To former Christians: Why do you no longer believe?

[Rageaholic]

What I can't get over is that so many people can't accept the answer "I don't know." There's nothing wrong with saying that we don't have an anwer to something right now, but someday we might. It isn't justified for anyone to say, "we don't know how such-and-such happens, therefore god did it."

QFT

Why can't more people see it that way? It has made my life so much more easier to accept "I don't know" as an answer to some of these difficult questions. It's not all black and white like so many Christians want you to believe.

[jackfaire]

QFT

Why can't more people see it that way? It has made my life so much more easier to accept "I don't know" as an answer to some of these difficult questions. It's not all black and white like so many Christians want you to believe.

Hey the Christians are right!!! My chessboard is black and white.

Oh wait you mean life. Never mind

[Lachrymose]

What I can't get over is that so many people can't accept the answer "I don't know." There's nothing wrong with saying that we don't have an anwer to something right now, but someday we might. It isn't justified for anyone to say, "we don't know how such-and-such happens, therefore god did it."

Yes, yes, one thousand times yes!

Also, I see a lot of this:

Fundie: Pffft...scientists are always changing their minds. At least with us, it's always the same reason.

Yes, because re-evaluation of standpoints when given new information is a tool of Satan.

[jackfaire]

Yes, yes, one thousand times yes!

Also, I see a lot of this:

Fundie: Pffft...scientists are always changing their minds. At least with us, it's always the same reason.

Yes, because re-evaluation of standpoints when given new information is a tool of Satan.

Politicians do that to discredit eachother too.

[protege]

Hey the Christians are right!!! My chessboard is black and white.

Actually, my chessboards are either yellow and purple, or red and black...

Seriously though, it has always pissed me off that many religious types attempt to discredit science, simply because "they're changing their minds." Um, no assholes. Science is constantly moving forward--we're constantly getting newer and better technology, which can be used to better understand our world...or even help advance our civilization.

Think about it--150 or 200 years ago, things like airplanes, submarines, cars, etc. only existed in the mind of Jules Verne. Now, we think nothing of jumping into a car to drive across town, or into a sub to check out the ocean floor, etc. None of those things came about easily--there were some serious fuck-ups along the way. All of those fuck-ups were part of the learning process.

For example, the first self-propelled vehicle, a three-wheeled steam-powered carriage (by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, in 1769!)..wasn't without problems. During a test, a later version went out of control, and hit a stone wall. Still, other inventors persevered with the idea--Karl Benz, the Stanley brothers, Henry Ford, etc. All of them proved that the idea (and others) could and would work.

Of course, along those lines, we can't forget the work of the Wright brothers either. They actually proved that some of the "accepted" data being used in their calculations...was actually crap! Because of that, it was no wonder that their earlier planes didn't get off the ground!

[smileyeagle1021]

Well, short version... because I realized just how much of a contradiction the phrase Gay Christian was. The bible makes it quite clear that one can't be both an active homosexual and a good christian. I still believe there is a higher power, I lean more towards the native american and paganistic beliefs of interconnectivity than any single all powerful God.

[HYHYBT]

It doesn't, though. That's just the usual interpretation.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Whereas I believe that we we die and the worms will eat us.

[Vagabond]

Just my 2 cents...
If there is a God, I cannot believe that He would have only 1 path to Heaven or Hell. My rationale:
[point 1] I can think of about 6 different ways to get from point A to point B. So, why would there be only 1 path to get to Heaven?
[point 2] Just as you interact with different people differently, and treat them differently, why would 1 religion be a 'one size fits all' solution to get to Heaven?
[point 3] Also, If one 'religion' is correct, why was it not laid down in the beginning and spread throughout all the lands and peoples of other countries/nationalities, etc? Western Christianity looks and feels alot different than, say, Shintoism. (If you want to claim Shintoism is a philosophy and not a religion, I won't argue. My point is that it is a different guideline set and different people/land.)

[Ghel]

Vagabond, that's exactly the sort of reasoning that led me to conclude that there are no gods. Because if the religion that I was born into is incorrect, why should I believe that any religion is correct?

I think that most people believe in their god or follow their religion for one simple reason: they were born into it. Sure, we've got a rather vocal minority of "born again" Christians, but I find it hard to believe that they were "reborn" without having heard about Christianity while growing up. That's probably the biggest reason for the Catholic Church's prohibition against birth control.

[Vagabond]

Ghel,
I am not saying there are no gods, I'm just saying that there is probably more than 1 path to heaven. Not all people are going to follow the same path. Thus it makes sense to me that there should be more than 1 path available. Neither is more correct or right than another - it is whichever works for you.
Example, you and your neighbor are trying to get to that restaurant across town. For whatever reason you take 2 different vehicles. I doubt that you both are going to go the same way, or one or the other of you may be caught at a red light. Same with religions - You may be trying to get to the same place, but you probably are not going to get there the same way.

But, I concede your second point, that many follow whatever religion they were born into.

[Fryk]

The Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish. According to Christianity, God has a plan so that everyone can come to Him and be saved. Ye, according to Jesus, a very small percentage of people actually will, and the rest go to Satan in Hell. So, Satan gets the majority of souls that God created- doesn't that mean he wins?

[Vagabond]

Ye, according to Jesus, a very small percentage of people actually will, and the rest go to Satan in Hell. So, Satan gets the majority of souls that God created- doesn't that mean he wins?

I would think that it's not a game of 'whoever has the most, wins'.
As I've been told, it's not what you have, it's what you do with it that counts. [*tries to dodge all the burns that will come my way for leaving that remark WIDE open*]

[ArenaBoy]

Why did I stop believing?

Because I'd rather sleep in on Sunday. Plus, anything that says you can't do what's essentially a bodily function before marriage is full of it. That, and they're nothing more than myths.

EDIT: And in the words of Zappa:

"The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you're going to be as smart as God. We can't have that.""

[Ghel]

Ghel, I am not saying there are no gods...

Yeah, I see that. What I was commenting on was how similar your post was to my views in the time in between believing in a Christian God and not believing in any gods.

For a long time, I thought that there was a god, but I didn't have a definition for him. During that time, I still thought that good people (regardless of belief) would go to heaven. I researched other religions, considered them, and ultimately rejected each one of them. I even made up (what I thought at the time were) original god-concepts that seemed more reasonable than what I had encountered before. But I also abandoned these concepts for various reasons.

[ASIDE] One of the concepts that I considered and then rejected was that god was female. A mother-goddess may feel right, but my rebuttal is this: a female god would have come up with a better method than menstruation. [/ASIDE]

So I went from devout Christian to fence-sitting agnostic to atheist. The whole process took about five years. That doesn't mean that my philosophy is static, though. I'm open to hearing alternate views, but anybody trying to convince me that a god exists has an uphill battle ahead of him. The biggest problem, for me, is still the one that led me away from the Christian God in the first place: the Problem of Evil.