(Professed Atheists if possible please) How long did ...?

Question

it take you to figure out everything about religion and is their anything you can tell me about it that might help me to understand it history more?

When you were 12?

WHy???!

Message to: Slit throat- WRITE ON!!
=P

Answer 1

I have studied many different religions, so I am not sure which religion's history you are referring to.

I would never say I have learned everything there is to know about all the world religions. That is why I continue to study and learn.

I still find my path to be the truest and best path for me to follow.

Answer 2

Hi, Miss T

Well, I don't think I know "everything" about religion. :) I know enough to know that I don't believe that any of it is true, though. I spent a couple of years researching it and reading lots of different philosophies. However, what convinced me that religion wasn't true or even necessary was when I began studying science.

As for understanding histories - the subject of religion is too broad to sum it all up. Is there a particular religion you're interested in knowing more about? Are you an atheist, or feeling like you think you might be, but want to learn more? If you could expand on this question (or ask another one, and link to it here) that would help us give you a better answer.

The problem with religious histories is that they will not really show anything other than the actions of man, which even religious people can write off as being "the flawed behavior of sinful humans." If you're seeking reasons to justify unbelief, you will probably have the most success with studying science so you can learn how and why the universe and life work without any kind of a creator.

If you're steadfastly religious and asking this question to try to prove to atheists that they're wrong in their beliefs because they don't know everything about religion, then I hope you've also asked yourself whether you know everything about science. Or even anything about science.

Answer 3

I am not an Atheist...probable closer to an Agnostic. However I have a very cynical and negative view of religions as an organization. When you do even a general study of different religions you find that they have several things in common. First the core of the religion is never based on fact. The religions leadership is asking someone to believe a "truth" with no proof at all. Secondly, what is usually followed is that the particular churches doctrine and it's leadership is the only way for the average person to know God. Thirdly, Not following the doctrine or the teachings of the leadership will lead to negative consequences in life and in the after-life. Lastly, the religions organizations uses this state of there followers to, to ask (or insist) money from them.

This is a very simple and incomplete comparison of religions. However if you really want to look at all the different religions, from an academic stand-point, it is amazing to find how much they have in common as appose to what is different about them.

Answer 4

I was born in the Midwest in a traditional (although liberal) community and grew up in the 1950s when questioning religion wasn't even thought of by most people. I even went through confirmation classes as a teenager because that's what everyone else did - but that's when I started thinking that maybe all these beliefs weren't what they were cracked up to be.

Four years of college in California continued the awakening process, and not long after graduating I finally gave up superstition for good. Now it astounds me how anyone can believe any of that claptrap, until I remember how long it took me to get over it thanks to my early brainwashing.

Answer 5

The only thing I have figured out about religion, is that god most likely does not exist.

Once you do that, you are an atheist.

I'm almost 40, but I began my journey towards atheism, when I was 35. When I was finally able to deal with the idea that life is finite, and it ends.

Answer 6

until i was thirteen i was a committed catholic. (my parish thought i was priest material).

then i realised i had hit a major problem with some technical aspects of the dogma of the immaculate conception. (i could explain this stuff: but it is not really pertinent).

i started to talk to one of my parish priests about it. but he kept veering off at a tangent (or so it seemed to me) to ask me about any 'impure thoughts' i was having.

i didn't see 'impure thoughts' as a problem (never have). i wondered why the priest wanted to talk about this stuff so much.

then i thought to myself: 'is he trying to get me to talk dirty, so he can get himself off?'

i found the idea troubling: troubling in the sense that it seemed to make a lot of sense.

over the next few weeks i began to question how much of the religious faith of those i saw around me was genuine devotion to god, and how much of it was displacement activities as believers tried to take a vicarious delight in things they dare not allow themselves (because they were sinful).

in rather less than a year my belief as a catholic was gone. all the honest people i knew (it seemed to me) were non-believers.

i looked into other christian denominations for a while. but they were all just silly.

the important thing to do with the 'truths' of religion is to ask yourself whether they are actually true, or just some story a particular person has decided to tell at a particular time for essentially selfish motives.

in my experience very little that people profess as their faith will resist even this very light acid.

Answer 7

I was brought up an atheist. My mum and dad were both brought up Christians but stopped when they were around 20-25. I just don't think religion is important enough for me to worry about personally - I know many of you will disagree but thats how I see it.

Answer 8

After 30 wasted years on god and church, I realized what a moron I had been. Woke up from sugery and I knew there wasn't a god. Made me really bitter for a while that I had been duped and lied to. Now, I'm just happy to be free at last from the cult of the christian god.

Answer 9

I have never figured out "everything" about religion. I figured out enough to know that blind faith in invisible things is not my cup of tea. I was 12 when I realized this.

The resources are out there for you to learn all you can -- you owe it to yourself to be informed on what you profess to believe.

.

Answer 10

I never claimed to know everything about it. It never made much sense to me though. I didn't really think about it until I was around 30. Other than peppering my grandmother with questions from 4 to 10 years