We grow up not thinking. It is all done for us. We are told what to do, what to say, how to act. Oh sure, we do think about some things. Mainly selfish things like what we want at the moment, but we really don't think. Education is supposed to provoke thought and the farther we engage in education the farther we engage in thought, deep thought. Transversely and simultaneously religion oppresses thought and continues the obedience to authority mantra. We are told by the christian religion that we have free will but the fact is that that will is so beat down and oppressed that there is no free will, only conformity, and obedience.
For some of us, we take it upon ourselves to actually think. This process leads us to understand that there is no proof of a god, any god, that we have been indoctrinated to believe and obey a myth of gargantuan proportions. This may stir in us at an early age and we are labeled as precocious or obstinate in an effort to realign us to obedience and suppress thought. How many times have we been told that it is a sin to question god? But question we do, and inevitably we understand that there are no answers, that god is a myth, that faith is an excuse for no proof. Now many believers put this down to adolescent rebellion not understanding that there is a difference. It's natural to rebel against authority. If you don't, you never understand the validity of that authority. So when one rebels against christian authority the fact comes out that there is absolutely no validity of such an authority, no reason to abide by such a ridiculous myth. Therefore the thinkers among us never go back to obeying this myth based authority. Most of us are not satisfied though and exhaustively search for any evidence of a god. This is what most believers don't understand about atheists. It is why most atheists are far greater experts on christianity than almost every christian. Most if not all christians just don't think. They never question the religious authority. They never question faith. They might question the particular sect of their faith but they never question christianity itself. Therefore they don't research it with any critical view. Therefore they don't seek the truth. Instead, they seek comfort. Comfort can be attained quite easily unless you are seeking the truth. You can be comfortable with almost anything if you don't care about truth.
For we thinkers, we can never be comfortable with anything but the truth to the point that we understand that the truth may be and often is that there isn't an answer. Believers are not comfortable with there isn't an answer. After all, god myths were all created by man to satisfy the fact that we don't know the answer. Believers take comfort in the god myth because they don't want to think, don't know how to think, but need an answer to what can't be answered. From that end, a whole magnitude of comfort has been provided for the believers to keep on not thinking. Like apologists and intelligent design.
The old testament is a good example of this. Noah's Ark story is a myth to satisfy where all the different animals came from. Adam's rib to answer why there are two different sexes. Genisis to explain how we came to be. All answers to "why" even though at the time no one could have possibly have known the answer. It has always been comforting to think that there is a father figure there to protect us. It is WHY god is referred to as "father".
There will always be a god myth because as long as humans exist most of them will never think!
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I shit canned the biblical God, Yahweh, when I realized that he was ethnic-specific. I shit canned Yeshua when he said that he had only been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Yes, Dio, the old Who is your god thing. It illustrates how all gods are manmade because if there were one god or one set of gods they would be the god or gods of all, not just ethnocentric gods for and from a particular tribe. The my god is better also illustrates this.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me"
Is also a bit of a puzzling request for monotheists.
Sheldon,
"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me"
The interesting thing about the Old Testament God is that the people didn't worship a celestial deity. They worshiped the series of men who ruled the dominant Middle Eastern empires and gave them godly powers. All of the various kings were considered to be Gods but the dominant God was the Emperor. Sometimes they made the Egyptian Pharaoh their God. Other times it was the Assyrian or Babylonian or the Hittite Emperor.
For instance, in the book of Joshua it recounts how the two Egyptian tribes of Joseph tried to wage war against the Canaanites (the Hittites) who had iron chariots. The Egyptian God was the Pharaoh. He couldn't defeat the Hittites because they had superior technology.
The talking serpent in the Adam & Eve story is actually the Egyptian Pharaoh who got the king of Tyre to turn against another empire's emperor. The story tellers just coated everything with a thick coating of bull shit but anyone can uncover it if he is willing to toss the idea that there's some celestial deity instead of ordinary crazy men who called themselves God. It's a lot easier to do now with a computer instead of reading page after page in a book.
@Diotrephes
Have not heard that about the adam and eve story before. Makes lots of sense to me.
I learn something new every day.
LogicForTW,
The interesting thing about the Adam & Eve story is that the Garden of Eden is placed in the middle of Assyria, Persia, Arabia, and Ethiopia. Guess who they omitted? Egypt! (Genesis 2:10-14) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis2%3A10-14&version=BR...
At various times the God character was the Egyptian Pharaoh. In this instance Genesis 2:10-14 is describing the Egyptian Empire as the Garden of Eden. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2e/05/cc/2e05ccc86f4d04f8dfac31fd1a439100...
The Book of Ezekiel has a lot of stories describing the King of Tyre as living in the Garden of Eden https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?qs_version=BRG%3BCEV%3BDRA%3BE...
Ezekiel 31:18 (CEV) = "King of Egypt, all these things will happen to you and your people! You were like this tree at one time—taller and stronger than anyone on earth. But now you will be chopped down, just as every tree in the garden of Eden must die. You will be sent down to the world of the dead, where you will join the godless and the other victims of violent death. I, the Lord God, have spoken."
It seems that the King of Tyre collaborated with the Pharaoh (the talking serpent) against the Babylonian Emperor (the God at that time).
The story about the king of Tyre is told over several books https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?search=king+tyre+&version=BRG;.... You'll need a diagram to figure out all of the twists and turns.
Anyway, the story of Adam & Eve is complex. It's unclear who the Eve character was. It was probably a collaborator of the king of Tyre.
The more I learn, the more mind boggling it is how little people know about their own religion, other what the religious leaders want them to know.
Sheep.
I was always thinking about god and questioning my religion before I became an atheist. Just as a kid, I always assumed that older people were smarter, and knew better than me what was true. It wasn't until I was about 13 that I seriously considered god being a myth, despite the cognitive dissonance I kept experiencing when thinking about the subject. Then by 15, I was an atheist.
i just recently realised that we're all inborn atheist....
thank god you're not real...
god didn't saved the queen...she died from blood poisoning...remember that
I was a good Catholic when young... alter boy and all. If it hadn't been for celibacy, I'd have been a Catholic priest, most likely. In my teen years, I was focused on sports, girls, etc. and when I hit college I had my first exposure to anything that was different than what I was raised - a friend got me one of the first books I actually read on anything having to do with religion outside of catechism class - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Wow... completely foreign. Both, reading and discovering there was another way to view the world.
After that - just floated around spiritually - went to a few Universalist churches in college, then nothing and worked - a lot - for years. Then... ended up married with a child. She was unafiliated when I met her or married her - after our marriage, one day, I came home and found her in our living room talking with a group of men and a couple women in suits - crying.
"What the fuck are you doing with my wife... what's going on?" My wife replied - "It's okay, these are - - - - - Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm going back to being a Jehovah's Witness... they are here to help."
"Uhm, what the fuck is a Jehovah's Witness?" I asked...
This began a long eight year period of, uhm, education and character building... in ways I will not elaborate on here. However, I can say that I've studied the Bible extensively, many versions, have read three versions four times, front to back (4 pages a day gets you through it in a year) and studied diaglots, concordances, interlinears, languages, etc. for many, many years first, as an advocate of Christianity - then, to try to figure out the answers to the questions I was just not getting the answers to and finally - to establish more clearly the evidence that I was discovering was actually the pure bullshit I was finding out and confirm that it, all religions, was all based on nothing but myths and lies.
It's been a long time since then - over thirty years of deep study and research... and the more I know, the more I know there is no evidence of any god or any other kind of supernatural power.
That's the Cliff's Notes... a whole lot of life and frustration and learning and experience in between.
Essentially, however - for me, what happened is very clear - I wanted real answers and not just fill in the gap responses. I wanted proof and kept asking questions nobody wanted me to ask and nobody could answer with any degree of reason, logic, fact, rational thinking or proof.
It doesn't take an intelligent person too long, once they remove the blinders, to see that what they are being told is not based on fact and that nobody wants a thinking, question asking, person in a congregation of followers who simply acquiesce.
I had no choice but to follow the facts and all roads lead to atheism.
There were a few stops along the way - from "The Secret" and Universal Consciousness studies to Buddhism (my wife and her family are all Buddhists).
So, there you have it... the journey, in short. I'm not done yet however, a few more miles to go but I have no doubts I'll still be on the same road when the journey ends. Truth is pretty hard to shake once discovered, in my experience anyway.
It really is great that, to realize religion is a lie, all you have to do is follow the facts. Actually internalize and follow the facts and obvious reason/logic conclusions.
It is hard however for many theist, to set down the rose tinted glasses they have on, and see facts for facts. To see and realize the simple point that: the evidence there is no god completely overwhelms to few paltry badly supported arguments that there is a god. To realize it is their own needs and desires that was preyed upon by others with an agenda. That what they got taught and thought was wrong, that frequently most of their family and friends all got it wrong to.
In short it is very hard for people to admit they got something so basic and core to all their values, wrong. Especially when that side offers such a warm blanket of denial that makes people feel good by being ignorant.
One Carlos Castaneda book was enough to alter my reality for all time. Then there was Jane Roberts, TD Suzuki, GI Gurgeiff, J. Krishnamurti, and this was all while I was in my late teens, just after being a Jesus People and thinking I had all the answers. I began my quest, as I thought I would become a preacher, by visiting every Church in the small town of Pratt, Kansas. 3 months later I was cured of my Christianity and my quest for knowledge began. So, as a Junior in High School, I new that I was being lied to by the world. I dropped out of school and until I was 18, I just went my own way. About 3 years.
The story has a good ending and loads of adventure. I eventually went back to school and now hold two university degrees. I have a good job and life is good. Freedom from religion is a good thing.
I was fortunate in that my parents were of different protestant groups so agreed that my brother and I would not be baptised in either (to avoid fights I guess) . My Grandfather was a Socialist, shop steward and refused to allow "yon wan faced parasites" (missionaries) anywhere near me. He did buy me an illustrated bible when I was seven as I had asked about god. We spent many hours discussing belief, the whys, wherefores and possibility of miracles etc.
My elementary school in Scotland was "presbyterian" but in practice the teachers were all free thinkers except the Religious Studies Master. When I went to (on scholarship) to a second tier English "public" school I found the whole Anglican /patriotism/class system entwined with privilege absolutely insufferable and intellectually dishonest. I left at 14.
Then I started my spiritual journey, I visited and stayed with (ever the years) Greek Orthodox families, Roman Catholics, had retreats with Benedictine and Franciscan Monks. Visited Mosques (they were rare then in Australia and Europe) Copts, synagogues, Masonic lodges and discussed their views, laws and beliefs. My best friend in my late twenties was a Jesuit Priest who also was on the Devils Advocacy Committee in England (decided whether you were married or not) the responsibility ( the contradictions) nearly killed him.
In my mid twenties I started to study Kendo and Jodo and thus was involved in Zen buddhism, I still practise the physical exercises and mental processes to this day.
In my early thirties I decided that the overwhelming evidence pointed to an absence of god or gods, which did result in divorce, my Asian in laws being very religious. It also ended my search for the "meaning of life". At the same time I graduated with my degree in Psyche which to a large extent explained to me where the "holes" in peoples cognitive processes can harbour their particular "god".
That is it, I used to be very patient with theists, even now my ex business partner in film/TV production is and was a committed born again. We just never discussed it after one occasion.
Nowadays theists can piss me off if they wear their ignorance like a badge of fucking honor or wave righteousness in my face like a matadors cape, they will surely get a goring.
That's it. I am lucky I guess reading some of your stories, I never had to de-convert. I imagine that process is like the divers 'bends' if you ascend to fast.
When I read books about Greek and Norse gods at the same time as the bible as a child, religion seemed rather ludicrous.
@Sapporo
That is similar to a key piece to how I am an atheist.
One of my grandmothers sent a children's version of Aesop's Fables when I was 8 or so. I read it and understood stories like talking turtles and scorpions crossing a river is obviously fictionalized. Turtles and scorpions etc only talk in cartoons, drawings and fictional books.
Then my grandmother made the grievous mistake, (to her,) after hearing I read Aesop's fables cover to cover, she sent me the children's bible to read. I read it the same way as Aesop's fables, a fictional story much like cartoons that had strange conclusions I vaguely understood was suppose to impart deeper meaning to how to live life. It was only after reading the entire children's book through the lens of an 8-9 year old thinking it was just more stuff along the lines of aesop's fables, or cartoons I watched, (also loved the original clash of the titans movie.) Did my parents explain to me that: to lots of folks that book, (well the adult version,) is the literal truth they try to live by.
I do not remember my thoughts exactly, but I imagine it was something along the lines of: wow those people are crazy. I already figured out santa claus and the tooth fairy are not real as well as these fictional stories in cartoons and books etc. Why do these "adults" believe this particular book? My 8 year old mind was easily able to conclude just like no evidence exist for cartoons and fictional books are real, this extends to any book that lacks any evidence they are fiction.
Naturally, without a bible to underpin a religion idea, and I was a very avid reader even as a child, there was no foundation for spoken religion in mass. (Fortunately my parents shielded me from most of that, only having me go to church with extended family on major events like christmas and easter,) of which I would instantly get bored and not pay any attention.
While I generally agree with the OP, I feel more positive.
Myckob, OP:"..There will always be a god myth because as long as humans exist most of them will never think!"
That goes for all superstitions, yet while the other superstitions have declined, religious beliefs are more persistent.
And religious beliefs are generally held less firmly than before. Nobody has to be religious and all superstition can be openly challenged. That only applies to free societies like those of Europe, N America and China, maybe a billion or two people (of 7.6 billion). We have seen that even in Spain it is bureaucratic and difficult to leave the R Catholic Church. So, people are thinking. Even in Saudi Arabia there are atheists and Egypt is talking about having to make atheism illegal. They aren't doing that because there are only 866 atheists in the country, as they claim.
So what we are looking at is a process. It is taking time for billions of people to gain education and see the obvious. I think this is mainly because religion is parent-given.
The USA seems different, somehow. It is as if everything has to be a fight in that society, not a debate. Perhaps many there conflate religion with ideology and "family values"? Or identity politics? It is also clear that many people in the world haven't yet learned to discern fake news from true, or an egotist from a politician. That's more worrying. If ignorance were the problem, it could be cured with information and education.
I note that the Moon landing conspiracy theory started on Fox News...
https://www.universetoday.com/111188/how-do-we-know-the-moon-landing-isn...
More than 10 years ago, Fox popularized the Moon landing conspiracy with a show called “Did We Land On The Moon?”. They revealed several pieces of evidence about the hoax and cover-up citing incorrect shadows on the Moon, lack of background stars, and more. ..Unquote.
And in the USA, people like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin aren't considered cranks or funny. They are representative of many people. And evangelicals are taken so seriously in the USA, not just ignored or tolerated.
When I realised the 'now I lay me down to sleep' prayer was bloody terrifying and the guardian angel watching me in the bathroom was just plain creepy. The realisation that Protestant Christians didn't believe the same things as Catholic Christians, so they weren’t True Christians® came shortly after, and it all went from there.
I did appreciate the crucifix's ability to repel vampires for awhile - bloody Hammer horrors!
I guess I came to the party late in the day... I grew up completely unaware of the motion of a god or religion until I was at English senior school.
By then it was on a par with the Easter bunny and Santa.
I find it genuinely baffling that it is even up for debate!