# Question for fellow atheists and agnostics



## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

I am wondering how most atheists and agnostics came to their conclusions that religion is false?

For me, it was not complicated. It was just obvious to me that it was a lie from the first time I heard it. There was never any chance I was going to believe it. 

You?


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## blue2 (May 20, 2013)

I was raised with religion but would describe myself as agnostic now tbh, I believe there is something more out there and it's beyond our comprehension but religion doesn't cover it. 

To much hypocrisy in religion for a start like priests can preach the good word but be secretly fu¢ing the alter boys etc.


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## andy1984 (Aug 18, 2006)

my parents were religious, but not overly so. but none of it stuck in my mind. and then later on, just observing the obvious lies, fairy tales, sexual abuse, etc. lol. though its hard to identify as atheist or agnostic because they are incredibly boring narratives.


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## Omni-slash (Feb 10, 2016)

Initially, it was simply a matter of becoming conscious of the suffering endured in this world, which excluded any kind of benevolent creator, and most major religions with it.


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## Paul (Sep 26, 2005)

It's like Santa or the tooth fairy: you'd never take such a bizarre invention seriously unless you were repeatedly told to by adults who are supposed to know better. I was raised by agnostics, and always puzzled as to how they could be uncertain about something so absurd. 

And any sort of all-powerful being, or at least one that desired worship, would simply demonstrate its existence like everyone else does.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

Well my mum's family is mostly catholic. One of my cousins I was close to was christened and went to a catholic primary + high school but my dad insisted on me not being christened because he felt me and my brother should choose ourselves. But since school sort of pushes Christianity on you here culturally unless you're Islamic (it's actually part of UK law for primary schools, or was) I ended up becoming Christian and actually cried once as a child about how I wasn't christened so Jesus wouldn't love me haha. I ended up growing out of it sometime during my early teen years or maybe late childhood (11/12.) I thought Neo-Paganism, Wicca etc which I became more aware of as I got older were cooler aesthetically and culturally but never adopted them spiritually. Over the last 2-3 years I've also become more interested in certain mythology, and Satanic symbolism obviously.

I guess 'growing out of it' is weird, since for a lot of people they seem to have some dramatic sort of moment where they leave and such but maybe that's because it was never really being pushed on me by my family. Besides that I didn't really follow all the strict anti-science beliefs most Christians do.

But I consider the Abrahamic religions to be particularly incompatible with me after exploring more. After all I identify a lot more with their primary villain, and with Kabbalistic figures like Lilith. Many traits I have are considered to be 'Satanic' and I guess I don't hate myself _that _ much. Beyond that I see Yahweh as being a dictator figure and I find many elements hypocritical and the vast majority of followers of those religions pick and choose what to follow.

Finally I developed a corruption fetish (among others,) and this plays out in various ways, but it's not just appealing sexually it's kind of just amusing/entertaining to me when things like this happen. Basically I am just kind of sadistic.


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## blue2 (May 20, 2013)

Well I was baptised & confirmed so I'm definitely going to heaven, I'll put in a good word with Saint Peter at the gate for all you heathens though : /


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## harrison (Apr 14, 2012)

I was raised a Seventh Day Adventurer because that's what my Mum and Grandma were. My father was basically a criminal. (close enough really) Easily the most dishonest man I've ever known - he was okay if he liked you though.

It all just seemed very silly - especially when I got to about 15 or 16 and could actually think for myself. It did take a while to get some of those big questions out of my system though - I studied Asian religions at university as a comparison. Hindu thought is far more interesting than Christianity. It makes it seem even sillier than the Church manages to.


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## Sekiro (Dec 29, 2019)

WillYouStopDave said:


> I am wondering how most atheists and agnostics came to their conclusions that religion is false?
> 
> For me, it was not complicated. It was just obvious to me that it was a lie from the first time I heard it. There was never any chance I was going to believe it.
> 
> You?


When my fundamentalist religious upbringing started making incorrect claims about the world I lived in I started questioning the veracity of everything they told me.


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## FloridaGuy48 (Jun 30, 2014)

I think I came to their conclusions that religion is false is when I learned about science and how nothing in the bible basically made any sense. And people would tell me you just have to believe it "on faith". Really annoyed me my parents would say they were believers and would never question anything and try to force it down my throat. My dad certainly didn't act like a Christian though. Had like 5 Dui's and some other legal issues. So not a good guy in a lot of ways


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## Tetragammon (Jun 2, 2015)

I wish it hadn't been so complicated for me. 

But I don't want to write a wall of text again. Let's just say that it started with boredom; progressed through serious problems with rampant perfectionism, self-righteousness and hypocrisy; and was ultimately decided by a total lack of personal experience with any kind of god or spirituality, despite years of very earnest attempts. The fact that Mormonism is so obviously a total scam didn't help, but I didn't learn about all of that until I was well on my way out for the aforementioned reasons.

I never understood how some people can see the problems with one religion, only to jump into another one. Out of the fire and into the frying pan; great job, but you're still brainwashed.


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## Chevy396 (Jul 10, 2017)

I was forced/raised into it, but I always rejected the church's authority. I think I sort of clung to the nice parts of Christianity for a while out of fear of going to the hell they programmed into my subconscious.

Those days are well gone and now I kind of have a dark viewpoint about what hell really is and some sort of desire to make it reality so I can suffer even more and become stronger through it.

It seems to work for me and I haven't been scared enough to apologize to that ******* in quite a while. **** him. He made this **** he can fix it himself.


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## hateliving (Jun 12, 2018)

I knew it was a lie too from the first time I heard it. I couldn't believe people were so stupid to believe it.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

hateliving said:


> I knew it was a lie too from the first time I heard it. I couldn't believe people were so stupid to believe it.


 Well, it wasn't so much that I thought they were stupid. I didn't even really want to have an opinion. I just didn't want to have anything to do with it. I kind of was just thinking "I can't believe I actually NEED to be here questioning my sanity like this".

Like I just felt like it was wrong to put someone in that situation where they have to either sit there and put up with being force-fed something they don't want or to protest and have their loved ones turn on them. It feels (felt) icky and creepily coercive.

I spent years just sitting there and not wanting to be there and getting up on church days wanting to just go outside and be in nature and knowing the instant I said anything there was gonna be trouble.


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## zkv (Feb 18, 2020)

A couple ways people get into religion are leading bad lives/making big mistakes, and of course being brought up with those beliefs in the first place. Although I did get a bad life in a lot of ways and made lots of mistakes, since no one told me what to believe in my youth whatever spirituality I display isn't based on religious texts. Always found it hard to understand how people can believe and fully trust the parts that resonate with them (like the idea of the afterlife) and ignore the parts that don't (like the homophobia or sexism). I'd rather take whatever ideas that ring true to me from any source.

I don't wanna confront people's religious beliefs anymore like I used to, just specific things I feel strongly about but treating them like any secular idea. I do make jokes about some stuff sometimes but only around people I know won't take offense.

Don't find injustice to disprove the existence of any of the gods or versions of God people believe, though. Gods can be flawed, capricious and selfish too, don't generalize. Tons of different gods out there.


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## aqwsderf (Aug 16, 2013)

I'm agnostic. 

My parents aren't religous. So I'm not either. It wasn't something that I was taught to believe in. I wouldn't completely argue against it. I wouldn't argue against a planet full of unicorns in a distant galaxy either. 🤷‍♀️


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## mezzoforte (May 16, 2010)

Paul said:


> It's like Santa or the tooth fairy: you'd never take such a bizarre invention seriously unless you were repeatedly told to by adults who are supposed to know better. I was raised by agnostics, and always puzzled as to how they could be uncertain about something so absurd.
> 
> And any sort of all-powerful being, or at least one that desired worship, would simply demonstrate its existence like everyone else does.


You described my thoughts exactly. As a child, I knew that Santa and the tooth fairy weren't real...but everyone just pretended they were, for fun. And I thought adults saw religion the same way. But then I realized they were serious...:con


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

mezzoforte said:


> You described my thoughts exactly. As a child, I knew that Santa and the tooth fairy weren't real...but everyone just pretended they were, for fun. And I thought adults saw religion the same way. *But then I realized they were serious*...:con


 Oh I never had any doubt that they actually believed it. I remember sitting in the front row with my parents at church and watching the preacher get redder and sweatier and more and more worked up as he went in and out of his shouting "fire and brimstone" tirades.

So I would look around thinking I would see the faces of people who were just as confounded as I was as to what exactly was wrong with this man and all I saw was slack jaws and nods of agreement and/or silent applause.


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## nekomaru (Aug 3, 2014)

aqwsderf said:


> I'm agnostic.
> 
> My parents aren't religous. So I'm not either. It wasn't something that I was taught to believe in. I wouldn't completely argue against it. I wouldn't argue against a planet full of unicorns in a distant galaxy either. &#129335;‍♀


This. Religion was something other people did. It just wasn't a part of my life.

I wasn't taught to hate it or anything (I even participated in the bible study sessions during grade school because back then there was only "Christians" and "The Others" - Muslims and the odd Hindu or two. Don't think my teachers were really aware of atheism/agnosticism and automatically assumed that if I wasn't an Other, I was Christian?). But I treated it like story time. I only remember drawing some picture of a guy with a rainbow jacket, and maybe someone being thrown into a pit after being beaten up...? I wonder what that was about...


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

aqwsderf said:


> I'm agnostic.
> 
> My parents aren't religous. So I'm not either. It wasn't something that I was taught to believe in. I wouldn't completely argue against it. I wouldn't argue against a planet full of unicorns in a distant galaxy either. &#129335;‍♀


 I can only say that I can see why you'd feel that way if you were lucky enough to grow up with parents who didn't believe it and/or didn't try to force it on you (to the point of torment). But that's just it. It's just as easy to get unlucky as it is to get lucky when it comes to what your parents believe.


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## asittingducky (Apr 23, 2013)

@mezzoforte idk, I'm still not convinced anybody can actually believe santa is real...there's no way they're serious!


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## aqwsderf (Aug 16, 2013)

I remember leaving college one night and some girl approaching me asking me if I've accepted Jesus Christ into my life. I still don't know how to respond to that. I said "no" and I regretted every minute of that encounter after that no lol. I don't get the purpose of forcing your beliefs onto someone else. 

My mom has some faith. She had me baptised Catholic "just in case." But I'm pretty sure there's more you need to do for that. My dad is completely atheist. I'm glad my parents are open minded and aware. I understand why religous parents feel the need to pass it down. But it's strange overall in my mind.


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## blue2 (May 20, 2013)

aqwsderf said:


> I remember leaving college one night and some girl approaching me asking me if I've accepted Jesus Christ into my life. I still don't know how to respond to that.


You could just say yes, that's what I would do, if it turns out he's real you've got a shoe in the door, if he's not it won't matter, no-one gets hurt by saying yes.


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## aqwsderf (Aug 16, 2013)

blue2 said:


> You could just say yes, that's what I would do, if it turns out he's real you've got a shoe in the door, if he's not it won't matter, no-one gets hurt by saying yes.


I'm concerned about what the conversation becomes after that when approached by a stranger. But that's probably what I'll do if it ever happens again.


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## mezzoforte (May 16, 2010)

asittingducky said:


> @mezzoforte idk, I'm still not convinced anybody can actually believe santa is real...there's no way they're serious!


Yeah, I meant more like pretending he's real, for the fun of it. Make-believe is fun, especially as a kid...I enjoyed plenty of stuff that I knew wasn't real. 



WillYouStopDave said:


> Oh I never had any doubt that they actually believed it. I remember sitting in the front row with my parents at church and watching the preacher get redder and sweatier and more and more worked up as he went in and out of his shouting "fire and brimstone" tirades.
> 
> So I would look around thinking I would see the faces of people who were just as confounded as I was as to what exactly was wrong with this man and all I saw was slack jaws and nods of agreement and/or silent applause.


:teeth Yup, I started to understand it more once I started going to church.


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## zkv (Feb 18, 2020)

aqwsderf said:


> I remember leaving college one night and some girl approaching me asking me if I've accepted Jesus Christ into my life. I still don't know how to respond to that.


Maybe try saying you're a Jew?


aqwsderf said:


> I don't get the purpose of forcing your beliefs onto someone else.


I suspect some just do it by inertia, but others really believe they're doing you a favor. Save your eternal soul from Hell or, if they don't believe atheists and the like are necessarily doomed, they still want to fill a God-shaped hole that's in your heart.


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## Paul (Sep 26, 2005)

WillYouStopDave said:


> Oh I never had any doubt that they actually believed it. I remember sitting in the front row with my parents at church and watching the preacher get redder and sweatier and more and more worked up as he went in and out of his shouting "fire and brimstone" tirades.


I'm still not convinced they really believe it deep down. Very few of them look forward to celebrating their own or loved one's deaths the way I would if I believed death = eternal bliss with god. And they certainly don't behave as if they're afraid of fire and brimstone either -- they act like they want to control other people with those rules but they'll defy god's rules in a second if nobody's looking, because they know there isn't an omnipresent being looking.


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## D'avjo (Sep 23, 2018)

extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence


at the time of writing, there is currently **** all


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## D'avjo (Sep 23, 2018)

Paul said:


> I'm still not convinced they really believe it deep down. Very few of them look forward to celebrating their own or loved one's deaths the way I would if I believed death = eternal bliss with god.


Exactly!!


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## darkcyberpunk (Mar 2, 2020)

The clencher for me was seeing all the different religions and the way they all claimed to be from the one true God just like the religion I was raised in. Not mathematically possible, dude.


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## D'avjo (Sep 23, 2018)

talking to work colleaugue, apparantly killing off jesus and making him come back from the dead was a masterstroke by god, it stopped animal sacrifices in its tracks, no human could have thought of that - so is this evidence for the existence of God.


Didnt know what the fck he was talking about so just nodded along, and then asked him surely there was a simpler way of stopping the animal sacrifices.


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## Umpalumpa (Jan 26, 2014)

I was reading greek mythology and norse mythology when i was 5... never believed in the tooth fairie.


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## Pechorin (Mar 3, 2020)

I guess I don't know that the conclusions of religion are wrong, I just see no compelling reasons to believe they are correct. I do sometimes dwell on the mystery of existence, but just because something isn't intelligible to me doesn't mean I have to invent some way to make sense of it.

I remember reading David Hume's _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_ and being quite impressed with the argument about how there seems to be design present in the workings of nature. But that's only if you look at things selectively. For every well oiled system, there are things that seem very chaotic and lacking marks of intelligence. So I don't think the religiously inclined can really point to nature as proof that there is an intelligent creator.


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## SociopathicApe (May 17, 2017)

Being raised in a non-religious house, there was no pressure to believe in one, particular faith. I was free to learn about every other religion that was out there, and I could never figure how these faiths could be definitively true. A hypothetical that's stuck with me for years goes like this: humanity loses all of the progress we've worked on for centuries. All the information, every building, machine, tool, artwork, etc. We're back to year zero. Everything we know related to science would return to us. Fire would have a different name and would be named by a different person, but the properties remain the same. It's a constant. The concept of a god, souls and an afterlife would return, but those names that we place such importance on (Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham) are gone. How do they return with the same significance they once had with no evidence of them?


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## Canadian Brotha (Jan 23, 2009)

Basically I just never really believed it & when I was old enough to refuse to attend church I stopped going. I’m not completely sure how to define my spirituality but religion isn’t really a part of it in a definitive way, especially not any one in particular. I find that different aspects of various religions chime with me & that’s why I am agnostic


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## CNikki (Aug 9, 2013)

I would say I'm agnostic as it suits my general beliefs on how we will likely never confirm an existence of a God (or Gods). At the same time it doesn't really matter since we have to live with what we are physically given. Having any type of faith alone cannot do the latter. I can understand why people think otherwise since life can be pretty crappy (alternative for another word). But then it goes back to the age-old "if God exists, then why does -this- happen?". Say if there is one and we find out after we die, I actually would question directly, because it doesn't sound like this God is loving enough to allow the cruel things going on in this world, even if it's "from our own free-will".

To make a long story short, I was raised as a Catholic for tradition's sake and then tried to 'branch out' into different sects and some other philosophical ideologies. They've only worked for so long and I couldn't pretend that any of it made sense from the start, which looking back that type of 'questioning' started when I was very young. Even if I wanted to believe, with all evidence involved and time invested to attempt to believe, I can't.


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## nubly (Nov 2, 2006)

I don't remember. I remember when it happened, at 15, but I don't remember what made me lose my faith.


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## losthorizon (Oct 27, 2019)

I was not raised in a religious household but I was extremely interested in the supernatural, urban myths and aliens as a kid. As I got older, the materialistic nature of the universe became apparent and undeniable to me and I realized that there is nothing mystical about our lives - no undiscovered horror that awaits us in the dark, no ancient creature that resides in the uncharted depths of the ocean. All phenomena, observable or not, occur as a result of the physical universe. The world was a lot more interesting when I was a kid and believed in all manners of nonsense.


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## Milco (Dec 12, 2009)

Never believed. Or maybe I did, but only in the way kids believe in Santa.
I thought it was stories people told each other for comfort and to find meaning in life (and for many it is just that) rather than something people thought was genuinely real.
We don't have many fundamentalists here, so it's generally much more relaxed.


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## Untitled_Painting (Apr 5, 2020)

Abridged version: For myself, I grew up in an environment that was very very religious. From the moment I was born I was taught to fear the outside world (that being anything outside Christian fundamentalism). Dont know if anyone knows about thought crimes but it's the idea that even the things you think can be bad. So they can make tou feel bad for even thinking about leaving, and then scare you from a young age with images of hell.

So it was very slow for me to come out of. I could never have the faith that some people seemed to have....and it caused me a lot of mental pain because I thought I was failing in some way. Eventually though when nothing else was working, I decided that I was tired of being scared and thought that if everything I was taught was true then I had nothing to be afraid of and I could look into other explanations of reality. When I did....I finally let go of Christianity for good. It was one of the most liberating things I have ever done. I've been an atheist since.


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## Shawn81 (Jul 9, 2014)

My father was religious. Thankfully, he never tried too hard to indoctrinate me. I was more or less left to question existential thoughts for myself, so I had a more objective approach. Long story short; people can claim anything they want, billions of people claim different things, they can't all be right, and none of them have any evidence to support any of it. The burden of proof falls on the claimant in all things, and they've all obviously failed. I understand some reasons why people choose to believe such things. To some degree it must be a type of coping mechanism for the fear of the unknown regarding what's beyond our current horizon of understanding, but choosing to believe something that's unproven (or downright ridiculous) isn't something that makes me feel any better. I do have some anxiety about not knowing, but am also comfortable in admitting that I simply don't know answers that are currently unknowable.


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## ColoredSky (Jun 30, 2021)

I was very religious when I was little and had a lot of faith in Jesus and so on. But with time, with opening up to other perspectives, challenging the ideology and, finding logical explanations and incongruency between the religion and my view of life I became agnostic. I still believe the world isn't accidental, and that because we don't have all the answers there's still a "God" there's something our minds can't explain that shaped the world but I stop questioning because every question will lead me to another one and never to a conclusion.


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## Sainnot (Feb 6, 2021)

I’m agnostic. I never came to the conclusion that religion is false, I just have never seen a good argument for the existence of god or any sort of afterlife.


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## either/or (Apr 27, 2020)

Well religion is just a branch of philosophy and a product of the human mind like any other set of philosophical beliefs, so its fairly obvious religion and the notion of God are just human generated creations as opposed to anything divine. The cultural origins and evolution of Christianity are well documented. Additionally, look at how many differing religions exist both concurrently and historically, all with very different culturally specific interpretations of God or the afterlife or whatever. These religions are reflections of their human creators (i.e. Christianity with it's monotheistic patriarchal God) and not some objective, disinterested source of knowledge.

And most religions have conflicting doctrines. If God existed and wanted humans to follow his philosophy wouldn't he have communicated it directly to us instead of forcing us to create it on our own? Shouldn't there be some consistency? Also, where do prehistoric anatomically modern but behaviorally primitive humans (i.e. no writing, limited language skills, limited culture and limited ability to transfer knowledge from one generation to another) play into all this? Why would God just ignore them for tens of thousands of years and not bother to bless humanity with religion until a few thousand years ago when coincidentally humans just happened to evolve behaviorally to be able to produce religious philosophies?

There are just too many holes in this whole God theory methinks.


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## Blue Dino (Aug 17, 2013)

I guess I am an agnostic. But regardless, I see religion as nothing more than a socializing club who bonds over a religious belief. If it brings together people to form healthy bonds and connections, so be it, good for them. My only issue with religious people is when they start invading your boundaries and force their beliefs onto you, or force you to join in on their beliefs. Something I find very common with certain religions (including the most popular ones). So this kind of make me hold a negative perception towards people on some of these religions. And to go back to my previous point of it being a socializing club, I personally have know quite a few people who admitted to have go/went to church strictly as a ploy to simply socialize or meet mates and that they personally in secret don't care for the religion. So this further sinks my perception I have on a lot of church goers in general. But a lot of church goers and worshippers I have met/known are indeed very pleasant people meanwhile they are some very toxic and narcissistic and delusional people mixed in. I know more of this now because I have been doing near daily volunteering work with a church this past many months.


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## zonebox (Oct 22, 2012)

It comes down to not having enough trust in my own views to adequately have grown faith. Faith is like a mustard seed, and it will not grow in infertile soil, I am not of fertile ground to produce a glorious mustard bush. I'm afraid you'll all have to settle for ketchup. I think of faith as hope and trust, and my trust has never been very strong.


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## firelight (Jan 31, 2019)

I'm agnostic but Christianity has rubbed me the wrong way most of my life. Mostly the people and the ridiculous things they said and did. I did used to find the sentiments and the music emotionally moving as a kid but none of those things are exclusive to the religion.

Then during a period when fanatical Christian woman held an important place in my life I actually cared enough to start reading books and that was the end of entertaining those beliefs, I have no patience for them anymore. I see them as actively harmful and the worst thing is seeing people who are naturally generous and kind attributing any good thing that they do to their religion, and any bad thing to themselves. I truly hate the church for teaching people they should think that way.


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## Starcut83 (Feb 13, 2021)

I'm agnostic in that I believe there's more than meets the eye to reality but I don't know what it is nor do I claim to. It was the moment I realized God didn't create us in his image, we created him in ours that it really clicked. I've had some really cool conversations over that line in the past with my neighbor when we would sit out in the parking lot of my apartment building every morning and smoke a cigarette while drinking our morning coffee. I miss those conversations.


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## neen (Dec 13, 2012)

I don't remember my parents pushing any kind of philosophy on me, which is a double edged sword since I could've used at least something. But my memory of those times is hazy. My father is somewhat logical and analytical so it's possible some interactions with him are what started me on the naturalism pathway. Never at any point in my life did I wonder about the idea of theism as something worthwhile to consider. Guess I was lucky (or?). And since then, all the exploration of the universe only pushed me closer to the idea that agnosticism is the most intellectually humble perspective.


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