this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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Mostly trying to relate.

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[–] Sho 8 points 1 year ago

Youth group wanted to split out group into boys and girls, also by age, and start charging. I also actually read the damn book (I had 2 bibles ) found it dismal and hypocritical. That was the final nail in the coffin.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I've gone from Sunday attending to more lax and agnostic. Does that count? If so, is because of how inconsistent the actual practical actions of churches I've been to. Started protestant, but enough were hypocrites (remind me of the pharisees) so I stopped going. Became catholic and loved it, but the way the church has continually terribly handled the sex abuse pedo cases has disgusted me. Priests should be held to a higher standard, not lower.

Additionally, I don't wanna be associated with the people who are Christian on TV. All the right wing Republicans in the US govt are terrible people. Whatever they say they are, I don't wanna be a part of that. It's hard to reconcile "love your neighbor" and then legislate their live away or give crazy people unfettered access to guns.

On a more practical level, I like a lot of the charity work and compassion taught by Jesus. I'm OK with the spiritual aspects. I cannot get behind the church's message (mostly protestant) about personal relationship with God. If God intervenes, then that means it's his responsibility when he doesn't intervene and a lot of terrible things are his fault. If he doesn't intervene, then a lot of what the church says is wrong. It doesn't add up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your response caught my attention because I had a similar path, though only in Catholic Church, practicing religion in my 20’s, but moving away after mid 30’s.

At a practical level Jesus was right, showing compassion, living modestly…. but the interpretations of the churches - not only catholic - all the pomp and circumstance around mass, preaching, shrouding secrecy, asking the poor for money, etc. made me question churches in general.

After studying some philosophy, and learning meditation practices, I believe churches play an important role in society, including that prayer enables the masses to experience meditative states that have important health benefits. Religious teachings give something in which people can believe in, instead of facing uncertainties of life alone.

Also in many cases throughout history, churches anchored small communities together.

I believe people should experience church to decide on their own, but not being guilted to staying. Each person should be able to discern, choose their path, but there are always the crazy ones out there guilting and trying to impose their beliefs on to others. That is not right.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I went to church as a young kid, but never really believed and by interacting with people from different denominations and religions it became clear that the church I went to claiming to be the right one out of thousands was pretty unlikely. Was able to talk my mom out of taking me around 12 years old, and spent a couple years as agnostic until deciding that science made a lot more sense and if we could prove there was a god, he would just be part of nature and therefore not really a god as taught in church.

So basically thinking critically about it undermined the teachings. I still kept the positive messaging, but also added in the positive messaging from other religions and honestly see them all as more cultural than mystical.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I still kept the positive messaging, but also added in the positive messaging from other religions and honestly see them all as more cultural than mystical.

I kind of relate to this, but I think in certain situations people may feel some spiritual forces akin to schizophrenia, and that religion might also have served for survival purposes since different cultures developed supernatural beliefs. Also, what positive messagings do you keep? Because I also find that Christianism and Buddhism for example have important ethical teachings that I try to follow.

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[–] Schart 7 points 1 year ago

The fact that most terrible things in the history of the world were in the name of organized religion...

[–] dhorse 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This was a long time ago, but I had to go to the methodist version of confirmation. It was not any one thing that made me stop believing, but many little things. What I could not get over was the "virgin" birth of Jesus. They talked for weeks about this and the "miracle" got more and more ridiculous over the lesson. Joseph got played.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The funny part is how that word supposedly may translate better as "maiden" than "virgin", as in "young girl" rather than someone who has not yet had intercourse. I wonder how many people have been beheaded for asking about such things.

Jesus Himself hated such over-religiosity - "Want religion that is pure and blameless? Take care of widows and orphans!!" - but sadly it seems the natural human condition.:-( The extreme irony is how He went to LARGE efforts to just constantly and consistently give the religious fruitcakes of His day the middle finger ("thou shaltest say to every Karen, fuck ye off"), which ofc got Him killed just like everyone else who tried it previously. So like... was Jesus one of the early atheists then, if you think about it like that...? :-D /s

But I mean, in all seriousness, the gist of Jesus' message seems to me to be to ignore the fruitcakes and just do the right thing, regardless ("the worker deserves his wages..."). So like, wtf does His teenie sexed-up mommy have anything to do with anything?! But Karens gonna Karen, I guess, and get all worked up about whatever drama they can either find or invent.

[–] TheInsane42 7 points 1 year ago

I was raised catholic. When the class at school had their confirmation, I refused as religion felt more like a fairytale then something to really believe in. When I saw they got gifts, I was disappointed and wanted to confirm when my sister was doing her's (to get gifts as well, wrong reason).

For that confimation I had to do bible study, during which I learned what's in the bible. As I invested all that time, I went trough with it for the gifts, but I learned my 1st impression was right. To me it's nothing more then a fairytale. That confirmation was my last volentary visit to a church to attend service. (Played tourist a few times, the buildings are still nice)

Till today, I still prefer to know, not to believe anything that is being told.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I was already having issues with what the church taught about gay people. One of the priests at my college church likened sex before marriage to child sex trafficking, saying premarital sex directly lead to child sex trafficking. I walked out in the middle of the sermon.

I was still on the fence about if I was Catholic or not afterwards, it was all I knew growing up after all. I went to history class that next semester and learned the Bible was just piecemealed together by a bunch of old white men in the ~~16th~~ 4th Century during the council of nicea. There is literally no way to tell who actually wrote the stories in the Bible, much less determine their validity because the stories were put together in a single book hundreds of years after they were written. On top of that, if a story didn't fit what these guys decided the Catholic faith was supposed to be, they threw it out!

The Bible isn't the word of God, it's some dudes in the ~~16th~~ 4th century's head cannon.

That pretty much sealed the deal for me. If there is some divine force, it certainly wasn't going to speak to me through this book or this faith.

Then to add insult to injury, in that same class I learned about the history about how the Christian faith came about, and how they basically just chose one of many Mesopotamian gods and decided he was the one true God and propagandized and crusaded their way into making people accept their beliefs. All of it was just decided and shaped by humans, and none of it was "divine" as I was taught. It was all a lie.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Bible was just piecemealed together by a bunch of old white men in the 16th? Century during the council of nicea.

About this...

Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, which became popular in 2003. According to Brown’s fictional (and historically dubious) narrative, the books that make up the Bible were officially selected and put together by the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, under the authority of Constantine I who sought to define Christian doctrine and belief.

Although the Council certainly did meet at a time of crisis within the Church, it did not address the biblical canon, despite what Brown said. This has become a modern myth that has outlasted the book’s initial surge in popularity. In reality, the Council of Nicaea met to debate the nature of the Trinity (that Jesus is the son, and father, and the holy spirit at the same time), among other things.

https://www.iflscience.com/who-decided-which-books-went-into-the-bible-71014

It seems like influential and powerful individuals and organizations who voiced which texts should the bible include up until the 4th century, and those who disagreed were deemed heretics.

[–] PandaPikachu 7 points 1 year ago

I befriended a lawyer in a online game years ago. When he found out I took the bible literally, we had debates about it, and he'd break down some of the passages in Revelations and try to get me to justify stuff like dragons. It opened my eyes to how ridiculous some things were, and how there was a reason one of the first things we were taught (Baptist) was not to question anything.

How it seems every religion believes they're the "One True" religion, and the whole rest of the world is wrong. How throughout history, it's fueled wars, and been used as a method to control people more than a way to help people.

How some priests garb themselves in expensive robes and surround themselves with gold or drive luxury cars, or preach on TV from practically a stadium while passing around the donations plate through a crowd of poor people while promising a afterlife gated by pearls.

I'll stop here but yeah. It was actually a pretty devastating realisation for me, as religion was a huge part of my life up to that point.

[–] ChillPenguin 7 points 1 year ago

People. Way too many people are fake Christians that act differently than what they should. But as long as they go to church every Sunday, they believe they are a good person. You don't need a book or the threat of hell to treat people how you would want to be treated.

That plus having faith in stories of a 2000 year old book written and re-written by humans. Just doesn't make sense.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

A mix of a generational gap and me coming out. I still like the parts about treating people and animals with respect, but the whole "restoring mana through a church building" parts and going to hell for loving someone just seems strange.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It was a slow process, but honestly the liturgy was boring and like out of touch. The narratives felt like they can't really hold up to a contemporary audience.

That, on top of being very uninterested in being made feel guilty for random things. Sorry but I'm gonna continue masturbating and you insisting on guilt is not gonna make it stop, so what are we doing?

Finally, all the general nonsense and cognitive dissonance sealed the deal.

[–] AstridWipenaugh 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Getting baptized. Before then, I felt no spiritual connection or "heard the voice of god" or anything. I understood that once I was baptized, I'd be one of god's children and I assumed the holy stuff would kick in after that point. Funny thing though, nothing changed. No matter how hard I prayed or tried to believe, nothing was different.

I spent several years trying to find literally anything to show that any of it was real. But everything lead to the same dumbfounding dead end: you just have to have faith.

As I learned more about Christianity from a scholarly perspective, it became increasingly clear that it's not real. The oldest book in the new testament wasn't written until at least a hundred years after the events took place, meaning it was all disparate verbal stories for hundreds of years. The Council of Nicea later just decided to remove parts and add some new parts to the bible, justifying it by the council itself being divinely inspired to have arrived at the correct version of the bible.

It's clear now that the rich and powerful have historically used religion as a tool to control and manipulate the masses. With the benefit of hindsight, it's just an obvious scam that has no basis in reality. So for that reason, I'm out.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I was raised Methodist, but when I was maybe 7 or 8 I realized that I was only Methodist because I was raised Methodist and that if my parents were a different religion, I would have believed that instead.

It took me until my late teens to realize I was an athiest, but that was definitely the start.

[–] Drivebyhaiku 7 points 1 year ago

Technically I was raised in a completely non-religious household so I was never myself properly religious but I always found the reasons why that was a thing really interesting.

My grandfather on my Dad's side did a stint in WWII protecting the Vatican as part of the Canadian forces. He never spoke about what actually happened there (because he wasn't allowed to) but it shook his Catholic foundations to the marrow and was never able to reconcile what happened with his faith. When he returned home he had a massive row with the priest at his church that he left. Half the family disowned him for leaving the church. My father never particularly went to church though his mother remained an Anglican.

On my Mother's side my grandparents made an enemy of the local diocese when they and a bunch of their friends conspired to run a priest out of town for being a complete asshole to children publicly and a child molester privately. My grandmother basically swapped to playing organ at another smaller church but the rest of the family became very agnostic and really didn't want to expose their kids to the faith.

So I basically wasn't raised with faith because three generations back everybody in my family had a religious crisis... And I am SO glad you have no idea.

[–] Sgt_choke_n_stroke 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Honestly once you learn Santa and the Easter bunny aren't real. The question about God gets testy.

Wait these things aren't real but this one thing is? God made people, but evolving from a lower form of species is heretic talk?

Give me a break

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago
[–] Shou 6 points 1 year ago

Sect/cult stuff. Rules did not add up. Stuff contradicting each other. The people were all preachy hypocrites. They'd go out of their way to twist a law of physics to their narrative. For example, "spiritual vibrations" in sound and radiation. Religion was used to control me. Quackery, conspiricy theories and mlm schemes everywhere. Broke free over time.

[–] _lilith 6 points 1 year ago

I don't think it ever sat right with me but I couldn't say why at first. When I was pretty young the problem made itself more clear when we got a new pastor. I didn't agree with what he was saying and perhaps more importantly what he was saying didn't agree with what his predecessor was saying. I brought this up to my parents and they said that he wasn't right about everything. Well that's a problem then because it means all these beliefs are subjective. The more I thought about any one story parable text or anything, the more I thought that this is just another person who doesn't really know anything. Even where it says "This is the word of god" Someone had to write it down. Someone had to translate it. The harder I looked for god the more I found men, and I do not have faith in men.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I realized I had to make an effort to continue believing, so I stopped.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Reading. Reading about my religion. Reading about other religions. Reading about science

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

My family was secular so I didn't have religion shoved down my throat as a kid. I got curious about church when I was around 8. I went for a year or so then had an epiphany about how nonsensical it was that a loving god would consign people to hell and stopped going.

I toyed around some with occultism in my teens but have been an atheist ever since. Nothing about religion makes sense and I live in the material, rational world.

[–] frokie 5 points 1 year ago

At one of those bible study after church things, I asked the priest if when I die and go to heaven, I’ll get answers to things I’ve always wondered, like how many stars there are, or since I’m outside of time then, be able to observe historic events like building of pyramids or the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs , or supernovas, or how technology would be in the future.

… he said that I wouldn’t care, I’d be too busy being astounded by the face of god for all eternity.

Which I thought was the lamest way to spend eternity, and what’s worse, would mean that my main trait at the time, curiosity, wouldn’t be part of me when I’m in heaven. Then would it really be me up there?

Act 2. I eek out the “why does a loving god allow souls to be tortured and burnt for all eternity” question to a different priest and got some answer like hell is just the absence of god. Which, I can understand why to him that’s torture but for me… it seemed more like a “ok you don’t want to stare at my godly face for eternity? Be elsewhere then with your fellow non believers “. Which from my pov, it’s like ok no big deal then?

And from there the shadow of doubt grew enough and now I understand this is all there is so we just gotta make the best of it, and try to push the envelope for humanity in any way we can.

[–] SVcross 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I stopped seeing her face.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Before then, I imagine there was not a trace of doubt in your mind.

[–] NOT_RICK 5 points 1 year ago

My mother worked at a catholic school; she was sexually harassed by the principal of the school and rather than firing the POS the diocese sent the whole staff to sexual harassment training. I found that to be a real slap in the face. Showed me they still had zero interest in accountability. I still appreciate the message behind a lot of what the church preaches (I loathe some of their stances, mostly related to sex and abortion) but I refuse to enable their hypocrisy.

[–] jwagner7813 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never was personally. But one thing that constantly gets me is religious people knowing their church people are touching little boys and girls and they still believe in them and their higher power.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

And they still happily give money to the church.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I remember as a tween sitting there and praying and I just sorta realized wtf am I doing. I had always asked too many questions so I thought it weird an imaginary guy could hear everyone and everything at once. Then I was brought to a fmaily member's church where they told me my father was going to hell because he was a soldier, no ifs and or buts about it. So yeah if 10 year old me can realize it, I don't know what the hell is wrong with these fucking abrahamic religious zealots.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Ex-Christian here, I was in a pretty easy going division of Christianity, main thing was that we didn't believe in hell and were "metaphysical" (hippie way of saying we didn't strictly adhere to the Bible). I would often look after the smaller kids in Sunday school, and one day we put on the veggie tales version of Noah's ark, and I actually watched it while watching the kids, and somewhat considered the idea that if there was a flood, inevitably quite a few children would have been caught up in it and died, which in my mind a kind god would not have even contemplated. The level of cognitive dissonance I experienced kind of made me think about listening to atheistic opinions to double check I wasn't completely off the mark with my beliefs. So I listened to Dawkins, Hitchens, and Carl Sagans arguments then actually sat down and read the Bible. Not gonna say I accepted it overnight, but that is what eventually led me to where I am today as an atheist.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I went down the rabbit hole of the Ancestral simulation, the Boltzmann brain, simulation hypothesis and these shows like matrix and westworld made more sense than any other religious text

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