Born Again Atheist

[VaNonbeliever]

I've been an atheist (again) for about two years now.  I'm an educated person with a professional degree.  It didn't come to me suddenly.  I just asked myself all these questions and reasoned through it.  I had been an atheist for most of my life until college.  I started believing, but didn't go to church or anything.  However, I did pray every day.  In the past few years, I've had many relatives and family friends die from lingering illnesses (mostly cancer).  At first, I prayed that nothing was wrong with them.  Then they found out their diagnosis.  Then I prayed for a cure.  Then it became clear that the cure wasn't gonna happen.  Then, I'm ashamed to say, I prayed for their quick, painless death.  Even that didn't happen.  They lingered on, suffering.  Then they died.  I asked myself, could God not have answered one prayer?  Evidently not.

I also thought about the whole creation thing.  Assuming God is omnipotent and omniscient, as the bible says.  Assume he created everything.  Then that means he created the angels, including Lucifer.  Therefore, he knew when he made him he would rebel and become evil.  So, I struggled with this.  God had to have created him with the intention of him being evil.  Therefore, God was the ultimate author of evil, not the devil.

It was little things like that that I asked myself and reasoned through.  There is no God.  And I am happy.  I'm not a bad person, contrary to what some of my wife's family thinks.  

I'm glad I've found this site, because it validates my opinions, and offers support to me.  Thanks for being reasonable people.

[McQ]

I've been an atheist (again) for about two years now.  I'm an educated person with a professional degree.  It didn't come to me suddenly.  I just asked myself all these questions and reasoned through it.  I had been an atheist for most of my life until college.  I started believing, but didn't go to church or anything.  However, I did pray every day.  In the past few years, I've had many relatives and family friends die from lingering illnesses (mostly cancer).  At first, I prayed that nothing was wrong with them.  Then they found out their diagnosis.  Then I prayed for a cure.  Then it became clear that the cure wasn't gonna happen.  Then, I'm ashamed to say, I prayed for their quick, painless death.  Even that didn't happen.  They lingered on, suffering.  Then they died.  I asked myself, could God not have answered one prayer?  Evidently not.

I also thought about the whole creation thing.  Assuming God is omnipotent and omniscient, as the bible says.  Assume he created everything.  Then that means he created the angels, including Lucifer.  Therefore, he knew when he made him he would rebel and become evil.  So, I struggled with this.  God had to have created him with the intention of him being evil.  Therefore, God was the ultimate author of evil, not the devil.

It was little things like that that I asked myself and reasoned through.  There is no God.  And I am happy.  I'm not a bad person, contrary to what some of my wife's family thinks.  

I'm glad I've found this site, because it validates my opinions, and offers support to me.  Thanks for being reasonable people.

Lucifer, angels, good, evil.....details, details. Jeez, I mean if you're going to hold god to a higher standard or something....  :wink:

Amazing, isn't it? How we completely delude ourselves as "believers". We simply want to believe so badly that we throw away reason. Even the simplest reason.

Thanks for sharing your introduction and welcome to the forum!

[MommaSquid]

Welcome to the forum, VAN.  (...can I call you VAN?)

Like McQ said, we all want something to believe in.  I believe I'll have a cookie.

[Chris Johnston]

Welcome to my world...former baptist minister and now uncloseted atheist!!! woot woot

[SteveS]

Hi VaNonbeliever - welcome to the board!

[Kona]

I'm glad I've found this site, because it validates my opinions, and offers support to me. Thanks for being reasonable people.

Welcome aboard...no pun!  However, if I may just make a comment on the quote.  Many people (including me) chose to follow religion for this same reason....support and validation.  Their power cannot be underestimated or thought trife.   So I hope that whatever support or validation you feel here is warranted on the strength of logic  and reason rather than some warm, hollow greeting offered at nearly every chapel door.  

Live long and prosper.....nanoo-nanoo!

PS  I'm going to have another beer now!



 

[Sophie]

Hey, VaNonbeliever.

I can totally relate to the disillusionment of not having prayers answered.  I know a wonderful woman who wasn't the type to go to the doctor often - she'd rather pray first, etc.  So many months after having some symptoms, she went to the doctor and she had Stage IV cancer.  It had metastasized to many organs, and was no longer treatable.  6-9 months to live.  I went to her funeral yesterday.  She was 46.

Another woman I know let her extremely fundamentalist husband talk her out of more psychiatric treatment (including her medication for severe depression and suicidal thoughts, etc).  She said she was "leaving it in God's hands."  I wonder how long she'll survive.

At the funeral for the first woman mentioned, I saw many old friends from when I was very Christian.  I was so emotionally drained from the whole ordeal, I found myself wishing I could just believe again and "fit in."  It passed rather quickly because I actually thought rationally about it.  As sentimental as I felt, I couldn't go back to believing in a bipolar sky-daddy who is concerned about every iota of everyone's lives.  What we wear, how we talk, whether or not we confess our naughties to a repressed man who believes he can turn wine and a wafer of bread into a god-man who commanded us to eat him so that we can remain faithful until he comes back again from the sky.......  I'm done.  There is no "signal grace" that will pop up to let me know my friend is in heaven praying for me, and that there really is a god who loves me.  All my friends that talked about God orchestrating this and that wonderful thing in their lives are just crediting natural events to their almighty sky-daddy (Bill Maher's term).  The amazingly "holy" and loving behavior and attitude of my dead friend had nothing to do with a god, and everything to do with her naturally positive and friendly demeanor.  Good genes, good upbringing and loving family.

Sorry to get off topic.  I'm just frustrated that she didn't go to the doctor a lot sooner, and angry that religion twists people's perception of life.

[ReflectingNarcissist]

Hello, initiate VaNonbeliever. Welcome to the chapel forums. Please, feel free to sacrifice a ram make yourself comfortable.

I also thought about the whole creation thing.  Assuming God is omnipotent and omniscient, as the bible says.  Assume he created everything.  Then that means he created the angels, including Lucifer.  Therefore, he knew when he made him he would rebel and become evil.  So, I struggled with this.  God had to have created him with the intention of him being evil.  Therefore, God was the ultimate author of evil, not the devil.

Bleh. That's where the christians have an upper hand.

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. - Isaiah 45:7

So, since God validates that he creates evil, he shouldn't be blamed for it. Forget about the fact that he created evil in the first place. He's God. He must of known what he was doing.

[Edizzle]

Most of the questions you asked yourself were my very same ones.

[Janga]

I think it is just stupid that people think someone who doesn't believe in God is a bad person. It's the dumbest reasoning there could ever be (in my mind).

I am a complete and total atheist, yet I volunteer my time a lot to help people, such as at homeless shelters, institutions for mentally challenged folks, etc etc. I do it for the people who need the help, not because I'm scared that some boogy man who lives in the ground is going to stick a pitch fork in my butt. I do it knowing perfectly well that it will make no difference at all how many people I helped when I die.
I think that is not a descrtiption of a bad person.

[winterbottom]

I, too, am a born again atheist. I was first born an atheist, took a long journey on my spiritual path and ended up back where I started. Proud to say I've been god-free since 1985!

[Will]

Thanks for being reasonable people.

Likewise!

[ShimShamSam]

I can't say I'm a born again atheist and I can't say I've ever believed in god, I guess you could say I'm a born atheist. There are 6 kids in my family and we all had to attend church every sunday until the beginning of high school. I can always remember pretending in church that I believed, but I know i didn't, even from a very young age. The funny thing is, now all of us 6 kids are some form of atheist or agnostic. I guess we all rejected our faith.

So I guess my point is, people on the Christian side have often argued people are born Christian, can I be born atheist? I'd like to think I was born with the tools of logic and reason.

[susangail]

born again Atheist...hmm I like that term, though I don't think I can consider myself one since I used to be a hardcore Christian, but I haven't gone back to it. I've asked similar questions to the ones you have. I didn't become an Atheist out of lack of proof in God's existence, more like lack of reason supporting His existence (wait does that make sense?). I used to believe in the power of prayer and signs and miracles. Now I realize it's all in your head. Things are going to happen how they happen whether or not you pray about it.