So I called myself an agnostic, but I was really an atheist specifically an agnostic atheist. Then I tried that prayer crap I asked for a wife essentially a week later I met my ex-fiancé. I took it as a sign from god and became a non demominational Christian. Given that I was looking for a girlfriend really shitty reason to believe.
Any who it didn't work out, but on to my reason for being a real shitty atheist. I developed a form of psychosis that ruined my education, work, and relationships and of course I became an atheist because I was "mad at god" for doing this shit to me.
However the "mad at god" crap actually made me go research the facts and I actually as a result read the bible and researched its history, and I came to the conclusion it was total factual bullshit. Had I not been selfish I would have realized this shit happens to people every day that is evidence against god not for, but because I viewed myself as favored I believed.
Some of the nails in the coffin for my christian belief were finding out the Gilgamesh story and the jews just ripped that crap off, and reading the bible which endorses slavery, and genocide and more immoral crap.
It was the facts that made me a true atheist not just "mad at god". For instance the talking snake was a clear rip off of earlier myths. The contradictions with science and reality and itself that book is clearly not infallibe this realization is what gave me the confidence to call complete bullshit on it. Also the fact that it wasn't even orginal material but clearly plagerized material made me question it even more.
Any who I fear dying and no afterlife which is why I think my "religious mind" creeps its way in. The idea of forever losing the people I love is detestable, but it is better then the "god' who tortures them fore eternity and fortunately most likely the case.
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@Iron man: I think it is excellent that you figured out you were a "BAD" atheist because you were angry (at god) (at religion) (at parents) (at society) whatever. You are 100% correct - these are the bad atheists. They constantly say things that make the rest of us look stupid. They are a poor reflection on atheists as a whole. And, on a side note, when these sorts enter the forums and begin spouting their angry nonsense, most of the atheists around here actually challenge them on their bullshit. They don't tend to last very long. They enter the site thinking they are gong to find a lot of angry people like them but what they find is reason and logical discourse that challenges a lot of their hate.
"However the "mad at god" crap actually made me go research the facts and I actually as a result read the bible and researched its history, and I came to the conclusion it was total factual bullshit." ISN'T IT GREAT TO "WAKE UP." (Okay, in line with the previous post we do have to admit that there is historical value to the writings in the bible. We can admit that the authors were intelligent and very fluent in Greek. The Books of the bible have some very interesting stories and certainly reflect the morals and values of believers of the time they were written. AND WHATEVER IS NOT VALUABLE AS HISTORY OR LITERATURE IS CERTAINLY 'CRAP." )
YEP! Everything is a rip-off of earlier beliefs. Even the ideas of HEAVEN AND HELL. There is no Hell in the Old Testament. The idea was created by the Christians and they took it from the myths of other religions around them. Original sin is an Augustine Christian doctrine that says that everyone is born sinful. (5th Century). The Trinity was not invented until the 4th Century and it was argued about until the 8th Century. Christian Churches today do not even believe in the trinity.
WELCOME TO ATHEISM! SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVE FOUND THE PATH. Welcome aboard. Now the journey begins.
(EDIT: Wow! Can't even imagine how I left out the word BAD.)
Howdy, Iron Man! Welcome aboard the good ship AR. Just so you know, being the new guy, you will be required to swab the decks, batten down the hatches, hoist the main sail, and shiver the timbers for a brief initiation period. No worries, though, because being a virtual ship, it usually takes only a couple of clicks of the mouse to get it all done... *chuckle*... Anyway, the mop and bucket are in the hallway closet along with the hammer. Oh, and try not to slip on all the banana peels Cog tends to leave strewn all over the place.
So, I noticed you said you are still holding onto a fear of dying with no afterlife. What is so bad about no afterlife? Personally, I would be more concerned if there really WERE an afterlife where we end up doing the same thing over and over and over again for all eternity. As far as I am concerned, heaven would be just about as bad as hell in that respect. Besides, what is there to fear about having no afterlife? Let me ask you something: Do you have any memories about before you were ever born? Did you miss your Mom and Dad and all the other relatives you had yet to meet? Did you anticipate the first time you would be able to eat real food or walk barefoot across a freshly mowed lawn? Were you scared of what it would be like on your first day of school? Rhetorical questions, by the way. Of course you don't not have any memories about anything before you were ever born. And as far as I am concerned, it will be like that after we die. One second you are here and aware of things.... next second... *poof*... you are gone into nothingness, with no sense of anything. Death is simply a part of life. No way to avoid it. No sense being afraid of it or worrying yourself sick about it while you are still living. Too many great and wonderful things to see and do in this world to waste time worrying about something you cannot avoid. When it happens, it happens... *shrugging shoulders*... Make the most of what you have while you still have it.
Welcome Iron Man to Atheist republic forums! In general we are "the more the merrier" even if we don't all agree on everything.
Thanks for sharing your history and how you got to this point, I am always interested in how people arrived to their current thinking. I may learn a thing or to about myself reading about other people's journeys.
Fear of death is as ancient and primordial as it gets. A very necessary component in survival. Fear of loss especially of people close to us come in as a close 2nd for most people. Yes, atheist do not get to use the "religion lie" to say there is an afterlife for all of us. Which can leave a "hole."
But I think it is important to face it and account for it. Just like you can't just believe a lie that you tell yourself (or others have told you) that you are a multi billionaire when you are not. To deceive yourself on an lie can be dangerous and deteremential, even if it is a pleasant lie.
Yeah, I fear death, yeah I fear the loss of those I care about. What can I do about it? Easy, enjoy every precious moment of life I have, and enjoy the company of those that I care about when I am with them. When I do die, when I do one day lose those I care about, I can at least rest a little easier knowing I did not waste my time, that I appreciated every moment I got with myself, and with others. It is a lot of moments, especially if you take a few basic precautions to help extend that time.
---------------------------------
On a side note, am I wrong for wanting to see a battle between iron man and tin man? Sure hollywood tells us it would be no contest, but I think tin-man's power in part lies in that everyone would underestimate him. Tinman can operate without a heart, where Ironman and his "heart" is his greatest weakness.
Anyone want to take bets? ;)
Well would tin mans axe win or Iron Mans lasers interesting conudrum
@LogicFTW
I would append that to "especially if it is a pleasant lie", as it makes it harder for you to snap out of it, and makes you more impressionable, manipulatable, and prone to suggestion.
Tin is gonna kick ass.... he has his wife backing him up.
@Cog Re: "Tin is gonna kick ass.... he has his wife backing him up."
Dammit, Cog! You're giving away my secret super power!... *pouting*...
I was never a great believer, but I am not the best at being an atheist myself. For instance, I still curse god when I get pissed. Do I think something is there, not really! So why would I do this? Usually it is around people who are believers that I know, and they never miss an opportunity to praise jesus or thank god for something good, or even bad that happens to them. I feel I must do it as kind of a defense mechanism. However...I have realized that I now have a learned behavior and it is like trying to quit smoking.
I would not be hard on yourself, I think that it is an ongoing fight we all have to have our thoughts and views heard, but atheists are in the minority as well all know and acceptance does not come easy.
I call myself a work in progress. Most of my life was steeped in christianity, and it takes a lot of time to undo the damage caused.
@thelargerbowl: Being an atheist is a bit like trying to dry your self while sitting on the edge of a pool with one leg in the water and a huge splash party going on in front of you. You keep drying off and then getting splashed. Then every time you think you are dry, you look down and see your fucking leg is still in the pool, so you pull it up just a bit more and then you get splashed again and forget about your leg. Wouldn't it be great if we could just stand up and walk away? But in this magic world we can't. When you try to walk away the pool just follows you around. All you can do is keep drying yourself off. Eventually you will get that leg out of the pool but you are never going to be completely dry. You just get better and better at wiping.
Thank you for the responses. I suppose I was "mad at god" because god got so ingrained in me that it became hard to believe god wasn't real yet when I look at religion rationally on the occasions I am still capable of it due to my mental illness I find the evidence waying in favor he doesn't exist.
Bassically I am schizophrenic so I kind of you know became delusional it is hard to recognize the delusions from the facts when you are prone to hallucinations which is what I hate the most I want the truth whether I like it or not yet my own senses betray me.
It is hard to share that I am schizophrenic, and was hard to share this. It speaks to my own irrationality, and essentially all my life issues stem from this. I would much rather not be myself then me. I find I admire those who challenge the immorality of religion not that religion never does any good, but it is at its core fallible and there fore capable of evil.
Yet for all that my "voices' aka hallucinations claim infallibility when I know they are fallible I find I want to take the mices offer in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and trade my brain in for a new one that doesn't experience these issues.
I am in a very difficult position as I am essentially trying to rewire my own defunct brain to be in accordance whith reality having verified time and again I do in fact hallucinate how does one go about that much less recognize truth.
Can't help you there. I have only had hallucinations once in my life and I was deathly ill at the time. (It's not even the same thing to using hallucinogenic drugs. Most of these drugs should be called illucenogenic. A hallucination creates an entire separate reality. Illucinations use the things that are there and alter them in some way or alter your thinking in some way about them. Hallucinations are extremely different and extremely real.) I can not imagine how to live a life while at the same time being unconnected to that life. I understand but there is nothing at all I can think of to say that would be helpful.
Welps, now you're not a "shitty" atheist, so don't be so hard on yourself. I will tell you the entire story of how I, too, went from beginning to question for somewhat stereotypical reasons to later gaining stronger, better ones: (Sorry in advance for the long comment.)
I too, initially started to doubt because of- ready for it- the atheist quotes and memes I found online when investigating this godless menace I'd heard so much about both in and outside of church in some form or another. However, as I started reading the Wholly Buybull more in-depth and not just the parts I had been raised by, when I began to realize the fucked-upness of the heaven/hell system and, in one of the last services I ever attended, was greatly disappointed in the surprisingly substanceless and easily-dismantled arguments made by my pastor in an attempt to rationalize away all facts that directly contradict Christian theology (problem of evil=God is required to make a "balance" in the world, evolution=if you look online you will find that evolution requires creation in order to be possible, etc.) that I was even formulating my own rebuttals to mentally, I began to realize that I am an atheist. At first I was scared to admit that my faith was dying; for instance, in the May of my 8th grade year when we had a class discussion that went to God, I said, "I am a Christian because of my family." Translation: "I'll be an atheist in a couple of months, but I can't admit it yet." And sure enough, by late July of that same year, I had lost nearly all vestiges of my faith. The service with the apologetics (which was in August), however, was truly the last nail in the coffin.
Ah I became an atheist for the whole why would god make me a schizo crap, but then I actually researched it, and I found facts behind the whole story that don't add up. Like Gilgamesh predating the bible. Like Jesus breaking the law claiming to be gods messiah while breakings gods laws, and still saying he who breaks these laws shall be called least.
Shit like statan being thrown out of heaven before genesis but still aparanently an angel in heaven during job supposudley after he is supposed to be thrown out.
As far as the schizo goes the good news is I just got accepted to nursing school a bachelors program so, and fortunately for me their is such a thing due to advances in science as redidual schizo or permanent remission aka symptom free if I can get their before nursing I got a sweet ticket to a real decent life doing meanful work for a good paycheck.
Like when I am in remission I am capable of doing things like getting straight As taking 5 hard sciences whith a part time job only 10 hours but still not shabby when not in remission its straight to lose said job straight F ville so I know I have the intelligence to pull of a decent existence I just got to cooperate whith the doctors and get my schizo ass into remission for good which after research I have found out due to advances in meds can and does happen for some people
So I shouldn't be to woe is me about it all its not like I have no hope, but that's due to science and medicine not religion.
Actually why I want to become a practicing nurse is because a nurse practitioner "a medical doctor kind of sort of who operates like a doctor whith the caveat they have to prescribe and report to a full md in the states" caught a life threating bacterial infection that essentially is why I am not dead right now so I chose to pursues a medical career, and despite adversity I got into an accredited nursing school of good repute. So my life really isn't all that bad, but that's thanks to science not some crappy bronze age book.
I guess what I am getting at is this. When I am in remission I can intellectually go toe to toe whith most on the planet when I am in a psychotic episode I have the intelligence of an amoeba and I cannot possibly function on the level I can when I am in remission or most normal people.
However being a man who loves medicine and science considering I am aware it is the reason I am not dead and all I did some research about my condition and found out permanent remission is possible its not like deccades ago where they cant really do crap for me. So thanks to advances in medicine and science I actually have serious hope.
Which gets me to my point here science has given me everything I treasure my life, and my hope of living a productive normal life again, and religion just seems to get in the way of that while being patenetly a rip off of earlier myths filled whith crap that contradicts history, itself, and science.
So I have decided to try to get myself some more science, and some fewer psychotic episodes and bronze age fables because I am finally aware what really butters my bread so to speak and that's science not mythology its the mechanism which is the reason I am alive and actually gives me a fighting chance of ending my psychotic episodes and giving back to the system that gives me the real hope and joy I have in life.
Have you read anything by Jay Haley / Bateson and Communication theory of Schizophrenia. Very interesting stuff. (How Schizophrenia occurs within a family system and the 3 generational theory.)
Understanding the Pathological Double Bind and recognizing it might prove to be very useful. I have not worked with Schizophrenics and in no way am pretending to be any sort of expert or even knowledgeable. I quite simply have read a bit and I really like some of the things Haley, Batson and his colleges have to say about it. (They remove it from the disease model and apply a communication model to it.)
https://solutions-centre.org/pdf/TOWARD-A-THEORY-OF-SCHIZOPHRENIA-2.pdf
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Ah I became an atheist for the whole why would god make me a schizo crap, but then I actually researched it, and I found facts behind the whole story that don't add up. Like Gilgamesh predating the bible. Like Jesus breaking the law claiming to be gods messiah while breakings gods laws, and still saying he who breaks these laws shall be called least.
Shit like statan being thrown out of heaven before genesis but still aparanently an angel in heaven during job supposudley after he is supposed to be thrown out.
As far as the schizo goes the good news is I just got accepted to nursing school a bachelors program so, and fortunately for me their is such a thing due to advances in science as redidual schizo or permanent remission aka symptom free if I can get their before nursing I got a sweet ticket to a real decent life doing meanful work for a good paycheck.
Like when I am in remission I am capable of doing things like getting straight As taking 5 hard sciences whith a part time job only 10 hours but still not shabby when not in remission its straight to lose said job straight F ville so I know I have the intelligence to pull of a decent existence I just got to cooperate whith the doctors and get my schizo ass into remission for good which after research I have found out due to advances in meds can and does happen for some people
So I shouldn't be to woe is me about it all its not like I have no hope, but that's due to science and medicine not religion.
Actually why I want to become a practicing nurse is because a nurse practitioner "a medical doctor kind of sort of who operates like a doctor whith the caveat they have to prescribe and report to a full md in the states" caught a life threating bacterial infection that essentially is why I am not dead right now so I chose to pursues a medical career, and despite adversity I got into an accredited nursing school of good repute. So my life really isn't all that bad, but that's thanks to science not some crappy bronze age book.
I guess what I am getting at is this. When I am in remission I can intellectually go toe to toe whith most on the planet when I am in a psychotic episode I have the intelligence of an amoeba and I cannot possibly function on the level I can when I am in remission or most normal people.
However being a man who loves medicine and science considering I am aware it is the reason I am not dead and all I did some research about my condition and found out permanent remission is possible its not like deccades ago where they cant really do crap for me. So thanks to advances in medicine and science I actually have serious hope.
Which gets me to my point here science has given me everything I treasure my life, and my hope of living a productive normal life again, and religion just seems to get in the way of that while being patenetly a rip off of earlier myths filled whith crap that contradicts history, itself, and science.
So I have decided to try to get myself some more science, and some fewer psychotic episodes and bronze age fables because I am finally aware what really butters my bread so to speak and that's science not mythology its the mechanism which is the reason I am alive and actually gives me a fighting chance of ending my psychotic episodes and giving back to the system that gives me the real hope and joy I have in life.
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from a moderator: The body of this post was deleted. "The Atheist Hub is open to atheists only" - Nyarlathotep]@Anybody Re: Jordan
Just out of curiosity, could somebody please explain to me why a trolling theist posing as an atheist is here in the Atheist Hub disturbing a true atheist who is looking for genuine assistance? Just wondering....
By the way, Iron Man, in case you are reading this and are unaware, please feel free to ignore anything dear ol' Jordan might say.