Here is my situation and maybe others...Once I started figuring out that the mormons were a cult and just not true, I became more introspective about other things I have been taught. It is not a far jump to put ideas like gold plates, 14 year old brides, etc. out of my life than to thow out the Jesus thing. When I grew up and learned I also began to explore a man walking on water, never had a father, only a holy ghost sex lover to his mother, a person that came back to life and only visited his old friends, walks through walls when doors were available, feed thousands on a few loaves of bread...The cult tries to scare people and punish them for not obeying, so does this Jesus man. He is silent, never appears, allows 6,000 children per day to starve to death, when he is rich and a god, and promises mansions if you obey him, and burning hell if you don't, just did not make any sense to me anymore.

So dumping the mormon church with it's idiot ideas and the Jesus divinity thing, come out of the same research...Shit is shit, and as my old mother used to always say...you can't polish shit...If there is a God I cerainly don't want to live with him, after the way I see how he has treated his children. Just me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2011 01:00PM by get her done.

Hurt feelings, beeing lied too and scamed?

Once the blinders come off, you're forced to see EVERYTHING for what it is (and isn't). When the barriers of cogdis crumble, it's like a house of cards...nothing holds up to the scrutiny of newly-found truthful eyes.

Sometimes blind is easier but never better. Once burned, the next scam is easier to spot.

Once you find out santa claus isn't real, it's not a stretch to think the easter bunny might not be 100% true either.

I threw the baby out with the bathwater when I left mormonism. I had been taught that it was the truthiest of all true churches. That the only way to christ was through mormonism. My belief in christianity was entirely based through the crutch, and once that fell away there was nothing left. I realized it was all a sham and just a modern-day version of Mt. Olympus and all other "mythological" beliefs.

I don't know if there's a god or not. If there is, I hope he's not as cruel and schizophrenic as religion teaches. If he is that way, I'll happily spend my eternity in the telestial, thank you. Or hell. Whatever folklore one feels is best.

For me it wasn't a matter of dismissing Mormonism, then Christianity, then other religions. It was the realization that despite all my religious upbringing and trying to be a good Mormon, deep inside I didn't actually believe in a supernatural world. So, poof, all religion became instantly irrelevant.

for my beliefs, I realized there was no real evidence for God, either. Just feelings, hopes, fears.

I had spent a lifetime seeking inspiration, answers, and testimony through prayer. Without receiving discernable answers.

I had already sought a relationship with God, unsuccessfully, for my whole life. When my faith in the church crumbled, my faith in God did as well.

If there was/is a God, I knew that I would never have a relationship with Him. His existence or non-existence was a non-issue in my life because he was unaccessible and his existence wasn't provable.

I started out agnostic, but after a number of years I became more convinced that there is no God. I'm atheist now.

From the day I was born I was taught that the Mormon church was different than every other church. When I saw that it was false, I instantly also saw that it really was the same as all the others.

You say potaato, I say Poh-tah-o.

"When I saw that it was false, I instantly also saw that it really was the same as all the others."

That was so well said I think I'm going to steal it. Nicely done!.

Once I developed the ability to critically analyze my own beliefs and assumptions, Mormonism and all religion went away. So did my belief in ghosts and an afterlife.

Not too long afterwards, things like social rules and taboos went out the window as well.

But I have enough evidence to stop believing in any religion.

They're all man made and only use the idea of God for their own gain.

If you believe Jesus really changed water into wine, why not believe he also made the stone box and gold plates disappear?

I wrote and first posted this two or three years ago. I've since learned that people getting taller is due not to evolution but better nutrition, so I need a new #10.


TOP TEN REASONS WHY I'M AN ATHEIST (IF ANYONE CARES)

Excuse me while I have what some will surely call an atheist-missionary moment. Those who remember me coming on the board a couple years ago, asking what’s so flippin’ interesting about being an atheist, please just give me a break. I still don’t think it’s all that interesting, but I’m finding it’s becoming more important to me as time goes on.

My intention is not to argue, but to share.

Someone last night said people slide into atheism because they’re hurt or because of a life-changing event, like death, and I just wanted to outline some of my personal reasons. Others do a fine job—better than I could ever hope to do—with the science. I’ve always said it’s obvious—since I became an atheist, I mean. Here are some reasons it’s obvious to me:

#1 – BRAIN IN HEAD

My brain is in my head, along with my eyes (which are partly on the outside), and that is why I feel like I’m inside my body, looking out—not because I’m really some fluffy cloud personality that was pumped into this body some time before my body was born and, when it dies, will be sucked out by a giant invisible cosmic vacuum and propelled to places unknown.

#2 – DREAMS

Wow! Look what my brain does when I’m asleep. I can go to places I’ve never been, sometimes by flying ... talk to dead people ... drive a car from the back seat ... have sex with celebrities, and so what if it’s Drew Carey in a big inner tube. I can even leave my body! I know this because I spent quite a bit of time trying during my la-di-da/one-with-the-universe phase, also known as “before the Prozac wore off.” Unfortunately, I was only able to do it in my sleep.

I understand that these things are not actually happening and are not going to happen anywhere but in my sleep.

I also know that my brain can trick me into thinking I’m awake when I’m actually asleep. Just yesterday morning, I awoke (I thought) to someone pounding on the door—so hard that it shook my bed. Realizing I had been asleep (because the actual waking up seemed to take a long time and felt really weird), I got up and checked the door anyway. My son, who was already up, assured me that no one had knocked on the door or made any other noise.

What my brain can do is, to me, powerful evidence that this is all there is. Someone else, a long time ago, just forgot to notice they weren’t awake.

#3 – ANIMALS

They’re made of the same stuff that we are, and have many of the same basic structures. Clearly, the ones who are bigger than, say, a mouse also have consciousness and individual personalities. For all I know, even bugs have consciousness and something like a personality.

Some might say all the similarity (and dissimilarity) of creatures is evidence of a creator, but I think it’s evidence of natural, uncontrolled evolution. The fact that we call them creatures is not evidence that they were created.

#4 – THE WAY THE WORLD IS

If a super-intelligent, all-powerful being had created all of this on purpose, I’m sure it would have done a better job. Things would be more efficient, and less gross and painful and prone to sudden destruction. There would be no menstruation, for example.

This is not the work of a genius.

#5 – INVISIBLE THINGS

Of all the things that were once invisible but we’ve since developed the technology to see, is there a single one that can’t be explained, at least in theory, and doesn’t operate in accordance with known laws of physics? Nope! I think this means we’re not likely to discover any new invisible things that don’t operate in accordance with known laws of physics, or for which the known laws can’t be amended or expanded.

#6 – THE BIBLE

Hello, it’s a collection of impossible stories. If people ever lived to be 900 years old, if God ever spoke to anyone from a bush or the sky or anywhere, or if any of the incredible things in the Bible ever really happened, those things would still be happening.

And how much sense does it make, really, that a single god-guy would have to suffer a horrible bloody death in order to make up for billions of people’s mostly intangible sins and enable them to go to heaven? Is there a physical law that seems to support that? No. Never mind that the inventor of such a procedure would have to be one sadistic mofo.

#7 – ORGANIZED RELIGION

Funny how most religions have like these ruling councils who decide how things are and what’s okay to think and do, and the members of these councils tend to be wealthy or at least well taken care of. That’s because religion is a tool for acquiring and maintaining power and controlling resources. It’s based on greed and ambition, not God.

#8 – THAT TINGLY SENSATION THAT TELLS YOU SOMETHING IS TRUE

You know those little shivers or chills that happen whenever someone says something you really want to believe, that Mormons think is the Holy Ghost? It was demonstrated to me in the most powerful way possible that these do not come from an external source but are instead the creation of my very own amazing little brain.

About 11 years ago, as the Prozac was wearing off, I met a guy in Yahoo! chat room and had what I thought would be the great love affair of all time. For three months I walked around on the verge of a full-body orgasm, tingling all over. It was so intense, I thought there was no way it could be anything but confirmation from the universe that this guy and I were supposed to be together. I had a dream where he told me we had first *mated* in the year 1732 and became convinced I had known him in a past life.

It didn’t help that the previous summer, a fortune teller at the local motorcycle rally had told me I’d meet a man.

“You will cross paths with a gentleman,” she said. “He has a lotta problems—lotta problems, with the drinking and the drugs. But he’s a good man. It’s because of his problems that he does the drinking and the drugs. I can’t see if it will be a relationship. You don’t know him now, or you might know him at a distance.”

“He’s a good man,” she kept saying, over and over. “You’re supposed to help him.”

I thought she might be talking about my former best friend, an alcoholic who once had a drug problem. His alcoholism made it hard to be his friend. We had a gradual falling out, and he hadn’t spoken to me in a couple of years. He ignored me when I passed him on the road or in the grocery store. So you could say I knew him at a distance. It’s hard to help someone who won’t talk to you, I thought.

I didn’t necessarily believe anything the fortune teller said, but I definitely wanted to. She also said I’d have my own business. I didn’t believe that because I was happily employed at the time.

Six months later I had quit my job, built a website to attract my own clients, and was tinkering around online when I wandered into the chat room and met this guy. Here was someone I knew at a distance. After establishing (I thought) that the drinking and the drugs were in his past and he wasn’t the guy with the problems, I invited him to come live with me and be my love.

Thus began 22 months of hell ending in near financial ruin. So many problems I had never imagined! And it wasn’t just the drinking and the drugs. Dude turned out to be the worst person I’ve ever personally known. Someone else’s runaway husband, deadbeat father of seven, petty criminal, vicious verbal abuser, promiscuous closet homosexual, professional work avoider, faker of a variety of diseases except for one that I didn’t know about and he tried to share. I practically had to pick him up and put him in the car to make him go away.

I haven’t had so much as a single tiny tingle since. It was not the universe but just me, wanting to be loved.

And no, I did not slide into atheism because I was hurt or even because I had a major life-changing experience. I hadn’t believed in the man-god for at least 20 years, if I ever did, and was just on the tail end of this la-di-da/one-with-the-universe phase. Only that ended with the internet romance disaster. I didn’t actually decide and start saying I’m an atheist until a few years after the universe was taken out of the equation.

So for me it was more like a process of elimination.

#9 – MY MORMON-HATING ATHEIST GRANDPA WITH THE PINK CAR

My mother’s father, who died when I was 11, was the eldest son of a staunch Mormon family. I don’t know what happened with the church, but he hated it and became an atheist some time before my mother was born. I can’t ask her too much about Grandpa because she married a Mormon and then became one to piss him off, won’t admit it, and assumes I’m trying to start an argument if I ask about anything before about 1980.

I have to give Grandpa some credit because he was first to suggest to me that there’s no god. I don’t remember exactly how he said it, but I know he said it often and I thought he might be right. My parents (who had a problem with atheists) discussed whether he was really an atheist or an agnostic, but it seems to me he was pretty adamant.

And yes, he had a pink car.

#10 – SIX-FOOT WOMEN

Speaking of evolution, it makes sense. And it’s happening before our eyes. Have you noticed people getting taller in your lifetime?

Being a 6-foot woman, I pay a lot of attention to people’s height. Actually, I’m closer to 6'1" but it’s not worth saying “six feet and three quarters of an inch,” so I just say I’m 6'1". Thirty years ago, I knew two other six-foot women and never saw a woman taller than I was. Now I know several 6-foot women and see women who are taller than I am fairly often ... a couple times a year, at least. They are always younger than I am.

I used to have a hard time finding clothes and shoes in normal stores, but now it’s a lot easier. I buy a lot of things from this online outfit called Long Elegant Legs, and I always have to hem up the sleeves and pant legs. The sleeves go halfway down my fingers. I could sew the leg openings shut and wear the pants as footie pajamas ... and that's just the 36" inseams. They also have 39"!

I’d like to see the women who can wear these things out of the box. I know they exist because, if I don’t order my stuff soon after the catalog comes out, the cute stuff is only available in sizes 4 and 6.

The 6-foot women are out there!

And if there was a god, he/she/it would make more 7-foot men.

:-)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2011 01:58PM by munchybotaz.

One thing I noticed was that I actually had suppressed doubts when I was a TBM. After I left, these came out, stretched their arms and legs and sat right on my face.

There was two in particular that persisted,

Why does God require worship if vanity is a sin, and

How can God possibly care about my lost wallet when children are dying in Somalia and he doesn't care about them?

Hmmmm. Free agency allows babies to starve and die prolonged and painful deaths but this loving God knows every hair on my head and if one falls out, he knows it...

That means he is a monster.


Anagrammy

As you said, it all comes out of the same research. Once one has debunked Mormonism, it's quite easy to continue on researching and setting one's sights on all religious teachings. I just kind of went, "Next!" and kept going.

After I left Mormonism I didn't really believe in anything then about a year ago I had an experience where I believed God answered my prayer (I only prayed once since I stopped going to church and that was the one. Coincidence? Maybe?) so now I consider myself Christian. But I don't attend any church and I don't consider myself a Bible thumpin crazy either.

However, after reading many atheists posts on here I can see where they come from with not being able to prove Jesus was God or that he was resurrected, etc. Yes, you can prove the cities in the Bible but that doesn't prove Jesus was who he said he was. So now I wonder also. I don't know, I guess for me, I'd rather have something to believe in than nothing at all and we'll just have to see when we die.

Bottom line is ANYTHING is better than living a lie in the mormon cult!

...that you could be orbiting around Christianity only because that's the predominant culture. If you had been raised elsewhere, that "something to believe in" would have been different. If you need "something," then why not Zoroastrianism, or animism, or Star Trek?

(and there are thousands and thousands throughout the history of humanity, female ones long predate males ones) are all a societal concept created by human beings, not the other way around. They are all the creation of the human mind, creating new ones based on older ones. The religious organization is used to control a whole society/tribe of people-the notion that a god/deity/savior overrides humans in government, etc.

It's the same pattern throughout history. Nothing is new. Mormonism is predominately based on Christianity (Campbellism etc) in the New York area in 1830, plus other concepts.

If one deity and/or savior is unacceptable/insufficient for belief and acceptance, then all of them are unacceptable.

Atheism is generally defined as explicit and implicit:
Explicit: there are no gods
Implicit: a position of non belief in the gods due to lack of evidence.
(I tend to take the Implicit position or default position- non belief in the unsupported theist claim of a deity. - I'm quite sure deities/saviors exist - in the mind and belief of the human being, but not anywhere else.)

Emotional bonding to traditional beliefs even if they are weird superstitions overrides logic and reason if one is constantly immersed in talk that is "truth".

Once the emotional bond/attachment to the religious beliefs of a deity/savior, etc. are detached, (for a multiplicity of reasons), the ability or need or desire to believe in a god/deity/savior is now gone.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2011 01:33PM by SusieQ#1.

Before I converted, I was CofE (Anglican) and - though not a regular - had been to church quite a few times apart from the normal Hatches, Matches and dispatches.

when the missionaries first started to talk to me, they asked about my faith and went on to effectively dismantle the CofE church (and it's antecedent - the RC church) as a corrupt organisation used to control the masses.

whether I would have gone back to a christian church after leaving the cult, is a moot point.

I tend to think that the missionaries started me on my road to atheism before I ever joined the cult

EssexExMo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> when the missionaries first started to talk to me,
> they asked about my faith and went on to
> effectively dismantle the CofE church (and it's
> antecedent - the RC church) as a corrupt
> organisation used to control the masses.
>
> whether I would have gone back to a christian
> church after leaving the cult, is a moot point.
>
> I tend to think that the missionaries started me
> on my road to atheism before I ever joined the
> cult

I agree. I was born Mormon and I think I still believe a few things. I believe "The Apostasy" is natural to human beings in large groups - we become political and we tend to corrupt one another's actions whilst we attempt to maintain each other's ideals.

See,

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,283643,283643#msg-283643

I know that for me, leaving mormonism destroyed any confidence in my ability to have faith. I look back on my life and saw all the things - a mission, BYU, devote temple attendance, marrying young, tens of thousands of dollars to tithing - everything I did because of faith. Not only faith in Joseph Smith, but faith in a God who loved me. Having left the church, I know that the faith I had, the assurance that what I was doing was true, all of those feelings were completely false. If I was tricked by my feelings before, why would I ever trust those same feelings again? How can you believe in any God without relying on those same feelings?

When I first stopped attending church, I was so focused on "if not mormonism then what?" Over the last several months, I have come to the realization that I don't have an answer. And, more importantly, I am ok with that.

The bible is thousands of years old, archeology backs it up.The people existed, pontius pilate's name was found inscribed in ruins. How about this for the reason: BOO HOO i've been conned, i'm butt hurt,i'm "deconstructing" god. Why is it almost every third world culture has some sort of belief system, but the only godhaters are either communists or westerners sitting with climate control and wall to wall carpeting out of harms way. No wonder more people in this country would vote for a mormon for president than a athiest. Look on the bright side, satan still loves ya!

lurker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why is it almost
> every third world culture has some sort of belief
> system, but the only godhaters are either
> communists or westerners sitting with climate
> control and wall to wall carpeting out of harms
> way.

I think it is because as a life form, humans tend toward figuring things out. We do it in unequal and unique ways. I believe that once you require evidence you are on a path to atheism, but if you require food more than evidence of things, you are going to hope and work like mad to get food from a god, a government, another charitable person - whatever sources you can.

I agree with much of what has been posted.

I'll just add that being a former Mormon, and discovering its fraud makes it very difficult to believe in anything that requires you to believe in anything that cannot be supported with empirical evidence.

Once you realize that faith, what you thought was "hope for things unseen, which are true" is actually, "hope for things unseen which turn out to be utterly false" faith becomes irrelevant to truth. I believe that after being a Mormon it is difficult or impossible to ever again have faith. Because now you know that it is entirely possible to have faith in something that is untrue.

Mormonism is the great destroyer of faith.

It's not that I don't want to believe in God and Jesus Christ. It's that Mormonism proved that putting faith in them, or Buddah, or Mohammad, or Shiva, or Zeus, or Odin, makes them no more real than putting faith in Joseph Smith makes the book of Abraham true.

** i have no data to back this up. this is just my hypothesis. **

i think is just because we are fed up with lies.
the god theory doesn't do it anymore in any way, shape, or form.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfurmrjxo

I just found this..some bad language but sums things up pretty well....funny stuff....at least to me....

As an outsider, the mo concept of religion is completely different than mainstream christianity. The mo religion is very childish and dependent and I think than without a broader based spiritual concept of religion, that once Morgbots see the lies of Joe the 'ho, they through it all out.

Where as mainstream christianity might cause a person to pray for the strength to deal with adversity, mos believe that because they are mos and pay their church tax that they should not have to face adversity and if they do it is a test or their fault because their belief is not strong enough. The fact that shit happens in life and you have to deal wiht it, and no amount of paying money will change that, is beyond their comprehension.

I have read comments where an atheist states that they can't believe in a god that "allows" children to starve to death, as if god is there to make all the boo-boos of the world right. That is not what spirituality and religion is about. For those who don't get it they don't get it and no explanation can change that.

because there is no god

Muncybotaz wrote above that someone last night said some atheist "slide into" it. That's me, and I recently made reference to that on this site.

I was raised with mainstream Christianity, the thinking kind, the "nice" kind, not at all evangelical. It was very "live and let live" - United Church of Christ, to be specific.

I tried very hard to believe all the stuff, but a lot of it never sat well with me, like the "miracles" of Lazarus, water into wine, bread and fish, walking on water, burning bush, and the kicker was, as I learned much later in life, the horrific story of Ananias and Sephira. Chilling, awful.

I joined an ELCA Lutheran church in 2006, still trying really hard, but from experiences there, like letting the minister know that, despite what he said, I did not believe that Jesus could have possibly have intended his disciples to believe that they were actually eating his body and drinking his blood in any way, i.e. no transubstantiation. I said that anything beyond complete symbolism took all meaning away, completely missed the point. He told me that sometimes we have to believe anyway without understanding. "So I'm supposed to pretend? Wouldn't God see through that, and know I'm in effect, lying?" Same answer. I was dumbstruck. I wish I'd been able to speak, because I would have given him an earful. I think I still might, by letter.

That was the beginning of the real end. I'd never, ever been comfortable with any of the stuff about communion, or any kind of blood sacrifice, especially the "dying for our sins" stuff. What? Why? How? That's horrible! Since both of those things are pretty key to the faith, I began questioning and reading more, including the whole Bible, not just the somewhat more palatable things in the lectionary! Hoo boy, rape is okay? Excuse me while I throw up. That cannot be excused away. There's a lot more I take issue with, but I won't go into that now, unless someone asks.

I never got any answers or basic acknowledgment from any prayers, ever. Nadda. Zip. So God, if "he" exists, is a schmuck. I've never seen any objective evidence that there is a god, so there it is. When my mother died, from the long travel time, being so very alone and more frightened than I've ever felt in my life, begging this god for comfort, something, anything - the long, terrible week in ICU with her, watching her slip away, to being alone with her when she took her last breath. She cried just before she died - it was awful. She didn't want to go. I begged god for his presence, comfort, something. The prick left me very alone. If there is a god, what does that say about him?

When I got back home, I went a little crazy with grief, thankfully alone in the house, screaming at him, daring him to strike me down, prove he's there. I screamed at him that he could go fuck himself, so come on, kill me, smack me with your heavenly finger, something! Nothing. I told this non-existant being, that even if he does exist, I'm done.

Hasa diga eebowai. That was in January 2010. I've come to believe that I can find no evidence that there is any god, no pagan being, nothing. It was comforting to make myself believe that there was something I couldn't see, loving me, taking care of me, watching out for me. It's scary letting go, but I'm done now, finally, irrevocably done.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2011 04:26PM by serena.

I am agnostic. I WANT there to be a God...I even dig the end result of LDS inc.'s version of Family, Godhood, etc world of pretend.

Just the hoops are a waste of time to jump through to get it.

But if the world of pretend is real...why downgrade to a Russian Lada when I had the lambourghini?

That's my view of the other religions. Just paying a different entity money.

I think many BIC folk are raised believing that TSCC is the only valid belief system. Once that notion is dispelled, some of these BIC folk are free to believe what they really believed before they left TSCC, that there is no god.

it was anthropology, environmental science, comparative world religions, and mythology. (That may not be a typical exmo departure path.)

Same stuff, different time and place. It's looking at the big picture of humanity.

the bible looked as bad as the BoM with all it's contradictions within itself. I decided it's probably not as real as many believe it is. I don't deny a higher power though, or at least some other form of life out there. I think I'm more agnostic though. I do believe, though, that there is no god that CARES. If there is a god, he's just kicking back and enjoying his little creation, and it would be pointless to pray to him about anything.

imaworkinonit said
"for my beliefs, I realized there was no real evidence for God, either. Just feelings, hopes, fears.

I had spent a lifetime seeking inspiration, answers, and testimony through prayer. Without receiving discernable answers.

I had already sought a relationship with God, unsuccessfully, for my whole life. When my faith in the church crumbled, my faith in God did as well.

If there was/is a God, I knew that I would never have a relationship with Him. His existence or non-existence was a non-issue in my life because he was unaccessible and his existence wasn't provable.

I started out agnostic, but after a number of years I became more convinced that there is no God. I'm atheist now."


EXACTLY! I couldn't have said it better! Thanks imaworkinonit!

BTW, I'm new! Hello! I'm an exMO married to an exJW :-)!!!!!!!

Barbie

During the time after leaving morgdom I went church shopping since I still felt a need to hang with another religious group. In my second month away from the morg I was singing hymns in a Presbyterian service when the words struck me as false. I can't remember the hymn but it was about Jesus and then my thoughts unraveled.

Within a few minutes my thoughts switched back and forth between my disbelief of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon to Jesus and the Bible and then my belief system of Christianity vanished. Just like that.

The group that filled my void hung out at the Unitarian Church so I participated fully with my kids for over seven years. But I never joined. I remained a "friend" on their rosters. If anyone asks my religion I respond, "None," but find my closest link to the UU faith (or lack thereof).

Our family attended many different churches, and I discussed religion with relatives, who were different religions as well. I was not indoctrinated in any system of belief as a child, and never told I had to pray to jeezus or believe in the myth. Before I rejoined LD$ I already knew the others were not inspired. It took too long for me to see that the inner workings of TSCC are the same as any other xstian church. When I observed how TSCC operated, my questions turned to how a church would operate, and how would we interact with such a being, if it really existed. I already knew what other religions were about. Jeezus was my friend, and I loved gawd, and truth, and thought he really cared about me. It does not take a devoted follower long to figure out no one is listening on "the other side" - unless you lie to yourself, and use a lot of cog-dis mental gymnastics.

Also, there are many roads that lead to atheism. Looking at religious doctrine with logic, and reason can lead you there. Understanding the history of the formation of religions, and how they exist by chance, i.e. being adopted by the ones in power, show their survival has nothing to do with divine favor. Noticing how religions around the world behave as abusive systems of power can lead one to atheism. The evidence from science, and evolution argue against the existence of such a complex being. Neuroscience explains "spiritual" experiences. The "scriptures" are simply one of many national epics, and are disturbing, and tribalistic. There are many, many ways to arrive at atheism.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2011 04:49PM by atheist&happy:-).