Other Ask an Atheist

[Rachael of the Shire]

I like for Christianity to flourish and grow to become to be the dominant belief of the world because I think it's a good idea, but not in its current form however. A lot of work needs to be done to de-institutionalize and not make Christianity into a organized religion but rather a way of life that can suit mostly everyone. I do believe the very basic principle of Christ was to be good to others while being good to yourself.

I agree. I am also of the belief that much that was written in the Old Testament (such as laws about killing gays, adulteresses, prostitutes among the clergy, and other such folks) was not inspired by the God of Creation. It's a shame that the writings of flawed, sadistic humans were taken so seriously by so many.

Side Note: Not everything written in the Bible was justifiable or meant to be repeated. For example, don't put blood on your windows/doorpost. It makes you look like a psycho and is generally agreed to attract very negative energy. Cutting up live animals and walking between the pieces is also not recommendable.

 

[Rachael of the Shire]

How old were you when you first read something in a religious document that disgusted you?

 

[RyanDiaz]

The Old testament I probably read when I was 9. I read many books by then so I understood very much for a kid and well it didn't drive me towards religion. I also was very much disappointed in some works of Paul Tillich in which he says that Christian messages are our existence of spirit. Which is wrong since there aren't many spiritual people.

 

[Dalamus Ulom]

How old were you when you first read something in a religious document that disgusted you?

I grew up in a mostly non-religious household. My mom was a follower of Wicca, and she would shoot down my grandparents everytime they brought up Christianity, so I hadn't even known what Christianity was until I was eight or so. Around that time, a friend of mine who was part of a super religious family gave me an illustrated kids bible and said I could have it. Skimmed through it and the page I stopped on was partwat through the story of Sampson, where his hair got cut and he lost his power. It was very strange to me. I think I laughed in confusion at it, to which my religious friend responded by taking the bible back, and walking away. Didn't disgust me, but it was definitely perplexing. It was only when I was in my early teen years that I learned about the old testament.

 

[Project Naiad]

Interesting thread so far.
I'm agnostic myself, tending more towards atheist, just thought it come say hello.

 

[Rachael of the Shire]

The Old testament I probably read when I was 9. I read many books by then so I understood very much for a kid and well it didn't drive me towards religion. I also was very much disappointed in some works of Paul Tillich in which he says that Christian messages are our existence of spirit. Which is wrong since there aren't many spiritual people.

I grew up in a mostly non-religious household. My mom was a follower of Wicca, and she would shoot down my grandparents everytime they brought up Christianity, so I hadn't even known what Christianity was until I was eight or so. Around that time, a friend of mine who was part of a super religious family gave me an illustrated kids bible and said I could have it. Skimmed through it and the page I stopped on was partwat through the story of Sampson, where his hair got cut and he lost his power. It was very strange to me. I think I laughed in confusion at it, to which my religious friend responded by taking the bible back, and walking away. Didn't disgust me, but it was definitely perplexing. It was only when I was in my early teen years that I learned about the old testament.

I was six years old and learned about human sacrifice. I also read the passage in the book of Kings where it says a woman killed and ate her son... and best of all, learned some torture methods out of the Middle Ages. It was... not a good first impression.

 

[JayTee]

This may have been asked before I got on here, but...

What are your views concerning Christians? And I do consider your beliefs specific to you and not indicative of all atheists, just so you know.

I feel like... Like it's past it's prime, so to speak, and it's better for it to slowly fade out before it becomes something it's not supposed to be.

Most religions, at their core, try to do at least one of two things. They either A: Attempt to explain the world and how it came in to existence, or B: provide a method to subdue the ego to maximize social cohesion.

For the former, we have much better methods for getting much better answers. We know how and why we were made, where they universe as a whole, and can, with a bit of effort, figure out where we want to go with our lives.

As for the latter, social cohesion has more or less cemented itself as a permanent thing with the advent of high speed, long range communication and modern government. They have their pros and cons, but fundamentally they work to keep the people of a land together under a shared set of national identity.

On a whole, Christianity, and religion in general, can't offer the modern world anything that our modern techniques and technologies can't match. I think a lot of the... less than stellar theists realize this on some level, and are twisting their religion in to something ugly as a reaction to this.

My grandfather was a devout christian, read the bible every day. I'd prefer it if the thing he held so dear were to quietly fade away to a fond memory in human history, rather than become a symbol for everything he stood against.

How old were you when you first read something in a religious document that disgusted you?

The interesting thing about this question is that you sometimes need to distinguish between when you were first exposed to it, and when you realized you were morally opposed to it.

For example, I went to sunday school when I was around 6-7 and had the story of Moses read to me like all little kids. In that story, the Pharaoh is the clear antagonist, but the methods God uses through Moses are horrifying. He drowns the rivers and lakes in blood, inflicts a famine and a pestilence, calls down fire and ruin, and kills the firstborn of every family in Egypt, people who likely had nothing to do with the feud between Moses, God and the Pharaoh.

If God's intention was to free the slaves, then he could easily have whisked them away on the wind or something equally poetic. Instead he went out of his way to torment and punish the Pharaoh and everyone in Egypt, oftentimes forcibly making the Pharaoh change his mind about freeing the slaves (Exodus 9:12 - But The LORD hardened the Pharaoh's heart so that he would not listen to Moses and Aaron.) so he could inflict more torment and punishment.

At the time, I was a little baby kid, and was all like "yeah! beat up that pharaoh!" But now that i'm older and can think about the extended consequences and what those consequences mean, I feel more pity for the Pharaoh than anything else.

 

[Rachael of the Shire]

I feel like... Like it's past it's prime, so to speak, and it's better for it to slowly fade out before it becomes something it's not supposed to be.

Most religions, at their core, try to do at least one of two things. They either A: Attempt to explain the world and how it came in to existence, or B: provide a method to subliminal the ego to maximize social cohesion.

For the former, we have much better methods for getting much better answers. We know how and why we were made, where they universe as a whole, and can, with a bit of effort, figure out where we want to go with our lives.

As for the latter, social cohesion has more or less cemented itself as a permanent thing with the advent of high speed, long range communication and modern government. They have their pros and cons, but fundamentally they work to keep the people of a land together under a shared set of national identity.

On a whole, Christianity, and religion in general, can't offer the modern world anything that our modern techniques and technologies can't match. I think a lot of the... less than stellar theists realize this on some level, and are twisting their religion in to something ugly as a reaction to this.

My grandfather was a devout christian, read the bible every day. I'd prefer it if the thing he held so dear were to quietly fade away to a fond memory in human history, rather than become a symbol for everything he stood against.


The interesting thing about this question is that you sometimes need to distinguish between when you were first exposed to it, and when you realized you were morally opposed to it.

For example, I went to sunday school when I was around 6-7 and had the story of Moses read to me like all little kids. In that story, the Pharaoh is the clear antagonist, but the methods God uses through Moses are horrifying. He drowns the rivers and lakes in blood, inflicts a famine and a pestilence, calls down fire and ruin, and kills the firstborn of every family in Egypt, people who likely had nothing to do with the feud between Moses, God and the Pharaoh.

If God's intention was to free the slaves, then he could easily have whisked them away on the wind or something equally poetic. Instead he went out of his way to torment and punish the Pharaoh and everyone in Egypt, oftentimes forcibly making the Pharaoh change his mind about freeing the slaves (Exodus 9:12 - But The LORD hardened the Pharaoh's heart so that he would not listen to Moses and Aaron.) so he could inflict more torment and punishment.

At the time, I was a little baby kid, and was all like "yeah! beat up that pharaoh!" But now that i'm older and can think about the extended consequences and what those consequences mean, I feel more pity for the Pharaoh than anything else.

If you've read the entire book of Exodus, you'll find a lot of other things that were done that are just wrong, such as the killing of thousands due to a widespread meat craving.

A Wiccan once told me that if you create a blood sacrifice on a prominent part of a building, such as a doorpost or a windowsill, it releases a spirit of death. Might explain the angel of death story

 

[JayTee]

Man, Wicca is only sixty three years old as a religion, though it pretends otherwise by hijacking a lot of spiritual practices from faiths that are thousands of years old.

I uh... don't care for Wicca, much. In case you can't tell. >.>;

 

[Rachael of the Shire]

Man, Wicca is only sixty three years old as a religion, though it pretends otherwise by hijacking a lot of spiritual practices from faiths that are thousands of years old.

I uh... don't care for Wicca, much. In case you can't tell. >.>;

I've done my research. As a person who believes in spirits and can sense different people's energy... I can say that positive or negative energy is more dependent on the individual than on the nature or the age of the religion they serve.

But don't worry, all are entitled to their beliefs and opinions.

By the way, I remain a Christian because I know it is possible to be firm in my own beliefs while still accepting other viewpoints.

 

[JayTee]

I... feel like I may have miscommunicated my point, but it doesn't matter. That's not what this thread is about, and I was being disrespectful. My bad.

 

[Rachael of the Shire]

I... feel like I may have miscommunicated my point, but it doesn't matter. That's not what this thread is about, and I was being disrespectful. My bad.

You are forgiven.

 

[sathanas]

This may have been asked before I got on here, but...

What are your views concerning Christians? And I do consider your beliefs specific to you and not indicative of all atheists, just so you know.

Chimes in as well, because I'm bored. I grew up in a very conservative and fundamentalist Christian family, but I'm an atheist now, although I carry a personal philosophy which inspired by a lot of things.

I have a lot of ideas about Christianity and other religions, some of them conflicting, because there's so many perspectives and religion just can't be generalized into one thing. Christianity has so many sects and branches it's the same there- impossible to generalize, and if you looked at the beliefs of some branches and compared them, they'd seem completely different. Not to mention all the many different ways you could interpret the bible itself.

On one hand I simply can't believe in anything spiritual including energies and being vaguely dedicated to truth, or at least being true to myself, I kind of see it as lying to yourself or mis-attributing the causes of "spiritual" experiences.

For example, sensing energies could be intuition or making snap unconscious decisions based on stereotypes all humans have about each other based on a combination of instinct and personal experience. Or the "vibe" they put out/way they carry themselves/etc. My pastor once talked about how he almost did something immoral but the Holy Spirit "tapped on his shoulder" and was like mm, no, that's not a good idea. To me, it seemed obvious that the Holy Spirit in this instance was just his conscience, which is something basically all people have.

At the same time, I can see how religion can provide comfort to people, help teach life lessons or morals, and etc. But I also believe religion isn't necessary for all these things.

Unfortunately a lot of the times "God" ends up being what people want him to be for their own purposes as well, whether it's justifying hate speech, or God happened to tell them to go on a missionary trip to Hawaii or something, or it was Satan's fault you sinned.

I believe that every decision someone makes is, when it comes down to it, completely and utterly their choice regardless of outside influences and the only one to be blamed for their choices is solely themselves. Thus, you should own, accept, and take responsibility for your decisions. If you hurt someone you have to deal with the consequences, and if you say, graduate from college you should be allowed to take some pride in all the effort you put in instead of having to attribute it to God. This also applies to the decision to "leave something up to God" whether it's getting treatment for a disease or trying to achieve your goals. I've seen a lot of helpless waiting around and hoping for God to do something when people could be making actual effort.

Also applies to blaming wrongdoings on Satan or anyone else. I had the pleasure of attending a service at one of my relatives' church that basically consisted of repeating the basic idea of that one passage that goes "if you cause someone else to sin, you deserve to have a heavy rock tied around your throat and be cast into a pond" which just encourages playing the blame-game for your personal shortcomings/sins, and also something I've seen happen a lot.

I won't even go into all the little ways fundamentalism specifically can harm people as someone who grew up in it and witnessed it.

But at the end of the day I also think it's good to not be an asshole and as long as it's not actively harming anyone else or themselves, you shouldn't be trying to deconvert anyone and it's extremely rude to assume anyone who's religious is believing in a Santa or Fairy Tale equivalent, or is somehow stupider in some way- which is things I've heard from other atheists and kind of annoying as someone who used to be religious.

There are some religious ideas I'd really enjoy if I could believe them, such as reincarnation, or guardian angels.

I agree. I am also of the belief that much that was written in the Old Testament (such as laws about killing gays, adulteresses, prostitutes among the clergy, and other such folks) was not inspired by the God of Creation. It's a shame that the writings of flawed, sadistic humans were taken so seriously by so many.

Side Note: Not everything written in the Bible was justifiable or meant to be repeated. For example, don't put blood on your windows/doorpost. It makes you look like a psycho and is generally agreed to attract very negative energy. Cutting up live animals and walking between the pieces is also not recommendable.

As for the whole Old Testament thing, I'd always been taught that the whole point of Jesus' sacrifice was that the old laws- which were the only way to get in to heaven and attain for sins- no longer had to or should be followed... since Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice to forgive all sins. There was even a whole deal with Peter refusing to eat unclean meat (which was an old testament law) and God being mad because by refusing he was basically ignoring Jesus' sacrifice or making like it was all for nothing.

Hence why even by a modern Christian standpoint, refusing to wear clothes with mixed materials is ridiculous, and so is animal sacrifices, and etc. People tend to pick and choose with Old Testament laws though and what they still follow...

Still I do think the old testament was ridiculous. God was a war god, required animal sacrifices, etc, and it would be weird to just ignore that whole portion.

Since Moses and Egypt were mentioned, even as a kid I did think it was weird. God was hardening Pharoh's heart, basically taking away his autonomy, making him refuse to let Moses and co go, and then... punished Pharoh for acts he was making him do! I always felt like the whole thing could be avoided and wondered if Pharoh would've just let them go if it wasn't for God. But you know, everything God does is right and we simply can't understand him.

Same thing with Job. God basically tortured him because of a silly bet with Satan. Why would God care what Satan thinks anyways?

 

[Rachael of the Shire]

Chimes in as well, because I'm bored. I grew up in a very conservative and fundamentalist Christian family, but I'm an atheist now, although I carry a personal philosophy which inspired by a lot of things.

I have a lot of ideas about Christianity and other religions, some of them conflicting, because there's so many perspectives and religion just can't be generalized into one thing. Christianity has so many sects and branches it's the same there- impossible to generalize, and if you looked at the beliefs of some branches and compared them, they'd seem completely different. Not to mention all the many different ways you could interpret the bible itself.

On one hand I simply can't believe in anything spiritual including energies and being vaguely dedicated to truth, or at least being true to myself, I kind of see it as lying to yourself or mis-attributing the causes of "spiritual" experiences.

For example, sensing energies could be intuition or making snap unconscious decisions based on stereotypes all humans have about each other based on a combination of instinct and personal experience. Or the "vibe" they put out/way they carry themselves/etc. My pastor once talked about how he almost did something immoral but the Holy Spirit "tapped on his shoulder" and was like mm, no, that's not a good idea. To me, it seemed obvious that the Holy Spirit in this instance was just his conscience, which is something basically all people have.

At the same time, I can see how religion can provide comfort to people, help teach life lessons or morals, and etc. But I also believe religion isn't necessary for all these things.

Unfortunately a lot of the times "God" ends up being what people want him to be for their own purposes as well, whether it's justifying hate speech, or God happened to tell them to go on a missionary trip to Hawaii or something, or it was Satan's fault you sinned.

I believe that every decision someone makes is, when it comes down to it, completely and utterly their choice regardless of outside influences and the only one to be blamed for their choices is solely themselves. Thus, you should own, accept, and take responsibility for your decisions. If you hurt someone you have to deal with the consequences, and if you say, graduate from college you should be allowed to take some pride in all the effort you put in instead of having to attribute it to God. This also applies to the decision to "leave something up to God" whether it's getting treatment for a disease or trying to achieve your goals. I've seen a lot of helpless waiting around and hoping for God to do something when people could be making actual effort.

Also applies to blaming wrongdoings on Satan or anyone else. I had the pleasure of attending a service at one of my relatives' church that basically consisted of repeating the basic idea of that one passage that goes "if you cause someone else to sin, you deserve to have a heavy rock tied around your throat and be cast into a pond" which just encourages playing the blame-game for your personal shortcomings/sins, and also something I've seen happen a lot.

I won't even go into all the little ways fundamentalism specifically can harm people as someone who grew up in it and witnessed it.

But at the end of the day I also think it's good to not be an asshole and as long as it's not actively harming anyone else or themselves, you shouldn't be trying to deconvert anyone and it's extremely rude to assume anyone who's religious is believing in a Santa or Fairy Tale equivalent, or is somehow stupider in some way- which is things I've heard from other atheists and kind of annoying as someone who used to be religious.

There are some religious ideas I'd really enjoy if I could believe them, such as reincarnation, or guardian angels.



As for the whole Old Testament thing, I'd always been taught that the whole point of Jesus' sacrifice was that the old laws- which were the only way to get in to heaven and attain for sins- no longer had to or should be followed... since Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice to forgive all sins. There was even a whole deal with Peter refusing to eat unclean meat (which was an old testament law) and God being mad because by refusing he was basically ignoring Jesus' sacrifice or making like it was all for nothing.

Hence why even by a modern Christian standpoint, refusing to wear clothes with mixed materials is ridiculous, and so is animal sacrifices, and etc. People tend to pick and choose with Old Testament laws though and what they still follow...

Still I do think the old testament was ridiculous. God was a war god, required animal sacrifices, etc, and it would be weird to just ignore that whole portion.

Since Moses and Egypt were mentioned, even as a kid I did think it was weird. God was hardening Pharoh's heart, basically taking away his autonomy, making him refuse to let Moses and co go, and then... punished Pharoh for acts he was making him do! I always felt like the whole thing could be avoided and wondered if Pharoh would've just let them go if it wasn't for God. But you know, everything God does is right and we simply can't understand him.

Same thing with Job. God basically tortured him because of a silly bet with Satan. Why would God care what Satan thinks anyways?

Even at 4 and 5 (youngest age I can remember) I didn't get why exactly God would go out of his way to harden some cold blooded politician's heart just so that he could make a bunch of bad things happen to an entire population.

My least favorite possibly fictional book in the Old Testament... is a tie between Job and Esther.

Song of Songs might be objectifying, but at least it doesn't pretend to be legitimate teaching.

Job's issues are obvious. I mean, come on, since when is it acceptable to gamble with a human's life and livelihood?

Esther only ever does as ordered to. I could name some stronger female characters in the Bible easily.

And yeah, I am fully aware as a Christian that I pick and choose which teachings to follow based on what my conscience tells me. There is no way I could exist in society otherwise.

Side Note: I actually had to do an assignment in Psychology class concerning the survival rates of religious people after natural disasters. The ones who live aren't the ones who sit on their bums waiting for God... the survivors do all that they can to survive, while praying for God to help them with what they cannot control.

 

[The Son]

Oh! Ooooo! *Raises hand* I have a question mister Atheist...


Do you inhale the same quantity of oxygen as a religious person?

 

[JayTee]

No, we inhale roughly .37% more oxygen than everyone else, most of it tends to have a higher level of thermal radiation.

because we're full of hot air

Imeanwhat?