How many atheists/agnostics/pagans/ect were raised in christianity?

I'm curious. How were you able to leave it?

As far as my experience, I was raised in it. I "backslid" many times, but I always returned to it. Christians proudly say that there are no atheists in foxholes, and for the most part they're right. But it is an explicit admission that they always know that as soon as things turn bad, you'll be back. And things don't get much worse than in a foxhole. They always get you back when you're at your lowest.

I knew that something was very wrong with christianity, but I attributed that to what they call the "great apostasy" that was predicted to happen in the "last days". So I left the "worldly" church behind and went searching on my own.

I did read the bible, but that was not the cure that most atheists think it is. It's a curious phenomena, at least in my case, where I'd read something that the tyrant 'god' did, and I knew that there was something really wrong with it, but it didn't sink in until much later. I more or less glossed over it.

Now I can be gullible and too trusting at times, but I don't believe that this explains the mental block that I was dealing with here. My idea is that it is the result of programming since early childhood. Or perhaps it is a combination of gullibility and programming, I don't know. All I know is that those that weren't raised in it had a big advantage over me.

Then, one day, the scales fell from my eyes and I saw it for what it was. Instead of glossing over these things, it all became obvious. My belief is that this was the natural end result of all that questioning and searching for answers, and refusing to be satisfied until I found those answers. Now I know too much to ever go back into it. It finally sunk in.

i am agnostic...i was a devout Jehovahs Witness for 27 years...i am 44 years old.


Agnostic = is there a god? probably not but yeah its possible, not probable but i can't rule it out.

because of my choice to no longer be one i am an outcast...i havent spoken to my parents in many years...was told to never contact them again.

religion is evil

Me.

I went to a first babtist church until I was 13. Visited until 16. Then I really started to use my own brain power. The answers the church gives is a joke. I really do not understand how come people use blind faith as a tool.....The answers are not there.

The church has not a clue of what they teach. It is a bandwagon. If you are gullible, jump on, it makes you feel good. That is what it is all about isn't it? For you to feel good about yourself. Confess your sins and have a new sense of value in life......All the while giving your hard earned money to the heavenly father....So people can keep preaching the gospel.

I have found my value in life by bettering myself and my family without the help of a higher power that supposedly knows everything.

A higher power that knows everything and created everything??????? That is too far fetched if you have any sense of rationale.

Anyways If I keep on a rambling on, I will offend more and more people..............This is only my opinion and I have learned to respect everyone else's.

Have a nice day.

reply to post by LHP666

How were you able to leave it?

When I found out that dinosaurs existed.

I kept on thinking to myself (being 8 or 9 at the time), we know that dinosaurs are real because we have evidence for them and we know that they lived millions of years ago; but it doesn't mention them in the bible (inb4 the behemoth there are hundreds of other things it could have been), they can't both be true.

Religion went downhill from there. As I grew older and I started to study science in more depth, the contents of the bible became laughable at the very least.


Edit: I was raised a catholic

leaving it was the hardest thing i had ever done in my life. i too "opened my eyes and saw it for what it was" and being raised as a good moral rational person, my honor demanded that i reject that what is false. i saw daily hypocrisy and generational family dynasties controlling the congregations. to me today i view religion as i do college. it is a good place to learn the values and morals of this society but, there comes a day when one must graduate. i learned to be a good person thank you i know how to do it now and can handle it an my own.

dont know if you understand where i am coming from on that but i hope it helps you out

i explored many religions after that pagan and christian alike, all had the same failings and all felt that they had it right and everyone else was going to die. so i cant say that my current feelings on the topic are formed solely on being a JW most of my life, it is tempered with the knowledge of many religions.

reply to post by CaDreamer2


Sorry that happened to you... I never told my parents I'm atheist and I still don't talk to most of my siblings about it. They assume what they want. I never bring up God, but I listen and nod when they do. I just don't want to become a family project.

I was raised drenched in Christianity. It wasn't until my mom died that I really started feeling free to seriously question my beliefs - at around 30 years old. But my search took years and brought me to where I stand today.

I didn't turn against religion or have any big experience, it was just a steady realization that what I had been taught all my life (which I fully believed and depended on) was a lie. I have become very comfortable with not knowing where we came from, why we're here or what happens when we die. There's actually peace in not knowing.

Atheists in a foxhole: I think there are plenty. I had cancer and faced death and I never even thought to pray.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
reply to post by CaDreamer2

 

I was raised drenched in Christianity.

It wasn't until my mom died that I really started feeling free to seriously question my beliefs - at around 30 years old. But my search took years and brought me to where I stand today.

I didn't turn against religion or have any big experience, it was just a steady realization that what I had been taught all my life (which I fully believed and depended on) was a lie. I have become very comfortable with not knowing where we came from, why we're here or what happens when we die. There's actually peace in not knowing.

Atheists in a foxhole: I think there are plenty.

I had cancer and faced death and I never even thought to pray.

well put very similar to my thoughts too.

reply to post by LHP666


A s far as I am concerned all Religion is the Devils Advocate. If there is a devil they are the subscribers there of. Almost all hate, all killing, all destruction of the planet and mankind is done in the name of some God. It is nothing but a form of divide and conquer which works to the extreme. Religion removes people from critical thinking and their ability to decide right or wrong and common sense. It is often said that people would be the way they are even if Religion was removed from the planet. I personally do not go along with that statement. The day humans can quit hiding behind the fairy in the sky and using that entity to gloss over their actions. Then the day will come that they have to be responsible for their own actions. When you are reponsible for your own behavior one usually tends to consider their actions a little more closely.

I believe I read somewhere that Christianity is the leading cause of Atheism.

I am a Wiccan and was raised as a Christian all my young life. I just didn't think that a being so good would send his creations to an ultimate toucher and be jealous and sexist doesn't sound perfect to me but it does have enough holes to be call holy

I grew up in a VERY religious Baptist household. In my early 20's i decided to read the whole bible...read lots of disturbing stuff still they didn't teach at all the churches i'd been to over the years.

Also, all the contradictions made me do further research into older religions and saw how the stories in the bible are just basically a rip off of a story that was floating around the Mediterranean for hundreds of years.

I don't consider my self an atheist perse, I'm what Christopher Hitchens describes as an anti-theist. I believe in one less god than believers do.

I find comfort in the same stuff I'm made out of has been around for millions of years..and that stuff will be around for millions of years after I die. Besides, not worrying about some demented jealous cosmic deity reading my thoughts is very comforting. My thoughts and behavior are my responsibility.

reply to post by LHP666


I was raised a christian, eventually became part of the leadership in my church, and then went on to seminary school. I can't say what exactly changed my mind and made me leave the church. There were many issues but it basically boils down to me valuing rationality and independent thought. Which isn't exactly promoted within the christian religion

There was no way to reconcile the inconsistencies in the bible and I grew very tired of rationalizing my faith. After researching the history of christianity it became apparent that it was just another offshoot of previous religions. I just couldn't lie to myself anymore. I decided that the idea of an afterlife or an all powerful being watching over us is not necessary for a meaningful life. I value life much more than I used to because this life is all we have.

I don't agree with the phrase "there are no atheists in foxholes". I have faced the possibility of death both in the military and in civilian life since I became an atheist and never once called out for god. It may seem like a true statement to theists because they cannot imagine it, but it is false. There have also been soldiers that have come out of the foxholes and abandoned all faith. God is completely and totally fictional to me so calling out to god in a tough situation would be similar to calling out to superman.

reply to post by megabytz

. . .is not necessary for a meaningful life.

The Greeks were very much concerned about the afterlife and had very clear ideas of what it was and how what we did in this life affected the quality of our experience in the afterlife. I believe that Paul was appealing to them in that he offered a formula on how to improve that situation, through an affiliation with the Christ who already had it worked out perfectly for himself. He convinced them that if they clung to Christ in this life, we could share in his experience in that world to come. There was not really any need to go into greater detail, so it really worked well for that age. We don't have as fine an understanding of the afterlife in the modern world so Christianity does not have so great an appeal. The former religion has been gradually adjusted to present the benefits of being an adherent, not so much to the person of Christ, but to the religion of the other followers of Christ, in this world, which of course is a false religion, so probably something good to flee from.

Originally posted by LHP666
I'm curious. How were you able to leave it?

As far as my experience, I was raised in it. I "backslid" many times, but I always returned to it. Christians proudly say that there are no atheists in foxholes, and for the most part they're right. But it is an explicit admission that they always know that as soon as things turn bad, you'll be back. And things don't get much worse than in a foxhole. They always get you back when you're at your lowest.

I knew that something was very wrong with christianity, but I attributed that to what they call the "great apostasy" that was predicted to happen in the "last days". So I left the "worldly" church behind and went searching on my own.

I did read the bible, but that was not the cure that most atheists think it is. It's a curious phenomena, at least in my case, where I'd read something that the tyrant 'god' did, and I knew that there was something really wrong with it, but it didn't sink in until much later. I more or less glossed over it.

Now I can be gullible and too trusting at times, but I don't believe that this explains the mental block that I was dealing with here. My idea is that it is the result of programming since early childhood. Or perhaps it is a combination of gullibility and programming, I don't know. All I know is that those that weren't raised in it had a big advantage over me.

Then, one day, the scales fell from my eyes and I saw it for what it was. Instead of glossing over these things, it all became obvious. My belief is that this was the natural end result of all that questioning and searching for answers, and refusing to be satisfied until I found those answers. Now I know too much to ever go back into it. It finally sunk in.

Couldn't you just of asked the questions. Seems like the OP is a way to take shots from a personal opinion.

As many Atheist who grew up Christian, you'll equally find people who grew up Godless who converted including me.


take care OP.

reply to post by Stovokor

. . .stuff I'm made out of has been around for millions of years..

Personally, I find such thoughts saddening and like to imagine there is another component to who I am, that goes beyond the purely physical. I think there is something and that only a god can access that thing and do something with it, such as to reconstitute me with some replacement physical elements, and I would be myself, again.

Originally posted by CaDreamer2
because of my choice to no longer be one i am an outcast...i havent spoken to my parents in many years...was told to never contact them again.

religion is evil

So you saying I'm evil? A person you never met before? I'm religious. People are evil, not religion. I know alot of people who are evil who have no religion, both famous and I know personally. Who do bad stuff.

reply to post by willydude89

. . .toucher and be jealous and sexist. . .

Did you mean, torcher, or torture?
I was fortunate to have been brought up in a church which taught none of that, and quite the opposite, so I never found it necessary to go beyond the bounds of Christianity to find something to have faith in.
I am sorry to hear these stories of how the (formerly) religion of Christ has been so distorted as to drive reasonable people away from him.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by Stovokor

 

. . .stuff I'm made out of has been around for millions of years..

Personally, I find such thoughts saddening and like to imagine there is another component to who I am, that goes beyond the purely physical. I think there is something and that only a god can access that thing and do something with it, such as to reconstitute me with some replacement physical elements, and I would be myself, again.

edit on 26-6-2011 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

That's a sadness and fear i do not share..i think this being my only chance at life gives it more meaning.

reply to post by redrose123

When you are reponsible for your own behavior one usually tends to consider their actions a little more closely.

Jesus did teach that, but somehow it has been overlooked by the people who claim to speak for him today.