Questions For Atheists?

Question

Answers on these would be fantastic, thanks.
I was raised Christian, I am now fourteen and questioning God. I find myself convincing others as to why God is not real.. and yet, I don't know what I am. I'm stuck somewhere in between. I don't believe, but I feel like I should. I have a few questions for Atheists out of curiosity

1) Were you ever a Christian? If so, why did you decide to become Atheist?
2) Have you read the Bible? What did you think?
3) How do you think "we" got here? ( Evolution, big bang, etc. )
4) Do you believe in 2012?
5) What do you think about the people who have had near death experiences, and claim to have seen God, Jesus, Heaven, etc?

Answer 1

:)



1) Were you ever a Christian?

Yes, born and raised, went to church every Sunday and on Wednesdays (youth group) till I was sixteen. I became an Atheist after questioning, or doubting the Bible. Soon I learned that I didn't need to be an Atheist either.



2) What do you think of the Bible?

Its a wonderful work of poetry, and is full of meaningful stories, but it is out of date, and has very little relevance with what one needs in order to make one's life successful, one's mind open and intelligent --- for those reasons it is faulty and unneeded in my life today. If I was still reading it everyday, I wouldn't care about life as much as I do now. :)



3) How do you think "we" got here?

"We" have always been here. The big bang is the Birth of the universe, and gives us a sense of time.



4) Do you believe in 2012? Nope. That is just the date the Mayan calendar ends.



5) What do I think about people have had NDE's (I studied this)? The brain is a marvelous biological-mechanism that fabricates all sorts of imagery. Death is of no importance, and shouldn't call for attention more than it has to in life. See all other animals for a further understanding of death. If you still want to know more think about how important the void before your birth is to you...does it make you quiver? It shouldn't. Its a part of our existence, and not many have an advanced understanding of it.





Take care!

Answer 2

1) Were you ever a Christian? If so, why did you decide to become Atheist?



I was raised a Catholic



2) Have you read the Bible? What did you think?



Amusing and quaint bronze age explanation of the world and how it came to be.



3) How do you think "we" got here? ( Evolution, big bang, etc. )



We evolved



4) Do you believe in 2012?



Yes, I believe there will be a year 2012. Looking forward to the London Olympics as long as they are not rained out.



5) What do you think about the people who have had near death experiences, and claim to have seen God, Jesus, Heaven, etc?



The brain does funny things in moments of crisis and when it is deprived of oxygen.

Answer 3

I was never a Christian. I went to a private protestant school and got religious education

once a week but I was an skeptic ever since I remember from about 7 years of age.

I have read some of the Bible, I was disgusted by the Job Chapter where God and the

Devil bet on the misfortunes of Job.

I cherish the Evolution it's a fantastic piece of science that I would not reject for any fairy

tale in this world.

No to 2012.

Near death is like dreams nothing more nor less. A person going into an operating room

wants to live and dreams about his wish. Fear of death triggers dreams that calm you down

is a survival mechanism.

Answer 4

1) Nope, raised in a non-religious household. Never even really thought about religion til I was 15 or 16, and then decided that I'm against it.

2) Parts of it. It's hilarious, mostly.

3) As an Agnostic, I don't entirely rule out the possibility of a higher power at work in the universe. However, I do not believe for even one second that there was a Divine Creator. The Big Bang theory has evidence to support it; it may not be entirely correct, but it's a heck of a lot better than divine creation stories.

4) F*ck no. And I don't know why Christians worry themselves over it...it's based on the Mayan calendar.

5) I think that North American society has a fair amount of religious symbolism ingrained into it. We subconsciously absorb all of it, and then when a near death occurs our minds draw on those pre-conceived ideas. Also, our minds are pretty good at hallucinating. Sometimes it can be brought on be drugs (ex. shrooms), sometimes by sickness like a high fever, sometimes form mental illness, and sometimes due to mental trauma.

Answer 5

1) Yes. My first step towards realizing I didn't believe in any gods was reading the Bible.

2) Yes. I found it silly that people actually believe the things that are in there, but it's a good source of mythology.

3) The current theories of science are what I find to be acceptable until something better comes along, if it does.

4) I think the year 2012 will occur...and so will the years after that.

5) They're just dreams brought on by a lack of oxygen to the brain and stress caused by trauma.

Answer 6

1) Were you ever a Christian? If so, why did you decide to become Atheist?

I was raised religious- went to Catholic school, church every week, was an altar boy, went to a nondenominational church group, etc. At one time I wanted to be a monk.



I didn't "decide" to become an atheist ever. I was an atheist after studying religion and the human mind in great depth for many years and realizing the things people believed in could be explained away by brainwashing and cognitive dissonance, and that religion could be completely understood through psychology. It wasn't a choice I could make. I was looking for what was true and found that religions were just ways to play make believe so people could be less scared of death and the things in nature that they don't understand.



I wasn't looking for a game of make believe to play though- I wanted to know what was actually true.



2) Have you read the Bible? What did you think?

Yes. I thought it was true when I was a kid because that's how I was raised- now I know it is a collection of myths. We can even see the pagan origins of the Jewish religion in the old testament.



3) How do you think "we" got here? ( Evolution, big bang, etc. )

Not sure



4) Do you believe in 2012?

. All the talk about the end of the world is just new agey nonsense to sell books. The older you get the more you see stuff like the end of the world being predicted again and again so people can make money. People will always think the world is about to end in their lifetimes- it's been going on for thousands of years now and we're still here.



5) What do you think about the people who have had near death experiences, and claim to have seen God, Jesus, Heaven, etc?



NDEs are explainable as hallucinations. When close to death many people's bodies pump out a drug that causes you to trip out and hallucinate. We know of the chemical and people actually do use it to get high, so we know exactly how it causes delusions.



Also, not everyone gets a NDE, and the reports of NDEs are varried and show there isn't one real objective place people are "going" to. All evidence points to them being fantasies.



Best into to studying religion is this

Joseph Campbell's Masks of God series- 14 might be a bit too young for that, but you can try. It's a LOT of college text book style reading.

study brainwashing, cognitive dissonance, magical thinking, selective attention

Answer 7

1) I was raised Roman Catholic. I left the church when I decided God didn't or shouldn't care that I showed up and had grape juice and crackers every Sunday. I went to school and was educated, and I sat and thought and read and educated myself. I decided that the Judeo-Christian God didn't make any sense.



2) I have read many parts of the Bible, and seen many flaws in it, but never seen any proof. If anyone has any good verses for me to read, I'm all ears. It was written by the leaders of the Bronze Age Hebrews to keep their society in line. Great example: "We need more people or we will die out! We must make the people procreate! Hey, what are those two guys doing over there? That won't make babies! It must be forbidden! Bring on the babymaking!"



3) Chance. Humans do not have a purpose. Purpose does not exist, except in the confines of our minds.



4) What the hell does that have to do with anything? The term Atheist means we don't believe in any Gods, including the ancient Mayan ones.



5) A construct of their mind which has been brainwashed into believing Christian ideas. This only shows that they were very hopeful, and expected to get to heaven.

Answer 8

1) Yes. Former Christian here. The reasons of me being former - look in my answer for question 2.

2) Yes. That's precisely what made me an atheist. The Bible has way too much inconsistencies in it to be correct. And since at least parts of the Bible are incorrect, and we have no valid way of determining which parts, we should not consider the whole thing as valid. For inconsistencies in the Bible, there are online sources, such as http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/absurd.html

3) Evolution. I have 150 years of research to back me up.

4) Define "believe". Will the year 2012 come? Yes, no doubt, right after 2011. Is there going to be some catastrophic event? Probably not.

5) Near death experience, or NDE, is quite an interesting phenomenon. The most interesting part is the amount of unusual toxins that are released into our bloodstream in these conditions. And yes, this can lead to any amount of hallucinations. Besides, how come Christians see their version of Heaven, while Muslims see totally different things? For more information, you can start from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_death_experience#Biological_analysis_and_theories

Answer 9

1 - My mother made me go to Sunday School until I was 6 and refused to put up with it



2 - A fair bit of it, mostly as a child. Old Testament is a work of hate and anger. New Testament is just empty of anything meaningful



3 - Big bang is current best theory about the beginning of the universe. Evolution is a proven scientific fact - please don't believe the blatant lies spread by creationists



4 - 2012 has nothing to do with Christianity and is just the latest in a long line of predicted doomsdays, none of which have happened.



5 - There have been extensive studies on NDEs, none of which have yielded any evidence they are real. For example, doctors have placed items near patients, which could only be seen from above. Patients then have a NDE where they say they were floating above the room but they never report seeing the items placed by the doctors. NDEs are almost certainly just dream-like incidents caused when the brain is shutting down.

Answer 10

1) I was at one point although it was never a focal point in my household. At 11 I began reading books on every religion I could get my hands on... Buddhism, I-Ching, Islam, Judaism etc. What I began to understand is that humans need something, doesn't matter what it is, they need something greater to believe in. Plus, if something goes wrong in a religious persons life they can blame it on their God by claiming it was God's will. Although, it may have been the religious person that messed up the situation. They use this so they don't have to blame themselves.



2) Yes, I have. I think it was a good piece of literature but other than that there's nothing to it. The bible, when it was written, was obviously not meant to be taken literally.



3) We got here because of the big bang followed by evolution. When you get to college take Historical Geology because they talk about the beginning of the earth and it's earth systems up until now. Really interesting class.



4) No. The earth has been here for 4.6 billion years. Humans can't arbitrarily pick a number out of the sky and say this is the day the earth is going to end. Doesn't work that way.



5) I think they're full of crap. If they saw something then they obviously imagined it.

Answer 11

1. I was a christian, but it didn't make much sense to me. There were too many things wrong with it, there were other, better explanations.

2. yes, it was kind of, a boring read, and had some contradictions and things that make no sense and contradict real world things.

3. Well, the universe was always here, I don't know enough about the big bang to make a call on it, but I accept evolution. Scientists have also been able to make proteins from organic materials, so there's that (abiogenesis).

4. no, it'll go from 2011 to 2013...

5. there are others from other religions who have NDE's and have experienced other gods and such.

Answer 12

1) Not really. My parents are Christians but they didn't bring me up with biblical stories and such, at most a prayer at dinnertime and they brought me along to church now and then, but I didn't understand any of it. By the time I could think for myself properly (around age 12), I rejected it all, mainly as an act of rebellion against my parents, but it was a good choice anyway (even though it was for not so good reasons).



2) Yeah, I've read most of it. I think there are some truths in it here and there, but it has been mixed up with (other) myths from other religions and addled with because it wasn't written down properly for a long time, as well as having lots of different authors. Overall the book gave me the impression that man created god and not the other way around, the way human emotions are attributed to God all throughout (jealousy, anger, disappointment, etc).



3) I think evolution is the best explanation we have as to how life became diversified over time; it is the same picture of evolution that is confirmed time and time again by different, independent fields of science (paleontology, genetics, biochemistry etc). Abiogenesis (how life came from non-life) is less clear to me, but I haven't done serious research on that yet.

The 'big bang' theory is, simply put, the conclusion that there was a starting point at which the universe started expanding, because we have observed that the universe actually is expanding. What caused the big bang? Nobody knows.

And as far as I'm concerned, I don't have to know that either - it is far too abstract, too far away from my daily life as it is.



4) No. People from every age of human civilisation have predicted the end of times. There is no reason to assume that this time they are correct.



5) Elvis fans who had near death experienced also claimed they saw Elvis. Basically, what people 'see' (if they see anything at all, that's only a small percentage of people who experience NDE's) is determined by their culture, their beliefs.

And still, if anything, to me it is evidence that the human mind is fallible, especially when threatened with death.

Answer 13

1. Yes but I become an atheist the more I studied science. My parents still want me to be christian and drag me to church every once and a while but not next year cause I go to college.

2.Yes, a great deal of it. I just think it's mostly garbage with a handful of good stuff to be fair. Loving your neighbor is great, but having slaves, killing gays and sunday workers is definitely wrong.

3.How humans got here? We evolve from single-celled organism until we became hairless apes(the evidence is damning for this. I'm pre-med.) Big bang could have spawned the universe, but definitely a old white man god didn't make it lol.

4.No. Not even mayan descendants believe. It's just a fun movie. lol

5. I just think it's "feel-good' hormones released when you are dying. It would be neat if there was an afterlife but life ain't fair and if the god of the bible was there I would not want to be.

PS: I feel the same way you do but we have to grow up and let go of archaic superstition. I hope I answered your question.

Answer 14

1) Yes, I was raised Presbyterian. But I never really believed any of it, and when I became old enough to make the decision for myself I stopped going to church.

2) Yes. I think it's a fantastic work of fiction.

3) I'm not a scientist, but from what I know, I tend to subscribe to big bang + abiogenesis + evolution = now.

4) I believe the year 2012 will come and go, yes.

5) The brain does some funny things when its dying, including massive chemical releases which cause hallucinations.

Answer 15

1. I was raised as a Christian but grew out of it when I was around 10. The stories was so ridiculous, at 9 year old could see right through them.



2. Only the old testament. I was shocked by the sheer evil acts committed by god.

3. Evolution is the best theory we have. A theory is still a theory no matter how many times it is proven.

4. Yes, that London will hold the Olympics :)

5. Each experience has different explanation. From the start of brain death, delusional, or just plain crazy. What they all have in common is no proof and no evidence.



There are experiments around the world where hospital staff has object above head level for people in hospital rooms. To try and prove they have left their bodies in a near death experience. Near death experience has not gone down in numbers and proof or evidence has not gone up from zero.

Answer 16

1) Yes. As I matured, I came to realize that Jesus was as real as Santa Claus.

2) Reading the Bible played a big part in becoming an atheist. You might read it too, but read all of it not just the parts the church people tell you to read. Also, learn how and when it was written---its history.

3) I think the scientific story is the best we've got. The Big Bang and evolution are real.

4) The 2012 doomsday stuff is either nonsense, bad science, or a hoax, depending on which stuff you're talking about. In real life, no one knows the future.

5) The content of near-death experiences are culturally-determined. Only Christians see Jesus, heaven, etc. in their near-death experiences.

Answer 17

1) Were you ever a Christian? If so, why did you decide to become Atheist? Yes, to make it simple i woke up

2) Have you read the Bible? What did you think? Yes, its a book written by men to try to control what they can not.

3) How do you think "we" got here? ( Evolution, big bang, etc. ) Evolution

4) Do you believe in 2012? The Mayan calendar is a Circle since circles do not end then NO i do not believe in 2012.

5) What do you think about the people who have had near death experiences, and claim to have seen God, Jesus, Heaven, etc? Seems to be more like a response to the body shutting down but that's just my thoughts

Answer 18

1) Were you ever a Christian? If so, why did you decide to become Atheist? -I was never truly a Christian, but I tried to believe because my grandmother has always been uber-religious. I didn't "decide" to become an atheist, I just finally let myself believe what I already knew instead of being held captive by fear.



2) Have you read the Bible? What did you think? -Yes, and I have also researched how the bible was put together and each of the ancient texts, separately. I have also read a lot of the texts that were *left out* of the bible.. What do I think of it? I think it is an interesting, albeit incomplete and sometimes fictional and/or mistranslated, account of historical events.



3) How do you think "we" got here? ( Evolution, big bang, etc. ) -I don't stick to one theory on this, though I am almost certain it was not by a creator. One of my favorite theories is that intelligent beings came from another planet and mated with the primitive humans who had already evolved here...I like watching documentaries like "UFOs in the Bible." :D



4) Do you believe in 2012? -No, and neither do the Mayans.



5) What do you think about the people who have had near death experiences, and claim to have seen God, Jesus, Heaven, etc? -I think their brains were shutting down and they were hallucinating.

Answer 19

1. Yes. Even when I did believe in god, I never believed anything in the Bible to be true and I didn't really believe in Heaven and Hell. Since I wasn't indoctrinated and religion wasn't shoved down my throat, it was very easy to give up all that superstition.



2. Some of it. I thought it was all fairy tales and fiction even when I still considered myself a Christian. It still baffles me that people take Genesis literally.



3. The Big Bang Theory is how I think the universe started. I don't know how life started and I'm fine with that, I don't need to substitute my lack of knowledge on that with a belief in some magical being. I believe that once life started, evolution took place and that's how we have all the various life forms that we do. Evolution is incredibly interesting and makes so much sense. The only people who deny evolution have little to no understanding of it.



4. No, I think believing in that is absurd.



5. There have been scientific studies that show people are highly susceptible to hallucinations. If they actually think god visited them, I would suggest they see a psychiatrist.

Answer 20

I was Christened, and I became an Athiest because I see how evolution, and evolution works, the process, the chemicals.



I've not read the Bible, but I had to take R.E. in comprehensive and let's say? I was a sweetheart in everyclass but R.E. as the teacher tried gagging it down out throats, my R.E. techer questioned my explaination of Physics, E=MC2, C.H.O.N., natural selection in my EXAM?! and I got peed off.

Atheist don't shove science down peoples throats, and are actually helping to advance humanity and spread us across the stars.



I don't believe in 2012, but I must admit that several cultures predicting the same thing is odd, but they also predicted the 2000 AD one, which would mean he world was alread in ruins if it did happen, so Bllleh! to that.



I believe death is the same as Anaesthesia, accept you don't wake up, and/or before you were born... suddenly everything just blurred and then at some random date you have consciousness... get me? Sorry if the last one was a little complicated?

Answer 21

1) I was never a CHRISTIAN, but I did believe that there was a God. I just decided that a God couldn't be possible, due to evidence and science.

2) I have read the Bible. I felt that it was a large collection of conflicting ideas and made no sense.

3) Evolution. It's the current scientific theory.

4) NO. Well, the year, yes. =P

5) Hallucinations caused by blood loss, or trauma, or shock.

Answer 22

1. Age about 8, when my parents confessed that along with there not being Santa, there was no sky daddy either.



2.. 4 times, cover to cover. My favorite story is the one in Judges, Ch 11. A guy makes a deal with god to let him win a war, and if he does win, he'll sacrifice the first thing thru his door. He wins. The first thing thue the door was his daughter. Yup, she got cooked-------hey, a deal is a deal. (read it yourself) And this sky daddy is such a mean dude, that when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, omfg, no. Male children are way better than female children. About the third time thru the bible, made me an atheist.... read it all. A sure way to use your brains and say, "What world was this from?" Then when you get a little older, take a course or two in bible study, and comparative religions. all the same...same dog, different collar.



3. Evolution and natural selection. Simple, and simply beautiful.



4. Sure. 2012 is the date the Mayan calandar couldn't count past. It's about 2 years away. Is anything going to happen? Do you believe in another stone age culture having some power to see into the future? No one else does.



5. As the brain is experiencing lack of oxygen, cells die. As they die, small sparks of electricity are discharged. (you run on electricity... it's what your nerves do !!! It's chemical. But the explanation is too long.) If the dying process of your brain continues we all see things..tunnels, shafts of light, shadows...... if it continues, you die. If it does not, you regain consciousness, and remember. Truly, hon, it is as simple as that.

Answer 23

1) I don't remember ever believing in god.

2) I've read small parts of it. My honest opinion is that it shocked me just how unconvincing it it, and how evil some of it is too.

3) Yes, I agree with the big bang and with evolution. I don't believe in a purpose for the universe.

4) No. That is ridiculous.

5) Delusion.



Good luck! I hope you can make up your own mind based on all of the evidence available to you.

Answer 24

1. Yes. I realized that Christianity (and all other religions) had no evidence behind it.

2. Not all of it.

3. Big Bang, chemical evolution, biological evolution, sex.

4. Yes. It's before 2013 and after 2011.

5. Personal testimony is not evidence of anything. People can be biased, misled, confused, deluded, etc. Then there's also hypoxia, which is where the brain misfires due to lack of oxygen from the blood.

Answer 25

1) Yes, I was. I realised I didn't believe when I was going through confirmation lessons - the teacher brought out a National Geographic diagram about the universe and was saying "Look at all the greatness god has created." I wanted to shout out that there was nothing divine behind it - only mathematics.



2) Yes - I think it's an interesting set of myths.



3) A combination of many things. My preferred thoughts revolve around the idea of a multiverse - an infinite number of universes comprising every possible set of starting parameters. With an infinite number of universes the probability of humanity arising becomes 1.



4) No



5) People believe what they want to believe. Research indicates that the brain can experience quite interesting "visions" as people approach death. Schizophrenics have been known to believe that they talk to giant spiders. It's easy to provide mundane explanations.

Answer 26

1.) Yes. I didn't actually decide to become an atheist, it just sort of happened. I was 16.



2.) I've read a great deal of it, and still read it from time to time. I have many thoughts on it, none of them are positive.



3.) I have no idea about the origins of the universe, but I don't think it was a deity.



4.) No, I don't believe in years.



5.) There's something scientific about those claims, but I forgot the explanation.

Answer 27

1-I was raised Presbyterian. Came to the conclusion that God didn't exist based on my reading of history and religion.



2 - Yes. See question 1.



3-The big bang is a scientific fact as is evolution. Believe me or not but if you haven't done any reading on either one then yours is an uninformed view. The origin is a separate question from evolution. Theologians who accept the fact of evolution give credit to God for starting the process. Non theologians say that it happened through natural means. The latter view is supported by research into what is broadly referred to as 'abiogenesis'. Researchers are very close to creating simple protocells in the lab which would lead to a practical model of how life could have begun.



4-2012 is gibberish.



5-Near death experiences have been studied for years. The consensus is that they are hallucinations, the result of a lack of oxygen to the brain as well as other chemical reactions that occur as the brain begins to die.

Answer 28

1. I have always been an atheist.



2. Not the whole thing, but a large part of it. From a literary standpoint it´s pretty bad.



3. We evolved through the process of natural selection.



4. No.



5. When someone is dying the brain tries everything it can to survive, basically dumping every chemical at it´s disposal into the bloodstream. It´s as convincing as someone taking lsd and claiming to have seen god.

Answer 29

1 Yes, my parents raised me as a fundamentalist, I became atheist at age 9 because they were acting absolutely insane and I found the teachings of most religions absurd and not needed for one to live a good life and be a good person.



2 Yes, the old testament is one reason why I turned away, I decided even if such a jealous god did exist him and his murderous ways didn't deserve worship anyways.



3 I think, just like some believe of god, that we just always were since the beginning of time. Not us ourselves, because we die, and can become extinct, but the matter we're made up of. It can be destroyed, but it's always capable of forming life.



4 The year yes, but I think it's just another false dooms day prediction.



5 Chemicals and your brain act up when it's shutting down. People have hallucinations, they've seen more than just heaven and jesus, people see all sorts of crazy things when they're hallucinating, and since they're aware that they're dieing it seems reasonable that they'd be thinking of heaven of something at the time.

Answer 30

I was Catholic.



I read most of both testaments.



Are you serious? Obviously, you know that the theory of evolution is pretty much spot on.



Of course I don't believe that anything will happen on 12/12/2012.



I think people that have near death experience lose perspective due to many reasons, the simplest being a drop in oxygen to the brain.

Answer 31

) Were you ever a Christian? If so, why did you decide to become Atheist?

I was raised in the BAPTIST church and a very religious Baptist family.

I saw so many chriostians in my church telling lies and committing sins and yet telling me that they will still go to heaven.There are so many contradictions in the bible I cannot agree with those who say the bible is the true and inerrant word of god.



2) Have you read the Bible?

YES - its all LIES and Fairy stories and a LOT of contradictions.



3) How do you think "we" got here? ( Evolution, big bang, etc. )

GOD created us - I am a deist, not an atheist



4) Do you believe in 2012?

NO - modern humans have created this scary story to get more people to convert to christianity - its such a load of B*LLSH*T - just like every other story the christians claim to be true. Even that stupid fake story of a man being raised from he dead, thats just a delusion as well.



5) What do you think about the people who have had near death experiences, and claim to have seen God, Jesus, Heaven, etc?

They are delusional - with lack of oxygen - seeing only what they WANT to see.

Answer 32

1) yes, I was born christian, too. I woke up & saw the world around me.

2) yes, I've read the bible. That's what started my non belief.

3) our galaxy got here through the big bang, we got here through a process called evolution.

4) I believe there will be a 2012 & a 2013, too.

5) Near death experiences, that I've heard, tell a tale of a tunnel with a bright light at the end & seeing their dead relatives. No god, no jesus, but a place that can only be described as heaven. Why has there been no experiences of a place like hell?

Answer 33

1) yes since birth. Did not decide to become atheist. It's not a decision.

2) Yes, the entire thing. Seems horrible, to jibberish. To pornographic.

3) evolution is inevitable.

4) I believe in 2012. What does that mean? Do you believe in 4145? Do you bleieve in 34.3435?

5) Nobody has seen Jesus in near death experiences if they are from other cultures.

Answer 34

1. Yes. Then I matured.

2. Yes. It's like a fairy tale book.

3. Evolution mostly. I still question it some-what, though.

4. That the world's going to end? Or that Jesus will come to the earth? Neither.

5. Insanity comes in many different fashions. Or people are just looking for attention.

Answer 35

1) I was kinda, now it just doesn't make sense and i feel so much better that I can make my own decisions.

2) I've read parts. I like it, it has plenty of good lessons that you don't need to be religious for to have them apply to you.

3) Evolution. I dono about the Big Bang haha but it makes sense usually.

4) No.

5) I think: Everybody has dreams. Someone once told me they had an out of body experience during surgery, but everybody has dreams. Why can't you simply have a dream with your god in it?

Answer 36

1) No.

2) Yes.

3) I doubt it involved a deity.

4) I believe it's a year.

5) NDE's are natural phenomena, claimed experiences with fictional or nonexistent

characters show a lack of thinking by the person (or people) making the claim.

Answer 37

Academia states that in the absence of proof of the existence of something it must be deemed not to exist until verifiable proof is found - thus god is held not to exist pending some sort of verifiable evidence.



There is not one single mention of Jesus in the entire Roman record - that is right - not one!!! At the same time as he was supposed to have been around there were a number of Jews claiming to be the messiah - all of whom are well recorded!!



There is not a single contemporary record from any source and even the bible mentions of him like all other references were not written until many years after his supposed death!!



He was supposed to have been a huge problem to the Romans and produced wonderful miracles but still not one contemporary record?



Even the bible mentions of him like all other references were not written until many years after his supposed death!!



Pilot is recorded in the Roman record as a somewhat lack luster man but no mention of a Jesus, a trial or crucifixion that would surely have been used to make him look brighter!!



At best he was an amalgam of those others!!



The Roman Emperor Constantine produced the bible and he was a pagan not god!!! He also organized Christianity into the Holly Roman Catholic Church!! Not in Israel or any of the countries of supposed origin but entirely ITALIAN!!



Not one word of it is contemporary with the period and was not written until several hundred years after the period the story is set in!! How did the apostles write their books more than a hundred years after they would have been dead?



What a wonder full disinformation and deception campaign he waged against his Christian enemies - so good in fact that Christians are still following the deception to this day!!!



The first person to provide a shred of verifiable evidence for God will become world famous and mega rich!! Ain't happened yet and it never will!!





So how does this primitive belief survive? The answer is simple and very down to Earth!!



Acceptance of a supernatural claim tends to promote cooperative social relationships. This communication demonstrates a willingness to accept, without skepticism, the influence of the speaker in a way similar to a child's acceptance of the influence of a parent. By encouraging this kind of behavior where the most intense social relationships occur it facilitates the lack of skepticism and deters more open minded thinking.



They are christian, Muslim or the other religions depending where they were born simply because they were indoctrinated by their parents as very young children. They will go on to indoctrinate their own children and those will go on to indoctrinate their grandchildren!!



Atheists have the intellect to see through the conditioning and escape into the real world!!



Agnostics have the intellect to see through the conditioning but lack the courage to throw of the conditioning entirely.



Sadly Christians are still held firmly prisoner by the self perpetuating brainwashing!!



As for those that belive in 2012 - they are going to give all of us the excuse to laugh at them right through 2013 and beyond!!



Hopefully your post is a sign your intellect is kicking in!!

Answer 38

1) yes, because I found I had no reason to think a god does exist

2) no. nor have I read the Quran, Vedas, or any other holy book.

3) I was born from my parents, and them from their parents, and them from their parents. If we keep going back we see that we share common ancestry with the other great apes.

4) Yes, it's a year that comes after 2011 and before 2013

5) It's in their heads.

Answer 39

1) Were you ever a Christian? If so, why did you decide to become Atheist?

i was catholic, but ive gone through alot of hard times, many harder than anyone should go through and i prayed and went to church and folllowed god and never once did he help me or give me strength i helped me.i gave myself strength so im my own god



2) Have you read the Bible? What did you think?

yes,its a load of poop.it was a way to keep church and government connected in my opinion



3) How do you think "we" got here? ( Evolution, big bang, etc. )

the big bamg thery and evolution lol theres sooo much proof of evolution and bearly any of god



4) Do you believe in 2012?

2012 has nothing to do with god.it can all be calculated with science and i dont know if i belive it yet.



5) What do you think about the people who have had near death experiences, and claim to have seen God, Jesus, Heaven, etc?

haha like seeing the light..in my opinion its all medical your dying your brain is loosign it your bound to see something







my favorite quote

You can have all the faith you want in spirits and the afterlife, and heaven and hell, but when it comes to this world, don’t be an idiot. ‘Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to put you through the day, but when it comes time to cross the road, I know you look both ways

house<3

Answer 40

1) No.

2) Yes. A ridiculous book with stories stolen from much older pagan beliefs.

3) Big bang, abiogenesis, etc. are all good possibilities.

4) Yes. It is the year following 2011 and the year preceding 2013.

5) They are delusional.

Answer 41

1. Yes. After years of studying the Bible, other religions and comparing various folklore etc and then applying critical thinking to what I had learned I was unable to believe in any god whatsoever. Education devours superstition.

2.Yep. No different than any other collection of violent primitive tales and bogus claims of gods than any other set of myths.

3.Naturally.

4. No.

5. NDE have been explained. We know exactly what takes place in the dying brain to cause such hallucinations. I know a guy who claims demons put semen in his food. He's mentally ill. People lie, they hallucinate and they get emotionally revved up and let their imaginations get out of hand.

Answer 42

1. Yes. I read the bible thoroughly and decided that the whole belief system is just another set of superstitions.

2. Yes. It's bad fiction.

3. Big Bang for origins of the universe, Stellar Formation for Earth, Abiogenesis for life, and evolution for our current form.

4. The year, yes. The end of the world conspiracy? No

5. Delusion. I've been dead, I saw nothing.

Answer 43

Gods are all man-made ideas that were first invented approximately 11,000 years ago somewhere between the ancient cities of Ur and Nineveh. It evolved from a much older belief in shamanism where a "medicine man" could awaken sleeping spirits and use them to do good or evil deeds. The concept of "hell" is also a man-made idea that was invented approximately 3500 years ago near an area called the Valley of Hinnom where burnt offerings of human sacrifice was performed to the god called moloch. The very first Hebrews called it "gehenna" which later evolved into the christian concept of hell. Prior to the burning hell, people believed in the idea of "sheol" - an abode of the dead where everyone went - good or bad. Sheol was a contemporary of "hades" - the Greek version - and was substituted in the New Testaments following the Greek translation.

Answer 44

1) I was raised Episcopalean, but never really believed what I was being taught for the simple reason that when you sit down and really think about it, nothing about the story makes any sense. Seriously? We're all here because God decided to create a paradise but forgot to lock up the evil and death, and the humans got into it, and he was so mad about it he cursed the entire species forever and ever, and created a nasty place full of fire and brimstone where he will send you to burn and choke and die forever but that's totally mean so he sent his only son to die horribly for you that way if you do nothing but worship the two of them he'll save you from... the two of them torturing you forever? Bull$#!+



2) I have read the Bible. It's drivel. It's so historically inaccurate that at this point, we really don't have an excuse for believing what it says any more. Want a good example? Where was Jesus from? Nazareth, you say? I think that would come as a damn shock to the city of Nazareth because it DIDN'T EXIST when Jesus lived. You'd think if the Bible was divinely inspired and not just a fabrication thought up by primitive men, they would have known that little tidbit. It's like saying Jesus was from Hogwarts.



3) "We" evolved from ancestral species of apes (we are still apes, by the way). Explaining the entire history of the Universe, the Earth, and the human race isn't really something that can be done in a couple of paragraphs, at least not adequately... but to hit only the highest of notes: Big Bang, universal cooling, coalescence of primal material into simple matter such as hydrogen, coalescence of hydrogen into stars, stars produce heavier elements through stellar fusion, stars go supernova, second generation of stars coalesce and produce even more heavier elements through stellar fusion, second generation of stars go supernova, current generation of stars begins to coalesce including the Sun, Earth coalesces from accretion disk, planetesimal the size of Mars collides with early Earth, and resulting flung off silicates go on to form the moon while the combined material, including the iron cores of the two planetesimals, become the rapidly spinning core of our planet, a few hundred million years go by, abiogenesis, a couple billion years go by with only simple lifeforms, the Cambrian explosion happens, various geological and biological eras go by until the advent of primates, which spawns apes, and eventually man.



4) I believe in the year 2012. I believe the Mayan calendar resets its long cycle in 2012, but I do not believe in any of the doomsday predictions made because they're all utter bunk. Our magnetic field shows no signs of being ready to violently flip, and even if it did, it would make little difference. There is no planet Nibiru hurtling toward us. There cannot be a companion star for the Sun we have not noticed yet (explaining why would take some time). Our Solar System will NOT be entering the center of the galaxy in 2012, it is locked in a stable orbit about 30,000 years out from the center and will never, ever float through the center of the galaxy.



5) Hallucinations, plain and simple. We've established that people will consistently hallucinate if put under the right physical stressors, and death of the body is a very stressful event. Our vision fades out (white light), and chances are as our brain begins to fail we will remember those things most engrained into our memory, which usually includes our relatives and the religious icons we have been trained to automatically think of in times of stress and need. We also know that as a species we tend to adjust the details of our memories to fit what we think they should be afterward, so our memories would automatically edit out things like seeing images of still living relatives, since they shouldn't appear there.

Answer 45

1. yes i was, and i didn't want to be confined to such a pointless religion telling me how i should live my life.

2. i have read bits and pieces of it, not the hole thing, most of it doesn't make sense

3. it doesn't matter how we got here, or where we go to die, what matters is what happens here and now

4. no, i think its another foolish religious belief like Y2K

5. the mind can recreate a fantasy we imagine in our heads, that we thought up before, when something bad happens like a near death experience one reverts to a "happy" place in your mind, so when one see heaven its only a dream like state, that one can not explain.

Answer 46

1) No, but my family was..santa was found not real by me..and after some inquiries..god fall in a same bag

2) Yes..one of the main reasons i stayed atheist

3) No - myth as the Bible

4) hallucinations due to a lack of oxygen in brain cells

5) no one knows precisely..but abiogenesis and evolution happen

Answer 47

1) No. I was never brought up with a religion, however I was also not brought up in a household that criticized religions. It was just never an issue, and I thank my parents SO much for that!



2) No. I have never read the Bible in its entirety, however have taken several courses on Christianity and am familiar with many verses and passages.



3) I have no idea how we got here, and I am not going to stress out trying to "find" it! I don't think there is an answer. I think that whatever "it" is, is completely random.



4) Not at all.



5) I think people who have near death experiences truly believe that they have seen what they believe to be their perception of "God", "Jesus", etc. The brain works very mysteriously. It has been proven that people with epilepsy and that have seizures are more likely to feel "in tune" with their "holy spirit" because of the serotonin levels in their brain fluctuating more than a normal functioning human being. This feeling can also be felt with hope, which one may get from "praying".



I highly suggest you check out this article on NPR called "Is this your brain on god?" It is SO FASCINATING.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997741&sc=emaf



Also, for other references on why you may be deluded by your religion:

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/





Hope you find what is right for you :)

Answer 48

Yes. I didn't have belief in god.

Boring and full of stuff that couldn't possibly happen.

Evolution, big bang. Science.

Of course not.

The brain is an amazing organ. It can cause you to believe what is not real to be real.

Answer 49

Just to answer your last question on near death experiences ... is it really that hard to believe that when your brain is dying, it isn't working properly, so we can't really trust what we see?

Answer 50

1) Bible classes did it for me. That stuff does not add up.

Answer 51

1) nope never

2) yes and i think its complete bull shyte

3) dont know dont care

4) er not really... im still contemplating on that one

5) well when your in that kinda state... its possible to see anything....

Answer 52

1.no

2.utter myth

3.no one knows

4. no

5. deluded.

Answer 53

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: "Stop. Don't do it."



"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.



"Well, there's so much to live for!"



"Like what?"



"Are you religious?"



He said, "Yes."



I said, "Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?"



"Christian."



"Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?"



"Protestant."



"Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"



"Baptist."



"Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"



"Baptist Church of God."



"Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"



"Reformed Baptist Church of God."



"Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?"



He said: "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915."



I said: "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off.

Answer 54

God is real. Satan is tempting you with the thoughts. Don't give in! Atheists live hedonistic lifestyles. It is not worth it.