For ex-christians/anti-christians

M

Mr. Hamtastic

whackawhackado!
Registered Senior Member
What turned you against christianity? I'll do my best not to attempt to refute anything, but I really want to know.
 
I'm neither ex- nor anti-Christian; however, I fervently challenge the proposition of Jesus' divinity. Jesus was naught but a Prophet: he said so himself, and his actions prove it, too. Let me share a story:

An old woman came to Abraham’s shop to buy an idol one day, because a few local thieves stole her other one and she needed a replacement to protect her house.
Abraham said these words of wisdom in reply: "Is it not foolish to think that an idol that could not save itself, will save you?"

If Jesus could not save himself, how can he be God?


Kadark
 
interesting. So Q, do you feel this way about any idea that has led to bloodshed?
Kadark-How much greater the sacrifice for a being to willingly allow himself to suffer crucifixtion?

Whups! Sorry. I'm trying to keep my mouth shut, I forgot.
 
Well, in particular the doctrine that separates Orthodox Christianity from the mere teachings from the Bible. There used to be many schools of thought on the subject, but most of them were violently supressed as the Church consolidated it's power. Instead of a humanitarian message of love, now they have a magical tale of blood sacrifice for sin, resurrection, and an end times scenerio that doesn't do anyone any good.
 
spidergoat said:
Well, in particular the doctrine that separates Orthodox Christianity from the mere teachings from the Bible. There used to be many schools of thought on the subject, but most of them were violently supressed as the Church consolidated it's power. Instead of a humanitarian message of love, now they have a magical tale of blood sacrifice for sin, resurrection, and an end times scenerio that doesn't do anyone any good.
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You're ex-Christian or anti-Christian?
 
I'm anti-religion, not anti-Christian. Well, perhaps I'm anti-Christianity, but not anti-Christian. I forgive them, for they know not what they do.
 
i had no strong feelings about christianity until i decided to open to random page of the bible and have a look and it happened to fall open on the part suggesting that slaves should accept their lot in life.then i read the bible and it was just one terrible thing after another.
 
Kadark said:
I'm neither ex- nor anti-Christian; however, I fervently challenge the proposition of Jesus' divinity. Jesus was naught but a Prophet: he said so himself, and his actions prove it, too. Let me share a story:

An old woman came to Abraham’s shop to buy an idol one day, because a few local thieves stole her other one and she needed a replacement to protect her house.

Abraham said these words of wisdom in reply: "Is it not foolish to think that an idol that could not save itself, will save you?"

If Jesus could not save himself, how can he be God? Kadark
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M*W: Kadark, I'm replying to your post, because I, too, have pondered this same question. My reply, however, is to the forum.

I'm both an ex-christian and an anti-christian, and I didn't get that way overnight. When I was a christian, I read everything I could find on christianity. I wanted to understand my faith thoroughly, so when I had questions (not referring to doubt, but just faithful questions), I could find the answers. I approached religious authorities and was told that I shouldn't be asking questions! Not only was I debased for asking, it only gave me even more questions that I needed answered.

I ate, lived and breathed my christian faith. I taught religious education to teenagers and adults. I was active in my church. My life surrounded my faith as the central core of my existence. Then I came to understand that the more questions I had, the fewer answers I could find. Perhaps this is why the clergy told me not to question anything. They probably knew what would happen if I questioned.

My original questioning my faith came about as I observed the behaviors of other christians in my immediate circle. There was something phoney about them. The only way I can explain that is to say that they seemed to follow blindly without questioning anything. It was as if we all were just going through the motions of prayer and ritual, but the main thing I noted was their "holier-than-thou" mentality. I observed so many christians in my close-knit community who were so judgmental of others, especially other christians in our community! They weren't judging those of other faiths, just their immediate peers! I couldn't understand the logic in that. Maybe we were all at different levels of faith, but I think that we all were sincere to our beliefs. There was just something that wasn't right.

The more I read, the more I wanted to know. I was addicted to my religion. My method of escape was not unlike weaning oneself from any other addiction. I had to admit that I was following blindly, but so was everybody else. When I let go of being a zombie to religion, I could see the world more clearly. Before that, everything was just an extension of my faith. Everything that was wrong in the world was due to the lack of belief in god. I believed, but I was not given any special dispensation by the god I believed in. As a godly person, I felt that I had somehow been cheated by god, but then the believers in my community kept telling me that it was me who lacked faith! I became very discouraged.

So to increase my faith, I set out to visit the holy shrines of Europe via pilgrimages through my church. Everywhere I went, all I could see were millions of people following blindly, so I followed them and began to see the truth. I came to realize that religion was the blind following the blind, but I was one of the lucky ones who started to see. The truth started unfolding, and I was finally free of this self-imposed religious addiction.

Even after a few years, I still believed in a god, but I had begun to see that this Jesus couldn't possibly have existed, even though I hung onto his existence and even tried to confirm it. But I couldn't. I came to SciForums as a believer but soon found out there was no logic or reason for any religious beliefs. It gradually became clear to me that there is no god anyway, so there could be no real Jesus. I continued to read and research, and the more I did, the less likely there was any truth to this god thing.

I studied anthropology and learned that ancient humans created the myths of the stars, and that's from where all religious stories came. As time went on, these myths were written into holy texts as truth when all they are were metaphors and such. So, I learned the basis of all religious myths came from astro-theological metaphors, and that is my current pursuit--to decode the ancient's cosmological beliefs and to prove that all religion is simply man-made myth. This is why I am an atheist. Atheism is the enduring truth.
 
First I realised the foundations of religion were a fantasy, but what turned me actively against christianity was realising what a hippy jew fuckhead jesus was, and how badly he has corrupted my noble barbarian people. It's so undignified to see my people worshipping a jew, and a flagrant hippy, people who I know deep down hate hippies and jews, they're humiliating themselves and my race.
We could be crushing jews with our clubs made of ox bone, but because one said all this shit about turning the other cheek and blah blah blah they have us living in a society which is custom made for them to snakily succeed, leaving us drunk in trailer parks wondering what the fuck is going on, and still worshipping the scumbag jew fuck that made it all happen.
 
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I am an ex-Christian, not anti-Christian. I stopped believing because of something my Latin teacher said to my class and also because the Bible stories just started to seem more and more like a fairytale and I began to compare all of the reasons why I stopped believing in Santa Claus with my faith and they had a lot of similarities. So then I just lost my faith. I remain agnostic on both God and Santa Claus.
 
Because I realized that my religion was as dumb to my next door neighbors religion as his religion was dumb to me.
 
I was never turned against it, per se, but I have a considerable contempt for most organizations under the Christian umbrella. The Catholics have the right idea supporting science and scientific theory and admitting that the Bible isn't a historical document, but the rest of the bunch can jump off a cliff as far as I'm concerned. Evangelicals literally want creationism taught in biology class...c'mon.

It's one thing to have faith. It's another thing entirely to be a corrosive force in society, which is what every Abrahamic religion is. Just look around. Wonder why America is behind on the sciences? Christianity. Wonder why the Middle East can't get out of the stone age? Islam.
 
Wow, this ended up being a LOT longer than I intended. Anyway, I hope it's useful for you.

I was raised christian, but starting around age 10 or so I began to doubt more and more until I turned atheist around age 15-16. The main things that caused it were:

1) I began to learn about other religions from around the world, both modern and historical. Their beliefs always sounded absurd to me and I wondered how they could believe anything so outlandish, but then one day it occurred to me that the beliefs of christianity didn't actually make any more sense and didn't have any more supporting evidence than most of the other "wacky" religions that I laughed at in history or social studies classes. It occurred to me that most people's religions would have to be wrong, and even if one was correct, there wasn't any clear reason why mine should be the lucky one.

2) I started actually reading the bible and realized that by any reasonable moral standard the god described in the bible is actually monstrously cruel - very different from the "loving" god that had been constantly pitched to me throughout my life up to that point. The fact that most of my sunday school teachers etc. described god as loving but neglected to mention that he also ordered his followers to slaughter babies, take people as slaves, etc. started to make me very suspicious.

3) I noticed more and more that the magical world described by the bible didn't appear to match with the world that I actually lived in. The sorts of fantastical things described in the bible just don't appear to actually happen. Even most of the "miracles" that occur today that religious people get very excited about and take very seriously are usually laughable. I just couldn't find any convincing evidence that any of it was real or should be taken seriously.

All of the above was also coupled with an increased awareness between ages 10-15 that there were a lot of people in the world who would believe absurdly stupid things, and that there were many adults who were willing to lie to promote bullshit agendas. As I started to realize that I shouldn't just believe anything that anyone tells me (even if they believe it themselves) and learned how to critically evaluate things to determine if they are true or not, it became more and more clear that I would never have taken christianity at all seriously if I hadn't been raised on it and told that it was true since I was very young. It was basically a carry-over from the time before I was able to critically evaluate things.

Of course a good number of people (mainly family members, friends of the family, etc) have had a good go at trying to convince me that I'm wrong, but it's usually very clear from their arguments that they themselves have never really seriously considered their religion. Usually the arguments would be illogical appeals like "But don't you want to go to heaven?!?" as if what I wanted to be true had any bearing on what actually was true. Another favorite was "If I'm wrong it won't matter, if you're wrong you'll go to hell!" as if I could simply start believing something merely because I wanted to believe it, even though all reason and evidence told me that it was false.

Some people tried to make more rational, academic arguments that god existed and that the bible should be taken seriously, but these always collapsed upon serious investigation. Usually they were based on claims that simply weren't true, like the huge amount of bogus "evidence" the creation science people use to try to prove that evolution didn't happen or that the world is only 10k years old. It became clear that most of the people who made that sort of argument were living in their own little world, grabbing at any shred of "evidence" that supported their beliefs without making even the most basic attempts to verify if the evidence/argument/whatever had any merit.

One thing that really struck me about everyone who tried to convince me to believe in god was that I was always willing to listen to their arguments and seriously consider them, but they were never willing to even admit to the possibility that they might be wrong and that god might not really exist. On this forum I have asked a number of times what it would take for christians to conclude that they were wrong, and the answer is always that there is absolutely nothing that could ever possibly make them decide that christianity was false. Go figure...
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
interesting. So Q, do you feel this way about any idea that has led to bloodshed?
Kadark-How much greater the sacrifice for a being to willingly allow himself to suffer crucifixtion?

Whups! Sorry. I'm trying to keep my mouth shut, I forgot.
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M*W: I have a problem with "a being to willingly allow himself to suffer crucifixion (sic)." Yes, that is one christian take on it. There are others, however. I have known some people who believe that Jesus had no choice but to die to remove the sins of it's believers. IOW, there was no "willingness" on Jesus's part. Supposedly, it was an order from god.

I remember when I was seven years old, and I went to a Baptist church with the kids in my neighborhood. It was Palm Sunday, I believe. We were in Sunday school. The teacher asked each of us to say something to Jesus about how we felt about his dying for us. I was unfortunately the first kid the teacher called on, and I was a little shrinking violet at the time. She asked me what I had to say to Jesus for his sacrifice for me. I was scared to answer, but I knew I had to. I said, "Jesus, I'm sorry you had to die for me." Right about when the last word came out of my mouth, the teacher came over to me and yelled down at me, "How dare you say that! Jesus gave his life for you, and you don't even deserve it!"

The next day, the Sunday school teacher paid a visit to my house and told my mother what I had said that was so unchristian! As I was shaking in my shoes, scared to death that my mother would punish me more horribly than the Sunday school teacher, I just sat there and waited for the boom to be lowered on me. When the teacher left, my mother turned to me and asked me if I had really said that. I told her I did, and all she did was go "Hmmm." This subject never came up again. Somehow I was saved but not by Jesus.

Today, I understand there is no need for salvation, so there was never a need for Jesus to die for me or anyone else. Further, there was never a need for Jesus to exist.

I will try to explain the crucifixion astro-theologically for those who are interested. During the Spring Equinox when the Sun is at its brightest, four planets converge in front of the Sun in the form of a cross. (I don't have my references with me to name those four planets). IOW, the sign of the cross could be seen astrologically in front of the sun. It has nothing to do with the son of god (Jesus=Sun) hanging on a wooden cross on Earth, so in reality, no man named Jesus the Christ ever existed. The mythology can be explained astro-theologically. All worshipping religions are based on astro-theology.

Now, I understand how ridiculous it would sound if I said something like, "Mr. Sun, I'm sorry you had to set for me!" The Sun is the God of the Earth. We worship the Sun (in whatever religion you call it), because the Sun gave us life and abundance. Even when the Sun sets at night, we know it will rise again tomorrow after it makes it's journey behind the Earth and leaves us in to Sin (moon) in darkness (nighttime).
 
I got sick of the lies. As explained in another thread:

nietzschefan said:
I asked Jesus into my heart when I was 5 or 6, can't remember now. My friend asked me if I felt anything when I did it. I told him "nope" and he said, "me either". It was about 6months to a year later they did the Abraham and Isaac story at the Baptist sunday school. It was the most screwed up thing I had ever heard till then. Something was definitely wrong with all these people, their 40 year old virgin faces(that weird christian goody-goody look, you know the one), their one minute, kowtowing to God, and the next minute, gossiping about another couple not standing even 10 feet away.

I didn't go again the next sunday and never looked back. I have long tried to justify God in the pretexts of many religions and situations. In the even casual pursuit of the truth, I find that justification smaller and smaller, until I currently reject all man-made, man-written definitions of "God". Even ones thousands of years older than the Bible in any incarnation... Still I cannot discount the absolute possibility it exists, or at least something more powerful than us, in fact created us and continues to screw with us.

I did not get to meet God, and I asked him early and often at a tender age to come and meet with me. Why did he talk to you and not to me?

None the less, I am now forced to deal with the physical evidence of the truth that only the Earth can yield from it's ground. The artifacts and the writings 1000s of years before even your Abraham was supposed to exist. The only truth I can only sometimes accept, the interpretation of these things from learned men and women, that they in turn are scrutinized by their peers by the fine discipline of the scientific method. I do not think it is the best way personally, but I cannot think of one better and it sure as hell is better than blind faith to ancient powermongers whom wore the robe and carried tradition on inbred shoulders.
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I guess I never had any issues with Christianity, since I was brought up among Hindus who took Ganesha through the streets and put him in the sea and called him God. Later as I began to understand Hinduism and exactly what it meant, it occured to me that they were right: some people need to visualise a God and assign his attributes to people and things because the concrete is more acceptable for them than an abstract. Maududi said much the same about Muslims and Islam and kufr [its a bit preachy, being the words of a cleric]:

[Allah ] who revealed Islam for the guidance of all mankind is the best knower of differences in human nature, and none more than He can make allowances for these differences. This is why He based His religion on such simple and brief beliefs that everyone, from a simpleton to a philosopher or a scientist, can accept them. It is the simplicity and the brevity of these beliefs which has made them worthy of being the fundamental principles of a universal religion of mankind. For the man not capable of deep thought, it is sufficient to accept that God is one, Muhammad is His Messenger, the Quran is His Book, and that we have to appear before Him on the day of Judgment. For the man who can think, this brevity contains such breadth that he can follow numerous paths in the search of truth, in accordance with his capability and aptitude. He can go as far as he likes. He can spend his entire life in this search, without ever reaching a stage where he could say that he had understood all that he could. Whatever path a thinking man may take for his enquiry and search, and however far he may go, as long as he walks within the limits which the word of Allah has drawn between Islam and kufr, he cannot be declared as excluded from the fold of the faith, no matter how much we may differ with the wanderings of his mind.
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There is much I disagree with in Maududi's teachings, but this part seems very apt to me.
 
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