Just a brief introduction:
I've struggled with a religious identity my entire life. I was raised in a nominally Christian household, and I was scared into being "saved" and attending church later on. At that time in my life, "I am not worthy" was a fundamental part of my day to day life; the fear angle certainly worked for a while. The absurdity of Biblical literalism - and the fervent way that people performed the most amazing mental gymnastics to make it all "fit"in their mind - brought me largely to my senses.
For about ten years I've considered myself agnostic. In actuality, I just gave up looking and made a concerted effort to ignore anything religious. I confused atheism with arrogance (it took me a while to realize that, like anyone else, atheist individuals are just individuals; some people are assholes regardless of their position on god). It was intellectually lazy of me to make sweeping assumptions like that based on limited exposure to:
1. Stilted portrayals of Richard Dawkins et al.
2. My incredibly bitter and bitchy atheist ex-girlfriend
3. Several national atheist organizations I have a negative impression of for assorted reasons
...but over the past several months I've been compelled to find an answer of my own. I wanted to have a position of some kind, whatever it was.
Finally on Thanksgiving Day, it occurred to me that I have no reason to believe in God. None. Since I do not have faith, I would therefore have to be persuaded by logic to get/have it... just saying "I have faith" or "I believe" doesn't make it so. And, to the surprise of nobody who is reading this, my investigation has not produced any faith in God; the more I investigate, the less I believe in God.
And thus I became an atheist. I do not believe in God because I have no reason to believe in God.
So that's the short version. Glad to be here!
I've struggled with a religious identity my entire life. I was raised in a nominally Christian household, and I was scared into being "saved" and attending church later on. At that time in my life, "I am not worthy" was a fundamental part of my day to day life; the fear angle certainly worked for a while. The absurdity of Biblical literalism - and the fervent way that people performed the most amazing mental gymnastics to make it all "fit"in their mind - brought me largely to my senses.
For about ten years I've considered myself agnostic. In actuality, I just gave up looking and made a concerted effort to ignore anything religious. I confused atheism with arrogance (it took me a while to realize that, like anyone else, atheist individuals are just individuals; some people are assholes regardless of their position on god). It was intellectually lazy of me to make sweeping assumptions like that based on limited exposure to:
1. Stilted portrayals of Richard Dawkins et al.
2. My incredibly bitter and bitchy atheist ex-girlfriend
3. Several national atheist organizations I have a negative impression of for assorted reasons
...but over the past several months I've been compelled to find an answer of my own. I wanted to have a position of some kind, whatever it was.
Finally on Thanksgiving Day, it occurred to me that I have no reason to believe in God. None. Since I do not have faith, I would therefore have to be persuaded by logic to get/have it... just saying "I have faith" or "I believe" doesn't make it so. And, to the surprise of nobody who is reading this, my investigation has not produced any faith in God; the more I investigate, the less I believe in God.
And thus I became an atheist. I do not believe in God because I have no reason to believe in God.
So that's the short version. Glad to be here!
