Thank ???! I've found out that I'm not alone!

MythSlayer
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Thank ???! I've found out that I'm not alone!

Just wanted to introduce myself. I've been checking this site out for a few weeks now and figured its about time.

First off I'd like to thank the creators of this site for getting some real discorse on what I feel should be self evident. The is no supernatural, only natural. (and it's pretty super when you really see itEye-wink

I'm a born atheist who just stayed that way. My parents are atheist but alway encoraged me to come to my own conclusions. My father has alway been an atheist. My grandmother (dads side) was an atheist also. I remember her telling me "Look around you, heaven is here underfoot, but it can turn to hell. It's entirely up to you what you make of this existence."

My moms side of the family is all catholic. My mother went to catholic school and was a good catholic. She got married in the early 60's at a young age to man before my father. He was in the Navy and was sent to Japan. When he came back my mom found out that he knocked up a japanesse girl. Of course she wanted a divorce. But her church said that she couldn't get a divorce and still be a catholic in good standing. Needless to say she went on with the divorce. The followers of the church then started showing thier true colors and she was the subject of thier gossip and tried to make her guilty for leaving her husband because she did afterall break the bond that god made between them. She couldn't understand why her church was making her feel bad. What did they have to gain by making her stay with a man who obviously didn't respect her? There were no children in the marrage and she was only 21 at the time. Why should they care? It made no sence and my mother knew it. Thus brought her conversion to atheism.

Having been an atheist all my life I've had this feeling growing up that I lack a god gene or something. Religion never made sense to me. I still don't understand it. I had my share of times in church growing up. My grandmother on my moms side would occationally try to save me and my brother and take us to church. I even went to youth group events with friends from school. My parents never discouraged me from going to church events when a friend would invite me. They left the choice to me. I did go though several phases of religious question. I remember going to the catholic church with my grandmother when I was just old enough to remember. It had profound effects on me. The first was that of fear. I thought that the church was a scary place to my young mind, with depictions of jesus hanging bloody on his cross. I remeber just being fixated on the life like sculpture of jesus that was very detailed with pleny of bloody gore. It was horrifying, made me fear it. I remember going home after making a crusefix out of popscicle sticks and prying not to go HELL!!.

Great way to make one believe uhh. Scare the shit out of a little kid and tell him that his parents aren't doing their part to save him and by the way, they're going to HELL!!! All because they refuse to let the bloody man nailed to the church wall into their hearts. Even at that age I was thinking WTF!! And yet for a short time in my life I secretly prayed for me and my family not to be sent to HELL!! my only reason was that I could already tell that most people were believers and my family was different, eventhough we appeared to be the American model. I feel victim to Pascals Wager. Yet I couldn't turn off my brain.

I've started to develope this notion that the more I studied something the more my understanding of it grew. It worked and still works today for any given subject except religion. I voluntaraly went to some youth group events with my theist friends. I really wanted to fit in, I didn't want to be known as the crazy atheist. My desire to fit in and be normal really weighed heavy on me. It sparked even more study of belief. I kept thinking if I learn more, then maybe the I can understand why to believe. I couldn't turn off my brain.

I started questioning belief. I started thinking this makes no sense, why would a loving god want to send my loving parents to eternal damnation. Then there was all the stuff about how there's just one god, but jesus is god but not the holy father, wait, he is the father and the son and the holy spirit and a ghost too, so ghosts are gods no just holy ghosts, or ghost because there's just one god who is three gods all rolled into one, no they're all god because there's just one god, good grief! The stories in Grimms Fairy Tails seemed more believable than the shit I was hearing. I'd ask youth pastures about some of these questions and many many more. I'd just get answers that always pointed right back to faith. If I started asking for explination of faith and why it should be so valued. Their answers always led to good ol' Pascals "why not?" along with threats of eternal damnation in HELL!!

I've come to the conclusion that hell is really just another word of many for "unknown". I learned of all of the different belief systems in the world. Then I realised that they all claim to be true. They also all have one thing in common, they need faith to work. So it really becomes this big lottery on where to place your faith. I feel that the best place to put my faith is into myself and not into a fear. Being fearless I'm not concerned with the unknown. I'm comfortable with saying "I don't know." What I do like to concern on is "what's possible" here in this world.

I'm glad to find out that I'm not of a dying breed. All the youtube vids of the blasphemy challeng give me hope that reason can be respected in our society. Stay fearless! I am! So's here's a toast to all of you other fearless heathens out there!

We see the world as abstractions our minds create based on the tiny sliver of reality our bodies can detect.  You create your own reality.  The question is, how real is it? 


Yellow_Number_Five
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Welcome to you. Glad you see

Welcome to you. Glad you see where we're coming from and like where we're going.