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Hello hello!
#1
Hello hello!
Hi! I'm glad to have found this forum! I'm 22 and am from North Carolina, USA. I'm in school right now getting my master's in social work. I grew up Christian and went to a Presbyterian church every week. I never questioned it, but I also never "felt" Jesus in my life. I think I mostly just felt bored. I became agnostic when I went to college. In my first weeks as a freshman I went to church on my own free will and realized how ridiculous I felt standing there singing to god. Agnosticism lasted, oh, one year or so, but switching to atheism was a pretty obvious decision. I love it and feel so confident in it, yet can't bring myself to admit it to anyone in my real life. People WILL judge me, sentence me to hell, or preach non-stop to me, so I don't bring it up. So anyway, glad this forum exists so I have a place to feel normal! Big Grin
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#2
RE: Hello hello!
(August 16, 2010 at 9:28 pm)DgyJff Wrote: People WILL judge me, sentence me to hell, or preach non-stop to me, so I don't bring it up. So anyway, glad this forum exists so I have a place to feel normal! Big Grin

Well, for one, welcome to atheistforums.org.
Honestly, I think you'll feel even better if you did tell them at some point, so they can make their judgements, accusations, and wholly irrational arguements and by the time the dust settles, you can only realize that it only reaffirms your position.

But that's just me.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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#3
RE: Hello hello!
Hello hello to you too.
Trudging through endless religion one step at a time.
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#4
RE: Hello hello!
Welcome to the forums.

What do you mean by the way, that you were agnostic but "switched to atheism"?

How are you defining agnosticism?

Agnosticism on the matter of God would mean you claim to have no knowledge of God, whether that's knowledge that he exists or that he doesn't exist. So do you mean that you think atheism means claiming that you absolutely know God doesn't exist? Are you misinterpreting agnosticism as weak-atheism or just "uncertainty" or "fence-sitting" on the God matter?

Are you a strong or weak atheist now then?

I myself am what is said to be a "weak" atheist in the sense I don't claim absolute knowledge that God doesn't exist. Because I think I'd ironically need the mind of God myself to have absolute knowledge of anything. I am extremely certain that God doesn't exist but not absolutely certain.

Atheism is of course disbelief in God(s) regardless of whether that's 100% certain disbelief or not. So long as the disbelief is above 50% certainty, it's atheism. (Because if you're less than 50% sure then you in fact are more inclined to theism that atheism and hence are a theist (or deist if you believe in an impersonal God) however weak)).

Anyway, like I said, welcome to the forums.
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#5
RE: Hello hello!
oh, hello, welcome to the AF!
[Image: siggy2_by_Cego_Colher.jpg]
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#6
RE: Hello hello!
(August 17, 2010 at 5:51 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Welcome to the forums.

What do you mean by the way, that you were agnostic but "switched to atheism"?

How are you defining agnosticism?

Agnosticism on the matter of God would mean you claim to have no knowledge of God, whether that's knowledge that he exists or that he doesn't exist. So do you mean that you think atheism means claiming that you absolutely know God doesn't exist? Are you misinterpreting agnosticism as weak-atheism or just "uncertainty" or "fence-sitting" on the God matter?

Are you a strong or weak atheist now then?

I myself am what is said to be a "weak" atheist in the sense I don't claim absolute knowledge that God doesn't exist. Because I think I'd ironically need the mind of God myself to have absolute knowledge of anything. I am extremely certain that God doesn't exist but not absolutely certain.

Atheism is of course disbelief in God(s) regardless of whether that's 100% certain disbelief or not. So long as the disbelief is above 50% certainty, it's atheism. (Because if you're less than 50% sure then you in fact are more inclined to theism that atheism and hence are a theist (or deist if you believe in an impersonal God) however weak)).

Anyway, like I said, welcome to the forums.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance of the proper definitions of all these terms. The point in my life when I felt "agnostic" I basically wasn't sure what I believed, but I guess I was more inclined to theism because I felt like I should believe "just in case".

Now I don't believe a god exists. At all. Period. I could pretty much say that's 100%.

I'm also very much against organized religion, especially Christianity. The hypocrisy makes me fume.
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#7
RE: Hello hello!
Quote:The hypocrisy makes me fume.


Well you're going to fit right in. Welcome, young fella.
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#8
RE: Hello hello!
(August 16, 2010 at 9:28 pm)DgyJff Wrote: Hi! I'm glad to have found this forum! I'm 22 and am from North Carolina, USA. I'm in school right now getting my master's in social work. I grew up Christian and went to a Presbyterian church every week. I never questioned it, but I also never "felt" Jesus in my life. I think I mostly just felt bored. I became agnostic when I went to college. In my first weeks as a freshman I went to church on my own free will and realized how ridiculous I felt standing there singing to god. Agnosticism lasted, oh, one year or so, but switching to atheism was a pretty obvious decision. I love it and feel so confident in it, yet can't bring myself to admit it to anyone in my real life. People WILL judge me, sentence me to hell, or preach non-stop to me, so I don't bring it up. So anyway, glad this forum exists so I have a place to feel normal! Big Grin

If you're in the Greensboro area then check out GreensboroAtheists.com and click on "events" to be directed to the event page at meetup and join us for a meeting! If you're not near us then meetup likely has an atheist group in your area :-)
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#9
RE: Hello hello!
Welcome, welcome!

Where in NC are you? I used to live there.......Bible belt. There are some places where, if you mention agnostics people just stare. Or you are likely to get punched.

Oh, god the tea baggers and their circular reasoning, the foofy women who don't know about other religions let alone none.

Oh god, survive the place if you can
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