Why I gave up on religion.
I was raised from birth in the LDS religion. I read all of the books several times, paid my tithe, held positions in the church, I even went on a mission. I claimed proof based on my subjective evidence, ( the burning in the bussom ) and tried to bring others into the faith as well.
My fall from the church I believe started with my mother. I was a hyperkinetic child who would speak his thoughts at the same time the he had them. My mother constantly told me to " think before I spoke.", that my thoughts led to my words, and my words led me to action. This was my first experience with logic. I grew up with a strong desire for all things logical. Logic to me is beauty in it's purest essence.
After I got out of my mission, I was active for several years but then decided that I wanted to see what my life would be like if I didn't make the church an integral part of my life. I don't recall why I thought of this, just that I did. I went for broke. I had premarital sex, I drank, I watched pornos, I smoked pot, I did it all. I wanted to see how my life would change. I wanted to know that obeying the church rules was the right thing to do. I did it for the carnal knowledge. I did it because it felt good. I did it for all of these reasons and more.
I lived like this for several years. I would feel guilty sometimes and go ask for forgiveness from my bishop, but I kept doing it. I was waiting for my life to get worse. I was waiting for the hard, chaotic life that nonmembers had. I was waiting to see the rewards promised me by the church to be stripped away.
It never happened.
I learned that my problems were due to me. Not because I wasn't following some church rule, but because I caused my own problems. This opened a whole new line of thinking for me. I began to feel that the church didn't have the answers for me. So I began to look elsewhere. I left christianity behind and began to study other religions, other philosophies. I studied Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, and countless others. I found some answers, but never any answers to my religious upbringing. Then I discovered atheism. Atheism is defined as a-theism or in other words " without God ". It is the default belief if you don't believe in any type of god. I found others with similar questions to my own. Namely.....
The free will paradox.
Christianity hangs on the belief that we all have free will. That each of us makes decisions that either lead us to or away from God. My question has always been that if God knows everything, then wouldn't he know, in the creation of our spirit, whither we would do good or evil in our lives ? In other words even before he created Hitler, he knew Hitler would kill millions of people. To me, this negates free will. Also the problem arises in the creation of the spirit. If I take a lump of clay, roll it into a ball, set it on top of a hill, I know it will roll downhill. God, being all knowing and all intelligent would have to know that he was creating something that would go against his word. Why would a loving God do this ?
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ. ( click here to see responses to this. )
Christianity also hangs on the belief that salvation is only obtainable through the belief in Jesus Christ who sacrificed his life for our sins. My question is " where is the sacrifice ? ". According to the bible, Jesus was always intended to be " the sacrificial lamb ". That it was his mission to take upon all the sins of the world ( what exactly is the physical manifestation of a sin ? ) and then to shed his blood and to give up his life for everyone. My problem with this is that I dont see a real sacrifice. He supposedly spent 2 days of extreme torture, and then died, only to arise again with the powers of a god. Sign me up ! I'd be more then willing to go through all of that pain in exchange for god hood. Thats not a sacrifice. A sacrifice would be if he never rose up again. I liken this to a fight with Tyson. You might loose, but hell, you get 15 million for getting the shit beat out of you and hitting the mat. Where exactly is the sacrifice ?
I would LOVE to have these questions answered, but have never heard any reasonable arguments that are based in logic. Usually I get people telling me about their " proof " of god, (the burning of the bussom) and how they know that god is real because of this subjective evidence. I'm sorry, that doesn't hold with me. I need objective proof.
If you feel you have these answers I would be more then happy to talk with you about them. Feel free to e-mail me. Please, serious e-mails only. If all you want to do is hit me with bullshit christian rhetoric, we're gonna get no where fast.
I am also a frequent poster to alt.atheism. This is a great forum to learn more about atheism.
Below are some links to some very informative pages on atheism.
| Biblical Erancy |
| History of Bible |
| Origin of Species |
| Kirbys World |
| Talk.Origins |
| Jhuger |
| American Atheist |
| BAAWA |
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