A question for Christians AND atheists

[hmkpoker]

Christians: (if you weren't always a Christian) What caused you to believe in Christianity?

Atheists: (if you were non-atheist at an earlier point) What caused you to believe what you believe about theology?


For the record, I don't have a hidden atheist agenda here, and I'm not trying to start a war (although those seem to happen regardless), I just want to get an idea for what causes people to believe and others to reject.

From non-atheist to atheist here:

Elementary, observation, dear Dr Watson.

[andyfox]

"What caused you to believe what you believe about theology?"

Probably the ridiculousness of it: an invisible man in the sky, a netherworld of fire and brimstone, the son of God immaculately conceived and magically resurrected, a burning bush speaking to Moses, etc.

Also the fact that so many religious beliefs mirror the circumstances of the people who had them leads me to believe that those religions and their God/gods were conceived in the minds of people, rather than people being conceived by God/gods.

[Stu Pidasso]

I have decided that Athiesm is a foolish position.

I haven't decided if believeing or practicing a religion is foolishness. I'm leaning towards that it is not.

Stu

[Lestat]

I was raised Catholic, went to CCD school up until my confirmation. My family wasn't overly religious, but we did go to church on all the major holidays. My mom and grandmother believe in God and I have an aunt and uncle who are very religious. So how did I fall off the religious bandwagon?

Well, like Luckyme points out I did some serious thinking on my own. Prior to this, I was either too young or too busy partying to think much about it. I knew there were things I didn't understand, but like most believers, I didn't question them. I just assumed there must be a God and things were the way my religion said they were.

After my father passed away I started thinking more about death and religion. And one day it hit me like a ton of bricks! I realized everything I believed about religion was heresay. For the first time in my life I asked questions I never dared to ask before. Scratch that... For the first time in my life I started seeking ANSWERS that I never dared to answer before.

What about that evolution thing? - Did it make sense that there was a man walking around on earth before there was a woman? - Do I really believe that men used to live to be 900 years old? - What of all those contradictions in the bible? What about all of the other far-fetched stories?

I felt like a blasphomer asking these question even to just myself. I was the type who got chills whenever someone screamed Goddammit or Jesus Christ! I think I was a teenager before I ever took the Lord's name in vain and the few times I did, I did I always said a silent prayer of apology.

However, slowly but surely the answers started dawning on me. I got chills. THERE IS no God dummy! There never WAS a God. At once I was relieved, scared, and pissed. Relieved, because I finally sensed the truth. Scared, because I was now all of a sudden living in a different world. Reality as I knew it would never be the same. Pissed, because I had been lied to for all these years and felt like an idiot.

But at the same time I felt an almost eerie sense of calm. It all started making sense and fell into place like a jig-saw puzzle. That's why a precious baby dies of SIDS. That's why a sweet innocent child suffers and dies from cancer. That's why terrible things sometimes happen to the best and nicest of people and good things sometimes happen to bad people. There IS no God watching over us every step of the way! The world began making sense now!

At first, it was all a terrible shock. A very scary realization. That's why guys like BluffThis and sifmole don't get it and never will. They think people like me ask questions because we ENJOY mocking their beliefs. Nothing could be further from the truth for me. I want to know HOW they hold onto their beliefs in the face of everything I think I know to be true today. How do they maintain their beliefs based on all I know to be untrue and unproven? I want to know if they have asked the tough questions and more importantly, if they would be willing to face the even tougher answers if they came. The last answer at least, has become all too clear. They most certainly would not! But the fact remains...

If anyone could ever off me logical reason to return to faith, I would gladly change my mind. And that's something a believer like BluffThis will never be willing to believe.

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What caused you to believe in Christianity?

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Going to church and listening to sermons about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

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I know to be untrue

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Can you prove to me that Jesus was not the Son of God?

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all started making sense and fell into place like a jig-saw puzzle

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Where did the meaning of life fall into this jig-saw puzzle?

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If anyone could ever off me logical reason to return to faith

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Because life without afterlife is awfully pointless.

[Lestat]

Here we go again... This is where I come off sounding like the big bad sarcastic atheist. It's just that your answers offer not one bit of logical reasoning.




<font color="blue">Can you prove to me that Jesus was not the Son of God? </font>

No. Can you prove to me the pizza I'm about to eat does NOT have anchovies on it?

<font color="blue">Because life without afterlife is awfully pointless. </font>

So is a stillborn baby. So are many other things pointless. But because something is pointless, does not make some other alternative true.

[ QUOTE ]
Can you prove to me the pizza I'm about to eat does NOT have anchovies on it?


[/ QUOTE ]

No, I can't. And that is why I would never claim that I knew for certain that your pizza does not have anchovies on it.

[ QUOTE ]
But because something is pointless, does not make some other alternative true

[/ QUOTE ]

I wasn't offering you proof as to what is true and what isn't. You asked for a reason to believe in something and I gave you probably the most universal and fundamental one, one that forms the foundation of my belief in Christ.

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
If anyone could ever off me logical reason to return to faith

[/ QUOTE ]

Because life without afterlife is awfully pointless.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see the logic in your answer, Riddick. Why do things have to have a meaning??? Because it values you more? Anyway there is absolutely no reasons for things needing to have meaning; to say the contrary is a non-rational prejudice.