Before You Became an Atheist, Were You Afraid of Yourself?

[Spooky]

I would say that the most significant difference between Christian me and atheist me is that I no longer have the ability to rationalize the fact that the whole of the religion is Swiss cheese made entirely of holes, and my unwillingness to ignore the myriad crimes and atrocities against other people that are the result of inherent aspects of that religion.

But it's ok as long as you murder people for their own good.

[StealthySkeptic]

Before I became an atheist, I was pretty deep into Catholicism for most of my childhood. My parents weren't all that into it, and neither was my sister. But I had a priest who was pretty heavy into the fire and brimstone stuff (even though my parents were uncomfortable with it, all their friends were there). That inspired me to take Communion, CCD, etc. very seriously, and to read the Bible very in depth in order to squash my little kid questions like, "If Mary's the Mother of God, who's the father?" and "WHY ARE WE CANNIBALIZING JESUS?!?!" and "Why can't I drink the blood of Christ?" Plus, I had a disability, so as I grew up and had social difficulties I constantly questioned why God would make broken like this, and wishing that if I was to go to hell for my sins, he would do it already. So yeah, I know how it feels to hate yourself.

[abaris]

Plus, I had a disability, so as I grew up and had social difficulties I constantly questioned why God would make broken like this, and wishing that if I was to go to hell for my sins, he would do it already. So yeah, I know how it feels to hate yourself.

Did they feed you that bullshit of being carried by Jesus or god when you were at your most miserable?

I too was utterly frightened by the fire and brimstone stories being fed. But on me it had the opposite effect. When I was still a child I decided, if god was anything like what the priests made him out to be, I didn't want to have anything to do with him anyway. So, for quite some time I had decided that god wasn't the evil bastard described by the church. Only much later I noticed I didn't believe in him at all.

[KevinM1]

Before I became an atheist, I was pretty deep into Catholicism for most of my childhood. My parents weren't all that into it, and neither was my sister. But I had a priest who was pretty heavy into the fire and brimstone stuff (even though my parents were uncomfortable with it, all their friends were there). That inspired me to take Communion, CCD, etc. very seriously, and to read the Bible very in depth in order to squash my little kid questions like, "If Mary's the Mother of God, who's the father?" and "WHY ARE WE CANNIBALIZING JESUS?!?!" and "Why can't I drink the blood of Christ?" Plus, I had a disability, so as I grew up and had social difficulties I constantly questioned why God would make broken like this, and wishing that if I was to go to hell for my sins, he would do it already. So yeah, I know how it feels to hate yourself.

High five, fellow disabled person

[StealthySkeptic]

Plus, I had a disability, so as I grew up and had social difficulties I constantly questioned why God would make broken like this, and wishing that if I was to go to hell for my sins, he would do it already. So yeah, I know how it feels to hate yourself.

Did they feed you that bullshit of being carried by Jesus or god when you were at your most miserable?

I too was utterly frightened by the fire and brimstone stories being fed. But on me it had the opposite effect. When I was still a child I decided, if god was anything like what the priests made him out to be, I didn't want to have anything to do with him anyway. So, for quite some time I had decided that god wasn't the evil bastard described by the church. Only much later I noticed I didn't believe in him at all.

I wanted to believe that the Judeo-Christian god wasn't an evil bastard in the same way at first, and it seems to line up with what my mom still believes even though she's pretty much a heretic by Vatican standards.

I was fed that bullshit, but I'm pretty sure you can guess that when I demanded God to explain what the hell was the point of saddling me with the difficulties I had to endure, he didn't bother answering me for two seconds and I got the "It's a test, life is about tests, blah blah blah" line, even from my relatively liberal religious girlfriend who said she felt I was made like this for the purpose of helping other disabled people. By this time though I was an atheist so when I pointed out the obviously flawed logic in that statement she conceded the point.