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I was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic grammar school from 1st-8th grades. I liked some of the nuns a lot and there was one young priest who was really cool.
I was an altar boy.
I thought mass was boring, but in about 1966, when I was 12, I started playing guitar at the new "guitar masses".
Nothing weird ever happened to me. I have fond memories.
Later, I started having questions about dogma that didn't make sense. In high school, I got involved in having fun.
I was still interested in finding answers to questions and, over the years, I read books on the Bible, the history of Christianity and Judaism, world religions, mythology, ancient history, and archaeology. I studied cultural anthropology, philosophy, and geology in college.
I gradually began to conclude that gods and creation myths were human inventions. Every culture has them and have since the origin of modern humans.
People have a need to find explanations for things. Before science, they thought the sun, moon, stars, lightning, earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts and floods were the work of gods. When gods were angry, they needed to be placated.
Along with the earliest kingdoms came organized religions, which were used to control the populace. Kings and High Priests dictated how to keep the gods happy. High Priests and oracles communicated with the gods and some kings proclaimed themselves to be gods.
I have to wonder why one god is "real" and not others. And we are supposed believe that "the one true God" appeared to the Hebrews out of all the other tribes in the planet. Why? Because they wrote a book that says so and, furthermore, go on to say that they are His "chosen people"?
It's interesting that those desert-dwelling, goat herding nomads from Arabia "borrowed" (plagiarized) most of their creation mythology and cultural ideas from the great empires of the time, like Assyria and Babylonia.
As for my current spiritual beliefs, I have the greatest love, gratitude, reverence, wonder and awe for creation. I think living things are more conscious than we give them credit for. I sometimes talk to trees, plants and animals, even bugs, and thank them for what they do. (No, I don't have conversations with them.) They are all miracles. I've seen studies that found plants and even water responds to positive or negative words and thoughts, just as do pets and humans. So I like to think that all things are buoyed up by love and praise. It's all a mystery, for sure.
I kinda like one idea proposed in Process Theology that says that everything in the universe is the universe observing itself. In that sense, the universe would be conscious. But I don't think the universe is a great mind that consciously guides everything or cares one way or the other about humans, foxes, rabbits, lions, antelopes, elephants, acacia trees, birds or bugs. Nature doesn't play favorites. I think it's all on autopilot.
I don't know what kicked it all off. It doesn't matter much to me. I do believe what has been discovered so far by sciences like astronomy, geology, archaeology, paleontology, genetics, etc. Although there is still a lot to be discovered and revised.
I don't know if my consciousness will live on after I die. I doubt it, but I guess I'll find out when it happens. Will my pets meet me there, too?
I don't know if there's a Heaven and a Hell, but if there is, God is a dick. What sane parent would sentence their child to eternal torture, especially for merely not worshiping him properly. Fucking narcissistic psychopath.
In fact, what kind of all-knowing, all powerful being would create a system that set his children up to fail and then punishes them for it?
Atheist agnostic-doesn't believe but also doesn't think we can ever know whether God exists.
I just flatly don't see any legitimate evidence for this gods existence. thats about it. i grew up a roman catholic and was even pretty devout around high school. but ever since about 2009 or so and after really thinking about it i just don't see any evidence for one. and i do also think this 'god' is pretty unknowable. about the same as ghosts or spirits or what have you. you can believe in them all you want but they just aren't knowable in any kind of scientific empirical way.
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I think I kind of just know that I don’t know. Nature and life and all that are complex, so if you told me there was something bigger at play, I could believe it, but I’d have to see it.
Thats kind of my thing with religion: a benevolent god would test my faith, their love would come no-strings-attached. I’m most familiar with Christianity, but the thing that never sat right with me was the whole “test” aspect of it. Like it’s not just “hey, there’s a god up there watching over us, and they love you unconditionally.”
No, they want certain social behavior out of you (SCAM ALERT, lmao), and they never will make themselves unquestionably apparent to you, you just have to take a leap of faith and follow this religion, and it’s one of many religions, but probably just the one you were born in closest proximity to. And boy, oh boy, you’d better hope it was the right one, because if you were born somewhere else, you might not even HEAR ABOUT this god to even follow them, or you’ll be taught that they’re a false idol and you’re presented a different god to follow, with the same stakes riding on it, your eternal soul in the afterlife. I mean…. logic should tell you something isn’t adding up here. Why would a god with those requirements leave some of us in a position to be screwed, through no bad will of our own?
I think religion can be beneficial for some people in some ways. But I think it’s dangerous in the sense that people are so existentially invested in it that they feel a need to impose their religion’s rules and values on broad society and in legislation. Like they can’t just quietly observe these things themselves, they need to make sure EVERYONE is doing things their way. That’s a problem.
And when you make it a religious thing, those people think their position is just inherently unassailable. Like you can throw all the logic or science in the world at them, and some folks will just be like “yeah, but…counterpoint: Jesus.”, and they think this trumps all. Like how do you have a productive conversation with someone in that mindset?
Or like if I live my life more decently than someone who has faith…. I might be a great guy, but St. Peter is gonna turn me away at The Pearly Gates just because I didn’t blindly believe, even though I lived the way they’d prescribe, meanwhile someone who was a rapist or a child molester or something WILL get in, because they believed and repented on their deathbed? That’s FUCKED, lmfao. What the hell kind of god would do that? Like these are ABSURD criteria😂 I’d figure if it was that important, god would appear to all of us and make themselves known beyond a shadow of a doubt. Show me hard evidence, I’ll be in church every Sunday.
The whole thing feels like it was pretty obviously a social behavioral control tactic in the earliest societies. People wouldn’t act right and orderly on their own accord, so you had to threaten them with the supernatural, and modern science didn’t exist to poke holes in any of it. They had no idea about dinosaurs in 1st century Jerusalem😂
Even some of the 10 Commandments…. don’t kill, don’t steal, got it. But not coveting another man’s wife or not disrespecting your parents made the TOP 10? That sounds human-made to me. “I’m sick of Abraham next door always staring at my wife’s tits! Put that on the tablet!”, or “If my kids talk back to me one more time when I ask them to plow the fields, I swear I’ll—…. wait a second! Let’s make a commandment for that!”😂 Rape and child molestation didn’t make the list though, too bad, lmao.
Anyway…. I say all that to say that my mind is open, because no human brain could possibly conceive the greater system of life and the universe. But I feel pretty confident that none of the major world religions have got this thing correct. Just by studying their design, they all have “human-made” written all over them, that much seems obvious. Also pretty suspect that out of all the species we know of on Earth, OURS is the main character? DEFINITELY can’t buy that, lmao.
I'm Agnostic. I used to consider myself Catholic but then when I was 22 I went through a tough period in my life. I started thinking about all the problems in the world. All the things that made no sense like children dying or people starving. It got me thinking, if there's a God why does he allows all these things to happen? What sense does this make?
There are many things in this world that we humans will never grasp and/or know for sure. The existence of a God or Gods is one of them.
There's no evidence a god exists. I don't believe in unicorns, the tooth fairy, or werewolves either. It's embarrassing how many people believe in some sort of magical man in the sky who performs miracles and commands you to throw rocks at people and murder kids who swear at their parents.
So why am I Agnostic? Because I just don't have any real proof. If something happens that lets me know it's real... It won't change me morally.
I lean towards us being planted here by aliens. So I guess God/God's is something I accept, but it's a bit different.
most of the people who left Christianity either had a bad personal experience or asked the ancient question "why do bad things happen to good people."
never because they found any mistake.
that question of suffering has various explanations. for different personalities to agree with.
now look at justin beiber, his face is damaged did that prove to him no god? bad things can happen to good people.
I'm an atheist because there is no reason not to be. That's the default with pretty much everything. There is no reason to believe something exists unless there is a reason to believe it exists.
I'm simply not a believer... I was raised in a Catholic family and all see it as a huge failure in my upbringing :D
but I'm a logical person... if I can't experience something, why should I put resources into it?
Well this question made me feel like i should re-consider the believing situation. True, God hasn't been proved to be exist properly yet.
That's it... I am an atheist from now on.
Because I wasn't brought up to believe otherwise, and it makes sense. Muslims aren't Christians, Buddists aren't Shintoists, and nobody believes in Odin or Apollo any more.
May he rest in peace.
I have searched far and wide for magic but found none. So, I'm an athiest.
I'm not. I have no doubt that a Creator exists.
No convincing reason to think anything else
The more I learn the more that I think that all religions are mythology and the concept of god was created by humans. If some force did create the universe it’s not an anthropomorphic being that cares about our subjective sense of morality.
Baysean probability, logic and lack of scientifically reproducible data all point conclusively towards God not existing, hence atheism.
Atheist, born and raised, and seen nothing to change my mind otherwise.
GOD doesn’t need proof, HE created you
I'm thankful because i believe in god and my faith in Jesus is strong!
I am Agnostic. I can't explain life with words without paradoxically explaining life with words. 🤯
because i prefer reason and reality over delusion and fantasy even if it's less comfortable or if that involves more suffering for me.
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