For those who are athest, or non-christian, how did you come to this decision?

by Tameria2001 34 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Saethydd
    Saethydd

    After I got disfellowshipped the elders told me that they felt I sinned because God wasn’t real enough to me. So I gathered up many books and set out to “make Jehovah real to me.” I decided to start by confronting the little nagging doubts I had in the back of my mind about creation.

    For perhaps the first time in my life I actually delved deep into the theory of evolution and considered the writings of many experts and came to the conclusion that the literature the Watchtower had given me on the subject was wildly misleading. At this point I was very confused and didn’t know which sources to believe so I decided to learn about logic itself and discovered what logical fallacies are, I realized that JW arguments are almost entirely appeals to authority, and that primary authority is supposedly the Bible, so I decided to research that. As I researched the origins of the Bible I realized that it’s authorship wasn’t as clear cut as I had been lead to believe. Some books had been written at completely different times than I had been told, many events where at best uncorroborated by any other sources and at worst directly contradicted my multiple independent lines of evidence. Not to mention the many books that were arbitrarily declared “apocryphal” by different groups of men and different points in history. I determined the Bible was not a reliable source nor a good authority to base any argument on so the Watchtower and any other religion based on the Bible had no true basis for their belief system. As of now I haven’t found any religion that does have a sound logical basis for its particular set of beliefs so I am an atheist.

  • cliff
    cliff

    I was never more than just a flirt with JWism during impressionable youth years (and a really cute GF!)

    GF asked one day if I really believed in the virgin birth. To that point I had been a floppy Anglican and had never really thought about such things. I realised I did not believe.

    In my early 20s I travelled a lot and an afternoon at St Peters in Rome opened the floodgates to the realisation that all these people genuflecting to something in their imagination were just in love with the idea of faith. I have observed the same throughout the world in every religion.

    Pascal's Wager terrifies mankind.

    I cannot imagine being anything but a confirmed atheist, but there are an awful lot of things I do not understand or cannot explain.

  • cofty
    cofty

    It takes a lot of honesty and critical-thinking skills to work out that the 'truth' is a delusion. If you carry on resolutely applying those same skills to the claims of theism you will be forced to conclude that it too is a delusion.

    Faith is not a way to determine reality; it is what we do when we lack evidence.

  • WTWizard
    WTWizard

    Upon realizing that Jesus was worthless to me, I realized that the real Christ is, in fact, the sun. Yup, the sun. The Three Wise Men were simply the three stars in the Belt of Orion, which means more to me than that rag on the cross ever will. The Star of Bethlehem, simply Sirius. These line up so Sirius will point to where the sun will rise on Christmas morning. That explains the whole nativity scene better than what I could get out of that LIE-ble.

    As for the Latin cross, that represents energy flowing from the top chakras. The normal human chakra system has the crown, third-eye, and throat chakras (the upper three) forming the post of that cross, while the temple chakras form the cross beam. (This energy continues into the lower 4 chakras in normal circumstances.) That rag on the cross they call jesus intercepts this energy and puts it into the reptilian race and its goal of enslaving us all, ultimately to take full possession of the planet.

    To me, that is more than enough for me to throw Christi-SCAM-ity right into the rubbish and never look back. That rag does not deserve any of the energy flowing from the top down, any more than the washtowel deserves any of my money that I would rather spend on silver that I keep.

  • smiddy3
    smiddy3

    I was brought up to believe the Bible was the word of God and was sent to Sunday school ( my parents weren`t religious) when I rebelled and said I wasn`t going anymore about 12 yrs of age ,I still had the though the Bible was God`s word ,Fast forward to when I`m 20 years old I was converted to JWism .

    33 years later after seeing the hypocricy`s , flip flops ,and manipulation of the members by both the G.B. and Elders in Congregations I attended (admittedly some Elders were genuine people but not many) in my experience.

    I was disillusioned and left.Which then led me to investigate the the Bible more and what critics had to say about it and my eyes were opened ,the rose coloured glasses and the blinkers were off an I then saw what religion in general and all religious books were inventions of humans and nothing more.

  • Phizzy
    Phizzy

    I realized when I woke up that I had been lied to all my life by the J.W Org, for 58 years.

    I decided I would not trust that something was true unless there was satisfactory evidence.

    Such evidence would have to be of the quality that would satisfy experts in whatever field I was studying, and would survive extreme perusal by the most cynical of sceptics.

    I found that the J.W religion was based upon lies and maintained by lies, and was , by whatever measure you use, wrong in all its unique Doctrines.

    I found that the Bible was simply written by men, and not to be trusted, simply viewed as 99% Fiction was the best idea.

    I found no evidence for "god", nor for a Supreme Being.

    I would now describe myself as a Rationalist/Atheist/Humanist, and as one who is happy with that intellectual position and outlook on life.

  • dubstepped
    dubstepped

    This thread was my email with a JW elder asking me how I got to a point where I couldn't believe in god anymore.

    https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5630926320041984/my-personal-atheist-manifesto

  • Tater-T
    Tater-T

    Invisibly present or visibly absent

    Which one is more correct there's your truth

  • Dagney
    Dagney

    I was a faithful believer like most here, EXCEPT, there were all those niggles over the years of things that just didn't make sense.

    Extreme cruelty of the Old Testament. It sucked to be a Canaanite. They didn't deserve to live in their own land; it should be Jehovah's! Some people die for touching the ark, others murder and commit adultery and receive far less sentences. Billions of people have died because Adam couldn't stand up to his wife? "Life is precious to Jehovah," he knows how many hairs are on everybody's head. Really?

    I was a firm believer when I left, started doing some light research, which explained so many thing I wondered about, namely the inconsistencies in the Bible. The inspired word began to look less so to me. If it wasn't "God's Word" but man's, what's the deal with god? I grew distant from god, and it made no difference in my life one single bit.

    My life has been fine, no horrible tragedies like so many suffer. Is god looking out for me and not others? I never thought so. Maybe it would be nice to have a sky daddy watching over you and helping you make that touchdown or get that job...but it doesn't answer for horrible atrocities man brings on himself. If there is a god, he is doing a terrible job.

    Live well, be your brother's keeper, take care of things...that is as divine as we need.

  • Nathan Natas
    Nathan Natas

    Can I offer a thought?

    Christians are only ONE god away from being atheists.

    Let me explain. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that through history mankind has worshiped 10,000 gods.

    Do you Mr. or Mrs. Christian, believe that Allah, Xenu, Shiva, Thor, Baal, Ahura-Mazda, Cthulhu or The Flying Spaghetti Monster are the One True God? Of course not. If I continued to name the remainder of the 10,000 names of god, you would say "NO" to each one of those, thereby eliminating 99.99% of the gods "known" to man.

    You are SO CLOSE to being an atheist!

    I took the one step that remains for you - I reject all 10,000 gods!

    It helped that I discovered that the Bible was fraudulent hokum and that evolution was the way that lifeworks.

    Come! Kiss God goodbye with me!

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