Why are YOU an Atheist?

[Darkstar]

Cain could marry one of his sisters, which was not against God's laws yet (not until Moses was incest made bad).

My Bold

What of Lot and his daughters?

But what is considered incest? Moses's family, and the wives of his sons were on the boat. However, after one generation, wouldn't it be cousins on cousins at the farthest? (genetically)

[Whateverist]

As for me, I thought God was aces when I was in early elementary school. My family took me to a Methodist church before I started school but stopped for reasons I never knew before I started school. My father was in the navy and was gone more than half the time. He was the more religious of the two so maybe that's why we stopped going.

Because of the early age at which the indoctrination was stopped, I was pretty much on my own to make sense of God and Jesus and angels and heaven and hell on my own. I like what I came up with better than what most Christians are having. Regardless, by the time I was ten, it no longer seemed very likely that this wonderful interpretation I'd come up with -or any other- was at all plausible. So, reluctantly, I let it go. My whole family and everyone I knew were true believing Christians so my impression was that I was a pretty odd bird. Mostly though, I just didn't think about it a lot and I never challenged anyone's beliefs. I didn't talk to anyone about it and didn't read about atheism.

If it was up to me, the story I'd woven together to make sense of God would be true. But of course, it isn't. I wasn't happy to let it go. So I was never eager to talk anyone out of what I wished I could have for myself. Eventually, once I got away from my family, I became as satisfied with the world without God as I had been with the one I'd created. I'm still ambivalent about talking people out of their beliefs .. except when they try to inflict them on the rest of us politically. Can't say I have any regrets about having grown up believing what I did. Nor do I have any regrets that I no longer harbor any of those beliefs. It has made for an interesting life in that regard.

[Minimalist]

Cain could marry one of his sisters, which was not against God's laws yet (not until Moses was incest made bad).

My Bold

What of Lot and his daughters?

In The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein has an interesting take on that particular bullshit story.




"No 7th century Judahite looking across the Dead Sea towards the rival kingdoms would have been able to suppress a smile of contempt at such a disreputable ancestry."

This is what happens when a real scholar - one who understands those times - takes one of these stories and actually puts it "in context" as the jesus freaks are always demanding.

Context is not your friend, dear jesus freaks.

[IATIA]

For those interested, here is a summary with links to some YouTube versions.

[Doubting_Thomas]

Lot's daughters are just a softcore pron episode intended as a light intermission in the main story. Stop questioning the bible, it shows your lack of faith!!!!!

[pocaracas]

There was already a thread on this subject.... and I guess more than that... but heck, here's my take on the story.
Major detail missing below: this all takes place in a typically catholic country in the south west of Europe and it's not Spain!

Well, "origin story" time.
My parents didn't care much for religion... however, they got married in a church, baptized me and my brother before we were one year old and never said anything bad about religion. Bottom line, I rarely went to church. And when I did, it was with my grandmother.
So, there I was thinking that everyone around me was a believer, even if they didn't practice it.
I mean really everyone!
I was 10, circa 1990.
I was listening to the news on the radio and they claimed there were images of some awesome event in some town lost in the midst of China.
I thought: damn, they have cameras everywhere nowadays.
And then came the 'ping', wait a minute: what else is also everywhere? They say god is.
How come god and cameras never met?
Damn, one of them must be wrong and cameras are not the one.
Shit... how come no one ever realized this?!
Keep quiet.

And I kept quiet for about a year, then I told my brother. He didn't think much of it... he was 9.
Then I learned about evolution... and there came about another rift: either evolution or genesis is wrong and it's not evolution!

Eventually, I learned there was a name for people who didn't believe: atheist. Oh, if there's a name for it, there's more people like me! yiipee!
Then, in some tv show, some guy casually said that roughly 20% of the world's population is atheist.
I was like: WOWWW.
Hey everyone, I'm atheist!

That's about it. I then came up with some reason to why people do believe, in skydaddies. As you'd guess, it involves the cult of the dead, the desire to not become dead, the need to explain mysteries of the world: life, sun, moon, where we come from and, for some strange reason, the why are we here.

In short: something tells me there might not be any god anywhere.... some parts of your holy book are wrong, I wonder what other parts are also wrong?.... damn, I'm not the only one thinking this, whew!.... gods are made up, can't you see it?!

[Angrboda]

[Endplaintwo]

I stopped believing when I realized the fact that I had to become an apologist to believe in god was stupid. But I grew up and live in the Bible Belt, so I tend not to tell anyone I'm an atheist just to make things easier

[Ryantology]

Apologetics is what happens when you can't just kill nonbelievers.

My story is a combination of disillusionment with Christianity while exposing myself to more science, really. It's probably a cliche but The God Delusion finally confirmed things for me.

[Gilgamesh]

I think it has something to do with not believing that a god exists.