My first post

[Brian37]

Well, you are young. I am glad you saw through the intensity of your parents. But that still is not the core reason to reject any claim. I had intense teacher parents, my adoptive mom is still alive. They were stern, I was sensitive. Noting about religion though. I had no friends until highschool. I was bullied as a kid. Held onto some sort of belief until my mid to late 20s. But none of that bad that happened to me caused me to give up on religion. It was purely my skepticism.

Stay in school, learn every day, keep your nose out of trouble. "Athiest" is not a club or "rebelion". It is a result of coming to the conclusion through learning, that there is no evidence for any type of god.

Take your time on this suggested reading list.

The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
The New Atheism, Victor Stenger
God The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger
God Is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens
Letter To A Christian Nation, Sam Harris
The End Of Faith, Sam Harris
Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Took me several years to get through those and still lots more authors I want to get to as well.

Terms you should learn.

Occham's Razor

Fallacy of Pascal's wager

Infinite regress.

Scientists you should get to know,

Neil Degrasse Tyson "Cosmos" is an awesome series to watch.
Bill Nye
Richard Dawkins
Laurence Krauss

Usefull websites

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com

www. this one

http://www.atheists.org

http://www.ffrf.org Freedom From Religion Foundation

http://www.positiveatheism.com contains lists of sourced historical quotes of famous politicians and celebrities.

And when you run into a theist who might stump you, don't simply stop and say "they got me", believe me over time if you pass what they say by others when you get stumped, you find out over time what stumped you was really hollow. If you don't know something you can pass it by other atheists here and we are always glad to help.

Outside that, welcome.

[Clueless Morgan]

XAccess

And welcome to the forums!

At this point I felt confident to label myself as an atheist. I came out to my friends (I don't have many). I told 6 of which 4 were cool about it (Small debates but didn't change friendships) And the other 2 were also atheist. I never really discuss religion with my friends so I was happy and surprised to find this out.

That's awesome!  6 friends you feel close enough to to tell them you're an atheist is A LOT!

I am not open with my family but I like to hint a lot and trash talk religion in general. My mother is kind of religious and my dad does not really talk about it at all. Soon I am thinking about coming out.

You know your family best, but maybe tread lightly.  Religion can be intensely personal to people and some can't distinguish between trash talking religion and trash talking themselves.

Remember that you will probably have to deal with religious people IRL for the rest of your life so learn to pick your battles and learn to have level-headed discussions about religion.  Let your "opponent" make the claims and shoulder the burden of proof.  In time, you'll learn the topics that interest you most and which discussions you enjoy having and which you hate.

More About Me
I spend way too much time on the internet and I consider myself an addict to it. I am currently going through a diet (which is not going real well). I love music and I like anything but country. I am bad at debating because I am not that educated about religions but I love to talk to people.


I hope I enjoy being on this fourm and meet lots of new people!

Just keep learning about things that interest you.  Anything that interests you, not just religions - you might find that religions don't interest you that much, but creationism or (anti-)apologetics do, or you might find the intersection of atheism/minority groups and politics most interesting.  Learn about cognitive biases and the way our brains fool ourselves (the confirmation bias especially) and try and look at issues from all angles, not just the one you agree with.  Don't let yourself be suckered by your own confirmation bias.

Hope you enjoy the forums. It's always good to see young people being able to think critically. I say that as a 29 year old... am I old enough to say "young people?"

I feel like I am.

I'm older than you, so if you feel old enough to call him a young person I guess I'm old enough, too.  

Take your time on this suggested reading list.

The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
The New Atheism, Victor Stenger
God The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger
God Is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens
Letter To A Christian Nation, Sam Harris
The End Of Faith, Sam Harris
Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Took me several years to get through those and still lots more authors I want to get to as well.

Also:

Innumeracy, by John Allen Paulos  <-- to familiarize yourself with how numbers are used to dazzle us.
Proofiness, by Charles Seife  <-- to familiarize yourself with how numbers are use against us.
Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language, Robert J. Gula
Crimes Against Logic, Jamie Whyte  <-- so you can start learning about logical fallacies and simple, syllogistic logical arguments
The Believing Brain, Michael Shermer  <-- to understand how how brains fool us into believing weird stuff.
50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True, Guy P. Harrison  <-- to understand that everyone believes weird stuff
50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God, Guy P. Harrison  <-- to familiarize yourself with arguments you'll probably hear for the rest of your life.
Lost Christianities, Bart Ehrman  <-- to learn how orthodoxy and catholic believe emerged from the tapestry of ancient belief

Terms you should learn.

Occham's Razor

Fallacy of Pascal's wager

Infinite regress.

Also,

Burden of Proof
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KayBys8gaJY

Usefull websites

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com

www.    this one

http://www.atheists.org

http://www.ffrf.org   Freedom From Religion Foundation

http://www.positiveatheism.com   contains lists of sourced historical quotes of famous politicians and celebrities.

Also:
ironchariots.org <-- for familiarizing yourself with apologetics arguments and the counter-arguments
talkorigins.org  <-- for things relating to evolution, creationism, intelligent design, etc.


Other useful resources:
Your Deceptive Mind Part 1 (of 24, I think; you can find the rest of them on youtube, listen to them all!)  <-- the audio of the Great Courses series by Steven Novella talking about neuroscience, how our brains work, how they construct our reality, and how they fool us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MYMcwFxabA

The Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism  (it's about 3 hours long) <-- series by Aron Ra talking about how creationists lie about evolution in order to manipulate people and force their agenda into the political process
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmQZ4f9f_Yw


Sorry about the brain dump; Brain got me thinkin'   You didn't think you'd come to an atheist forum and get assigned homework, didja?!?  

[Angrboda]

[Brian37]

Holy crap guys, one thing I hated as a kid was getting thrown in the deep end of the pool right off the bat, that is why my list was small. I'd bet this kid might be smarter than I was at that age, but still.

[XAccess]

Thank you Brian37 and Clueless Morgan, I'm not going to quote you guys because its so much information, but thank you for putting so much work into those huge post. I will be sure to check out the things to recommended, probably will take me a long to time to get through all of it. And everyone else again thank you for the welcome!

[Clueless Morgan]

Holy crap guys, one thing I hated as a kid was getting thrown in the deep end of the pool right off the bat, that is why my list was small. I'd bet this kid might be smarter than I was at that age, but still.

I don't think this is throwing him in the deep end, we're sharing resources that he can pick and choose from among.