Question

[Brian37]

Hi everyone.  First of all I want to be honest and let you know that I am a Bible believing Christian.  I did not join this forum with the intentions to attack, debate, or belittle anyone. I expect the same treatment, please.  I am doing a personal study on the topic of apostasy of the Christian faith. Some believers think that a person of Christian faith can choose to not follow Jesus.  I do have my own beliefs about this subject of which i will not discuss.  I do personally know of one person who kind of turned away for a period of time , but eventually returned to the faith.  I am here to ask if there are any of people who were a bible believing, Christ following, Christian who chose to "walk away" from that belief.  If so, how long were you a follower of Jesus and why did you abandon that faith?  What is your belief now?
Thank you so much for your time.
G.

What are you doing here then? 

We do blaspheme and we do debate. You are a guest here. Nobody is saying you have to leave, you are welcome to stay, but it is unreasonable to make demands on a website you do not own nor or an admin on.

And Christianity IS NOT the only religion we question or reject. Atheists exist in every nation and have left every religion you can think of. We come in all nationalities and skin tones and have left Jewish, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism too. I am talking worldwide mind you, not just this website. 

For most of us here, while some were not raised with a religion, but for most of us, we thought about it over long periods of time, questioned and the more we questioned the less sense it made to us to the point we realized it was all nonsense. 

And the word "apostate" is a nonsense word to me. It would be as silly to be scorned to me for not believing in Harry Potter or the Tooth Fairy.

Humans of religion worldwide mostly get sold at birth, the religion of their parents. NOBODY back then had our modern knowledge we do now. "That was then, this is now"  I apply equally in my skepticism to all religions, not just yours.

No, there is no such thing as a magic baby with super powers just like you accept Thor does not make lightening.

[robvalue]

That either indicates that there's several gods all with limited fields of influence; or else people are just believing that they are told as children, which is entirely natural.

Or there is one God that likes to fuck with people and sit with his giant God popcorn as he watches different religions kill each other lol.

Maybe God is a big troll!

Yup, that is another possibility! About the only explanation that doesn't work at all is one all-powerful, honest and caring God.

[Whateverist]

You belong to a church, yet the religious views under your username is listed as “Do not like religion.”  Uh huh.

In any event, I grew up in a mostly non-practicing Catholic household.  I never truly believed in any god, and I’m beyond thankful that I’ve only ever been in a church 10 or fewer times in my life.

Haha!  You caught that.  Yep, I do go to church.   "Religion" and "religious" people frustrate me.  I don't like legalism that falls into religion, nor do I like the religious people who put themselves above others because they have lots of head knowledge about a particular faith.  I am a follower of Jesus and believe in Him as my Lord and savior and try to follow His commands.  Not rules of man.  I am not out to force my faith onto anyone nor do I condemn anyone for what they believe.   I share my faith/beliefs when asked or am given the opportunity to do so.   I am on here to just figure out why people "walk away" from what I believe in.

Well surely you can think of some beliefs one is raised with which it is right and proper to walk away from. If one is a racist or sexist through having been raised in a certain culture, aren't we all happy when someone comes to question and finally walk away from it?

Then there is all the fanciful stuff kids are encouraged to believe in as a kind of transitional culture. I'm thinking of the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, Santa and even cartoon characters which amount to talking animals. By raising children to adopt and then shed such beliefs we certainly set the table for them to question other beliefs. 

But let me start over and congratulate you on your desire to hear straight from the horses mouth what atheists believe and why, rather than coming in to tell us what we really think and why. I find that refreshing and hopeful.

I would ask you in the same spirit of frankness if you yourself have ever entertained the possibility that the relationship you feel to God is something going on entirely within yourself between your conscious self and what we might call your deeper self. I find the idea of 'the supernatural' almost offensive intellectually. Why not at least look for a natural basis for religious experience rather than positing something like that? I mean, I know religious traditions herd you in that direction. But you seem to be someone who can question that sort of herding, and is looking to make sense of it all for yourself. (And I applaud you for doing so.)

[robvalue]

I would not be a Christian even if it had any truth to it, anyhow. I know many other people feel the same way.

[Edwardo Piet]

Even if that explicit miracle happened and it fell in line exactly with what, say, most Christians believe about God. Let's say God showed up and it was clearly the Christian God.

Still not evidence of God for me: The most plausible explanation was that a highly advanced alien visited earth and talked to people thousands of years ago to tell them to write a book. And that alien is powermad and wants us to think it is God.

The way I see it, a natural explanation is always more parsimonious and always makes sense. The chances of there being a highly powerful and advanced alien, thousands upon thousands of years ahead of us in technology, and capable of producing the most grandiose of illusions, is extremely low. And extremely improbable. But it still makes more sense than some "supernatural" being "outside of the universe" showing up and talking like a human.

Any being that showed itself in nature, would have a natural explanation... and the natural explanation would always make more sense than the supernatural one.

You're right. It wouldn't be conclusive evidence that the Christian god exists, but it would make Christianity far more plausible than it is now. And I mean far more plausible. But again, like you said, it could be aliens playing games with us, or Descartes' demon continually deceiving us, or we are all really Boltzmann brains, or we really do live in a simulated world, or we happen to live in one of those universes where Christianity just happens to be true in a naturalistic manner (e.g., Jesus did rise from the dead, but only because particles were fascinatingly arranged in such a way as to lead to such an outcome). Only Odin knows.

Yeah it would mean that either it's an alien or it really is God. It would be far more likely that it's an alien, on my view, but the fact something apparently God-like showed up, would be at least very weak evidence that it's more likely that such a being really is God than if such a being hadn't shown up at all.

But this is the problem with how God is defined... as supernatural... he's defined in such a way that even if he showed up and threatened us with hellfire if we didn't believe we couldn't be certain that he was really God.

To be honest there's also the simulation argument. The idea that we're in a computer simulation. So that God could merely be a simulated God created by advanced humans tens or hundreds of thousands of years into the future... and this is just a simulation of the past.

Even that is far more likely, the simulated God in the simulated universe, in my mind, than God.

There's even a valid argument for the simulation argument. At least, as far as I can see it's completely valid: meaning if all the premises are true then the conclusion is. The only reason I don't believe in it, is I don't accept some of the premises. For starters, I think humanity will die out well before we get to that level of technology.

[Mister Agenda]

Hi everyone.  First of all I want to be honest and let you know that I am a Bible believing Christian.  I did not join this forum with the intentions to attack, debate, or belittle anyone. I expect the same treatment, please.  I am doing a personal study on the topic of apostasy of the Christian faith. Some believers think that a person of Christian faith can choose to not follow Jesus.  I do have my own beliefs about this subject of which i will not discuss.  I do personally know of one person who kind of turned away for a period of time , but eventually returned to the faith.  I am here to ask if there are any of people who were a bible believing, Christ following, Christian who chose to "walk away" from that belief.  If so, how long were you a follower of Jesus and why did you abandon that faith?  What is your belief now?
Thank you so much for your time.
G.

I was raised Pentecostal and was very devout. I spoke in tongues, prayed a lot, agonized over my sins, etc. But...my parents were divorced. My mother was a different kind of Pentecostal from my father, so of course, she was going to hell. My step-mother was Catholic. I started getting serious about my religion around age 12 and read the NT. When I was about 15 I read the KJV cover-to-cover. I hoped I misunderstood it, so I read a modern English version cover-to-cover as well. It turned out I had understood it fine. Over and over while I read that book, I would read events in which God did things that were barbaric or otherwise morally reprehensible. I noticed inconsistencies too, and how God changed as the Bible progressed, but the main thing that struck me was that I, a mere imperfect mortal, could think of more ethical ways of dealing with issues than the loving omnipotent unchanging creator and ruler of the universe.

That experience didn't make me an atheist, more an agnostic theist or Somethingist, but it convinced me that God had little or nothing to do with the Bible. I had too high an opinion of God to believe what his supposed biographers had to say about him. It would be about 20 more years before I started considering myself an atheist, though.

[purplepurpose]

I would not be a Christian even if it had any truth to it, anyhow. I know many other people feel the same way.

Even death seems more satisfying than "licking of the feet" of your Master for eternity to get "Magical snacks" when Master is satisfied with it's pet actions.

[Edwardo Piet]

I would not be a Christian even if it had any truth to it, anyhow. I know many other people feel the same way.

For me, I like to think that I wouldn't. But then, I like to think that if I was on a desert island starving to death with another person... we wouldn't try to eat each other eventually if we couldn't find any food.

It would be like that, to me. If God did show up, I still wouldn't want to be Christian because he's a genocidal maniac and the biggest total arsehole of a cunt ever (to put it mildly).... but I may eventually submit just because my survival instinct would kick in, and I wouldn't wanna be torchered in hellfire.

Although I guess there's a sense in which I, as my personality, my conscious self, is not my instincts. We don't really identify with our reptilian brain, our flight or flight system. That's why when it kicks in and we misbehave we tend to say things like "I don't know what came over me." As the biological creature we call a "human" I may eventually submit out of pure fear and survival instinct, but as a person... it wouldn't be really 'me' submitting, in some sense. It would be like someone holding a gun to my head (although personally that wouldn't bother me as much as most people. I'd happily let God pull the trigger on that one. I'm more afraid of extreme suffering or starving to death than I am of death itself or a quick death).

[Crossless2.0]

My parents split when I was 3, so I grew up with one foot in the Lutheran church when at home with Mom and the other in the Catholic church when I was with my dad and his side of the family. I 'believed' in the same indifferent way many kids do when they are exposed to something they're told they are 'supposed to believe'. But even then, I remember having my doubts.

I decidedly broke with Christianity when I was 14. I remember the day well. We were in church and the congregation was reciting the Apostles' Creed, as usual. For some reason, that day I really heard what it was everyone was claiming to believe (as opposed to mindlessly muttering the words along with them), and I realized that I hardly believed a single word of it. Further, I was embarrassed for all of the adults around me who proclaimed such belief. It suddenly all seemed so childish and irrelevant.

37 years later, it still does.

[mlmooney89]

I believed until about 15-16 and I just couldn't wrap my head around magic being real, I'm too much of a logical thinker. I gave up religion for what made more sense and what had proof.

Thanks for your honesty.  It is hard to wrap the brain around some of the miracles in the Bible.  I try to be a logical thinker as well.
If you don't mind, what was your belief before giving up?  And what kind of "proof" did you turn to?

I apologize but I don't think following the bible is being a logical thinker. It talks about a human walking on water, a flood that has never been documented, a human parting the sea... nothing about that book is logical. Humans cannot do magical things and there were civilizations thriving when there was supposed to be a planet wide flood killing everyone. Plus there are different versions of the book, how does that make sense at all? It's like someone realized the bible had too many faults and they rewrote it to work better for them. Plus the whole free will but god having an ultimate plan for you doesn't make any sense either. I mean it literally contradicts itself. If it was "her time to die" and "part of his plan" how was it her free will to cross the street at that exact moment that the person driving the car's free will decided to turn the corner. Either they both did that on their own free will or it was part of his plan and they had no freedom from it. Instead I turned to fossils, scientists, peer reviewed theories, things that can be tested. I was just basic Christian. I think my parents claimed Methodist but I didn't have a say in that.

Also I found it super creepy for god to be always watching me and for 'loved ones to be watching over us'. I didn't want to follow something that was always watching me. That thought is what led me down the path of "wait a minute, I don't think I want to do this."