Beer built the pyramids!

I had a friend in high school, actually my first boyfriend, who was gay. He didn't come out until a few years later, but we were the best of friends. Our lives diverged and we kept in touch less and less often. About the time that I had my first and only son, a mutual friend contacted me and told me he had died of AIDS. I felt awful that I hadn't even known about it. Turns out when he got sick, his mother took him in to care for him. Apparently, it was brutal with him losing his sight and suffering terribly. Her church (she was an active member) turned their back on her because she loved her son. I was already an agnostic, but this was just one more example of the hypocrisy of the church. They preach hate more than love.

i was not raised religiously, and i was not frightened or disgusted away from religion. i simply realized that there were no gods. it wasn't traumatic or anything.

why would the world need an atheistic organization that cared about LOYALTY? what does loyalty have to do with the price of beans? there are atheistic organizations that help atheists advocate for their rights in a world where religion seems to rule. i do not think they desire loyalty! i would be quite suspicious of them if they did. cult leaders require loyalty. ugh.

g

Humanism is an important step in the right direction, I feel. Buddhism also goes well with atheism.

This article and requotes of it are making the rounds and these articles have been cited once or twice a week here since the study came out.

To me it's kind of obvious that hypocrisy in the religious practice and observance of one's parents, teachers and mentors would contribute to skeptical and critical evaluations of religious faith that are not in religion's favor. And that a complex of other factors are also involved. [shrug]

I suppose the level of interest in this is driven by theists who think they just need to up their game a bit to staunch the bleeding. They are misdiagnosing the problem. It is not hypocrisy, it is falsity. People who are more consistent in their devotion to falsity will of course help keep others devoted, but that doesn't solve the underlying problem.

When I was a fundamentalist, I recall that much was made of the (supposed) objection of (some) former church-goers that "the church is full of hypocrites". They flogged this to provoke church-goers to greater levels of piety, to mis-characterize unbelievers as universally abreacting to unfortunate but abberant bad experiences in the church, and to admonish non church-goers (backsliders and unbelievers alike) that they are simply whining about human nature rather than about any remarkable levels of hypocrisy in the church. Nothing to see here folks, just move along.

Well ... they are wrong, both about hypocrisy and about the real problem. But I long since gave up trying to clue them in about those inconvenient facts.

For me the Guy up there was terminated shortly after Santa. Maybe 12 13. I remember a certain sadness, at the time, didn't last. The older I get the more I don't believe.

For me the Guy up there was terminated shortly after Santa. Maybe 12 13. I remember a certain sadness, at the time, didn't last. The older I get the more I don't believe.

For me the Guy up there was terminated shortly after Santa. Maybe 12 13. I remember a certain sadness, at the time, didn't last. The older I get the more I don't believe.

When you find a child who upon learning to talk expresses to you how wonderful heaven was and tells you all about god and Jesus without ever having heard anything at all on this subject beforehand, then I think it is time to re-evaluate the god and religion issues. People do and have reported things or this nature in the past and others think it is so amazing. It's not. The child was not existing in a bubble and was surely coached. It boils down to the fact that gods and religions are made up. It means somebody told you about them. I lost a lot of my life due to this and for the most part it was stressful and painful in the end. I am thankful to be free of it all today.

All people are born atheists. For most, religious belief is then learned and, for some, later unlearned.

BTW, the Church of Satan is a secular/anthest organization that seems to do good. Not sure there are getting many converts from the religious organizations who haven't unlearned their childhood indoctrination.

Very interesting read. Thanks for sharing it.

Was born into atheism, and anti-fascism! I love my parents for giving me a moral and political compass!

Honestly, it was the hypocritical zealots who turned me off to religion and through years of introspection, i came to the only reasonable conclusion .

When they see the harm that people do in the name of religion. When they cry out to God and hear no answer. When they understand how stories become myth, and myth becomes legend, and legend becomes reality. When they realize that if they were born in Baghdad or Bangkok or Dehli they'd believe something else, and think it just as true. When they investigate the universe, with its vastness and intricacies and find no fingerprint of the supernatural. When they see the endless suffering on this planet, especially by innocent children, and realize that a supreme being could have prevented it, and see no evidence of a master plan. When they study their holy books, and find them flawed and imperfect, no better or more advanced than the men who wrote them.

What atheist organization?

At age 13, I became an atheist when I realized the Bible is just a book of stories written by men. My mother became an atheist in nursing school after being raised Catholic.

"I realized a woman cannot be turned into salt," Mom said dryly.

Rejecting Christianity was a personal realization, a personal choice.

"I am grounded in science and reality," I told a born-again Christian today, when he began testifying to me at the library. "I have been an atheist since age 13. I don't believe in an invisible being that resides somewhere beyond the clouds."

That shut him up. I don't think he realized I insulted him by implying that he is not grounded in reality. HA!