Wow. What a great testimony(so to speak).

Do you feel pretty pressured to pretend to be christian just to finish your degree? I wouldn't worry about dropping out, a degree from a bible college is even more worthless than one from a secular school.

So are you atheist or agnostic?

Welcome to the forum!

I come from the opposite end of the spectrum, grew up without religion in a very secular place, Sweden. It may amuse you to tell the christians at your school that people like me literally see no difference between christian stories and Beowulf, Brothers Grimm or Norse mythology. They all have equal amounts of evidence to claim any authority: none.

I'm done with bible classes this semester. This has been the most close minded one so far. It has been a bit difficult. Telling people about it is difficult, because they are totally unaccepting of any beliefs other than their own. They to rationalize absolutely everything.

I don't know about the beautitudes to Matt 10:36 question, I'd have to look into it.

My husband's younger brother went to private school to finish high school.  There wasn't much choice at the time in that city, so he went to Gonzaga Prep in Spokane - where Bing Crosby went to school.  They have a statue and everything.  Anyway, I was told my brother-in-law had to declare a religion, they wouldn't let him put down atheist, agnostic or non-religious.  So he wrote in "druid".

This was long years before "Jedi knight". 

I'm a grandmother in Portland, OR, currently unemployed, and bored to death.  So I hang here when the job search is slow.  You're not alone, we're here for you.

I can't speak for everyone from up North... but I am from CT and my family, and town really, are religious to a fault.  Most people from college know that I am atheist... but my family has no idea.  I admire your courage.  Welcome!

Hey rdklep8,

Yes. I haven't broken the news to my parents yet. I think they knew I was struggling with the idea of god. I don't think they'll be completely furious. It's really scary coming out to your parents. I know mine would prefer me to believe in god, but I think they also know there is no way to push this kind of decision or belief on anyone. I'm glad that your friends at college are understanding. I can hang out with people at school, as long as we don't talk about religious beliefs.

Generally it doesn't go well. Thanks. You too! One of my brothers and my sister are atheists, so there is some support I have. It's hard to go to a predominantly christian school, living on campus, surrounded by people who use their religion as a reason to hate others.

Hi, thanks for the support. It is a difficult situation. It was definitely not an easy journey. It has taken 3 years for me to admit that my views in life had changed into something similar to atheism/agnosticism.

"Eli Eli Lema Sabachtani?" - Jesus

It can definitely be pretty funny. A lot of the male christians here sleep with other men, but say that they're not gay, because they're so afraid. People literally can't come out for fear of persecution. There is a clause in the original constitution of this university about homosexuals not being able to attend. It's amazing the willful ignorance that exists. It's amazing. They also kick out any female that becomes pregnant, but they don't do anything to the males. It's a hypocritical place, with many people who are very blind to understanding their own beliefs. There is also a high rate of making out with random people or trying anal sex, because they're so desperate to keep their virginity, and sex is such a taboo. Instead of having a healthy protected sexual relationship, they chose to put themselves at risk. It's so very sexually repressed, it's dangerous, these kids are graduating with no idea of how the world actually works.

wow you pretty much described my university there. it sucks to have those subjects. feels like decreasing your mental juices than increasing it. welcome to the forums!

Welcome TJ!

Are you pretty open about your atheism on campus?

Hi.

Thank you for your input into what it means to be an atheist.

Personally, you're mincing words a little bit by rejecting the term 'belief system.' Everyone has a story, and believes in something.  Part of my belief system now is not believing in god. maybe I don't have a religious belief system, but I do believe in my ability to helps others, and that our lives are made up of interactions with others, and outside of being compassionate, my life have little to no purpose, besides knowledge and understanding.  Maybe if you're going to nit pick, it'd be a disbelief system. and that's fine. I don't know, I just think we all have paradigms with multiple facets of understanding. atheism is now creating a part of my out look, believing in god or not.
 

Again, attending a biblical college, means I am extremely familiar with the bible, the bible itself is a main point of contention on why I don't believe. for example, Jesus is supposed to be a picture perfect flawless example of humanity, yet he burns a fig tree enraged by it not producing any fruit, pointing out that he was a major jerk, or people went over board with a righteous anger metaphor. Either way, it's opposite of what jesus was supposed to represent.

I hadn't really intended my reasons for not believing in god, but since you bring it up, it's definitely not based on purely emotional reasons.
First of all, I'm losing my eyesight. I received a nomination to West Point , but was medically disqualified for my eyesight, later, I had to have 2 surgeries to save my left eye. There is no reason for this, natural or moral evil, categorically, it makes no difference. This random occurrence opened my eyes, no pun intended, and forced me to realize that god cannot exist if so many random events can occur, it/he obviously either has no power, or does not care.

I was also raped my freshman year of college, when I was a Christian, and realizing that god's supposed promise of retributive justice, is obviously false. Bad things happen to good people and wonderful things happen to bad people. It's disgusting the fallacy that lays in the idea that god 'defends' his own. The idea of retributive justice being presented in the bible multiple times. Job, Isaiah, Psalms, proverbs.

Why should a middle aged house wife 'pray' to god, and have a stain removed from her shirt, while he ignores the 12,000 children dying of starvation a minute? If god exists and this is how he functions, then he is a cruel, trivial, uncaring god, and compared to the bible, his existence makes absolutely no logical sense

Thanks for trying to strengthen my understanding of atheism. I have gotten useful information from godisimaginary.com  Thank you for your suggestions and I'll certainly have to look into the reading material.

The last I've heard on the statistics, is that the divorce rate for secular and non secular marriages are the same. But I've heard that the STD rates and pregnancy for religious people is higher. I agree that repressing the knowledge only creates ignorant adults who don't know how to handle life. It's kind of like the difference in alcohol drinking ages in europe and the U.S. In parts of europe you can drink beer at 14 and liquor at 16, and their alcohol related death rates are much much lower. Young people are exposed to it, so it's not such a taboo. They don't go crazy when they get older, because they are aware of it's existence and are allowed to experiment, and learn their limitations. It's good to meet someone who's older is an atheist, as all people I know who are older then me persist in the idea of religion, I think because they're 'old school', and they feel responsible to believe to be a good example to younger generations.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

Religion                         % who have been divorced

Jews                             30%

Born-again Christians     27%

Other Christians             24%

Atheists, Agnostics          21%

Of course, there is a lot of protests from the born-agains.  I think it all has to do with "putting your troubles in the lap of Jesus".  With the result nothing gets resolved.  Additionally, I think the church does very little to support marriages.  Most pastors are not trained to do marriage counseling and they frankly suck at it.  (personal experience) 

My sister (the JW) had been married for 29 years when she found out her husband was cheating with another church "sister".  She divorced him.  He had to repent, and ask forgiveness from the other elders.  They let him back in as an elder.  And then the church people wondered why she didn't want to attend the same meetings that the ex did.  Jesus forgave him, why couldn't she?  And she still goes to the dippy church.

We secular types rely on ourselves to fix our relationship problems.  And so we get busy and take steps.

I think a lot of people my age remember their checkered past all too well.  And some of them are trying to forgive themselves still.  I had friends who all of a sudden got real respectable when the kids came along.  I did religion for a little while when the boys were young, but I soon dropped it.  And none of the boys got into it.  I always thought you did your children a disservice by not owning up to your own personal experience no matter how antisocial and wild it was.  Hiding behind religion does not make your past disappear.  Surely the old ones that protest the most were some of the wildest in their youth.

And when atheists bring up the non-magical randomness of life, such as in your case, and that good things happen to bad people and vice versa , they falsely accuse us of being angry at their god. No, what we are angry at is the absurdity of such a suggestion. That we are here for the entertainment for a god who doesn't have to allow us to suffer, but does solely for the goal for his self interest of gaining club members to kiss is ass.

The REAL evidence of reality is all around us. The fact that cockroaches have been around longer and out number humans. Bacteria outnumbers humans. Eagles have better eyesight than humans. The fact that you are going blind. The fact that children all over the world die of starvation every day. The fact that a meteor could wipe out our species at any minute. The fact that the sun will eventually expand and fry the planet to a cinder.

There is no purpose to life. But when you say that to a believer they call us pessimistic and fatalistic, but the reality is that it is they, not the atheist, who are such. You don't make up some fictional "test' or "punishment" doled out to you by a fictional fight between god and Satan. You accept the reality without assigning magic to it.

I had a fundy upbringing and there are a few words you used in your earlier post that really spoke to me - perhaps the strongest bell ringer was the word 'conform'.

Born again gospel christians are minted out of the same ideological mold in such a way as to be virtually identical. They are prostrate with conformity and as you point out a number of times, are seemingly unable to think of out-of-bible possibilities. I tend to think there's some sort of brain issue happening with them. Eternal life being so important, they will actively refuse to think in a way that threatens their comfort zone.

I didn't realise it when I was making the transition to disbelief as I was awash with guilt but I think you do understand that non belief is where real honesty lies.

Nice to meet you to

It's amazing the response and people I'm meeting here! It was a good idea to get support with this recent decision to not believe.

Conformity is a kind of safety. If you accept what the majority says, you don't have to fight for an identity. I completely agree. I think they're so scared and terrified of death and hell, they willingly ignore any possibility the god doesn't exist.

It was scary at first, realizing that I was slowly undermining all my old beliefs in god, what was even scarier was that I had believed that way for so, even though all events in my life were pointing me to understand that there is no god. I was believing in something because it was 'comfortable.' because others reinforced the empty ideals as true.

Fighting for myself and my personality now, is a fight against persecution by the christians here, though not all of them are entirely of the  'burn the sinners' mind set. I'm glad that you were able to maintain and find your own personal freedom too.

I can only hope we're able to help each other grow and expand intellectually.

Thanks, it's helping me already. I'm starting to think I'm not so alone, or abnormal

Don't say that to my co-workers, especially during inspection period.

And I hope you are not listening to my opinions. How did you get the bugs in my trailer?

My unsolicited advice... as someone who is not just "out" about his atheism, but that my wife and I negotiate non monogamy....and who doesn't give a remote shit what other people think because I know more ways to tell them to go fuck themselves than they have trite cliche's to dispense about morality...

Remain silent... Tell NO ONE....but keep a journal... in 4 years turn it into a book.... everyone on this site (and a lot of others) will buy it.... Get an Agent, and hit the talk circuit...hire an intern to answer your Fan/Hate Mail...

You have a potentially lucerative career here, if you desire it...

Either way... best of luck kiddo... Hope only good things happen to you...

Are you a teacher Tapey?

It's really hard to be ambushed by Christians sometimes.

some of them get so incredibly angry and defensive, like they can't believe that you think any differently than they do.

they want to know if you don't have a religion then how do you know what good and evil are, where do you get moral ideals, how the world was created, why we exist if there is no god, what happens to you when you die, but whenever you try to answer those questions, they ignore your answers, argue with you, and spout out a regurgitated copy and paste answer. I don't know why they bother asking if they're not really interested in hearing what you think.

I think it's great the you have a sense of humor about it.

what always amuses me about such christians is they're all convinced of their own brilliance and seem genuinely oblivious to the fact that they're spouting bullshit that's been spouted a million times before.  sometimes i like to fluster them by finishing their arguments for them.

i also always love tearing down their personal heroes, which are often c.s. lewis and/or some apologist like josh mcdowell or lee strobel.  they obviously think these men are so brilliant and they sometimes get a bit crestfallen when i point out how c.s. lewis is regurgitating shit that church fathers said 1500 years ago, perhaps unwittingly at times.  for example, the conception of the trinity he offers in mere christianity, which he seems at least to think is somewhat novel, is nothing more than a sloppy rehash of the augustinian conception.  of course, this tactic doesn't really serve as a valid argument against their points, but it does demonstrate the intellectual limits of their religion and the fact that, once their stock arguments are debunked, they have nothing else, nor even the possibility of anything else, to fall back on.  it's a closed, dead system of thought.

welcome, btw, and you have my sympathies.  i was pretty fundy when i started college, and even considered going to "bible college" (shudder...when i think of the bullet i dodged there it's like a cat walking over my grave).  i think what saved me was the fact that i was always independent-minded, so i didn't make the mistake of consulting my pastor or something like that before choosing my school.  instead, i chose a wonderful school with a very liberal religion program that challenged my faith at every turn.  still, i can relate to you a bit because i was in the campus crusade for christ world for a couple years after i graduated and i began my deconversion (though i didn't recognize it as such at the time) while still on staff with them.  i got "talked to" so many times, and even used to have random older staff members come up to me at conferences, uninvited, and ask what i was reading.  they got nervous when they saw names like martin buber or rosa luxemburg or nietzsche on the cover.  i don't think they even knew who half the authors were, but it was enough that it wasn't john piper or bill bright or some fuckin' left behind book to make them nervous.  i even got asked once why i was using an oxford study bible that included the apocrypha.