If You Were An Atheist

[John V]

Listen, if you need to believe in the supernatural, superstition, and myths to be a good person, you are not a good person.

Of course I'm not a good person on my own. Christianity does have a savior at its core you know. If I thought I were good on my own I wouldn't need to be saved.

[Shuffle]

Of course I'm not a good person on my own. Christianity does have a savior at its core you know. If I thought I were good on my own I wouldn't need to be saved.

Man, this thread is depressing.

[Salacious B. Crumb]

Of course I'm not a good person on my own. Christianity does have a savior at its core you know. If I thought I were good on my own I wouldn't need to be saved.

Man, this thread is depressing.

Yeah, religion is sad as hell. He thinks he's incapable of being a good person, without someone who allegedly died on a cross a few thousand years ago. How people can believe this..

[Rhondazvous]

Shuffle, you can't ask theists these types of questions. It doesn't work.
The indoctrinated mind automatically short circuits and nullifies the question as an abstract hypothetical not worth pondering.

The other question which also cannot be pondered successfully by any theist is:
If you were born in an Islamic country, would your Christian God still be the one true God?

I'm sorry, daddy, but you need to change your name. You are too intelligent.

[Nope]

I can easily understand why you would not read the Bible or pray.  But why would you be less forgiving?  Do you think you would improve your life by being less forgiving?

There are times when I feel justified in my anger toward someone, but then I remember that we're to forgive as we've been forgiven, and so I forgive. Without Christianity, I wouldn't have that reason to forgive.

I think my life would be worse by forgiving less. I find that forgiving is very good for me, but nevertheless it's not in my nature to be forgiving.

I can only speak for myself. If you define forgiveness as letting go of anger that might hurts you then yes, I still forgive. My mother would be a good example of 'forgiveness' on my part. For years, as a Christian, I prayed for the ability to forgive her. I continued forcing a relationship with her much longer than I should have. It would have made my life more peaceful to have broken ties with her much earlier in my life but I wanted to honor her. Once I lost faith, it was easier to see her as a complex but faulty person. I felt a combination of empathy, pity, love and anger toward her in a way that I couldn't when I tried to force myself to forgive her. My emotions toward her now are not forgiveness but more of an understanding even though I still wouldn't want her to be in my life.

My guess is that as an atheist, you too would learn to let go of negative things that you can't control because it is exhausting to be angry all the time.

[Nope]

Shuffle, you can't ask theists these types of questions. It doesn't work.
The indoctrinated mind automatically short circuits and nullifies the question as an abstract hypothetical not worth pondering.

The other question which also cannot be pondered successfully by any theist is:
If you were born in an Islamic country, would your Christian God still be the one true God?

I'm sorry, daddy, but you need to change your name. You are too intelligent.

Yeah, I agree. Ignoramus isn't living up to his name.

[Rhondazvous]

Well, it's been 10 years. I felt very angry at having been lied to for 25 years. Angry at the ignorance that kept people believing stuff I knew was not true.

But My father was a mental health counselor and he taught me to see the irony of life and of my own thoughts. So after a few years I was able to acknowledge that I was once a believer and could not very well be angry at those who believed what I once had.

Some moral issues took time to work through. I had to do inventory to determine which moral standards were mine and which had been programmed into me by the Church.

At first I looked into other spiritual systems. The results were both frightening and comical. While I realized I was free to do stuff, I realized that I was also free not to do stuff and I balked at the idea of putting my mind in fetters again.

Mostly though, the change is in what I believe and what I think I need in order to be happy. I stopped believing that god would be angry and punish me if anything besides himself was making me happy. I stopped believing that it's wrong to feel good about myself and take credit for my accomplishments.

[Pyrrho]

I can easily understand why you would not read the Bible or pray.  But why would you be less forgiving?  Do you think you would improve your life by being less forgiving?

There are times when I feel justified in my anger toward someone, but then I remember that we're to forgive as we've been forgiven, and so I forgive. Without Christianity, I wouldn't have that reason to forgive.

I think my life would be worse by forgiving less. I find that forgiving is very good for me, but nevertheless it's not in my nature to be forgiving.

Maybe if you were an atheist you would think about that more.  You are smart enough to see that it is better for you, and so maybe you are smart enough to act on that.

[Rhondazvous]

There are times when I feel justified in my anger toward someone, but then I remember that we're to forgive as we've been forgiven, and so I forgive. Without Christianity, I wouldn't have that reason to forgive.

I think my life would be worse by forgiving less. I find that forgiving is very good for me, but nevertheless it's not in my nature to be forgiving.

I can only speak for myself. If you define forgiveness as letting go of anger that might hurts you then yes, I still forgive. My mother would be a good example of 'forgiveness' on my part. For years, as a Christian, I prayed for the ability to forgive her. I continued forcing a relationship with her much longer than I should have. It would have made my life more peaceful to have broken ties with her much earlier in my life but I wanted to honor her. Once I lost faith, it was easier to see her as a complex but faulty person.  I felt a combination of empathy, pity, love and anger toward  her in a way that I couldn't when I tried to force myself to forgive her.   My emotions toward her now are not forgiveness but more of an understanding even though I still wouldn't want her to be in my life.

My guess is that as an atheist, you too would learn to let go of negative things that you can't control because it is exhausting to be angry all the time.

True, Nope. forgiveness does not necessarily mean dealing with anger in a healthy way. And letting go of anger doesn't mean putting yourself in a position where people can continue to do things to you that require forgiveness.

Even when I was a Christian, I questioned the length to which forgiveness was to be extended. I saw people in my family abuse it so much. It was like when they wanted to do something they would plan before-hand, "Oh she's a Christian. She'll forgive me." So Is it really god that requires me to be stupid? Is it god that requires me to be an enabler for people who want to be devious?

It's stupid. My sister is bipolar. One day she did something really ugly to me and I decided I'd best give her some space. When I ran into her at church, I told her she need to go back on that Zantex or whatever it was the doctor had given her because one day she's going to go off on the wrong person and they will hurt her. She said. "Oh, I don't go oof on everyone." Wow, thanks for putting me on your list of people it's okay to go off on. I didn't say that out loud, but I learned something.

[John V]

Maybe if you were an atheist you would think about that more.  You are smart enough to see that it is better for you, and so maybe you are smart enough to act on that.

In my experience intelligence and emotion are mostly separate spheres. Maybe you should think about it more as an atheist. From my perspective, it seems that many people come here to feed their anger and keep it alive.