Atheist, agnostic, ignostic or any variation of those...

[tataraperz]

Just as a heads up, this thread is just for sharing our life experiences with others, and while i expect everybody to post their motivations and beliefs, i wouldn't like to see any debating in here.

According to wiki, i fall under Apathetic agnosticism/Ignosticism...

In my case, living in a country where almost everyone is roman catholic and coming from a family of catholics, i soon grew tired of it. I could not stand how much of two-faced catholic people are...

At young age i started questinoning myself for why to be catholic... it bothered me that fathers MADE their children become catholic, and how they put ideas in their heads since kids. I think this is a very bad tradition, which makes kids grow up into adults who blindly believe in the religion they have been shown, and that quickly put aside people who questions or opposes them.

In fact, people here are so untolerant about religion that in all the years i've been thinking and beliving the way i do, i have never told anyone that i do. I believe the feeling may be the same as being gay and "going out of the closet".

It sickens me just to think about it, people here don't care about anything and do terrible things everyday and don't even bother themselves with thoughts about their gods. They only come to their god when they are in need. It makes me laugh how the regular attendees to "Sunday Lectures" are in it's majority Old people. And at the same time makes me feel pity for them the way they think that by devoting their last years of life to their god will make up for the bads they've done.

You will only see people praying when they have someone in the hospital, you will only see them in churches when they are desperate and don't have anything else to recur to. Makes me sick to live in the middle of so much hipocrisy.

before anyone calls it out, yes i am generalizing. No i am not traumatized, i live happily. Just had to put that out about how i think of an aspect of my society.

[SteveC]

Simply stated, I didn't become an atheist, I've always been an atheist.

Growing up, I always felt the pressure to conform and become something other than an atheist. The day I finally said no to those pressures and embrace atheism had to be one of the most liberating and feel good days of my life. I guess you could say I became a born-again atheist.

[Darias]

Sounds to me like you are taking your negative experiences and views of the people around you and using it to attack Catholicism, and in a larger sense Christianity/all of religion - even down to the belief in God Himself.

That's not fair at all. No one is saying you are traumatized but you certainly are stereotyping and you are totally wrong in doing so.

In my case, living in a country where almost everyone is roman catholic. . .

What country would that be if I may ask?

and coming from a family of catholics, i soon grew tired of it. I could not stand how much of two-faced catholic people are...

So, your perception of your various family members is not only an accurate opinion of them but a fair judgment of every single Catholic in your country -- as if they were all like-minded -- all of whom are "hypocrites"?

At young age i started questinoning myself for why to be catholic...

Good. We should all follow that example. Questioning belief/opinion isn't a weakness of faith, its a reality all of us have to deal with, religious or otherwise.

it bothered me that fathers MADE their children become catholic, and how they put ideas in their heads since kids. I think this is a very bad tradition, which makes kids grow up into adults who blindly believe in the religion they have been shown, and that quickly put aside people who questions or opposes them.

Inserting a negative perception of your own experiences into a broad and generalized statement about all Catholic families and their children is unfair bias pure and simple.

Not all Catholic fathers force their children to accept their religious beliefs. Granted if you grow up in a home you will be introduced to the beliefs of the parents, be they religious, atheist, liberal, or conservative. We are all free to break away from these teachings if we so please. You did by becoming Ignostic; I did by becoming much more liberal (accepting facts about Evolution, gay rights, etc.)

In fact, people here are so untolerant about religion that in all the years i've been thinking and beliving the way i do, i have never told anyone that i do. I believe the feeling may be the same as being gay and "going out of the closet".

I can somewhat sympathize with this. While, I do think you are generalizing a lot of Catholic people by assuming they would be intolerant of your views -- I can sympathize with the feeling of knowing some folks would not understand or take it well (namely family members). For instance, I support equal marriage for gays and I believe evolution and the big bang are facts, not creationism. My father would not like it if I told him that but my father is a great person. His views here may be more conservative than mine, and a bit less factual, but still -- his character is better than average; he is a hard worker and a good father in any case.

My college group once had a Bible study debating the "sinfulness" of masturbation. I claimed it was not because its a natural bodily function that isnt forbidden in any way shape or form in the Bible. One of the youth pastors said it was so grievous a sin that to do it, even if thinking about his wife, would be like rape. I was the only one who said it was okay. Everyone else was quiet.

Not only that, I felt judged. Another one of the ministers condemned me as if I had a problem, as if I needed a lifestyle change or something.

But the thing is, I know these guys. They may be 1000% wrong, but they hold their convictions. They are good people. I'm friends with them. And hopefully our debate, specifically my speaking up, helped other Christians there realize that there was nothing wrong with them.

Oddly enough, as conservative as my Protestant parents are, they agreed with me 100% and were angry with the ministers who thought I was some sort of deviant sinner. They said its natural and that I shouldn't be embarrassed about what I said. So, in the end, I'm glad I spoke up about it.

It sickens me just to think about it, people here don't care about anything and do terrible things everyday and don't even bother themselves with thoughts about their gods. They only come to their god when they are in need. It makes me laugh how the regular attendees to "Sunday Lectures" are in it's majority Old people. And at the same time makes me feel pity for them the way they think that by devoting their last years of life to their god will make up for the bads they've done.

Yeah. I'm gonna have to disagree with you here.

Just because you may have treated God like a Santa Claus, does not mean everyone else does.

You think it's all about makin' up for bad things and doing good deeds for fear of God's wrath.

You've totally eliminated love/intimacy for God and people, and the genuine desire to do good out of the picture.

Instead you've replaced this with an image: poor old fools, desperately trying to make up for their own selfish behavior by clinging to religion and stupid backward ideas.

You will only see people praying when they have someone in the hospital, you will only see them in churches when they are desperate and don't have anything else to recur to. Makes me sick to live in the middle of so much hipocrisy.

...

Last summer, my dad was diagnosed with a very rare auto-immune disorder which totally paralyzed him. He had to get a trach so he could breathe and eat. He was put out of work for months but finally recovered. During this time, you bet I prayed and hoped and begged God everything would turn out okay. And you know what -- it did. The doctor said it would take 12 months or more for dad to recover... and he was back at work in 3 months.

I don't know if that's a miracle or an error on the judgment of the doctor, but whether dad would have recovered or not, depending on God for my help -- for my motivation -- for my comfort and strength to carry on no matter what...

Yeah, I'm not ashamed of that at all.

I go to God every-night in my bed and I give him all my worries and I thank him for the life I do have here on this earth, no matter how long or short it may be. You won't hear me complain and blame him for all the evils committed by others. You won't hear me get angry at God because dad got sick last year. It was in my dad's DNA. Would it had been better if my dad wasn't born? No. Then I wouldn't have been born.

I've never understood how someone can abandon belief in God just because of circumstance or the hypocrisy of others.

I love God. My life hasn't been perfect and I don't know all the answers, but God is very real for me. I am not a hypocrite or some fearful superstitious ass who goes to church on Sundays to make up for it.

And I can promise you that this is true for a lot of the Catholics you just smeared.

before anyone calls it out, yes i am generalizing. No i am not traumatized, i live happily. Just had to put that out about how i think of an aspect of my society.

Well I'm calling you out anyway. You can't just come and post something so overgeneralized and then say "oh this is not meant for debate" or "oh, I know I generalized."

Those things don't make it okay to say whatever stereotypical crap you wanna say. That's a lot like sayin' a bunch of racist mess about a minority group and then expecting it all to be okay by saying "oh don't worry guys, I know that was racist but, I'm just basing this off my experiences" and then expecting that to make what you just said perfectly fine and not subject to discussion.

And it's not just you. This applies to everyone. I'll call anyone and everyone out who say stuff that's messed up and think they can get away with it.


That said, I'm sorry that your experiences with Christianity were bad. I hope that now that you're here you may learn more about Catholicism and Christianity and learn that there are good people here of all faiths and none.

[ForkieUK]

Like SteveC, I have never believed in God.

My "Big moment" was not suddenly realising there was no God, but realising that other people thought there was one!

I was 7 or 8 years old and in Middle school. We had just had an afternoon of scripture lessons (it was not a religious school, but religion formed part of the lessons for an hour or two once a week, as it should in any school, I think) and after previous weeks of learning about Adam and Eve, Moses and the burning bush, The great plagues, David and Goliath, the parting of the red sea, etc., etc., this week it was Noah's Ark.

This was religion's downfall, because when I was a kid I was completely obsessed with dinosuars, animals, insects and plants. I had books and books and books of them. I could name pretty much any animal I saw, from any country (I may not be quite as good at it these days though!). When I heard that Noah loaded every animal in the world onto a boat, I asked how they all fitted onto it. I was told by the teacher that God made them fit. This didn't quite cut it for me and continued to assume, as I always had, that God was just another nice story which was just told to demonstrate what is good and bad, right and wrong, etc.

After the class I happened to mention to a few classmates that God couldn't have have made the animals fit onto the boat if he didn't really exist. My class mates looked at me as if I was an alien from outer space and couldn't believe that I thought God wasn't real.

It was that point of realisation that I was somewhat unusual in my non-belief that was my big moment.

[Lux]

Moderator Action

Just as a heads up, this thread is just for sharing our life experiences with others, and while i expect everybody to post their motivations and beliefs, i wouldn't like to see any debating in here.

Since the purpose of this thread is to discuss/get to know each other, I'm going to move it to General Chat.

[tataraperz]

Sounds to me like you are taking your negative experiences and views of the people around you and using it to attack Catholicism, and in a larger sense Christianity/all of religion - even down to the belief in God Himself.

That's not fair at all. No one is saying you are traumatized but you certainly are stereotyping and you are totally wrong in doing so.

And here something i totally knew would happen.

I was not attacking catholicism or christianity at all. I was sharing with you the reason for why i investigated more than was just told to me and thats the reason i decided to not be theist let alone catholic.

I do am criticizing how people in my country behaves, how they are in regards to religon, what they do or not as nothing or little to do for what i think of catholicism or christianity. They were just the reason for me for wanting to know more and to analize everything.

[Darias]

Sounds to me like you are taking your negative experiences and views of the people around you and using it to attack Catholicism, and in a larger sense Christianity/all of religion - even down to the belief in God Himself.

That's not fair at all. No one is saying you are traumatized but you certainly are stereotyping and you are totally wrong in doing so.

And here something i totally knew would happen.

I was not attacking catholicism or christianity at all. I was sharing with you the reason for why i investigated more than was just told to me and thats the reason i decided to not be theist let alone catholic.

I do am criticizing how people in my country behaves, how they are in regards to religon, what they do or not as nothing or little to do for what i think of catholicism or christianity. They were just the reason for me for wanting to know more and to analize everything.

I seriously doubt you can speak for any Catholic in your own country. To judge many Catholics as hypocrites because of your own negative perceptions is unfair and not a logical basis for abandoning theism.

And if you admit that the "bad" behavior of a few Catholics is not indicative of the teachings of the faith, why would you leave the faith because of their behavior?

There are many reasons to question doctrines and teachings of religion, aside from stereotyping based upon negative feelings about an entire religion and its followers.

So far, it sounds like to me, that you chose to be Ignostic/Agnostic because of a generalization that you made about a religion, which you feel was right based upon your experiences with a few hypocritical believers.

I'm not Catholic, I'm just challenging your bias.

[tataraperz]

Sounds to me like you are taking your negative experiences and views of the people around you and using it to attack Catholicism, and in a larger sense Christianity/all of religion - even down to the belief in God Himself.

That's not fair at all. No one is saying you are traumatized but you certainly are stereotyping and you are totally wrong in doing so.

And here something i totally knew would happen.

I was not attacking catholicism or christianity at all. I was sharing with you the reason for why i investigated more than was just told to me and thats the reason i decided to not be theist let alone catholic.

I do am criticizing how people in my country behaves, how they are in regards to religon, what they do or not as nothing or little to do for what i think of catholicism or christianity. They were just the reason for me for wanting to know more and to analize everything.

I seriously doubt you can speak for any Catholic in your own country. To judge many Catholics as hypocrites because of your own negative perceptions is unfair and not a logical basis for abandoning theism.

And if you admit that the "bad" behavior of a few Catholics is not indicative of the teachings of the faith, why would you leave the faith because of their behavior?

There are many reasons to question doctrines and teachings of religion, aside from stereotyping based upon negative feelings about an entire religion and its followers.

So far, it sounds like to me, that you chose to be Ignostic/Agnostic because of a generalization that you made about a religion, which you feel was right based upon your experiences with a few hypocritical believers.

I'm not Catholic, I'm just challenging your bias.

I don't know if you really don't want to understand or if i'm really that bad at writing in english. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

I will repeat what i said, i don't and wouldn't generally think catholic or any other religious doctrines or beliefs are bad because of my perception of their "members". In other words, i don't and i wouldn't disregard a belief because of the people who to my view, incorrectly profess it.

That as a child, my bad opinion about catholics in my country led me to investigate more about theology and as a result of that i chose not to be theist or to think any religion is wrong, that's a whole another history.

Again, my opinion about members of catholicism in my country led me to investigate more about theology, not to directly disregard catholicism or christianity as a valid set of beliefs. My indagation about theology led me to my conclusion, the behavior of catholics wasn't my premise for thinking catholicism is wrong.

Hope you understand, if not, i will happily rephrase it.

[Flail]

Rhonan wrote:

Questioning belief/opinion isn't a weakness of faith, its a reality all of us have to deal with, religious or otherwise.

But when we question most things in life we look for evidence, logic, common sense. If my math equation doesn't work, I go back to the equation and work thru the numbers. If my lawnmower doesn't start, I go thru the mechanics of it. But if my God faith becomes doubtful, I sing a song or engage in ritual. Do you not understand the disconnect in that?

Why would you even hang out with Holy men who consider the evils of masturbation an issue worth of any discussion? Why do you attribute 'healings' to BibleGod and prayer when there is absolutely no evidence of cause and effect? Is this not the same process as rabbits feet and black cats?

[Lux]

I was always, as far as I can remember, skeptical when it came to religion. I wouldn't go as far as saying I've always been an atheist, because I've considered myself many other things along the way (even catholic, for a short time). I would say, however, that I never "truly believed". More importantly, I didn't need god. If I had a problem I felt capable of dealing with it myself, or asking a friend or family member for help. If I was pleased about something I recognized mundane reasons for it. I made the resolution to pray over and over, and never sticked to it, because I felt no need (and no desire) to do so, I just thought it was "the right thing to do", I believed I had to pray.

So, the breaking point I think was around the age of 14, when I realized it was ok to not need a god. I didn't think of myself as an atheist right away, I went back and forth between deism and agnosticism for a while, and then via the influence of an internet stranger I realized that even though I could certainly conceive the idea of a deity, I had no reason to actually believe it, and from that point on I've considered myself an agnostic atheist. I was 17.