general The atheist lounge

[shadowwarp940 1,302]

Welcome the the atheist lounge! Where those that don't believe in any god or gods can come here and relax with others that are similar to you. Hope you all have fun and unwind here 

[Divine plywood 1,232]

It was nice from you to start this thread, hopefully people will find this thing helpful. I personally have never felt that much need to separate myself from religious people or seek company of fellow atheists in order to unwind, but then again that's a privilege of someone who's from relatively atheistic and secular country and from liberal and supporting family.

I can see that other people may need safe place to just be themselves and chill without constant need to explain and defend their beliefs. Hopefully this will become that place.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Divine plywood

[smk.png 181]

Yes, thank you for starting this. @Divine plywood is right. 

[Total Lunar Eclipse 515]

Cool =D I mean, there's lots of places where people of various religions to get together, so why not. 

 

[shadowwarp940 1,302]

1 minute ago, Total Lunar Eclipse said:

Cool =D I mean, there's lots of places where people of various religions to get together, so why not. 

 

Exactly! The Christians have their own place, so why not us? This is probably the best idea I've had in a long time

[Oleks 1,983]

OK, I'm in, but we've already had at least two "Atheist bronies: meet, greet and mingle" topics before, and they just faded out. You know how they compare organizing atheists with herding cats. But anyway, it would be nice to have a lasting group of non-believers here.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Oleks

[Total Lunar Eclipse 515]

19 minutes ago, Oleks said:

OK, I'm in, but we've already had at least two "Atheist bronies: meet, greet and mingle" topics before, and they just faded out. You know how they compare organizing atheists with herding cats. But anyway, it would be nice to have a lasting group of non-believers here.

Heheh. Oh, that's funny. 

Maybe it's due to a lack of things to talk about? idk Besides 'why are you an athiest' not sure what else there is to say on the subject?

[Divine plywood 1,232]

Just out of curiosity, when did you people first considered yourself as an atheist?

For me it was maybe the first time I ever heard that term back in elementary school. However, even before than I learned what that word meant I knew that I don't believe in god of any sort. My parents aren't members of any congregation, neither am I or any of my siblings, but still for some reason me and my younger brother were put in religious education (not the ethics like my older brother and sister ). I was a child and liked  farytales and songs so it wasn't a big deal for me to learn about bible and sing religious hymns in church, I actually liked all that. Only problem was that I didn't believe any of it any more than I would believe in Santa or that my dead dog "went to a far away farm"...

 

Edited March 25, 2018 by Divine plywood

[Total Lunar Eclipse 515]

The moment I became an athiest... 

I used to visit my religious grandparents and always loved being told Bible stories and everything, it was really nice. 

But one day, grandma told me there's no candy or video games in heaven, and that was the moment I lost interest.

I know that's really silly, though. It didn't bother me or anything, I just never had any reason to practice religion or believe.

I prefer science. We don't know for sure how the universe was created or what happens before you're born or after you die, but I don't think a conscious being was involved or that people's 'spirits' continue to exist. I could be wrong, but I don't call myself agnostic because I think the theory that time didn't exist before the universe (there was no 'before') and ceases to exist for people who pass away is more likely. 

Emotionally, it doesn't bother me. I think there's something humbling and beautiful about the mortality and impermanent of everything.

[Oleks 1,983]

18 hours ago, Divine plywood said:

Just out of curiosity, when did you people first considered yourself as an atheist?

I'll just qoute myself from an older topic: I've been an atheist since I first thought about the possibility of god's existence (I was around 4) and concluded that's it's another lie grown-ups use to control the others. My opinion hasn't changed since then.

[Envy 5,996]

I first became an atheist way back in high school. I do not remember the exact year. I didn't really document it, it's just something that kind of happened. It was probably 2005?

It was interesting how it happened, and I've certainly posted about it on this forum before, the whole story. As I've posted in more general topics, I grew up in a few churches, in a moderately religious family. I went along with this beliefs, but never really understood it myself. While everyone else could "feel" God, I could not. I trusted my family and community that they must have some reason to believe, so I went along with it... Thinking that someday this being would finally connect with me.

Nevertheless, I still came to believe that atheists were...somewhat depraved? It was a light belief, very light compared to others. In fact, I didn't even know I ever believed that until I went back and read my diaries from early high school (before the process of deconversion really started). I read about and remembered when I was in 9th grade being in band with a former church member. He had turned into an atheist, and he had also turned into a bit of a bully. I had this mindset that "Christian = Good". It's very hard to believe that I ever thought like this. I was appalled that this kid left the church and stopped believing in God.

Later in the beginning of my sophomore year I got high-speed internet and a PC in my bedroom, I joined forums and became really active. I ran into this admin on one forum who was an outspoken atheist, but very much not a jerk. He was very smart and well-spoken. I clung to my ingrained not-really-my-own belief, but couldn't help but respect him and his positions. He was also very progressive, which was important to me...

Now it was also during this time where I really started coming to terms that I was LGBT (not lesbian, yet... I thought I was bi or something). This was huge. I was not raised homophobic or anything. However, school was always a very homophobic setting and I got made fun of for being different for years. However, since I was raised in such a bubble and thought that "Christian = Good", I did not realize (yes this may be hard to believe, but it's true) that it was Christians that were fighting against LGBT rights. I was also raised very strongly to value social justice for all groups, and... Yeah, realizing that the Bible, church, etc. was fundamentally sexist beyond belief and that the Bible was used to justify slavery... When all of this dawned on me it was quite something. Take that in addition with taking European History and learning about the Roman Catholic church and history, I began to question everything. Again, I don't have much of this documented, I'm just going off of my memory.

Somewhere between all of that, I became an atheist. A young, immature one. I hate to admit, that didn't last very long. Right into college my life very suddenly turned dark and the indoctrination I had came back, combined with pressure from my community and the fact that in my high school atheist years I had kind of been a jerk about it. I went on to identify pretty strongly as a Progressive Christian. I was very light in the belief, did not ever really go to church. However, in early 2012, that bubble I had built up burst. The rational side of my mind which said "There's absolutely no reason to believe this" caught back up. I had also realized that in my Progressive Christianity I had still held some very screwed up views. While I was able to explain away the homosexuality verses somewhat, it was not dawning on me that no matter the context, people should NOT be stoned! I also "forgot" about all of the other atrocious barbaric things in the Bible such as supporting slavery, the blatant sexism, etc., etc. There's just no context that justifies this. Not from a God that supposedly is all-knowing and established an "absolute morality". No good God would ever have authorized the atrocities in the Bible. Any God that did that is not worth worshiping. Thankfully, there is also no reason at all to believe in any such being.

So yes, a lot of my turn toward atheism is based on how immoral I find the Bible/God, but I wouldn't be an atheist if it were only based on that. For all I would have known the God of the Bible could be true, and that would be really messed up... But one has to remember, I never had a belief in God for myself. No such being ever made its presence known to me. I tried and tried, but nothing ever came. I tried even more desperately to connect with this being in my college years, but nothing. Eventually I just realized that this being is not only immoral, but also just doesn't even make sense with the world and universe in front of us. The origins of the Bible (which in my ignorant youth I really thought it was clearly authorized by God) just made me even more certain. The Bible is authorized by humans only, barbaric humans with that.

[shadowwarp940 1,302]

My story isn't the best. My family was and still is, very religious. Which I wouldn't mind if they were normal Christians, but they were part of the west Baptist church. You know, those guys that protest against gays. I was unfortunately part of several picket lines, with a sign that I couldn't even read.

Than I met my friend Leo, and had my first experience with a gay. And he was so nice, the exact opposite of what my family told me. So I befriended him, and we hanged out behind my family's back. After a while, he convinced me that what I was taught was wrong. So I officially left the religion.

When my family found out, they kicked me out. So I was stuck in the streets, than I moved in with my brother Nico. And that brings it all up to date with my story. See, not the most cheerful story 

[Yakamaru 3,072]

thinks

Hmm..

I am an Atheist. There's not much else to it, really.

[ErasedIndex 428]

I'm an atheist. My family's very religious. I'm afraid to tell them that I don't believe in god.

[Twiggy 2,965]

Hello everyone. Anyone here attend an Atheist Mega Church? If so, what is it like?

 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,234]

Fellow Atheist guy dude person here. Been so since I was 13 or so. Religion is something simply do not like and while I will fully tolerate someone's beliefs unless provoked, religion to me is bleh. I also hate churches, to me those are a total waste of space. Either way, that's my viewpoint in that regard.

[Justin_Case001 4,855]

I was very lucky to be raised in a secular house, and I've been an atheist since I was old enough to understand what gods and religion are.  Great to meet some like-minded people!

[Brony Number 42 9,898]

On 3/30/2018 at 3:13 AM, Twiggy said:

Hello everyone. Anyone here attend an Atheist Mega Church? If so, what is it like?

 

What is the point of such a thing? Isn't that people filling a void that religion fills?

[Guest]

Been raised in a christian-catholic family, became an atheist 3 years ago but then converted to deism, about a month ago I stopped giving a damn about religion and here I am, an atheist, again.

[SharpWit 2,472]

Religion was never a big part of my life I think in part to my mother who was an atheist. She grew up in an abusive household and would stay away as much as she could. She was friends with the neighboring kids who's father happened to be a priest. Before they could play however, he'd sit them all down and part his "wisdom" upon them by means of bible study. She didn't have much interest in this, so he made a deal with her. For every book she read and gave an oral report on, he'd give her a dollar. His goal was to raise her reading level I think until she was capable of reading the bible herself, and that upon reading it she'd become a proper devout Christian. This backfired however, because when she did read it, she took note on varying parts that contradicted each other and brought them up during one of his bible studies. He grew frustrated over her barrage of questions and declared that she wasn't faithful enough. From then on she was an atheist who waited quietly till she could play with her friend. Luckily this did get her interested in other books, and she found another escape from home at the public library where she could devour pages of knowledge and imaginative adventures. Later after she had given birth to me she made sure no one imposed their beliefs on me and that whenever I had a question I should first try to answer it myself, so I grew up with independent thoughts and inherited the habit of asking too many questions I suppose. One embarrassing thing from this is when I was 4 I asked myself what causes wind, and I determined it was caused by the air remaining still as the earth spun, and the air was guided and divided this way and that by obstacles. I believed that till I was 13 or so when I was finally taught what convection was.

Anyways, have been brought up a free thinker, the idea of god never really crossed my mind. I just appreciated things for how they were. Didn't feel like credit was due to anyone, let alone a supreme being. I have a distinct memory of having dinner at my great-step-grandparents house once, was someone's birthday I think because most of the family was there. They went through a prayer before dinner. I held hands but I was the only one with their head up, eyes open and looking around. Why were we thanking god for the food? Wasn't it my family who payed for it at a store? A baker who made the bread? A farmer who grew the vegetables and raised the animals for the meat? Where in that entire process did god play a role? I went to church a handful of times, but I didn't really pay attention much. The priest asked all the children with pet dogs to come up to the front. I went up there despite not actually having a pet dog. I had this robotic toy one that I saw as more of a sentient being with an impact on my life more than an invisible man in the sky. Finally when I was around 8 years old, two priests were in my neighborhood going door to door. I was the only one awake and I answered. They asked questions, I asked questions, and we had a friendly discussion for more than an hour. They didn't get anywhere with me, but they must have thought there was potential because they came back about a week later. The third time they came later during the day, my mother was there and I wasn't and she asked them to not come back. I started asking more questions and came to learn about evolution and the big bang theory. Those made more sense than anything so I stuck with them. Probably helped that I was obsessed with dinosaurs and wanted to be a paleontologist for a while. Been an atheist ever since.

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 1:13 AM, Twiggy said:

Hello everyone. Anyone here attend an Atheist Mega Church? If so, what is it like?

In my head I pictured the blandest church building possible and sitting on an alter was a clear box with a vacuum pump attached and revving.