I don't think there is a "most for me". More like a collection of data I ran into over the years that added up.
I can only really tell you what got the ball rolling. I was working back in the late 80s as a day laborer, and a carpenter, no pun intended, asked me "what if Jesus was just a man"..... That didn't make me give up right then, but it did make some sense because, although prior I really wanted it to be true, something about all the magic and doomsday stories I heard in church, while I couldn't place my finger on it, didn't make sense.
The second but equal nail came later when I saw a display at the Smithsonian museum of the Angkor temple complex, from Cambodia. In it's almost thousand year reign Buddhists and Hindus mixed and the long hallway showed the slow progression of mixing. Having known that the NT was based on the Jewish OT, I thought, "Well if this mixing can happen here what makes any religion original? I still didn't know for years that even Yahweh was taken from Canaanite polytheism.
But even then I wasn't an all out atheist, I was still an agnostic theist, or what people call a deist.
My final nail came in college, when I met another atheist. I still kept it to myself for a while but with him I finally felt comfortable not believing at all.
BUT it doesn't stop there, I still back then was uneducated compared to now. My quest for like minded people didn't happen until after 9/11 when I read an AP opinion in our local paper that originated out of Chicago. It was about an Atheist nurse who was saying atheists were being left out of the mourning process as a nation. I wish I had kept that article and wish I could thank her for what she did for me.
It was at that point I said, fuck it, I am going to get on line. I really did have fear, because of all the bullshit I was sold by society, that I might be joining some lawless advocates. It took me less than a few days to see I had nothing to worry about. I have not looked back since.
I started out on the atheistnetwork, which still exists but not owned by the same people and is a shell of it's old days because of the explosion of social media it had to compete with. Then Infidel Guy started his website, even had 24/7 atheist radio feed to which many of us had original shows on it. I did one called "Did I Think That Or Say It"
Unfortunately the economy busted and Infidel Guy couldn't keep up the cost and has since moved on to other things. He's still doing well though. His website is where I originally hosted all my poetry, had to move it because of his decision. Don't blame him though.
There are too many pieces for me to count to say I can put them in order of "most". I wont be a selfish dick and say I did it all by myself. There are far too many people over the past 15 years who I have learned from, and the books I have read to be that conceited. They had to learn those things before they passed it to me.
I will say if it were not for all those who put that data in my head, I'd be an easy target for a slick snake oil salesman.
I think however if you are going to force me, not literally, but if I have to say a "most", it would be the size of our galaxy, and size and age of the universe, and knowing there were no written religions 200,000 years ago, much less 13.8 billion years ago. I simply cannot cling to old bronze age morality knowing what I know now.
I can only really tell you what got the ball rolling. I was working back in the late 80s as a day laborer, and a carpenter, no pun intended, asked me "what if Jesus was just a man"..... That didn't make me give up right then, but it did make some sense because, although prior I really wanted it to be true, something about all the magic and doomsday stories I heard in church, while I couldn't place my finger on it, didn't make sense.
The second but equal nail came later when I saw a display at the Smithsonian museum of the Angkor temple complex, from Cambodia. In it's almost thousand year reign Buddhists and Hindus mixed and the long hallway showed the slow progression of mixing. Having known that the NT was based on the Jewish OT, I thought, "Well if this mixing can happen here what makes any religion original? I still didn't know for years that even Yahweh was taken from Canaanite polytheism.
But even then I wasn't an all out atheist, I was still an agnostic theist, or what people call a deist.
My final nail came in college, when I met another atheist. I still kept it to myself for a while but with him I finally felt comfortable not believing at all.
BUT it doesn't stop there, I still back then was uneducated compared to now. My quest for like minded people didn't happen until after 9/11 when I read an AP opinion in our local paper that originated out of Chicago. It was about an Atheist nurse who was saying atheists were being left out of the mourning process as a nation. I wish I had kept that article and wish I could thank her for what she did for me.
It was at that point I said, fuck it, I am going to get on line. I really did have fear, because of all the bullshit I was sold by society, that I might be joining some lawless advocates. It took me less than a few days to see I had nothing to worry about. I have not looked back since.
I started out on the atheistnetwork, which still exists but not owned by the same people and is a shell of it's old days because of the explosion of social media it had to compete with. Then Infidel Guy started his website, even had 24/7 atheist radio feed to which many of us had original shows on it. I did one called "Did I Think That Or Say It"
Unfortunately the economy busted and Infidel Guy couldn't keep up the cost and has since moved on to other things. He's still doing well though. His website is where I originally hosted all my poetry, had to move it because of his decision. Don't blame him though.
There are too many pieces for me to count to say I can put them in order of "most". I wont be a selfish dick and say I did it all by myself. There are far too many people over the past 15 years who I have learned from, and the books I have read to be that conceited. They had to learn those things before they passed it to me.
I will say if it were not for all those who put that data in my head, I'd be an easy target for a slick snake oil salesman.
I think however if you are going to force me, not literally, but if I have to say a "most", it would be the size of our galaxy, and size and age of the universe, and knowing there were no written religions 200,000 years ago, much less 13.8 billion years ago. I simply cannot cling to old bronze age morality knowing what I know now.
