Posted by:
imaworkinonit
(
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Date: February 19, 2014 02:30PM
and reason.
I'm going to be blunt here, and I'm not doing so to mock anyone, but to share some of random thoughts that led me to agnosticism, and ultimately to become atheist. I respect anyone's right to believe, as long as they respect my right NOT to believe. I do recognize that other people have had experiences that lead THEM to believe in God. But I also assert that their experiences are only valid for THEM. They are not my experiences, and I'm not obligated to take their words or feelings as evidence, because many have been misled by their feelings.
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I have never seen nor heard God. I spent about 27 years actively trying to form a relationship with God through obedience, prayer and faith. That failed. And I no longer feel obligated to believe, much less OBEY a being who cannot be seen or communicated with.
If there was all-powerful God, he would be perfectly capable of communicating with every human being on the planet at any time. Heck, anyone with a twitter account can do that today. The idea that he would require "prophets" to communicate is just part of a con, perpetuated by the guys who claim to be in communication with Him. When you have prophets, you get guys like JS, who tell people that God told him to marry another guy's wife, or to build him a house, or give him money. If God could talk to JS, why not just tell Heber C Kimball, directly? Because it was a con. That's why.
Over the ages, how many religious leaders have abused their supposed relationship with God to get power, money, sex and anything else they wanted? What all-powerful God would stand by and let that happen in His name, while helpless believers were afraid to question? If personal prayers actually were answered, nobody would ever follow false religious leaders.
And this bit about testing our faith by being invisible? That's just silly. Any controlling individual who wants to be obeyed down to the last detail and even worshiped does not remain invisible and silent. They would want to be seen, heard, and adored directly.
Believing in God is basically believing in a magical unseen being, who knows everything, has all power, has lived forever, can read your thoughts, can eliminate death, can grant wishes, can change who you are and remove the bad from your heart. And he's loving and kind, but if you don't obey him, or believe in him, He'll take away your loved ones for all eternity and perhaps even burn you for all eternity. Oh yeah, and he's super insecure, and he'll get jealous if you like another God, or your possessions more than him.
I always come back to this: If God exists, then where the heck is He?. If you can't even see him or talk with him, or even see a picture of him, why would you even believe he's there? I'd venture to guess that most people who believe in God were taught at some point that they were SUPPOSED to believe, and that if they don't, something bad will happen to them or that they themselves are a bad person.