Greetings
August 17, 2010 at 9:08 pm
(This post was last modified: August 17, 2010 at 9:18 pm by Justtristo.)
Seamus (I don't know if he has the same nick on here) from the Atheist foundation of Australia website mentioned in passing he was on here, so I decided to join.
Let me introduce myself, I am a 27-year-old guy from provincial Victoria*. I am from a non-religious background and consider myself Agnostic, while I don't believe in god/s, however I regard my lack of a belief in a god or higher is just another belief system. Although I am not a permanent agnostic, if there was clear scientific evidence for god/s not existing, I could say definitely god does not exist, rather than I believe god does not exist. In the past I have never thought deeply about my lack of a belief in god/s.
A bit about my life and how it shaped me, well I was raised by my avowedly atheist mother from age 4-13, then I moved with my dad and his then wife who subscribed to various new age stuff (including belief in Aliens visiting Earth). That experience affected me to the extent, I was always looking at Christianity from the position of an outsider and also I developed a solidly rationalistic, skeptical mindset.
Being open-minded and freethinking made me open in hearing about the ideas the Christians were preaching about. For a long time my main contact with Christians were with that of the liberal variety, I generally found them an all right lot and not terribly dogmatic. Since I have been at university for the last couple of years or so, I got to meet evangelical Christians. Being open-minded I started hearing about the gospel and reading the bible. As a result I have become a bit more critical of Christianity (at least it's evangelical variant) Also to think more critically about religion than I used to, I have generally had a fairly neutral, sometimes negative, sometimes positive view of religion. That is beginning to change due to my experiences dealing with Evangelical Christians in recent years (I was not exposed much to those people in my younger years living in Hobart and Melbourne). I have come to the conclusion those people in having often a ‘correct’ interpretation of the bible. Also I have come to the conclusion that the 'better' Christians are the ones who don’t interpret the bible literally.
Also recently, I have been reading the works of the so-called 'new atheist' authors such as Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Stenger and see them as reasonable men who are arguing ideas which some of them are possibly true. Like for example asserting that god is a psychological illusion or that religion can be studied scientifically like sport.
Let me introduce myself, I am a 27-year-old guy from provincial Victoria*. I am from a non-religious background and consider myself Agnostic, while I don't believe in god/s, however I regard my lack of a belief in a god or higher is just another belief system. Although I am not a permanent agnostic, if there was clear scientific evidence for god/s not existing, I could say definitely god does not exist, rather than I believe god does not exist. In the past I have never thought deeply about my lack of a belief in god/s.
A bit about my life and how it shaped me, well I was raised by my avowedly atheist mother from age 4-13, then I moved with my dad and his then wife who subscribed to various new age stuff (including belief in Aliens visiting Earth). That experience affected me to the extent, I was always looking at Christianity from the position of an outsider and also I developed a solidly rationalistic, skeptical mindset.
Being open-minded and freethinking made me open in hearing about the ideas the Christians were preaching about. For a long time my main contact with Christians were with that of the liberal variety, I generally found them an all right lot and not terribly dogmatic. Since I have been at university for the last couple of years or so, I got to meet evangelical Christians. Being open-minded I started hearing about the gospel and reading the bible. As a result I have become a bit more critical of Christianity (at least it's evangelical variant) Also to think more critically about religion than I used to, I have generally had a fairly neutral, sometimes negative, sometimes positive view of religion. That is beginning to change due to my experiences dealing with Evangelical Christians in recent years (I was not exposed much to those people in my younger years living in Hobart and Melbourne). I have come to the conclusion those people in having often a ‘correct’ interpretation of the bible. Also I have come to the conclusion that the 'better' Christians are the ones who don’t interpret the bible literally.
Also recently, I have been reading the works of the so-called 'new atheist' authors such as Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Stenger and see them as reasonable men who are arguing ideas which some of them are possibly true. Like for example asserting that god is a psychological illusion or that religion can be studied scientifically like sport.
undefined
