[Chicon]

As numerous threads of this forum are related to religion, I dedicate this new one to the unbeliever and I mean to know how people had no religion, how they came to the conclusion there's no god in the universe and what they've experienced eventually because of their status of unbeliever.
Personally, I have no religion, not because my education or a choice or by snobbism but because I never felt that way. I never felt there is a god in spite of the facts that some relatives told me about religion and god. To summarize, religious stories were like fairy tales for me and they went the same way when I grew up.
Once in my life, I've experimented some inconvenient about my unbeliever status when I refused to christen religiously my son. I've been criticized by some relatives and acquaintances and I had to reply them that I let the opportunity to my son to choose his religious path himself.
Today, if you ask me if god exists, I will simply answer you : I don't know and it doesn't matter to me, meaning that I wouldn't change my way of life if I were to learn the truth.
Also, I condemn firmly all discriminations and crimes perpetrated using the religion as a moral justification, and I condemn with the same firmness the persecutions perpetrated by atheism institutionalized governments toward religious communities.

[angelize56]

Hi Chicon! May I be the first to hijack this thread? I'm a believer so I can't join in otherwise!

[Chicon]

Originally Posted by angelize56

Hi Chicon! May I be the first to hijack this thread? I'm a believer so I can't join in otherwise!

Hi angie !

Believer, you're welcome !
It can be interesting to learn how some people come to have no religion or why they quit their religion and so on.

[BanditFlyer]

Great thread, Chicon!

I think I'll watch from the sidelines.

[angelize56]

Originally Posted by Chicon

It can be interesting to learn how some people come to have no religion or why they quit their religion and so on.

And interesting to see how believers react to those people's thoughts...thank God we're all entitled to our own beliefs....

[Chicon]

Originally Posted by BanditFlyer

Great thread, Chicon!

I think I'll watch from the sidelines.

Thanks, BF !

[angelize56]

Originally Posted by angelize56

thank God we're all entitled to our own beliefs.

I'll change that to thank goodness for the non-believers!

[linskyjack]

Chicon, you and me are probably the only two in here who think alike. It is lonely at the top. I figure, the whole religion thing is over-rated. You know the product of mass brain-washing that has been going on since the beginning of time. You don't understand something, you create a reason for it happening. In my mind, there is no difference between the cave paintings at Lascaux, and a religious icon of the 15th Century. Both are attempts to understand why things occur in nature.

As you said, if someone asked me if God exists, I would say it is irrelevant. There is no way of knowing. I suspect that if he did exist, he wouldn't have the time or the predilection
to worry about what John Doe is doing in Oshkosh.

[iltos]

i'm actually cool with religion, in the sense of spritual belief, so long as its influence is limited to the heart that feels it.....when that heart tries to influence others to come 'round to a specific pov, then i got problems with it.

and i've got problems with the notion of a "god" to...mostly 'cause there's always a personal pronoun around it somewhere, like "god" is somebody that lives somewhere else, with all those all powerful qualities, steering the course of humanity

oh...pleeze

so i don't know where i ever fit in threads like these....somewhere between the un and the believer, i s'pose.

[GoneForNow]

Originally Posted by linskyjack

Chicon, you and me are probably the only two in here who think alike.

Chicon do you realize how much you've just been insulted? It's worse then being called French!

[WarC]

I used to be an athiest, now I'm an agnostic.

I was raised in a non-practicing home, free to decide on my own. My mother was roman catholic and my father was protestant.

Neither one is very religious. My father is an athiest, though my mother is spiritual in her own way - sort of natural mother-earthish type of spirituality influenced by christian and rastafarian principles.

Both are critical of the established churches and the roman catholic papacy.

I mention all of that because I believe that upbringing is the most influential part of religious philosophy.

A few years ago I argued heavily against the idea of a God, but then I began a period of soul-searching and questioning of self that lead me to acknowledge some simple facts.

Mainly, that being an athiest required faith in believing there was no god just as believing in a god required faith. In that way athiesm is a faith onto itself, its practitioners not necessarily abiding by any rules or practices yet still -believing- in something that can not yet be proven by the same scientific principles that they hold as criteria for denouncing religion.

Just as I think the established religions could not claim to know there is a god, so I think that athiesm can not claim to know there isn't a god.

In my mind if there was a god it would be very unpalpable to the human mind...Beyond our comprehension to grasp. Like a "Universal Constructor", an almost alien entity somewhere off in the far reaches of the universe or perhaps beyond or outside of the universe - a nebulus of unknown matter in which the basic functions of creation are stored and through which the series of events known as time commenced.

Something that abstract could not even be accurately theorized by human science at this point. My perhaps drug-influenced ideas about "god" could be as accurate as the opinions from the most established scientific minds of our age because we genuinely -don't know-.

So I'm in the same boat as you, Chicon!

[poochee]

It will be interesting to hear the view points. The stories I have heard have been from people who were disappointed by a particular religion and didn't try another one because they had been brain-washed about other religions. Or a prayer wasn't answered.

[kidcnote]

Originally Posted by linskyjack

Chicon, you and me are probably the only two in here who think alike. It is lonely at the top.
As you said, if someone asked me if God exists, I would say it is irrelevant. There is no way of knowing. I suspect that if he did exist, he wouldn't have the time or the predilection to worry about what John Doe is doing in Oshkosh.

More like small minds babble alike. And of coarse theres a way of knowing. Ever hear of the Holy Spirit. Hows about being 'Born again" Ring a bell guys ?? Of coarse neither of you have. God doesn't worry about John Doe, it's John Doe who should worry about what John Doe is doing in Oshkosh.
God doesn't worry about anything as taking care of business is his name, and every human born will be his business sooner or later and Chicons and Whacky Jackies knees will bow whether they believe it or not. Saying I don't believe is like saying I don't believe in electricity. Electricity cares little what you think or believe and when you stick you finger in a light socket, electricity will show you the real deal, it's real truth. Get with the program dullards, come on in as the waters fine. All you have to do is ask. You'll come easy or the hard way, but come you will.

[WarC]

Originally Posted by kidcnote

More like small minds babble alike. And of coarse theres a way of knowing. Ever hear of the Holy Spirit. Hows about being 'Born again" Ring a bell guys ?? Of coarse neither of you have. God doesn't worry about John Doe, it's John Doe who should worry about what John Doe is doing in Oshkosh.
God doesn't worry about anything as taking care of business is his name, and every human born will be his business sooner or later and Chicons and Whacky Jackies knees will bow whether they believe it or not. Saying I don't believe is like saying I don't believe in electricity. Electricity cares little what you think or believe and when you stick you finger in a light socket, electricity will show you the real deal, it's real truth. Get with the program dullards, come on in as the waters fine. All you have to do is ask.

The Holy Spirit is a dying bird whose blood is raining down on the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

Seriously, thats how the Holy Spirit was portrayed in the Middle Ages.

Christianity is not a natural occurance like electricity. It is a human construct meant to provide "answers" to questions we cannot solve.

[Chicon]

Originally Posted by kidcnote

More like small minds ... All you have to do is ask.

There's one thing I'm sure of, kidcnote : we all have the one-way ticket for the other side. And there's nobody who came back to us to tell what it's happening behind the door.