To atheists who have had negative experiences with religion: Can you share your horror stories?

Question

OK, if none of you have experienced anything negative from religion then why...

That's horrible, Jamus.

I hate people who blame the victim.

Athee, I was responding to Jamus when I made the victim comment..

Answer 1

The last straw for me with my baptist church was when my sister was raped. Our pastor told her all she had to do was ask and god would forgive her.

FORGIVE HER?!

Horrible people.

Answer 2

I had no negative experiences with religion. Why am I an atheist then? Because none of the god-myths so far invented seem in any way plausible.

Who's blaming a victim, and who exactly is the victim? If you think religion is the victim, then ... "LOL".. that is all.

Answer 3

The Horror of it is waking up after 21 years or so and then coming out of hypnosis to realize you've been lied to, and that you have played ignorant and lied to your own self for so long. Everyone has questions about religion, and they bury them, and they push them deep inside the blind spot in their brain where they can keep living in ignorant bliss. It is when you allow yourself to ask the questions, and use logic, and use a healthy skepticism- kind of an unbiased approach- that you realize nearly immediately that it was all a sham. This is my experience.

Answer 4

i dont really have one.

but heres my story:

ive been in and out of private catholic schools since grade school. both my parents were hard workers and worked their tails off for us and did their very best to give me and my brothers an excellent education.

as far as im concerned they succeeded....to a point.

my grandparents and beyond them is alot of struggling and poverty...so my brothers and i are the best off kids in the entire history of my family.

i was sitting in church on a friday when i first realised i didnt beleive in any god. i sat there the whole time thinking to myself while the preacher droned on and on.

i guess you can blame the absolute boredom a catholic mass brings with my turning into an atheist. were it more interesting and not full of monontone droning and standing...kneeling sitting then kennling...then eating no flavor wafers...then standing then sitting then kneeling and more standing and sitting and .....you get the idea...

so i converted myself in church. i can remember the day. i just cant remember what day it was...friday yes...but what month or year? not sure...i was in the 8th grade though.

Answer 5

My basically interactions with Mormons in my section is each and every now and then being pestered on the bus with the aid of youngsters working via their years of bonded servitude. Ultraviolet Oasis Wrote: "interior the top, I basically condemn hypocrites. all and sundry who practices their faith faithfully is sturdy for this international." have you ever concept that place via? it somewhat is a touch risky blanket fact. Do you rather have faith that somebody faithfully following a faith with a suggested requirement to torture and kill people is sturdy for the international? it somewhat is obviously an severe occasion however the fact additionally endorses any and all different evils that a guy or woman would do via following their faith.

Answer 6

I went to Catholic grade school . They wasted a total of 6,500 of my lifes span About a year and a half of my awake life pushing their falsehoods , fears , guilt and lies into my brain . I am talking about the time in required prayer , Mass, and religious study classes . They also glommed a good amount of money from my family .
I know that many of the nuns were not bad intentioned , just brainwashed themselves .
But one priest , originally from Germany , tried to molest me when I was about 11 . A nun accidentally interupted him and I got away .
I really started pulling away when the government allowed them to put "under God" back in the Pledge of Alligence . It said to me "You are no longer allowed to think for yourself ."
And I still hurt over what I saw them do (and still do ) to others . I see so many people trying to please a false "Santa Clause" .

Answer 7

i hated god before i came to the realization that god was not real. i remember praying hard for this deity to kill me; i never asked to live or to be born. logic then set in years later and i realized that there was no god and everything had a perfectly logical explaination.

read Future on an Illusion by Sigmund Freud.

edit: i would like to point out i was a kid when i went through the whole praying death. by my freshman year in highschool i became an atheist.

Answer 8

I'm not actually an atheist, but I remember the day that started my departure from organised religion.

I was eleven years old. I lived in this small town called Idalou, about ten miles from Lubbock, TX. Idalou had a church for every denomination in Christendom and a population of about 10,000. I'd been brought up Catholic/Buddhist/modern pagan, so my beliefs were pretty varied, but I went to church from time to time. There was a lot of pressure on me when I lived in Idalou, so I became a Baptist, because their service was at 11AM and I didn't like getting up early, not even for Jesus. Well, when I converted, I converted in a major sort of way. I read the bible and did my devotions. I turned the other cheek and loved my enemies. I didn't judge. I was about the most truly Christian person in that town. One year, the youth minister and his wife went on a mission trip to Asia, to convert the heathen Buddhists, which I thought was just a weensy bit odd, what with the fact that Buddhism is one of those religions that believes in a lot of the things that Jesus talked about, so what was the harm? I'd been a Buddhist once, and I still sort of was, to a certain extent. Anyhow, they came back, and lied their pasty WASP arses off about those evil, evil Buddhists, talking about how they would kill Christians on sight and did everything in their power to undermine Christianity and persecute Christians. Now, I was an eleven year old kid, and I still believed in Santa, so I was probably just a weensy bit gullible, but I just wasn't buying this. Why, I asked myself, why would two people who claim to love Jesus and claim to follow in his ways, lie about that? What in the world would compel them to hate on people who believe in something so gentle and innocuous as Buddhism? And I realised, sitting in the pew in the darkened sanctuary of that church, that every single thing these people had been telling me, everything they did was all a whole load of BS, that I had been decieved, that I had been outright lied to. These people might talk the talk, but they are so glutted on their own hypocrisy that they've gotten to fat to walk any walk, much less THE walk. My little eleven year old brain was exploding there, watching their slide show of themselves and several other missionaries of varying shades of white, and realizing that I was not and never could be part of their world. I wasn't racist, I didn't hate gays, I was totally down with Jews and Muslims, and I just couldn't swallow their unadulterated bullshittery, the lies that they passed off as faith in Jesus. When I moved back to town, I went to the local Chinese Church, but only on Sundays that I wanted some decent Chinese food and to learn some basic Mandarin. But that was pretty much the end of the line, there. I decided that there are too bloody many people in this world for there to be only one right religion, and what we believe is our business and a very personal decision. I'm a pantheist, which is pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum from atheism, but our enemies are the same: blind faithed morons and televangelists...

Answer 9

Don't have one either. Besides a nun who was a little trigger happy with the ruler, there's none.

why am I an atheist? It had nothing to do with personal experiences. It was more about finding the whole thing nonsensical.

Answer 10

i went to different religions to look for answers. after a few session of no sense talking, i find that it is impossible to find my answers in the religions.

what i notice that the christians when they are in the church, their eyes changes, i am quite sharp to detect the changes.
their eyes look like someone on drug.. so one who have lost thie sense. they got the sense of happiness, especially when that person is a very devoted one.
this frightening me alot.

when i start find the answer outside religion, i find out that the answers that i seek is slowly coming out.
without knowing, i become a atheist.

Answer 11

I am not atheist. Mother Earth is my goddess and I belive in what is called the ALL.

However I can not believe in an all loving christian god who allows children to be raped, beaten or murdered. That is not a loving god and any one who worships that type of god is just deluding themselves.