How did You get here?

Saggyjocks

Hi, my first time posting in this forum and I've picked a very broad question to ask! I'll try and explain what I mean a little further on

I was born into a fairly religious family, grew up beside the parish church and was very much involved in different ways. I never really questioned my 'faith' much until my kids came along. Don't get me wrong as i got older I wasn't one for going to mass every week or anything like it but Id still call to the church every now and then to say a prayer

When my first child was born I went to a meeting with the priest and other parents whch was held before the baptism. I sat there listening to the priest talk of how god would set them on the right path how the church would teach them right from wrong and so on but the whole time I was thinking actually that's My job My responsibllity, in my mind I found myself disagreeing with a lot of what he had to say. Anything I did agree with was to do with teaching them how to lead a life that was morally right not necessarily that of a life of someone who follows god but that of someone who is a decent human being

In the following years I attending some funerals, 2 in particular were old friends who had died far too young. Again I found myself listening to priests talking what I considered to be absolute rubbish. Except this time it was far more enraging. To one of these girls families he described her tragic death as 'gods call home' it felt like he was making light of their suffering because their child was now in heaven and they would meet again, I felt disgusted listening to him

I didnt really give my 'faith' a while lot more thought either way for some time afterwards until one day I came across the immediate aftermath of a terrible accident, there was one fatality and a couple of survivors one of which was a baby who was in terrible pain. I will forever be haunted by this. This is the moment that Proved to Me in my mind that there cannot be a god

I was in my Mams a few days later and still upset by it she said I should go with her and say a prayer for the survivors, straight away i replied that there is no god, I really meant it but she didn't believe I did

In a way it sits uncomfortably with me, you spend your life believing in something, most of the people around you believe or appear to believe in it also,they don't question it, they reason with it and make excuses for it

I don't yet know for sure if I'm atheist or agnostist although I'm not concerned able putting a label on it, I suppose I'm confused a bit angry and sometimes amused by it all, this forum is teaching me so much an opening my eyes like never before especially to the fact that there is so much that I didn't know about my religion

My question to the other posters here is how did you get here assuming a lot of you were 'born into' a certain religion that as children didn't have a choice in. Did you gradually lose your faith in it or did you never have faith in it at all, or we're you raised not to have beliefs in any god

Apologies for the rambling!

smacl

Saggyjocks wrote: »

My question to the other posters here is how did you get here assuming a lot of you were 'born into' a certain religion that as children didn't have a choice in. Did you gradually lose your faith in it or did you never have faith in it at all, or we're you raised not to have beliefs in any god

Second generation atheist, so was never raised to have any religion. Growing up in a religious society felt like being the only sane one in the nut house, to such an extent I sometimes wondered whether I was actually the nutter. To my mind Christianity is a pretty much a death cult, where people tow the line because they're afraid of the rather terminal nature of death. It still seems like just so much delusional nonsense from where I'm sitting.

IHeartYuki

I don't ever remember seriously believing in god my whole life. I was asked to sit out of CD classes in primary school just for asking what I thought were pretty reasonable questions at the time (I can't remember the exact questions but I think they were on the nature of evil and I may have pushed a bit too hard when I got the "it's all in the plan" answer). After that reaction I think I just realised the teachers really were hiding something or embarrassed about something and I just stopped being interested in religion.

I don't really do a lot of reading on atheism (I think The God Delusion is probably the only book I've read on the subject) but I've found the world easier to comprehend without people constantly telling me to pray for something or that it's all part of some enormous plan.

Knasher

I was born into a very religious family, not the type that goes around pushing it into other peoples faces, but the type that sheltered me from even the idea that people could be anything but religious. I also grew up in a pretty rural area, and was a bit of a loner, so I had very few interactions with people who weren't equally religious. My family also has quite a few members of the clergy in it, and my parents are both heavily involved in the lay community of the church. I attended schools run by religious orders and I was about 17 the first time I ever skipped mass.

Hell I can even say that at one time I had the type of religious feeling that religious people might class as feeling gods love. I know it was something I felt very strongly at the time and it was something that I tried to recapture after it happened, but I never quite felt the same again.

Suffice to say there was a time when I was very religious.

My de-conversion happened pretty rapidly to be honest. I was simply pondering religions and realised that while I had to explain the existence of other religions through anthropology, there was no reason that I shouldn't apply the same reasoning to my own religion, and having done that the best explanation was simply that it was simply magical thinking. After that the whole thing fell apart.

eviltwin

Very religious family here too, a lot of nuns and priests among my aunts and uncles and I was very much involved with the church growing up. I was in the Legion of Mary for years but it was out of fear and as an insurance policy against hell more than out of any real commitiment.

I stopped going to mass in the mid 90's when the Ivan Payne story broke, I just lost faith in the way it was handled but in the way the ordinary Catholics seemed to just accept it. I didn't want to be part of something like that.

The final straw was when I had my first child out of wedlock and being told I had brought shame on a "good Catholic family" and that I should repent. How could I repent my beautiful child? I told my family at that point I was done with the Church. My mother and one of my aunts, a nun, haven't spoken to me since.

Over the years I've slowly realised I don't believe and tbh probably never did. I can remember always thinking it was a load of rubbish really but never having the courage to say. Its only in the past 8 years or so I have been an out atheist. Actually realising that I don't have a belief in God has been so liberating, I could never go back to living under the Catholic rule book.

Delirium

Raised Roman Catholic, parents were quite religious. Observe Lent, holy days of obligation and mass every Sunday without fail.

School was next door to village church. Every first Friday from 1st class onwards was spent in the church going to confession.

Don't think I ever believed as I read a lot of stories about Greek, Norse, Roman gods etc. and they were always just referred to as myths/fairy tales. But none of the teachers could explain why it didn't apply to God/Jesus.

Would have been atheist around the time I finished secondary school but didn't know it as atheism got no mention in school, so didn't know the term applied to me. Just said I was non-religious, which a lot of people seemed to think meant Catholic that doesn't go to mass :pac:

Pherekydes

I, too, was born to very religious parents. Baptized at 10 days, made my confirmation before my tenth birthday, religious observance, and indoctrination, ran deep. Why did I take so long to discard my faith? We were bred to accept the status quo without question.

My parents were very religious. We said the angelus every time it came on. Novenas on Fridays, stations of the cross, etc. Both of my parents were ministers of the eucharist. My father collected the church envelope for several years.

I began to question things in my teens, and vaccilated between belief and non-belief. But I would never have called myself atheist because growing up the word conveyed a sense of wilful evilness. Didn't the current leader refer to atheists as not fully human?

Anyway, I read History of Western Science and Galileo's conviction for heresy finally burst my belief bubble. It took long enough! :rolleyes:

To be fair, brainwashing can be deep and long-lasting.

How did I get here? I turned left at the traffic lights.

Mr. CooL ICE

I was fascinated by science when I was younger. I loved reading about astronomy, cosmology and loved my sci fi. I was 14 when one day in school, one of the parish priests came to our class for a chat. He went on a rant about how god had created the universe, the sun, moon stars and all that. Knowing that was just wrong and that to be a catholic you had to believe it, got me thinking. Then a few things popped into my head, in particular the silencing of Galilei over heliocentrism, and I thought that if that is wrong, what else is wrong? One thing led to another and I realised it was all a load of sh1te

StompToWork

I can never remember having any belief my entire life. I was raised a catholic, and I was taken to mass every Saturday evening. Like most kids, I expect I took it as "normal" until I was old enough to start forming my own thoughts on the subject, at which point, the utterly preposterous nature of the catholic god took hold of me. The more I thought about it, the more I questioned the existence of any deity whatsoever.

There was a time in my life when I thought that there must be something "wrong" with me. I mean, everyone else I knew had some level of faith, or at the very least, believed in god, so why could I not believe? For a while, I tried, but then gave up when I realised I was only kidding myself.

I suppose I just came to a realisation that to have faith in god and to have faith in intelligent design is just, well, Lazy!!

rainbow kirby

Didn't really have much/any faith at all growing up, despite my mother's best efforts (my dad is an atheist, but has himself only been comfortable with being open about it in about the last 5 years). Was fairly certain I didn't believe by the end of primary school, but greedy 11 year old me went through with confirmation because of the money. I stopped attending Mass just before my 12th birthday - my family's view was that once confirmation was done we made our own choices as regards whether to attend or not. As I got older and read more, about science, history, learning more about religion etc, I became more and more secure in my non-belief and became a bit of a thorn in the religion teacher's side at school for asking too many awkward questions. I was finally kicked out of religion at the start of 6th year when my 78 year old nun teacher got sick of trying to answer me. I've investigated other faiths at times, but I just can't accept things on faith alone without evidence.

And now? Late 20s, comfortable in my non-belief for almost 2/3 of my life at this stage, currently trying to plan a non-religious wedding... and funnily enough my mother, who did her best to bring up good Catholic children, is looking at converting to Zen Buddhism in her early 50s.

pablohoney87

Like a lot of people I was raised to be religious. Went to church every weekend until I was 15.

I think I would have turned away from religion much earlier had our parish priest not been so progressive and preached a number of what would be considered non catholic ideals.

He preached tolerance of a number of marginalised demographics and welcomed them (The gay community, mentally ill, drug addicted) I actually abandoned my faith long before I realised the bull associated with the catholic church. Probably would have walked away long before had I been in an Ultra right wing parish.

My dad is from Belfast and would be fairly republican minded. He'd always have be fairly sympathetic to the IRA's cause. There was a little girl killed one evening by republican militants in Belfast one evening. That weekend there was a party my parents went to and like all Irish parties in the 90s they ended with the national anthem. My dad refused to stand for it as he didnt see the justification in standing for the same anthem of war the men who killed the girl stood for.

I heard this story a few years later when I was about 15-16. By then the Palestinian Israeli struggle would have been in the news and it all seemed to ring home too closely. Children dying in these mens war over land. That's when I started to question war and just why other religions hate each other so much. All just seemed so stupid. I was thankful Catholicism made so much sense. But like a magic trick when youve shattered the mirrors and blown away the smoke you cant just go back to believing.

About this time is when I was really coming into my own in school in classes of science and English. I had a great English teacher that really encouraged independent thought and would just stay bacdk and debate endlessly with him or have him mark essays or commentaries I had.

By about from 16 to 18 I had gone from questioning Catholicism to just believing in god to doubting god to complete non Belief. It was mainly a passive thing until I got to about 21 or so and the college couses I was in comprised mainly of thermodynamics, the laws of chemistry and physics and a number of electives in evolutionary biology. This lead me to think the only reason somebody would believe in god is because they simply havent done the work or bothered to question things themself.

I was met with a lot of hostility when explaining the laws of thermodynamics effectively disproving all creationist theory. I didnt realise people would be so attached to their religious views

At about this age it became more and more obvious to my family who initially were not happy at all about it. Years later I am happy they have accepted it because my mam who is the most religious came out in a conversation with another housewife of the estate, "well Paul won't be getting married in a church most likely anyway" when they were talking about weddings of the locals around my own age. Luckily my girlfriend is also an athiest

JimiTime

smacl wrote: »

Second generation atheist, so was never raised to have any religion. Growing up in a religious society felt like being the only sane one in the nut house, to such an extent I sometimes wondered whether I was actually the nutter. To my mind Christianity is a pretty much a death cult, where people tow the line because they're afraid of the rather terminal nature of death. It still seems like just so much delusional nonsense from where I'm sitting.

Genuine question. Do the reasons a Christian would actually give you as to why they follow Christ convince you that this is not the case, or is it a preconception you hold regardless of what a Christian may say?

Obliq

smacl wrote: »

Second generation atheist, so was never raised to have any religion. Growing up in a religious society felt like being the only sane one in the nut house, to such an extent I sometimes wondered whether I was actually the nutter. To my mind Christianity is a pretty much a death cult, where people tow the line because they're afraid of the rather terminal nature of death. It still seems like just so much delusional nonsense from where I'm sitting.

Same as that. I remember wishing I was "normal" from time to time during my childhood, as I was put on the spot as a child and required to explain my lack of belief in a deity. These days I realise, that even as an atheist child, my apparent unconcern about the potential joys of heaven/burning in hell made the religious folk uncomfortable and put them in the unlovely position of needing to confront a child in order to validate their own beliefs. Sad.

JimiTime wrote: »

Genuine question. Do the reasons a Christian would actually give you as to why they follow Christ convince you that this is not the case, or is it a preconception you hold regardless of what a Christian may say?

That's what it comes down to in the end, in my experience. A good and lovely elderly friend of mine died a few years back, and on his death bed asked me if I believed we'd meet again. He was concerned that he hadn't been "good" enough in life to go to heaven (or concerned maybe that I hadn't been....me being a single mother twice over and an atheist to boot!), so a) the fear of there being no afterlife wasn't something he'd ever allowed himself to address and b) the fear of not having been strong enough in his faith to get into heaven, if it exists, was tormenting him at the end of his life. A time that I felt honoured to be his friend throughout, but was helpless to answer his questions.

In your way of thinking perhaps, at that time it would be appropriate for a priest or other religious person to be able to plamás him by forgiving his imaginary sins (being human, as I like to call it), but he'd have seen through that. He didn't like priests or the overly religious. In my way of thinking, I considered it a pity that he hadn't ever before entertained the thought of nothingness when you die, having been sold the notion of afterlife his entire life and only confronting the fear of nothingness at the end.

I think the fear of death is exactly what sells religion to people, because we can all be good people without following one, but it's quite clear that only the religious are taught that there is a reward in heaven and the rest of us are off to hell :pac::pac:

Obliq

^^ TL DR

Basically: "It’s an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don’t try to make it posthumous." — Gloria Steinem

AerynSun

JimiTime wrote: »

Genuine question. Do the reasons a Christian would actually give you as to why they follow Christ convince you that this is not the case, or is it a preconception you hold regardless of what a Christian may say?

Genuine question. Are you going to share with us how you got to Atheism & Agnosticism?

kylith

JimiTime wrote: »

Genuine question. Do the reasons a Christian would actually give you as to why they follow Christ convince you that this is not the case, or is it a preconception you hold regardless of what a Christian may say?

The reason most Christians follow that religion is that they were raised to.

wp_rathead

The whole JC rising from dead.. as a kid i was mad i into Greek and Roman mythology and then when this resurrection was thougt i just stopped.. thought logically.. went "nahh" feckin Madussa makes as much sense..
End off

smacl

JimiTime wrote: »

Genuine question. Do the reasons a Christian would actually give you as to why they follow Christ convince you that this is not the case, or is it a preconception you hold regardless of what a Christian may say?

In all honesty, I think the reasons vary considerably from person to person. I do think fear of death plays a large part, but for some there is undoubtedly more. Certainly being brought up such that morality and religion are inextricably linked also plays a part for some of my close friends who are very devout. To their minds being good and following the teachings of their religion come down to the same thing, so doing the right thing involves being a good Christian. While to my mind this is very noble, it is also somewhat confused, and has become an increasing source of conflict for a number of Catholics I'm close to, as they seem to be doing a better job of being good Christians than the hierarchy preaching to them. Another friend who is a protestant minister has an altogether easier time as her church seems considerably more progressive than her Catholic counterparts. A very important part of her Christianity involves being deeply involved with her community, which again to my mind is both a good and noble thing, and common to many major religions.

That said, suggesting that death is in fact terminal seems to be a rather sensitive point for all of them. Over the years, it isn't something I tend to discuss so much with them as it serves to upset, and I've no interest in upsetting my friends however delusional I find their beliefs to be. The Jesuits famously proclaim "Give me a child for for his first seven years and I'll give you the man" which clearly holds a lot of truth. Much of Christianity, Islam or any other religion is simply a function of indoctrination at an early age.

pauldla

Thanks for the post, OP.

My background would be a religious family that nevertheless had a certain 'unofficial' distrust of the clergy. No clergymen in the family; our trades tended to be soldier, sailor, fisherman or labourer as far as census records and family tradition have it. My father was not religious at all, with most of our religious sentiment coming from my mother’s side of the family.

I went along with my Catholic upbringing with swings from enthusiasm to struggles with disbelief, which I used to put down to as ‘doubt’. But I remember having arguments with the teacher in primary school about Bible stories, and then when I was about 10 they showed Cosmos on RTE and I was blown away. It made so much sense, even to me as a kid that age. Nevertheless I still held on to my faith, more or less, for another ten years. Looking back, I was smarter at 8 than I was at 18, and if I could go back I’d tell myself that ‘doubt’ was good.

PopePalpatine

My family weren't really religious. My mum's a cultural Catholic and my dad's pretty much an antitheist. The last time I ever felt religious was when I was about 13 when I swore to God I'd never say the N-word. Before that, it was my confirmation, and on the day itself I decided to not say anything more severe than "crap" or "damn".

My religion teacher for the Junior Cert was relatively liberal. One thing she asked the class that has stuck in my mind is when she asked us if we were (I'm paraphrasing here) devout Catholics, and about two-thirds of us said no. She then asked us if we planned to baptise our kids, and about a quarter of us said no - those who said yes were doing it for their family, or for a place in a school.

I became an agnostic at about 14, shortly after finding out what it meant. I figured that there wasn't any physical evidence for or against a god, so I might as well hedge my bets.

Over the next 3 years, I became more of an atheist - mostly after realising that there's not really a single axis from "theist" to "atheist", with "agnostic" in between, but more like two axes from "theism" to "atheism" and another from "gnosticism" to "agnosticism". As I learned more and more about biology, chemistry and physics I became progressively less convinced by the idea of a "god of the gaps".

Adamantium

I was so enthusiastic space, travel in space, as a kid that I would get in trouble bothering people (other children) about it, and was told to stop acting like an adult, when engaging in conversations with adults, to which me always seemed the most natural thing to do.

I was just filled wonder about the material world and it still suprises me that I only completely dropped catholism laizzes faire) when I was 20.

Have any of you played Final Fantasy VII as teenagers/kids? The idea of the lifestream, that if there is a spirit, or river of souls in the universe,or in everything we look at the stars, milky way, rocks, the oceans, has always subconciously how I imagined "God" ever since I could remember.

Anyone ever hear of Japan's ancient religion "Shintoism"? I recently looked at it simply because Japan is badass, (yeah I'm a child) and found it's what I've been believing all these years, but never even knew what to call and turns out it ain't even a religion, but a philosophy of life It doesn't even mention the afterlife, it's a philosophy of the present

So I in a way, I always knew it was not as it was bull****. I've actually just come full circle from where I was by finding what I knew to be honest subconciously is actually honest.

And there in lies the problem, not just with religion but people.

Intellectually honesty. In the goddamn internet age

Could you imagine if all around the country tomorrow priests stood up and said "Today, Here's the blow by blow honest account of how Christianity started in the first 5 centuries, roman greek gods went into decline/died out, people began to understand they were myths, temples boarded up" and why christianity is different. (hint:it's not) The origin of Abrahamic religions"

So many benign, beautiful, life enriching pagan philospophies were destroyed, by antagonistic Abrahamic religions

Anyway, if you had the above happen you would have 95% of the congregations head spinning, I guarantee you would blow people's minds

If church were a place were people just went to understand the world and it's history


Honestly I feel sorry (and annoyed)for priests who feel they are doing good TODAY
Not bad enough that you have to convince yourself of this, you're now going to stand up and tell everybody to believe and misled them, just so you can validate your own, and you want PROPS for it, get a real job in the real world, but instead you became a priest"

It's a seld centerness, and I wonder how few would admit it.

Ok that was a long rant, but to end with another game related note.
In Final Fantasy X, there was a religion in the world of Spira, known as Yevon, which was not so subtle allegory for Christianity.
It was known by some non believers characters as "the spiral of death"

iwantmydinner

I can't remember a time when I actually believed in god. In hindsight I was an atheist well before my communion, but didn't really know how to express it.

I think I saw my confirmation as more of a cultural thing than a religious thing; I certainly didn't know that I could have opted out of it.

I am DONE now though. I will never be more than an observer of religious rituals (funerals etc) and would un-christen myself if that was possible. No child of mine will ever be indoctrinated; they will be educated in a non-religious setting, if I have to teach them myself!

swampgas

Adamantium wrote: »

Intellectually honesty. In the goddamn internet age

Ah, the internet - the great game changer

The internet has only been mainstream for about a decade, so most people over the age of about 30 will have pretty much grown up without it. However a ten year old or fifteen year old kid today who has questions about religion can simply google for answers and may very well stumble across a forum such as this one. In any case they are much more likely than in the past to realise that their doubts about religion are shared by many others, and this, IMO, is a really good thing.

Catherine!

I grew up in a moderately religious Anglican family here in the UK. My aunts and uncles are more religious than my parents, and one of my uncles is a vicar (but he doesn't live near me).

I was dragged along to church every week until I was about 15. Although I didn't like going to church, I still believed in God and Jesus. I started going with my parents to church again when I was 18, and that was when I began having serious doubts about whether I was actually a Christian! The only reasons I believed were because it was how I was brought up and because I wanted to go to heaven.

At age 20 I decided I was agnostic. I'm now 22 and am leaning towards atheism. One of the conclusions I've come to is that the world makes more sense if you assume God doesn't exist than if you assume he does exist. If he does exist, he should have made Jesus return a long time ago!

I think the question of why the universe exists might always be beyond our ability to understand. I no longer feel the need to believe 'God did it'!

swampgas

Catherine! wrote: »

One of the conclusions I've come to is that the world makes more sense if you assume God doesn't exist than if you assume he does exist.

That's pretty much the reason for my atheism in a nutshell.

Kiwi in IE

I have never been religious or believed in a god. My parents are atheist, three out of four of my grandparents were atheist and the other is agnostic/culturally religious. Growing up I was not surrounded by religious people. I don't remember my parents friends or my friends parents being religious. I was educated about religion and went to a liberal Anglican school (not for religious reasons, my parents liked the school). Religion was something that never really featured in my life. It neither appealed to me nor bothered me.

Then I met Irish OH who was brought up in a devout Catholic environment. I thought that his upbringing sounded a bit weird, but thought it must just be because his parents are particularly religious.

Then I moved to Ireland! Culture shock is the only way to describe it. A culture shock I didn't particularly expect, which made it all the more of a shock. Pictures of open heart surgery, Mary statues and holy water fonts in most houses. Grotos in every town. Religious state schools. No abortion even for fatal foetal abnormalities/rape and barely to save the life of the mother. Angelus on state broadcaster. Religion as a legitimate, legal excuse for discrimination, people who insist 'but you are a Christian' when you state that have no religion etc etc. In fact the first indication to me that things were very different was walking into a mainstream bookstore and seeing scores of communion/confirmation cards. You'd get the odd Christening card at home but anything like communion/confirmation you'd have to go to a religious bookstore.

That is how I got to A&A. I had to look for normality online. A&A has helped me cope with the bizarre religiousness and has been an outlet for my frequent rants.

Qs

Same as most people I was sent to mass every week. I never liked it. At around 9/10 I started being allowed to go on my own to early mass cos I'd hurling training during the half 11 mass and my parents obviously didn't want to get out of bed. So I'd just sit at the back messing with my team mates before leaving early to have puck around before training. Once I hit my teens I'd do the old Irish trick of sticking my head in to see who was saying mass then I'd just wander around the town smoking and listening to my walkman. I can't really pin point when I decided to reject the church but for most of my mid teens I was more of an agnostic, unsure about things and still half thinking their might be a god. Eventually I came to the conclusion there wasn't any reason to believe in god at all.

Its very hard to pin point when I stopped believing as a moment, its was certainly more of a process and years of "soul" searching. I can remember when I started hating mass though. I fainted in the church one day when I was about 12 and an old woman who was always louder than everyone else in her responses gave out to me. From that point on I did everything I could to avoid going to mass at all. By about 15 I didn't even go for Christmas.

weisses

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Then I met Irish OH who was brought up in a devout Catholic environment. I thought that his upbringing sounded a bit weird, but thought it must just be because his parents are particularly religious.

Then I moved to Ireland!

When did you move to Ireland Kiwi ?

Pantech

OP - I can relate to a lot of your post. We were a typical religious family growing up in the 80's - said occasional rosaries as a family, always went to masses, had the obligitary priest friend who called around to say prayers with us (although when he spoke in tongues all the kids laughed and my Dad was trying to control his own laughter!).

As I went into my teenage years, I no longer wanted to go to mass, and had fights with parents about it, but was eventually allowed to stop going. It wasn't that I didn't believe at that stage, it was more that I just didn't care about religion, and hadn't taken the time to question myself on what I really believed, nor had I been challenged on what I believed by anything I had seen/heard/read. I still had a general belief that there was life after death and that there was some sort of god out there, but I guess I had transitioned from being a good Irish catholic into something more like deism.

However, the first thing to come along and really challenged me to examine what I believed was all the scandals with child abuse. I found it sickening that the church protected itself over innocent children, and that they would put more effort into protecting their assets with a team of lawyers than just doing the right thing. That to me showed me that it was all a crock of **** - if there was a god out there and he was allowing these jackasses represent him, then he wasn't worthy of praise or worship. That was the catalyst I needed to start reading books on the subject, watching online debates, etc, and within a few weeks it all crumbled and I realised what I probably knew all along at the back of my mind, that I really didn't believe any of it.

If I had to pinpoint the time when I really admitted to myself that I had forever lost any remaining faith in a god was when I read Dawkins "God Delusion" on a summer holiday with my wife and kids. I found the realisation depressing at first, but over time I have decided I'm ultimately better off - I really do appreciate life more when I think this is all there is - it even spurred me into taking care of myself better in terms of diet etc.

Saggyjocks wrote: »

I didnt really give my 'faith' a while lot more thought either way for some time afterwards until one day I came across the immediate aftermath of a terrible accident, there was one fatality and a couple of survivors one of which was a baby who was in terrible pain. I will forever be haunted by this. This is the moment that Proved to Me in my mind that there cannot be a god

Unfortunately, I had a very similar experience to the above about 3 years ago and it also haunts me to this day. Basically I was almost first on scene right after a 9 year old girl was killed crossing a road. She was hit by one car, sent flying across the road under the wheels of another oncoming car. I'm a lifeguard and well trained in CPR etc, so ran over to give assistance, but there was absolutely nothing to be done - it was carnage.

The worst part was when her parents arrived a few minutes later, before any emergency services arrived on scene. As a father of 2 girls, my eldest being the same age as this girl who died, I'll never forget seeing this girls poor father kneeling over her body in the road and screaming "please god, no...." over and over, while his wife was hysterically screaming and pacing around. Everyone else who was at the scene was numb and absolutely silent - and the absolute silence in response to his pleas did strike me at the time that there really is nothing else out there - we're just all stuck on this speck in the galaxy, and life is completely random. Ever since that day, when I hear people say stupid things like they prayed for some inconsequential event in their lives and it worked out in their favour, that it's proof that "god is good", it really pisses me off. No parent should have had to see their little girl go like that, and I'm sure horrible things like that happen every day the world over. No doubt, the funeral probably had a priest who offered the hollow words that the little girl is gone to a better place...

Saggyjocks wrote: »

In a way it sits uncomfortably with me, you spend your life believing in something, most of the people around you believe or appear to believe in it also,they don't question it, they reason with it and make excuses for it

!

I feel the very same way as this also.

Thanks,
John

Kiwi in IE

weisses wrote: »

When did you move to Ireland Kiwi ?

May 2010. We've lived here nearly 4 years. I have given out to OH numerous times for not warning me about how widespread and ingrained religion is here. In fairness to him, he hadn't lived in Ireland for 13 years at that stage and assumed things would have changed. Otherwise the place is great. It is the only thing that really irritates me.