I was previously Christian. Specifically, Presbyterian, Baptist, Jehovah's Witness, and Mormon. I left the first two because of wanting to seek a better understanding the bible and to follow it better. I left the JW's due to the fact of 1914 being wrong and Mormonism had no foundation to stand on with their Book of Mormon. What about you?
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I was christian i cant actually remember what sect lol i left because the bible conflicted with logic reason and science i grew to love finding out things and thats deadly to a religious belief.
I was a Christian from the church of Christ. First, I noticed things like lots of flood stories before the bible flood story, other religious figures that were eerily similar to Jesus, but predates him by centuries, and the convienience that none of the miracles ever left evidence and that history has shown that multiple biblical events like the exodus never happened. That was just what opened my eyes to doubting the absolute truth of Christianity. After I could clearly see the words in the bible I started seeing how absurd some of it was, specifically the convoluted twisting of events surrounding Jesus in order to fulfill prophecy and the complete impossibility of the sun being created after the earth, day and night, and plants.
Once I doubted the bible, I was free to ask myself why I should believe in any god, and if there is any evidence that the universe has a creator at all. I found the answer to be no.
Yes like making Joseph and Mary go to bethlehem. Experts agree that a census would never have sent people to where they were born. They would have simply done it where they lived. It would have been chaos sending everyone back to their place of birth.
It was written just to fill a prophecy.
I can just imagine them doing a census like that today... :)
@Lmale, logic, reason, and science definitely was a catalyst for me as well. Had to chuckle at how you mention that finding out things and learning are deadly to religious belief, I fully agree.
@ex-christian_atheist, what initially got me was the epic of gilgamesh in questioning the authenticity of the bible. The nail in the coffin was The Thinking Atheist's video on the flood story. After that, I basically was like you. IF any "god" does exist and evidence appears to support it beyond the bare minimum of needed evidence, then I'll weigh it and decide. But until then, I see no evidence.
Are you assuming, Campbell, that all atheists had some sort of 'prior belief'? As atheism is not typically considered a 'belief', then there are those of us who have never had *any* beliefs.
I wasn't trying to assume. Guess I could have re-worded. Knowing that most atheists, like Lmale said, were previously in some kind of belief system and then came out upon realizing the inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities. I myself came out of Christianity because of the ludicrousness of the total sum of what I had up to that point. I've only been an atheist since around the middle of last year so I am still getting the hang of things.
NP, Campbell, just wanted to let you know that those of us who have never created god(s) are here.
Since you're relatively new to this, permit me to offer a bit of advice...be aware that one can become just as dogmatic about, and therefore locked into, secular ideas as non-secular ones. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not.
Just be aware of it and pay attention to thinking and rethinking an opinion thru, giving yourself permission to change your mind about something if it doesn't sit quite right.
I will keep that in mind :)
No i think hes just one of the few theists that realised a large part of the atheists were theist.
I find it refreshing compared to theists that think we were brainwashed by education lol
I'm a former Christian, was raised Catholic. But, then gravitated away from Catholicism to more non-denominational 'brand' of it. Over the past few years, I started to relfect more objectively on the Bible readings, and eventually felt that it wasn't based on literal truths. I followed Charles Darwin's life story of how he left Christianity, although, it's hard to say in his later years if he still felt called it or was agnostic. I admired how he reviewed the Bible objectively, and once I did that, it no longer seemed remotely factual. To worship a deity based on parables, myths and fables, wasn't something I felt comfortable doing anymore. I went through a sort of grieving process, leaving the faith. I lost a few friends. It was a hard journey, but eventually came to atheism rather naturally. People sometimes wonder if atheism is a choice, and I say no. I didn't choose it, it sort of found me. If that makes sense.
I was raised in a Methodist household and began to doubt the validity of the bible due to contradicting and fantastic tales of supernatural events. Oddly enough I started to see stories like the burning bush and parting of the Red Sea as something like one of my comic book stories of super heroes and that's when it dawned on me. Also there were little oddities that I noticed about Christian holidays like: why did an Easter bunny deliver sweets and colored hard boiled chicken eggs to children on the day of the resurrection and why did we have a decorated evergreen shrub that isn't found in Israel in our home for the birth of Christ? After that I started looking into other faiths and mythology of other cultures and found that many of the religious rites observed on holidays and stories like Noah's flood were actually borrowed from earlier cultures. Eventually I found information that linked the Jesus character to an archetype figure that many other faiths use as their savior. The more I dug the more conflicting information I found and knew then that religion is a fabrication of man to fill the gaps of knowledge. I guess it's kind of the same old boring type of enlightenment story that many atheists have these days.
Theres one thing theists never accept no matter how i try to explain.
Once you've come to atheism you cant go back nothing but proof of god could make an atheist stop being an atheist.
Oh and you cant force a theist to become atheist its not possible. They have to come to atheism. You can show them there are problems with their religion but they will ignore it unless they are having doubts of their own.
There are indeed atheists who have converted to theism without (what I suspect you would call) proof of god.
I meant to say an atheist cant force him/her self to believe again.