Used to be Christian, now atheist/other

[Delia]

I'm interested in this subject, because one of my cousins and I are very close. We were raised in the same church background, and I remain in the church, and he is an atheist. Some of my thinking has changed from talking to him, though I won't get into specifics just yet (except to say, I don't believe he's going to hell. Of course, he doesn't believe anything happens after we die.)

Where are you at?

 

[Skull Pilot]

I refused to be indoctrinated.

I stopped attending church and catechism when I was in 3rd grade.

I was asking too many questions when some creepy old priest grabbed my by the face and yelled, "You are not here to ask questions. You are here to listen and believe!"

I smacked his hand and walked out never to return to the cult.

 

[Delia]

Your parents were not regular church attenders, then?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Your parents were not regular church attenders, then?

my mother and my sister stayed in the cult. i opted out. There was no way I was going to church unless I was dragged kicking and screaming and my mother knew it.

 

[Underhill]

I was raised in the baptist church. Went to a private christian school. I was being groomed for the ministry as a pastor. My parents are currently missionaries.

But around the age of 18 I started questioning doctrine. The more questions I asked, the more I found I didn't like the answers. By 24 I had quit going to church and by 26 I was disowned by some of my old friends, and no longer considered myself a christian.

 

[TNHarley]

I have never been much of a believer in religion. Now, as I have gotten older, I do not believe a word of it. I do not doubt a Supreme Being, but "God", "Allah" etc, no. I dont think the human brain could comprehend a real creator, if there is one..

 

[Delia]

Your parents were not regular church attenders, then?

my mother and my sister stayed in the cult. i opted out. There was no way I was going to church unless I was dragged kicking and screaming and my mother knew it.

Must not have meant that much to her then. My grandma would drag anybody, because she *knew* if she didn't, they were hellbound.

 

[Delia]

I was raised in the baptist church. Went to a private christian school. I was being groomed for the ministry as a pastor. My parents are currently missionaries.

But around the age of 18 I started questioning doctrine. The more questions I asked, the more I found I didn't like the answers. By 24 I had quit going to church and by 26 I was disowned by some of my old friends, and no longer considered myself a christian.

I'm sorry about the loss of friends.

My cousin was growing away over the final years before he turned 18, and after that he just spent about a decade hammering out what he thought and why he thought it.

I respect his intellect. I know he worked his way through everything. I wouldn't dream of trying to tell him he's wrong, just as he has not told me I'm a fool for believing.

 

[Delia]

I have never been much of a believer in religion. Now, as I have gotten older, I do not believe a word of it. I do not doubt a Supreme Being, but "God", "Allah" etc, no. I dont think the human brain could comprehend a real creator, if there is one..

That's what I refer to as 'God in a box.' I think we comprehend as much as we can, and it's just a tiny, tiny fraction of the reality.

I also refuse to believe we are the only intelligent race in this or any other galaxy - but that's probably another thread.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Your parents were not regular church attenders, then?

my mother and my sister stayed in the cult. i opted out. There was no way I was going to church unless I was dragged kicking and screaming and my mother knew it.

Must not have meant that much to her then. My grandma would drag anybody, because she *knew* if she didn't, they were hellbound.

Don't know how important it was to her and don't care.

If fact I haven't seen or spoken to my mother in nearly 10 years.

 

[Hollie]

Having explored religion, I read books on many religious faiths but found them all lacking. I found them all deceitful. I felt empty and dis-satisfied with all of them. I heard all the nice things about god that others say. God is love. God is justice. God is mercy. God's ways are not our ways, etc., but found no way to reconcile that with the god of hate, destruction and corruption that litters the bible.

Read the bible over and over, doubt growing stronger every day. Ignored the "corruption of man" per how the specific religious stuff was happening-- of course religion is flawed, but jesus is not...

And then I woke up, saw the reality, saw the truth that we are on our own and walked away from it, and finally felt at peace.

To this day, I get from Christians: "Oh, well, if that happened you weren't really a Christian, you weren't ever really saved-- if you had been, you would know god is real." I've been told my lack of inner peace at accepting reality for what it is, is really "Satan lying to you!"

Nice, thanks for reducing a decade long struggle to catchphrases-- do those come with a jingle? I am content that we stand alone and our destiny is truly in our hands. It's okay that the price for this is the loss of the individual ego upon death-- the egotism of theism, that we somehow must "live forever!" is not a requirement for me any longer-- it's okay I will die one day, even if my survival instinct doesn't want to fully embrace it. That's no reason to conjure an existence that has no reality and now, as mankind grows out of its childish infancy and is beginning to understand his place in the universe more and more, stands in the way of his true progress. A maturing child condemned to believe in the fairy tales of infancy is never said to have grown up... and that is what mankind collectively stands shackled with, and that is why he responds so violently and with tantrums towards his brothers and sisters who believe differently-- he so does not want to give up his comforting childhood fairytales. He will kill to keep them.

 

[TheOldSchool]

I was raised Catholic and went to catholic school through highschool. I remember being 7 or 8 and being terrified something awful would happen because I had started questioning god's existence.

Now I feel that whether or not god exists it makes no difference to my life or to anyone else's. I believe he may exist but I believe just as much that we are all here out of random chance. I do respect the beliefs of people of faith.

 

[Caroljo]

I refused to be indoctrinated.

I stopped attending church and catechism when I was in 3rd grade.

I was asking too many questions when some creepy old priest grabbed my by the face and yelled, "You are not here to ask questions. You are here to listen and believe!"

I smacked his hand and walked out never to return to the cult.

You're first mistake....going to a Catholic church.
When I started going to church i was already in my early 40's. We started out going to a Lutheran Church, which is an off-shoot of the Catholic, and we got NOTHING out of it. We were bored out of our minds.

We started going to a Nazarene Church and the difference was like day and night! So if it was Catholic, i can see why you decided to leave.

 

[Uncensored2008]

I'm interested in this subject, because one of my cousins and I are very close. We were raised in the same church background, and I remain in the church, and he is an atheist. Some of my thinking has changed from talking to him, though I won't get into specifics just yet (except to say, I don't believe he's going to hell. Of course, he doesn't believe anything happens after we die.)

Where are you at?

If you are a Christian, then how could you not believe he's going to hell? Are you a Christian who believes the Bible is false and Jesus was a fraud?

As to the question;

I was raised Christian. A very strict German-Protestant home. I wonder if I ever believed? I played the game through high school, but dropped the charade in college. I'm agnostic, not Atheist. I have been for some 30 years now.

 

[Caroljo]

I was raised Catholic and went to catholic school through highschool. I remember being 7 or 8 and being terrified something awful would happen because I had started questioning god's existence.

Now I feel that whether or not god exists it makes no difference to my life or to anyone else's. I believe he may exist but I believe just as much that we are all here out of random chance. I do respect the beliefs of people of faith.

It seems like when i hear of people that have left and become un-believers, the majority of them have always been Catholics. I get negged all the time for this comments....but i've always believed Catholics were more cult than Christian. There's much of their faith that are not what i believe is what God taught us.

 

[TheOldSchool]

It seems like when i hear of people that have left and become un-believers, the majority of them have always been Catholics. I get negged all the time for this comments....but i've always believed Catholics were more cult than Christian. There's much of their faith that are not what i believe is what God taught us.

I'll tell you what though a good catholic mass is a god damn spectacle. It's got all the other churches beat there.

 

[Delia]

I'm interested in this subject, because one of my cousins and I are very close. We were raised in the same church background, and I remain in the church, and he is an atheist. Some of my thinking has changed from talking to him, though I won't get into specifics just yet (except to say, I don't believe he's going to hell. Of course, he doesn't believe anything happens after we die.)

Where are you at?

If you are a Christian, then how could you not believe he's going to hell? Are you a Christian who believes the Bible is false and Jesus was a fraud?

As to the question;

I was raised Christian. A very strict German-Protestant home. I wonder if I ever believed? I played the game through high school, but dropped the charade in college. I'm agnostic, not Atheist. I have been for some 30 years now.

I don't believe in hell as it is generally perceived. In fact, I don't believe that any but the vilest repeat offenders will go there.

 

[emilynghiem]

I'm interested in this subject, because one of my cousins and I are very close. We were raised in the same church background, and I remain in the church, and he is an atheist. Some of my thinking has changed from talking to him, though I won't get into specifics just yet (except to say, I don't believe he's going to hell. Of course, he doesn't believe anything happens after we die.)

Where are you at?

I was brought up secular with Buddhist parents.
I received Jesus when I was 6 or 7 but didn't know what it meant and left it at that.

When I was 23, and broke out of an abusive relationship smothered under layers and layers of denial of past family karma repeating itself,
when I chose to forgive and start over
I had a spiritual experience and receiving visions that the message in the Bible with Jesus etc. was this universal process of forgiving and recovering and restoring relations.

So the message came to me independent of any religion,
and then I had to learn Buddhism to talk with my Mom about making peace in the family
and learned Christianity to work with other Christians, and even
Constitutional laws to explain things in those terms.

So I believe the spirit of Christ Jesus, which in secular terms is like the difference between Restorative Justice which renews good faith relations and Retributive Justice which kills them,
fulfills the laws teachings and paths in Christianity, Constitutional laws, Buddhism, Islam etc.
Even my nontheist/atheist friends who don't believe in a personified God/Jesus
but believe in Restorative Justice are one in Christ with those who express that
faith using Christianity or religious terms. And also, just because people claim religious
faith does not mean they are living by Restorative Justice if they reject and won't
forgive people because of Retribution which is antichrist.

So I believe God's universal truth, established by agreement in Jesus Christ as Divine Justice with Mercy or the Holy Spirit which brings healing grace to all humanity by forgiveness,
fulfills BOTH the spiritual/sacred laws of the churched tribes (Jews Christans Muslims etc.
under Scripture) an the natural laws of the Gentiles (including
secular humanists, Buddhists, Constitutionalists, social moralists and scientists etc.)

I believe Gentiles are included in salvation through Christ or by conscience
by the process of forgiveness and correction for sake of Restorative Justice or Christ Jesus.

 

[emilynghiem]

I'm interested in this subject, because one of my cousins and I are very close. We were raised in the same church background, and I remain in the church, and he is an atheist. Some of my thinking has changed from talking to him, though I won't get into specifics just yet (except to say, I don't believe he's going to hell. Of course, he doesn't believe anything happens after we die.)

Where are you at?

If you are a Christian, then how could you not believe he's going to hell? Are you a Christian who believes the Bible is false and Jesus was a fraud?

As to the question;

I was raised Christian. A very strict German-Protestant home. I wonder if I ever believed? I played the game through high school, but dropped the charade in college. I'm agnostic, not Atheist. I have been for some 30 years now.

I don't believe in hell as it is generally perceived. In fact, I don't believe that any but the vilest repeat offenders will go there.

me neither. I believe heaven is spiritual peace and hell is spiritual suffering,
and these are experienced at different levels and ways in life or beyond.

Where there is unforgiveness that is what leads down the path to hell
and where there is forgiveness that opens the door to heaven.

where people can't forgive on their own, which is only human to run into
natural limits and biases of who or what we can forgive compared to someone else,
that is where praying to God through Christ is unique in saving all of
humanity from itself, I find that Jesus represents the intersection or connection between
all people in the universal process of all humanity receiving forgiveness and peace.
So God/Jesus represent the "collective" level for all humanity, and that is why
they are pointed to as supreme, not by physical name but the concept they represent.

 

[emilynghiem]

Having explored religion, I read books on many religious faiths but found them all lacking. I found them all deceitful. I felt empty and dis-satisfied with all of them. I heard all the nice things about god that others say. God is love. God is justice. God is mercy. God's ways are not our ways, etc., but found no way to reconcile that with the god of hate, destruction and corruption that litters the bible.

Hi Hollie you hit on a key point I found also:
I found if people are UNFORGIVING, they harp about an UNFORGIVING God and Retribution, whether they are Christian or Atheist they keep obsessing about God like that.

I find if people are FORGIVING they focus on a FORGIVING GOD
and teach THAT is the nature of God to be received and understood.

It doesn't seem to matter WHAT the person believes, either Christian FOR this God or
Atheist AGAINST that God:

How FORGIVING you are seems to correlate with which GOD you preach about
whether you believe in this God or not.

I also found that people who are forgiving tend to focus on what they can do better to fix things, while people who are not forgiving tend to project fault on other people to change.

As I said before in other msgs, if you don't believe in a certain interpretation of God and the Bible, why VOTE for that as the meaning? If you would not keep VOTING for a political candidate or policy you DISAGREE with, why keep doing this with God and religion?

If you believe God should be taught in positive ways, if it is going to be taught at all,
why not ask for THAT interpretation not false or negative ones and insisting it means that!

???