Not wanting my kids getting sexually assaulted is up there as well.
Blind faith only invites others to exert their power over you.
I became an atheist because in college I spent a lot more time around fundamentalists. The more time I spent around them and their rediculous justifications for thinking the Earth was 6,000 years old the more that it became apparent to me that if they could be that ignorant of why their beliefs didnt make sense, the same could be true of mine. So I investigated why I believed what I did and over time more and more of my religious beliefs failed to withstand the sort of scruity that I put them under and eventually I realized I couldnt call myself christian anymore because I didnt believe any of it.
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I noticed my Xmas gifts were wrapped with the same paper as my birthday presents. There was no Santa after that.
your family was more dedicated and cooperative than mine
I was an extremely faithful catholic until the age of 18. Around then I decided to start taking my faith even more seriously and started digging into the big questions and what the leaders in my (Catholic) church thought. Very soon after I was a very angry atheist. So very fucking angry,
These days I’m simply not preoccupied with the religion question. I have better things to do.
Same. But baptist.
Same until the last bit. I’m obsessed with religions.
How about having a whole nation being controlled by the church by letting them control the education system and influence the people to make democratic decisions against their best interests because a political party is in favor of the church.
That’s how your end up with a quiet revolution and secularism.
PS1’s Final Fantasy Tactics.
I will not elaborate.
Blame yourself or God.
If he was real, God is a dick.
I started down the path to atheism when I tried proving that my faith was the correct one and got stuck when I realized that all the other religions also think that they are the correct one and the greatest predictor of what you believe is simply what your parents believe, so what exactly made me so sure that I was the right one?
Religions need to be rebooted. How many times are they in the news for abuse of power, inappropriate behavior, disputes over land and their rules, and their influence on politics and government? Too many, if you ask me.
It’s not a bad thing to regularly get people together, form community, and care for each other. They just need to get with the times, man.
Suggestions:
- don’t shun “non-believers”
- stop touching children
- don’t kill people for inappropriately invoking your God’s name or image
- focus less on afterlife and more on the present
- don’t try to keep people stupid, the Internet exists and once they find out you’ll lose them forever
- don’t go full zealot on cherry-picked texts while completely ignoring other ones to make arguments.
- don’t be a dick
- have checks on power, money, and influence
- ain’t no one got time to read tomes
I agree with the second half
My first grade teacher at a religious private school every day beat the crap out of the only black girl in class, told her she was stupid, to shut up and called her a n*****r. We were supposed to care what the teacher’s favorite church hymn was.
That’s horrible wtf…
It took me ~25 years to recall it and realize how horrible it was. We were about 6. This lady was 87 years old, and would pull down this girl’s pants and spank her in front of the entire class, and tell her she didn’t deserve to be in the school because she received financial assistance.
It would be great if Christians could love as deeply as they hated.
Going to a religious school works pretty well, too.
Ah yes, comes with a fair amount spite for the religion too.
Watching how others with faith act and be disgusted.
That said Song of the Fucked Duck by Marge Piercy has a great thought on that:
The will to be totally rational
is the will to be made out of glass and steel:
and to use others as if they were glass and steel.I can still love the sacred in a profane existence.
You gotta be careful though!
The metaphysical / new age religions have a version of “a desire to be totally rational” that is honestly just as bad.
I grew up in one. No glass and steel, but quite the desire to be made out of cosmic sunbeams and spiritual joyfulness.
Humans feel more than that. Pain, grief, loneliness, stress, rage, and pride aren’t toxic energy: they are existence. You can’t aspire to something that cuts out half of your existence, or you’re always going to feel inadequate.
It’s the absurdity of the shit the supposed supreme creator taught us the one time he showed up. He taught us that gay sex is bad but forgot to mention that burning coal would also lead us to a bad time.
It’s just absolute nonsense when you think about it. Especially the part where there are literally trillions of planets around trillions of stars and many of which can possibly harbor life.
Totally didn’t mention that part.
Because it’s made up nonsense
