Nonbelievers, how did you lose your religion?

Padawanbater2 said:

Yeah, even non believers.

How can you be sure when you reference 'God', it's the Christian god? Why not the Viking god, or any of the eastern gods? Norse, native American, or any of the ancient religions that aren't practiced anymore's god/s?

Because you live in western society, and our culture conditions you to believe in the Christian god.

If you lived in Pakistan or Iran, you would be referring to Allah or Mohammad. Doesn't that strike you as a little odd? Geographic location determines what religion people generally follow, why is that?

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RebelMan said:

I am sure of this because this 'God's message is to return to the true face of Christianity, if i lived in Pakistan or in Vietnam it would not make a difference of the message, so what are you trying to prove? that just because there are people who are stuck on different beliefs, that all of the religions are wrong? The largest world religions can trace their existence back to something VERY similar, Christianity, the world largest religion has grown the most because it is true, and has seen the least change in what the 'True Christian Religion' of the world is. Unlike Islam, who follow false prohets, and Judaism, who deny Jesus as the savior, and the Virgin Mary being the Mother of Jesus the Savior. As we can see now in Western Civilization, the fall of Christianity due to it's swayed beliefs... just look at American culture, it is so swayed from the 'True Christian Religion' of the world that we can see the fall of it, but through Medjugorje, this 'True Christian Religion' is being brought back and strengthened from the American Christian religion that is far from the truth, and the 'True Christian Religion'

Sorry if that gets confusing, but i'm just trying to stay on topic and not go off and off about the things you, my friends bring up.

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RebelMan said:

I am sure of this because this 'God's message is to return to the true face of Christianity, if i lived in Pakistan or in Vietnam it would not make a difference of the message, so what are you trying to prove? that just because there are people who are stuck on different beliefs, that all of the religions are wrong? The largest world religions can trace their existence back to something VERY similar, Christianity, the world largest religion has grown the most because it is true, and has seen the least change in what the 'True Christian Religion' of the world is. Unlike Islam, who follow false prohets, and Judaism, who deny Jesus as the savior, and the Virgin Mary being the Mother of Jesus the Savior. As we can see now in Western Civilization, the fall of Christianity due to it's swayed beliefs... just look at American culture, it is so swayed from the 'True Christian Religion' of the world that we can see the fall of it, but through Medjugorje, this 'True Christian Religion' is being brought back and strengthened from the American Christian religion that is far from the truth, and the 'True Christian Religion'

Sorry if that gets confusing, but i'm just trying to stay on topic and not go off and off about the things you, my friends bring up.

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Shannon Alexander said:

I proved to everyone in the simplest fashion that Y2k was a joke... I sat them down in front of a computer and set the date and time forward so it was just before when the computer would tick over to the new millennium and had them watch it tick over and the computer not crash etc...

How did so many people get so stupidly paranoid that they didn't even think to do something simple as that..?

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Shannon Alexander said:

I might have thought of that if I wasn't technotarded...

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Chief Walkin Eagle said:

Christianity adopted many of its beliefs from much older religions. Even in Egyptian mythology theres plenty of characters that were born on the 25th of December, died on a cross, resurrected, ascended into heaven, yada yada yada. Im sure Egyptian mythology isnt the only belief that has characters that relate to Jesus, and those characters are thousands of years older than Jesus. IMO, if there was such a person, his name wasnt Jesus Christ, I wouldnt know his name, theres a bunch of characters MUCH older than christianity that fit the description of Jesus. Christianity is one of the youngest religions, trying to discredit other religions (Like Hinduism) is classic ignorance displayed by a christian... Jesus said so himself, god is in YOU, not no stinkin church, bible, or any other religion, GOD is in YOU! You dont need to be a follower of any religion to experience "god"... To say "god" has a special group of chosen people and all the rest are going to burn for eternity is fucking ridiculous, its using fear to make people believe. Christianity ruthlessly governed nations for the longest time, who ever invented Christianity had only one thing in mind, POWER!

Im not saying the bible is total bullshit though (the majority is, though), like I said, they've adopted beliefs from existing religions. Phrases like "God is light" "know thy self and you shall know god" "God is within man" "If your eye be single, then you shall become full of light" <---the BEST teachings of the bible and the ONLY ones you should pay attention to. The "god is light" concept can be found in most religions, take Hinduism for example. Hinduism says everyone has 7 chakras, just like the 7 colors of the rainbow, 7 visible beams of LIGHT. When Jesus says "If your eye be single, then you shall become full of light", hes talking about the Third Eye Chakra, activate your third eye and you shall know god.

There is no hell, the old testament was way more accurate about "hell", a dark, LIGHTless place where you are separated from god, occupied by bitter, sad, angry souls, no punishing going on what so ever, just a dark place where sad, angry bitches go.

Christians are NOT the chosen people. You dont need to worship anyone or anything. There is a creator but that creator doesnt discriminate, nor does he dictate what happens in this world. If we learn, experience, and evolve enough, then we can be just like "god"... What sounds more reasonable? An eternity of kissing the ass of an angry child, dictator god? Or an eternity of learning, experiencing and evolving and being equal to "god"?? Even Jesus said that we can be better than him, look it up...

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RebelMan said:

So, basically, you are telling me that when a person visions the Blessed Virgin Mary, receives messages from Mary about what is occurring in the world, is given a tongue to fully understand another language(yes this occurred to one of the visionaries, she gained the knowledge to speak Italian, when she previously knew very little of the language, but learned to speak it fluently), is brought to officials, beaten, and questioned ruthlessly about her existence but still prevails, when people all throughout a village clearly see the words 'pax' in the sky(meaning peace in Latin), when being threatened to have your family's entire land and house seized away at the age of 16 by the government police and still go against them, and many more occurrences of faith, that these are all somebody just doing this because 'God would be the logical answer to why this is happening' you are making up think my friend. If God is what these people believe is the logical answer, and you are telling me they are wrong, then what would you tell me it is?

You find yourself in a position in which you must flush out God and everything about God, and you excuse your faith because that someone in your family forced you into prayer in order for you to eat. Any true Christian knows this is wrong, and the true face of Christianity, the one that the blessed Virgin Mary has come down from heaven to try and re-educate to the world, would not use fear and hunger to persuade it's believers. You are telling yourself that you are judging Christianity by a Christian, but you must learn to judge Christianity itself, and you will find no errors in Christianity. This is what many Atheists try to do, they create a false truth for themselves, but can't stand hearing the real truth, so they try eagerly to flush out the truth so they can live their false truth and they think that they have solved the important things in life when they haven't solved the most important. Mary has come to wash away the things that many people who call themselves christians, follow. You can find these things just by turning the TV on. If you think you are right, and that the Christian faith has errors, and that you can use those errors to prove that you are free from fault, then you are very wrong. I hope you can take my word with the fullest love of God that i have and i hope you can try to focus on something real that is occurring and that you can't escape, no matter how hard you try.

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RebelMan said:

So, basically, you are telling me that when a person visions the Blessed Virgin Mary, receives messages from Mary about what is occurring in the world, is given a tongue to fully understand another language(yes this occurred to one of the visionaries, she gained the knowledge to speak Italian, when she previously knew very little of the language, but learned to speak it fluently), is brought to officials, beaten, and questioned ruthlessly about her existence but still prevails, when people all throughout a village clearly see the words 'pax' in the sky(meaning peace in Latin), when being threatened to have your family's entire land and house seized away at the age of 16 by the government police and still go against them, and many more occurrences of faith, that these are all somebody just doing this because 'God would be the logical answer to why this is happening' you are making up think my friend. If God is what these people believe is the logical answer, and you are telling me they are wrong, then what would you tell me it is?

You find yourself in a position in which you must flush out God and everything about God, and you excuse your faith because that someone in your family forced you into prayer in order for you to eat. Any true Christian knows this is wrong, and the true face of Christianity, the one that the blessed Virgin Mary has come down from heaven to try and re-educate to the world, would not use fear and hunger to persuade it's believers. You are telling yourself that you are judging Christianity by a Christian, but you must learn to judge Christianity itself, and you will find no errors in Christianity. This is what many Atheists try to do, they create a false truth for themselves, but can't stand hearing the real truth, so they try eagerly to flush out the truth so they can live their false truth and they think that they have solved the important things in life when they haven't solved the most important. Mary has come to wash away the things that many people who call themselves christians, follow. You can find these things just by turning the TV on. If you think you are right, and that the Christian faith has errors, and that you can use those errors to prove that you are free from fault, then you are very wrong. I hope you can take my word with the fullest love of God that i have and i hope you can try to focus on something real that is occurring and that you can't escape, no matter how hard you try.

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RebelMan said:

So, basically, you are telling me that when a person visions the Blessed Virgin Mary, receives messages from Mary about what is occurring in the world, is given a tongue to fully understand another language(yes this occurred to one of the visionaries, she gained the knowledge to speak Italian, when she previously knew very little of the language, but learned to speak it fluently), is brought to officials, beaten, and questioned ruthlessly about her existence but still prevails, when people all throughout a village clearly see the words 'pax' in the sky(meaning peace in Latin), when being threatened to have your family's entire land and house seized away at the age of 16 by the government police and still go against them, and many more occurrences of faith, that these are all somebody just doing this because 'God would be the logical answer to why this is happening' you are making up think my friend. If God is what these people believe is the logical answer, and you are telling me they are wrong, then what would you tell me it is?

You find yourself in a position in which you must flush out God and everything about God, and you excuse your faith because that someone in your family forced you into prayer in order for you to eat. Any true Christian knows this is wrong, and the true face of Christianity, the one that the blessed Virgin Mary has come down from heaven to try and re-educate to the world, would not use fear and hunger to persuade it's believers. You are telling yourself that you are judging Christianity by a Christian, but you must learn to judge Christianity itself, and you will find no errors in Christianity. This is what many Atheists try to do, they create a false truth for themselves, but can't stand hearing the real truth, so they try eagerly to flush out the truth so they can live their false truth and they think that they have solved the important things in life when they haven't solved the most important. Mary has come to wash away the things that many people who call themselves christians, follow. You can find these things just by turning the TV on. If you think you are right, and that the Christian faith has errors, and that you can use those errors to prove that you are free from fault, then you are very wrong. I hope you can take my word with the fullest love of God that i have and i hope you can try to focus on something real that is occurring and that you can't escape, no matter how hard you try.

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Zaehet Strife said:

Would everyone here not agree, that life and human existence as a whole would become infinitely more tolerable and enjoyable if everyone would do just one simple thing...

Keep your denominations to yourself!

Have a cool idea? Great, share it, ideas are awesome... have something you believe? Keep it to yourself, the only reason anyone EVER presents or imposes a belief is because they are not really sure if it is true or not, and the only way they can justify thinking something is true without knowing it is true is to try and get others to think it is true too.

Grow some goddamn balls and keep the things you think are true without evidence to yourself (Unless you want to get made fun of from those of us who have developed critical thinking skills).

Want to share some facts? I'm here to listen, want to share a good idea? I'm here to listen. Gather up enough courage within yourself to keep from vomiting the ideas you think are true (beliefs) all over other people. Hold that shit down. Quit being a pussy.

Have enough courage to keep faith in the ideas you think are true and there is no need to share them, not unless you are filled with fear. The fear of them NOT being true.

Like i said before, have the courage to withstand your own tests of faith without the help or support of anyone else...

Our denominations should be a private thing.

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Padawanbater2 said:

Should be an interesting, and hopefully educating, thread. I see a lot of people claim they used to be atheists but saw the light and now they're a believer. Hopefully this thread sheds a little light on why that's an absurd statement to make, and why and how we each reached our own conclusions to nonbelief in a god.

I'll start...

Flashback to 1997, I was about 10 when the concept of God really came into my life..

1999, full blown Christian, believing (but not understanding) God created everything, you go to Heaven if you're good, Hell if you're bad, the whole 9 yards... I was influenced by my parents, having been duped themselves by tradition and years of conditioning. Not having realized this then, or having the capacity to, I blindly followed Christianity, believing it was right because my parents, the people who I depended on for life, said it was right...

2000, Y2K, my first taste of conscious irrationality. They said the world would end, I sat frightened, but preoccupied with my friend who made absurd statements about the taste of bbq chips dipped in koolaid (ROFL! to this day!) not really believing the world would end because I couldn't put 'Y2K - computers go out - the world ends!" into logical perspective, even as a 13 year old...

2003 - President Bush launches a war into Iraq because of 9/11. Confused, but I had the opinion of 'America is always right, why would they do anything bad against national interests?!', quickly realized (by 2006) that it was all bullshit for monetary gains, not American interest. Faith in the American government begins to fade...

2006 - began to question the moral reasons behind the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, realized the terrorists behind 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Began the long, arduous process of researching why we went into the Middle East in the first place...

2006-2010 - researched history, religion, politics, science, society, psychology, astronomy, philosophy, art, influences. Literally anything and everything to get a broader understanding of existence.

2010 - realized atheism

2010-2012 - was spent trying to empower other people, on the fence or otherwise confused, have reached some, but not others.

I find the hardest thing in this entire quest is those that are proud to be faithful. Those that reality doesn't exist to. Those that prefer myth over logic, tradition over fact. Those too scared to let go, too scared of non-existence. The most fulfilling thing has been reaching those that value truth over comfort. When it finally clicks inside someones head that they have no real reason to fear anything in existence, especially the claims of the fearful, it all becomes worth it. Worth all the countless hours spent trying to explain a concept to someone who doesn't want to hear it, worth all the time and effort put into a thoughtful response only to be given a one sentence rebuttal..

I'm a non believer because nothing believable has been presented.

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