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Recovering from Stupidity

Started by freeverse, February 19, 2008, 08:59:10 PM

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freeverse

Hello All

I am so glad to have found a community of like-minded people! I was raised presbyterian and was an avid believer until about the age of  15, when common sense got the best of me and I started asking questions that no one appeared to be able to answer. I was quickly disillusioned with a system that had seemed infallible when people whose faith and intelligence I had respected responded to what I considered to be pretty fundamental questions by simply shrugging and saying "there are just some things we will never understand" or "god is beyond our comprehension." I found the notion that I would have to completely disregard all logic, science, and common sense in order to continue a "relationship" with a deity that seemed increasingly man-made to be completely ridiculous. So, after spending the past seven years searching out every possible system of apologetics that might restore my ability to "believe", I have finally accepted my atheism whole-heartedly. It's been a relief, honestly - to leave behind the cognitive dissonance and embrace what I've known, underneath the deeply ingrained superstitions and dogma, to be true.

I live in a very rural and conservative area of the U.S. and frequently find my religious (or lack thereof), political, and social values to be in the minority, so I'm looking forward to being part of a community that rests on a bedrock of rationality and intelligence.

Thanks for being here!

freeverse

#1
Let's try to be more hopeful: if God weren't just a bearded embodiment of our misguided faith in cognition, then he'd be the kind of supernatural presence that would die trying. - Catie Rosemurgy

 - okay that was me attempting to add my sig after I had posted the intro. Attempt failed, sorry!

McQ

#2
Welcome freeverse! Thanks for the information on yourself. I think the one thing that would make any reasonably rational religious person an atheist is apologetics. The more you dig, the more you find out that biblical apologists are either deluding themselves or outright liars.

That's how I came to atheism. Through trying to strengthen my faith via apologetics, in order to combat the evils of science!  It backfired when I realized that apologetics were the lamest attempt at hanging onto bizarre beliefs. :)

Glad to have you here.
Elvis didn't do no drugs!
--Penn Jillette

MommaSquid

#3
Welcome, freeverse.  

I, too, did some searching before finally letting go of the delusion of religion and god.  I'm really glad that I didn't study apologetics too deeply because, as I've heard from others, their circular reasoning can be quite dumbfounding.  That's a headache I don't need!  

We have a great little foum here and lots of interesting topic threads to join.  Enjoy your stay.

Kona

#4
The christian apologists tend not towards just circular reasoning, but endless appeals to authority.  "wow, all these smart people believe in god, therefore it must be true!"   A ton of smart people got a lot of important stuff wrong and it was only discovered they were wrong by smarter people who proved it through science and not reading some ancient holy writ.
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