Dear Atheists, Questions From A "believer"

Great Debates
101

blowero, Then you didn’t notice that a majority of the people who answered the post said they had no children? Was just my tongue in cheek way of compiling different answers into conclusions. A joke explained isn’t worth anything though.

As for looking at how I was coming across, you seem to think I didn’t go there. It actually took me two days to come up with the questions and think about and re-word them. I then asked three other people if they thought anyone would find them offensive. Two people said they couldn’t see anything upsetting and my husband said a handful would get mad, some would try and answer to the best of their ability and others would make fun of the questions or God. He loves being right. When he read some of the responses, he thought haughty was kind of funny. He told me we’re just poor white trash and we’d have to go a long ways to reach haughty. I don’t feel defensive when there’s negative response, just not as friendly. I’m old and have formed the opinion (life experience, Santa Claus/God comments) that if someone is calling you names or opens with “your problem is”, they really aren’t interested in anything else I have to say. I did apologize to anyone I offended that really addressed it to me. I never want anything I say to bother someone, but you have to realize that this is an impossibility. That it isn’t always going to be the speaker’s attitude, but also can have to do with whatever the listener has or is going through. Even if I don’t always feel responsible, I always feel sorry if someone is hostile and I’ve somehow unintentionally caused it. These questions would not offend me, but if I sent them to the members of the church I attend, “turned around”(as GS suggested), there would probably be at least as much, I’m guessing more negative response. That is probably a gross understatement. Don’t want to beat this to death and already have, but if you have any specifics of what seemed wrong, what sounded wrong, let me know. I won’t “yah but” it.

You asked me in an earlier post where I saw the anger/name calling. I still haven’t quit figured out the whole quote or link thing, since my computer shuts me out every other screen but here’s where you asked and I’ll just tell you where the threads are:

quote by IWLN
My lack of knowledge is why I’m here. Don’t know “squat” about atheists. When I was tip-toeing through another site, there seemed to be some anger and name calling at God.

I should have said thread.
quote of your response
Hmmm…you’ll have to give some cites for that. I can’t evaluate whether they were justified in what they said without any context.

It was in “Jesus lives or dies”, posts by DC on 10-19 and 10-20, and posts by Gadfly 10-20 and 10-23. Also Gadfly in this post on 10-28.

When I first made a comment or two about the name calling, I was puzzled and thought I sensed anger. Later on I realized it was to give the occasional “believer” reader a little poke for fun. The only reason I brought it up now is the two comments I made on it seemed to inflame other people who said it would be stupid to insult a God that doesn’t exist and in one of my comments I asked if the “typical” atheist had a grudge and was told we don’t name call on this site. Was told to prove it. The act itself was insignificant, but the demand to prove it is why I bring it up.

Last and certainly least, no I am not obtuse. Having a sense of humor is a cross I must bear, even if no one gets it. I know sarcasm is allowed. We are not very serious in my house. Laugh and tease alot. When we talk religion I always refer to my hubby as “you damn Catholics”.

Off topic sort of, ignore if you want:
On the whole I found several threads to be learning experiences. The most troubling thing I came across here was under “the need to determine who gets into heaven” a poster Peace Lady, told everyone that she had 4-6 months to live due to pancreatic cancer. There were only 3 responses saying anything to this person out of over 1200 views and I think over 70 posts. Two of the responders, myself and Lekatt are “believers”, the other poster was Zoe and I don’t know her/his belief. I know it’s an akward thing to address death from any belief system and I hope there were maybe emails instead of public posts. I would start a new thread called “Are Believers More Compassionate than Atheists”, but I’ll pass on that. I’m done. I’ve decided no more questions from me. I’ll just read. Thanks again everyone. IWLN :wink:

102

No problem, dude (dudette?), apology accepted! :slight_smile:

Here’s another link about Occam’s Razor, a valuable tool to have in our arsenal in the fight against ignorance (“It’s taking longer than we thought!”). OC is not a philosophy, but a tool to help separate the likely from the bullshit.

103

Musicat, Thanks. Skeptics have their own dictionary and mine is still from 1975. Hmmmm. It’s dudette to you. IWLN

104

My wife and I have two kids and we’re both athiests. We’re doing our best to raise them as good little non-believers.

Why are we atheists? It’s not because we’re angry with God or trying to dodge God’s judgement. It’s because it seems to be the best explanation for how the world works. We are atheists because we believe its the truth, and that acknowledging the truth is a virtue, and that to act otherwise would be a hypocritical sham.
Consider:

  • There is no empirical evidence for the existence of a god or gods.

  • Many aspects of the world that were once believed to be the result of the actions of supernatural beings have been proven to have purely natural explanations.

  • There are hundreds of different religions which all make contradictory claims about which version of supernatural reality is true.

  • There are many extinct religions (Mithraism, Aztec rituals, Greek Paganism, etc.) whose followers were just as devout and convinced of the truth of their beliefs as today’s Christians and Hindus are.

  • The human brain is hardwired to see patterns even where none exist. (faces in the clouds, the Man in the Moon, etc.)
    So, as we see it, our choices boil down to:

  1. Arbitrarily pick one unsupported supernatural belief system out of many, with the knowledge that many supernatural belief systems in the past have been proven wrong or have vanished entirely.

  2. Accept a material explanation for the world that encompasses within it an explanation for why people are irrationally drawn to religion.

My wife and I (and many other folks) have chosen #2.

Does this help?

105

Do not make public accustations of trolling in Great Debates.

Direct personal insults in Great Debates are also forbidden. Don’t do that again.

106

Didn’t mean for you to stop posting altogether, I was really just hoping that you might take a look at how you might have contributed to some of the reactions you got. Stop trying to defend what you said, and start examining it:

The way you worded this, it sounds like you are ridiculing the idea that people don’t live forever. What was the point of being so graphic as to say “just going to be dust”, rather than just saying they will die? And what’s with that last sentence? You describe something that’s quite obviously sad, and then ask if it makes us sad. It’s like you’re really asking: “Hey atheists, are you all unfeeling robots?”

This question is just plain inflammatory, IMO.

In this question, you’ve already made an assumption, i.e. “atheists think God should have to be proven or rationalized.” Well, that’s not necessarily what atheists think. Can you see how it might be irritating to some when your questions are really thinly veiled statements of your own opinion?

Do I really need to tell you what’s wrong with that question? I mean, for heaven’s sake - if you felt you needed to say “Don’t get your panties into a bundle” (which is a pretty rude thing to say, BTW), then you obviously were aware that there was a problem with the tone of your question. Rather than admonish people to keep their panties straight, you should have reworded the question, don’t you think?

The rest of the questions were fine and some were quite thought-provoking, IMO.

Also, if you use a winking smilie;), there will be no doubt that you are joking. Sarcasm doesn’t come across well in writing, so use the emoticons.

And I agree that posting links is difficult. The best way I’ve found to do it is to open a second browser window and go the the thread you want to link to. Then go back and forth between the two windows, highlight and copy all the quotes you want to refer to from the other thread, and paste them into this thread. Then go up to the address bar, copy the web address of the other thread, and paste it into this thread - then you have your link.

107

Just wanted to chime in as another atheist with an atheist spouse and little atheist children. :slight_smile:

108

So how do your little atheists deal with the much numerous beleiver offspring ?

109

My kids are still pretty young, so it hasn’t been an issue yet. (The oldest is only in first grade.)

The community we live in is very multicultural so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it won’t be too big a deal. My son’s school has a large Jewish contingent, as well as significant numbers of Asian and Middle Eastern immigrant kids, so its not like there’s a big monolithic bloc of Christians enforcing a particular world view … .

110

My kid’s too young for that, but my plan is to simply explain it as “This is what some people believe.”

If pressed, I will simply tell the truth, that Daddy doesn’t believe in those things because they sound like silly stories. But I certainly won’t force my offspring to believe/disbelieve as I do.

111

blowero, Didn’t say I was going to stop posting, just won’t ask questions about your beliefs. I’ll go back to getting information about atheists from other "Christians.:wink: Probably impossible for me not to ask questions. Hey, I’ll just disguise them as statements. Okay, I’m not going to do the wink again. I used to have nightmares about whole walls of dancing smilie faces.

So it was the life ends, no life after type questions, #4,5,12 that seemed to be worded the worst. For the record(but not a yah,but), the “don’t get your panties into a bundle” must be a Northwest thing. We say it jokingly. It was my way of saying I know this question isn’t worded well. That WAS the good re-worded version. You should have seen some of the first ones. #10 is the big shocker to me. From the answers, I still have that impression. Over and over I was told there is no logical proof of God. I felt like my saying that so much of the universe is unexplainable was the part most disagreed with. #5 should have been left out, simply because it is a topic that is inflammatory no matter how it’s worded.

Please remember I have spent most of my life knowing God(IMHO), so in effect, the flip side is a completely foreign concept to me. I always just figured that Atheism was what you “chose” to believe possibly more out of neglect, disinterest and maybe rebellion or “the easy way out”. I was wrong. I was surprised and (boy am I frantically searching for the right word here) impressed?, humbled?,chastened? at the amount of research, thought, introspection and soul-searching :wink: that actually went into this conclusion/choice/belief. More than your “typical” Christian does. Impressed, but not converted.:smiley: Thanks for the clue on the links. IWLN

112

I, too, grew up in a very religious, fundamentalist Christian family. Ancestors were ministers, doctors and teachers; some were all three, as an uncle & aunt who were both doctors and taught medicine as missionaries in China.

Quite naturally, I felt at home with that kind of religion, at least until the “age of rebellion,” or my teens. In high school I grew religiously-restless. I wasn’t questioning the family’s belief in God, but I was considering the possibility that some other family might have a better one. I attended, often with friends who were only too glad to try to convert me, churches/synagogues of Catholic, Jewish, Quaker (Friends), Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and Mormon faiths, and while in college, Buddhist, Nichiren Shoshu (chanting), Satanism and even Scientology. I was disturbed by the claims of each that they were the one, true religion (yes, some are more strident than most, but basic indoctrination rarely allows for incorporation of “deviant” ideas).

I was also steeped in literature such as that of Dr. Harry Rimmer, of the Moody Bible Institute, and took an interest in Velikovsky and the dowsing experiments of Henry Gross & Kenneth Roberts. These all seemed to hold out a hope of the supernatural interpretation of the bible and earthly processes.

In my defense, I honestly say that there was a personal undercurrent of doubt to all these investigations, and that is probably why I never joined any particular religion and never preached dowsing or Velikovsky; each turned me off as well as on, I guess. But I confess I was taken in by Dr. Rimmer’s arguments where he picked apart the Bible in minute detail, “proving” that it was divinely inspired and inerrant (if interpreted properly, of course).

Then I began to absorb science and the scientific method. This seemed to hold out the best promise to me; here was something I could test, examine, and didn’t require pure, blind faith to accept. I learned what logic was (both for computers and philosophy) and how logical fallacies worked; and how humans know what “isn’t so.” I took an interest in how magic tricks are performed and sometimes used to mislead the unwary, including ourselves. And I learned that something called a “mystery” by biblical scholars, where their investigation ended, was only a starting point for scientists.

With my new tools, I re-examined Rimmer, Velikovsky and Roberts, and discovered where the flaws lay (and they are numerous!). Education in philosophy showed me that other points of view than the merely incredulous had merit worth examining. I went to classes such as CSICOP’s “Scientific Examination of Religion,” where evidence from archeology, psychology, history, geology, physics, chemistry, astronomy and other sciences were used to analyze ancient, possibly flawed, texts like the Bible. It was eye-opening.

And the most logical conclusion was that God was a man-made creation, leftover from antiquity.

Why question widely-held beliefs? As Galileo said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo its use.”

I was once taken to (Kosher Chinese!) lunch by a client of mine, an ordained Rabbi. Inevitably, he asked what god(s) I believed in. My reply: “I do not feel it is necessary to hypothesize that such a being or force exists.”

IWLN, I hope this provides some insight to the evolution of at least one atheist/agnostic/skeptic. In closing, I would like to quote Douglas Adams:

113

Here’s my shot:

  1. No harm, and I have no desire to talk anyone out of their belief. The only thing I would ever want to change in people are their actions. I understand that actions are very often based on beliefs, but I think it’s rare that anyone (sometimes even the person in question) can say exactly how, so it often doesn’t pay to go after the beliefs directly

  2. My advice here: don’t “realize” anything about atheists other than they just don’t believe in a God. They may well believe plenty of other things that can’t be proven, even some very stupid things. I personally try not to affirm anything unless I know it to be true, and even pretty much of what I do affirm is conditional on axioms I don’t claim to know or think are true.

As to your question, put short, it doesn’t seem like “all” could have an origin, if by that you mean a precusor. By definition. But I really have no idea, and I don’t think we really have any good context from which to UNDERSTAND this sort of question, much less answer it. Everything we understand comes from within a particular context: I’m not sure any of that understanding can be validly applied to something that’s external to that context.

  1. Every living thing is a “mixed” species. The only reason we generally don’t see them that way is because we think in essentialist terms, thinking of animals as fixed ideal types, rather than the fuzzy sets they are. We are used to the traits modern animals have, so we don’t see them for what they are: exaptions and adaptations of previous usages and traits.

  2. Sure. The universe is full of stuff I find sad. Luckily, it’s also full of stuff that’s wonderful. But deeper: we neednt look to decades to see things that are lost. Potential is lost right now.

  3. If so, then you not impregnating every woman you see (or, if a woman, getting pregnant every chance you get) is preventing someone from living.

I also don’t think fetuses are full persons, having the same interests as persons. I do, however, think that abortion is bad, and gets worse as the fetus develops. Personally, I would support a ban on around third-trimester elective abortions.

  1. True and provable are two different things. Sure, having a God would be one of many many different scenarios that could be interesting. Neil Gaiman has fun exploring many of them.

  2. The same thing everyone else does, really. It’s strange, among my friends, which contain a pretty diverse spread of beliefs, I haven’t really noticed believers being better able to deal with grief than anyone else. In general, I think people who put some thougt into confronting tragedy are going to weather it better than others, and so religious leaders often are very insightful, having worked with grief for a living. But there’s nothing inherently or necessarily religious about confronting it well.

  3. Not really: it’s just too diverse. Some people who REALLY believe are obsessive assholes. Some are really happy and nice. Some people who don’t have any strong beliefs are also happy and content. Again: I generally don’t think beliefs are a good direct guide to other parts of a pepole, because the same belief can influence different people in very different ways.

  4. Probably either just a lack of empathy, or they don’t realize that its condescending. But I really haven’t encountered this too much, and if so, the people are rarely just that way with religious stuff: they’re that way about everything.

  5. I don’t think God has to be proven, in the sense that I’m not demanding anyone prove God to me. If something is unknowable and unprovable, then I don’t think it’s a good idea to believe it. But that’s how I live my life, and I have different goals than other people.

  6. Beauty is subjective, and indeed the human sense of beauty is very particuarly adjusted to the universe around us for some very good evolutionary reasons (do you think that creatures who have no attachment or love for their environs would last very long?)

  7. Not really. Certainly, there are many people who are non-believers BECAUSE they are cynical and angry and unhappy, but the causality doesn’t really seem to work the other way.

Again, I have friends who are strong believers in heaven, and yet they seem to have just as much trouble with death as I do, even though they are sure that they’ll be seeing their loved ones in heaven eventually, and I have no such belief.

114

Sorry to be butting in when I haven’t read all the posts, but this one should get a bit of comment.

IWLN, you should check some of the “how old are you” threads. Most of the folks who post on this board are quite young–young enough that they shouldn’t have kids yet.

I have kids, six of 'em, and I don’t feel sad when I look in their eyes–I feel great! They’re so happy, and their lives are so good, except for skinned knees, that it just makes my heart soar to think about. I do feel sad when I think about kids who don’t have parents who love them so much, which is why we’re thinking about yet another adoption.

115

IWLN: It may help your perspective on what atheists “are like” to go look in a mirror. After all, you’re an atheist, too–if you consider that you lack belief in just one fewer God than I do.

I’d wager that you, like me, reject the idea of the Norse god of Odin ruling over us all. You have never been presented with a credible argument that he exists, or ever existed… you see no evidence with your own eyes when you observe the world around you. If he’s “calling to you”, you aren’t hearing it.
Another assumption, but I bet if you were in a tight spot, you wouldn’t have even a flicker of hope that Odin, looking down on this situation, would do anything tangible to bail you out of it. How could he— he isn’t real. (Or, at least, even on the off chance that he is, Odin’s never shown you through any kind of a track record that he is able to fairly and consistently dish out this divine assistance in any meaningful way.)

Vishnu, the Hindu god (well, one of them) sounds, I’d be willing to bet, like a “fairly tale” to your ears. I assume you have no trouble at all reviewing the “evidence” that Vishnu maintains order in our world, by directly intervening where neccessary, and finding it lacking…not worthy of your belief. The fact that literally billions of people quite fervently believe this to be the case does not have, by itself, the power to sway you over to accepting this, though, does it? I don’t want to “put words in your mouth” or assign motives or thoughts not your own to you, but I’m betting that you might view this “misplaced” trust in a god that doesn’t exist thusly: somewhere along a continuum from “quaint, if a bit harmlessly silly” to “dangerous, depending on the actions they’re willing to undertake in order to “please” this Vishnu character.”

I’m guessing that the Sun god Ra worshipped by the ancient Egyptians, similarly, doesn’t exactly present a convincing case to you. I mean, sure, it’s a colorful little story, possessing a certain charm, maybe even a literary “beauty” to it, and its allegorical elements even possess bits here and there that seem applicable even today. In other words, it’s a cute story, but you probably wouldn’t want to base your life on it. Millions did, but then, we’ve already established that by itself, the popularity of a given God isn’t enough to get you on board. I imagine that an Egyptian, brought back to life and encountering you in the present day, would be incredulous at your stubborn inability to clearly see the sun move across the sky and accept the clear evidence of Ra in action. He’d probably either try to convert you (maybe if you went out and looked at the sun for a week straight), feel sorry for you, or just mentally chalk you off as being one of those too dense, foolish, or morally unfit to sit at the side of his god. No loss for him, since he’s followed the Ra path to the afterlife, mind you, but… bummer for you.

IWLN, I could rattle off dozens more Gods, all of whom were, or are, believed in fervently by a host of your fellow humans throughout the world, and whose existence is “self-evident” to those with clear enough eyes to simply see the “facts.”

Ask yourself how it is that you so easily dismiss these claims as being false.
Or, to soften the line a little, if calling it “false” seems a little harsh, how it is that you arrive at a point where you can say, " I lack the belief in Ra."( Odin, Vishnu, etc.)

Whatever the logic path is that allows you to reject each of these gods, whether it’s lack of evidence, logic faults, scientific refutation, inconsistencies in the written or oral “source”, direct and personal observations which conflict…realize that what you call “atheists” have applied this same logic to YOUR god, in addition to Odin, Ra, the Great Samoan Pacific Sea Turtle God, or whoever… and found them ALL to be lacking.

I ask of you to go back over this post, substituting the Christian god for the various “false idols” refuted above, and tell me why he shouldn’t be added to this pile, using the same logic. After all, we want to stay consistent, don’t we?

Atheism means the “Lack of belief in a god or gods.”

You yourself are quite capable of applying this concept to the vast majority of gods you’ve heard or read about. You and me… we’re only one off. :slight_smile:

116

As attractive as I find this analogy, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that there is one other possibility that you didn’t mention. To wit, she rejects all those other gods because she has faith in another God (and her God is a jealous one who does not permit a bleif in other gods). There’s no need to appeal to lack of evidence, logic, scientific refutation, etc. All she needs is faith that her God is real, and the debate (and investigation into other religions) ends right there.

Barry

117

Originally posted by IWLN (my answers in bold)

  1. What is the harm in believing in God (pick a God, any God) if it gives the believer comfort. Do you think it’s right to try and convince them that their comfort is a sham? Do you think it implies, gullibility, less intelligence or less growth?

I don’t believe in crop circles, the Loch Ness monster or God. But only because there’s no evidence for any of them.
I worry about people saying that they will act in a certain way because a voice in their head tells them to.
I advise people not to get addicted to drugs - isn’t religion an addiction too?

  1. How do you explain, not just the origin of man, but the origin of all. What was before that. I realize you don’t have the answer to that and you only really believe what is proved, so I guess I’m asking for your best guess scenario. You can give me the short version. Real short.

Origin of man - abiognensis (NOT evolution).
Origin of Universe - Big Bang.
Who created God?

  1. If you’ve brought up evolution at all in the previous sentence, when you got to the origin of man part, how is it explained that there are no true remains of mixed species (part way through some transition), or are there? I don’t think evolution as I know of it disproves or proves a creator, but I’m sure my information on it has had a religious slant.

**As others have said: www.talkorigins.org **

  1. When you look into your children’s eyes, does it ever cross your mind that they’re just going to be dust in a few decades. Does all of that lost brightness, joy, potential, just gone, seem sad or just matter of fact or doesn’t it cross your mind?

I see death as sleeping forever.
How do you feel about Gods torturing people in lakes of fire forever?

  1. Not really going to go here, just barely. Doesn’t there being no life after this one make abortion even more horrible, since this little person’s one chance for life is being snuffed. Or does it matter?

I’m anti-abortion and pro-contraception.
Every male ejaculation wastes the life potential for hundreds of thousands of lives - why did God arrange things this way?
Why is at least one Church against contraception?
Why do people, who want to ‘save’ lives, bomb abortion clinics?

  1. Does an atheist ever wish God were true, provable?

If God exists, he would be provable.
Why do you believe in God when there is no evidence?
Why are there so many branches of religion, many contradictory?

  1. When you’re in the depths of sorrow or pain, with no one to pray to or hold you up; what do you do?

I ask advice from people who exist.
I change what is responsible for making me unhappy, not think 'God wants me to be unhappy - I have sinned.'

  1. I realize there are a lot of people out here hedging their bets and saying they believe in God and it has about the same meaning as I believe in eating right. For the people you’ve come across who truly do seem to believe, do you see any difference? More at peace? Happier? Or just more irritating?

Believers vary considerably. I don’t like the ones who kill because God told them to.

  1. Have you ever understood why a lot of “believers” talk so weird (almost a Christian version of baby talk) when they’re discussing religion. Okay, I threw that one in for me. Irritates the hell out of me when someone takes on that weird “do you know Jesus” voice. I’ve always wondered why they do it, when it is so likely to clear a room in under a minute.

Because if their faith is challenged, they are left with nothing?

  1. When I’ve heard so many universe theories and explanations about time, space and everything having different rules than we understand; why when we say you can’t really apply man’s laws of nature to God does it seem to irritate the non-believer. When so much about the universe is unexplainable, why do you think God should have to be proven or rationalized?

Please don’t confuse scientific explanations of observed evidence with attempts to explain superstition.
Which God exists?
Are all the other religions wrong?

  1. Do you ever look around at the beauty of nature, how complex even the function of our bodies are and think, how could this be some unplanned event?

Do you ever look at all the wars, famine, pestilence and death and think: how could this be a planned event?
(If you believe you must accept Jesus to avoid Hell, what happened to all the innocent people who died before Jesus was born?)

  1. Do you think non-believers tend to be more pessimistic? Don’t get your panties into a bundle over that one. I just mean since I believe I have something really awesome to look forward to; I have some of that I get to go to Disneyland feeling. Ceasing to exist just doesn’t have the same ring to it?

**You think you have something to look forward to. I know I’m not credulous!

These replies may appear a bit strident - no offence intended.
I think your questions are somewhat naive, and you have many questions to answer yourself.**

118

NoCoolUserName, Thanks, it never occurred to me to think of how old anyone is here. Most seem very smart and well read and I think I made the “assumption” that they were older. Doesn’t matter, it wasn’t a serious statement. We’re on our way tomorrow to see our three adopted grandchildren. What a great process. Glad there are people like you out there. IWLN

glee, Most of the questions you re-addressed to me, I can honestly say I don’t know, because they’re not part of my beliefs. Getting ready to post a reply to Musicat, not trying to make anyone believe anything, just how/why I got to where I am. My progress is always in the works.

Godzillatemple, I can’t really say I reject any God. Think most are just a different expression of the same God. And I obviously haven’t stopped investigating anything or why would I be asking such annoying questions.

119

Musicat, Thanks for the insight. It’s funny that we can both be going down the same road and end up in different places. I also think it’s great that we have the freedom to come to our own conclusions. Probably a strange thing for a “believer” to say. If mine are right (okay I resisted what I really want to say in these parenthesis) God’s got it all worked out and is chuckling at being assigned human characteristics and tendencies. If your conclusions are right, then you don’t get to tell me I told you so anyway. Hey, it’s win, win for me.

Okay seriously. I did attend church as a child, but my parents didn’t usually attend. Knew they believed, but explanations were more as we asked. They took us to Methodist, Lutheran, All the Baptists, Presbyterian, Catholic and others I’m sure I don’t remember and told us this was going to be our choice. Didn’t hit a snag until teens when I was told by a Baptist preacher that my Catholic boyfriend wasn’t like us and wasn’t “heaven bound”. I told the preacher I’d just have to attend a church where God loved everyone. That was my first little rebellion from a certain “religion”. Went to some other types of churches. Had my toughest time in the Mormon church. I felt like how I raised my kids was my judgment call and I was too outspoken. They were relieved to see me go. Started to notice that same common teaching of each church. If your this religion, your in, all others are out. If you happened to be born gay, too bad, you’re out. Never could sit through one of those gay bashing sermons. You get some pretty shocked looks when you say, “That’s it, I’m outta here” during a sermon. If you just sit there, you’re as guilty as the speaker. I never believed the Bible was infallible and it’s ludicrous to believe it was all meant to be taken literally, have also read some of the books written at the same time as the bible that were deemed unworthy to be in it and tossed. They were actually more logical in some ways. Haven’t read Rimmer, it might be interesting. When I fill out an application, under race I put “human” and under religion I put “same as Gods”. I am a lousy sheep and a lot of religions don’t like all my questions.

This is where I took the left fork and you took the right (look how nice I was to give you the “Right”). I did lose faith in man made religion or rather decided to use what was appropriate for a thinking individual and ignore the rest (I know there‘s religious people that say you can‘t do that, so let ‘em tell God on me). My faith in God didn’t sustain any damage though. My conclusions about the vast array of religions and beliefs probably strengthened my beliefs. How could so many people be seeking something that didn’t exist, granted in their own peculiar ways, but still looking. I know about the hard-wired theory and it makes sense to me. But I believe it was God’s way of making more aware of his existence, but still wanted us to think, to learn and come to our own conclusions. People are more interesting than sheep. I don’t think we will be punished for those conclusions any more than I punished my six year old son when curiosity made him take apart the phone and a lot of other household items. I did draw the line at the microwave though. I have had some great personal revelations and know God exists. I know, just knowing isn’t rational and I’m okay with that. I’m sure more information will be provided when the time is right. I am not trying to “witness” (I hate that word, it implies superior knowledge), just explaining the parallels of our journey. Yours was a lot more in depth than mine, but hey I was on my own raising three kids, working 11+ hours a day and trying to remember to buy toilet paper. I am going to have to read Dr. Rimmer now that I have time. I’m really interested to know how he explains where all the other people came from that Cain met up with after being sent away(a mystery?). Never could get a church to answer that one. Thanks for sharing your “quest”. You’re okay for someone who thinks Jesus’ middle name starts with an “F”. IWLN

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Quote of the week? I’m getting it tattooed!