, during which I learned what's in the bible. As I invested all that time, I went trough with it for the gifts, but I learned my 1st impression was right. To me it's nothing more then a fairytale. That confirmation was my last volentary visit to a church to attend service. (Played tourist a few times, the buildings are still nice)

Till today, I still prefer to know, not to believe anything that is being told.

Sect/cult stuff. Rules did not add up. Stuff contradicting each other. The people were all preachy hypocrites. They'd go out of their way to twist a law of physics to their narrative. For example, "spiritual vibrations" in sound and radiation. Religion was used to control me. Quackery, conspiricy theories and mlm schemes everywhere. Broke free over time.

I befriended a lawyer in a online game years ago. When he found out I took the bible literally, we had debates about it, and he'd break down some of the passages in Revelations and try to get me to justify stuff like dragons. It opened my eyes to how ridiculous some things were, and how there was a reason one of the first things we were taught (Baptist) was not to question anything.

How it seems every religion believes they're the "One True" religion, and the whole rest of the world is wrong. How throughout history, it's fueled wars, and been used as a method to control people more than a way to help people.

How some priests garb themselves in expensive robes and surround themselves with gold or drive luxury cars, or preach on TV from practically a stadium while passing around the donations plate through a crowd of poor people while promising a afterlife gated by pearls.

I'll stop here but yeah. It was actually a pretty devastating realisation for me, as religion was a huge part of my life up to that point.

I don't think it ever sat right with me but I couldn't say why at first. When I was pretty young the problem made itself more clear when we got a new pastor. I didn't agree with what he was saying and perhaps more importantly what he was saying didn't agree with what his predecessor was saying. I brought this up to my parents and they said that he wasn't right about everything. Well that's a problem then because it means all these beliefs are subjective. The more I thought about any one story parable text or anything, the more I thought that this is just another person who doesn't really know anything. Even where it says "This is the word of god" Someone had to write it down. Someone had to translate it. The harder I looked for god the more I found men, and I do not have faith in men.

It was a slow process, but honestly the liturgy was boring and like out of touch. The narratives felt like they can't really hold up to a contemporary audience.

That, on top of being very uninterested in being made feel guilty for random things. Sorry but I'm gonna continue masturbating and you insisting on guilt is not gonna make it stop, so what are we doing?

Finally, all the general nonsense and cognitive dissonance sealed the deal.

The fact that most terrible things in the history of the world were in the name of organized religion...

I realized I had to make an effort to continue believing, so I stopped.

My mother worked at a catholic school; she was sexually harassed by the principal of the school and rather than firing the POS the diocese sent the whole staff to sexual harassment training. I found that to be a real slap in the face. Showed me they still had zero interest in accountability. I still appreciate the message behind a lot of what the church preaches (I loathe some of their stances, mostly related to sex and abortion) but I refuse to enable their hypocrisy.

I never was personally. But one thing that constantly gets me is religious people knowing their church people are touching little boys and girls and they still believe in them and their higher power.

At one of those bible study after church things, I asked the priest if when I die and go to heaven, I’ll get answers to things I’ve always wondered, like how many stars there are, or since I’m outside of time then, be able to observe historic events like building of pyramids or the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs , or supernovas, or how technology would be in the future.

… he said that I wouldn’t care, I’d be too busy being astounded by the face of god for all eternity.

Which I thought was the lamest way to spend eternity, and what’s worse, would mean that my main trait at the time, curiosity, wouldn’t be part of me when I’m in heaven. Then would it really be me up there?

Act 2. I eek out the “why does a loving god allow souls to be tortured and burnt for all eternity” question to a different priest and got some answer like hell is just the absence of god. Which, I can understand why to him that’s torture but for me… it seemed more like a “ok you don’t want to stare at my godly face for eternity? Be elsewhere then with your fellow non believers “. Which from my pov, it’s like ok no big deal then?

And from there the shadow of doubt grew enough and now I understand this is all there is so we just gotta make the best of it, and try to push the envelope for humanity in any way we can.

When I stopped seeing her face.

Ex-Christian here, I was in a pretty easy going division of Christianity, main thing was that we didn't believe in hell and were "metaphysical" (hippie way of saying we didn't strictly adhere to the Bible). I would often look after the smaller kids in Sunday school, and one day we put on the veggie tales version of Noah's ark, and I actually watched it while watching the kids, and somewhat considered the idea that if there was a flood, inevitably quite a few children would have been caught up in it and died, which in my mind a kind god would not have even contemplated. The level of cognitive dissonance I experienced kind of made me think about listening to atheistic opinions to double check I wasn't completely off the mark with my beliefs. So I listened to Dawkins, Hitchens, and Carl Sagans arguments then actually sat down and read the Bible. Not gonna say I accepted it overnight, but that is what eventually led me to where I am today as an atheist.

I remember as a tween sitting there and praying and I just sorta realized wtf am I doing. I had always asked too many questions so I thought it weird an imaginary guy could hear everyone and everything at once. Then I was brought to a fmaily member's church where they told me my father was going to hell because he was a soldier, no ifs and or buts about it. So yeah if 10 year old me can realize it, I don't know what the hell is wrong with these fucking abrahamic religious zealots.

Obligatory Bible Contradictions Game Show

I went down the rabbit hole of the Ancestral simulation, the Boltzmann brain, simulation hypothesis and these shows like matrix and westworld made more sense than any other religious text

Not really formerly religious, but I do want to talk about this.

SCHOOLS NEED TO STOP SHOVING IT INTO MY FACE.

It's very tiring studying in a Christian school, but there's no choice. In my region, it's either religious schools or bad schools.

My secondary school (equivalent to grade 7-12) is insane about Christianity. Every Friday it's like a horror game to escape from the teachers who try to drag you to fellowship. Oh you want to go to spring camp? Half of the time in camp is spent listening to Christian talks.

Here's another dumb policy. The school cannot do anything on Sunday due to church stuff. There was once a pretty big table tennis competition, but it was on Sunday. The school would NOT allow the responsible teacher to bring the school team to the competition just because it was Sunday, and that sparked a pretty big news within our region.

This is like YouTube adblock blocker backfiring, but for Christianity.