A farewell to religion.

Just watched this video of young kids who were brought up Religious but have now turned away from it and why they have.




Good for them using their god given mind to turn away from the evil that is religion.
So have any of you done the same? and why?.
Don't worry If anyone comes in condemning us all to hell I will report it

Oh a quote here by Christopher Hitchens which pretty much sums me up.

"I am not even an atheist so much as I am an anti theist ; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth but I hold that the influence and the effects of religious belief is positively harmful".

reply to post by boymonkey74


Hello.

In tool usage, we can look in history to see our advancement from Stone Age, Bronze, Iron, and all the other developmental stages up to our current level of technology.

As a social "technology", religion is still stuck back in Early Bronze Age.

Religion may have benefited humanity as a social technology in the early ages of man, but, it is long past time to throw away these cave man superstitions.

That is 100% my view on religion. They are right when they said that anything done under the guise of religion can also be done without religion. awesome thread s&f!

Tho i would bash religion.. why would i waste my energy?

It will eventually fade out.. but only to replaced by something else.

Human will always look for something to fill the gap with.


Im also worried about this new wave of Atheist, kids who think is cool to be one... you can never be a true atheist until you experience things and naturally become one.

I was Atheist b4 it was cool man! i was atheist b4 i knew the word "atheist" existed!

reply to post by boymonkey74


I am skeptical that it took them that long to put 2+2 together.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Well If they grew up in a religious family and brainwashed from birth of course it took a long time to realise the truth.
That is why making your child follow your religion is abuse and morally wrong.

reply to post by luciddream


We have to fight it, If we do nothing we will wake up with it creeping into everyone's lives (already is tbh). What If it got to the top of government? do we want a theocracy? where even speaking against religion is punishable by death? We still have places like that on earth and we must make sure it doesn't entangle it's self into Government,schools and the public.
Don't forget that many religions want an end of days and there are people who would gladly bring it about to prove their club right.
We have to fight them for the sake of humanity's future.

reply to post by luciddream


It should not be so much about bashing religions as it should be about promoting education and reasonable thinking.

However there are plenty of reasons to bash religious organisations and even religious thinking. More so i think it is abusive to teach anyone to take any idea on faith alone instead of teaching someone the scientific way of truth through observation and experimentation.

The idea of an all knowing, all powerful god is damn near crippling to many religiously minded people i see on a regular basis. It promotes a herd mentality, stifles mental development, and their books push tradition over scientific discovery.


Also it should be ridiculed in the same way as racism, or bigotry, shovanism, feminism, homophobia, or any other idealogy that sets one group apart from another by promoting hate for outsiders. It is in the same league as these other things because it springs from the same lack of education and just basic ignorance.

I myself have lived on both sides if the fence. Life started off in a religious setting. Single mother with 3 kids just trying to do her best. Ended up putting us in an adventist private school. Thats where I really woke up..
We had a teacher who had no problem being racist, anti gay, 100% anti left wing and well pretty much everything the bible is anti.
It made life miserable for most of my class mates.
Years later I still managed to cling onto whatever small piece of religion I could. Mostly out of fear.
Then I met my wife. She taught me so much. And indirectly. About how its possible to believe science and be spiritual still. How living by the bible would be impossible for me because I am not a hateful person. How I naturally believe in acceptance, love and freedom.
I now officially want nothing to do with the bible, but I do believe in more than this physical plane. I am no longer a fearful christian, but a free spirit.

reply to post by drz400


Good for you and thanks for sharing..great story and boy what a wife

reply to post by boymonkey74


Hi boymonkey. I agree with you totally.

Well If they grew up in a religious family and brainwashed from birth of course it took a long time to realise the truth.
That is why making your child follow your religion is abuse and morally wrong.

Absolutely it is difficult to deconvert for a person indoctrinated as a kid. Home-schooling by hard-core evangelicals really frightens me, for the sake of the kids.

Have you ever heard of The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture?
A very good read by Dr Darrel Ray (D Ed), free pdf version is at the link.
From the preface:

The process of writing, interviewing and researching gave me the
opportunity to hear the stories of many who have escaped religion. Most
of their stories reflect the following four themes:
1. Events that opened their eyes to religious manipulation in their
life or family;

2. Long hidden or suppressed doubts about the teachings;

3. Their ultimate act or declaration of liberation from organized
religion; and

4. The double-edged sword of living without the crutch of a
supernatural friend and learning to accept full responsibility
for life.

Many of them recounted both the terror and the relief they felt after
leaving religion behind. Terror at realizing there was no longer an imaginary
friend; relief that no one was looking over their shoulder any more. Several
described the experience as similar to that of a child learning to go to sleep
without a favorite teddy bear. Others described it as simply growing up or
outgrowing the need for the imaginary friends of childhood.

I don’t want to leave the impression that everybody who contributed and
assisted with this book agrees with it completely. Each of us has our own
journey. My hope is that the questions and tools this book offers will lead
readers to critically examine the influence of religion in their life and culture.

Very important little book, I think. It was very helpful for me when I was researching the sociological effects of religion; I met the author at a conference last spring.
S/F

reply to post by Woodcarver


Well said and nothing I could add to that.

reply to post by boymonkey74


While I am downright permissive of the right to believe what you want, I tend to agree with the harm caused not by belief but, by policies and behavior justified by unsubstantiatable assertions.

If we widen the debate to all belief systems and include non-theist doctrines, the parallels are dramatic.

Do We Live in a Proto-Theocracy?

reply to post by greencmp


I don't think we do. Freedom of religion does not mean prevalence for religion. While religion is still a very real danger to society in a variety of ways mirrored by any number of political or economical movements, it does not have the ear of the government in quite the way you seem to be implying.

reply to post by boymonkey74


HA! I just watched the vid, and was not at all surprised to see it was from TheThinkingAtheist. That guy does some good stuff.
You've probably seen "Welcome to this World", right? (It's been linked here many times)

The site owner, Seth Andrews, has written a book also calledDeconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason.

In this 190-page autobiography, Seth Andrews (host of The Thinking Atheist) recounts his religious upbringing, his years in Christian schools, his decade as a Christian broadcaster, his ultimate apostasy, and how a 30-year believer could one day come to create one of the most popular atheist communities on the internet.

This book helps to give an inside-out look at the protestant Christian culture in the United States, and it will hopefully encourage others as they deal with the difficult questions in their own journeys toward truth.

I met him at that same conference last spring! (I own both books now).

I grew up in a small town of less the 5000 people, in this town we had 9 churches and one temple. It was the kind of town where everyone went to pay respects to there gods 2-3 times a week.

My family was one of the handful of families that was not religious, my father was an atheist and my mother is agnostic. Our parents made a point of never forceing their beliefs on us.

One day when I was About 8 or 9 my aunty convinced my mom to let her take my brothers and I to church. I had no concept of religion before then other then heaven and hell, so it was a huge learning curve.

The very first time I went to church I was put into a bible study class right away. The very first lesson was about adam and eve.... The lady conducting the study was telling us about how god made eve out of one of adams ribs. I remember standing straight up and asking how is that possible? How can a woman be made from his rib thats impossible! Every child and adult went quiet as the teacher went on to give me the whole god made everything speach. I wasnt having it, so I asked what proof there was proving her theory.. she said that it is in the bible. I asked her who wrote the bible, she couldnt say. At this time my aunty was telling me to sit down and be quiet. So I sat down and waited it out.

When I got home I had a conversation with my dad. I told him about how I questioned the teacher and her reactions, I told how I felt uncomfortable being there. He told me to stick it out for 2 more weeks to at least give it a shoot for my aunts sake. So thats what I did. In that 2 weeks I read the bible (it was a rainy 2 weeks and it was summer time so I had lots of time to read), I read the part about how gays were to be stoned to death. My uncle was gay and that made me mad. I could not believe that some one would kill another person because of that. I also learned about the ten comandments. So on that last day, the pastor came down to bible study to see how we were making out with our studies.

(before I continue I should give you some information on the pastor. I was friends with his son and I often played at their house. A year before this incident the pastor was known to get drunk and beat his wife and son. I was also at his house when his wife found out he was cheating on her)

So the pastor went to the front of the class and introduced himself and asked if anyone had questions. I immediately stood up and asked the same questions I had asked 2 weeks prior, sadly I got the same answers. I then asked why would god want people to kill gays even after the bible has said love thy neighbour.. He said "gays are not like us, they have damned themselves to hell for not being the way god had originaly intended". I got really pissed off and said "should I go kill my uncle for being gay?" the past answered back with "no murder is a sin, if you commit murder you will go to hell".

I was extremely confused because he said it was ok to stone gays to death but if I do I would go to hell.

At this point I did not care anymore, so I made a big move and said this " If god created the ten commandments as rules for us to live by, then why do you cheat on your wife?"

He went silent, after a short pause he started to speak, I cut him off and asked " why do you beat your wife and son when the bible says love thy neighbour?"

Well I have never seen a pastor get that upset, he told me to stand in the corner, I refused to until he answered my questions. This only made him mader. He came over and grabbed me by the ear and went to take me to the corner. As soon as he grabbed my ear I hit him as Hard As I could where the sun dont shine and ran out of the church.

That was almost 20 years ago. Sense then I have become an atheist. I see no reason to be religious as religion spawns hatred, fear, wars, biggotry ect. Also hearing about all these preists and nuns molesting children growing up just made me sick to my stomach... how could a man/woman of god treat a child like that? My god parents (lol) were native and they made a point to teach me about residential schools. They regularly witnessed priests and nuns hitting children, starving them, throwing them down multiple flights of stairs, locking them outside in the winter time with no clothes, breaking kids bones, raping children, whipping children and even killing children.... After learning that how could you support the church?

A few thoughts ...

- Parents have a right to raise their children in whatever religion they believe in. (no matter how stupid the rest of us think it is). To deny parents the right to raise children in their religion means that the government will be more intrusive into the private lives of people. That scares me just as much as the thought of children being raised in extremist religions.

- Most organized religions have some good things about them but also a some not so good. Kind of a mixed bag. Example - The Catholic Church has outreaches with hospitals and orphanages ... look at Mother Teresa and her order. I believe those things would be pleasing to Jesus. But at the same time, it has the Vatican bank and all the problems associated with that. I can picture Jesus coming up to the Vatican bank and 'overturning the tables'.

- There is a difference between organized religion and spirituality. Many organized religions have spirituality in them, but you have to DIG DEEP to find them. The good spirituality is like buried treasure within that religion. For example - the writings of St. Terese of Lisieux and St. Edith Stein are amazing .. but you have to dig past some of the doctrines of the Catholic Church like Onanism to find them.

- I am of the opinion that many aspects of different organized religions KILL spirituality.

- I am also of the opinion that many aspects of some of the different organized religions help GROW spirituality. It's a matter of hunting and pecking ... filtering ... reading with an open mind and heart ... discarding and accepting. Example - The Catholic interpretation of 'Confession'. It's a good thing to examine your soul and actions and to tell God you are sorry. It's a good thing to have someone help you with that (the priest) so that by talking about things you can see more clearly and not just through your own eyes. But at the same time, you can be forgiven without going through a priest. But the practice is a good one to get into ... examining your life to see where you mess up and where you can do better. Like I said ... a mixed bag.

Anyways ... a few thoughts (for whoever is interested) that came to me from the opening post.

It's the age of information, the age of the internet where religions come to die.......and yet there are still those theists clinging onto whatever nugget of misinformation they can find in order to keep their fluffy version of reality alive...



And that Proto-Theocracy nonsense? merely another play of the christian victim card......

FlyersFan
- Parents have a right to raise their children in whatever religion they believe in. (no matter how stupid the rest of us think it is).

Some (including myself) consider such brainwashing to be child abuse. Children should be allowed to decide themselves at an older age whether or not to accept superstitions as truth.

To deny parents the right to raise children in their religion means that the government will be more intrusive into the private lives of people. That scares me just as much as the thought of children being raised in extremist religions.

The big bad government denies parents the right to do many abusive things to their children.

reply to post by Prezbo369


I believe that parents should not force their kids into a religion but should support them in finding something that they believe in. Luckly my ex agrees with me, our daughter will learn about all religions an atheism. She will be taught that just like we are trying to teach her how to love everyone equally regardless of age, race, sexual preference ect. We have already told my exs mother that she can not teach her only grand child about being wiccan untill she is a teen that way see is able to mentaly comprehend the mechanics behind wicca and any other religion.

To me that is the right way of doing things.