(February 23, 2012 at 8:04 am)LastPoet Wrote: I've made an analogy and said it many times, based on anecdotal evidence, sure, but I think its pretty much valid:

When I was addicted to heroin, I often thought about how life would not be as joyous and/or worth living without the 'feeling good' that heroin gave me, while trying to find reasons to not quit drugs. I had the hardest of times quitting it, and for like 2 years after, I struggled to find purpose and joy in life without them. This is what I see in many religious people and from my own deconvertion, I can say the feeling is quite similar.

So, religion is like a drug addiction, you find solace in that belief that was put in your mind since childhood, because you can't really see how can one live life without god and the queezy feeling that belief gives you. But as in drugs, you can't be convinced or forced by others to quit religion, you have to get there yourself, struggle with it a bit, yes, but you have to do it yourself.

Now, 12 years after stopping drugs and 17 years after I quit religion, I laugh on how silly I was.

(February 23, 2012 at 8:23 am)tackattack Wrote: I personally can live my life just fine and moral without religion and God. If religion is out of fear or just because it feels good, I agree it like a drug addiction and just as destructive. However if you find religion though experimentation, observation and rational thinking, it's just like any other belief; healthy and sound. I was taught math since childhood, does that make it an irrational or unhealthy belief? Would you compare a belief in chemistry or love of soccer to drug addiction? I never got a queezy feeling with or without religion, perhaps some pepto?

Napoleon Wrote:For instance, I said something off the cuff about how priests like to touch little boys. She gets offended. She tuts and pulls some snarly face like I've just insulted her. It's a fact though, Catholic priests HAVE touched little boys. But why if you don't go to church every sunday, if you don't even pray, would you get offended by something like that?

(February 23, 2012 at 10:05 am)Faith No More Wrote: "Which is why you have to be careful if mommy takes you to church."

She was fucking pissed.

(February 23, 2012 at 10:01 am)LastPoet Wrote: I don't advocate the end of sports, just pro sports, btw.

(February 23, 2012 at 10:18 am)thesummerqueen Wrote:

(February 23, 2012 at 10:01 am)LastPoet Wrote: I don't advocate the end of sports, just pro sports, btw.

How else are politicians supposed to secretly distract the masses?

(February 23, 2012 at 10:18 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: How else are politicians supposed to secretly distract the masses?

(February 23, 2012 at 1:27 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Your mother annoyed me once Nap, once.

(February 22, 2012 at 1:34 pm)Strongbad Wrote: I'd say that there is a very good reason that his wife believes what she does, just like Napolean's mom (and my wife too, btw), and it has nothing to do with the validity of her beliefs. She, like every other Christian that I've ever met or corresponded with (including every Christian on this forum, especially the ones that claim to be "former atheists") was indoctrinated as a child. It is almost impossible for her to not carry on believing what she was taught before she reached the age of reason. People in authority when she was a child instructed her that the Christian god is real, the Bible is God's word, hell is a real place to be feared, Satan is real, sin is real, etc, etc. It is a statistical fact that the vast majority of people that were indoctrinated as children have an extremely difficult time escaping the clutches of their indoctrination, and it is almost pointless to try to deprogram them.