When/ how did you become an atheist?

But that's just abstract, it contains no particular instruction. At best, it would be a different instruction for each person that claims to be in communication with god. Wouldn't that also make everyone a prophet?

 

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um..no..that is civil war mentality..(cut it off?)..

Satan is parasitic..ppl make their own choices..can't kill the idea..God needs them too..why can't it be cured?..we need them too..etc..etc..etc..

 

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I never said any such thing. I have a conscience that seems to serve me well.

Without religion, where do you get the idea of salvation/heaven?

Bible??? Without religion, what gives the bible (or any other "scripture") anymore authority than anything else?

 

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um..short answer Yes..(depends on what you think of as 'prophet' vs what i think of as 'prophet')

 

Great.

believers testimonies.(common denominators influencing a structured representation of heaven)

you do.
(the authority you give it, determines the bibles authority)

 

How can living believers carry any authority on the concept of an afterlife? :shrug:

I grok - thou art god.

 

ever done research on ppl who have died and came back?
(granted no empirical proof,but its enough for consideration..)

?

 

Yup... And you're right, it's not empirical evidence.

Remember in the old daze when you turned the TV off and the little light in the center of the picture tube got smaller and smaller for a long ass time? I suspect the common accounts are just memories of the power draining out.

I guess you've never read Stranger In A Strange Land... Anyway, most people claim the Bible's authority comes from god - which is kind of circular if you ask me.

 

ah,man..now i'm gonna have to re-read it..

 

I'm an atheist because it keeps me out of foxholes.

 

My mother.

 

Reason with me. First, I am NOT religious. I find religion to be a mockery of God. If I wear to preech anything it would be 3 things. 1. Love. 2. Strive to do more for others than yourself. and 3. Only search inward for divine answers.

EDIT: 4. Let every man woman and child lead their own life.

 

Congratulations, Knowledge91, you just created religion.

 

When I was about 6 or 7, I became "saved". I vividly remember having no clue what was going on, and remember the pastor asking why I wanted to be saved. I replied with "It seems like it's what you're supposed to do." He dunk me under the water, and my family rejoiced. At about 12 year old, I realized that Vacation Bible School was nothing more than a brainwashing camp. Shortly after, it clicked in my brain that there may be some correlation between my belief system and the fact that I went to Vacation Bible School. So, I started questioning my belief system, then questioning my questioning...eventually developed critical thinking skills, and here I am.

 

I remember the first time that I questioned religion. It was when I was 5 and my grandma told me after an in-depth inquisition on my part that god was his own mommy and daddy. I just couldn't fathom such a thing, until eventually I brought myself to believe that I couldn't fathom it before because I'd never considered anything close to someone who came from nowhere. I had some idea that god was like a being in another dimension like in the cartoons I watched. Then when I was ten, I helped clean this rich lady's driveway. "She was really nice", said my step-dad at the time, "but she's doesn't believe in god." At the time I was essentially a communist, in fact I thought that it was my original idea until my dad told me to stop writing communist essays in my spare time. Anyway, I had this belief that all rich people were evil, so it wasn't a far stretch for me to assume that though the old lady appeared very nice, she must be evil because she's an atheist; I already assumed as much since she was pretty well-to-do. So then it came to be that one day my only friend who was my equal or pretty close on an intellectual scale challenged my beliefs with something simple "if god is omnipotent, can he create something that he can't move? And if there's something that he can't create or move, how is he omnipotent?" At the time, I argued my case alongside another friend, and due to some tactical sophistry(though I didn't know that word then), we came out as the apparent victors of the debate from the crowd's perspective. However, over the next month or so, I started to rethink my position. It's not that his question was so great, it was almost on the level of a semantical question. I defeated it by asking why 1/9 was .111... and 2/9 was .222... but 9/9 is 1. Asking him if he thought math was false because it's counter-intuitive at times. I had already strayed from christianity, though I pretended I hadn't, but I believed in some type of god, if I wasn't sure what type. I don't know when I came to believe what I do now, but I stopped being arrogant enough to think I knew anything after I read the Republic, or maybe a little bit before. Though I'm not technically an atheist right now, I have strong atheistic leanings, but there are a number of theistic positions that I think have validity, to include transcendental monotheism, paganism, and a number of other polytheistic scenarios. Plausibility is not likelihood, to be sure.

 

I believed in God as a child, I truly believed in an all loving and all can do mighty creator.There was no doubt in my young mind about the existence of a higher being that loved me and would take care of me if I behaved and truly believed.I was surrounded by fundamentalist Catholics and to be completely honest those years were the worst years of my life.I'd pray to God and asked only one thing all the time. it wasn't for new toys,to make me prettier or to help me with silly exams.All I pleaded for was to help me out of an abusive household, years passed and it didn't happen.I was around 9-10 when I realized that I had been talking to myself all those years and there was no divine help coming to rescue me.If there was such a supreme ruler, it didn't care about humanity(or simply about me) and therefore no reason to worship or believe in it. :/

 

When/ how did you become an atheist?

When: last week

How: Rather not say.

 

I will say this if there is anyone who isn't obliged to do anything it is God I'm sorry that you suffered for years but the absolutely fair one is also God even if God doesn't have any obligations.

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Can you be more specific about which God isn't obliged to do anything? Not everybody has the same God to believe in. The one I heard about created hell for all non believers and sinners. That has to require some obligations doesn't it?

 

I was replying to someone who was surrounded by fudamentalist Catholics though fundamentalist anything isn't good. But why do you need to know which God? If you must know it's the God implied in the ontological argument. I would argue that this same God is explained even better in the central doctrine of monotheism or should I say radical monotheism.