My conversion

[frogger6]

i grew up in a lutheran house. Well, my dad was an atheist but the rest of us thought he was foolish. lutheran grade school...lutheran high school..church on sundays...the whole bit.
I first questioned the church and lutherans in general based on the actions of the church members. How could people of god act so selfish and greedy? how could they be so full of hate and gossip?
I was mr popularity in a small grade school. athletic, artistic, funny...so i had no problem there. Then high school started and it was obvious the haves vs the have nots. if you werent rich and popular, you werent anything -except something to laugh at daily. ..I started questioning the effectiveness of the church even more.
fast forward to 1999, a few years after high school and i discovered the book of thomas which was rejected by the church. In it, thomas describes the church as being inside of you and not in buidlings of wood and stone. By this time I was of full realization that the church isnt what it seems.
Then came science. Up till now all of my science came from lutheran teachers. Imagine the irony there, a religious science teacher.
Dinosaurs? cavemen? carbon dating? None of it fit with what was in the Bible.
I recently read 'The God Delusion' and it isnt responsible for my change in beliefs, but it did give me more fuel for the fire. It also lead me to do more of my own research.
Now I think back and realize my dad, who is no longer around, wasnt such a fool afterall. I was the fool.
What I would like to ask you though, is why is it that I am so driven to disprove religion and speak out about it? Why do I feel the need to debate with people and prove them wrong?

[frankiej]

Welcome.

Glad to have you with us.

What I would like to ask you though, is why is it that I am so driven to disprove religion and speak out about it? Why do I feel the need to debate with people and prove them wrong?

I used to be like that... but, I eventually became disinterested with it. I started to realise that you get nothing new from theists and that it is, ultimately, a waste of time.

[Kayenneh]

What I would like to ask you though, is why is it that I am so driven to disprove religion and speak out about it? Why do I feel the need to debate with people and prove them wrong?

Everyone has the right to believe what he or she wants to believe in. It's just the little problem that people want to rule other people with these illusions. You don't believe in a god, but still you should follow someone else's deity and live by the rules that one allegedly put down? Or the time when fiction goes against fact and one still favors fiction? "We have always done this!" should not be a valid argument anymore, but still it's used every day. Only by education can we get people to think and someone has to get the ball rolling.

Welcome to AF!

[Zen Badger]

Hi from sunny(sort of ) Perth WA.

Why do you feel the need to debate people?

Can't help you there old chap.

I mainly do it for the lulz, because the one thing I've discovered with the religious TM is that no amount of evidence will cause them to change their views.

So just sit back and enjoy the mental aerobatics as they try to rationalise their loopy belief systems.

[KichigaiNeko]

Frogger

[frogger6]

thanks to all so far with the replies/welcomes.

One thing I find funny is that when you are a know atheist, people tend to ask: 'if you dont believe in god, what DO you believe in?
Someone asked me yesterday if i believe in hope.

[KichigaiNeko]

I don't "believe" in anything. What I know, I know; I also know that there is a hellava lot I don't know!!

[Zen Badger]

thanks to all so far with the replies/welcomes.

One thing I find funny is that when you are a know atheist, people tend to ask: 'if you dont believe in god, what DO you believe in?
Someone asked me yesterday if i believe in hope.

Belief is what you have in the absence of knowledge.

[NoMoreFaith]

What I would like to ask you though, is why is it that I am so driven to disprove religion and speak out about it? Why do I feel the need to debate with people and prove them wrong?

Thanks for writing about your experiences.

I don't think any one persons motivations are the same in regards to a feeling or need to debate, many have no such motivation at all.

In my respect, I simply don't like seeing people get obviously fooled, and led by deliberate or unwitting misleading information. Information which has a profound impact on our lives.
The human race has enough troubles to face in the future without deciding how to deal with them based on various minority opinions on what the invisble sky lord demands.

[pgrimes15]

What I would like to ask you though, is why is it that I am so driven to disprove religion and speak out about it? Why do I feel the need to debate with people and prove them wrong?

Welcome.
You may find that drive to wear off in time - it happened to me. The frustration of having intelligent and well educated people, many of whom I like and admire, still believing in magic, made it virtually impossible to keep my mouth shut.
However, after much reflection, I came to the conclusion that these people have been brainwashed, usually in childhood, and have become imprinted with God and Jebus in the same way as the geese on a nature programme have been imprinted with the micro-lite aircraft that they fly around following. In other words it is not their fault, and forcing them to undergo the contortions of logic necessary to reconcile what they are "imprinted" with to the real world doesn't do much good for anyone.
These days I restrict myself to a couple of bullet points like "If Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice why is He still alive ?"

Regards

Grimesy