Hey, it's only been a month. There's no rush. Take your time to heal.

Regarding your boredom: Don't worry. You don't have to give up amazingness or awe or wonder when you lose belief in god. There are lots of things to be excited about. Start learning about science and history and philosophy. The universe is far more amazing and wonderful than Yahweh and Jesus. Try some Buddhism, or modern neuroscience and psychology. Learn how the human mind works. Read The Mind of the Bible Believer to see how the Bible fucked with your head, and forgive yourself. It's not your fault. Next, pick up a book by Joseph Campbell and find out about the universality of all myths, including the myths in the Bible. There's so much to learn! Watch Cosmos by Carl Sagan: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2497938397749959211

 

\\I'm an Agnostic Athiest\\

Cant wait to tell my parents ...
jk i actually hate talking to them about it.

actually a few days ago i had to sit through "The Case For Christ" By Lee Strobel.

My parents made me watch it.

I can see why it is so popular but logically it fails hardcore.

Wow. That's ... terrible.

Yikes. Are they heavily religious?

actually my memory is kinda fuzzy... maybe they were in it before me. maybe it happened at the same time. I do know I inspired my parents religiously... a lot.

Didn't they make chess a sport? Anyway, competitive gaming is hilarious to watch, so I'm sure eventually it'll be accepted. As soon as people start betting illegally on it, it's a sport - isn't that how it works?

 

If you were planning to be a priest, I assume you're Catholic (maybe Orthodox).  Perhaps an hour alone with the Blessed Sacrament would help.  If you feel nothing, then mebbe consider walking away.  The "dark night of the soul" is something any serious believer experiences at one time or another.  You may want to consider reading "Dark Night of the Soul" by St John of the Cross.  It's not an easy read since it was written in the 16th century, in Spanish, by a Carmelite mystic. 

In the meantime, chin up.  My "dark night" lasted the better part of 20 years.

You're in my prayers today, Jon, before our crucified Lord.  God bless.

 

Welcome to the boards. You've joined a community where many of us were in the same boat. I was not from a particuliarly religious family myself, but at about your age I experienced the same thing. I only spent about a year and a half as a christian and the last 20 questioning the existence of god.

The loss of faith can be a disturbing thing but there is nothing inherently wrong with where you are today. It wasn't until I really started to explore the origins of the world's religions that I decided it's all just make believe. I haven't given up on the existence of a creator, which is why I am also an agnostic atheist. I just find that the bible, quran and the rig vedas absurd in the "undeniable" truth they offer. If there is a god it must be something beyond the grasp of our human understanding.

As a christian I would have never viewed god as cruel or sadistic, but because I am so far disconnected from my faith I see the god of the bible in a much different light today. Your belief in god probably started when you were young so the hold religion has on your life is probably strong. If you are looking for an easy transition to atheism I can't offer you the path. You could deny the holy spirit, but is this truly an unforgivable sin? The only truly unforgivable sin is denying the existence of an invisible sky daddy, well according to the bible anyways. There is little evidence that any of the major events in the bible actually took place. The flood, the exodus from Egypt and the life of jesus are just many examples of events lacking corroborating physical evidence. If there was no flood then how can the bible be the literal word of god? Try reading your bible again without the dogma attached and you may find most of the shit in it is so undeniably ridiculous.

Honestly, there is nothing that theism offers that cannot be derived from atheism as well. Your life can be as fulfilling and wonderful as your old life, maybe even more so. Atheists base their actions on the altruistic nature of our species more so than the coersion of religious dogma. Good luck and hang in there.

 

I know exactly what you mean. I underwent a similar experience about 4 or so years ago. It scared the shit out of me too. I just slowly came to realize that nobody was backing up what they were saying. The pastors didn't make sense anymore. The people in the youth groups went from looking holy, filled with joy, to glazed over, zombified, controlled. I began to doubt my own thoughts. I tried to supress my growing suspicion that it was all a lie. I rationalized, I pleaded, I prayed, but in the end, I just felt empty. I felt like I had wasted my life up until that point on nothing, and that nothing could come after it.

 

The best thing you can do is research it. A lot of people just coming out of it think they're agnostic too, myself included. But there's a lot of confusion regarding the terminology. The best thing you can do is research what it means to be an agnostic and an atheist, and decide for yourself what you believe. Here's a quick test though: Do you believe in god? I'm not asking whether or not you know god exists, just whether you believe that he exists. If the answer is "Yes", you're a theist. If the answer is "no", you're an atheist. Now, do you know that god does/does not exist? If the answer is "yes", you are gnostic. If the answer is "no", you are agnostic. Thus you can be either a gnostic theist, an agnostic theist, a gnostic atheist or an agnostic  atheist.

 

Most of the people on this site are agnostic  atheists. Most of your friends in the youth groups will claim to be gnostic or agnostic theists. What is important to remember though, is that agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. You can be both.

I felt the same way. I felt gripped by fear. I used to sit up all night in my bedroom thinking "if God exists, wouldn't he be really angry with me right now?" and I would just shiver and think about that. But I got over it. After you've researched it, after you've thought about it long enough, the fear goes away like the fear of the boogeyman in the closet or the fear or pissing off Santa Claus and getting coal in your stocking. Christianity breeds on fear. Fear of the unknown, fear or god, fear of the devil, fear of reason, fear of your own thoughts. It is a powerful fear, but you can escape it. All you have to do is realize that its all a lie. All a method of controlling you. Of using you. Of keeping you. And then the fear becomes anger, anger becomes disgust, and disgust becomes pity.

 

You don't have to say it. It's just silly words. What matters is what you think and believe.

 

 

Indeed, we humans live in the middle world of short time spans, slow-moving objects, objects no larger than mountains and no smaller than bugs, when the universe is so much grander, so much older, so much more complex than we can imagine. That is what makes religion so appealing. It teaches simple solutions. It teaches black and white, right and wrong, actions of a vast and uncaring universe as the whims of a single magical man. It is easy for us to understand. In the words of hamlet though, "There are more things in heaven and earth than is dream't of in your philosophy".

What we are incapable of understanding we must break into simpler parts and make an honest effort to explain them. The universe doesn't often grant simple solutions, but we must do our best to find out the real truth, rather than inventing a truth that makes sense to our small, tribalistic minds.

 

 

Ah, the old Nihilism trick. Indeed, what is the point in living? Without religion there can be no absolute purpose. No absolute answer to the absolute "why". But the universe is not absolute. It is subjective. The point in living is the point you make, the point you control. On the contrary, I would say "if you get infinite bliss after you die, what is the point in living?" Religion offers the easy out. It offers the simple, pleasing solution to the problem of life, and in doing so, it destroys the very joy of life. We alone experience our short, yet fantastic lives. We are privaleged to be here. We are privaleged to see the world with our own eyes and think about it. It is something amazing, and it is something that should not be wasted.

 

I admire your coming here. I just want you to know that whatever you may be feeling now will pass eventually. You'll either fall back into the church or you'll climb out of it. Right now you're in the worst part, the middle. But its downhill both ways. I encourage you to research, to think, to explore. Gradually you will find your own philosophy, and you will no longer be afraid of the clutches of dogma which have bound you in the past.

Hello Adroit!
Good to see you here, I hope you'll get better soon.
I was raised as a christian too, mostly because of a tradition, because everyone around was. I was afraid of Hell, I wanted to go to Heaven, and I prayed. Not for long, though. My parents had a hobby, which would be today considered a part of New Age Movement. You know, an idea of reincarnation sounds much better than burning in Hell forever. Feels more right. What Rook, Sapient, and others explains here all the time, I already felt in my heart, the nonsense of christianic mechanisms.
I never had a slightest fear of God, when abandoning a religion and you don't have too. Look around you - if no God exists, then everything's fine, and if exists, then as a creator of such a huge, complex and sophisticated world, the God must be very intelligent and won't resemble the barbaric Yahweh at all. No anthropomorphism, for example, no senseless punishment.

I consider myself as atheistic gnostic. I don't believe the New Age crap - I have seen what works and what not, thus a belief is out of the game. The rest of my paradigm is a logical assumption based on my experiences and of people I can trust, and if not totally, I just wait if some reliable confirmation shows up. It usually shows.
You don't have to refuse existence of non-material parts of reality, you can unbiasedly find for yourself, what is real (though it requires some effort). Being an atheist doesn't mean you must refuse everything you believed in, just what you don't have a reason for. I think, that a reason can be also personal. I personally experienced things, which seemed as impossible at first, but later I had them interpersonally confirmed, by people who experienced the same thing or very similar.

I know it. Some calls it Holy spirit, some just energy. Feelings like this are not illusions, though their interpretations may be false. It is always better when you know exactly what you're doing. "Holy spirit" is quite a poor explanation, but considering everything as a trick of mind is a way to ignorance.
For example, I have an enhanced touch sense, since I remember, I can anytime perceive objects, which are, at best, non-material. I could reject it as a trick of mind, but many other people, either on the internet, or some I know have this enhanced touch sense too. It is also sometimes taught on semminaries as a helpful technique for alternative medicine healers. This is an example of interpersonal confirmation, an important thing in sceptical and scientific thinking. If I then want to describe this phenomenon, there's an originally eastern teaching of a human being consisting of multiple non-material "bodies". Except of physical is so-called etheric body, which some new age sympathizants claims to be partially visible on Kirlian's photography. The notion of etheric body fits well on the perceived phenomenon, so I can consider a possibility, that the eastern teaching I mentioned is about the same phenomenon I meant. It also increases a probability of existence of other non-material "bodies". And now I have some more possibilities. You got the point, if you don't feel like rejecting non-material phenomenons, just stay unbiased and seek for credible personal and interpersonal experiences and you'll see.
"Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so." - Galileo Galilei

Take a look at these photos. My favorite image from Hubble, ever, is the one of the Eagle Nebula posted here:

http://www.floridamuseum.org/downloads/images.html

If this doesn't catch your breath and make you feel somewhat privileged, I don't know what will. That is what the mother of our solar system looked like, in all her grandeur and beauty. For all the church was able to say about the alleged perfect creator who put us here - could they ever show you a picture of him?

 

As far as losing your 'guiding hand', I'm afraid that's just a matter of taking responsibilty for what comes your way. You've been guiding yourself all along, afterall - now you've simply got to do the work involved in making your own destiny here. You're only as unimportant as you let yourself become.

Best luck on the road ahead.

When you've been told repeatedly by society that leaving the club is a no no which will bbQ you, you are still, even after facing some of the fallacies going to have some left over fear.

I knew I didn't believe for at least 6 years before I went on line in O1 searching for other atheists, and when I clicked on the first site, I feared that somehow maybe I might be getting involved in a cult. That was left over fear caused by a lifetime of indoctrination. I lost that fear less than a few days later when I read about other atheists having just as normal a life as I did.

It should no more scare you denying the holy spirit as it should scare you denying Thor or Micky Mouse being real. If you accept that their is no god in the sky named Thor making thunder and lighting, then it should not be a stretch to deny claims of ghosts knocking up girls or human flesh surviving rigor mortis after 3 days.

Lose that fear, it is merely a leftover affect of intellectual ignorance. You've accepted that other parts of your former belief are nothing but magical claims, why would you want to believe that you need to fear a dictator who will beat you up if you don't bow to him?

If you accept other claims of your former belief are fiction, then the idea of hell should rationally fall in the same boat. You have nothing to fear from fiction just as you have nothing to fear from Harry Potter.

I hope that helps.

Can't win 'em back, scare 'em back, huh?