hey guys

As somebody who was raised catholic and went to private religious schools, I always had a really hard time trying to believe in a god. One day this pastor came in and had a little sermon where he essentially told everybody that it was ok to question your faith. This was a relief to me because I thought I was doing something wrong because I questioned the existance of a god. Bear in mind this was when I was like... 9 or 10 years old.

I put religion on the backburner for a while after I got into highschool. It was still something that was kind of there, but it didn't have much bearing on what I did. I found myself resenting a lot of the arbitrary restrictions catholicism put in place, such as not eating meat on fridays during lent (or something). There's also the whole bit about repressing your sexuality.

I started taking a 2 year physics course in highschool. I failed miserably at first, but then one day something clicked. I altered the way I was looking at the problems, and suddenly I was acing every test. I went from the worst student in the class to the best. I learned the science behind a ton of things I previously didn't understand, and I changed my methods of thinking so that I could logically deduce the answer to something when I wasn't immediately sure. At this point, religion was still on the backburner.

I don't remember specifically when, but one day I came across a video on youtube from TheAmazingAtheist. As much shit as that guy spews, it made me consciously think about religion again. Almost immediatley I decided there was no persuasive evidence to support the existance of a god, and threw religion away entirely. I also realised it was ok to identify as an atheist.

I don't know much about mormonism, but being raised catholic is straight up indoctrination. In a way, I both resent and appreciate my religious education, because it fucked with my head for the longest time, but now I can pin point all the reasons why I don't believe in or support any religion. I'm still fucking embarassed at the amount of bias I had against any sort of information that conflicted with my beliefs before I came to this conclusion. Learning about Luther's 95 theses and how corrupt the church was (and still is)? That was history. Of course it's all better now!


tl;dr being raised religious broke my head, and studying physics fixed it. Then I explored my religion and the history behind and decided it was all bullshit.

E: Lol warlord I was thinking of that exact quote.

In response to the question, "What is God, and what is Truth?"

"If I take a lamp and shine it toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often we assume that the light on the wall is God, but the light is not the goal of the search; it is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it! Similarly, someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him, sees nothing. What we perceive as God is the byproduct of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, pure and unblemished, not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe; God looks astonishingly like we do! Or, we turn to look at our shadow and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose: which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty…and in all its flaws, and in so doing better understand the world around us."

As a person with no religious education and who has pretty much been told my whole life what the "truth" is (aka believe in the sciences), I have a hard time condemning religious people. I am terrible at math. I scored a 1450 on the reading and writing sections (combined score) on my SAT, and scored a 1750 overall. I can't go through the math that makes physics real. I don't understand the math that makes it real. But I believe in some aspects of it nonetheless, and that is called faith.

I wish I had grown up in a place where there was more of an emphasis on science and mathematics so I could claim that my beliefs weren't based on faith. Is it too late now to change my understanding? No. But I don't really care about science because my experience with it in the American "education" system was so frustrating and discouraging. So I take some of it on faith, and for other things I look back to naturalism and the concept of evolution to base my life philosophy on.

I defend people who are religious because I feel most atheists are following a faith as well. Most of them aren't fucking math geniuses who can whip out the actual formulaic concepts that prove their claims on why there is no God. Yet I see almost all of them beat their chest and condemn people who do the exact same thing that they do. Some religious people are simply intolerable, but in just as many ways so are atheists.

I've known a lot of people who say they believe in God "just in case". That is, they'd rather believe in God on the off chance He does exist rather than risk going to Hell. That to me just seems cowardly. I'd rather say "fuck God" and believe whatever I want than follow a religion out of fear that something might happen. To me, morality is most profound when it comes without the threat of eternal damnation. I am who I am because I choose to be.

Welcome back, glad you've been doing something you feel is worth while for the past few years, though I never noticed you were gone :v:

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Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

Welcome back, glad you've been doing something you feel is worth while for the past few years, though I never noticed you were gone :v:

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Glad to be back! Well, it's less about personality, than noticing that the "recent posts" keeps getting updated less and less. In some ways I'm happy that my presence being no longer here not being noticed is a good thing, in others i'm sad. Such as, I'm sad in that I didn't produce enough to make a noticeable impact, but on the other hand, i'm glad that I didn't post a super ton lol.

Oh hey, there's stuff going on in this forum. That's strange. Hi everyone.

wort wort wort

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Originally Posted by Pooky

I've known a lot of people who say they believe in God "just in case". That is, they'd rather believe in God on the off chance He does exist rather than risk going to Hell. That to me just seems cowardly. I'd rather say "fuck God" and believe whatever I want than follow a religion out of fear that something might happen. To me, morality is most profound when it comes without the threat of eternal damnation. I am who I am because I choose to be.

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Yeah, I agree. If there is a God I doubt he's the God of fire and brimstone and genocide that the old testament makes him out to be. In fact, I'm almost certain that people who take the old testament as fact are extremely irresponsible. I'm curious to see if raising my own children (once I have them) in an environment where Thor's adventures and the Edda are the main stories told to them as children would actually make them pagan or not.

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Originally Posted by Bodzilla

wort wort wort

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"die, so I can collect your head!"