You won't get much useful info reading the Bible. Try Ehrman, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Carrier. Most of all let reason, not fear, be your guide.

I know this. If there is a god he's a prick. A bully and a terrorists. OOOHH worship me or I'll burn you in hell for eternity. Do you know the correct translation for 'hell' is the grave??
I'm better as an atheist.
My grandson is gay. So is his husband of four years

Atheists have a firm identity without god imo. I know I do. I don't have the constant feeling of needless guilt hovering over me.

Yes, all gods and religions were created by men. They are all false and thus do not exist. Just the fact that you started as a christian is random, fortuitous and aleatory because you were born in a western civilization, had you been born in the middle east would have resulted in you believing in allah and being a muslim, had you been born in India would have resulted in you being hindu, etcetera. Use reason, logic and only believe in evidence and facts, all else is bullshit.

On the gay thing it's pretty simple. Men in the days of the sheepherder's guide to the galaxy could only talk about men and homosexuality because women were like property and being lesbian was not even considered. This made it a one sided issue so god must have been pretty dumb, or maybe men wrote all of these texts. My advice would be to get out of religion of any kind.

I'm not gay but in trying to find my own standing in the religious world the best thing I ever did was to leave. If you need a sense of community or belonging there might be some groups in your area that can help. Check into it and youi might find one just for you. Maybe they even have regular meetings. Living your life without stress or guilt should be an ultimate goal.

Ask yourself the question...is there any evidence that god exists? If the answer is no, then you have to ask yourself the next question ...why then am I continuing to search for something that isn’t there, especially when it’s making me unhappy. Any religion or person who tries to tell you that you have to deny your own sexuality and go against what you instinctively know yourself to be, is wrong. I think you already know that but are still clinging to the hope that some religion will accept you for what you are. You must make your own mind up whether you believe or disbelieve, but I think you are already well on the way to the conclusion that god doesn’t exist, and religion is manmade, with manmade rules.

Yup..your story could be most of us. Good job extricating yourself from so many entrenched childhood lies...something most religious people are never able to do.
As you go along, you'll classify Bible stories with Santa Claus.

I grew up as a Baptist. It’s perfectly OK to change your mind and your lifestyle. You are on the right track. Continue to be who you are with no apologies.

There are things in my past, like believing in god, that it took me work to keep believing. I did the work because I was taught to. I was taught never to accept the idea that god didn't exist as the right answer. I was taught that if I didn't believe in god, I would be damned to hell after this life so I was motivated to do the work to believe in god.

Once I opened my mind to the idea that god might not be there and stopped working at believing in god, not believing came naturally to me. I realize that it took me telling myself over and over that 'this' meant 'that' in order to believe in god. When I stopped doing that, it took a relatively short amount of time to start seeing all the inconsistencies and confusion in my beliefs.

I suggest just keeping an open mind for now. Your life has brought you to this point of recognizing certain problems. It takes less effort to discover the truth than it does to maintain a lie. Let the lessons of life lead you and you'll find your place before long.

I always find it a bit creepy that church people are so obsessed with what other people do with their genitals and don't even consider the concomitant emotional connections. While shouting on about how if you don't love their sky daddy they will execute you so you can start burning in hell all the sooner, because gawd loves you SOOOOOOO much!

So long as their is informed consent, who f'ing cares what you stick in where?

Why is it so important for you to believe? Just be, much easier than trying to "find" something that isn't there.

I think being an agnostic is perfectly reasonable, as it takes a smart person to say "I don't know." I, myself, am an agnostic atheist i.e I do not believe in the existence of any deities, but I cannot say definitively that I know for a fact that none exist. If being an agnostic works for you, rock on my dude. And yeah, the Bible, like any other religious text, has been told and retold, twisted, mangled and manipulated. It's like a really long game of telephone, really.

If you're like me, there's only one thing you can do. If you still believe in god, prove it. When I still believed but had doubts, I set out to find absolute evidence. I quit believing in the Bible, but still thought (because of indoctrination) that there had to be a god. The more I looked for evidence, the less I believed. I finally proved that the god I was raised with didn't exist.
I know there's no way to prove something doesn't exist, but the only good reason to believe something does exist, is when you have good evidence. Especially something as unbelievable as the Bible God. With that said, it still took me years of reading the Bible, then researching its claims before I was satisfied.

To thine oneself be true and live your life as you want. You can live your life the way YOU want or the way someone else wants, that is your choice.

For brain food, I'll add that blogs are useful. I suggest the Nonreligious category at patheos.com.

[patheos.com]

An old but excellent documentary on the Bible is called "Jesus The Evidence. There is also a companion book (Same name) by Ian Wilson. This link is 1 of 18 I found on YouTube.

You must do what works for you but most of all don’t be cajoled into going against your beliefs. Everyone’s experience is different and no one can say you are wrong whether atheist or Christian.

You’ve made it out of a pretty destructive set of thought patterns. Try not to fall into another. The litmus test is do ‘they’ want you to be like them. If they do, walk the other way.

Be mindful that atheist doesn’t mean a-religious as there seem to be evangelical atheists as well who will try to persuade you to ignore your god if that is what you believe and be like them. They will probably try semantics to convert you

Good luck, most of all be true to you, it’s no one elses business

My journey from leaving organized religion to becoming an atheist took a little over a decade.Two books that helped be at the beginning of my journey were: "Who Wrote the Bible" by Richard Elliot Friedman and "101 Myths of the Bible'" by Gary Greenberg.

These will help you see that the Bible is NOT the word of any god but is a collection of writings that are often melded together, competing, Jewish myths that are mostly derived from the myths of the surrounding religions of the time. These books focus mostly on the Old Testament

Also, any of the books by Bart Ehrman will help put the New Testament into perspective.

Actually reading/ studying the Bible with an open mind and guidance from learned people/scholars, many who were once believers, is what led me to realize that the god described in it does not-- and cannot-- exist (it is too contradictory).

Once I left Christianity, I tried to figure out what I was; and, after looking into different religions I settled into deism. but learning more science eventually led me to realize that there is no evidence for, and no need for, any kind of god or universal consciousness for the universe to behave as it does.

Now, and for the past sixteen or so years that I have been an atheist, I have been more at peace than I ever was as a believer.

Well first, sorry you had to go through all that before you discovered you don't need any of it! Sometimes you have to go through it before you decide its not for you.

Second, your story is quite common. Most of us approach religion hoping for community and acceptance, but really for the deeper answers to life than go beyond mundane issues like race, gender, or sexuality.

I have had very little dealings with religion. Every time I felt attracted to religion in an attempt to undertand the universe or find people to hang out with and be friends with I immediately found it to be a sad embarassing and unfulfilling experience. I was just not suited to religous ways from the very beginning, science is too exiciting and rich and amazing, but and sadly if you are surrounded by religious or the unscientific that can led to feeling alone.

I would like to think that you had a similar experience. After you found a group that accepted gay people, the more fundamental questions about life and existence popped up and suddenly you found church to be less than satisfactory...perhaps down right unappealing!

I found out, as perhaps you have, that it is preferable to leave than to endure the delusion. That perhaps there are plenty of groups out there, with people you like and with people like you.

Hopefully this group is one of them! Welcome!

It took me 40 years to accept that Christianity is just another religion. Created by charismatic people and continued from child age up with indoctrination, rituals, lights, and community. Christianity itself is created in about the fourth century by the "church fathers" of communities thinking different, united by Emperor Constantine, who wanted unity in his empire. They all created a storybook with fairytales. With some heaven (some overcrowded platform in the sky where generations of loyal believers come when they die. Like the clouds of Jack and the beanstalk, where a giant lives. It's all about control masses and gaining money (where comes the 10% tithe from?). No, it's all a lie. A god that is all-powerful and all-knowing, who does nothing for the people that worship them. Yes, when someone is lucky and he believes, he writes that luck on the account of a blessing list of his or her god. I never felt good about the Christian churches I went to. It's taking ones freedom. And the ten commandments? If you are empathic and you know what other people experience because you are able to feel what they feel when you think yourself in their place, you are good. Not because you have too by "law" but because of you are. It's all a scam. But I don't despise people that believe. They don't know better. You need a lot of thinking to untwine yourself from your indoctrinations.

How can anyone worship a god who creates a place called hell where he sends thoes he doesn't like and keeps them alive for the sole purpose of torturing them. How pathetic is that?

I agree that there are things that cannot be answered easily. Why this planet has the exact right qualities to have "living" on it, for example - but I am not curious enough to try and find an answer, and I don't feel a need to attribute that to anything. Smaller things - like how mountains are formed led me to geology and plate tectonics. I should add I was raised by atheists who both left belief at an early age. I'm not above cutting language out - usually I reference Bastet...

To me putting down the notions of a deity is the essence of spirituality. Spirituality to me is equivalent to living in a state of grace. A place where wounds can be nursed and tended to and forgiveness granted as able.

All religions are a businesses. Once people accept this notion, they can look at ANY organized group with clearer eyes. All religions have a formal set of rules one must abide by with one entity at the top being revered as all knowing all loving etc. Religious leaders say they report the word of God, but religion no matter how loving it sounds in writing is RUN by human beings who have their own agenda which is to keep you in need of validation that you are loved. They need to keep you wounded, hurt, frightened and guilty over who and what you are. To feel better you give them money in hopes they will love you and accept you on their terms. They do NOT value questioning, education, self-reflection, mindfulness, or self-discovery which in my view ANY child loving entity would want for their children. In fact growing in the knowledge of self and the world in which we live would be a TESTAMENT to the benevolence of a loving god. But religious leaders see this as blasphemy. Well of course they do. Believe in yourself and know that for all intents of purposes you have been spoon the fed a belief you are not worthy and only they cam make you so. Challenge ALL those notions. They are false. OH! and please remember if anyone who pulls out old testament crap to live by, remind them THERE AINT NO JESUS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. That's why Christians referred to it as the Old Way.