Atheism

For me, I just don't believe in having a patriarchal figure telling me that I need to be nice to people. It's common sense for me. But apparently there are people who lack that, especially those who feel they need to read the Bible literally. The Bible is full of parables and stories. They are like fables, where they have meaning behind the story. But people don't seem to get that, and that's part of the reason I believe Catholicism and Christianity is brainwashing people. Some people aren't being taught right and they're believing all sorts of things. I mean, why must Christianity have so many denominations? Do they all really believe such different things? But then, why still put it under Christianity? I have way too many questions for religion, and people didn't like that. I'm a very logical person. I need to see the facts. I can't just believe something. This is why Buddhism has appealed to me. It just makes more sense. Also, my family happens to be very Christian and when I came out, they didn't like that. So that sort of solidified my atheism for me.

I still have a lot of Christian and Catholic friends and I don't mind that they are. That's what they believe and I'm not going to shun them for that, just like I hope they won't shun me for not believing. I have a gay friend who is still Catholic. We all believe what we want to believe. Christianity is just not for me...

 

Exactly! They want you to question and to find the Truth. That's why I keep gravitating towards it.

 

Yep XD Been there. My stepmom tells me all the time and has called me a demon child numerous times.

 

Atheist here. Funnily enough, I havent met a single soul, personally, that was homophobic because they are catholic. And I live in Portugal. We are probably one of the most religious countries in the EU.
People just dont give a fuck if I dont go to church.

This thread is not going to go well. Just saying.

 

...I have always believed in a God, yet I don't believe in what most churches seem to, where you need to go to church everyday, or be hetero to be a Christian. I go to a Christian church, but in reality, I don't believe "Jesus" is neccasarily the lord. I just believe there is a god, or maybe even two or three! However, I don't think I need to follow my church perfectly to be with him/her/it...

 

I don't believe in God, but I'm open minded and I may change my mind someday. I certainly do not like religion and dogma. If I believed in God, he'd be my my friend, not my superior.
I don't need anybody to tell me how to establish contact with God if I wish to.

 

I'm an Atheist...And if there is a God, and he hates Gay men, then he and I are not friends...

 

I was raised catholic, but turned pretty hardcore atheist around the age of 18. I still consider myself an atheist, but I have a huge fascination for religion, primarily occultism and western esotericism, like Hermeticism, Crowley and the likes. And there's something about the pragmatic use of religious belief in order to enforce subconscious/mental phenomena, like they do in for example Chaos Magick, that makes sense to me, even as an atheist.

 

I believe in God and have a good relationship with Him, but I dont believe in churches. Im a very spiritual person but not religious. But Im not here to convince you there is God or whatever, I just want to show you that people like us can still have a good relationship with God/gods.

 

There are christians and churches these days that are gay accepting, so my atheism has nothing to do with homophobic scripture. To me the whole idea is just stupid and illogical for me to believe in some sort of imaginary creature and that following a said religion somehow makes you a good person. Aren't true good people that way at heart because they choose to be, not due to someone else's influence?

I get that religion brings people hope and peace and I'll respect others' beliefs, but I feel I'm too old to still be believing in imaginary friends.

 

It's not so much that I'm "agnostic", it's more that I want to believe that there is a god. Although, I often find myself doubting the Lord's existence. The main question I have is, "If God's message is so vitally important, then why wasn't it delivered in a way that everyone can understand? Why do so many people differ with their beliefs?"

Aside from that, I also believe God can be real. However, it may be that perhaps the religions aren't fully correct. I believe that if there is a God, then he would want us to use our best potential as mankind to discover new things. While religion is good for our moral values, it should not limit mankind from reaching its greatest potential. Global warming, evolution, vaccines, etc. are all discoveries that will greatly impact our future. If we let religious beliefs get in the way of these, we are leading down a slippery slope that will have detrimental effects on our future generations.

Furthermore, if God is real, then it's perhaps that he is silent on world issues. Could it be he doesn't care? Could it be that he wants us to solve our own problems? Who knows? I believe that God could be real, and that it is better to live with morals, while also putting our efforts to achieving new innovations that will bring humanity to discoveries we have never even dreamed of. Finding alien life, curing cancer, stopping climate change, discovering clean and renewable energy, and solving the mysteries of the universe that we would have never even guessed were real.

Whether or not God exists is irrelevant. Humanity has a lot of great potential, so let's not get drawn into devoting our lives solely on a deity.

 

I'm an atheist and I strongly do not believe in a god.

 

I tend to avoid religious threads because I usually find it very difficult not to start a flamewar when someone's being hurt out of relogious reasons and dogma. I'd rather not label myself in this case either just like sexually. I see that religion as an institution is made to control people to the point where every single thing in their lives must go this or that way. I can never think of religion without thinking of all the suffering its victims had to endure since the beginning of humanity. It's reasonable to assume that early humans wanted to answer the questions of nature and they came up with the idea of gods, but as we find out more and more about how the world works, we lose the credibility of a "volcano god" or the like. Personification of inanimate objects or natural events is not something I dislike though, but it's something I'd love to read in a novel and not in something many base their lives on.

Ultimately noone is right, and at the same time, anyone could be right. The universe could be an incomprehensibly complex simulation for all we know, or it's one of many universes, or it's an endless scale where we are just a particle, and in every particle right here there's even smaller universes and so on, with time passing exponentially faster or slower as you zoom in or out... Endless possiblities for our imagination!

There doesn't have to be a purpose, and especially not to obey some arbitrary rules that don't affect anything. Oh, a couple of the same sex exists, that means ten puppies are being murdered somewhere every second!

Like in some of the earlier replies, I have to say that although I generally don't believe in a God or at least I have no strict definition like I've explained, if I had to choose a religion it would probably be Buddhism because from what I've seen it's more about being in peace with the world and yourself instead of forcing your beliefs on others and "killing" them if they do not agree. Don't think I'm categorising all christians or muslims or whoever here... the most agressive deeds of all these religions come to my mind first and probably not everyone believes they should go stone a rape victim if s(he) (of course the Bible does not put the parenthesis there) doesn't call for help.
I understand that when the Bible came around, times were different... but so are they now! One day these religions might share the same fate as the ancient Greek and Egyptian poltheism. Now they are something fascinating to me because noone goes around and lives to serve Annubis or something. Egyptian and Greek mythology is a bunch of interesting tales and stories now. (And Zeus was one horny god for sure)

So believe if you need to, be it a God, a Godess or an It, but NEVER hurt anyone for what you or they think.