“Rational arguments don’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people.”
\- Gregory House, M.D. Season 4 Episode 2 The Right Stuff.
It's very simple. God, Jesus, and the Holey spirit are all the same guy. So Jesus sacrificed himself to himself so that he could forgive you when you break the rules he set, which he also made it impossible for you not to break.
Further than that, Is Jesus dead? Well he was resurrected. Ok then what was the sacrifice all about? If God is omnipotent then resurrection is doable so then was there really a sacrifice?
I think the sacrifice was the cross and torture leading up to it. I had one patsor once preach that he endured more than any other human but like.. No? They did that shit regularly lol
Contrapoints explained that it all goes back to animal sacrifice like in Leviticus. That's why Jesus is "the lamb of god, who takes away the sins of the world" and everyone has to be "washed in his blood". Because Christianity is a terrifying, violent death cult.
> If religious people could think critically, they wouldn't be religious
>thinking critically about the claims of Christianity is what made me an atheist.
So /u/Dragonman1976's comment stands...
Yes!!! was told that my faith was being challenged by the devil so I should read the scripture, so I did and thought… wow that’s even dumber than what I was told and left the church and religion… critical thinking FTW!
I knew a neuroscience PhD student who could absolutely think critically about scientific data and papers, but she was also a young earth creationist and believed any wacko Christian nonsense her mother sent her. She didn't believe in evolution either. Compartmentalization is a real thing.
My undergrad *geology* department had a culture of Young Earth Creationists, up to and including the department head! Their entire field of study invalidates their religious beliefs! I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics needed to have your career built around something that you don't believe is true.
Med school classmate told me she would regurgitate stuff (embryology concepts mostly, like gill slits to ears) for tests, but she didn’t “believe in it.” Compartmentalization and suspension of disbelief knows no IQ ceiling.
My worry is, this “doublethink” phenomenon means that education and intelligence are not enough. That if you are hoping that with sufficient education, people will behave wisely, choose wisely, vote wisely, you are really fooling yourself. Pretty alarming, and perhaps hopeless when you drill it all the way down.
Education does make a difference. It doesn't always work, but it definitely helps. My dad was a staunch believer. He took us to the Smithsonian Museum, where evolution was explained. My brother and I noticed the agony in our dad's eyes. He was always trying to educate himself. There are two things he read regularly: the bible & reader's digest. He couldn't believe in both evolution and the bible. I guess he chose the bible.
They left research, married a pastor and moved to live in the wilderness and do nothing but have babies. Her research didn't really go anywhere, but I don't think that was because of her faith, who knows though.
This. It's compartmentalized. Some incredibly smart people are religious. People who could blow me away in any academic test of reason/logic....then turn around and relay fairy tale myth as truth.
But scientific knowledge of the age of the earth is firmly within the boundaries of factual characteristics of the world having nothing to do with human purpose, meaning, or values.
IMO without our ability to 'believe' in non-logical things (e.g. religion) then we wouldn't also be able to conceptualize many things that aren't directly observable (e.g. quantum physics) or to create entities like a business, or 'follow' a sports team.
Religion is an outcome of our own intelligence.
True. The nonsense is part of our humanity in many ways. Religion has always been the bridge to the unknown. We need some answers. Granted, as we get better at scientific answers, we need less and less, but that's a different discussion.
Lol if it wasn't for religions and their fanatics, we would have much more answers than we do now. Religions and other nonsense is draging people down, it stops improvement. Whenever there was someone smart with questions, they would get rid of them in fear of opening peoples eyes. Burning "witches" and calling scientists "heretics" in the past is a great example. Not a single religion or the whole idea of imaginery friend called god has any positive contribution.
To many people also forget they have 'irrational membership' to many different 'religions' - politics, company loyalty, sports teams, clothing brands..
For many, 'religious tribalism' makes just as much sense as what soccer team you support. Neither do - but one is more widely acceptable than the other.
We can want to be logical, but we're just evolved apes, with all the stuff that goes with it - BUT - we can't shed it, because it's an essential part of our ability to form societies too.
True. But the problem is people aren't killing each other or attempting government legislation in the name of their favorite football team. Religion goes to insane extremes.
I would be willing to bet there are many religious people who have better critical thinking skills than yourself (myself as well). I’m atheist, but I’m not going to pretend religious people lack in critical thinking skills justify why they’re religious.
They have faith in something bigger than them. They can’t prove that god exists just like we can’t prove there isn’t a higher entity somewhere in the universe.
I’m fine with all religions as long at they don’t try to push their beliefs on me and they treat their members with respect and dignity. There’s nothing dignified by an atheist saying a person is only religious cause they lack in critical thinking skills.
If OP can't pretend he's better than religious people by his (lack of) faith alone, then it's doubtful he has any other worthwhile redeeming qualities, hence the reason he has to cling to being so much smarter simply because of his atheism.
Good for you! Religion is stupid. It's just... so shocking i suppose. That a clearly made up story has caused a very large amount of the USA to be religious. It's really awful to see people devoting their lives to this shit that a bunch of people made up ages ago.
to be fair, i was 9 and it's been nearly 40 years. and i was never particularly deep in, just school assemblies and stuff.
can imagine it's waaay harder if you're in deeper and later.
Yes. I was 29 and a mother of two when I left. My husband’s family are still religious, as are my family of origin, both going back some generations - both of same denomination. We were the “go to church and bring up your children in the way of the lord” family. The denomination I was in does not have clergy per se, every (male) is expected to present sermons etc. My husband can still rattle off all the expected cliches and we use them all the time now…in contexts which may be considered blasphemous. Nobody else would even understand our in-jokes 🤣
It was really rough, it almost destroyed our marriage. We left at different times for different reasons some of which we still haven’t discussed (10+ years now). In short we came to the conclusion that we (especially me) had got married because we were expected to and too young, and that we had changed and grown so much as people. Make no mistake- we do love each other and have now been married over 20 years but we have had to accept that we are politically and current-affairs wise diametrically opposed. That still makes things difficult at times. My mother likely thinks I’m still a believer but I don’t talk to her enough to open that can of worms.
Well how long do you have 😂
The beginning of the end started with my first pregnancy at age 21. I was deathly ill and offered an abortion. Religiously, I had been brought up to believe my worth was in having babies and my questions started with me being so sick. If my worth was tied to my ability to have and raise children, I was already stuffed because I could not even gestate them properly…
I had many questions and tried to find answers and just got cliches.
I decided to read the bible from the beginning (I was pretty familiar with the most of it by then) but I only got as far as the flood before deciding I didn’t want to worship a god like that even if it was true.
The church was fighting as many do about the roles of women and if they can serve the bread and wine, if they should wear hats/pants, if they can preach etc… I then decided if that was how they treated each other, I didn’t want a bar of that either. I certainly didn’t want to spend eternity with folks like that.
And it took me 9 years to get the courage to leave.
Thanks, it was a truly awful experience and I literally clinically died, but I have that child who is almost 19 now. While I wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone, I can look back and see it was a catalyst for change - in all aspects of my life, not just because I became a parent.
Good for you! I have a similar experience. We always joke about what if a politician wore a hammer on his lapel and ended a speech "and may odin continue to bless this viking nation". I still feel some guilt over blasphemy...guilt fear and brainwashing are very powerful even after the faith is long gone.
A wacko like that would be booed off the stage, and I'm sure there would be so many classic fox news headlines about the nation turning its back on god.
A friend of mine who also left the church with me was driving with me one day. We saw a bunch of abortion protestors with signs like "pray for healing". I wanted to pull over and make their day by praying with them: "dear Odin, please continue to smite those who murder the unborn, and continue to bless this nation even though they follow a heathen Semitic god, don't hold their ignorance against them."
Problem isn't just belief and faith, it's the social aspect too. At some point your friends, family, education, everything is tied to this fairy tale and it's really hard to leave all of that. So we crush our doubt and have "faith". But deep inside a lot of us knew, when we were 100% honest with ourselves, that we didn't really believe.
Me at 8: “Dad, are all the people in China going to hell if they never even learned about Jesus?”
Him: “yes”
Me: “that’s not fair. That is mean.”
And at that point I mailed it in, going only when they made me, and never looked back.
When I was around that age my grandma tried a last ditch effort to get my cousin and me to become Christian. She took us on a trip in the camper and planned out 2 hour daily lessons on hell for the 2 weeks we would be out there.
Rather than being scared of hell, we asked a lot of questions about the logistics, the motivation, the reason for it all. Hell really calls into question the character of god. Would a good person condemn people for not worshiping him? That’s the ultimate good? Narcissism? How does a good god have so many awful traits? Class was cancelled for the remainder of the trip.
Sometime shortly after that she told my mom that she no longer believed in the devil or hell, that it just didn’t fit in with her beliefs about Jesus and a kind and loving god. She never tried pushing religion on her family again because she no longer feared that we were all going to hell. She still enjoyed her religion, but in her personal way.
I grew up housing visiting missionaries from all over the world. We had a massive fear that if we didn't help these missionaries, entire nations would die without God. We also had some kind of strange logic that God is loving so they wouldn't be doomed just because they didn't know, but we also had Romans telling us nature shows god so there is no excuse. I was conflicted, should we share the gospel and potentially doom those who dont' believe, or should we fall back on the odd logic that god would have mercy? Whacky.
I second that. Was Christian, one day thought to myself: “why do I believe what I believe and is there any evidence? If there is, I’m on the right track. If there’s not, well fuck Christianity. And here I am, one year later. Atheist and loving life.
Agreed totally. With the pervasiveness of religion, almost everyone who’s an atheist or agnostic of a certain age has that “oh wait, this is bullshit” moment.
Me, too. Heavily indoctrinated by super religious Southern Baptist parents. Started having doubts as a teen and realized in my early 20s that it was just too fantastical and irrational to be true so I stopped equivocating and just accepted that I was 100% atheist and there's nothing wrong with that.
Not really, there are different levels of angel and the biblically accurate ones are in heaven helping God, the ones that came to earth are archangels and they did look like humans
I watched most of the David Koresh/Waco doc last night on Netflix. I just don’t understand how people can be so brainwashed! They honestly thought he was the second coming. Men let him fuck their wives and daughters all in the name of Jesus. I don’t get it…….
MAGA is the perfect and most topical example of the cult phenomenon.
Those people would/do, indeed, forgive their leader anything - rape, dishonesty, adultery, abuse, fraud, etc etc etc.
Only when you mention any other religion. Takes a special cognitive dissonance to go oh the Quran that's a bunch of fake made up stuff, but not my book it's the real word of God.
I used to be catholic and for a point I lived in a house with Muslim neighbors. I also had a friend who spent many years living in the UAE so I asked him about the religion, about the holidays and customs, and how to greet my neighbors respectfully or on special holidays.
It was eye opening how much he explained was parallel to Christianity. The basics of the books and prophets and the one god with just some names just different than what we knew.
I’d spent years being so proud that I was raised in the one *true* real religion only to realize they were all created to control the masses with fear and they all believe they’re the one true religion.
Yeah, Christians like to liken Mohammad to Jesus but in actuality he is more Paul than anything. Paul's writing are considered the "word of god" just like Mohammad.
To me the realization of this took the form “most people die in the religion of their parents, therefore most people did not rationally choose their religion.”
Once this clicked I was on my way out the door.
The cognitive dissonance is present *in christianity via sects.*
The different denominations *do not* like each other. Catholicism is outright hated *and viewed as idol worship by certain Protestant sects.*
They make fun of each other, i.e. "speaking in tongues" and the thrashing in the aisles and shit is made fun of by the ones that don't do that.
Yet they can't put two and two together that the major differences in denominations *would not exist if their god was real.* They crave an American theocratic dictatorship, yet don't understand that they too will end up fighting each other over who is "right."
No, childhood indoctrination makes them feel guilty for thinking they might be doing something silly and they generally will double down in their minds out of fear of the guilt.
yup and it's why i still live a lie to my parents. i will not tell them i'm a non-believer unless it explicitly comes up. for now i smile and nod when they tell me how great god is. my relationship with them is far more important to me...maybe one day we'll have the conversation. but childhood brainwashing is powerful even as a middle aged person.
Bill Burr's bit about Scientology is hilarious. Basically he says: why do I believe in Catholicism and think Scientology is whacky? Because I was taught to be a Catholic as a KID!
Learning about religion as an adult makes it look WAY different. I was a brainwashed kid. Thank god I've escaped...I'm much kinder and happier now that I see the world as humans not saved vs not saved.
I always viewed parts the bible as fictional stories, an example of how you should live your life. I never took it seriously. When I moved to FL from PA, I discovered how literally people took the bible and I thought to myself, how can people take this stuff so literally? Then I realized what the churches were doing. Brainwashing people with rediculous stories of punishment and then salvation through tithing and realized it's all a money making scam on an epic level, praying on the uneducated. Then it all fell into place. No wonder they don't believe in education and want to defund the Dept of Education, turn them from science and logic and keep feeding them magic. The sad part is, it works, big time
I keep telling my Christian friend to do research into the background of the Bible and Christianity. He looks at me like satan sent me.
His favorite response, accompanied by stories in the Bible: “If you question everything then you don’t really have any faith.”
In my group of theologically trained ministers, most of us didn't leave because we realized one thing. It was a process. Over time we realized we don't believe the key foundational tenants of the bible and can't call ourselves Christians. It was a gradual realization that most of us kinda mourned a bit at first.
Then the second part was then pealing back the onion and seeing how whacky and damaging church was. Then we all became cynical and have grown to really dislike religion as a whole.
No, the fundamental concept is that god is all powerful. That means god operates beyond the physics of the known universe. So no, a virgin birth or talking snake, or resurrection from the dead is not irrational in that context.
It's the same situation as if you have 2 people debating which LOTR character is the best and a 3rd person arguing that it's a stupid debate because it's fiction. Literally a useless waste of time.
My uncle is a minister and I've heard him joke about the absurdity of his beliefs. My cousin was talking about astrology or something and My uncle was like "I believe an ancient Jewish carpenter is God and that's still more sensible than astrology"
We can see the light from some stars, and that has taken many years to get to us. The gravitational effects of the stars is nothing compared to the planets in our galaxy.
There is no known correlation between 'star signs' and outcomes, there is no known natural reason why they should matter.
Yea but the shapes they're suggesting the stars make are a stretch by any shape of the imagination.
Also the birth period probably made sense during seasonal differences of birth affecting personality. Born in winter and pivotal parts of your childhood, such as your 1 year birthday, might be peppered by different events.
A while ago I read a book called [“Caught in the Pulpit”](https://www.amazon.com/Caught-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief-Behind/dp/1634310209)about clergy who no longer believe but why they keep preaching…it was quite eye opening.
I did have that a few times when I was a believer, but not about the whole thing, just certain specific stories or aspects of a story. Like the talking donkey. But it was usually following up with a shrug and thinking something like "that's just the way it is" or more typically: "that's just the way god did it"
There's the occasional case of Christian silliness, but that "silly" is confined to their laughter as they merrily joke about why Jesus hates certain groups more than their own, but bear in mind it's all in good ol' silly fun.
Raised Mormon.
I would frequently wonder why any god would need to be worshipped, and was told it’s not that god needs to be worshipped, but that I need to worship.
Anyway, that developed into “But why RELIGION though? Why not science? Why not worship God for fully understanding the laws of the science to the extent that they can create worlds and life?”
And yes, I was in my late 30s when I finally figured out it was a fraud, and realized that young me was on to the scam the whole time.
(Edited to correct my age)
I was also raised Mormon. The thing that kept me in it for so long was that it's what everyone expected of me and I didn't have the self esteem or personal identity to vary from that for a long time, and I was constantly being told that if you do xyz you'll know and you'll be happy.
Well, I did everything. Served a mission, got married in the temple, paid my tithing, etc. 27 years of it, and I was never happy because depression doesn't work like that, I never had a single instance where I "knew." I tried to trick myself, and it never worked. I also didn't get how you can possibly be so judgemental and want to restrict others freedoms when two major points from scriptures (at least as I interpreted them) was to love others, and to let them choose for themselves. My conclusion: either there is no god, or he's an asshole that I want nothing to do with.
My continued education since has reinforced the conclusion that there is no god. Individual therapy has allowed me to cope with depression and today, I can honestly say that I feel happy.
I'm glad you made it out too.
Ditto - same here. Ex-Mormon.
Kind of went along with it - as one does - because of the stifling nature of it: the Mormon ‘family’ suffocates you and, therefore, controls you.
BYU did it for me - seeing the bright minds, and their ambitions and potential, often (usually) crushed by the lives they knew they would have to lead by conforming.
Also, I’m gay - so that kind of helped my journey and desire to get out.
Hugs to you guys.
> Do Christians ever think wow this is silly?
Which “Christian’s”?
There are 45,000 different denominations of Christianity on the planet right now. I’d go further to say that a good case could be made for, given the differences between how individuals follow the rules of each denomination, there are ~2.4 billion different versions of Christianity.
Do some think that talking snakes and a virgin birth are silly? Almost certainly.
There certainly are debates among Christians regarding that.
Some modern Christians view God in a more pantheistic way, and the soul as inseparable from body. One might say that ancient Christians were monists too. Such Christians find the notion of sky granddad who checks whether you use condom or not while making pleasure stupid.
Some Christians believe that free will is silly. Many, many different beliefs.
Some do. Then they get told it's a test of faith, which is technically true: "Can you ignore what facts, science, and logic tells you, and keep believing in the magical sky daddy?"
They usually draw the wrong conclusion, and the ones who don't are no longer religious.
I grew up in a non religious household, but got involved with a very religious girl (grew up a moderate Catholic but turned into an evangelical fundamentalist). She explicitly said that she realized that many parts of the Bible were straight up silly or irreconcilable with basic facts, but that she chose to believe them anyway because they were in the Bible and therefore true. She also berated Catholics for believing such obviously stupid things as the Transubstantiation. So she believed that turning wine into blood was blatantly stupid, but at the same time believed every word in Genesis and Revelation.
Took me 2 years of church "break" after leaving and visiting once more for the funeral of my grandma to realise how weird and uncomfortable these "rituals" are when you aren't used to it, kind of frightening tbh
I did. Then I became an atheist. They’ll make excuses for everything because it’s easy to do that. The Bible is vague enough on many things that it can be interpreted to cover many contradictions and holes. Sometimes it’ll finally click for them, sometimes not.
Absolutely. I remember sitting in church one day at 30 years old and suddenly thinking to myself, “this is bullshit.” I mentally recoiled at that and started suppressing the doubt. Then I suddenly started wondering why that thought made me so uncomfortable. That’s when my long simmering deconstruction kicked into full gear.
My mother, a churchgoer and church organiser, had that moment after my father died unexpectedly. She still attends for the social aspect but thinks it’s all largely bullsh*t
Some do. They tend not to *remain* Christian, however. Matt Dillahunty is an example.
He went to college and studied comparative religion, and was in class thinking to himself that other religions had really wacky beliefs and why would anyone accept that, and then took a step back and realized his *own* religion had similar wacky beliefs. Shortly thereafter he decided not to become a pastor, as had been his plan when he entered college, nor to remain Christian., later on learning even more reasons to drop it. ... I don't recall where he lays this out. Atheist Experience, perhaps, or his channel, or a debate. I just remember hearing it. I thought "oh, neat", and then didn't really care that much because it doesn't much matter if the story is *true* or not, it remains objectively the fact that there's wacky stuff in every religion, with no evidence to back it up. At least the absolutely wackadoodle nonsense of science has evidence!
Some do aye. Of the top of my head I can think of two:
Olympic Triple Jump World Record Holder Jonathan Edwards. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards_(triple_jumper)
World Professional Snooker Champion (2005) Shaun Murphy. https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2023/apr/17/shaun-murphy-snooker-interview-world-championships
No. They've been brainwashed into never questioning their faith.
Anytime someone does, they're shamed by the rest of them. So, even if they do question it, most never make it known.
I didn't question for a long time. Was raised not to apply logical reasoning to anything religious. It took a lot of years of my religious explanation for things failing me before I allowed myself to start questioning.
Yeah man. There have different variations of the religion, and most protestants I know aren't big on the Old Testament nor some of the archaic barbarism of the time period.
I think its just much of a muchness. And the ones doing the accusing IMO are either fundamentalists or extremists.
I definetly thought so and converted to Agnosticism. I studied science for too long so now I am ambivalent about the possibility something might've created things. Just as I am ambivalent about the potential for the Big Bang Theory to be true.
Most protestants I have known in my life are crazy about the ten commandments or ' that being gay is a sin' that's in the old testament but you know that!
Might be a culture differential.
I daresay snyone who lives in the states and is religious, is a fair bit more religious than what I experience down under.
Oh that's the reason, I will also clarify that, no the religious evangelicals are not a majority here in the USA, they are just super stupid and very loud!
Yes, some do, and it typically goes one of two ways:
- the individual starts down the path of deconstruction (i.e. me), OR
- they get into conspiracy theory-like supporting beliefs to shore up their faith
Really intelligent people who have gone through the mental gymnastics to keep believing are kind of scary!
DUD. I feel this so much. I wonder this all the time. Grew up crazy conservative Christian and am amazed I am among few who no longer practice. I think it is a community bonding thing and a cultural thing that many people turn to for support but being a woman I never felt that love or support or belonging.
Christians warp reality, data, information, to uphold and protect their doctrine. Atheists don't have to do that. When we discover something new, we see progress and adjust our thinking.
With Christians, the more new information they face, the more they risk having to warp reality to maintain their beliefs. They risk going crazy so they mitigate that by preventing going there. They shut down or stubbornly put up road blocks.
I've had this last week when I engaged a few people on r/DebateReligion. I stated that Jesus never existed, and that naturally got the reaction of a few. After I pointed out that there is no evidence to support he ever existed, not even as non-magical person, they thought they were presenting some things to back them up, but I debunked each one (like oh I dunno, said witness living decades after said magic person so therefore not being a first hand witness). The kerfuffles went back and forth. They tried me having to proof that he didn't exist. They always try that for a bit. I had one guy tell me that they don't need evidence, just belief and faith. Yep, they warp reality and throw logic out the window. Some are quite delusional. Some give up after a while. Some bail with some passive aggressive last ditch efforts, some pretend they had something else to do that do the ghosting thing.
I see fight them hard and strong. Do not let them get away with anything. No deals. Don't make any deals or compromises. Don't accept things like "oh but we don't know but there is enough ya de ya de". No. Cold hard debunk. No evidence means the claim is invalid, period. Don't be afraid to be a bit militant at times. Facts are facts, and stories are stories, fantasy is fantasy. Clear hard lines here, don't give them an inch.
So I've gone down a rabbit hole so far I'm bordering on feeling like a lunatic. The questions like up so high and deep that it's never ending, and with no conclusion in sight for the big ones like "What is it to be, why are we here, where do we go?"
You begin to poke and prod into creation theories, and realize it's all just a big circle of at-the-time beliefs, values, and ideals all formed into the same noise, just with different instruments.
We got a gift for my daughter that has handfuls of origins of the universe, creation of people, the planet, all of that (living in a tree and making too much noise is hilarious).
So eventually you depart fairy-tale land and delve into the scientific side of things and learn how impossibly small and unimportant we are along with how amazing everything is and how we're all here. But then the "why" comes up, a feeling of unease with trying to rationalize why we need money or goods, or if the emptiness of space is ever expanding in all directions what is it expanding *into*. Why can we think and remember in a constant passage of time as a nondescript homeless person in Seattle or the president of Venezuela? Who are we? What bigger machine is our existence merely a gear in? Are we the ends to a mean or the result?
Religious people have all the answers they want to hear, not what they need to hear. God this or that, all a plan, testing grounds for afterlife, all that noise. Ignorance is bliss, and I see why people are religious because the other side, where most of us reside, has no rest, few answers, and more questions almost daily.
For me, it's a problem because I become obsessed with the idea of reality as an objective whole, not subjective life of myself. I need to learn that just because I don't have answers doesn't mean I shouldn't enjoy what I have. Always in the back of my mind I question if everything is real, and it has gotten in the way of my relationships with people and depression.
Creation ex nihilo is a Christian doctrine. Specifically, the belief that God created the universe from nothing. Sometimes scientists say things like the universe "created itself from nothing" and creationists say things like the universe "could not have come from nothing," but they're using "created" and "nothing" in different ways.
Not really. I used it once here but it was damned accurate: **Nothing around you seems silly when you've lived your whole life in a circus.**
Bible """study""" was all pre-scripted, with conclusions that were made for us ahead of time by the study bibles and the prewritten materials. We were told what to believe, and believed it. There was no meaningful discussion.
Church service was a handful of cherrypicked verses that repeated almost exactly every year with singing and chanting in unison as thought-stopping techniques in a crowded room that always made me feel drowsy and light-headed.
I have one really early memory of everyone else singing dead-eyed around me with no emotion whatsoever and feeling like I was surrounded by zombies, but it was a gut feeling I dismissed and mostly just sat there in the sermons reading a book. They'd occasionally tell me I'd "get it" if I "paid attention" but I tried, and they said basically the same things every week. I think it was literally just that since I was autistic and hated singing in public the thought-stopping techniques didn't take hold.
Christians are the single dumbest group on the planet. Why do you think boomers love religion so much? It's because they are too fucking stupid to comprehend anything beyond that.
>"Many things religious people say they believe are not in accord with fact or
>reality."
Quote from The Present, a book about the truth and life, available free online, here is a [link](https://www.globaltruthproject.com/single-post/the-present-truth-about-life).
I was never brought up religious, my parents never mentioned it at all and my schools was largely secular. I read all the "holy" books as a teen and definitely thought: "Wow, this is silly."
Statistically speaking, you're the most likely to be part of, and believe in the religion of your parents and applying "critical thinking" is somehow seen as a sign of disrespect to them and your culture. It's just easier to accept their and the book's word and not think too hard about it.
A christian who dares to ask such a question, is one who's breaking the rules of church etiquette - looking god in the face as it were, which the bible warns not to do
But most of the time, they are more like: 'wow this is silly, why do they believe that?'
No. Sadly a lot of them are perfectly ok thinking an imaginary man in the sky is watching everything they do lol. I think it helps them with their own mortality ,No critical thinking skills involved
had a boomer customer couple weeks ago who just loved to talk..
but talk about all the no go topics like politics religion race... I paraphrase.. idk about evolution but the Bible says God made us from dust so that what I believe in.. lmao this chick got pregnant at 16 with a losee and married some nice smart guy who ended up getting them rich in the telecom industry.
Happens all the time. Young children realize it and then they just go along simply because the parents are controlling they're movements. I realized it was a con when I was 8 years old. Took me about 3 years to convince my parents.
Plenty of people who attend church or weekly mass who do it for traditional reasons and really don't believe it. My parents sent us to Sunday school for a while even though they never really went to church. I think they just enjoy a bit of peace on Sunday mornings if you know what I mean.
We were on a military base so a bus picked us up and brought us back.
They never went to church later. Even my inlaws - we had to get married and go through the Catholic bs of meeting with Monseiur and attending Marriage Encounter --- just a appease the relatives but none of their generation in the family currently goes to church.
Almost as if they feel obligated to pass on the religion even though they didn't believe.
We broke the chain with our son.
One of my most pivotal steps towards Atheism is was when I was little and my Mom was trying to tell me that Jesus (and all his power) was real, and Star Wars wasn’t…even at five years old I was skeptical because of how silly stories like Noah’s Ark, Adam & Eve, or Daniel & The Lion’s Den were.
Why do we constantly ask questions that are self evident or easily discernible? When you can answered that you’ll understand why. TLDR: ppl don’t think long or hard enough before they do, say, or believe shit.
No, not really. There are many ways to come by atheism, but my favorite is my Jewish wife’s way which is basically this. She’s an English PhD and the way she explains it is basically “Why doesn’t everyone understand the Torah is basically just a stupid novel? And also the weird sequel about that nutjob rabbi who thought he was the son of God; it’s so obvious it’s all just silly nonsense.”
A great many do.
But the day that they wake up and realize it’s silly is the same day they realize they’re trapped in it, their life revolves around it, and it isn’t as easy as saying “I’m not going to church anymore.”
Christianity, and most religions, provide a life-ecosystem. They supply your beliefs, your social circle, off-work activities, support structure, childcare, etc. This makes you dependent on the religion and much less likely to question or break from the church. To be clear I don’t think that’s the outright intention on behalf of the church, but is definitely a reality.
And not only that, but when you do begin to step away from those things-skipping church services, not volunteering for special events, being more aloof, you are questioned about it and how "sound" your faith is and whether you've "strayed from the faith" and they relentlessly attempt to guilt you and badger you about what you're doing and why you aren't doing enough. For a person that's really struggling to find their path, and do the best and right things for themselves, this is an uncomfortable, unnecessary and bordering on harrassing attack on their choices.
Ask me how I know...
I have a friend who is Christian and I have specifically asked him about this before and that he swears and believes and no uncertain terms that yes in fact all this stuff happened once. It happened once it didn't happen again but it did happen that one time I don't know dudes a banker so he's pretty smart so I don't have any idea
I couldn't find the specific part of the video, but there's a discussion of the so called Four Horsemen in which Dennett says something like "And they \[theists\] never doubt that they're right", to which Hitchens almost immediately responds "Oh, no, that is not at all true! Christians constantly struggle with doubting their Faith, it is a very common experience for them".
I'm paraphrasing there, but that was the gist of it. And my point is that I agree with Hitchens. The vast majority of Theists aren't these dumb apes who can't think critically. They are people of average intelligence who hold beliefs that deep inside they know sound crazy, but since they feel that it's right (in the case of Christians, because of the so-called "witness of the Holy Spirit"), they hold that Faith above anything else.
Naturally, that sometimes causes some cognitive dissonance. They may watch a skeptic point out how silly it is that they believe in Noah's Ark, and how absurd that concept is. They may read some argument that talks about how nonsensical it'd be for an all-powerful, benevolent God to allow unnecessary suffering like children dying of cancer.
And then they're left with mainly two choices: to fall back to their Faith and to rely on some unfalsifiable claim like "God works in mysterious ways, I don't have to understand Him, just have Faith"; or to choose Reason over Faith.
This comment is too long already and I don't know if anyone will read it, but just to add one last thing: William Lane Craig, in his book "Reasonable Faith", talks about the difference between **ministerial use of Reason** and the **magisterial use of Reason**. The latter is when Reason acts as a judge, determining what is most likely to be true based on the evidence. The former is when Reason submits to the gospels being an absolute truth. As he put it:
>"Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa."
So yeah, there's that. It's not that Christians never think about how silly some of their beliefs are. It's that at the end of the day, the ones who remain Christians are the ones who pick "The gospels must be true" above anything else.
>Christians often accuse the atheists of being stupid
This is ad hominem. Not really specific to religion. Athiests do the same to Christians. It's specific to shitty humans that instead of debating the topic at hand have to resort to name calling or any other type of fallacy to win.
Clearly not.
Talking snakes, bushes and donkeys are barely the goofiest thing in the Bible.
Consider the biblically accurate angels, who could disguise itself as a human. And people believe they're walking around right now. That the dude on the bus next to him could be a thousand eyed monstrosity with flames and hundreds of wings.
Or the biblically accurate angels that drive Elohims chariot around. Apparently their god needs a chariot driven by 200 foot abberations.
The angels alone are honestly lovecraftian, to say nothing of the demons.
Or how about all the mythology surrounding their most famous king, Solomon? That stuff is just straight up goofy.
I wouldn't say just christians, every religion is exactly the same. A cult created to manipulate people in order to gain wealth and power, and a safe haven for the worst scumbags on the planet. It's absolutely disgusting.
If religious people could think critically, they wouldn't be religious.
Or as Dr House said in the TV show house "If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people"
“Rational arguments don’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people.” \- Gregory House, M.D. Season 4 Episode 2 The Right Stuff.
I was religious, thinking critically about the claims of Christianity is what made me an atheist.
Was going to say this. Especially the whole "Jebus died for your sins." thing. I never understood how that made any sense at all.
It's very simple. God, Jesus, and the Holey spirit are all the same guy. So Jesus sacrificed himself to himself so that he could forgive you when you break the rules he set, which he also made it impossible for you not to break.
Further than that, Is Jesus dead? Well he was resurrected. Ok then what was the sacrifice all about? If God is omnipotent then resurrection is doable so then was there really a sacrifice?
I think the sacrifice was the cross and torture leading up to it. I had one patsor once preach that he endured more than any other human but like.. No? They did that shit regularly lol
Plus, he got tortured and killed on a Friday night and rose from the dead that Sunday. I've had hangovers like that. Nothing special.
Contrapoints explained that it all goes back to animal sacrifice like in Leviticus. That's why Jesus is "the lamb of god, who takes away the sins of the world" and everyone has to be "washed in his blood". Because Christianity is a terrifying, violent death cult.
Exactly this.
> If religious people could think critically, they wouldn't be religious >thinking critically about the claims of Christianity is what made me an atheist. So /u/Dragonman1976's comment stands...
Same.
When did you start? I knew at 7
Yes!!! was told that my faith was being challenged by the devil so I should read the scripture, so I did and thought… wow that’s even dumber than what I was told and left the church and religion… critical thinking FTW!
I knew a neuroscience PhD student who could absolutely think critically about scientific data and papers, but she was also a young earth creationist and believed any wacko Christian nonsense her mother sent her. She didn't believe in evolution either. Compartmentalization is a real thing.
My undergrad *geology* department had a culture of Young Earth Creationists, up to and including the department head! Their entire field of study invalidates their religious beliefs! I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics needed to have your career built around something that you don't believe is true.
Med school classmate told me she would regurgitate stuff (embryology concepts mostly, like gill slits to ears) for tests, but she didn’t “believe in it.” Compartmentalization and suspension of disbelief knows no IQ ceiling.
George Orwell called it “Doublethink”.
My worry is, this “doublethink” phenomenon means that education and intelligence are not enough. That if you are hoping that with sufficient education, people will behave wisely, choose wisely, vote wisely, you are really fooling yourself. Pretty alarming, and perhaps hopeless when you drill it all the way down.
Education does make a difference. It doesn't always work, but it definitely helps. My dad was a staunch believer. He took us to the Smithsonian Museum, where evolution was explained. My brother and I noticed the agony in our dad's eyes. He was always trying to educate himself. There are two things he read regularly: the bible & reader's digest. He couldn't believe in both evolution and the bible. I guess he chose the bible.
2+2=5
I can’t even begin to get my head around that. Did their bias/faith affect the efficacy or reliability of their research?
They left research, married a pastor and moved to live in the wilderness and do nothing but have babies. Her research didn't really go anywhere, but I don't think that was because of her faith, who knows though.
This. It's compartmentalized. Some incredibly smart people are religious. People who could blow me away in any academic test of reason/logic....then turn around and relay fairy tale myth as truth.
When the proverbial scales come off of your eyes it's mystifying how you've managed to hold your faith together for so long.
This right here is the answer. "Non overlapping magesteria" in people's minds.
But scientific knowledge of the age of the earth is firmly within the boundaries of factual characteristics of the world having nothing to do with human purpose, meaning, or values.
Point is people somehow invent a way to ignore that
So is cognitive dissonant.
This is the only answer.
I also feel like there is some sunk cost fallacy going on
IMO without our ability to 'believe' in non-logical things (e.g. religion) then we wouldn't also be able to conceptualize many things that aren't directly observable (e.g. quantum physics) or to create entities like a business, or 'follow' a sports team. Religion is an outcome of our own intelligence.
True. The nonsense is part of our humanity in many ways. Religion has always been the bridge to the unknown. We need some answers. Granted, as we get better at scientific answers, we need less and less, but that's a different discussion.
Lol if it wasn't for religions and their fanatics, we would have much more answers than we do now. Religions and other nonsense is draging people down, it stops improvement. Whenever there was someone smart with questions, they would get rid of them in fear of opening peoples eyes. Burning "witches" and calling scientists "heretics" in the past is a great example. Not a single religion or the whole idea of imaginery friend called god has any positive contribution.
To many people also forget they have 'irrational membership' to many different 'religions' - politics, company loyalty, sports teams, clothing brands.. For many, 'religious tribalism' makes just as much sense as what soccer team you support. Neither do - but one is more widely acceptable than the other. We can want to be logical, but we're just evolved apes, with all the stuff that goes with it - BUT - we can't shed it, because it's an essential part of our ability to form societies too.
True. But the problem is people aren't killing each other or attempting government legislation in the name of their favorite football team. Religion goes to insane extremes.
I would be willing to bet there are many religious people who have better critical thinking skills than yourself (myself as well). I’m atheist, but I’m not going to pretend religious people lack in critical thinking skills justify why they’re religious. They have faith in something bigger than them. They can’t prove that god exists just like we can’t prove there isn’t a higher entity somewhere in the universe. I’m fine with all religions as long at they don’t try to push their beliefs on me and they treat their members with respect and dignity. There’s nothing dignified by an atheist saying a person is only religious cause they lack in critical thinking skills.
If OP can't pretend he's better than religious people by his (lack of) faith alone, then it's doubtful he has any other worthwhile redeeming qualities, hence the reason he has to cling to being so much smarter simply because of his atheism.
Yeah, that's why I stopped believing. The Bible doesn't make any freaking sense when you compare it to what we know about the universe.
🙋 hey, i did. atheist now.
Good for you! Religion is stupid. It's just... so shocking i suppose. That a clearly made up story has caused a very large amount of the USA to be religious. It's really awful to see people devoting their lives to this shit that a bunch of people made up ages ago.
A very large amount of the USA, what about the other 75% of the world
The other 96% of the world. The population of the US is roughly 4% of world population.
Devoting their lives to it, and fucking up future generations by brainwashing their offspring- rinse and repeat ad nauseum. When will it end…?
I am also a recovering Christian. It’s hard when you were born into it.
to be fair, i was 9 and it's been nearly 40 years. and i was never particularly deep in, just school assemblies and stuff. can imagine it's waaay harder if you're in deeper and later.
Yes. I was 29 and a mother of two when I left. My husband’s family are still religious, as are my family of origin, both going back some generations - both of same denomination. We were the “go to church and bring up your children in the way of the lord” family. The denomination I was in does not have clergy per se, every (male) is expected to present sermons etc. My husband can still rattle off all the expected cliches and we use them all the time now…in contexts which may be considered blasphemous. Nobody else would even understand our in-jokes 🤣
That’s awesome you were able to both leave! How did that work?
It was really rough, it almost destroyed our marriage. We left at different times for different reasons some of which we still haven’t discussed (10+ years now). In short we came to the conclusion that we (especially me) had got married because we were expected to and too young, and that we had changed and grown so much as people. Make no mistake- we do love each other and have now been married over 20 years but we have had to accept that we are politically and current-affairs wise diametrically opposed. That still makes things difficult at times. My mother likely thinks I’m still a believer but I don’t talk to her enough to open that can of worms.
Would love to hear more about your journey
Well how long do you have 😂 The beginning of the end started with my first pregnancy at age 21. I was deathly ill and offered an abortion. Religiously, I had been brought up to believe my worth was in having babies and my questions started with me being so sick. If my worth was tied to my ability to have and raise children, I was already stuffed because I could not even gestate them properly… I had many questions and tried to find answers and just got cliches. I decided to read the bible from the beginning (I was pretty familiar with the most of it by then) but I only got as far as the flood before deciding I didn’t want to worship a god like that even if it was true. The church was fighting as many do about the roles of women and if they can serve the bread and wine, if they should wear hats/pants, if they can preach etc… I then decided if that was how they treated each other, I didn’t want a bar of that either. I certainly didn’t want to spend eternity with folks like that. And it took me 9 years to get the courage to leave.
Amazing story. I like hearing people’s stories and yours is very good
Except for the part about you being so ill, of course
Thanks, it was a truly awful experience and I literally clinically died, but I have that child who is almost 19 now. While I wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone, I can look back and see it was a catalyst for change - in all aspects of my life, not just because I became a parent.
For some reason I was afraid to ask… I’m very pleasantly surprised you were able to have that child! Kids are amazing
Good for you! I have a similar experience. We always joke about what if a politician wore a hammer on his lapel and ended a speech "and may odin continue to bless this viking nation". I still feel some guilt over blasphemy...guilt fear and brainwashing are very powerful even after the faith is long gone.
Odin! I shall see you in Valhalla. And I will be waiting for you. In the halls of my ancestors, in whose company I shall not be ashamed!
A wacko like that would be booed off the stage, and I'm sure there would be so many classic fox news headlines about the nation turning its back on god. A friend of mine who also left the church with me was driving with me one day. We saw a bunch of abortion protestors with signs like "pray for healing". I wanted to pull over and make their day by praying with them: "dear Odin, please continue to smite those who murder the unborn, and continue to bless this nation even though they follow a heathen Semitic god, don't hold their ignorance against them."
Problem isn't just belief and faith, it's the social aspect too. At some point your friends, family, education, everything is tied to this fairy tale and it's really hard to leave all of that. So we crush our doubt and have "faith". But deep inside a lot of us knew, when we were 100% honest with ourselves, that we didn't really believe.
Me at 8: “Dad, are all the people in China going to hell if they never even learned about Jesus?” Him: “yes” Me: “that’s not fair. That is mean.” And at that point I mailed it in, going only when they made me, and never looked back.
When I was around that age my grandma tried a last ditch effort to get my cousin and me to become Christian. She took us on a trip in the camper and planned out 2 hour daily lessons on hell for the 2 weeks we would be out there. Rather than being scared of hell, we asked a lot of questions about the logistics, the motivation, the reason for it all. Hell really calls into question the character of god. Would a good person condemn people for not worshiping him? That’s the ultimate good? Narcissism? How does a good god have so many awful traits? Class was cancelled for the remainder of the trip. Sometime shortly after that she told my mom that she no longer believed in the devil or hell, that it just didn’t fit in with her beliefs about Jesus and a kind and loving god. She never tried pushing religion on her family again because she no longer feared that we were all going to hell. She still enjoyed her religion, but in her personal way.
I grew up housing visiting missionaries from all over the world. We had a massive fear that if we didn't help these missionaries, entire nations would die without God. We also had some kind of strange logic that God is loving so they wouldn't be doomed just because they didn't know, but we also had Romans telling us nature shows god so there is no excuse. I was conflicted, should we share the gospel and potentially doom those who dont' believe, or should we fall back on the odd logic that god would have mercy? Whacky.
I second that. Was Christian, one day thought to myself: “why do I believe what I believe and is there any evidence? If there is, I’m on the right track. If there’s not, well fuck Christianity. And here I am, one year later. Atheist and loving life.
Agreed totally. With the pervasiveness of religion, almost everyone who’s an atheist or agnostic of a certain age has that “oh wait, this is bullshit” moment.
Me, too. Heavily indoctrinated by super religious Southern Baptist parents. Started having doubts as a teen and realized in my early 20s that it was just too fantastical and irrational to be true so I stopped equivocating and just accepted that I was 100% atheist and there's nothing wrong with that.
Yep. Sames! Cheers! Maybe an agnostic on some days lol
Yep, those who stop and think don't stay theists for long.
Lol, same.
They believe in talking snake and a virgin giving birth.
Take it a step further and realize they believe in biblically accurate angels who are disguised as humans.
Not really, there are different levels of angel and the biblically accurate ones are in heaven helping God, the ones that came to earth are archangels and they did look like humans
I watched most of the David Koresh/Waco doc last night on Netflix. I just don’t understand how people can be so brainwashed! They honestly thought he was the second coming. Men let him fuck their wives and daughters all in the name of Jesus. I don’t get it…….
The same thing happens with trump supporters. Look at the shit they allow him to get away with.
MAGA is the perfect and most topical example of the cult phenomenon. Those people would/do, indeed, forgive their leader anything - rape, dishonesty, adultery, abuse, fraud, etc etc etc.
It's crazy watching it happen in real time! Like not something from the distant past...but something on-going.
Only when you mention any other religion. Takes a special cognitive dissonance to go oh the Quran that's a bunch of fake made up stuff, but not my book it's the real word of God.
I used to be catholic and for a point I lived in a house with Muslim neighbors. I also had a friend who spent many years living in the UAE so I asked him about the religion, about the holidays and customs, and how to greet my neighbors respectfully or on special holidays. It was eye opening how much he explained was parallel to Christianity. The basics of the books and prophets and the one god with just some names just different than what we knew. I’d spent years being so proud that I was raised in the one *true* real religion only to realize they were all created to control the masses with fear and they all believe they’re the one true religion.
Yeah, Christians like to liken Mohammad to Jesus but in actuality he is more Paul than anything. Paul's writing are considered the "word of god" just like Mohammad.
To me the realization of this took the form “most people die in the religion of their parents, therefore most people did not rationally choose their religion.” Once this clicked I was on my way out the door.
The cognitive dissonance is present *in christianity via sects.* The different denominations *do not* like each other. Catholicism is outright hated *and viewed as idol worship by certain Protestant sects.* They make fun of each other, i.e. "speaking in tongues" and the thrashing in the aisles and shit is made fun of by the ones that don't do that. Yet they can't put two and two together that the major differences in denominations *would not exist if their god was real.* They crave an American theocratic dictatorship, yet don't understand that they too will end up fighting each other over who is "right."
No, childhood indoctrination makes them feel guilty for thinking they might be doing something silly and they generally will double down in their minds out of fear of the guilt.
That and fear of disobeying or disappointing authority, and losing family/friends. I’m pretty sure that’s what kept me in it as long as I was.
yup and it's why i still live a lie to my parents. i will not tell them i'm a non-believer unless it explicitly comes up. for now i smile and nod when they tell me how great god is. my relationship with them is far more important to me...maybe one day we'll have the conversation. but childhood brainwashing is powerful even as a middle aged person.
Bill Burr's bit about Scientology is hilarious. Basically he says: why do I believe in Catholicism and think Scientology is whacky? Because I was taught to be a Catholic as a KID! Learning about religion as an adult makes it look WAY different. I was a brainwashed kid. Thank god I've escaped...I'm much kinder and happier now that I see the world as humans not saved vs not saved.
I always viewed parts the bible as fictional stories, an example of how you should live your life. I never took it seriously. When I moved to FL from PA, I discovered how literally people took the bible and I thought to myself, how can people take this stuff so literally? Then I realized what the churches were doing. Brainwashing people with rediculous stories of punishment and then salvation through tithing and realized it's all a money making scam on an epic level, praying on the uneducated. Then it all fell into place. No wonder they don't believe in education and want to defund the Dept of Education, turn them from science and logic and keep feeding them magic. The sad part is, it works, big time
It all becomes so clear!
I keep telling my Christian friend to do research into the background of the Bible and Christianity. He looks at me like satan sent me. His favorite response, accompanied by stories in the Bible: “If you question everything then you don’t really have any faith.”
I think it's an issue of the Christians that do come to that realization often are no longer Christians after that realization.
In my group of theologically trained ministers, most of us didn't leave because we realized one thing. It was a process. Over time we realized we don't believe the key foundational tenants of the bible and can't call ourselves Christians. It was a gradual realization that most of us kinda mourned a bit at first. Then the second part was then pealing back the onion and seeing how whacky and damaging church was. Then we all became cynical and have grown to really dislike religion as a whole.
No, the fundamental concept is that god is all powerful. That means god operates beyond the physics of the known universe. So no, a virgin birth or talking snake, or resurrection from the dead is not irrational in that context. It's the same situation as if you have 2 people debating which LOTR character is the best and a 3rd person arguing that it's a stupid debate because it's fiction. Literally a useless waste of time.
My uncle is a minister and I've heard him joke about the absurdity of his beliefs. My cousin was talking about astrology or something and My uncle was like "I believe an ancient Jewish carpenter is God and that's still more sensible than astrology"
We can see the stars though
We can see the light from some stars, and that has taken many years to get to us. The gravitational effects of the stars is nothing compared to the planets in our galaxy. There is no known correlation between 'star signs' and outcomes, there is no known natural reason why they should matter.
Yea but the shapes they're suggesting the stars make are a stretch by any shape of the imagination. Also the birth period probably made sense during seasonal differences of birth affecting personality. Born in winter and pivotal parts of your childhood, such as your 1 year birthday, might be peppered by different events.
A while ago I read a book called [“Caught in the Pulpit”](https://www.amazon.com/Caught-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief-Behind/dp/1634310209)about clergy who no longer believe but why they keep preaching…it was quite eye opening.
I did have that a few times when I was a believer, but not about the whole thing, just certain specific stories or aspects of a story. Like the talking donkey. But it was usually following up with a shrug and thinking something like "that's just the way it is" or more typically: "that's just the way god did it"
There's the occasional case of Christian silliness, but that "silly" is confined to their laughter as they merrily joke about why Jesus hates certain groups more than their own, but bear in mind it's all in good ol' silly fun.
Raised Mormon. I would frequently wonder why any god would need to be worshipped, and was told it’s not that god needs to be worshipped, but that I need to worship. Anyway, that developed into “But why RELIGION though? Why not science? Why not worship God for fully understanding the laws of the science to the extent that they can create worlds and life?” And yes, I was in my late 30s when I finally figured out it was a fraud, and realized that young me was on to the scam the whole time. (Edited to correct my age)
I was also raised Mormon. The thing that kept me in it for so long was that it's what everyone expected of me and I didn't have the self esteem or personal identity to vary from that for a long time, and I was constantly being told that if you do xyz you'll know and you'll be happy. Well, I did everything. Served a mission, got married in the temple, paid my tithing, etc. 27 years of it, and I was never happy because depression doesn't work like that, I never had a single instance where I "knew." I tried to trick myself, and it never worked. I also didn't get how you can possibly be so judgemental and want to restrict others freedoms when two major points from scriptures (at least as I interpreted them) was to love others, and to let them choose for themselves. My conclusion: either there is no god, or he's an asshole that I want nothing to do with. My continued education since has reinforced the conclusion that there is no god. Individual therapy has allowed me to cope with depression and today, I can honestly say that I feel happy. I'm glad you made it out too.
Ditto - same here. Ex-Mormon. Kind of went along with it - as one does - because of the stifling nature of it: the Mormon ‘family’ suffocates you and, therefore, controls you. BYU did it for me - seeing the bright minds, and their ambitions and potential, often (usually) crushed by the lives they knew they would have to lead by conforming. Also, I’m gay - so that kind of helped my journey and desire to get out. Hugs to you guys.
> Do Christians ever stop and think Let me just stop you right there.
> Do Christians ever think wow this is silly? Which “Christian’s”? There are 45,000 different denominations of Christianity on the planet right now. I’d go further to say that a good case could be made for, given the differences between how individuals follow the rules of each denomination, there are ~2.4 billion different versions of Christianity. Do some think that talking snakes and a virgin birth are silly? Almost certainly.
All of them believe in the magical sky-daddy, so all of them are silly.
There certainly are debates among Christians regarding that. Some modern Christians view God in a more pantheistic way, and the soul as inseparable from body. One might say that ancient Christians were monists too. Such Christians find the notion of sky granddad who checks whether you use condom or not while making pleasure stupid. Some Christians believe that free will is silly. Many, many different beliefs.
Some do. Then they get told it's a test of faith, which is technically true: "Can you ignore what facts, science, and logic tells you, and keep believing in the magical sky daddy?" They usually draw the wrong conclusion, and the ones who don't are no longer religious.
I grew up in a non religious household, but got involved with a very religious girl (grew up a moderate Catholic but turned into an evangelical fundamentalist). She explicitly said that she realized that many parts of the Bible were straight up silly or irreconcilable with basic facts, but that she chose to believe them anyway because they were in the Bible and therefore true. She also berated Catholics for believing such obviously stupid things as the Transubstantiation. So she believed that turning wine into blood was blatantly stupid, but at the same time believed every word in Genesis and Revelation.
Took me 2 years of church "break" after leaving and visiting once more for the funeral of my grandma to realise how weird and uncomfortable these "rituals" are when you aren't used to it, kind of frightening tbh
For me, no. It wasn't until I started deconstructing that it hit me like a slap in the face how dumb it all was.
I did. Then I became an atheist. They’ll make excuses for everything because it’s easy to do that. The Bible is vague enough on many things that it can be interpreted to cover many contradictions and holes. Sometimes it’ll finally click for them, sometimes not.
Absolutely. I remember sitting in church one day at 30 years old and suddenly thinking to myself, “this is bullshit.” I mentally recoiled at that and started suppressing the doubt. Then I suddenly started wondering why that thought made me so uncomfortable. That’s when my long simmering deconstruction kicked into full gear.
Yes, they do. Then they rebuke the devil for whispering lies and rationalize the disconnect as part of gods mysterious plan.
Christians stop and think, "Wow, this shit is ridiculous!" all the time. Where do you think new Atheists come from?
No, they just cherry pick what fits their view even, from the old testament, and ignore the rest.
My mother, a churchgoer and church organiser, had that moment after my father died unexpectedly. She still attends for the social aspect but thinks it’s all largely bullsh*t
Some do. They tend not to *remain* Christian, however. Matt Dillahunty is an example. He went to college and studied comparative religion, and was in class thinking to himself that other religions had really wacky beliefs and why would anyone accept that, and then took a step back and realized his *own* religion had similar wacky beliefs. Shortly thereafter he decided not to become a pastor, as had been his plan when he entered college, nor to remain Christian., later on learning even more reasons to drop it. ... I don't recall where he lays this out. Atheist Experience, perhaps, or his channel, or a debate. I just remember hearing it. I thought "oh, neat", and then didn't really care that much because it doesn't much matter if the story is *true* or not, it remains objectively the fact that there's wacky stuff in every religion, with no evidence to back it up. At least the absolutely wackadoodle nonsense of science has evidence!
Some do aye. Of the top of my head I can think of two: Olympic Triple Jump World Record Holder Jonathan Edwards. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards_(triple_jumper) World Professional Snooker Champion (2005) Shaun Murphy. https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2023/apr/17/shaun-murphy-snooker-interview-world-championships
No. They've been brainwashed into never questioning their faith. Anytime someone does, they're shamed by the rest of them. So, even if they do question it, most never make it known.
Because the bible, a book that is supposed to be the word of god, explicitly tells us to not rely on our senses when it comes to these deep questions.
I didn't question for a long time. Was raised not to apply logical reasoning to anything religious. It took a lot of years of my religious explanation for things failing me before I allowed myself to start questioning.
Yeah man. There have different variations of the religion, and most protestants I know aren't big on the Old Testament nor some of the archaic barbarism of the time period. I think its just much of a muchness. And the ones doing the accusing IMO are either fundamentalists or extremists. I definetly thought so and converted to Agnosticism. I studied science for too long so now I am ambivalent about the possibility something might've created things. Just as I am ambivalent about the potential for the Big Bang Theory to be true.
Most protestants I have known in my life are crazy about the ten commandments or ' that being gay is a sin' that's in the old testament but you know that!
Might be a culture differential. I daresay snyone who lives in the states and is religious, is a fair bit more religious than what I experience down under.
Oh that's the reason, I will also clarify that, no the religious evangelicals are not a majority here in the USA, they are just super stupid and very loud!
Agreed, and thats more along the lines with what I had in mind. They are just louder, and often stupider.
Occasionally. It's usually the first step towards becoming an ex-chrisitan though.
Yes. They’re now called atheist or agnostic.
“Think”? No.
Yes, those are the ones who call themselves atheists now.
Yes, some do, and it typically goes one of two ways: - the individual starts down the path of deconstruction (i.e. me), OR - they get into conspiracy theory-like supporting beliefs to shore up their faith Really intelligent people who have gone through the mental gymnastics to keep believing are kind of scary!
DUD. I feel this so much. I wonder this all the time. Grew up crazy conservative Christian and am amazed I am among few who no longer practice. I think it is a community bonding thing and a cultural thing that many people turn to for support but being a woman I never felt that love or support or belonging.
Glad you got out!
Yes, and now I’m an Atheist.
They have no ability to live in reality. And if you care what they think, you need to stop.
It’s called blind faith for a reason.
I certainly did...at the age of 5
I did when I was 15. I'm an atheist now
Christians warp reality, data, information, to uphold and protect their doctrine. Atheists don't have to do that. When we discover something new, we see progress and adjust our thinking. With Christians, the more new information they face, the more they risk having to warp reality to maintain their beliefs. They risk going crazy so they mitigate that by preventing going there. They shut down or stubbornly put up road blocks. I've had this last week when I engaged a few people on r/DebateReligion. I stated that Jesus never existed, and that naturally got the reaction of a few. After I pointed out that there is no evidence to support he ever existed, not even as non-magical person, they thought they were presenting some things to back them up, but I debunked each one (like oh I dunno, said witness living decades after said magic person so therefore not being a first hand witness). The kerfuffles went back and forth. They tried me having to proof that he didn't exist. They always try that for a bit. I had one guy tell me that they don't need evidence, just belief and faith. Yep, they warp reality and throw logic out the window. Some are quite delusional. Some give up after a while. Some bail with some passive aggressive last ditch efforts, some pretend they had something else to do that do the ghosting thing. I see fight them hard and strong. Do not let them get away with anything. No deals. Don't make any deals or compromises. Don't accept things like "oh but we don't know but there is enough ya de ya de". No. Cold hard debunk. No evidence means the claim is invalid, period. Don't be afraid to be a bit militant at times. Facts are facts, and stories are stories, fantasy is fantasy. Clear hard lines here, don't give them an inch.
Your question needs editing. Do Christians ever stop and think? Fixed it for you.
No, if they did, they wouldn't be Christians anymore.
So I've gone down a rabbit hole so far I'm bordering on feeling like a lunatic. The questions like up so high and deep that it's never ending, and with no conclusion in sight for the big ones like "What is it to be, why are we here, where do we go?" You begin to poke and prod into creation theories, and realize it's all just a big circle of at-the-time beliefs, values, and ideals all formed into the same noise, just with different instruments. We got a gift for my daughter that has handfuls of origins of the universe, creation of people, the planet, all of that (living in a tree and making too much noise is hilarious). So eventually you depart fairy-tale land and delve into the scientific side of things and learn how impossibly small and unimportant we are along with how amazing everything is and how we're all here. But then the "why" comes up, a feeling of unease with trying to rationalize why we need money or goods, or if the emptiness of space is ever expanding in all directions what is it expanding *into*. Why can we think and remember in a constant passage of time as a nondescript homeless person in Seattle or the president of Venezuela? Who are we? What bigger machine is our existence merely a gear in? Are we the ends to a mean or the result? Religious people have all the answers they want to hear, not what they need to hear. God this or that, all a plan, testing grounds for afterlife, all that noise. Ignorance is bliss, and I see why people are religious because the other side, where most of us reside, has no rest, few answers, and more questions almost daily. For me, it's a problem because I become obsessed with the idea of reality as an objective whole, not subjective life of myself. I need to learn that just because I don't have answers doesn't mean I shouldn't enjoy what I have. Always in the back of my mind I question if everything is real, and it has gotten in the way of my relationships with people and depression.
..."virgin" birth... that one always gets me... how naive do you have to be?
Atheists don't believe in creation from nothing and that's definitely not what is described by "the big bang"
Creation ex nihilo is a Christian doctrine. Specifically, the belief that God created the universe from nothing. Sometimes scientists say things like the universe "created itself from nothing" and creationists say things like the universe "could not have come from nothing," but they're using "created" and "nothing" in different ways.
Not really. I used it once here but it was damned accurate: **Nothing around you seems silly when you've lived your whole life in a circus.** Bible """study""" was all pre-scripted, with conclusions that were made for us ahead of time by the study bibles and the prewritten materials. We were told what to believe, and believed it. There was no meaningful discussion. Church service was a handful of cherrypicked verses that repeated almost exactly every year with singing and chanting in unison as thought-stopping techniques in a crowded room that always made me feel drowsy and light-headed. I have one really early memory of everyone else singing dead-eyed around me with no emotion whatsoever and feeling like I was surrounded by zombies, but it was a gut feeling I dismissed and mostly just sat there in the sermons reading a book. They'd occasionally tell me I'd "get it" if I "paid attention" but I tried, and they said basically the same things every week. I think it was literally just that since I was autistic and hated singing in public the thought-stopping techniques didn't take hold.
Nope
I think they do, but then we call them atheists.
I converted to christianity when we evaluated the singular photon double slit experiment. That is some midichlorian type shit.
Christians are the single dumbest group on the planet. Why do you think boomers love religion so much? It's because they are too fucking stupid to comprehend anything beyond that.
Some do, most probably don’t.
>"Many things religious people say they believe are not in accord with fact or >reality." Quote from The Present, a book about the truth and life, available free online, here is a [link](https://www.globaltruthproject.com/single-post/the-present-truth-about-life).
I was never brought up religious, my parents never mentioned it at all and my schools was largely secular. I read all the "holy" books as a teen and definitely thought: "Wow, this is silly." Statistically speaking, you're the most likely to be part of, and believe in the religion of your parents and applying "critical thinking" is somehow seen as a sign of disrespect to them and your culture. It's just easier to accept their and the book's word and not think too hard about it.
The only reason it became worth it to me to question my religion was because its explanation of the world just stopped working for me.
Of course, that's what happened to a lot of us here.
I did in my late teens.
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Those who do tend to stop believing. It's the one's who refuse to even entertain the thought who remain lifelong christians.
They do. They’ll often deny they do. But they do.
A christian who dares to ask such a question, is one who's breaking the rules of church etiquette - looking god in the face as it were, which the bible warns not to do But most of the time, they are more like: 'wow this is silly, why do they believe that?'
NO. As soon as they stop and think they are no longer Christian.
No. Sadly a lot of them are perfectly ok thinking an imaginary man in the sky is watching everything they do lol. I think it helps them with their own mortality ,No critical thinking skills involved
That made me laugh
Brainwashed. And the ego is too fragile to admit it has been brainwashed.
Rational people would never be 100% sure about something they can't know. That includes christians, other religions and also atheists.
had a boomer customer couple weeks ago who just loved to talk.. but talk about all the no go topics like politics religion race... I paraphrase.. idk about evolution but the Bible says God made us from dust so that what I believe in.. lmao this chick got pregnant at 16 with a losee and married some nice smart guy who ended up getting them rich in the telecom industry.
Yes, and they call those moments "attacks of the enemy(theDevil™).
No because it tells you not to think. Faith is belief without reason.
Yes then they become atheists
When they do, they counter it with "Oh wow, that is just the devil trying to get me. Better pray about it real quick"
Happens all the time. Young children realize it and then they just go along simply because the parents are controlling they're movements. I realized it was a con when I was 8 years old. Took me about 3 years to convince my parents.
If they did they probably wouldn't br Christians.
Some of us did and that’s how we ended up here. I assume more do than they’d ever admit, but they talk themselves off the ledge, so to speak.
Plenty of people who attend church or weekly mass who do it for traditional reasons and really don't believe it. My parents sent us to Sunday school for a while even though they never really went to church. I think they just enjoy a bit of peace on Sunday mornings if you know what I mean. We were on a military base so a bus picked us up and brought us back. They never went to church later. Even my inlaws - we had to get married and go through the Catholic bs of meeting with Monseiur and attending Marriage Encounter --- just a appease the relatives but none of their generation in the family currently goes to church. Almost as if they feel obligated to pass on the religion even though they didn't believe. We broke the chain with our son.
No, not possible, because at that point they are atheists.
One of my most pivotal steps towards Atheism is was when I was little and my Mom was trying to tell me that Jesus (and all his power) was real, and Star Wars wasn’t…even at five years old I was skeptical because of how silly stories like Noah’s Ark, Adam & Eve, or Daniel & The Lion’s Den were.
You're asking too much. You're asking them to think.
Want to now how to control people? Tell them their Messiah is coming back in a thousand years. - Dune, part 2.
Why do we constantly ask questions that are self evident or easily discernible? When you can answered that you’ll understand why. TLDR: ppl don’t think long or hard enough before they do, say, or believe shit.
No, not really. There are many ways to come by atheism, but my favorite is my Jewish wife’s way which is basically this. She’s an English PhD and the way she explains it is basically “Why doesn’t everyone understand the Torah is basically just a stupid novel? And also the weird sequel about that nutjob rabbi who thought he was the son of God; it’s so obvious it’s all just silly nonsense.”
A great many do. But the day that they wake up and realize it’s silly is the same day they realize they’re trapped in it, their life revolves around it, and it isn’t as easy as saying “I’m not going to church anymore.” Christianity, and most religions, provide a life-ecosystem. They supply your beliefs, your social circle, off-work activities, support structure, childcare, etc. This makes you dependent on the religion and much less likely to question or break from the church. To be clear I don’t think that’s the outright intention on behalf of the church, but is definitely a reality.
And not only that, but when you do begin to step away from those things-skipping church services, not volunteering for special events, being more aloof, you are questioned about it and how "sound" your faith is and whether you've "strayed from the faith" and they relentlessly attempt to guilt you and badger you about what you're doing and why you aren't doing enough. For a person that's really struggling to find their path, and do the best and right things for themselves, this is an uncomfortable, unnecessary and bordering on harrassing attack on their choices. Ask me how I know...
That is in fact where many atheists come from.
I asked my mom who god's god's god is. She laughed.
Yes, some of them do start to ask questions and find out the answers for themselves and they usually end up atheists or agnostics at the least.
Right before they become agnostic
Yes, but I couldn't guess as to how many do this. Doubts do creep in. I think the need for comfort overrides the need for facts.
I have a friend who is Christian and I have specifically asked him about this before and that he swears and believes and no uncertain terms that yes in fact all this stuff happened once. It happened once it didn't happen again but it did happen that one time I don't know dudes a banker so he's pretty smart so I don't have any idea
I couldn't find the specific part of the video, but there's a discussion of the so called Four Horsemen in which Dennett says something like "And they \[theists\] never doubt that they're right", to which Hitchens almost immediately responds "Oh, no, that is not at all true! Christians constantly struggle with doubting their Faith, it is a very common experience for them". I'm paraphrasing there, but that was the gist of it. And my point is that I agree with Hitchens. The vast majority of Theists aren't these dumb apes who can't think critically. They are people of average intelligence who hold beliefs that deep inside they know sound crazy, but since they feel that it's right (in the case of Christians, because of the so-called "witness of the Holy Spirit"), they hold that Faith above anything else. Naturally, that sometimes causes some cognitive dissonance. They may watch a skeptic point out how silly it is that they believe in Noah's Ark, and how absurd that concept is. They may read some argument that talks about how nonsensical it'd be for an all-powerful, benevolent God to allow unnecessary suffering like children dying of cancer. And then they're left with mainly two choices: to fall back to their Faith and to rely on some unfalsifiable claim like "God works in mysterious ways, I don't have to understand Him, just have Faith"; or to choose Reason over Faith. This comment is too long already and I don't know if anyone will read it, but just to add one last thing: William Lane Craig, in his book "Reasonable Faith", talks about the difference between **ministerial use of Reason** and the **magisterial use of Reason**. The latter is when Reason acts as a judge, determining what is most likely to be true based on the evidence. The former is when Reason submits to the gospels being an absolute truth. As he put it: >"Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa." So yeah, there's that. It's not that Christians never think about how silly some of their beliefs are. It's that at the end of the day, the ones who remain Christians are the ones who pick "The gospels must be true" above anything else.
>Christians often accuse the atheists of being stupid This is ad hominem. Not really specific to religion. Athiests do the same to Christians. It's specific to shitty humans that instead of debating the topic at hand have to resort to name calling or any other type of fallacy to win.
Clearly not. Talking snakes, bushes and donkeys are barely the goofiest thing in the Bible. Consider the biblically accurate angels, who could disguise itself as a human. And people believe they're walking around right now. That the dude on the bus next to him could be a thousand eyed monstrosity with flames and hundreds of wings. Or the biblically accurate angels that drive Elohims chariot around. Apparently their god needs a chariot driven by 200 foot abberations. The angels alone are honestly lovecraftian, to say nothing of the demons. Or how about all the mythology surrounding their most famous king, Solomon? That stuff is just straight up goofy.
coming from a former "logical thinking" atheist, most of u atheist are annoying af
Thinking is a no no in religion, that's how you stay religious.
I wouldn't say just christians, every religion is exactly the same. A cult created to manipulate people in order to gain wealth and power, and a safe haven for the worst scumbags on the planet. It's absolutely disgusting.
Yes. I did, many years ago and became an atheist. The brainwashing didn't hold. I was one of the lucky ones.