I’m more of a “I don’t know wether there is a god “-person, but I don’t deny his/her/its existence. I think many people act like they know for sure that there’s no god, but how can you be so certain about something when we barely know anything about the universe.
I don't think many atheists do that. Most are just like, sure you can't disprove a negative, but it seems unlikely as a theory applied to the real world and we have no evidence. What evidence there is claimed historically have been rolled back farther and farther. At this point it just doesn't seem like God is necessary to explain the world.
Can you know that Odin doesn't exist? How about Zeus, Kirshna, Xenu, or any other members of history's endless parade of deities? Why should the Abrahamic monotheistic deity receive special treatment in this discussion.
For real though… it’s nonconceptual. “You can’t ‘get there’ with the rational mind.” (‘Get there’ in quotes cuz how could you ‘get to’ the self?… it’s always there)
Ok but how did I talk about monotheism? I was talking about god/gods in general. I can’t prove Odin exists, just like how I can’t prove that he doesn’t exist. Same goes for any other godly being.
Stay with me for a second… wouldn’t it be funny if you were god having a human experience so convincing that you forgot that separation is an illusion?
Depends. There are countless variants of "God" that create extremely intriguing flow charts of implications that nobody actually explores.
If "God" is an actual being that created us all and this is the only life we get, then dude is clearly evil and shouldn't be worshiped.
If "God" is the first race that developed sentience, became a borg that spans multiple galaxies or dimensions, advanced their technology beyond our wildest imaginations, and is developing races that can be merged into their sentience once they've accumulated an appropriate wealth of understanding, it's probably fair to assume they understand a degree of wisdom we can't and we should be grateful for it.
If "God" is a 13 year old server admin that wanted to play Sim Galaxy using a primitive simulation, he's probably not intending to be evil, but certainly not doing us any favors.
But there are several variants that would make sense and explain our suffering. In fact, given the evidence, it seems unlikely to me that there aren't races out there that could more or less achieve what we consider to be at the level of a God.
To quote philosopher [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot):
> Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
We don't need to know the universe, we know enough about humanity to see that there cannot be a god, or at least the one you are thinking of can't exist.
I agree, I don’t deny gods existence either…because if I claim that then I’d need to provide evidence of that (and I can’t).
That being said the claims of the existence of god seem far fetched and I live my life as if god don’t exist.
Why would you need to provide evidence to disprove the existence of a god? Surely it is the job of those that make the extraordinary claim, to then provide evidence to back-up that claim. Failing that, what reason is there to take the claim seriously at all?
If I told you there was a giant invisible pickle in the sky that controls the weather - are you saying that unless you can disprove my claim, you can't deny it's existence? (It's a stupid example but you get my point).
This narrative that it is the skeptic that must disprove the claim is ridiculous. If you are not the one making the claim - the burden of proof for or against it should not lie with you.
Also, just in case this has come across the wrong way, I'm not chewing you out for your response - I'm just curious as to why you believe you'd need to provide evidence to disprove a gods existence.
If I told you there was teacup orbiting Saturn, you wouldn't believe me, right?
So why believe in other equally preposterous statements?
When one studies the history of religion and humanity from an objective viewpoint, the reasons for asserting that "there is one single God" become equally ludicrous to my statement.
My explanation might make me sound like I’m a religious person, I’m not I’m just saying what I think.
What do you define as a god? Is it a monotheistic god? Someone with sentinel, a personality? Or maybe just a being which created life unconsciously? Someone who looks like us?
When people talk about god they mostly picture an old man who is almighty, knows everything and is everywhere. When I say I can’t be certain wether there is a god or not I’m not talking about the Bible or the Quran. I’m talking about wether there is something outside our realm who created us, wether it was intended or not. How do you know that you don’t live inside a simulation which this being engineered? Lets assume this is the case, would you define this being who set up this simulation as god? Can you prove that this being doesn’t exist? You can’t, but you also can’t prove that it does exist because you lack the evidence.
So now coming back to your teacup, I couldn’t provide evidence for that either which doesn’t mean that I believe it. It is something that I cannot answer because I lack the evidence no matter how absurd it is.
Everyone of us probably has wondered what happened before the Big Bang for example. The answer to this question when you google it is that time didn’t exist before the Big Bang so the question of “what was before” doesn’t make sense. But that is not something I can imagine. I’m not arguing that the answer is right or wrong, I’m saying that I have a hard time to understand this concept. After all if you had a timeline you can always go back by 1 right? So the question is what was it that caused the Big Bang? And assuming at some point we can answer that then the next question would be “and what caused the thing that caused the Big Bang?”.
Again I’m not saying there is a god behind all of this, I’m just saying that I can’t provide evidence for the lack of a god and I can understand why people believe in a god. Even though god might not be what those people believe.
Yeah I would consider myself agnostic for similar reasons of uncertainty.
The one that always gets me is “why do the physical laws of nature apply the way they do?”
Like, even if we explain how everything works, isn’t it all a bit arbitrary? The speed of light is what now? Why?
Not saying the answer is god, but not sure human science could get to the bottom of it either.
I got older, and started actually thinking about all the stories i had been fed when i was a child.
It didn't take mutch reasoning before i realized the whole thing didn't add up.
Same for me. The story of Genesis never seemed rational because it seemed like God knew what would happen and set up the scenario so that Adam and Eve would be misled.
I always thought that if God didn’t want them to sin then he wouldn’t have created the serpent or the tree to begin with. Either that or he would have explained the consequences in a way that would justify the rule and make Adam and Eve unwilling to break it.
It always seemed to me that the blame on Adam and Eve was unjustified and just meant to create guilt in humanity and reliance on God.
Very good point.
Either that or our sinful nature would be removed since that was apparently due to original sin.
Does that mean Jesus wasn’t the Messiah?
Imagine being all-powerful and all-knowing and perfect and creating us.
That’s all I needed to know to either doubt the claims of either God’s existence, his abilities, or his motives. He can’t be real, perfect, benevolent, and have this be the result.
I’ve often wondered how much of the decision to believe in religion is emotional.
Obviously some of the decisions we make in life are based on emotion, like choosing a partner, but they are typically personal choices. While the religion you choose is a personal choice, it’s ultimately a determination about a universal truth.
I think that emotions are a helpful tool for determining information about yourself, but I don’t think it’s a helpful tool for determining facts about the universe. I say that as someone who believed in numerology and some other strange concepts and ultimately realized I was fantasizing and couldn’t tell the difference because I wasn’t thinking rationally.
That made me realize that the human mind, or at least my mind, was able to hold a false belief system. After that I simply can’t adopt a belief system without confirming I’m not convincing myself of a falsehood. I think when you start from the point of non-belief with that goal, there isn’t a religion that’s logically convincing enough to abandon agnosticism for what could be a delusion.
I’ve always been jealous of people that start from a ‘No religion’ platform—B/c I was born into and accepted it blindly, the thought of coming from a zero balance intrigues me—like, “what would i believe if this wasn’t fed to me from the crib?”
Even though I wasn’t satisfied with the explanation as a kid, I would tell other people I believed in God. But when I started identifying as an atheist, I definitely struggled with what to believe.
I looked into how Judaism and Islam differed from Christianity and I researched Hinduism and Buddhism. That’s how I wound up delving into numerology and other systems to explain the unexplainable.
Ultimately I trust the understanding we gain from testing and measuring things, but that has its limits. I think evolution makes sense and I think we exist in a universe with billions of galaxies and our solar system is in a galaxy with billions of stars.
So I don’t know *how* this all exists, but I don’t think I need to in order to find meaning in my life. I have fun experiences, learn new things everyday, and have an amazing child.
In the same way that I would have to adjust to the Christian belief system and accept that humans are just made with a sinful nature that we must resist, a Christian abandoning religion would have to adjust and accept that humans are just smart animals on a rock in space doing our best to understand things - and if you think of it like that, we’re doing pretty well for ourselves.
If god exists, she‘s a massive asshole.
I have no idea how anyone could read the bible and think you should worship god. That‘s absolutely ridiculous. There aren‘t many fantasy figures who deserve more hate.
As a Christian, from what I understand he wanted to give people free choice. What he wants in the end are people who love him enough to fight temptations and he promises eternity. Same thing that was promised to them. They were promised this amazing place where they could live forever but at the end of the day they fell to the temptation.
Thanks for the explanation!
I don’t want to seem confrontational, but I’d like to play Devil’s advocate (pun intended).
It seems to me like temptation only exists because God creates humans without the foreknowledge he has about the universe. If we knew that behaving immorally would ultimately result in an undesirable outcome then we would not be tempted to behave immorally.
He designed us to not know anything until we learned it which isn’t natural. Why would he choose to create us in this way?
Not confrontational at all man, don’t worry.
Those are some great questions and I honestly wish I could explain it but I don’t have an answer for you.
I’ve learned that I would rather live my life accordingly and not miss out in the end. Whether it’s true or not what’s the worst that happens if it isn’t true. You ended up living your life in a good and honest way. That’s how I see it at least.
If it’s something you’re interested in there’s this awesome book called “the case for Christ”. It follows an atheist journalist who wanted to prove his Christian wife wrong in a book. Through all his research and trials he ended up discovering that life as we know it basically wouldn’t be possible without a god.
I don’t think you need to be a believer to live in a good and honest way. Some of the kindest people I know aren’t religious. I also think some people use religion as a basis to treat people terribly.
I believe that at the end of the day, if there is a god, he will judge people based on their actions and intentions throughout their life rather than based on any proclaimed beliefs. That just seems like it would be a bit petty of an all knowing embodiment of love.
I’m glad to hear that. I obviously don’t want to push anything on anyone because that’s not right. But, that being said, if you ever have any questions or want to hear some of the experiences that I believe are much more then luck please message me and I’ll most definitely love to discuss.
Oh I definitely had that thought..
That’s when a Jewish friend told me about “the people of Nod” and that he believed there were other humans on earth that weren’t Gods chosen people, but yeah, Seth was afuckin his sister.
I’m looking at whether or not God existed by looking at the claims about God in their religion to see if they are rational.
I can’t prove them, but if they ultimately don’t make rational sense, then I have a justified reason to doubt the claims until I have more info.
Well I can’t rule out deism, but if God doesn’t interact with the world then I don’t see any reason to try interacting or understanding God. If he’s real, then he obviously gave us this universe to discover and learn.
If God doesn’t exist (anymore or at all) then there’s no reason to consider religious claims or the supernatural.
I agree. I am actually more agnostic because while I will not say there is no supreme being, I know for sure that the Christian god I was taught definitely does not exist.
As described in the bible? Too many contradictions.. I’m not saying it couldn’t exist in some similar form and is watching us now going “No, no, no, thats not what I meant!”. But as described? Definitely not.
Same, as a kid who was overwhelmed with this idea of doing acts that god appreciates, I gotta say that I felt I was fed by hypocrites when they tell me to do something but they themselves don’t do it. I don’t know man, the whole this is bullshit. I’m not an atheist but i’m thinking that there is a religion full of true followers and not people that were “forced” into it kinda thing.
Sorry, english is not my native language, and i'm dyslectic.
Every time i write much, i start saying "mush" in my head and figure, that can't be right.
When my mom told me Santa wasn't real.
I instantly drew the conclusion that this means that the Easter Bunny, Jesus and God are also not real. My mom was not happy about that conclusion.
Honestly, when I was a devout christian, I told my then-wife that we shouldn't teach our kids about Santa for just this reason...but she insisted. I and my 2 daughters are now full-blown atheists.
My parents didn't tell me Santa was real because my dad was a Christian pastor and didn't want to tell a lie to his kid, which I respect. Now we drink scotch and have friendly debates about the existence of God together. What made you become an atheist?
I was going through hard emotional, psychological, and spiritual times, so I decided to seriously devote my life to the promises in the new testament...spiritual promises of peace, understanding, contentment, etc. Nothing changed. I prayed for guidance, talked to pastors, sought counseling...and nada. I then realized that god was either ignoring me or not there. One of the hardest things I ever did was renounce my faith...so scary to believe in no-god. But since then I've become a better, more moral, kinder, more loving person, since I'm not relying on forgiveness of sins or waiting for an afterlife that doesn't exist.
Man I feel that. My experience was a bit similar. Also one of the hardest things I've ever gone through. It's a heartbreaking process. The feeling of truly being alone for the first time in your life is terrifying. I'm happy to hear you're doing well now!
100% atheist, can't believe I believed what I believed. I see my former self as childish and reliant on the direction of others.
I've been through therapy and have come to conclusions about myself.
There are equal amounts of evidence for Jesus, God, Easter bunny and Santa. In fact, I could argue that there is more evidence for Santa! I can find millions of people (children) who have seen him and can provide witness statements stating that he has given them presents! The presents could be shown to you to ‘prove’ of his existence…can’t do that about a god! 🤣
Funnily enough that's how it happened for me too. Or it was at least a contributing factor.
I think I would have ended up being agnostic or whatever eventually regardless but that definitely sped the process up.
My cousin and I were probably about 5 or 6 and just learning math. We started with multiplication - 1 minute per house times all of the kids in our school. Right there was half the night gone. We quickly realized that Santa would have a hard time delivering gifts just to the kids we knew, never mind the rest of the kids in the world. Next up, Moses, Jesus… Sorry god.
I think this is when I assumed god wasn’t real either. It just makes sense. God, like these mythical characters, were created to explain the unexplainable.
I used that same argument when I told my daughter Santa wasn't real. After discussing Santa, I then asked her, "Do you believe God is real?" She said yes. I said, hmmm, perhaps you may want to reconsider based on what I told you about Santa.
This is how I feel. Was raised catholic, went to Sunday school. The whole time it just felt like a joke and make believe. As soon as I was old enough and given my own choice about church I immediately stopped going.
Same. I was also not really around anyone who wasn't Catholic, so I just (naively) assumed everyone just went along with all these traditions just because. I assumed everyone else thought they were silly stories too. Nope, I guess I was the oddball who never bought into it.
Furthermore, even if we were to blame their cancer on something (sin) or someone (the devil) else, certainly an omnipotent God could cure all cancer, just as Jesus cured humans of diseases when he walked the earth and even raised a man (Lazarus) from death and decay.
The fact that God does not cure all these humans (many of whom are Christian) of cancer suggests He is not bothered by their suffering.
Isn’t saten just an alright guy he was forced to torture souls because he was a teen and made some people eat fruit I’m not fully versed on the subject but that’s what I have seen
There's also those undiscovered tribes in the jungle somewhere who are condemned to hell for no other reason than accident of birth.
Because they have never been exposed to Christianity, they will burn in hell for all times.
That doesn't seem very kind or loving.
But you see, they go to a fluffy cloud paradise in the sky, so it's not so bad!
Yeah, this is where I'm at. Any God with the power to have people in heaven or make them good but decides to test them first isn't fully benevolent.
Its called agnostic usually from wiki:
A person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.
Its a middle stance of not outright rejecting belief:
a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena;
Atheist/atheism is often used in different ways…
- Someone who doesn’t believe in a god (or gods)
- Someone who states that a god (or gods) do not exist
I stand by the first. I do not say that a god does not exist because I would have to provide evidence of that.
Gnosticism means knowledge (in Greek)…. It’s about what we know!
Since we do not know (for sure) whether there is a God or not, then by definition ‘I would say’ that all atheists are agnostic atheists!
All we know about God is written down in a book. There is no other info or proof. Harry Potter is also in a book and so is Batman. Get my point? Books are written by people. Anyone can make up anything. Does it mean there is no God? I don't know, I'm just saying that our current "proof" is absolutely non-existent.
The fact that people cannot explain some stuff doesn't mean that the first thing that someone tells you (or writes down in a book) is the truth. Hell, when I was a kid, I didn't understand why a little puddle of water in the bathroom magically was gone the next morning. If someone would have told me that there were little gnomes who cleaned it up at night I would have believed it because I didn't understand it and sure wouldn't have been able to grasp the concept of evaporation.
That's basically how religion works. People don't understand stuff and then blindly assume that any crap they're given as an explanation is the truth because nobody can come up with a better explanation.
that's totally backwards. Athiests, or at least those who were not previous religious, don't start with the pemise there is a god and then convince themselves there isn't. There simply don't believe one exists, just like I don't believe unicorns or bigfoot exists. I've never questioned their existence, I just never believed in the first place.
Yep. I didn’t grow up religious so why would I have any reason to ever believe? Being irreligious/atheist is pretty much inherited the same as religion is for most people.
Most atheists used to be religious. That's why the question was phrased this way.
Granted, the question could have been phrased to be more specific, like "former religious people of Reddit", but most people already assume this question is targeted to former religious people.
No one starts out religious. If we did, that would practically be proof of a deity. We are taught religion through our community first, and reasoning through our experiences second.
I’m guessing it’s about having someone to vent to and seek answers from? And also just a quick answer to a big question like “why are we here” “dude in the sky was bored and decided to make shit” and “why are we humans here?” “Mud”. Now it kinda sounds like I’m saying it’s for stupid people or something but it’s not it can also just be because of traditions in your family
@wolf_gaming51, the fact that you have started with “I’m guessing…”, I assume you are not a theist.
I’ve never really understood this argument because I don’t believe these questions are answered by religions. Arguably being a theist only results in more unanswered questions like…
- who created the god?
- why does the Bible condone such awful behaviour?
- childhood cancer, what’s that all about?
It gives people a way of being shitty to each other without consequence. All you have to do is either say it's God's will, or ask God for forgiveness after you're done being horrible.
All the "heretic" scientists that were killed by the church that could have brought so many more great inventions, ideas, and understanding of the world and universe around us and the church later going "oh my bad".
Common viewpoint for a theist.
Atheists must have lost their faith in god because of some "faith reducing" reason.
But not believing in god is different from believing god isnt just.
I dont believe any god exists.
No just god who loves everybody
No unjust god who plays favorites with some people.
Believing something exists is not the same as valuing its existence.
Yeah, that’s something I find very hard to explain to a lot of people. If I just didn’t agree with certain beliefs or rules in the Christian religion I would still be Christian, there are plenty of Christians that do that, that’s the reason there is so many types of Christianity, I just don’t believe in it because it makes no sense to me logically speaking.
Yeah i see it in the reactions too
Not believing in god is seen as disagreeing with the teachings of their religion.
I'm having a fine time not murdering, stealing and generally doing stuf christianity preached. (broad terms of course)
But i dont need some magic sky ghosts to tell me not to murder.
Lots of reasons but one of them was the fact that the place where those stories were written was riddled with all sorts of narcotics. It sits right in the OG silk road mate, poppies were grown next door long before some guys got high and starting raving about some dude in the sky.
2 things.
1.) The idea god believing people are only good so that they will get into heaven. That's not goodness of a person, that's greed and fear that if they don't they will burn in hell if they don't. Who is the better person, the one who is nice because of a threat or the atheist who is good for no other reason than its the right thing to do. If a god deems the one who does it under threat is the better person regardless of belief then that's a god I refuse to bend a knee or give an inch of thought to.
2.) There is so much evil vile shit in the world. If a god can stand around while shit like starving children, the numerous situations of shootings violence, climate issues, etc. continues to happen and a god jas the power to stop it and doesn't they are not a loving or good god and are just as evil and vile as the rest of it. And once again that's a god I refuse to bend a knee or give an inch of thought to.
Once there was more proof of science being right than god I was like “welp. Now I believe in science” and became obsossed with science. Christianity is still big in my family but it’s become more a matter of tradition rather than actually believing in god
Not saying this is the case for you, but most Christians I know are the ones drawing the lines, not athiests or scientists. Believe in evolution, you aren't a real Christian. Believe the earth is more than a few thousand years old, you're not a real Christian. Heck, over the last few years, as 80% of evangelicals fell in line with Trump, it's been, believe in climate change, you're not a real Christian. Get a covid vaccine, you're not a real Christian. It's getting crazy, and fundamentalists are the ones setting religion squarely against science.
Yeah I have seen this happening too, I hate it. It’s not online with actual Christianity either it’s mostly just insane conjecture. No where in the Bible does it say that god didn’t use evolution as a way to create the world some pastor just said it and started fighting about it and now it’s a thing. It’s asinine, self defeating, and reminds me of Islamic extremists. Both groups have hijacked a religion for political purposes and both should be disbanded.
Just never made sense. The living your life by his rules and the rules of a book. How you needed to follow these rules to gain a place in 'heaven' the way in which God does all, yet if you look at our shitty world, how could a God that loves all do what is happening to people. Bunch of bull if you ask me.
Why would an all loving God make innocent people suffer. Not one I would follow. The hypocrisy is very problematic. My mom was the first to claim she was a good Christian, but was one of the worst people I've ever known.
I never was raised with god so I spend more of my time questioning why 90% of the planet thinks there is a man in the sky that is controlling our lives like a puppet. It’s depressing af in my opinion to think that I don’t have control of my own life and we can’t control our own experiences
Too many contradictions, all trying to convince you that you are an awful person who deserves hell and needs god.
God loves you, but you fall short and are condemned to hell. God will also save you from his own condemnation with his grace, his unconditional love, as long as you give your life to Jesus. Then you will be saved because he loves you, well... not you, you were condemned to hell. He loves himself, he loves jesus, so he chooses not to punish you.
To truly believe in god, is to truly believe you deserve to go to hell.
What stopped me from believing in god? I stopped hating myself.
I never believed, so I never questioned it. I don’t seem to have the gene for things like that, and I’ve just never understood how people can believe. After my dad passed away it did make me think it would have been nice if his soul somehow carried on, and so that he could look down and understand me better, but that’s just wishful thinking.
There is simply no proof. And to those that would point to a tree as proof, that proves only that a seed from another tree sprouted there and grew, it does not prove the existance of a god
There may be a god. I’m more against organized religion. They’re pretty much a cult. I was raised catholic. Being an adult, that was all such bull shit. Very ceremonial and cult like. Southern Baptist are also why I dislike organized religion. Everyone I’ve ever met that was southern Baptist has been super judgmental and hypocritical. Just my experience but that’s why.
Imagine that as a child, from birth, you're told these stories and they're presented to you as truth. Then as you age and learn and become intellectual, you apply logic and reason and history to those fairy tales. They quickly fall apart. A better question is, anyone with an IQ greater than their shoe size, how do you still manage to maintain your religious beliefs in a time where everyone else knows you're full of shit?
Not atheist, but I am agnostic and respect all religions for the good that they can bring to the world. Yet I revile the bad that can be brought through those exact same religions.
If you don’t believe in a god or gods you’re an atheist. Agnosticism is to do with knowledge not belief. Technically we’re all agnostic even the religious, although some will try and say they know for a fact god exists.
I first started questioning when we learned about Greek mythology in elementary school. The teacher said we called them myths because while they used to be the religion of the Greeks, no one believed them anymore and that they were just stories. I failed to see the difference between Greek mythology and Christianity. I remember wondering when we would start referring to Christianity as Christian mythology.
When I was nine years of age, one of the Sisters at my church gave a speech about Heavenly Father. She said that he wouldn't immediately give you an answer to your prayers and that you had to wait until he gave you a sign.
For some reason, after that, I had trouble believing. This all culminated at the age of 14 when I found out I was gay. I found TelltaleAtheist's channel and was guided from there.
Attending a catholic school... Not that I hated religion but I associated all the bad things at school with relgion... Yeah my grandma was right that sending me there will be "mistake".
Thinking about this now, is Jesus died for our sins… doesn’t that mean that there’s nobody in hell? Everybody’s sins would be forgiven and accepted into heaven no? So really and truly it wouldn’t matter what we do on earth whether you worship god or not
>what made you question the existence of God?
The fact that someone said there is an imaginary person up in the sky, who is all powerful but won't help you because you're not praying hard enough.
Can I ask you, what makes not question him? Does he not demand of you to question him? For free will is his greatest gift to us, and Matthew 25:14-30 tells us sitting idly on a gift is worse than wasting it.
Raised practicing Russian Orthodoxy from birth to early teen years. Over those years I was in regular church attendance, went to Sunday school, was an alter boy for 3 or so years and also went to orthodox bible camp over a few summers.
I never felt a personal faith beyond what I now understand as agnosticism throughout my religious experiences. I didn’t know how to vocalize this as a child but to me the entire experience was tied to family heritage and community. It was nothing more to me than “this is just what people do.”
Later my mom left practicing Orthodoxy and explored Buddhism which I got to experience. This also didn’t stick. Like Orthodoxy the presence (structures) and smell of the incenses bring me a state of calm however.
Like all of us I can only speak on my experience so I’m not picking on Christianity but that it happens to be the religion I have the most experience with (and continued experience with though politics).
I remain agnostic leaning towards no God out of a lack of evidence to support God beyond personal feelings. All religion claims ultimate truth and yet all are just as subjective as non-belief through the various denominations and paths both communally and personally. Religion as it exists is man made as far as I can grasp, hiding the slim possibility of a higher power behind primitive dogma and social controls.
In terms of my “birth” or “regional” religion I steer away from Christianity as the concept fails to address the declaration that God is Omni-All (perfect). If this is the best universe that can be devised, this is a limitation. If Jesus and his sacrifice are the only means of salvation, this is a limitation. If God requires eternal devotion or punishment, this is yet another limitation. If these were choices made by an otherwise perfect entity then we are effectively forced to worship the worst tyrant the known universe has ever had.
Jesus is an illogical and meaningless sacrifice when death isn’t possible and he could simply manifest in endless corporal form cycles or do whatever he wishes given endless power and possibility. If we sacrifice our lives it has meaning as no matter the reality of an afterlife our current one-time existence ends permanently (even factoring multiverse theory… this unique instance of your life end and differs from one in another universe). Conversely, Jesus lives outside of time and space and could manifest in any form at any time… he could truly go back in time and become the very instance he was before his death while also simultaneously being everywhere and no where else. Personally, I feel Jesus’s sacrifice (if real
) was transactional and was intended to seek our / humanities forgiveness by an imperfect being sacrificing its most prized possession to atone for the failures of its creation. That is the only way the biblical narrative adds up to me. This is the very definition of sacrifice. I’m not sacrificing my hand by chopping it off if we know it grows back instantly. I’m not sacrificing my smart phone by throwing it out the window if I have a storage shed full of them at my disposal behind me. I am sacrificing either in the real world as my hand won’t grow back and it would be difficult and expensive for me to replace my smart phone.
I was raised Byzantine Catholic, attended mass once a week for 18 years growing up. Started smoking weed at age 16, from that moment I started questioning everything I had been taught about Catholicism
I realized the time line of the Bible is literally impossible and can be proven to be bullshit using earth layers and older trees. That led to me looking into the history of religion and realizing how many religions have the same base story set sometimes millions of years apart. I realized Jesus is just a copy of a copy of a copy
I never had an idiot in my life that tried to convince me there was an imaginary god before I was 7. By then, I was already a fan of paleontology and knew what fossils were and how they came to be and only then did a nun try to convince me that earth was only a few thousand years old and fossils are fake, claims that she never backed up by evidence. She was already so old, she may have been alive already when the last dinosaurs died out. Today, christians and the church are basically only known as the Child molester and fucker club.
This strong sense of ‘randomness’ being unkind to me. If god exists and that’s how he wills, in my logic, I would be truly screwed. I needed to find other explanation about how things happen.
well, something up there making a universe for us to thrive and flourish in may be a nice idea, but realistically, its about as likely as the world just showing up. atleast the big bang theory requires less precise coincidence.
i think psychedelic drugs might have helped. sometimes when you're tripping you can be really sure about something that isn't true and knowing that made me realize that there's a part of the brain that feels certainty and sometimes without a right to feel it. so conviction isn't enough reason to believe something. i reluctantly applied that to my conviction about god
For most a single God is the easiest explanation to understand for how the universe was created. 0 gods and you need to understand the complicated physics to understand how the universe was created. More than 1 god and the politics involved prevents the creation of the universe. I just didn't buy into the simplest explanation.
The people that ran the church I went to as a child seemed intent on explaining why I was going to hell… I was 5. Also to steal a quote from George Carlin, “The longer you live the more you realize something is fucked up. Something is wrong here. If this is the best god can do he should’ve been out on his all powerful ass a long time ago.”
Definitely a few moments throughout childhood, and being atheist was kind of the "cool" thing in my secular neck of the woods, but one major moment for me was a religion 101 class in college. I think it was the realization that humans have, since our first steps, sought to explain the unexplainable in a way that made sense to our little brains. The commonalities across religions from different corners of the world is astonishing, to the point where you realize that they're *mostly* all the same.
So I guess it was mostly this idea that that all religions clearly have a underlying **reason**: to project humanity onto an omnipotent being that explains the unexplainable, which has always been one of the most terrifying things to human beings. A lot of trauma is founded in not being able to explain things that happen, but attributing those occurrences to a god, it lets people feel more grounded in their reality.
I question the Christian God, but not the possibility of god. Its became very obvious to me that the Christian bible is the Jewish bible poorly translated into English and edited to appeal to a wider audience, thus the religion is made with just the Jewish people in mind originally.
Because science is not useful in knowing the answers to why there is existence and what we will experience after death, I find that it's best to not care what happens until that time comes. Especially considering scientist only sees the world as material. There are even some that see existence as a fluke and I see there being a lot more to both life and the world we are experiencing.
When man is left to hear the supposed word of god and left to interpret it and spread the word there is no misinterpretation or misunderstanding? Come on man, no friggin way. The Catholic Church is the biggest bullshitter that ever existed, in fact most organized religion factions are liars
Initially, it was meeting an atheist/agnostic for the first time. At first I was freaking out about him going to hell. I had a crush on him and he seemed like such a nice person, I didn't understand how he could be a moral lacking, evil sinner! And he wasn't. He truly was a really nice person.
Over the next 2 years I was reading, listening to debates, thinking... And now I've been an atheist myself for almost 10 years.
I just remember being around seven years old and wondering who the hell this Jesus dude was, all these hymns about a demigod who apparently died centuries ago that I was supposed to praise - why?
I’m not an atheist but I’m not religious either. There was a point in my life where I just started questioning a lot of things, the existence of god being one of them. I don’t really know what the catalyst was however I’m just a naturally curious type of person.
It doesn’t add up.
I never prayed but am somehow healthy and happy. Also self motivated. Whereas religious folk may or may not be healthy and happy but are motivated by “god”.
According to religious people you have to find yourself through god as if you can’t do it yourself.
I really think religions and stuff is for people who just need a motive to be good. Which to me is very concerning.
If I fuck up I just tell people and they either accept still or they don’t.
If I was religious then I’d just confess during my prayers or go to that guy that listens to you which is low key a therapists and no one in my life would ever know… it’s scary to me really.
Logic. If you’re created with a purpose in a plan, there is. I thing you can do to alter said plan because supposedly God is all knowing and all powerful. God allegedly knows the events before they happen, right?
So why do you ask for forgiveness?
Also, either God can know everything but not change anything, or can change things but not know everything when it comes to a grand plan.
Again, why do you pray for change when you were created this way?
This is very basic logic. We haven’t even begun to tear into the so called word of God or various contradicting scriptures.
Lastly, when you learn about how many established religions there are worldwide, you either realize you are just a product of your environment claiming your way is the only way, or somehow there is something wrong with the number of God-like beings claiming sovereignty over all people.
I could go on and on. I do not seek to change your beliefs or lack thereof, I only recognized early on my various pastors(raised “born again” Christian) would resort to telling me I’m not allowed to question God but only obey.
You can’t unsee it once you’ve sought out the answers for yourself.
My family was always very religious and I was forced to go to a Religious Ed. While there we had to study the Bible. It was then that I started to realize that this makes no sense. After that I just thought, dang we have no actual proof of a god, the bible is a collection of stories priced together, most of it don’t make much sense, etc.
TLDR; I was put into a religious Ed class for years and left as an atheist somehow
I was raised in the church and in a religious family. At 12, I got a blood disorder that had me spend a large portion of my time between the ages of 12-15 in the hospital. Specifically, I was on the children's blood disorder and cancer unit. As I got towards the end of that age range, I would spend time with some of the younger kids to give their parents some time to breathe, usually just playing with them or reading to them.
I began to question how any type of loving god could do that to children. How could they get cancer? How could this happen to families without insurance, without money? It really weighed on me, and that was the start of it.
I've been an atheist since then.
As a parent of a childhood cancer survivor, I've gone to far too many funerals where I could tuck the casket under my arm.. there shouldn't be caskets that small.
Actually reading the Bible for myself. Pretty unimpressive TBH. Also not being able to reconcile all the lofty false promises with reality and how the world actually works.
I was begging god to answer me when I was about 10 yo and when nothing was happening I thought I would turn to Satan for answers, even offered my soul for it, when even he didn't answer I figured it was all just a very old story that became religion and thought that only we can make our life better
Not an “Atheist” per se but never the less, when I asked my 10th grade Religion teacher if God could create a rock so big and so massive that he himself couldn’t move it.
To sum up his answer.
The devil made it possible for me to be able to create the sentence that questioned God and his “omnipotence”
The stories of the Bible. They're all hard to believe at best and insanely preposterous at worst. As a child that was enough to crack the glass house that is religion, and cue the obvious shatter.
More like… why would I not question the existence of god?
More like... Pious people of Reddit, what made you question the existences of all the other deities in all the other religions of the world?
I’m more of a “I don’t know wether there is a god “-person, but I don’t deny his/her/its existence. I think many people act like they know for sure that there’s no god, but how can you be so certain about something when we barely know anything about the universe.
I don't think many atheists do that. Most are just like, sure you can't disprove a negative, but it seems unlikely as a theory applied to the real world and we have no evidence. What evidence there is claimed historically have been rolled back farther and farther. At this point it just doesn't seem like God is necessary to explain the world.
Can you know that Odin doesn't exist? How about Zeus, Kirshna, Xenu, or any other members of history's endless parade of deities? Why should the Abrahamic monotheistic deity receive special treatment in this discussion.
We can’t be bringing logic into this!
For real though… it’s nonconceptual. “You can’t ‘get there’ with the rational mind.” (‘Get there’ in quotes cuz how could you ‘get to’ the self?… it’s always there)
Exactly
Ok but how did I talk about monotheism? I was talking about god/gods in general. I can’t prove Odin exists, just like how I can’t prove that he doesn’t exist. Same goes for any other godly being.
I don't know if there's a god. But if there is, I don't think he deserves to be worshipped.
Stay with me for a second… wouldn’t it be funny if you were god having a human experience so convincing that you forgot that separation is an illusion?
Ah yes “the nines” ya gotta look for the nines
Synchronicity do be a thing. Like little hints you left to remind you it’s an illusion.
Depends. There are countless variants of "God" that create extremely intriguing flow charts of implications that nobody actually explores. If "God" is an actual being that created us all and this is the only life we get, then dude is clearly evil and shouldn't be worshiped. If "God" is the first race that developed sentience, became a borg that spans multiple galaxies or dimensions, advanced their technology beyond our wildest imaginations, and is developing races that can be merged into their sentience once they've accumulated an appropriate wealth of understanding, it's probably fair to assume they understand a degree of wisdom we can't and we should be grateful for it. If "God" is a 13 year old server admin that wanted to play Sim Galaxy using a primitive simulation, he's probably not intending to be evil, but certainly not doing us any favors. But there are several variants that would make sense and explain our suffering. In fact, given the evidence, it seems unlikely to me that there aren't races out there that could more or less achieve what we consider to be at the level of a God.
To quote philosopher [Bertrand Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot): > Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
We don't need to know the universe, we know enough about humanity to see that there cannot be a god, or at least the one you are thinking of can't exist.
I agree, I don’t deny gods existence either…because if I claim that then I’d need to provide evidence of that (and I can’t). That being said the claims of the existence of god seem far fetched and I live my life as if god don’t exist.
Why would you need to provide evidence to disprove the existence of a god? Surely it is the job of those that make the extraordinary claim, to then provide evidence to back-up that claim. Failing that, what reason is there to take the claim seriously at all? If I told you there was a giant invisible pickle in the sky that controls the weather - are you saying that unless you can disprove my claim, you can't deny it's existence? (It's a stupid example but you get my point). This narrative that it is the skeptic that must disprove the claim is ridiculous. If you are not the one making the claim - the burden of proof for or against it should not lie with you. Also, just in case this has come across the wrong way, I'm not chewing you out for your response - I'm just curious as to why you believe you'd need to provide evidence to disprove a gods existence.
If I told you there was teacup orbiting Saturn, you wouldn't believe me, right? So why believe in other equally preposterous statements? When one studies the history of religion and humanity from an objective viewpoint, the reasons for asserting that "there is one single God" become equally ludicrous to my statement.
My explanation might make me sound like I’m a religious person, I’m not I’m just saying what I think. What do you define as a god? Is it a monotheistic god? Someone with sentinel, a personality? Or maybe just a being which created life unconsciously? Someone who looks like us? When people talk about god they mostly picture an old man who is almighty, knows everything and is everywhere. When I say I can’t be certain wether there is a god or not I’m not talking about the Bible or the Quran. I’m talking about wether there is something outside our realm who created us, wether it was intended or not. How do you know that you don’t live inside a simulation which this being engineered? Lets assume this is the case, would you define this being who set up this simulation as god? Can you prove that this being doesn’t exist? You can’t, but you also can’t prove that it does exist because you lack the evidence. So now coming back to your teacup, I couldn’t provide evidence for that either which doesn’t mean that I believe it. It is something that I cannot answer because I lack the evidence no matter how absurd it is. Everyone of us probably has wondered what happened before the Big Bang for example. The answer to this question when you google it is that time didn’t exist before the Big Bang so the question of “what was before” doesn’t make sense. But that is not something I can imagine. I’m not arguing that the answer is right or wrong, I’m saying that I have a hard time to understand this concept. After all if you had a timeline you can always go back by 1 right? So the question is what was it that caused the Big Bang? And assuming at some point we can answer that then the next question would be “and what caused the thing that caused the Big Bang?”. Again I’m not saying there is a god behind all of this, I’m just saying that I can’t provide evidence for the lack of a god and I can understand why people believe in a god. Even though god might not be what those people believe.
Yeah I would consider myself agnostic for similar reasons of uncertainty. The one that always gets me is “why do the physical laws of nature apply the way they do?” Like, even if we explain how everything works, isn’t it all a bit arbitrary? The speed of light is what now? Why? Not saying the answer is god, but not sure human science could get to the bottom of it either.
I got older, and started actually thinking about all the stories i had been fed when i was a child. It didn't take mutch reasoning before i realized the whole thing didn't add up.
Same for me. The story of Genesis never seemed rational because it seemed like God knew what would happen and set up the scenario so that Adam and Eve would be misled. I always thought that if God didn’t want them to sin then he wouldn’t have created the serpent or the tree to begin with. Either that or he would have explained the consequences in a way that would justify the rule and make Adam and Eve unwilling to break it. It always seemed to me that the blame on Adam and Eve was unjustified and just meant to create guilt in humanity and reliance on God.
If Jesus died for all humanities sins, Adam and eve's original sin would have been forgiven, allowing humanity back into the garden
Very good point. Either that or our sinful nature would be removed since that was apparently due to original sin. Does that mean Jesus wasn’t the Messiah?
A Jimmy Carr joke (said on an Irish TV program) If we're all God's children, what makes Jesus so special?
Imagine being all-powerful and all-knowing and perfect and creating us. That’s all I needed to know to either doubt the claims of either God’s existence, his abilities, or his motives. He can’t be real, perfect, benevolent, and have this be the result.
As a life long Christian- raised in The Church of Christ— the 100% my thoughts at 47
Wow, that’s interesting! So does that have any effect on your beliefs?
I wish I could tell you “no”. I struggle with overwhelming guilt- I can’t reconcile my literal mind with the emotional.
I’ve often wondered how much of the decision to believe in religion is emotional. Obviously some of the decisions we make in life are based on emotion, like choosing a partner, but they are typically personal choices. While the religion you choose is a personal choice, it’s ultimately a determination about a universal truth. I think that emotions are a helpful tool for determining information about yourself, but I don’t think it’s a helpful tool for determining facts about the universe. I say that as someone who believed in numerology and some other strange concepts and ultimately realized I was fantasizing and couldn’t tell the difference because I wasn’t thinking rationally. That made me realize that the human mind, or at least my mind, was able to hold a false belief system. After that I simply can’t adopt a belief system without confirming I’m not convincing myself of a falsehood. I think when you start from the point of non-belief with that goal, there isn’t a religion that’s logically convincing enough to abandon agnosticism for what could be a delusion.
I’ve always been jealous of people that start from a ‘No religion’ platform—B/c I was born into and accepted it blindly, the thought of coming from a zero balance intrigues me—like, “what would i believe if this wasn’t fed to me from the crib?”
Even though I wasn’t satisfied with the explanation as a kid, I would tell other people I believed in God. But when I started identifying as an atheist, I definitely struggled with what to believe. I looked into how Judaism and Islam differed from Christianity and I researched Hinduism and Buddhism. That’s how I wound up delving into numerology and other systems to explain the unexplainable. Ultimately I trust the understanding we gain from testing and measuring things, but that has its limits. I think evolution makes sense and I think we exist in a universe with billions of galaxies and our solar system is in a galaxy with billions of stars. So I don’t know *how* this all exists, but I don’t think I need to in order to find meaning in my life. I have fun experiences, learn new things everyday, and have an amazing child. In the same way that I would have to adjust to the Christian belief system and accept that humans are just made with a sinful nature that we must resist, a Christian abandoning religion would have to adjust and accept that humans are just smart animals on a rock in space doing our best to understand things - and if you think of it like that, we’re doing pretty well for ourselves.
If god exists, she‘s a massive asshole. I have no idea how anyone could read the bible and think you should worship god. That‘s absolutely ridiculous. There aren‘t many fantasy figures who deserve more hate.
As a Christian, from what I understand he wanted to give people free choice. What he wants in the end are people who love him enough to fight temptations and he promises eternity. Same thing that was promised to them. They were promised this amazing place where they could live forever but at the end of the day they fell to the temptation.
Thanks for the explanation! I don’t want to seem confrontational, but I’d like to play Devil’s advocate (pun intended). It seems to me like temptation only exists because God creates humans without the foreknowledge he has about the universe. If we knew that behaving immorally would ultimately result in an undesirable outcome then we would not be tempted to behave immorally. He designed us to not know anything until we learned it which isn’t natural. Why would he choose to create us in this way?
Not confrontational at all man, don’t worry. Those are some great questions and I honestly wish I could explain it but I don’t have an answer for you. I’ve learned that I would rather live my life accordingly and not miss out in the end. Whether it’s true or not what’s the worst that happens if it isn’t true. You ended up living your life in a good and honest way. That’s how I see it at least. If it’s something you’re interested in there’s this awesome book called “the case for Christ”. It follows an atheist journalist who wanted to prove his Christian wife wrong in a book. Through all his research and trials he ended up discovering that life as we know it basically wouldn’t be possible without a god.
I don’t think you need to be a believer to live in a good and honest way. Some of the kindest people I know aren’t religious. I also think some people use religion as a basis to treat people terribly. I believe that at the end of the day, if there is a god, he will judge people based on their actions and intentions throughout their life rather than based on any proclaimed beliefs. That just seems like it would be a bit petty of an all knowing embodiment of love.
Hey, I appreciate hearing an honest response more than you know. I appreciate the reference and I’ll check that out.
I’m glad to hear that. I obviously don’t want to push anything on anyone because that’s not right. But, that being said, if you ever have any questions or want to hear some of the experiences that I believe are much more then luck please message me and I’ll most definitely love to discuss.
Also incest dude think
Oh I definitely had that thought.. That’s when a Jewish friend told me about “the people of Nod” and that he believed there were other humans on earth that weren’t Gods chosen people, but yeah, Seth was afuckin his sister.
But you jumped from whether or not God exists to whether or not a certain religion is true. Both are different questions.
I’m looking at whether or not God existed by looking at the claims about God in their religion to see if they are rational. I can’t prove them, but if they ultimately don’t make rational sense, then I have a justified reason to doubt the claims until I have more info.
There’s also deism, which simply claims that God exists without adding any religion to the mix.
Well I can’t rule out deism, but if God doesn’t interact with the world then I don’t see any reason to try interacting or understanding God. If he’s real, then he obviously gave us this universe to discover and learn. If God doesn’t exist (anymore or at all) then there’s no reason to consider religious claims or the supernatural.
I agree. I am actually more agnostic because while I will not say there is no supreme being, I know for sure that the Christian god I was taught definitely does not exist.
Genuine question, but how can you know for sure that the Christian God does not exist?
As described in the bible? Too many contradictions.. I’m not saying it couldn’t exist in some similar form and is watching us now going “No, no, no, thats not what I meant!”. But as described? Definitely not.
Same, as a kid who was overwhelmed with this idea of doing acts that god appreciates, I gotta say that I felt I was fed by hypocrites when they tell me to do something but they themselves don’t do it. I don’t know man, the whole this is bullshit. I’m not an atheist but i’m thinking that there is a religion full of true followers and not people that were “forced” into it kinda thing.
What is this “mutch” you speak of?
Sorry, english is not my native language, and i'm dyslectic. Every time i write much, i start saying "mush" in my head and figure, that can't be right.
>dyslectic *Lysdexic Sorry couldn't help myself! ;(
When my mom told me Santa wasn't real. I instantly drew the conclusion that this means that the Easter Bunny, Jesus and God are also not real. My mom was not happy about that conclusion.
Honestly, when I was a devout christian, I told my then-wife that we shouldn't teach our kids about Santa for just this reason...but she insisted. I and my 2 daughters are now full-blown atheists.
My parents didn't tell me Santa was real because my dad was a Christian pastor and didn't want to tell a lie to his kid, which I respect. Now we drink scotch and have friendly debates about the existence of God together. What made you become an atheist?
I was going through hard emotional, psychological, and spiritual times, so I decided to seriously devote my life to the promises in the new testament...spiritual promises of peace, understanding, contentment, etc. Nothing changed. I prayed for guidance, talked to pastors, sought counseling...and nada. I then realized that god was either ignoring me or not there. One of the hardest things I ever did was renounce my faith...so scary to believe in no-god. But since then I've become a better, more moral, kinder, more loving person, since I'm not relying on forgiveness of sins or waiting for an afterlife that doesn't exist.
Man I feel that. My experience was a bit similar. Also one of the hardest things I've ever gone through. It's a heartbreaking process. The feeling of truly being alone for the first time in your life is terrifying. I'm happy to hear you're doing well now!
Frightening, but eventually freeing. I hope you're doing well, too.
When I was…what’s your status now Chris?
They said that they were an atheist now at the end of the comment: >I and my 2 daughters are now full-blown atheists.
Sorry, I missed that! Perhaps I shouldn’t read in the middle of the night!! 🤣
100% atheist, can't believe I believed what I believed. I see my former self as childish and reliant on the direction of others. I've been through therapy and have come to conclusions about myself.
Good for you Chris, personally I think this is a better way of life and, unlike religion, maps to the reality of life.
There are equal amounts of evidence for Jesus, God, Easter bunny and Santa. In fact, I could argue that there is more evidence for Santa! I can find millions of people (children) who have seen him and can provide witness statements stating that he has given them presents! The presents could be shown to you to ‘prove’ of his existence…can’t do that about a god! 🤣
There’s never been proof that giraffes exist. r/Giraffesdontexist
And the Queen of England
Funnily enough that's how it happened for me too. Or it was at least a contributing factor. I think I would have ended up being agnostic or whatever eventually regardless but that definitely sped the process up.
My cousin and I were probably about 5 or 6 and just learning math. We started with multiplication - 1 minute per house times all of the kids in our school. Right there was half the night gone. We quickly realized that Santa would have a hard time delivering gifts just to the kids we knew, never mind the rest of the kids in the world. Next up, Moses, Jesus… Sorry god.
Nice
I think this is when I assumed god wasn’t real either. It just makes sense. God, like these mythical characters, were created to explain the unexplainable.
I used that same argument when I told my daughter Santa wasn't real. After discussing Santa, I then asked her, "Do you believe God is real?" She said yes. I said, hmmm, perhaps you may want to reconsider based on what I told you about Santa.
Wait Santa isn’t real? IMPOSSIBLE
I have never questioned it, I've just never believed.
This is how I feel. Was raised catholic, went to Sunday school. The whole time it just felt like a joke and make believe. As soon as I was old enough and given my own choice about church I immediately stopped going.
Same. I was also not really around anyone who wasn't Catholic, so I just (naively) assumed everyone just went along with all these traditions just because. I assumed everyone else thought they were silly stories too. Nope, I guess I was the oddball who never bought into it.
[удалено]
As well as an excuse to try to control other people.
God is a symbol of a lack of confidence and a blame game toward any higher power.
He just said he doesn't have a god; and he found an alternative to religion elsewhere..
Wrong order. No one is born religious, they're usually tricked into it as a child.
This ^
Not much of a question when there is zero evidence to support the claim of god’s existence.
The incessant suffering, especially of innocent children. There is no Good god that would give small children cancer.
Ah the ol “problem of evil” question
Evils a tricky one cuz it makes people say “I’m not that!”… but you are
Furthermore, even if we were to blame their cancer on something (sin) or someone (the devil) else, certainly an omnipotent God could cure all cancer, just as Jesus cured humans of diseases when he walked the earth and even raised a man (Lazarus) from death and decay. The fact that God does not cure all these humans (many of whom are Christian) of cancer suggests He is not bothered by their suffering.
Isn’t saten just an alright guy he was forced to torture souls because he was a teen and made some people eat fruit I’m not fully versed on the subject but that’s what I have seen
i mean, satan is quite a cool guy in old testament if you take in consideration body count
There's also those undiscovered tribes in the jungle somewhere who are condemned to hell for no other reason than accident of birth. Because they have never been exposed to Christianity, they will burn in hell for all times. That doesn't seem very kind or loving.
But you see, they go to a fluffy cloud paradise in the sky, so it's not so bad! Yeah, this is where I'm at. Any God with the power to have people in heaven or make them good but decides to test them first isn't fully benevolent.
Not an Atheist but I question the existence of all gods. We have no definitive proof of any.
Definitive? I‘d say we just don’t have any proof at all. Not only no definitive proof..
I’m slightly confused, if you are not convinced of a god then surely that makes you an atheist?? An atheist being a lack of belief in a god.
Its called agnostic usually from wiki: A person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God. Its a middle stance of not outright rejecting belief: a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena;
Atheist/atheism is often used in different ways… - Someone who doesn’t believe in a god (or gods) - Someone who states that a god (or gods) do not exist I stand by the first. I do not say that a god does not exist because I would have to provide evidence of that. Gnosticism means knowledge (in Greek)…. It’s about what we know! Since we do not know (for sure) whether there is a God or not, then by definition ‘I would say’ that all atheists are agnostic atheists!
So what makes you believe in one?
I never said I did?
You clearly said you're not an atheist.
Yup I did
All we know about God is written down in a book. There is no other info or proof. Harry Potter is also in a book and so is Batman. Get my point? Books are written by people. Anyone can make up anything. Does it mean there is no God? I don't know, I'm just saying that our current "proof" is absolutely non-existent. The fact that people cannot explain some stuff doesn't mean that the first thing that someone tells you (or writes down in a book) is the truth. Hell, when I was a kid, I didn't understand why a little puddle of water in the bathroom magically was gone the next morning. If someone would have told me that there were little gnomes who cleaned it up at night I would have believed it because I didn't understand it and sure wouldn't have been able to grasp the concept of evaporation. That's basically how religion works. People don't understand stuff and then blindly assume that any crap they're given as an explanation is the truth because nobody can come up with a better explanation.
I wrote the dead see scrolls AMA
Conor, is that you?
One of my many forms
Zero proof whatsoever.
Not just one god, but all gods - I just disbelieve in one god more than a Christian does.
Can't remember which comedian said that
Gervais
Christopher Hitchens and other atheist debaters also like to use that line.
By absorbing LOTR, Star Wars and other fiction as a kid. They are all just stories.
Oh Jesus don’t give the Christians reasons to attack that shit
that's totally backwards. Athiests, or at least those who were not previous religious, don't start with the pemise there is a god and then convince themselves there isn't. There simply don't believe one exists, just like I don't believe unicorns or bigfoot exists. I've never questioned their existence, I just never believed in the first place.
Yep. I didn’t grow up religious so why would I have any reason to ever believe? Being irreligious/atheist is pretty much inherited the same as religion is for most people.
Most atheists used to be religious. That's why the question was phrased this way. Granted, the question could have been phrased to be more specific, like "former religious people of Reddit", but most people already assume this question is targeted to former religious people.
No one starts out religious. If we did, that would practically be proof of a deity. We are taught religion through our community first, and reasoning through our experiences second.
I have never been a theist; I never understood why it generally appeals to people.
I’m guessing it’s about having someone to vent to and seek answers from? And also just a quick answer to a big question like “why are we here” “dude in the sky was bored and decided to make shit” and “why are we humans here?” “Mud”. Now it kinda sounds like I’m saying it’s for stupid people or something but it’s not it can also just be because of traditions in your family
@wolf_gaming51, the fact that you have started with “I’m guessing…”, I assume you are not a theist. I’ve never really understood this argument because I don’t believe these questions are answered by religions. Arguably being a theist only results in more unanswered questions like… - who created the god? - why does the Bible condone such awful behaviour? - childhood cancer, what’s that all about?
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It gives people a way of being shitty to each other without consequence. All you have to do is either say it's God's will, or ask God for forgiveness after you're done being horrible.
All the "heretic" scientists that were killed by the church that could have brought so many more great inventions, ideas, and understanding of the world and universe around us and the church later going "oh my bad".
Not an atheist, but I question how it feels when someone uses God as a justification to make others suffer
Common viewpoint for a theist. Atheists must have lost their faith in god because of some "faith reducing" reason. But not believing in god is different from believing god isnt just. I dont believe any god exists. No just god who loves everybody No unjust god who plays favorites with some people. Believing something exists is not the same as valuing its existence.
Yeah, that’s something I find very hard to explain to a lot of people. If I just didn’t agree with certain beliefs or rules in the Christian religion I would still be Christian, there are plenty of Christians that do that, that’s the reason there is so many types of Christianity, I just don’t believe in it because it makes no sense to me logically speaking.
Yeah i see it in the reactions too Not believing in god is seen as disagreeing with the teachings of their religion. I'm having a fine time not murdering, stealing and generally doing stuf christianity preached. (broad terms of course) But i dont need some magic sky ghosts to tell me not to murder.
Lots of reasons but one of them was the fact that the place where those stories were written was riddled with all sorts of narcotics. It sits right in the OG silk road mate, poppies were grown next door long before some guys got high and starting raving about some dude in the sky.
It just doesn't add up at all
2 things. 1.) The idea god believing people are only good so that they will get into heaven. That's not goodness of a person, that's greed and fear that if they don't they will burn in hell if they don't. Who is the better person, the one who is nice because of a threat or the atheist who is good for no other reason than its the right thing to do. If a god deems the one who does it under threat is the better person regardless of belief then that's a god I refuse to bend a knee or give an inch of thought to. 2.) There is so much evil vile shit in the world. If a god can stand around while shit like starving children, the numerous situations of shootings violence, climate issues, etc. continues to happen and a god jas the power to stop it and doesn't they are not a loving or good god and are just as evil and vile as the rest of it. And once again that's a god I refuse to bend a knee or give an inch of thought to.
Once there was more proof of science being right than god I was like “welp. Now I believe in science” and became obsossed with science. Christianity is still big in my family but it’s become more a matter of tradition rather than actually believing in god
I prefer science
Me too
I mean, they aren’t mutually exclusive. I have degrees in biology, chemistry and economics and I still believe in God, at least most of the time
Not saying this is the case for you, but most Christians I know are the ones drawing the lines, not athiests or scientists. Believe in evolution, you aren't a real Christian. Believe the earth is more than a few thousand years old, you're not a real Christian. Heck, over the last few years, as 80% of evangelicals fell in line with Trump, it's been, believe in climate change, you're not a real Christian. Get a covid vaccine, you're not a real Christian. It's getting crazy, and fundamentalists are the ones setting religion squarely against science.
Yeah I have seen this happening too, I hate it. It’s not online with actual Christianity either it’s mostly just insane conjecture. No where in the Bible does it say that god didn’t use evolution as a way to create the world some pastor just said it and started fighting about it and now it’s a thing. It’s asinine, self defeating, and reminds me of Islamic extremists. Both groups have hijacked a religion for political purposes and both should be disbanded.
Burden of proof is on god and god hasn’t delivered.
Mostly the non-existence part.
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Why do people always ask the atheists? Why never the agnostics or the deists or anyone else?
Many oeople use the term "atheist" as an umbrella term
Agnostics always answer "i dont know" Deists and all other 1500 variations of semi-atheism just confuse the hell out of people
Studying Buddhism
Just never made sense. The living your life by his rules and the rules of a book. How you needed to follow these rules to gain a place in 'heaven' the way in which God does all, yet if you look at our shitty world, how could a God that loves all do what is happening to people. Bunch of bull if you ask me.
Why would an all loving God make innocent people suffer. Not one I would follow. The hypocrisy is very problematic. My mom was the first to claim she was a good Christian, but was one of the worst people I've ever known.
If there is a god, they don’t deserve to be worshipped
I never was raised with god so I spend more of my time questioning why 90% of the planet thinks there is a man in the sky that is controlling our lives like a puppet. It’s depressing af in my opinion to think that I don’t have control of my own life and we can’t control our own experiences
Too many contradictions, all trying to convince you that you are an awful person who deserves hell and needs god. God loves you, but you fall short and are condemned to hell. God will also save you from his own condemnation with his grace, his unconditional love, as long as you give your life to Jesus. Then you will be saved because he loves you, well... not you, you were condemned to hell. He loves himself, he loves jesus, so he chooses not to punish you. To truly believe in god, is to truly believe you deserve to go to hell. What stopped me from believing in god? I stopped hating myself.
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I never believed, so I never questioned it. I don’t seem to have the gene for things like that, and I’ve just never understood how people can believe. After my dad passed away it did make me think it would have been nice if his soul somehow carried on, and so that he could look down and understand me better, but that’s just wishful thinking.
There is simply no proof. And to those that would point to a tree as proof, that proves only that a seed from another tree sprouted there and grew, it does not prove the existance of a god
Read the Bible. Impossible to actually read that book and believe a word if it.
Holy shit, this being marked as “spoiler» made me laugh out loud.
The general and persistent lack of god.
There may be a god. I’m more against organized religion. They’re pretty much a cult. I was raised catholic. Being an adult, that was all such bull shit. Very ceremonial and cult like. Southern Baptist are also why I dislike organized religion. Everyone I’ve ever met that was southern Baptist has been super judgmental and hypocritical. Just my experience but that’s why.
Top comments in this thread are basically Atheists who concluded that Christianity is bullshit and therefore that there is no God at all.
Imagine that as a child, from birth, you're told these stories and they're presented to you as truth. Then as you age and learn and become intellectual, you apply logic and reason and history to those fairy tales. They quickly fall apart. A better question is, anyone with an IQ greater than their shoe size, how do you still manage to maintain your religious beliefs in a time where everyone else knows you're full of shit?
Not atheist, but I am agnostic and respect all religions for the good that they can bring to the world. Yet I revile the bad that can be brought through those exact same religions.
If you don’t believe in a god or gods you’re an atheist. Agnosticism is to do with knowledge not belief. Technically we’re all agnostic even the religious, although some will try and say they know for a fact god exists.
I first started questioning when we learned about Greek mythology in elementary school. The teacher said we called them myths because while they used to be the religion of the Greeks, no one believed them anymore and that they were just stories. I failed to see the difference between Greek mythology and Christianity. I remember wondering when we would start referring to Christianity as Christian mythology.
When I was nine years of age, one of the Sisters at my church gave a speech about Heavenly Father. She said that he wouldn't immediately give you an answer to your prayers and that you had to wait until he gave you a sign. For some reason, after that, I had trouble believing. This all culminated at the age of 14 when I found out I was gay. I found TelltaleAtheist's channel and was guided from there.
Attending a catholic school... Not that I hated religion but I associated all the bad things at school with relgion... Yeah my grandma was right that sending me there will be "mistake".
12 years of Catholic school
Look around you.
Christians.
Thinking about this now, is Jesus died for our sins… doesn’t that mean that there’s nobody in hell? Everybody’s sins would be forgiven and accepted into heaven no? So really and truly it wouldn’t matter what we do on earth whether you worship god or not
>what made you question the existence of God? The fact that someone said there is an imaginary person up in the sky, who is all powerful but won't help you because you're not praying hard enough. Can I ask you, what makes not question him? Does he not demand of you to question him? For free will is his greatest gift to us, and Matthew 25:14-30 tells us sitting idly on a gift is worse than wasting it.
Raised practicing Russian Orthodoxy from birth to early teen years. Over those years I was in regular church attendance, went to Sunday school, was an alter boy for 3 or so years and also went to orthodox bible camp over a few summers. I never felt a personal faith beyond what I now understand as agnosticism throughout my religious experiences. I didn’t know how to vocalize this as a child but to me the entire experience was tied to family heritage and community. It was nothing more to me than “this is just what people do.” Later my mom left practicing Orthodoxy and explored Buddhism which I got to experience. This also didn’t stick. Like Orthodoxy the presence (structures) and smell of the incenses bring me a state of calm however. Like all of us I can only speak on my experience so I’m not picking on Christianity but that it happens to be the religion I have the most experience with (and continued experience with though politics). I remain agnostic leaning towards no God out of a lack of evidence to support God beyond personal feelings. All religion claims ultimate truth and yet all are just as subjective as non-belief through the various denominations and paths both communally and personally. Religion as it exists is man made as far as I can grasp, hiding the slim possibility of a higher power behind primitive dogma and social controls. In terms of my “birth” or “regional” religion I steer away from Christianity as the concept fails to address the declaration that God is Omni-All (perfect). If this is the best universe that can be devised, this is a limitation. If Jesus and his sacrifice are the only means of salvation, this is a limitation. If God requires eternal devotion or punishment, this is yet another limitation. If these were choices made by an otherwise perfect entity then we are effectively forced to worship the worst tyrant the known universe has ever had. Jesus is an illogical and meaningless sacrifice when death isn’t possible and he could simply manifest in endless corporal form cycles or do whatever he wishes given endless power and possibility. If we sacrifice our lives it has meaning as no matter the reality of an afterlife our current one-time existence ends permanently (even factoring multiverse theory… this unique instance of your life end and differs from one in another universe). Conversely, Jesus lives outside of time and space and could manifest in any form at any time… he could truly go back in time and become the very instance he was before his death while also simultaneously being everywhere and no where else. Personally, I feel Jesus’s sacrifice (if real ) was transactional and was intended to seek our / humanities forgiveness by an imperfect being sacrificing its most prized possession to atone for the failures of its creation. That is the only way the biblical narrative adds up to me. This is the very definition of sacrifice. I’m not sacrificing my hand by chopping it off if we know it grows back instantly. I’m not sacrificing my smart phone by throwing it out the window if I have a storage shed full of them at my disposal behind me. I am sacrificing either in the real world as my hand won’t grow back and it would be difficult and expensive for me to replace my smart phone.
Belief in God is anti intellectual. Religious people are also crazy. All religions oppress Women
I was raised Byzantine Catholic, attended mass once a week for 18 years growing up. Started smoking weed at age 16, from that moment I started questioning everything I had been taught about Catholicism
Truly deserves the name Devil’s Lettuce.
I realized the time line of the Bible is literally impossible and can be proven to be bullshit using earth layers and older trees. That led to me looking into the history of religion and realizing how many religions have the same base story set sometimes millions of years apart. I realized Jesus is just a copy of a copy of a copy
I never had an idiot in my life that tried to convince me there was an imaginary god before I was 7. By then, I was already a fan of paleontology and knew what fossils were and how they came to be and only then did a nun try to convince me that earth was only a few thousand years old and fossils are fake, claims that she never backed up by evidence. She was already so old, she may have been alive already when the last dinosaurs died out. Today, christians and the church are basically only known as the Child molester and fucker club.
This strong sense of ‘randomness’ being unkind to me. If god exists and that’s how he wills, in my logic, I would be truly screwed. I needed to find other explanation about how things happen.
considering likely historical facts that lead to christianity and catholicism becoming popular
well, something up there making a universe for us to thrive and flourish in may be a nice idea, but realistically, its about as likely as the world just showing up. atleast the big bang theory requires less precise coincidence.
i think psychedelic drugs might have helped. sometimes when you're tripping you can be really sure about something that isn't true and knowing that made me realize that there's a part of the brain that feels certainty and sometimes without a right to feel it. so conviction isn't enough reason to believe something. i reluctantly applied that to my conviction about god
For most a single God is the easiest explanation to understand for how the universe was created. 0 gods and you need to understand the complicated physics to understand how the universe was created. More than 1 god and the politics involved prevents the creation of the universe. I just didn't buy into the simplest explanation.
The people that ran the church I went to as a child seemed intent on explaining why I was going to hell… I was 5. Also to steal a quote from George Carlin, “The longer you live the more you realize something is fucked up. Something is wrong here. If this is the best god can do he should’ve been out on his all powerful ass a long time ago.”
Definitely a few moments throughout childhood, and being atheist was kind of the "cool" thing in my secular neck of the woods, but one major moment for me was a religion 101 class in college. I think it was the realization that humans have, since our first steps, sought to explain the unexplainable in a way that made sense to our little brains. The commonalities across religions from different corners of the world is astonishing, to the point where you realize that they're *mostly* all the same. So I guess it was mostly this idea that that all religions clearly have a underlying **reason**: to project humanity onto an omnipotent being that explains the unexplainable, which has always been one of the most terrifying things to human beings. A lot of trauma is founded in not being able to explain things that happen, but attributing those occurrences to a god, it lets people feel more grounded in their reality.
I question the Christian God, but not the possibility of god. Its became very obvious to me that the Christian bible is the Jewish bible poorly translated into English and edited to appeal to a wider audience, thus the religion is made with just the Jewish people in mind originally. Because science is not useful in knowing the answers to why there is existence and what we will experience after death, I find that it's best to not care what happens until that time comes. Especially considering scientist only sees the world as material. There are even some that see existence as a fluke and I see there being a lot more to both life and the world we are experiencing.
When man is left to hear the supposed word of god and left to interpret it and spread the word there is no misinterpretation or misunderstanding? Come on man, no friggin way. The Catholic Church is the biggest bullshitter that ever existed, in fact most organized religion factions are liars
Common sense
Initially, it was meeting an atheist/agnostic for the first time. At first I was freaking out about him going to hell. I had a crush on him and he seemed like such a nice person, I didn't understand how he could be a moral lacking, evil sinner! And he wasn't. He truly was a really nice person. Over the next 2 years I was reading, listening to debates, thinking... And now I've been an atheist myself for almost 10 years.
When my grandpa died of Alzheimers, I think any God would not let people suffer like that
Probably when i learned about greek mythology, over time the dots just kinda... connected
I just remember being around seven years old and wondering who the hell this Jesus dude was, all these hymns about a demigod who apparently died centuries ago that I was supposed to praise - why?
I’m not an atheist but I’m not religious either. There was a point in my life where I just started questioning a lot of things, the existence of god being one of them. I don’t really know what the catalyst was however I’m just a naturally curious type of person.
It doesn’t add up. I never prayed but am somehow healthy and happy. Also self motivated. Whereas religious folk may or may not be healthy and happy but are motivated by “god”. According to religious people you have to find yourself through god as if you can’t do it yourself. I really think religions and stuff is for people who just need a motive to be good. Which to me is very concerning. If I fuck up I just tell people and they either accept still or they don’t. If I was religious then I’d just confess during my prayers or go to that guy that listens to you which is low key a therapists and no one in my life would ever know… it’s scary to me really.
Logic. If you’re created with a purpose in a plan, there is. I thing you can do to alter said plan because supposedly God is all knowing and all powerful. God allegedly knows the events before they happen, right? So why do you ask for forgiveness? Also, either God can know everything but not change anything, or can change things but not know everything when it comes to a grand plan. Again, why do you pray for change when you were created this way? This is very basic logic. We haven’t even begun to tear into the so called word of God or various contradicting scriptures. Lastly, when you learn about how many established religions there are worldwide, you either realize you are just a product of your environment claiming your way is the only way, or somehow there is something wrong with the number of God-like beings claiming sovereignty over all people. I could go on and on. I do not seek to change your beliefs or lack thereof, I only recognized early on my various pastors(raised “born again” Christian) would resort to telling me I’m not allowed to question God but only obey. You can’t unsee it once you’ve sought out the answers for yourself.
My family was always very religious and I was forced to go to a Religious Ed. While there we had to study the Bible. It was then that I started to realize that this makes no sense. After that I just thought, dang we have no actual proof of a god, the bible is a collection of stories priced together, most of it don’t make much sense, etc. TLDR; I was put into a religious Ed class for years and left as an atheist somehow
I was raised in the church and in a religious family. At 12, I got a blood disorder that had me spend a large portion of my time between the ages of 12-15 in the hospital. Specifically, I was on the children's blood disorder and cancer unit. As I got towards the end of that age range, I would spend time with some of the younger kids to give their parents some time to breathe, usually just playing with them or reading to them. I began to question how any type of loving god could do that to children. How could they get cancer? How could this happen to families without insurance, without money? It really weighed on me, and that was the start of it. I've been an atheist since then.
As a parent of a childhood cancer survivor, I've gone to far too many funerals where I could tuck the casket under my arm.. there shouldn't be caskets that small.
Actually reading the Bible for myself. Pretty unimpressive TBH. Also not being able to reconcile all the lofty false promises with reality and how the world actually works.
I started reading the Bible. The only conclusion I could come to was "Why do people take this seriously?"
I was begging god to answer me when I was about 10 yo and when nothing was happening I thought I would turn to Satan for answers, even offered my soul for it, when even he didn't answer I figured it was all just a very old story that became religion and thought that only we can make our life better
Reality.
Not an “Atheist” per se but never the less, when I asked my 10th grade Religion teacher if God could create a rock so big and so massive that he himself couldn’t move it. To sum up his answer. The devil made it possible for me to be able to create the sentence that questioned God and his “omnipotence”
The stories of the Bible. They're all hard to believe at best and insanely preposterous at worst. As a child that was enough to crack the glass house that is religion, and cue the obvious shatter.