Anyone else just drop religion with a snap of the finger?

[Pat Mustard]

All kinds of people commit suicide or drink themselves to death. Religion provides help, even if it's hard to live with it.

Depends on what you consider help. I personally don't think learned helplessness is all that useful to somebody going through suicidal ideation. And lots of the christian cults promote helplessness.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I am honestly curious if anyone else has experience this.  I grew up in Christian schools almost my entire childhood.   Religion never made any sense to me.  About 4 years ago one day I was thinking about things and it was literally like an instant snap in my brain.  At that moment I realized the B.S that it is.  Everything clicked in an instant that it makes more sense to completely abandon any idea of there being a God and religion than to actually believe .  4 years later I never once looked back.  I know right now that it is impossible for me to ever ever believe in an invisible being that floats out there in space that no one has ever seen or talked too.  I actually look at people that worship hands raised ... praying to their invisible god as lunatics.  I'm sorry that's just how it is.  Even growing up in a Christian atmosphere my whole life after that switch in my brain I can never again look at religion the same. 

Sorry for my horrible grammar and typing ....

Can’t recall a time when I wasn’t an atheist - I never grasped how Bible stories were any more to be believed that the mythology I grew up with.

Boru

[GrandizerII]

For me, the realization was sudden, but in hindsight the path towards that was (subconsciously) gradual. A lot of things happened that, in culmination, led to me ditching the faith eventually. I still clinged to a notion of God for a while after that, though. The more serious intellectual issues with the Christian god have more to do with the extra stuff attached to the precursor Aristotelian-type of God than with the basic divine template itself.

[arewethereyet]

I didn't ever buy into the woo of it all. I followed along because that's what we did. In my teens I asked myself if I really believed or if I was told that I believe. That was the eye-opener for me. I did some searching after that and couldn't find any of it I could believe in, so that was it for me.

[Tomatoshadow2]

I wish I could of dropped religion with a snap of a finger from the day I was born, had to go through usually crap of growing up with religion and going to church. What a waste of time, I can't believe believers still waste their time in any 'holy building' they could be out enjoying life. I feel bad for the people who are still brainwashed by religion. I always get so uncomfortable, when a believer tells me 'god bless you'. During the pandemic, I've really been reading all the atheist books I can, to really immerse myself in all the knowledge I'm still learning.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

I wish I could of dropped religion with a snap of a finger from the day I was born, had to go through usually crap of growing up with religion and going to church. What a waste of time, I can't believe believers still waste their time in any 'holy building' they could be out enjoying life. I feel bad for the people who are still brainwashed by religion. I always get so uncomfortable, when a believer tells me 'god bless you'. During the pandemic, I've really been reading all the atheist books I can, to really immerse myself in all the knowledge I'm still learning.

It's not all bad about the religion thing Tom - shadow.

There can be some good 'Community' type social help 8n the mix.

Still, all the best and may the Great Cthulhu eat you first. Pftagn

[onlinebiker]

an invisible being that floats out there in space that no one has ever seen or talked too.

The Pope doesn't believe in this kind of thing either. Nor did Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or any other Christian with some knowledge of theology. 

If that's what they taught you in your Christian schools, you were very right to stop believing it.

So your version is "realistic"?

Really?


Show us a photo. Give us a DNA sample. Give us SOMETHING we can analyze, define and quantify.


If not -  all you have is woo no sillier than that you dismiss.

[Gwaithmir]

an invisible being that floats out there in space that no one has ever seen or talked too.

The Pope doesn't believe in this kind of thing either. Nor did Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or any other Christian with some knowledge of theology. 

If that's what they taught you in your Christian schools, you were very right to stop believing it.

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!" (George Carlin) 

[Mister Agenda]

an invisible being that floats out there in space that no one has ever seen or talked too.

The Pope doesn't believe in this kind of thing either. Nor did Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or any other Christian with some knowledge of theology. 

If that's what they taught you in your Christian schools, you were very right to stop believing it.

What god or God should PookieNumNums believe in?

[GrandizerII]

The Pope doesn't believe in this kind of thing either. Nor did Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or any other Christian with some knowledge of theology. 

If that's what they taught you in your Christian schools, you were very right to stop believing it.

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!" (George Carlin) 

I think the point Belaqua is making is that no Christian educated enough in their theology believes in a god that "lives or floats in the sky or space". And though Belaqua may be right, I think this misses the point anyway. Christians do cling to a notion of God that's "out there" lending them hope and being the ultimate exemplary of love and such. It's not like Christians are generally deists after all. God, to them, does care about the affairs of humankind and is heavily involved in them.