While growing up in Michigan, I attended a Baptist Church. In the fifties they called themselves Swedish Baptist. When I was 13 I learned a few magic tricks. I saw magic as a type of dishonesty that I hadn’t noticed before. I saw that same dishonesty while in the army when I became familiar with the prophesy tricks, I Ching and fortune telling.
A couple months before my 27th birthday, in 1977, I had reason to be concerned about my afterlife. I felt that I needed to understand God. One day after about six weeks of research and a lifetime of religion, I was getting into my truck. Magic and prophesy came to mind with religion. I think I said it out loud, “It’s the same thing.”. That is the moment that I became an atheist.
I see religion as a trick using the same kinds of dishonesty that I see in magic and prophesy. To pull this off, you present yourself as an emissary of a god. You convince people to have faith in you. You convince these folks that having faith in what you say is having Faith in God. You guide their fantasies by speaking for the imaginary god. Believers will respect you to the point of worship.
People of every religion believe the god stories because they have faith in these tricksters. In earlier times it took charisma or a gimmick to sell god fantasies. Now you can go to a school to learn how an established religion would want their version of a god fantasy handled.
What a nice story… It’s always amazing when you have a moment of clarity like that. I’ve had a few in my life that were of the same ilk. Simple life lessons in which connections are made and the results are amazingly life-altering.
I feel pity for those who have been conditioned by their religion to distrust or ignore the products of such critical thinking.
Whether you have particularly strong willpower, the religious types in your life may not have been assiduous in that conditioning, or whatever, it’s good to hear you made it out.
When you want to know something you learn. Its not about just hearing and believing in what others say but experiencing what is said yourself. Spiritually, activity is personal. A pastor cannot bring us closer to God, they can only give us instructions which we must practice and use to become closer ourselves.
Pretty ironic given you are quoting clams you have been taught are true from the gospel myths, when exactly did you experience those I wonder?
You have yet to define, let alone evidence it even exists, and of course it’s personal, that is the nature of entirely unevidenced subjective beliefs.
I don’t believe they can do any such thing, and making yourself suggestible, and accepting instructions uncritically is utterly useless in establishing the truth of anything. You get to the truth by examining claims critically, and bend beliefs to the facts, not the other way around.
You have littered the threads here with your preaching, but not offered even the pretence of evidencing your claims.
I think you should refrain from preaching. This is an Atheist community, not a church group where you go around proselytizing about your imaginary friend. That would get you far in a Christian forum, but not here.
That is so true. In my early 20’s when my mother was forcing me to go to her church, the pastors were always hitting me up for money. Saying that “god” provides and blah blah blah. I found myself broke and in need of that money. The church didn’t help me. All they ever did was take from me and try to control my life.