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Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 3:23 pm
(This post was last modified: July 24, 2018 at 3:26 pm by Alexmahone.)
Atheists: If you were born and raised in a society where literally everyone else was theist, and there was no atheistic material available in the libraries or on the internet, would you still be an atheist today? Phrased differently, could you possibly have "discovered" atheism all by yourself?
My answer is probably not. Prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris played a big role in me becoming an atheist. So I guess we ought to be indebted to other atheists (past or present).
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RE: Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 3:26 pm
You're asking us if our beliefs would be different if we utterly replaced our entire life experience with another?
Yeah, no shit things would be different.
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
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RE: Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 3:32 pm
(July 24, 2018 at 3:23 pm)Alexmahone Wrote: Atheists: If you were born and raised in a society where literally everyone else was theist, and there was no atheistic material available in the libraries or on the internet, would you still be an atheist today? Phrased differently, could you possibly have "discovered" atheism all by yourself?
My answer is probably not. Prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris played a big role in me becoming an atheist. So I guess we ought to be indebted to other atheists (past or present).
I came to atheism on my own, specifically because religion makes no sense to me. Even as a child, I went through the motions. I wanted to believe, but my intellectual honesty prohibited me from actually believing.
I've never read Dawkins or Harris or any other source of atheist literature.
"I was thirsty for everything, but blood wasn't my style" - Live, "Voodoo Lady"
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RE: Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 3:37 pm
I was raised in a culture where everyone that I knew was a theist. I was raised in a fundamentalist community. The only mentions of atheism that I recall from childhood were that there were some truly evil and stupid people in the world who did not believe in god at all. When I was in my teens, there were occasional mentions of Madalyn Murray O'Hair - that she was obviously a demon. I first went to a public school in the 10th grade where I was taught about evolution. My parents said it was a lie, that the devil had buried fake bones to try to confuse the righteous and that scientists were demons.
But then I went off to college. I did my own studies in comparative religion. I started to question.
Oddly enough, though, it was by working in the Catholic Church and really READING the Bible that I became an atheist.
Only after that did I read Dawkins, and Hitchens, and others. The internet did not influence my de-conversion. Reading the Bible (with some background scientific knowledge of the real world) made me an atheist.
So yes. I became an atheist without reading atheist authors and without searching the internet.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
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RE: Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 3:38 pm
There were atheists before the library and the internet...so.... 
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 3:42 pm
I also was born and raised surrounded by catholick horseshit and most of the other kids were catholicks or jews.... didn't meet my first fundie shitwit until college. What an asswipe he was!
Anyway, I was 11 when it dawned on me that these pious assholes wearing the silly costumes were not particularly decent human beings. I never really thought about it much after that until I started reading archaeology/history books and found out that all religions were pretty much the same.
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RE: Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 3:43 pm
I lost my faith, such as it was, and self-identified as an atheist years before I read any atheist authors. The first out-and-out atheist I read was Nietzsche, but that was several years after I had jumped the fence. It would be several more years before I encountered Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, et al.
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RE: Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 3:52 pm
(This post was last modified: July 24, 2018 at 4:03 pm by purplepurpose.)
In many Muslims countries people are killed if someone openly claims that they are atheist. Being born and living in such shithole would mean a strong brainwashing and little support from other freethinkers.
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RE: Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 4:33 pm
(July 24, 2018 at 3:32 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: (July 24, 2018 at 3:23 pm)Alexmahone Wrote: Atheists: If you were born and raised in a society where literally everyone else was theist, and there was no atheistic material available in the libraries or on the internet, would you still be an atheist today? Phrased differently, could you possibly have "discovered" atheism all by yourself?
My answer is probably not. Prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris played a big role in me becoming an atheist. So I guess we ought to be indebted to other atheists (past or present).
I came to atheism on my own, specifically because religion makes no sense to me. Even as a child, I went through the motions. I wanted to believe, but my intellectual honesty prohibited me from actually believing.
I've never read Dawkins or Harris or any other source of atheist literature.
Same for me. I began to doubt religion long before I read a convincing case against it.
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RE: Question to atheists
July 24, 2018 at 4:40 pm
(July 24, 2018 at 3:23 pm)Alexmahone Wrote: Atheists: If you were born and raised in a society where literally everyone else was theist, and there was no atheistic material available in the libraries or on the internet, would you still be an atheist today? Phrased differently, could you possibly have "discovered" atheism all by yourself?
My answer is probably not. Prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris played a big role in me becoming an atheist. So I guess we ought to be indebted to other atheists (past or present).
That was pretty much my home town until 18.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
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