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| Re: When did you become a Insert-Religion-Here? [message #467097 is a reply to message #442594] |
Sun, 06 May 2012 17:19   |
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Spoony
Messages: 3915
Registered: January 2006
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General (3 Stars)
Tactics & Strategies Moderator |
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| Spoony wrote on Thu, 13 January 2011 10:51 |
Share your stories. When and how did you become a Christian/atheist/agnostic/whatever you consider yourself to be? What made you think so?
I'll start. My story is quite similar to the Hitch's; he says that for him it wasn't a case of becoming an atheist so much as realising he is an atheist. That's how it was for me. Neither of my parents are religious and they let me and my brother and sister make our own minds up (this is mainly because my father's parents were fundamentalist Christians who imposed a strict religious upbringing upon him and my aunt, and they found it absolutely miserable and resolved to do better with us). As for school, I live in a Christian country where Christianity is taught to the kids as though it were fact; i.e. the dumb bible myths are taught with the same certainty as what we're told in geography and maths. And there was no point at which the teacher said "there's no evidence for any of this" or "there are other religions out there too" or, most importantly, "you can just live your life without any of this crap". Also, daily prayer was compulsory.
But I never believed any of this. For some reason it just didn't click, and in the daily prayer at school we just bowed our heads and waited for the headmaster to get it over with. But I never considered myself an atheist; I'd never even heard the word before, and it didn't occur to me to ask "what's the word for someone who doesn't believe in this religious stuff?"
Later on, I was watching comedy on TV. My fellow Englishmen will know Jasper Carrott. Anyone remember that series where he was on trial? I only remember one thing about it - I must've been 14 or 15 at the time - but the prosecutor says about Jasper, in an accusing tone of voice, that he's an 'atheist'. I'd never heard the word before. I was a bright kid and was good with language, but this word was new to me. I went and asked my dad what the word meant, he told me, and I wondered why I'd never been told about this before. How strange that my school had tried to pump one particular religion into me without telling me about the option of atheism, it seemed.
Of course, at the time only one religion had been shown to me. I knew nothing at all about, say, Islam. Since then, my opinion of Christianity has gone very far downhill, and no other religion I've yet come across has struck me as either true or desirable. Still, the concept of freedom of religion (or as I prefer to phrase it, freedom of thought) is extremely important to me, and I'll insist upon it for people of any religion so long as it's there for me too. That's why I'm a harsh critic of the concept of hell, for example.
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at the time i posted this thread, i looked for the TV show and couldn't find it. it's on youtube now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8AvDFeTstc
bout 14 minutes in
Unleash the Renerageâ„¢
Renedrama [ren-i-drah-muh]
- noun
1. the inevitable criticism one receives after doing something awful
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| Re: When did you become a Insert-Religion-Here? [message #467162 is a reply to message #442594] |
Tue, 08 May 2012 17:06 |
fredcow9
Messages: 32
Registered: December 2005
Karma: 0
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Recruit |
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Heres my story:
My imminent family are born again Christians. They came from poor families that really tended to discourage the christian lifestyle. My family is filled with a bunch of alcoholics and abusers of substances and things. My parents didnt really come to know Christ until a few years into my birth. My dad was almost killed on a motorcycle and long story short, a string of occurrences and dreams led him to the Lord. So I was pretty much allowed to believe whatever I wished. I always grew up believing in God but not taking it seriously. It wasn't really until I was 14 that I actually started getting into the word and the things of God, fact checking and finding connections of God to man. It was at this point I had felt the touch of God through my prayers and research that I decided to get baptized and take the final step
At this point I knew basics, how one is to live ect but I have always wanted to know more and more about God so I made a commitment to constantly dig and research the things of scripture. It was around mid high school that I seriously began to doubt the traditional evolutionary beliefs and really came to the conclusion that the bible was telling the truth the whole time. A series of biology classes and human anatomy and comparative anatomy classes really broke the camels back. Life just seemed to complex, too real to be this simple story of strange ancestry.
A great book in particular darwins black box, was quite instrumental in my believing this way. Theres just too many problems with this "scientific" theory that its appalling its even taught at all.
When I finished high school I sought to well round myself in other religious studies. I have studied elements of hinduism, buddism, mormonism, islam, satanism (particularly Alister Crowleys views) and new wave spiritual stuff. I find it all extremely interesting and its the studies of these many religions that really has reinforced the fact there must be a God somewhere responsible for all this.
Lately I have found myself more and more interested by the alien phenomena and its connection with spirituality. The vast majority of my close friends are indeed agnostic and believe in aliens, our debates are amusing but it was really when one of them claimed my whole religion is based off aliens and watching that ancient aliens show (quite the interesting and provoking show) visiting earth that I started that research.
It was primarily the connection between crowley, lam, hubbard and some of the writings of Jacques Vallee that really shows me that todays alien phenomena is no different than the fake religions of old describing their "gods" in the sky performing great works to them.
All in all Iv always had the freedom some havent in deciding their own path, I have been fortunate to be surrounded with a collage of people of different belief systems and their eagerness to discuss things like religion. I have learned quite a bit about life from these people and have found if you just hear someone out there's always a interesting and meaningful testimony behind them
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