Respectfully, why did you leave religion?

I went to a semi-religious preschool. My agnostic parents gave up on religion for me when the teacher was reading us bible stories and I raised my hand and loudly said, "these are just fairy tales, right?" 'Nuff said

 

I probably would have high fived and shared my lunch with you if I was a kid in that room. Then i'd ask you if you wanted to pick lizards up off the brick walls. I was a strange child! Very outdoorsy.

 

I was raised Catholic (though neither of my parents are particularly devout) and went to a Catholic school. As a kid I never truly believed in what the Bible was saying but I wasn't sure about much at that age haha.. I went through a stage in high school where I was terrified of the thought of death and eternal nothingness after death so I tried to really believe in the Christian god so I had the comfort of "knowing" there is an afterlife.

I left because I couldn't suppress all the doubts that entered my mind and the cognitive dissonance was too much. Like how can I put all my faith into this entity I'm not even convinced exists? And how do I know if it's Jesus or Mohammed or Krishna, etc I should be following? All the religious texts that religions are based on seem quite contradictory to me. So I think religions can have nice aspects (eg. the music in catholic services!) but it just doesn't work for me.

 

I was raised Christian somethingerather. They call themselves the 'friends'. Now that I am older I would describe them as a cult, though it seemed normal growing up. I left the church around 18, mostly because I couldn't stand the pretencious attitude of members, and I dont't subscribe to their beliefs or standards of behaviour. I guess I see myself as an existentialist rather than a creationist. My family still follow the church. I haven't 'come out' to them for this reason. We have such a great relationship but I'm afraid telling them will cause them to push away from me.

 

I haven't fully left religion altogether, but I'll explain why I've considered it:

The main reason is that I don't believe that there is any "one true religion". Having this belief doesn't mean that I can't believe in a creator or follow a religion, but it does put a hole in the major central doctrines of most religion: i.e., that they are the "one true religion" and only following it will lead you to a pleasant afterlife. I don't believe in the idea that "the Christians are right and everyone else is going to hell" or "the Muslims are right and everyone else is going to hell". If there is a God, then I don't believe this God would allow so many people to be eternally punished for being born into the "wrong culture". For this reason, I can't accept the idea of the "one true religion" and by rejecting this concept, I am already automatically rejected from most religions.

Additionally, being homosexual puts me at variance with most religions. One can make elaborate arguments that somehow construe homosexuality as acceptable, but I find them unconvincing. Even if we do argue that lines like Leviticus 20:13 "no longer apply", we still have to reconcile the fact that the Abrahamic God once considered homosexuals worthy of death. And there are few other "groups" that have to deal with that.

Those are at least some reasons why I find it difficult to follow a specific religion.

 

As I realised I didn't believe there was a god.at least not in the theist sense, but in reality I had pretty much abondoned organised religion long before that with occasional revivals.For the record I never believed the bible was the literal word of God, and had ignored the line in Leviticus by about the age of 10 as a purely human addition.

 

I was originally peer pressured into religion.
When I became strong enough to use my own brain and to be myself, I left.

Also, some of my religious peers were a bit scary.

 

I left the one I was born into, going on, 20 years ago. Because the God they were teaching me about wasn't the one I believed in. Plus, it was very strict & I didn't get to be a regular kid/teen. Though I'm a monotheist, I believe there are many spiritual paths & am open to different faiths. It seems to go with my pan & poly nature. I don't think I could commit to or be devoted to any one thing. I am interested in learning about Buddhism, Native American & Wicca. If any of you practice or at least, study any of those, please leave a note about it on my page. Thanks.

 

I realised that what I thought of as 'things that make up my life' didn't include believing in a god. It just didn't click with me. If my world were a jigsaw puzzle, me believing in a god would be a huge piece that couldn't fit into any of the small gaps, no matter how you tried to get it in.
Even my grandad, a Catholic, observed that I was 'clever, and didn't think that way' – that was a compliment, in case anyone thought otherwise.

 

After i watched the movie : The Unbelievers

I strongly recommend this movie to anyone who wants to better their arguments facing religion pressures!

 

i havent completely left religion because i want to believe that there is somthing out there that will accept me for who i am and not judge me like most of the people i meet.
although i dont want to have a religion because most disgrace transgender people like me and catiltn jenner. im always constantly worrying about if im going to die and if im making the right decision because i was taught that men dressing as women and being gay is wrong.

 

I left because it stopped making sense to me. I was faced with this video:

[YOUTUBE]0gAeYxgwuSo[/YOUTUBE]

From then on, I could no longer say I believe in God, lest I lie to myself. So, I am now a Theological Noncognitivist/atheist/antitheist/humanist.

 

That's a good introductory text for the most. I do wish he'd left out the cosmological argument though. This causes more harm than good. Science doesn't get to assert things where is no evidence to back it up.... This any such argument is a matter of personal ontology via belief. Plus such only matters to deism etc anyway, which are a none problem. I am agnostic to such.

The key issues resolve around the truths of theist (revealed) diety religions, because of their social impact. And these science can discount with evidence.

---------- Post added 3rd Aug 2015 at 02:05 AM ----------

That is to say, deism makes no testable claims. It not included in the models of science, but it can't be demonstrated to contradict by it's own definition. Theist religions on the other hand make testable claims. And it's not enough that a god exists, it must be the God as described in their respective holy books. Or at least one that interacts directly and thus should show demonstrable effect. Discounting pure malicious agency of course, but above all such is not a part of the belief system in these cases. Thus their belief system would still be wrong.

 

Just to add a couple of evidences for what I am saying

1) If belief in a god leads to divine inspired spritual lifting then one would expect that in the main religious people would be happier than none religious people. The evidence does not support this. in fact in many cases the reverse can be true, and it is not restricted to a specific deity either. Both of which contradict the claim that God has something to do with this, rather than individual psychological.

2) that praying for so done should have a demonstrable effect in the statistics, no evidence exists to back this up. So much so that one still needs to talk about the independence of God's will in this, but one would still make the risky prediction that those who are prayed for would score better, simply put they don't, in any proper scientific study to date.

3) one would expect the historical records to match the holy book, certainly in the case of Judaism and Christianity they simply do not. That's ignoring anything else.

4) One would equally expect such a god to preserve the words it inspired. The number of variances in the new testament for instance is huge, the majority minor, but there are some huge discrepancies. I'll ignore Jesus myth for now at least.I don't know enough about Islam or other faiths in this respect to comment

5) one would expect a consistent message over time. A being that is infinite and eternal, isn't going to radically change its ideas across a few years. This causes huge problems for the Koran and the bible. Muslims have a system of later overrides earlier but this makes sense either. Given it is true, Mohammed wrote after the fact. Thus if a change had occurred only the latter one would be retained or they both have equal value, the bible doesn't have quite the same problem, because it is attributed to different authors with less editorial power over each others.

Just to get the ball rolling.... Theism submits itself to the crucible of science. Now it's still a matter of whether you accept the validity of science or not I accept. But if you do then holding a theist position is more difficult.

 

I never went to church*, but I sort of begged a higher power to help me at times (no response). I ditched that idea at 12.

Churches are pressure cookers. And I am a combustible.

*I actually rode in a Christian family's minivan on a Sunday. For 1 hour, I had to put up with singing and Bible trivia. They asked me what my favorite Bible verse was. I answered with,"I'm an atheist or agnostic. I'm not sure which." I then pondered the 'why' of religion for the remaining 45 minutes, over the singing (oh god the singing).
Edit: it was a FULL minivan.

 

Ps please note that my above posts are not in any way attacking religious faith. I was simply stating all this in response to the post about Richard Dawkins' 'The God Dilusion'. Anybody is free to accept or not accept the evidence of science on any matter they choose, as suits their own world view. Each to their own. I am simply commenting on those factors which as a Human rationalist back up for me my point of view on the matter. Felt I'd better say this before anyone takes accidental offense. If you of religious faith, please feel free to completely disregard my comment therefore. This was not aimed in your direction

 

When I was younger, it was because I was uncomfortable with the people. I saw religion corrupt and deceive, and people went willingly while also abusing religion in turn. I saw this in every one of the mainstream religions I looked into. Eventually I returned when I found a more honest crowd in a niche faith that complemented the life I already lead.

I got myself and my siblings pulled from religious school when I was very young for asking too many questions and getting yelled at too much.

 

Personally, asking too many questions is in itself a contradiction, you can never ask to many questions, you just have accept that not all those questions will have a definite answer, at the moment at very least. I just personally don't see the purpose of trying to rationalize an answer that might fill the gap and then believing its true, when you dont have very good justification... But that's me.

 

You're overanalyzing.