Posted by pseudoname on April 8, 2006, at 15:23:29
In reply to early random thoughts, posted by Declan on April 7, 2006, at 15:36:16
I guess I didn't answer why I don't believe in God.
I had thorough Christian exposure growing up:
• Protestant church, Sunday school & choir every week
• reactionary Protestant day school to 8th grade
• Catholic high school
• taken to speaking-in-tongues services sometimes
• people in family who were Seventh-Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, etc
• lots of dinnertime talk about Calvinism, evolution, etcBy my mid-teens, I felt a lot of pressure from all these conflicting Christian dogmas. I felt that I saw too many internal contradictions and hand-waving, and it was getting to be too much for me, since I could find no logical reason to favor one Christian sect over another and each was presented to me with absolute certainty by its adherents.
Plus, prayer never did anything for my emotional problems.
The tipping point was at about 16 when I considered the unequivocally anti-gay passages in the Bible. I was gay and I *liked* that identity. (It was “different”, I guess.) I decided that a real God would have to know that being gay was okay. I remember exactly where I was sitting at the moment I thought, “If He doesn't want me, I don't want Him.”
My atheism has developed since then. :-) But I still like religious issues & discussions, and I still play hymns on my piano.
poster:pseudoname
thread:630311
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060406/msgs/630613.html