Ah, Religion - My Short Story

I've studied up quite a bit on religions, as well as on science and I've done plenty of reading and research, which brought me to the point where I became an atheist.

In terms of your family, you really have to just get to the point where you don't hate their beliefs, no matter how close-minded or irrational it seems to you. Keep in mind, you believed what they believed for most of your life, so for them to believe it can't seem absurd to you.

You have to realize that the majority of the world is not on your side, and its your decision to believe what you believe, just like its everybody else's decision to believe what they believe. If you want to fight every day, challenge people about their religion. You'll have much more piece of mind, and overall peace by just believing what you believe and keeping it to yourself, or discussing it with people in civil manner. But when it comes to proving your points with people who are close-minded that doesn't share your beliefs, you're not gonna get anywhere.. just like they wont get anywhere with you.

You touched up on it -- but I'd also ask about the universal moral code. It's the morality code that each successful religion shares -- but also a code that most successful civilizations have adhered to. Religions have evolved over time, and have borrowed from each other. They're all the same in one way or another.

Anywho, good luck with your search.
 


uuKyz.jpg
 
Just get over it, it's a waste of time and energy. It's not worth getting your panties in a bunch and causing unnecessary conflict by challenging their beliefs and trying to become some sort of agnostic crusader. I've gotten into plenty of debates/arguments throughout the years with my parents, it's just not worth it.
 
Read books by Hitchens and Dawkins. While they can both be quite extreme, they can help shape the things you really dislike about religion, and usually give you enough ammunition to completely stump any standard priest/pastor.
 
cardine said:
You question the pastor all you want, and eventually the pastor will be forced to say "you have to take it on faith". That's not a good answer for you, but it will be a good enough answer for everybody around you, including your family.
Click to expand...
-Since Cardine is God, it's a safe bet that this is the best answer on the thread.

Best of luck on your 'coming out.' - My own experience is similar but I have bigger reasons to hate my family and it was easy (downright necessary) for me to leave them behind forever.

I fully recognize that you're not likely to find it as easy to leave them or otherwise separate yourself from them, but I'm sure that most atheists would agree that if you stay in contact with your family, you will be spending the rest of your life being upset and wanting to 'reform' them... But failing to do so.

Rule #1: You can't change anyone's religion. Not even a little sister that looks up to you; You're only going to make them believe that you have lost your mind and they'll pity you.

In fact, I wouldn't talk to that preacher if I were you. What possible good can come from it? Whatever good thing you're looking for, he's already trained not to give you.

PS: Agnosticism is just a word that means: I like to keep all my bases covered, just in case... It doesn't allow you to feel as free.
 
I think (personal thoughts, I don't want to cause an uprising here) that religion is for the weak, the people who are too scared to live by their own beliefes, so they adopt other peoples'.
Now that you have "broken free", you can see just how "influencial" those pasters can be, and that their followers really don't have "free will".
For these people, they take comfort at the fact of having such a fixed routine, which focuses on many good values as well.
Don't go all out war now that you have given up on chrisitanity. Religion (christianity) has many good causes, such as charity, kindness etc...
Sure it comes at a price, putting your life's savings in the basket, but people who follow a rigorously religous lifestyle take pride in it, and they sleep well at night, which is what matters. The only thing that I find to be a problem is their lack of tolernace towards others, in this case - you. They don't understand anything outside their customs, they can't. Don't hold it against them in the way of "we don't agree with you because you're stupid." They really don't understand what it is to live without god's "oversight".
Anyways, I think I've stressed the topic far enough. You just need to come to terms that you have branched into a different direction than of your familie's. Trying to "flip" them won't help. Try to stay close with them, and be understanding of their dependancies. Hopefully they will do the same, and your relationship with them will strengthen.
 
Ehem.. It's sad that some of you view other peoples beliefs or non beliefs as weakness. Some people need to believe to complete themselves, if that helps them have fullness of life, who are you to judge. The truth of the matter is that life is so short, we all should enjoy the ride and conquer.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAIpRRZvnJg"]YouTube - Instruction Manual for Life [cc][/ame]
 
Perhaps you haven't heard the good word of Benny Hinn?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVIPF_PmHuQ]YouTube - Benny Hinn - FIRE Falling on Kids (1)[/ame]

Or try this one;

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lvU-DislkI]YouTube - Benny Hinn: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor[/ame]
 
people die -- something or nothing happens at that point
people live -- they have some degree of emotions, volition, values, etc
there is a world -- it either was always here/evolved from something (that was already here) or was made via a higher force/being/etc.
The idea that it just somehow got here but random chance/explosions sounds like a macbook air popping out of an explosion at an aluminum factory.
if there was design/intentionality/creation involved, this opens the can of worms known as religion. it is not intellectual weakness or cowardice to consider the possibility that your/our existence is not a random chemical-biological-etc. chance

athiests tend to be granted the high ground in arguments about life/god/death --but a lot of their arguments are empty and self congratulatory -- like the emperor's new clothes.
 
SUP3RNOVA said:
As you said, you mainly study prophecy...

How can you conclude prophecies are valid when you only use material in 1 book? Just because you can prove that people existed in that time period doesn't mean you can prove all the miracles that actually happened. I could write "Today I cut my arm off and made it grow back", and if I passed that onto my kids who knew nothing about the world around them, they would believe that someone cut their arm off and made it grow back. "Silly" is the word I find myself most commonly using when arguing religion.

Ex. the Old Testament makes the prophecy that Jesus will be born and he will save everyone. How was that fulfilled? Well...in the New Testament it shows that Jesus was born, turned water into wine, and then saved the world (literally). You would call that a fulfilled prophecy...most others would call it the completion of a lie.

What also makes no sense is why we have no proof of religion today. Why did ancient humans get to see proof for hundreds and hundreds of years? But when we can actually record things and are smart enough to at least slightly understand science/physics...religion is gone only to return "like a thief in the night".
Click to expand...

So, take Messianic prophesy out of the equation. You have the book of Daniel nailing the rule of Alexander the Great on the head. Then, it goes further detailing that his kingdom would be split into four kingdoms upon his death. That happened exactly as the book of Daniel said it would. Because of these types of prophecies, people have tried to come in and say the book of Daniel was written after this happened, because they cant fathom how Daniel knew things like this in such detail. Since there is such detail, people do not really try to argue the prophecies as lucky guesses, instead they say they had to have been written after they happened.

Look at end time prophecy, also. Not, scary apocolyptic stuff, just general stuff. In 70a.d. Israle was wiped off the map, literally. It was renaimed Palestine. Btw, the bible prophecied the destruction of Jerusalem and that no stone would be left unturned. That was fulfilled - post bible.

In Dueteronomy (sp) the bible says that Israel would become a wasteland. Nothing would grow there, it would be a barren land. In 1867 (I think) Mark Twain toured Israel (Palestine) and said it was a cursed barren, desolate wasteland. That prophecy was fulfilled. But, in Ezekiel, the bible says the land of Israle would be reborn in the future. If you look at Israel today, it is a green country surrounded by dirt countries. That prophecy was fulfilled in the 1900's, way after the bible was written.

Those are just basic prophecies, again in ADHD form. But, the specificity of Bible prophecies sets it up to have errors. But, prophecies are fulfilled all the time.

I study bible prophecy as a "faith" builder.
 
SUP3RNOVA said:
I'm sure all of those points will lead to more points, and I'm sure that in the end, he will have an answer for everything. I'm also sure that every answer he has is going to come from the Bible, which is illogical for obvious reasons. But that seems to be the way religious people (Christians in this case) argue...they prove prophecies in their Bible with other prophecies coming true...in their Bible.

Also I extend a 1/3 apology to turbo for always ragging on her raging atheism. I still disagree with being an asshole about it though.

It just sucks that I can already foresee this destroying my family...all over one gigantic lie.
Click to expand...

Damn, You just made my night. You have given me hope that it's not to late for the rest of the people who have been brainwashed out there.

Well done.

(Wait, am I being punked?)

This is good at highlighting all the contradictions in the Bible:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk"]YouTube - Quiz Show (Bible Contradictions)[/ame]
 
Last edited:
Calvin said:
The idea that it just somehow got here but random chance/explosions sounds like a macbook air popping out of an explosion at an aluminum factory.
Click to expand...
Wow, you have no basic understanding of evolution at all, do you?

If you have any formal training in Science with emphasis on evolution, then you must have no grasp of the length of time we have passed since the big bang, in which our planet formed.
 
thelorax said:
YouTube - Instruction Manual for Life [cc]
Click to expand...
I fucking love that film, lorax... Man is it spot-on about religion in the USA.

In fact I don't think I've ever seen a better lesson, ever, on how to accept the stupidity of others.

Thanks for posting it. Will watch again, and will henceforth sound like less of a dick when some zealots attack atheism around me.

-I do wish they'd named it better though; I bet the name of it turns off a lot of people that think it's trying to push a spiritualism or philosophy on them.
 
turbolapp said:
This is good at highlighting all the contradictions in the Bible:
YouTube - Quiz Show (Bible Contradictions)
Click to expand...

I'm reading up about the story of Horus now (just finished Religulous and that's one of the points they bring up as valid), that would be something extremely interesting to bring up to followers of Jesus.

And to the person who said "Just leave them be, for the most part a religious person will live a good moral life, it's only a few that do bad, blah blah"...It's not about that, it's about the fact that you're stripping innocent children of their free will by teaching them literal fairy tales as divine truth...the whole idea of it is wrong. Religion in politics makes me want to spit up too.

Perhaps I've just swung a little hard to the other side of the fence initially and am a bit more extreme, but it really upsets me that people are okay with raising robots. I never really repeated the church lines with everybody else in church because I knew something wasn't right about it...people shouldn't have to congregate like zombies and confess that they're terrible shitty people that need to be saved. I mean ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

I might be praying for forgiveness next week...
 
Anybody know if there's any weight to this? It all looks interesting but I haven't really looked into any of the cases yet to see the unbiased similarities.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-17BNU7L6g]YouTube - Jesus and the Story of Horus[/ame]
 
lukep said:
Wow, you have no basic understanding of evolution at all, do you?

If you have any formal training in Science with emphasis on evolution, then you must have no grasp of the length of time we have passed since the big bang, in which our planet formed.
Click to expand...

You should stop parroting things from your 7th grade science textbook.

evolutionary theory itself continues to evolve as those holding to it have little choice but to acknowledge its admit shortcomings. Periods of rapid change; multiple simultaneous evolution; and the like reflect that the theory is an educated guess.

Some of you might be familiar w/the british philosophy Antony Flew -- one of the more ardent athiests of the past 40-50 years who participated in countless debates on the subject.

he actually gave up atheism recently because there were just too many shortcomings. he isn't now christian/whatever but as i mentioned before, this has opened up the 'religion' can of worms for him. here's an excerpt of some interviews w/ him:
Biola > Page 1 : Biola News & Communications

anywho i really don't care what people believe but the lame arguments and ad nauseum mutual dry humping of athiests gets really old
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom