Welcome, Members! What's your story?

[Spazmat]

Hi everyone. So up till about a month ago i was Mormon. My mom's mormon, my dad's atheist, my stepdad's born again christian, and my GF's baptist. Cause of that i've had experiences with a few different sets of ideas. Now i'm atheist i guess. When i read the bible, i see good philosophy (relative to the time period it was written) but do i see literal happenings? no. Any scientist will tell you that all evidence points to the earth being billions of years old. Not 7000 years old, as the bible shows.
I also have a small problem with faith. I don't totally understand how a feeling can be the basis of "knowing" something. My mom "knows" that Joseph Smith saw god's face, and a Muslim extremist "knows" that , if he kills jews, he will go to heaven. If my mom says that her faith is true, then she is therefore condoning suicide bombers.
I also took a class about ancient people and evolution. If there are cities dating to 10,000 BC then how can the bible be true?
I don't want to invade on anyone else's beliefs. What ever makes you happy. But that does not make them true.
I can only make conclusions based on the current evidence and I don't see a single piece of evidence that proves god is real.

[Intercourseman72]

Hey mat, interesting background and story. Seems like you have all kinds of questions about all this stuff as probably all of us here did at one point or another.

The thing about the bible dating the age of the Earth, i've heard that some interpret the bible saying that it's perhaps 12,000 years (don't know who, what, where says it and from where they derive it from. nor do i know where anyone gets the figure for it being 6k years, 10k years, or w/e). There is archaeological evidence that shows humans were around since no later than 100k years, but even if you believe that radio-active decay dating is as flawed as young-earth creationists say, then just look to the stars. If the young-earth creationists were correct, there would be no star farther than 12,000 light-years away from Earth.

It has been known how to approximate the speed of light and measure the distance of objects in space since, I think, Galileo's time. The Andromeda Galaxy is visible to the human eye and is 2.2 million light years away. If God created the whole universe, he certainly didn't create it having the Andromeda galaxy within a few thousand light years of the Milky Way, nor any of the other hundreds of billions or however many galaxies estimated in the universe.

If the bible's morals (at least some parts of it) were advanced for its time, the believers who still believe in a young earth are not ahead of their times at all.

Anyway, there are all kinds of things to debunk when it comes to religion, and with your seemingly sharp, skeptical mind, i look forward to any questions you have or any inputs you have as well as the rest of us here.

[HalloweenWeed]

Hi everyone. So up till about a month ago i was Mormon. My mom's mormon, my dad's atheist, my stepdad's born again christian, and my GF's baptist.

[...]

I don't want to invade on anyone else's beliefs. What ever makes you happy. But that does not make them true.
I can only make conclusions based on the current evidence and I don't see a single piece of evidence that proves god is real.

Hi Spaz, welcome to the forum. I too had experiences with multiple Xian religions. You make good points. I see you've already posted 4 times incl. this one. I am one of several moderators here, but it don't mean much, we don't moderate much. My official title is 'chat moderator' but really no diff than other moderators in function. Good to hear from another new member. I hope you will not get too bored with us, and stay for years like I did.

The thing about the bible dating the age of the Earth, i've heard that some interpret the bible saying that it's perhaps 12,000 years (don't know who, what, where says it and from where they derive it from. nor do i know where anyone gets the figure for it being 6k years, 10k years, or w/e). There is archaeological evidence that shows humans were around since no later than 100k years, but even if you believe that radio-active decay dating is as flawed as young-earth creationists say, then just look to the stars. If the young-earth creationists were correct, there would be no star farther than 12,000 light-years away from Earth.

It has been known how to approximate the speed of light and measure the distance of objects in space since, I think, Galileo's time. The Andromeda Galaxy is visible to the human eye and is 2.2 million light years away. If God created the whole universe, he certainly didn't create it having the Andromeda galaxy within a few thousand light years of the Milky Way, nor any of the other hundreds of billions or however many galaxies estimated in the universe.

Wow, ICM, you made me realize I have never thought about that. I was raised Xian and just never questioned the space-time thing. About your thought, "there would be no star farther than 12,000 light-years away from Earth", specifically the light would not be here yet, the star could exist theoretically, it's just that we could not see it yet. Yeah, you're right, good point.

[Jnthn44]

welcome, spazmat!

always love a good deconversion story hope you enjoy it here!

[kamana]

I am of the opinion that religion meets the legal definition of a fraud and I am interested in engendering a lawsuit in an american court of law to test that proposition. In talking to several attorneys, however, I got the distinct impression that the legal community is more interested in generating a research fee than in actually filing a case. Each time I talked to an attorney they would quote me a research fee of several thousand dollars. Since I certainly don't have that kind of money I've decided to search the internet for people who are well versed in matters of law with a view of using the small claims courts to expedite the matter. I would appreciate any opinion from anyone with respect to the feasibility of such a project and am interested in any relevant ideas or opinions with respect to challenging the authenticity of their spurious claims.

[Azmodan Kijur]

Hey, welcome to the Forum, Kamana.

Religion meeting the legal definition of fraud? Depends on the type of fraud that we are going for, I assume. There are frauds that reference religion specifically, but these do not mean that the religion itself are fraudulent, just that the fraud itself is carried out inside a religion or in a manner so as to fool the believers that some object you have is supernatural or such. Imagine writting another gospel and perpentrating it as the real thing or claiming that you had cancer and were healed when nothing of the sort occurred. Just about everything we see online proporting to have encountered, recorded, or attest to a miracle of one sort or another is an outright fabrication and would be considered religious fraud. This includes the baby born at a sermon in Africa to the healing power of the waters of wherever the fuck and so on.

Your angle is that the very nature of any religion is, in itself, fraudulent. While I am inclined to give that some measure of credibility, the key is to determine if such a thing can be argued successfully before a court. For such a case to be won, therefore, one must attack the basis behind the previously "revealed" scriptures and the accepted miracles that make up the religion. There are other factors, but this would appear to be the achilles heel to the idea. True, we can wax philosophical about the knowledge of the individuals at the time of writing as to whether this was considered real by them or a fabrication at that time. BUt the problem becomes proving before a Judge that the intention was the latter, that it was always meant to commit a fraud upon the people. Since the circumstances of the original telling of the data is centuries old, the church will call to the stand biblical scholars and religious experts that will attest that the people took this 100% seriously. That is a claim that has to be refuted for the case to be won - but how do you do that? You need to impinge upon their credibility and claim better command of information that they have studied their entire lives. The antiquity of the claims of the religion would seem to render them (in the legal sense) out of reach of the law. I cannot prove that the intent was to deceive and they can easily demonstrate that the idea was taken seriously. Given the age of the claims (Jesus walked on water), the situation becomes moot - the claims will be taken on merit. Again, philosophically you can impinge these claims easily (so why don't god do that shit now?) but philosophy is not the law. I fear it would be thrown out, sadly.

[iasc]

Hello everyone.

I was brought up "Catholic". The reason it's in inverted commas is because, even though I was baptised, made my communion and confirmation, I was brought up where being a Catholic meant nothing. I've never gone to mass on a regular basis. The only time I used to attend mass was at Christmas and Easter and thats only because I felt guilty about not doing anything remotely religious in the line of worship throughout the year. Its the same with more or less everyone I know.

When I finally started thinking for myself I realised that I didn't have to believe in a God or what I was being told my whole life.
So I suppose I would currently be considered agnostic bordering on atheist. I don't like to outright deny the the existence of God since I feel that the idea of God is quite ambiguous.

[Azmodan Kijur]

Hello, Iasc, and welcome to the board.

Nice story. I was born to a household and family that did not give the catholic religion much truck, so while I too was confirmed and the like, it didn't meant anything to me or my folks.

Like many Atheists, you refeuse to state that god is an utter and complete fabrication, because depending on the definitio, you can be left with one god creature or another, maybe even one that is possible. On the belief scale, you are agnostic with heavy leanings to Atheist. Keep the bases covered, but act on the info you have.

[cowzrppl2]

Hey everbody, remember me? Yeah, hi.
I was away, did some thinking.
Became a unitarian then realised that I was still an atheist.
Almost got convinced to become a Baptist but then I thought about it and stopped.
So it's been pretty eventful, how about you?

[dr210077]

Hey everbody, remember me? Yeah, hi.
I was away, did some thinking.
Became a unitarian then realised that I was still an atheist.
Almost got convinced to become a Baptist but then I thought about it and stopped.
So it's been pretty eventful, how about you?

Welcome back dude

That is one interesting journey, perhaps you could share it? I have myself, in times of emotional weakness, fallen afoul of religious social engineering. I am in debt to my more inquisitive side for retaining my own rational self, even if my emotional failings still surface from time to time