I graduated with honors from both a Texas high school and a Methodist university. When I got to graduate school, I had never heard of evolution. When we got to the Victorian Age in Survey of British Literature, I had to learn quickly on my own about evolution. My roommate, one of the most brilliant people I've ever known and a classmate at the Methodist university, was an atheist. I was shocked and asked him why he played the organ at church. His answer was, "I like to play the organ." He loved to invite the religious door knockers in to have a a long discussion. Then I learned, of the scores of students in graduate school in English and on the faculty, almost none of them believed. I had to start thinking and investigating and studying.
In my mid-twenties I began teaching English at a university with thirty-eight members in the English department. Practically no one believed! At thirty I was teaching at a university with eighty in the department. Again practically no one believed. Some were church goers but only because of culture and tradition.
At the age of thirty-two, I admitted that I do not believe. The bible is mythology. After another ten years, "I could say outloud, "I am an agnostic with heavy leanings toward atheism." What we learn at our mother's knee is hard to unlearn. I see no evidence of a god except original cause.
What caused my conversion? Study of evolution and the admission that so much of the bible is ridiculously absurd. Admission that organized religion causes much harm. The admission that I knew no religious person whose intelligence I totally respected or admired.
I totally accept evolution; I totally reject the bible as myth. However, I would never try to change a religious person's mind. These people need a heavenly father to help them through the difficulties of life and promise them a glorious afterlife. Religion is their pain killer to get through life--the opiate of the masses. I think of them as ignorant in some ways, but their ignorance gets them through life. I see prayer as a balm against fear and pain--a form of self-hypnotism. I actually envy believers.
I can prove nothing. This is just my story.
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Comments: 54
I will just stand by and support your bravery.
It is not easy to come out.
One Christian here has already said that he understands the lack of faith.
I admire that attitude.
-- I am a Christian, but I haven't found a church that doesn't make me want to puke
-- I have faith in God, and you have faith in science
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But one does NOT have faith in science!! Those who think otherwise simply do not understand what science is. Science operates on evidence! Faith does not.
I think it is fine to have religious faith. The problems start when one tries to use evidence or logic to prove or support their faith. If you choose to have faith and realize that you believe above and beyond any evidence to the contrary, then I say more power to you. But, those who choose evidence and science have their rights too. We shouldn't confuse the two.
If I throw a stone out the window, I will notice that it falls to the ground every time, so I will then have a solid basis to believe without looking, that the next one will also fall. If my friend always tell me the truth, I will start excercising faith and stop requiring proof of what that friend says. Those are examples of true faith.
I have faith that I will not float up into the air, unless I use some sort of mechanical device, and that I will not fall thru the Earth, unless I happen to step into a hole
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Tessa,well said. And I respect your views.
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Leo L. Oct 27, 2009, 2:40pm EDT
Thomas, over time I have realized that you have a "religion," a philosophy, a belief (?) quite different from that of the mainstream. Perhaps you will share it with us soon. If you do, keep it simple, or you will lose me.
There is but one God, one human race, and hence, only one religion, revealed by God in stages over time as man matures and is deemed ready for further education. If you are sincere your search will be rewarded. May God bless and guide you.
I have always been impressed by just taking a general perspective of Christianity within world history - if you are able to look outside yourself and your own belief system, Christianity has all the earmarks of any other mythology that Christians view as mythology. The ancient Greeks and Romans had their mythology. And Christians have theirs now.
Just my 2 cents.
Yes, I agree that the Bible contradicts many religious belief systems of today. But I go one step further - the Bible contradicts itself. I've also read the Apocrypha and the Gospel of Judas, and the Gospel of Mary. The testaments and gospels that were canonized are not all there are, yet so many folks do know this. The bible itself is mostly fable, fairy tale, and mythology in written form with a little bit of actual history thrown in.
I am really curious. Please supply a list of those you deem important to faith and we can discuss them on another thread.
But all this talk of the bible is really a moot point because an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent god cannot possibly exist logically. All of the traditional "proofs" of god have been debunked time and time again. Some fairly simple Reason and logic are all it takes to determine the blaring errors of these proofs and demonstrate that such a god cannot exist. If a god does exist, then he/she/it is most certainly not omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.
If you are really curious, then I could suggest that you step back from your own belief system and seriously and sincerely play the devil's advocate and critique your own beliefs as harshly as you know how. I have done this with my own position many times. It can be very revealing of just what truth there is to be found. As for me though, it has been very revealing of just what is NOT true.
Sorry, Dennis, I do respect you and your beliefs. I just don't happen to have faith or any other unsupported beliefs. I do wish you well, though!
Also even if you won't debate it, I'd still love even a partial list of those "contradictions". The ones that I have come across are mostly either minor difference in details or mistranslations of the original language. The others have resulted in my correcting a wrong belief or perception. So if there are "faith-shattering" ones, please let me have them.
I do not claim that errors in the bible are "faith shattering". But as I have mentioned previously, the bible becomes irrelevant when reasoning and logic are applied to a supposedly omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent god. Those studies were enough to shatter my faith alone.
It is so much easier to see the truth once you stop believing that you already have it. This is where most religious folks stumble - they simply cannot suspend their belief in any way in order to make a more objective evaluation.
The history of the development of the judeo-christian tradition and the evolution of man's concepts of god with respect to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam can also be a real eye opener. Have you ever read "A History Of God" by Karen Armstrong? If not, it is well worth the read.
I will however take a look at the post you linked.
However, I had already started reading the Bible and was shocked to see that it contradicted a lot of what I was being taught. So for me, it was not the Bible that was illogical, wrong or taught myths, it was my religious teachers!!!
Jesus isn't God (almost all of John chap. 5), nobody burns in hell because you are not punished for anything after you die (Romans 6:7), this earth will be inhabited forever (Psalm 37:29), the soul is not immortal (Ezekiel 18:4). I could go on and on, but I that would make this comment too long and I have probably infuriated people with this short list already.
My first step was to abandon organized religion...my next was to fully embrace the fact that all the mumbo-jumbo in the bible is nothing more than a far-off history of how certain groups functioned and tried to gain power over others. The more I studied what it was actually saying, the less it aligned with what I believed to be the best way to live. I still think many of the 'teachings' of Jesus are the way to live, but there have been others in history, even before Jesus' time, who made the same proclamations about the correct way to live. He was not a god..or related to one. Whatever the origins of the universe are, whatever the reasons for life (if any), I choose to spend my time focussing on being the best human being during my time on this planet, with no expectations that there will be anything left of me when my body dies and returns to dust.
I think this world would be a lot better off in many respects if people did not believe in a god or afterlife....if they simply lived to their fullest each day.
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld
They are the best proof that God doesn't exist.
Vicente Duque
I think my personal decision was easier because of that but I think the real reason is that I'm missing the need for religious faith that a lot of people seem to be born with. There was no emotional turmoil associated with it at all.
I am sure that now that we know that it's the temporal lobe, a highly religious team of biochemical engineers are working on a drug to cure your "defect" :-D)
I don't ". . . want governmental control of my temporal lobe" either, but it must appear very tempting to a researcher.
I don't mind what someone believes in as long as they do not try to influence anybody else, nor governments.