What's your background?

[DocFNT]

I was a Methodist. I went to churchcamp every year through high school. When I got out of the Navy, I was in a Florida coffee shop talking to a christian, when the 'debate' suddenly made me realize I was an athiest. I had been for years, but had never thought of it. It was like someone had thrown a bucket if cold water on me!
It was a conversation about doing the right thing, and something about an athiest that frequented that coffeehouse. The person next to me at the counter was saying that the person of the topic could not possibly be a good person, because he was an athiest. It sounded to me as if the person, who I did not know, had always chosen the best possible choice in helping other people. But they could not ecept him, because he did not accept religion as an answer.
I realized that they were entirely predjudiced against him for that reason alone, and upon hearing their other conversation about drug rehab therapy through christ, I knew they were nuts! Aman I had never seen before got up to leave, saying" If christ is the answer, the question is wrong". It was my agreement with that, & disagreement with the joker next to me that suddenly made me realize ...I was an athiest!
That was 30 years ago, & I have spent some time looking for any scientific proof of anything in christianity. I have found nothing! I felt like I was looking for a live fish in a sandtrap!
I have done other studies in the years since, studying other, more ancient religions. After a while, you begin to see how these stories were being made up.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I was brought up rabid working-class-bog-Irish-Catholic. Arguably the most pig ignorant,superstitious,bigoted and hateful form of a pernicious faith. I began seriously questioning at age 16 and read Aquinas..As a result I overcompensated and became an insufferable little prig*.

I left the Church at 20. The suddenness surprised me: I was conscripted. No longer had to go to church,so I didn't.Never went back.

I remained a theist for the next 20 years.Asking questions but receiving no answers. Reading,studying,searching,but finding nothing. Over time I became a skeptic,in the Greek sense of the word. My atheism is not a matter of choice,but an inescapable conclusion. Finding no proof for or falsification of the existence of God(s),my position became and remains "I don't believe'





*today I'm no longer an insufferable little prig; I'm a cranky old cunt.

[Justtristo]

From age 4 to 13 I was raised solely by my atheist mother and after then I moved in with my dad and his then wife who subscribed to new age/neopagan beliefs.

[Darwinian]

By the time religion reared its ugly head in my life, I was too old and had already built up a healthy immunity to it.

[The Omnissiunt One]

Parents pretty non-religious; went to CoE primary school, but never really thought about religion until about eleven; became agnostic (in the popular sense) for about four years; after researching it for a bit, became agnostic atheist, about two years ago.

[chasm]

I was a Christian until I was about 11. Then I learned how to think for myself.

[yuriythebest]

fluffy nondenominational christian-> fluffy religion shopping christian/budhist/hindu/etc "all religions arebut different paths to god" where I basically picked all the concepts I liked -> ATHEIST/ANTITHEIST/agnostic atheist/Bright

[everythingafter]

Christian (praise band guitarist, no less) until mid- to late-20s. Although I kept up the church thing as a deist for a few years because I avoided broaching the subject with family and friends until I couldn't continue the game any longer. Like I expected, it was a difficult "coming out" process because I have an unflinchingly evangelical family, and I sometimes get "cornered" by family members about my unbelief. "Don't give up on God ..." comes a frequent line.

I think it's interesting to note that the one issue that made me begin questioning God was homosexuality. I couldn't get around this problem: If people can be born as homosexuals (and I never denied that this is the case), and if homosexuality is immoral based on doctrine and the Bible, what does that say about God?

[Entropist]

I think it's interesting to note that the one issue that made me begin questioning God was homosexuality. I couldn't get around this problem: If people can be born as homosexuals (and I never denied that this is the case), and if homosexuality is immoral based on doctrine and the Bible, what does that say about God?

This was something that bugged me, particularly in my earlier fundamentalist Christian days. I was a music composition major at the time and I adored the very moving music of Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Tchaikovsky, and many other composers... which I then discovered happened to be gay or bi-sexual. I couldn't reconcile this beautiful music with the idea that they were "abominations" and whatnot.

In a way, I think my love for this music beforehand "immunized" me from the sort of homophobia that I was exposed to frequently in the Church of Christ. As hard as I tried, I didn't always make a good fundie.

[DeistPaladin]

I think it's interesting to note that the one issue that made me begin questioning God was homosexuality. I couldn't get around this problem: If people can be born as homosexuals (and I never denied that this is the case), and if homosexuality is immoral based on doctrine and the Bible, what does that say about God?

They're already starting to adapt their arguments about homosexuality, since the jury really isn't out on the issue of whether or not it's innate as a characteristic. The local dean of the Southern Baptist seminary once wrote that homosexuality was a result of humanity's "fall from grace" and this is one of the ways that "sin" entered into the world. Hence, it can be a part of your nature and still you need to feel it's bad and something that needs to be repressed.

Really, this should come as no surprise, since Christianity regards all sex as being sinful to one degree or another. Since the days of Paul, its leaders have been obsessed with celibacy as the preferred lifestyle. The Bible even says in one of Paul's epistles that celibacy is preferable to marriage.

Arguably, other than the will to survive, there's no urge more powerful than the need for sexual gratification. That it can be a part of our nature and yet viewed as "ungodly" and "sinful" should warn us that proving the natural existence of homosexuality in both humans and animals will do nothing to discredit the taboo in the Christian's mind.

The natural world is, after all, Satan's domain. He is, as the Bible says, "the god of this world".