Became Atheist (page 2)

Phizzy

Sorry double post, may as well use this one though LOL

THERE IS NO GOD, SO GO ON AND LIVE !

I became one a little while after leaving WT. I tried to to be an evangelical christian, but they are just guided by silly emotions. If the WT have a crazy theology, the evangelical christians have none at all, just AMEM GLORIA INTHANAMEOVGEEZUS...

I liked A LOT about the buddhism but just the philosophical approach to it, the religion stuff don't attract me more than the others religions.

Great irony is I see in atheism exactly what I expected in christianism: freedom, no sense of guilty, hope in the future, be what you are, a lot of sense of humor (I think the best sense we can give to life is face it with a good sense of humor, life seems only have any sense if you see it as a comedy).

So I will be an atheist until an angel descend from heaven upon my roof and blow a trumpet to me...

FlyingHighNow

I never did become an atheist. I have been agnostic here and there. I'd say I probably have been varying degrees of agnostic as an adult. I was agnostic the whole time I was a JW. Jehovah never seemed real to me. He felt more like the Bible satan to me. That helped me right out of the org. Even in my agnosticism, God has been real, just distant at times. I haven't had a time when I thought there wasn't a god or felt no god. I believe there are people who just "don't feel anything up there", to quote my atheist grandson. He gives hints of teetering between agnostic and atheist. I encourage him to walk his own journey.

AK - Jeff

Lovely comments that reflect much of my experience.

My journey took me out of Jw's at the age of 48. Then I tested the theological waters of Christianity for a couple years and found it far more similar to Jw's than I ever expected [I had never been exposed to religion other than Jw's since I was just 4 years old]. That realization lead me to a wider inspection of the Bible and religion in general. After finding all of it to be no more satisfying than Jw, just as bereft of logic, I drifted toward agnosticm, then I began to toy with the idea that perhaps philosophy held the answers.

Time eventually plunged me into realms I would have considered 'Satanic' not long before; humanism, secularism, free thinking.

Perhaps a year or so ago, I began to use the label 'Atheist' to describe my theological position, but for a time I was shy in using the term . Eventually I accepted that it is what it is. I will accept 'god' if he ever shows himself, but the Problem of Evil seems to render that impossible.

As I have allowed science to speak, religion's voice has dimmed to a buzz I can mostly ignore.

Jeff

breakfast of champions

I like the term secular humanist as well because it better describes my worldview. Atheist just describes what I don't believe in.

NewChapter

I think it is interesting that many of us here, me included, were uncomfortable identifying as atheists at first, even to ourselves. But then we all conclude we are much happier, have more peace, and the world makes a lot more sense, which is to say, it really doesn't make sense and we don't have a lot of answers, and that's okay with us now. Because the answers we do have are so much more satisfying.

I was talking to a friend yesterday who tends to be quite fundamental. She's always been a sucker for a new church. This has gone on all her life. When we were teens, she would get caught up in this church her neighbor went to. She couldn't wear makeup, jewelry, pants, or cut her hair. These were bittersweet moments for me. Bitter because I watched my pretty friend's appearance deteriorate as her hair grew out, and she got sloppy about wearing dresses and skirts, just throwing on old tennis shoes with them. And we didn't have a lot to talk about! Sweet, because all of her music became devil's music, and since she always had more money than me, she had all the good music. So my record collection would grow as I added Black Sabbath and Nazareth and even The Eagles.

When she would come out of her evangelical haze, she'd mention the music, to which I would play dumb. "What album?" LOL

Anyway, yesterday I listened to her bitch for half an hour. She's never happy, and quite bitter and entitled. Years feed this friendship (known each other for over 30) rather than anything in common. So she bitched about her daughter not helping her, her soon to be ex-husband not paying her bills (really?), her son, her family back here. Nobody ever treats her right, you see. And she told me how miserable she is. She has a LOT of health problems, and I understand she is miserable, but she seems to think the remedies will drop in her lap and does nothing to improve her situation. Perhaps she is waiting for Jesus.

So after 30 minutes of nothing but hostility, she says, "Oh, I'm happy now!"

"You are?"

"Yes I'm going to a new church, and the pastor asked us what we look to to make us happy. Did we look to people, or things, or money? Then he said we should be looking to Jesus to make us happy. And I was blown away. He's right. I wasn't looking to Jesus, and in that moment, I felt like I was being born-again all over. I was so peaceful and happy."

mmmmmhmmmmm

So that is what happiness looks like. I only told her that if it makes her happy, great. There is nothing else to say. This is a person who definitely uses religion as a crutch, will not do anything to improve her situation, is angry at everyone for not doing enough for her, and could never take responsibility for her own life. She's also a miserable person who can be convinced to proclaim she is happy in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

If belief in god can convince this woman she is happy, then it really is easy to understand how it can drive wars, crusades, intolerance, slavery, guilt, and general apathy.

I know the counter argument---religious people also do charity etc. So do non-believers. Non-believers also do terrible things, but they are not driven to do so by their non-belief. Why would they be? However some of the most shocking atrocities in history were driven by religion. None by non-belief. Nobody sacrifices their own or other lives for a god that they don't believe doesn't exist. They may do so for other reasons, but not non-belief.

NC

d

I became atheist after much research and study.

WTWizard

You become an atheist when you believe there is no God. Less strictly, it's when you don't give a fxxx whether there is a God or not, and quit doing anything for God. You believe the Bible is at best a work of literature, comparable to Shakespeare, and at worst a deliberately plagiarized work designed to rob the people of real spiritualism. They are enslaved to some god that either doesn't exist or is a tyrant and doesn't deserve worship. You no longer go along with such worship.

jaguarbass

I was a born a Jw, escaped at 31 in 1984. Read the bible cover to cover 7 times from age 31 to 55.

When I was a Jw, I prayed for God to show me the truth, he showed me the truth about JW's.

Then I continued searching for truth. Read Dawkins, Sam Harris.

Today I consider myself an agnostic or weak atheist.

I find what ever I choose to believe, people can make arguments refuting my position.

Its comforting to think there is a loving caring God, but its hard to intellectually formulate and defend the

idea. There seems to be an uncomfortable disconnect.

All my life people have told me I think to much, I guess thinking to much has lead me to the door of atheism.

cantleave

I think deep down, even as a witness, I knew the idea of a god was difficult to defend. I knew there was evidence for evolution and some of the things god did seemed completely barmy.

My study of chemistry showed me the beauty that existed in the physical world even on a nano scale. I hoped that this was evidence of a designer, and I clung onto this for decades.

When I left the JWs I started reading and re-educating myself, first of all on the bible and then on the idea of a creator.

I dismissed the bible as a book of myths and fairy tales very quickly. It was inconsisitent, contained too many errors and reflected the time in which it was written too much to have been inspired by a god that could have included knowledge that would not become apparent until many hundreds of years later. I couldn't understand this as he was apparently happy to include prophecies that we are still waiting for.

The arguments against intelligent design and a personal god were far more logical than those for the existence of such a designer. I became an agnostic within weeks of waking up from the borg. Within a year I could no longer reconcile even the slightest possibility of an intelligent designer, always having existed, and then after an infinite time, deciding that he would start creating.

The more I learn about evolution and the more I examine some of the beautiful models that have been formulated to explain our Universe, the more I appreciate that god is construct that is no longer needed in our enlightened society.

Became Atheist