Question for the Former Theists

[thesummerqueen]

A lot of times in the convert corner or the introduction thread, I see a phrase like "I started to question" or "Things weren't making sense", etc. If you don't mind, I'd love to hear if you know or remember specific things which caused god-belief not to jive anymore.

For me, I was 10 and while I hadn't seriously considered God very much, my father had asked me to pray for my seriously ill grandfather (on the Jewish side). I promptly forgot, then remembered while I was in the shower a few nights later (I do a lot of my thinking in the shower to this day) and distinctly remember thinking "there's no one listening." I remember it clearly because there was also a crushing, overwhelming sense of guilt about it due to the fact that I adored my grandfather.

For my boyfriend, it was when he started asking questions about the Bible when he was 6 in Sunday School. His teacher promptly told him he wasn't supposed to ask such things. No one tells my boyfriend not to question things. Right then and there he had to find out why she thought they were a bad idea.

For our good friend, it was when his mother died. Why would a just and loving god allow a sweet and loving mother to die a horrible death of cancer?

[Rev. Rye]

I think the first thing came when I realised that John 3:16 could be distilled into the following words: "God sacrificed himself to himself to change a rule he made himself."

Also, getting into Dinosaurs didn't help: Sooner or later, you get into the realisation that they lived millions of years ago, which is longer time than the Bible says there is. They didn't even bother to explain this discrepancy than that "they're wrong."

[Foxaèr]

I believe there were two separate incidences that eventually led me to discard my religious beliefs.

First, it was what I encountered during my senior year in high school. The best way to describe what happened my senior year is that I was weak and fell victim to what Christians and the church were offering in the way of friendship and finally having a place in which to fit. The thing of it was that in high school I was an outcast, and the only person I basically hung around was my sister. The first individual to whom I came out of the closet invited me to join her church. At first she was cool with me being gay, but as time passed it became apparent that everyone I encountered in that particular church only wanted to change me. It especially become disconcerting when the pastor, who had no idea I was gay, made the claim before the congregation that God had informed him someone in the parish was suffering from the demon of homosexuality. When he called my name and asked me to join him at the front of the church, I looked at my friend and knew that she had been the one who told him about me. I never trusted her again after that, and I believe that was when I truly began to question everything regarding religion.

It was when I was in my first year of college that I happened to stumble across a website (http://www.infidels.org/library/historic...ingersoll/) of Robert Green Ingersoll's works as I was perusing the internet. His writing completely changed my perspective.

[Rayaan]

A lot of times in the convert corner or the introduction thread, I see a phrase like "I started to question" or "Things weren't making sense", etc. If you don't mind, I'd love to hear if you know or remember specific things which caused god-belief not to jive anymore.

The belief of punishment in Hell for eternity is probably the thing that made me doubt the most.

Also, I used to read books on physics and cosmology and related topics which made me question what kind of a role a god might play in all of this.

Those things and a couple of other things still cause me to doubt sometimes ... yet, the core god-belief of Islam never leaves my heart.

[Neo-Scholastic]

For a time I was also an atheist. I grew up in a very small church in Iowa that taught simple piety. As an intellectually inclined youth I needed more substance. It didn't help that the children of the most outspoken congregants acted rebellious, drinking and having sex, more than the children of the more restrained parents. Throughout high school I couldn't seem to get enough of the existentialists like Sartre, Camus and Nietzsche. I could never really make sense of concepts like the Trinity, the hypostatic union, etc. And I found no one around me to ask. So my 'simple faith' just withered on the vine, so to speak.

How I became a Christian again is a whole 'nuther story.

[Simon Moon]

The belief of punishment in Hell for eternity is probably the thing that made me doubt the most.

Even if this doesn't make you doubt any longer, it should at least get you to question the whether a god that would create a system that would punish people for eternity for finite thought crimes deserves to be worshiped.

Those things and a couple of other things still cause me to doubt sometimes ... yet, the core god-belief of Islam never leaves my heart.

Because you're beliefs are not supported by demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument and valid logic. They are based on emotion and wishful thinking.

[Tonus]

I don't recall any one specific idea or teaching that started me doubting. Jehovah's Witnesses are a very restrictive group, they insist that their members must not read or listen to anyone but the organization, lest they become corrupted by false teachings. That attitude itself was problematic, because it contrasted with the idea that the truth of god can withstand any assault. I always felt that the truth should stand easily against any non-truth, so why be afraid to challenge what you know? And at the same time, the organization would encourage us to "be like the Bereans," who tested Paul's teachings against scripture to see if his teaching was true (Acts 17:11). But they made it very clear, time and again, that what they meant was not "check the scripture to see if we are right" but "check the scripture, and you'll see that we are right." There was a clear implication that if your 'testing' led to a difference of opinion, you were flirting with apostasy and that you'd best get your shit together quick and fall in line.

Fear can work to keep people in line, but not if it's your fear. Once your followers realize that you are the one that is scared, they stop being scared. And disinterest soon follows.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Because you're beliefs are not supported by demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument and valid logic. They are based on emotion and wishful thinking.

Likewise I'm sure.

[TaraJo]

My ex-wife miscarried. Multiple times. I tried to find a reason a compssionate god would let it happen and couldn't find any answers that satisified me.

[Simon Moon]

Because you're beliefs are not supported by demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument and valid logic. They are based on emotion and wishful thinking.

Likewise I'm sure.

What beliefs do you think I have?

I'll bet you get this wrong...