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Why are you an Atheist?

Started by pagan1, January 03, 2008, 06:06:05 AM

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Edizzle

#30
I'm Atheist because going to church on Sundays pissed me off.

Haha, jk. As  long as I can remember, I've had doubts. I like to think about life a lot, and religion always got mixed up in that thinking, and religion+philosophy did not add up. So I had to axe one to balance the equation. Most of the questions you had, I had (just in simper terms) since I was oh, probably 8. The first I can remember were "If God sens non-believers to hell, what about":

Babies?
People born on remote islands who have no knowledge of god?
etc.
And that led to even bigger questions.

Kona

#31
QuoteBabies?
People born on remote islands who have no knowledge of god?
etc.
And that led to even bigger questions.
   


I think the breaking point for me came from my brief experience with an extraordinary colleague.  As a physician, he had done some amazing things.  He spent a lot of time in the Mekong River basin doing a tremendous amount of humanitarian work....setting up hospitals, training assistants, and treating hundreds if not thousands of people.  He did this under the extreme conditions of the Vietnam War and had to spend sometime running from the NVC due to his popularity amongst the locals.  He also spent time serving Uganda whilst Idi Amin was in power doing much of the same type of work, survived black water fever, and escaped to freedom.  He is one of the most incredible persons I have ever come across in my life and to think someone who loved  and served humanity at a great personal price would end up in eternal damnation was just intolerable to me.  He was not a religious man at all.   He shunned it.

I have no doubt that evangelicals would say that if he is not 'saved' and a follower of Christ then he is doomed for Hell no matter how many he helped or what good he did in the world.  Such deluded thinking in retrospect.
Fight Global Warming......Save a Pirate!


Janga

#32
I started doubting when nobody could answer questions I had about certain things in the bible. Even preists couldn't provide answers for me.

LARA

#33
I was pretty much raised without much church and religious influence.  I did try church out in high school, of the Southern Baptist variety (why try anything just a little bit, right?), and that was a big damaging mistake.  I recovered from the initial parasitic meme infection with a dose of Wicca (crazy stuff, that, but with an appeal to nature), then Buddhism and now I finally believe myself to be free of the nasty stuff.  I'm so much happier now (real happiness, not Prozac happiness).  Without the fuzz of religion in your sight, you are free to interpret reality scientifically with repeatable results and logic.  You can believe however you want, for example have a real true natural morality that involves compassion towards all types of living things instead of just the ones who kowtow to the same imaginary man as you.    I believe only atheism allows for clear sight into the true nature of reality.  Imaginary possibilities of God and life after death only serve to cloud the truth of what is happening right now.  While imagination is always fun, I prefer it to stay imaginary.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
                                                                                                                    -Winston Smith, protagonist of 1984 by George Orwell

Lindsey_Mcfarren

#34
I was raised in a religious family.  From a very young age I found their claims hard to believe and as I have gotten older, I have finally admitted to myself and friends, I can't buy it.  I see no evidence to support the extra-ordinary claims they make.

As I have said, when one of them actually meets Jesus, bring him over, get him to do a few tricks and then maybe I will change my mind but until I see some irrefutable proof that such a being exists, then I can't BELEIVE in it.  It all seems like flights of fancy to me.
Better to reign in HELL then serve in Heaven. - Milton