Losing my Religion

a reply to: misskat1

"Jesus loves me yes I know, for the bible tells me so."

I was encouraged to sing that in class when I was I child, even though I had no idea who Jesus or the bible was. To further complicate things I was born catholic so by the time I was ten I had no idea what to think.

Those beliefs forced me to reconsider who or what is in charge-I lean towards the agnostic side of things but I still believe in a governing body so I am back at square one. It's hard being meta.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Ive only lived in Cali, so I have no Idea. I hear the small towns in the bible belt are not so welcoming to the non christian. But, you can be anything in Cali, and find several people who are ready to jump on board with you.

originally posted by: whyamIhere
I have a Relationship.

I dumped Religion years ago.

This. Right. Here.

Once I began to see religion for what it truly is, I went through many of the same emotions and fears the OP has described in the opening post.

Once I finally worked through it all, I stepped back, took a long hard look at religion in general, and all of the strife it causes, and I said, "This can't be right. My God is SO much bigger than all of this."

Something about that sudden realization was incredibly liberating. Our relationship with God (should an individual choose to have one) is between the individual and God. All of the religious hucksters, zealots and hypocrites have no bearing upon my relationship with my God. Not any more. I don't need a middle man!

Congratulations on seeing through the systems put in place to control you

Keep the faith and never forget: Your God is so much bigger than all of the earthly crap forced upon us and done to us in his name.

a reply to: boymonkey74

yeah, my friends
tell me Polygamy is Hugh
out there right now...

originally posted by: misskat1
For the past few years, I have experienced a Deprogramming of False Belief Systems. This has been a painful experience. Believe me when I tell you, its pretty depressing to find out what you have lived and made life decisions on for 50 years is nothing but BS (Belief Systems).

Hey! I was 65 when I completely stepped out of the "God circle".

Thanks for saying its a difficult, painful experience - - realizing your entire life (belief system) was a lie.

I am fortunate that my own Christian indoctrination was mild. I really feel for those who had an intense or forced indoctrination.

Best thing I ever did for me

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Ive gone back and forth so many times. After leaving my first religious Belief System (BS), I tried all the rest, looking for the proper box to put God in, but I have never found it in organized religion.
The Spiritual Experiences I have had, make it impossible to deny there is a higher power. but, organized religion just tries to define what that higher power is.

originally posted by: misskat1
a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Ive gone back and forth so many times. After leaving my first religious Belief System (BS), I tried all the rest, looking for the proper box to put God in, but I have never found it in organized religion.
The Spiritual Experiences I have had, make it impossible to deny there is a higher power. but, organized religion just tries to define what that higher power is.

I've had OBE's and other experiences since first memory. And don't believe in a higher power, such as a god.

I consider myself a Spiritual Atheist.

Center for Spiritual Atheism: www.centerforabetterworld.com...

a reply to: Annee
I have to agree with your statement. The higher power I have experienced is a Love energy. Im also a person who has experienced the after life and OBEs so, I can not deny it exists. But, as far as a supreme God, that sits in judgement, well Im just not feeling it. The jury is out on that one.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

That song has haunted me for years. And was the most appropriate title for this thread. Im listening to it now, thanks, Im sure it will be stuck in my head all day!!!

originally posted by: misskat1
What has helped you get through this process?

Time and critical thinking were my best friends in this regard.

I was raised as a Christian and claimed that label for about 30 years. But now, I don't really have any beliefs as regards a creator, an entity, a god, a story... because how can we know? I finally decided that I was OK with the unknown. I became comfortable friends with it. I am leery of anyone who tries to tell me "how it is"... I imagine there might be something beyond the physical (like an afterlife or some non-physical connection), but I don't know what it is (no one does) and I'll find out about it at some point. Until then, I'll do the right thing as much as I can ad live a good life.

I do have a lot of religious knowledge from my youth that I hold onto to this day. Not because it's religious, but because it's meaningful to me. Some lessons are very valuable and others (fear-based) are trash.

Congratulations on coming to your own conclusions. There's a pretty great group of like-minded individuals here, as I'm sure you know. Now, I'm going to be singing that REM song all day. It's a great song!

a reply to: misskat1

You can have faith without religion.

The two are not and should never be synonymous.

Sorry this is just a darn pet peeve of mine and I hate to be a grammar nazi but it's Losing not Loosing.

originally posted by: misskat1
What has helped you get through this process?

Dawkins, if I was being totally honest. He's quite brilliant and has some awesome books that explains evolution and makes sense of our existence in a way that us uneducated dimwits that were raised on illogical religious beliefs can grasp.

I used to be a hardcore christian fanatic. Then in my early twenties I went the complete opposite way, didn't even remember why till just the other day. But it was because my girlfriend brought me some dragon sculptures that where attached to some crystal rocks for my 20th birthday, then my Dad convinced me they would bring evil spirits into the house, scared the crap out of me. So I gave these sculptures away and it broke my girlfriends heart.

The entire ordeal just made me wake up and start questioning the whole belief structure I was raised to believe. Became a black sheep with my family and have never really been close to them since. But I regret nothing!!! lol.

Anyway............. Welcome to the rational side.

a reply to: misskat1

It first happened to me when I was in my final years in minor league Hockey.
Throughout my life before then I grew up in a catholic world, going to church, saying prayer before meals, etc.
Then when it came time for my confirmation I decided I wanted to play hockey on the nights of the weekly meetings and never finished my confirmation. When I didn't get in trouble, or anyone question my choice I simply just grew away from that life.

Then the final nail in the coffin was my second year in highschool (I went to a catholic highschool) and I questioned one of my religion teachers about something, and dropped some paleo science on him, we got into a little scuffle about origins and such and he tried to use the whole "The eye is to complex". I went home that night and discovered Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, and all those creationists, which led me to AronRa, and Thunderf00t and the Amazing Atheist, which led to my own fascination with biology and evolution.
Since then I have given the religion side of the story many tries, read the bible, studied up on Hindu practices and read many books on ancient religions.
I've never gone back to faith in a god since that day in highschool tho.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

I was raised a Jehovah Witness, so when I walked away, I also lost all my family. I will check into Dawkins research thank you.

a reply to: HawkeyeNation

I just hate that, thank you, didnt pay attention, I fixed it. Thank you again.

a reply to: misskat1

Check out Christopher Hitchens also.
Some of his lectures are on youtube.

You might find this to be an interesting read: The Pagan Files: Sun Gods As Atoning Saviours

Some of the quotes in it are eye opening...
From 400BC

Trust, ye saints, your Lord restored,
Trust ye in your risen Lord;
For the pains which Tammuz endured
Our salvation have procured.

Or this from 800BC

Lo! streaming from the fatal tree
His all atoning blood,
Is this the Infinite?—Yes, ’tis he,
Prometheus, and a god!
Well might the sun in darkness hide,
And veil his glories in,
When God, the great Prometheus, died
For man the creature’s sin.

Long before Christ ever lived. It's a long read, but worth it, in my opinion.

Since birth to my adulthood never went into any religious institution/school. All I know about religion was in first from observing religious people, listening, reading and later studying religious text including Bible and Qur'an. (never managed to go through Torah) As someone who values history, I loved to read about old religion, or what you call today mythology... but during all this time I never believed in anything, just had interest to find what big fuss is about.

Problems occurred when I started asking question, from very young age, from question - if god Created humans in his image, does that mean God has reproductive system, just as his creation... you can just imagine what kind of looks question like this would create for religious person, and I am just unable to understand why people would get offended, while no one seems to be offended if you ask similar question about different religion or some of ancient religion.

My reading about religion included also Hitchen's God is not great and some work from Dawkins, Harris as well many books of Big 3 of Sci-Fi. (one of them you can see in my signature )

As my path was quite different then yours, I can't give you much of advise, but I would suggest not to stop where you are... read about science, learn and you will find that more you learn, more you will know that actually there is no need for supreme being to explain how world(s) started, how it changes and what future might bring us.

Thankfully for me it started in my early/mid 20s.

I was a typical middle class guy coming from a good loving christian family. As a child and teen I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday and was very active in the church.

Once I got to college I started interacting with people who weren't like me (i.e. white, christian, male, straight, etc.) and it opened my eyes to other viewpoints. I stopped going to church, not because I didn't believe anymore, but because, well, I was in college, and I liked to party.

Around towards the end of college I wanted to get back into church and though I'd give it a fair shake. I really wanted to know the back story of the bible and how it came to be. I was looking at evidence of the flood, Jesus, who wrote what book, etc. That's really where I started to question everything about the Bible and the internet was the force behind it all.

So much information is out there about religion on the internet. I didn't have that available to me growing up. All I knew was what my preacher and parents said. At first I believed everything I saw on Zeitgeist. Then I started reading some actual scholars on the Bible. Bart Ehrman is one. Once you look into it, you find things like:

-1 John 5:7, the main verse on the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is a later addition. Yea, there are other verses that one could interpret as possibly mentioning the trinity, but the only explicit one is a later (much later) addition.

-John 7:53-8:11 is the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery. This is a later addition.

-Mark 16:9-20 is a later addition. Mark is the oldest gospel and it originally ends with the empty tomb. Nothing after that is present in the oldest manuscripts.

-Luke chapters 1 and 2, again later additions

-The Serpent mentioned in Genesis is never called Satan. Its that; just a serpent. Satan coinciding with a serpent doesn’t happen until Revelation which was written 100’s of years after Genesis.

-Genesis mentions camels 23 times. Domesticated camels do not show up in archaeology until the last third of 10th Century BCE, which is well after the supposed time of events of Genesis.

-Jews were never enslaved by the Egyptians. No evidence of them being there. No evidence of Egyptians even having slaves at all. The workers were well paid Egyptians.

-No evidence of the Exodus

-The flood story is taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh. There is no evidence of a worldwide flood. Localized flood stories (which would be worldwide to those people) were numerous. See the book "The Ark Before Noah".

-The Tower of Babel is taken from an Assyrian story

-The Instruction of Amenomope and Proverbs 22-23 are similar

-We don't know who wrote the 4 gospels. Gospels aren’t mentioned by name until 180 CE in Irenaeus of Lyons's book "On Heresies"

-The Pauline epistles are numbered at 13. However 7 are considered genuine (i.e. written by one person), and the rest are either disputed, or definitely not written by him.

-It is said that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). Scholars have come to conclusion through textual analysis that this is not possible and have developed the Documentary Hypothesis, which states there are 4 different writers named J,E,D, and P

-Jesus quotes Moses and his books several time in the gospels. Well if Moses didn't write the Pentateuch, then is Jesus wrong?

-The evidence of Jesus is lacking. I'm not saying he didn't exist, but nothing from his lifetime exists. We have Paul's Work (dated around 50 CE), The Gospels (which range from 70 to 110 CE), Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, etc. There are things about the extra-biblical references that I don't like, but I'm not going into detail (think forgeries)

-Christians are never mentioned in the NT. The 3 times they are traditionally seen are translated as Chrestians, which means "followers of good" or "good doers". The Chrestus/Christus, Chrestiani/Christiani thing is a whole other debate which is really interesting as many early texts are labeled as Chrestiani. Im still studying this.


I could go on and on about this, but these are a few things I have struggled with since actually studying the Bible. The weird thing is....these are topics that Bible Scholars have known for a while. These are taught in Theology schools. I don't see how one can objectively look at these and believe in Biblical innerancy.

In the end I came to the conclusion that a Jesus figure most likely existed and his story grew over time. He was an apocalyptic preacher with a few followers and somehow his story took off. If you look at the earliest to latest stories on him, you can see details added every iteration.

I know more about the Bible now than when I was going to church every week and from what I can tell I know more than my friends who still attend church. I may not attend church anymore but I find The Bible (and religion in general) fascinating. However, I don't like the way gay people are treated and the way science is looked down upon (evolution and global warming). I still go to church with my family when I am home. I actually got pissed off at the preacher last time I went for him saying that same sex marriage was the beginning of bestiality and people would eventually marry their pets. I almost walked out. The stupidity is astounding sometimes.

I like the Jesus figure and the good he stands for (most of it is good). However I can't logically come to the conclusion that its all true. Given the fact the Earth is millions of years old, you would have to believe there is a 1500 year period where magic happens. All the magic stories in different cultures before that are false, and all the magic stories after Jesus are false. Oh yea....the magic stories of other cultures in that 1500 year time frame are false also.

It just doesn't make sense.

I don't regret the church (maybe the tithing part) because I made some awesome friends that I love today. The community part was great. There were definitely the judgmental people there, but overall it was positive. My family and wife still think I am a believer and I doubt Ill ever mention my questioning. I'm no too worried about it, and I don't want to cause a rift. My family has done a lot for me and I don't want them to feel like they failed.

I don't see religion being around too much longer. Maybe another 75 years or so. The internet and the age of information is causing problems. Religion may be growing in underdeveloped nations, but its shrinking in places that are becoming more educated. One in five now identify as "Nones" in the US and its growing.

(hope this wasn't a rant and was decently put together. I'm often not good at putting thoughts to words)