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 Miyoshino February 22 2012 19:52. Posts 314 | Profile Blog # |
Didn't type all this shit for nothing. Thread was closed while I typed.
I was born without the belief in gods or the supernatural, like every person on this earth. I did go to a christian school. They had bible stories every day. But looking back at that period in my life I don't know what I believed about them.
We talking about age 8 or so. I also read all the children books about space travel and dinosaur the local library had. I do know that I realized that those books were right and the bible stories were stories. I can't say for sure I always realized the bible stories were myth and similar to fairy tales. But certainly the idea of fictional stories was a concept I understood. But since there was a never a contradiction for me between the scientific account and the mythological stories of the bible, I don't believe I ever saw them as not being fictional.
I don't know why the brainwashing failed bceause the goal of christian schools is to create christian children. It may be that the teachers also didn't believe and that this is something that I somehow picked up on. If they were meant to be literal I think they would have been told in a different way and with more emphasis.
It helps of course that my parents never showed any religiosity since I know many religious parents try to 'pass on their faith'.
At some age I realized that some people really believe all this stuff and take it very seriously Then I kind of started to wonder. It always had seemed to be so obviously false. But then I realized a lot of smart people and a lot of adults really believed it. Why?
Not until I picked up a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, I realized how strong religion is in some countries. He kept on 'blabbering' about creationists and religion. I was really surprised he spend so much time on this rather than the actual subject. Slowly it dawned on me that there must be a lot of creationists in the US and that they had quite some power.
I never realized religion even in modern times still tries to enforce doctrine and ban teaching of science. |
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| zalz Netherlands. February 22 2012 20:48. Posts 3291 | Profile Blog # |
I don't think I was ever anything other than an atheist.
Both my parents were catholic, but neither were very hardcore in their belief. We went to church every christmas, I remember hating it with a passion, even if it was only once a year.
Hell is people without arms sitting at table full of food, crying because they are hungry. Heaven is people sitting at a table without arms, happy cause they helped one another eat? What the fuck...
I had to sit on some hard wood chairs and listen to some old man rattle on with the most ludicrous of stories. Like most religion these days, the stories were mostly about being nice to one another, rather than actual theological doctrine. For example, they wouldn't ever tell you that hell is a place where people go, just because they don't believe.
Thinking back, it was most obvious when I took my communion. Before you get to take your communion, you have to take some "lessons" where they teach you basic bible stories, christians ideas and what the communion itself is going to look like.
I was 11 or 12 at the time, so there really wasn't much in terms of my own choice. I just did it, because that was what pretty much everyone expected of me.
You were assigned groups and each group had two "teachers," and maybe 6 kids each. And as we went over the bible stories I just kept ridiculing the stories. I kept asking questions to poke holes in them, I kept saying how idiotic it was to believe that there was 1 man and 1 woman, a talking snake, and a 500 year old man that build a boat that could house all the animals in the world.
These teachers were simply volunteers, and given the times at which they teached these classes, that made most of these teachers were stay-at-home moms. That should give you a decent idea of how learned they were on the topic of the bible.
They didn't care much for my questions or my jokes and I was regularly told to leave or stand in a corner.
I wasn't a rebellious child, not in the least. But when it came to church or church stories, I could never take them seriously. Their habit of telling me to stop asking questions, or stand in the corner, only enforced my idea that it was all nonesense. Afterall, if it was true, would they not be able to easily answer my questions?
In a way I was somewhat lucky. At that age, the opposition to my questions was made up out of stay-at-home moms that volunteered to teach kids some basic bible stories. Some preachers can spin some seriously delusional pseudo-logic that no child can refute at that age.
Holland is reasonably mild with its religion, altough even we have a bible belt where they raise people to be crazy about Jesus.
My parents don't believe in any serious degree anymore. They believe in the "god of the gaps." The vague god that doesn't judge you and doesn't make rules. My dad even saying that he wasn't christian, but still religious at one point. None of my siblings believe, only one of my friends believes but he is easily the least moral (by biblical standards) out of all of us.
I think that vague religion will be the future. Already, tons of people, when asked to describe god, call him some vague entity. A claim in and of itself heretical by christian theology.
I don't get into many religious arguments in real life, mostly because in Holland, you tend to keep your religious beliefs to yourself. I think that is a decent idea. I believe in the freedom of religion, but that should entail that I can live a life free from religion aswell. I like to debate it, but it rarely comes up and I don't feel like brining it up either. Even if you win, the other person just sulks in a corner and shuts down, repeating till infinity that the bible is true, because it says it's true.
Creationism and other moronic ideas need to be smuthered in the cradle. Those ideas are nothing short of scientific and cultural suicide. Perhaps only one step above the Islamic concept of "occasionalism."
But sadly, there is no battle to fight for me here in Holland. There is no creationist movement that can be taken seriously, thus no movement that requires me to go out and give it a verbal smacking. |
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| DeekZ Australia. February 22 2012 20:48. Posts 221 | Profile # |
| What did the poll look like in the original thread. Last edit: 2012-02-22 20:49:21 |
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| figq February 22 2012 21:07. Posts 9591 | Profile Blog # |
I've been brought to churches when I was little. I still enjoy the atmosphere in a church to some extent - the way I enjoy going to a museum. It never managed to make me a real believer though, it just seems strange that some young people still manage to actually become believers. I'm not even sure I believe them being real believers.
I like analyzing the practicality of some supposedly religious traditions. For example, some periods of the year in certain religious groups are not advised well suited for weddings and funerals. But when you look into it, you realize in those periods the villagers don't have much food in their stores, so they wouldn't like to waste their limited supplies on public events.Last edit: 2012-02-22 21:12:28 |
| | If you stand next to my head, you can hear the ocean. - Day[9] |
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| AcrossFiveJulys United States. February 22 2012 21:26. Posts 3593 | Profile Blog # |
| Being active in the religious community for structure in one's life and the opportunity to be social, meet people, and be "part of something" makes a lot of sense to me. But it astonishes me that people really believe deep down that there's a superbeing (or superbeings) actively watching over the human race, with the only evidence being myths written by humans thousands of years ago. I guess it goes to show just how impressionable humans can be. |
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| Iyerbeth England. February 22 2012 21:35. Posts 2199 | Profile Blog # | |
| | ♥ Liquid`Sheth ♥ | Why choose the lesser evil? | |
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| evaunit01 United States. February 22 2012 22:02. Posts 278 | Profile Blog # |
| Grew up catholic, went to sunday school, did baptism, communion and confirmation. Started being agnostic in high school and atheism hit right as I started college I would say. The whole bible and religion just never stuck with me, kind of a hard story to swallow...especially if you are good at math and science like I was at an early age. |
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| GMarshal United States. February 22 2012 22:13. Posts 20816 | Profile Blog # |
Religion threads never, ever end well, thus it is our policy to close them
because religion (or lack of it) is based on intangibles and faith, there can be no discussion.
Closing now. |
| | "life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery" The measure of a terrible day is when you go to bed thinking "man, I wish the zombie apocalypse would start already" | |
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