What turned you off to religion??

Question

The book its taught from??or the people who follow it??

Personally mine was the people..Way to many bigots..

Answer 1

All of the above. It makes no sense unless you restrict your vision to the Christian world view alone. Expand your vision to a universal one, and it bursts the bubble of both the Bible and the Believers.

Answer 2

It was all the hypocrisy, people not practicing what they preached. We were taught to love our neighbors, but it seemed like the catch 22 was "only if they're Christians". On one hand, we were taught that we could be "saved" if we just believed in God. Then we were turned around and told we were born inherently sinful and were naughty and would most likely go to Hell no matter what we did. We're taught that God is all loving, forgiving, yet will wrathfully deal out a messy end for all eternity to those who defy him.

Even in the Bible(and before anyone gets any smartmouthed assumptions, I HAVE read it and did so this summer, to be specific), there are contradictions that I couldn't resolve and didn't make sense. The Old Testament was violent and bloody, full of war and animal sacrifices, condoned slavery and all sorts of things we would consider downright barbaric in this modern age. The New Testament was only marginally better, and greatly contradicted a LOT of things said in the books of its predecessor.

All of a sudden, it wasn't about the Israelites and "God's chosen people" any longer. The wars and conflict and conquering were gone, as were the ritual animal sacrifices that a lot of Christians around where I'm from conveniently forget are even in the Bible to begin with. The Good Book is supposed to be divine, from the mouth of God himself, inerrant and infallible, yet there's a LOT of contradiction and fallibility(HUMAN fallibility, I might add) right in the Biblical texts.

People are supposed to believe in such inerrancy, without question, without failure, from birth, no choice at all, but if they did, in my honest opinion, we'd still have slavery, women would be nothing more than baby factories at the mercy of their husbands, and the Church would be the ultimate law of the land instead of things like the Constitution.

Because religion was nothing like I was taught it should be from the moment I was born, that's why I was turned off to it.

Answer 3

a bit of both, mostly though is the fact that I don't want to base my life around some book, but there are alot of bigots, but I also know alot of really nice and understanding religious people. They don't try to force it on you and they even try to see it through the eyes of an atheist.

Answer 4

Actually those Catholics made me realize how wrong churches could be, when I was young.
Then I saw the movie Dogma, and realized it is more important to have FAITH than religion. "As no denomination has nailed it yet."
And above all those things, I trust my gut. That is God telling you to do this or do that. I am on the right track, as I know what Love is, and use it for good.
But I see what you mean about people. With people that go to church, there is a lot of politics within themselves. A lot of judging, which is ironic, cuz one of His most famous sayings is "Judge not lest you be judged."
And my favorite, "Let He who is without sin cast the first stone."

Answer 5

To me, it was the idea that, while living in China, I was told that no non-beleivers go to Heaven....which meant that 9 out of 10 Chinese people were burning in Hell. That was WAY too hard for me to swallow.... And the hypocrisy assisted as well....

Answer 6

I'm not turned off to religion, just to organized religion.

Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!

When I use a religion, it means exactly what I want it to mean, nothing more, and nothing less.

Answer 7

In my case, I'm not against religion.. just churches. I get along just fine with God, one on one. We consult regularly. I don't need go betweens to translate what He's REALLY trying to say to me.

Answer 8

I abandoned religion when I figured out it was nonsense. In my case, it was purely knowledge/reason driven.

Answer 9

The bigotry, hatred, and selfishness of Atheists and secularist. Total turn off to their religion.

Answer 10

people, some people are so narrow minded. just because i'm not christian don't accuse me of worshipping satan and all the other crap they say.

what really pissed my uncle off, at work some old lady was talking to him " you know what asia and africa are so poor? it's because they aren't christian."

BS!