jojo-sa

To all the atheist and free thinkers.

I would like to know two things please:

1. Why are you ahteist or free thinker?

2. What faith were you as a kid? or what was Your religious ubringing and education in as a kid?

This information will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Orpheous99

Originally posted by jojo-sa:

To all the atheist and free thinkers.

I would like to know two things please:

1. Why are you ahteist or free thinker?

Because what I was being told didn't make any real sense at all. That they were less believable than the fairy tales my mother told me at bedtime.

2. What faith were you as a kid? or what was Your religious ubringing and education in as a kid?

I was raised Roman Catholic, and went through the standard meaningless rites and rituals.

SharonDee

I stopped believing in God once I was convinced he existed in the minds of the believers and nowhere else.

Christian, Church of Christ flavor. (They didn't consider themselves a denomination.) Church attendance every time the doors were open: Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and the occasional Monday through Friday night "meetings". (What some Christians call revivals.) All the religious education I got was from Sunday school and sermons.

[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: SharonDee ]</p>

Pandora

· 1.Why are you ahteist or free thinker?
I am an atheist because I see neither reason nor proof for the existence of an invisibile superpower. Religion is a response to man’s vanity and fears. I didn’t need a comfort blanket as a baby and I don’t need one now.
· 2. What faith were you as a kid? or what was Your religious ubringing and education in as a kid?
I was baptized at the age of 2 months into high church Church of England. I was sent at age 4 to the only English speaking school on the island I was brought up on. The school was run by fundamentalist protestant missionaries – two of the most evil, bigoted people I have ever come across. My parents were asked to remove me when I was 6 as I refused to pray, asked awkward questions and told the other children that God didn’t exist.

My mother taught me at home until we returned to the UK. I then went to schools with a Church of England bias – hymns, prayers and bible readings daily, and I attended Sunday school every week – but not necessarily Church.

I have never been anything other than a committed atheist, have never doubted, and have never found my life lacking in anyway for this. In fact I have always felt rather sorry for religious people. They must have some terrible feelings of loneliness and fear inside them.

bonduca

1. Because God either doesn't exist, or is such a monstrously cruel, arbitrary, and stupid twit of a creature that I refuse to recognize his/her/its existence.

2. I was very confused.

Amen-Moses

Originally posted by jojo-sa:
1. Why are you ahteist or free thinker?

I have seen the light.

2. What faith were you as a kid? or what was Your religious ubringing and education in as a kid?

Church of England but I never really bought into it any more than I did Santa or the Tooth Fairy.

Amen-Moses

jojo-sa

Thanks for inputs to date.

To date most atheist come from Christain background on this thread.

I await more inputs and better explanations to get a better understanding of the atheist phenomenom.

Thanks Again

Amazon

Hello jojo-sa!
Since you appear to be looking for more detail, I'll give you lots of it. You will notice that most of my reasons are arguments against the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam), since they are the ones with which I am most familiar.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jojo-sa:
1. Why are you ahteist or free thinker?

 Miracles – 2 kinds of miracles:
* New Testament Miracles – These events range from lame to ridiculous. It is written that Jesus killed a fig tree in front of observers who watched it wither. He killed it because he wanted some figs but there weren’t any since it was not fig season. That’s a pretty lame witness to the power of Jesus, not to mention a pretty lame hissy fit. Jesus died, was entombed, and was seen walking around outside the tomb alive and kicking 3 days later. To believe this, you have to assume that Jesus was a supernatural being. I don’t assume any such thing. Since the rising from the completely, totally dead trick has not been recreated, the very idea of it is ridiculous. Etcetera.
* Everyday miracles – Miracles are not miracles if they happen routinely. And miracles are not miracles if they have natural explanations. Events may be rare or circumstances just right, but if they can be explained, then they are not “miracles”. Events that do not yet have an explanation are simply unexplained. Regardless of how unlikely the unexplained event, to claim that its cause is supernatural is jumping a giant logical hole.

 Events Attributed to God – How can anyone claim that god had a hand in any event? Was he seen? Was he heard? Was there an objective, non-religious bystander who can witness that, yes, it was definitely god who helped? We have all seen credit given to god for saving the day when it is directly attributable to the hard work and alertness of regular humans. We have all seen credit given to god when a bad event has a happy ending. Why isn’t god given the credit for the bad thing in the first place? You can’t have it both ways. If you can’t prove to me that a god was directly involved, then he most probably wasn’t.

 Horrible Behavior by Theists – I’ll stick with the biggest problem in this category: if a god exists, he has no problem allowing humans to commit unspeakable horrors in his name. This is irreconcilable to me. Free will is one thing, but to be free to use his name for genocide, murder, rape, incest, terror, slavery, and oppression seems tremendously unlikely. According to Old and New Testament scripture, this god slaughtered tens of thousands if a devoted follower even breathed wrong. So:
* The prevailing god is the god of the Abrahamic religions. The bible misrepresented him as the most prolific killer, with the least justification, in the history of the world. He thinks that if enough of us die, whether we use his name or not, we may discover (despite the lack of supernatural reinforcement of worldwide civil behavior) that he really doesn’t want us to be mean to each other.
* The prevailing god is the god of the Abrahamic religions. He really is as merciless and cruel as the bible portrays, and seems to be enjoying human savagery for sport. By not stopping those who would do harm in his name, he is actually encouraging it.
* The prevailing god is not the god of the Abrahamic religions. He is seldom or never involved with humans at all, and really doesn’t care if we use him as a justification for harm.
* There is no god.
* Insert your favorite pretzel twist of logic here and insist that I have committed a logical fallacy by omitting the obvious correct answer.
I’m not going to get into the weekly news reports of parents physically and mentally abusing their children for not following the parents’ idea of what god wants, or abuses by clergy, or evangelical scams taking advantage of the elderly, etc. When was the last time you heard of a person committing horrendous acts against humanity for the sake of atheism? Obviously, belief in a god doesn’t make one a better person.

 Observation – My world is what I can see, hear, taste, smell and touch. What some people call “instinct”, I call common sense, human emotion, and experience. I operate under the assumption that I exist, and that my car is in the driveway where I left it the night before, but other than that, I rely on observation, common sense, human emotion, and experience. I have experienced no proof of a deity. Why should I believe in one if I’ve never sensed it? I have never been a good sheep. I don’t just go along with the crowd if something doesn’t make sense to me (with the exception of the DMV and the IRS). The god concept doesn’t make sense to me. If I have to believe it first, before it will make sense, then that is starting with a bias, which is dishonest. If someone can prove that a god exists without the assumption of belief, then I will acknowledge the existence of that god. However, worship is reserved for entities that have earned it. Simply being “supernatural” doesn’t make a being worthy of worship, unless you are operating from fear or you are a kiss-up. A “higher power” can throw petulant tantrums all it likes and strike me down for my defiance, but that does not make it “supreme” or “sacred”. That would not prove that it is worthy of love and devotion. The god concept is multi-layered, and I have not been shown adequate evidence for even level one. However, I am open to all offers of proof, within reason (pun intended).


2. What faith were you as a kid? or what was Your religious ubringing and education in as a kid?

I was baptised into the Presbyterian church. This particular church was rather liberal for Presbyterians. I was involved in the church's music program from the age of 4, and the senior minister was a friend of my family's until his death 15 years ago. He was a great guy. Then my family switched to a community church (mulit-denominational) when my Mother became musical director there. I participated in the music program extensively there, too. I joined choirs and ensembles sponsored by faith-based organizations, and traveled the world doing Christian music ministry. However, the more sermons I heard, the less I believed. The Jesus fables always sounded too fantastic to be true, and like I said in answer to the first question, I have never found evidence of a god. Besides, like I said before, the god I was hearing about was not an entity I would want to worship, even if I did sense it's presence - which I don't. I eventually retired from music in my late teens to escape my own hypocrisy. The people who were coming to hear me sing actually believed the myths I was singing about, and I couldn't be party to that any longer. It has been over a decade since then.


I hope this long post did not bore you to death, but you seem to be looking for understanding. I would be delighted to answer any questions you have regarding this post, with the understanding that these are solely my opinions, and they really can't be applied to all atheists.

Have a great day and a pleasant weekend!

jojo-sa

Hi Amazon

Thanks for your input and it was very interesing reading.

So far it seems in my opnion and from the little posts most atheist are just "fed Up" with Christianity,besides the fact that they look for proof of God and to date found nothing which they can agree to.

Please (atheists)Explain if otherwise .

thanks

Amazon

Well, in my opinion, the no proof of god part is correct, but the "fed up" part comes from the extraordinary priviliges and special treatment that religionists give themselves. I, personally, am fed up with the assumptions of the religious majority that all humans have a god-belief, and that god-belief automatically makes you a good person. I am fed up with my country being taken over unapologetically by Christian clutter around their major holidays with little regard to other faiths or to the non-religious. The list goes on and on, but I felt that Christianity in particular was shameless here in America even when I still considered myself a Christian. I fancy myself a person who is able to put herself in another person's shoes, and I find great unfairness in Christianity's treatment of other worldviews. That is not why I am an atheist, though. It is simply a daily torture that I am hoping to bring to the attention of the majority in little ways each day.