When I was still living at home, I, like my parents, was a devout Christian. For the most part I blame them for this, as it was the lack of any literature other that that approved by my Father and deemed "accetable to the Christian faith" that found its way into his household. However it dawned on me that it was all bullshit before I'd even heard other ideas about how the world came into being. (obviously I was not oblivious to other religions and evolution, but all information came to me skewed from my fathers bias opinion)
I went to church and heard all the stories, for a long time I never questioned it, as doing so would mean an eternity in hell, but in my rebelious teen years, I decided to actually sit down and think about it.
The bible is big, and beliefs that stem from that are diverse. In small chunks and taken out of context the bible can mean anything you want it to, but looking at it as a whole all I could see was a story about a God who sacrifices himself to himself so that he can bypass a law that he created. A law that (despite being created by him) forced him (this omnipitent, undconditionally-loving asshole) to send his very own flawed creations into a hell that he created for all eternity because they acted (I can only assume) exactly as God expected them to.
I did not become an atheist at that point, but it was at that point I started to think indipendantly of an ancient fairytale.
But why did I have to discover this on my own? If someone had told me this while I was a devout Christian I would have yelled, "Blasphemy!" and fled screaming to the church to wash the sin away. It boggles my mind how people are able to run on blind faith their entire lives. Never questioning. Never doubting.
When someone is an addict, telling them they need to quit won't make them. They won't quit until they want to quit. I feel like religion is the same. You can tell them the facts, but it means nothing to them until they're looking for the facts.
To the atheists who were once religious (not necessarily Christian), what made you change your mind? Did someone convince you, or did you come to the conclusion on your own?
To the people of faith, could anything change your mind?
I went to church and heard all the stories, for a long time I never questioned it, as doing so would mean an eternity in hell, but in my rebelious teen years, I decided to actually sit down and think about it.
The bible is big, and beliefs that stem from that are diverse. In small chunks and taken out of context the bible can mean anything you want it to, but looking at it as a whole all I could see was a story about a God who sacrifices himself to himself so that he can bypass a law that he created. A law that (despite being created by him) forced him (this omnipitent, undconditionally-loving asshole) to send his very own flawed creations into a hell that he created for all eternity because they acted (I can only assume) exactly as God expected them to.
I did not become an atheist at that point, but it was at that point I started to think indipendantly of an ancient fairytale.
But why did I have to discover this on my own? If someone had told me this while I was a devout Christian I would have yelled, "Blasphemy!" and fled screaming to the church to wash the sin away. It boggles my mind how people are able to run on blind faith their entire lives. Never questioning. Never doubting.
When someone is an addict, telling them they need to quit won't make them. They won't quit until they want to quit. I feel like religion is the same. You can tell them the facts, but it means nothing to them until they're looking for the facts.
To the atheists who were once religious (not necessarily Christian), what made you change your mind? Did someone convince you, or did you come to the conclusion on your own?
To the people of faith, could anything change your mind?
