did you ever believe, if so was there any one thing that caused you not to believe? I did believe at one point, I started to have doubts when thinking about Noah and his ark, i then started to ask questions about other things.
2007-02-07 08:13:04 · 25 answers · asked by Jason Bourne 5 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I spent my childhood and adolescence in Catholic schools, dutifully learning the ropes of salvation, agonizing over the possibility that I might slip up and accidentally end up in hell. I studied the saints for clues about the habits and attitudes required to live a safe, holy life. What I discerned was that the most highly admired saints had a touch of insanity about them.
In studying the Bible, I was urged by my teachers to look for the meaning of a story rather than concentrating on it literally, because they knew that most stories didn't hold together on a practical level and displayed a naive understanding of the world. That did help my faith for a while.
But I also noticed that some of the most self-seeking, uncompassionate members of the church were in high places, while a lot of the most dedicated, hard-working servants of God were taken for granted. The status of women in the church was a scandal to me. And while I attended pro-life rallies, I became increasingly aware of the discrepancies in attitudes of my fellow Christians toward the innocent unborn vs their carnally tainted mothers, and the children who had one or no parents.
I examined the givens of my religion, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracles, the Trinity, the attributes of God, etc., determining which beliefs presented the greatest problems. I prioritized them to determine the minimum belief requirement for my religion to be functional. I studied the ancient heresies to determine the historical decisions that led the Church to the orthodoxy it practiced today. Some were quite sensible. Others were obviously administrative moves, intended simply to maintain control of Church authority. I abandoned the faith elements that were logically insurmountable. The last, and hardest, thing to let go was the divinity of Christ, but I saw too many parallels between the legends of Jesus and those of the synthetic Mystery cults of his day.
In the end, I determined that my faith did not make a difference. I could live a moral, meaningful life without a supernatural overlay. If my faith were truly important, it should be obvious! But the only sure settling of accounts was on the other side of death's door. And I couldn't believe that a loving God would act that way, as if all of this life was meaningless except as one big test of character.
I still appreciate the mythos of Christianity. It is as effective a guide as any other. I even go to church fairly often. But it no longer obssesses me. I'm there for the community, not to game for the heavenly jackpot.
2007-02-07 09:02:06 · answer #1 · answered by skepsis 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I used to believe. It wasn't any one thing in particular that made me stop. The attitude toward women turned me off, but it didn't make me stop believing.I started reading and trying to figure out why women are looked down on, and find answers to things like the ark, Jonah and the whale, etc.
The reading made me realize how insane it all is. Especially because at the time I was in college and was learning that the earth is over 4 billion years old, etc etc. I realized there is actually proof of scientific claims, and no proof of biblical claims.
To quote J.P. "If I had to say one thing and one thing only -- a thorough and understanding reading of the Bible made me an atheist. " That sums it up for me too. Well put.
2007-02-07 16:19:23 · answer #2 · answered by UFO 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I was a born-again and Saved Christian for many years. What started my doubts was the more and more I read the Bible and the more and more I learned of science. For the longest time, I tried to rectifiy them with each other, but after a while, it became clear that you couldn't do it.
When I realized there was a perfectly logical and explainable cultural and neurological reasoning for the religious experience, and that it could be duplicated in the lab fairly reliably, that was when I really went into the depths of searching.
If I had to say one thing and one thing only -- a thorough and understanding reading of the Bible made me an atheist.
2007-02-07 16:18:00 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Hard to say for sure. I was raised Methodist but I figured out that I was a non-believer around ten. I doubt that I ever really did buy it except in the way I did Santa or the Tooth Faerie.
No there was no one big thing that did it. I wasn't even OK with it for a few years. I just knew that god wasn't real.
2007-02-07 16:20:07 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
No. My parents (Mom's a Christian, Dad was Agnostic) never forced me to attend church. They allowed me to decide whether or not I would want to go.
I've always wondered about the Ark story. How much rain would have to fall at an hourly rate to inundate the globe? Or, isn't flooding the entire planet considered genocide for those species that were not allowed to survive? Or, how did plant life survive? Or, etc...
2007-02-07 16:20:43 · answer #5 · answered by taa 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I was Christian but there wasn't just one thing that turned me around. There were many life lessons and eventually, a contradictory book no longer could satisfy my answers. After it finally dawned on me the Bible wasn't reliable, it ceased to make sense that there were billions of people but only one god.
I don't know if it's b/c I am a girl, but it seems there is a ton of female influence in this world that is not accounted for in Christianity.
2007-02-07 16:28:25 · answer #6 · answered by strpenta 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believed when I was younger, but that was just because I had been indoctrinated at a young age.
I began to doubt when I got older and began to consider all of the preposterous claims in Christianity (ie a perfect, benevolent god creating a flawed world and then punishing us before we are even born).
2007-02-07 16:20:10 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I think as a kid, I was more agnostic than anything. When I hit into my teens, I started questioning more on things and finally came to the conclusion that there's just no way. I don't believe.
2007-02-07 16:17:27 · answer #8 · answered by Anthony A 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I remember the exact moment i questioned religion. I was 14, sitting in sunday morning church at the butt crack of dawn wondering why i was up so early on sunday, than it just began to get worse the more i read and began to understand how foolish religion truly was.
2007-02-07 16:30:18 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
When I was about 7 years old, I started asking questions that all boiled down to "how can this be?...it makes no sense!" I guess it was then that I realized who I really was.
Oh, and to hero3k: I have been in two life-threatening situations; one was mine; one was one of my children and I NEVER ONCE prayed because there was NO ONE to pray to.
2007-02-07 16:29:21 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋