(June 1, 2021 at 7:45 am)Eleven Wrote: I dislike the god character as naturally as I dislike the voldermort character.

Good morning Eleven,

Thank you for your response. May I ask as to why you dislike God as naturally as you dislike Voldermort?

(June 1, 2021 at 8:09 am)johndoe122931 Wrote: Thank you for your response. May I ask as to why you dislike God as naturally as you dislike Voldermort?

For god's portrayal as the tyrannical villain, naturally.

(June 1, 2021 at 7:48 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: To the OP, many different kinds of people become atheists for many different reasons. Some do so after much intellectual deliberation, others in reaction to abusive treatment. As a group they are distinguished by a common intellectual concern but individually they are as diverse as any other collection of individuals. There really is nothing to understand about 'them' that is unique despite the superficial commonality of being atheists.

Good morning Neo-Scholastic,

Yes, I understand that there are many different reasons as to why one chooses to become an atheist. My question is more specifically why did you personally become an athesit?

Why do you hate atheists, OP?

---

See how easy that is?

Make a claim, any will do, and we can take it from there.

(June 1, 2021 at 7:25 am)johndoe122931 Wrote: Yes, this could be very true. I typically don't go around asking people if they are Christian or atheist, so I can only speak about the two whom I personally know and speak with on this subject. 

I try not to treat anybody any differently because of their worldview. I do know individuals that do that though and it saddens me that they will disregard a person simply because they do not believe as we believe.

Yes! That is what I want to know. In Christianity, we call it our testimony and they vary from one end to the other. I want to hear your testimony! So, for example, you say that you were raised Christian until you were about 13 and that the illogical claims became apparent to you. If I may ask what denomination were you raised in and what claims became illogical to you? What really was the straw that broke the camel's back for you and how did your family respond to that?

The denomination was Evangelical Lutheran.

Illogical claims: The silly ones were mostly the magical ones, creating everything in 7 days, talking snakes, killing bears, possessed pigs, living hundreds of years, feeding thousands, flooding worlds, parting seas, food falling out of the sky, ....... the list is long. The disturbing ones were eternal punishment, the god wars, exclusion, entitled judgement.

The straw was when I asked the pastor for concrete evidence to justify the belief and his response was 'just believe because I/we/the bible tells you to', with the added implication of 'no heaven for you'. In other words no evidence. You don't happen to have any concrete evidence do you?

My family fought it for a while but we eventually reached an agreement.

(June 1, 2021 at 8:12 am)johndoe122931 Wrote: I understand that there are many different reasons as to why one chooses to become an atheist.

You can see from the responses so far, that people who were raised Christian and became atheist still think in terms of sola scriptura literalism.

That is, they can't conceive of mythical writing or allegory as anything other than literal truth. Nor are they aware of how many important Christians in history reject sola scriptura literalism. 

This is why I think so many atheists left their church at about age 12 and stopped learning anything about it from then on. Their conception of Christian belief is that of a 12-year-old. This is then reinforced by poorly-informed people like Hitchens, who has led many sheeple astray.

I don't give Buddhism a pass either. It is a religion, not a philosophy. All one has to do is visit Asia/China or Japan, any part of that region. They have their own concepts of the spirit world, after life concepts, punishment reward mythology and superstitions. Calling Buddhism a "philosophy" is more a western romantic idea. There certainly are individuals and sects of Buddhism that sell it as a philosophy, but not all. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deva_(Buddhism)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(moth...he_Buddha) <----- Take notice of the claims of the super natural in this article. Words like "deities", "celestial beings",  and "heaven" and even taking the shape of an Elephant. 


The earliest mythology of the birth of Buddha had his mother "Queen Maya" being told by the divine world that she would give birth to a son who would bring wisdom to the world. Buddha also avoided the birth canal and was born out of Queen Maya's side. 

While atheists mainly run into Christians on this website, we don't simply stick to debating one religion. I've debated Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists as well.

Since people are doing their testimony, I'll go ahead.

I was raised entirely without religion. I grew up in a tiny town with a church on every corner, but my parents were indifferent to it. I have never attended a church service, or even a church wedding or funeral. At the first opportunity I left the small town, and after that I was always in the art world or in academic circles, where it is more common to be an atheist. A demonstrative and practicing religious person would be seen as odd in that world.

Since I never had to reject a Christian upbringing, it has allowed me to learn from the best theological thinkers without getting worked up about talking snakes.

On this forum, an atheist is defined as someone who lacks a belief in God. So it's no problem to lack that belief while also not falling into the belief system on the other side, in which religious people are condemned as unthinking followers, judged in contrast to our own group of superior thinkers.

(June 1, 2021 at 8:26 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(June 1, 2021 at 8:12 am)johndoe122931 Wrote: I understand that there are many different reasons as to why one chooses to become an atheist.

You can see from the responses so far, that people who were raised Christian and became atheist still think in terms of sola scriptura literalism.

That is, they can't conceive of mythical writing or allegory as anything other than literal truth. Nor are they aware of how many important Christians in history reject sola scriptura literalism. 

This is why I think so many atheists left their church at about age 12 and stopped learning anything about it from then on. Their conception of Christian belief is that of a 12-year-old. This is then reinforced by poorly-informed people like Hitchens, who has led many sheeple astray.

Hitchens poorly informed? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHA! OOOOOOOOkayyyyy. 

FYI, funny how Christians move the goal posts. It is literally truth to them, until we call out the absurdity of the claim then all the sudden it becomes allegory or metaphor.  Um no. The move to hiding behind "allegory" or "metaphor" is recent in theist apology. Back when the first books were written, those fantastic stories were believed to be literally true. 

Yep typical theist dodge, "It says what it says until it says something else."