Religion does well at motivating people to "choke" their life to earn better afterlife. Thats controversial.

(November 4, 2016 at 2:05 pm)Mechaghostman2 Wrote: Losing my religion is perhaps the best thing that has happened to me. Religion forced me to be in denial and suppressed my right to explore and express myself freely and in ways that make me happy. Now that I've put the Santa Clause for adults in a box with the rest of my childhood toys, I'm much happier and self aware as a person than I ever was before.

Has losing your religion been the best thing, or one of the best things to happen in your life as well?

I assume that you were previously a christian. If christianity is untrue then it is possible that it was the best thing that ever happened to you. It cristianity is true then it was probably the worst thing that ever happened to you.

(November 4, 2016 at 7:48 pm)Lek Wrote:

(November 4, 2016 at 2:05 pm)Mechaghostman2 Wrote: Losing my religion is perhaps the best thing that has happened to me. Religion forced me to be in denial and suppressed my right to explore and express myself freely and in ways that make me happy. Now that I've put the Santa Clause for adults in a box with the rest of my childhood toys, I'm much happier and self aware as a person than I ever was before.

Has losing your religion been the best thing, or one of the best things to happen in your life as well?

I assume that you were previously a christian.  If christianity is untrue then it is possible that it was the best thing that ever happened to you.  It cristianity is true then it was probably the worst thing that ever happened to you.

If Christianity is true, I'd rather dine in hell.

(November 4, 2016 at 8:06 pm)Rosie_Rivets Wrote:

(November 4, 2016 at 7:48 pm)Lek Wrote: I assume that you were previously a christian.  If christianity is untrue then it is possible that it was the best thing that ever happened to you.  It cristianity is true then it was probably the worst thing that ever happened to you.

If Christianity is true, I'd rather dine in hell.

Maybe they serve some good barbecue there.

(November 4, 2016 at 8:16 pm)Lek Wrote:

(November 4, 2016 at 8:06 pm)Rosie_Rivets Wrote: If Christianity is true, I'd rather dine in hell.

Maybe they serve some good barbecue there.

Well, there better be s'mores, at least.

I was never religious to begin with, so it is difficult for me to understand the dynamics of the transition. I was born a Catholic-by-proxy and met the requirements of my family's parish, which was bible study until the age of 12, Holy Communion, and Confirmation. It didn't hold my interest all that much, and once it was over I never looked back. I'm just not hard-wired for it.

I'm not sure if it was the best thing that ever happened in my life, but it's certainly up there. Many wonderful things have happened in my life simply because I stopped believing in Christianity. I might have to go with my brother being the best thing in my life, though. I love that brat.

I've spent almost all of My life trying to figure religion out.  I never considered Christianity interesting enough to give it a serious go (although I had received infant baptism and was nominally Christian), but when I found out about the Greek gods I fell in love with the polytheist way of seeing things.  There was never a time, though, when I possessed actual religious faith.  Apparently My brain has an automatic "Yeah, right..." generator that slaps sense into whatever neurons are trying to believe in unlikely things.

It all came to a head about 7-8 years ago, when I still identified as an agnostic theist.  I asked the question "Would I actually testify in a court of law that {name of god} was real?"  The answer was an unequivocal "No," and on that day I flipped from an uneasy 3.4 on the Dawkins scale to 6.999... and stayed there.

It came as a tremendous relief to land in a worldview that wasn't embarrassing the shit out of the skeptical part of My brain.

(November 4, 2016 at 7:48 pm)Lek Wrote:

(November 4, 2016 at 2:05 pm)Mechaghostman2 Wrote: Losing my religion is perhaps the best thing that has happened to me. Religion forced me to be in denial and suppressed my right to explore and express myself freely and in ways that make me happy. Now that I've put the Santa Clause for adults in a box with the rest of my childhood toys, I'm much happier and self aware as a person than I ever was before.

Has losing your religion been the best thing, or one of the best things to happen in your life as well?

I assume that you were previously a christian.  If christianity is untrue then it is possible that it was the best thing that ever happened to you.  It cristianity is true then it was probably the worst thing that ever happened to you.

Pascal's wager? Well then, what if one of the other 30,000 (or whatever) religions are right? If I were to be a Christian and one of the other religions were right, I'd still be a gonner. So the statistical chance of being a gonner is still very high no matter what religion I choose, unless I decided to choose all of them somehow.

(November 5, 2016 at 1:02 am)Astreja Wrote:  Apparently My brain has an automatic "Yeah, right..." generator that slaps sense into whatever neurons are trying to believe in unlikely things.

It came as a tremendous relief to land in a worldview that wasn't embarrassing the shit out of the skeptical part of My brain.

YES. All of this. Faith never made sense to me, but I tried. I studied Wicca, paganism, Taoism, pantheism, etc. trying to find a belief system that I truly felt was right for me. Everything was hollow and nonsensical.