A life without religion.

Count me.

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Me.

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Do you feel like you are missing anything?

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Honestly? No. Not one day since I gave it up. I actually feel better.

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So you were religious,why did you give it up?

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I moved out of my parent's house and began to think for myself.

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tin_sword_arthur wrote:

I moved out of my parent's house and began to think for myself.

Good answer.
My old boss was like that, he had very religious parents and now hates religion.He wouldnt allow religious meeting fliers to be put up in the shop window.

I use to be religious(which to me means being nice) but got tired of being trod on.I feel better now but I do feel a loss at times.

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I began to mistrust the organized religion in which i was being raised, literally, at age five. My mistrust only grew with time. I was raised by my grandparents, and my grandmother was an adherent of a different religion. Comparing the two, i found nothing to recommend to me in either. By the time i was an adolescent, and prone to rebel, i refused to any longer participate in organized religion. In the years that followed, i learned more and more about Christianity through a wide-ranging study, and it served only to convince the more that organized religion is a bankrupt, and often even dangerous, concept. That any one individual would be religiously fervent does not alarm me--in the aggregate, though, i consider the religiously fervent to have a negative effect on society.

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material girl wrote:

I use to be religious(which to me means being nice) but got tired of being trod on.I feel better now but I do feel a loss at times.

I think my friends would tell you, I'm one of the nicest people they've ever known (I know, total lack of humility in that statement), and that is a trait that has not decreased since I quit religion. If anything, I've become more tolerant of others that my ex-church frowns upon.
I'm sorry you feel a loss at times. Have you considered seeing if there is a religion out there that might fill that loss, or are you happy enough to let it go and ride it out?

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Setanta wrote:

I began to mistrust the organized religion in which i was being raised, literally, at age five. My mistrust only grew with time. I was raised by my grandparents, and my grandmother was an adherent of a different religion. Comparing the two, i found nothing to recommend to me in either. By the time i was an adolescent, and prone to rebel, i refused to any longer participate in organized religion. In the years that followed, i learned more and more about Christianity through a wide-ranging study, and it served only to convince the more that organized religion is a bankrupt, and often even dangerous, concept. That any one individual would be religiously fervent does not alarm me--in the aggregate, though, i consider the religiously fervent to have a negative effect on society.

I wish I could say I had my doubts as early as you did, Set, but in the house I was brought up in, you didn't question God or think disparaging thoughts about him - he'd know, and you'd be punished. It was never a direct threat, but the though of Hell hanging over my head was enough to keep me from entertaining any thoughts of breaking away from the spell until I moved out. It held me in such a bind that I was literally afraid to not believe for a long time.

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Again, good answer Setanta.

Errrm, I used to be religious, goodness knows why, parents arnt religious, yes we do Christmas but its not like we sit around the fire read about Jesus.

I thought if I did something bad i would be punished, bad can mean something like sex or having an opinion that went against someone elses.Perfaectly natural things.
I still think the same but now realise if I feel that way forever Id do little of what I wanted and possibly make myself ill.

A couple of years back situation happened where someone was being verbally nasty and I just switched, thought to myself Im not putting up with it any longer.The only good thing that that person has ever done in her life as far as Im concerned.She made me the tough heartless b*tch I am now.
Im not that bad.I can be nice, I dont go out of my way to be nasty.

I dont feel the need to find a replacement.Im happy with my choice and working things out for myself, slowly but surely, has helped.
eg one of my close friends upset me the other day and I thought to myself, dont take it personnaly, its just they way she is.

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In my family, it was about Jesus. Not sitting around reading about him, thankfully, but my parents took every opportunity they could to remind us about Jesus and God's plan for us. They never missed a beat.
They are still very religious to this day. My mother is very involved with the church and my father recently backed out most of his direct involvement but is still an extremely religious person. I have a brother who is a pretty religious fellow, too. We've learned to survive by not talking about it. I won't change their minds, and they won't change mine, so it never comes up. And we are all still very close.
MG, that's interesting about your parents not being religious and yet you were. Most of the people I knew whose parents had no religious views were nearly fanatical about their religion, and wouldn't give it up for the world.

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What is it that made you parents religious?They must have been greatly influenced seperately in their lives.

I have a possible idea why i was religious.
I am a fan of a popular singer(think of my name)and she was portrayed as either a virgin or whore.As I was 12 I went the virgin way and started to read the Bible(gave up after reading about incest in it)then I just continued the feeling of if i do good, good things will happen to me.
I have had a good life, food on the table, roof over my head, great family/friends but some things really got to me in my 20's, hence i changed.Plus i think getting older helps.Ive started to realise i can act like grown ups around me, because i am one.If they can rant and rave so can I.

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Re: A life without religion.

material girl wrote:

How many people here live life without religion?

Me.

I'm sure there are worse coping devices than a belief in the invisible, but I can't think of any, maybe drugs or alcohol. Not that I didn't fervently believe at several points in my life, thought I could pray and be delivered from evil, thought if I just surrendered enough of myself I would see the invisible and it's workings, thought I was protected by holding onto the idea that I was protected. Of course, I wasn't delivered from evil, I never saw, except in my imagination, the Holy of either Alan Ginsberg or John XXIII. And almost every time I felt secure in the bosom of Abraham, Reality, the only real thing, kept thrusting itself into my face and life and times.

So, I gave it up. Gave up the entreaties in the dark, gave up the flags, banners and uniforms of the rituals, gave up any idea that something else was in control of my life and being. It now seems a little creepy. Imagine believing that an omniscient being knows what you are going to have for dinner tonight or who is going to struck by a truck ten minutes from now. Imagine knowing that because you think certain thoughts you are going to live in heaven forever. Imagine thinking that because you were born under a certain moonsign that... well, nevermind.

It's hard giving all that up. It is. It's much more comfortable knowing that no matter what happens you have a go-to guy in God. It's much harder knowing that I am out here on my own, just like you.

Joe( Luckily, there is love, otherwise -- we act like lemmings)Nation

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tin_sword_arthur wrote:

Setanta wrote:
I began to mistrust the organized religion . . . etc. . . .

I wish I could say I had my doubts as early as you did, Set, but in the house I was brought up in, you didn't question God or think disparaging thoughts about him - he'd know, and you'd be punished. It was never a direct threat, but the though of Hell hanging over my head was enough to keep me from entertaining any thoughts of breaking away from the spell until I moved out. It held me in such a bind that I was literally afraid to not believe for a long time.

I recall vividly a day in the summer when it was very hot, and the weather had been dry for long enough, that the ground began to crack. We had a swing-set in the backyard, a large one which my grandfather had made himself, and i was about to sit down on one of the swings, when, seeing the cracks in the ground, i became alarmed at the thought that the ground might give way, and i would fall into Hell. (I was only about six at that time.) Then a tremendous sense of resentment welled up in me that i might suffer for innocent mistakes, or simply from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Within a few years, i understood that one did not fall into Hell by merely stepping on cracked ground, and at that point began to doubt the line which was being fed to me.

I will not describe in detail the incident which occured when i was five, but it entailed the same sort of resentment, that i would be punished for an innocent mistake. Even very small children has a sense of what is fair, and mine had been deeply offended.

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I'm not sure what drives them so. My father's parents aren't particularly religious people, and my mother's parents aren't, either. My father was brought up Evangelical Lutheran and my mother was brought up Catholic. When they got engaged, my mother changed to Evangelical Lutheran, too. Some time after that, they both became extremely religious.
We weren't allowed to listen to many kinds of music growing up, and your namesake was one of them. At least, not at home. If something came on the radio, fine. But if a video came on and we were caught watching, look out. My parents actually thought KISS stood for Knights In Satan's Service and AC/DC stood for All Children Deny Christ.
You can see why I'm glad I got out when I did. They have calmed down since my brother and I both grew up and moved away, but they are still deeply religious people.

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Re: A life without religion.

Joe Nation wrote:

It's hard giving all that up. It is. It's much more comfortable knowing that no matter what happens you have a go-to guy in God.

Very true. It is comforting to think that there is some magical "big brother" out there that will protect you from all the bullies and send them to a bad place while taking you to a place of joy. This is part of the reason I was afraid to let go for a while. After spending 18 years having this stuff drilled into my brain, it was hard to think any other way. But this is not just some rebelious thing for me, a way to get back at my parents for all those years. This is how I truly feel. I only recently began to call myself an atheist. For a number of years, I was searching myself and my world around me to find out what I believed in. I now know that this is it.

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Count me. I can't remember the age that I stopped going to Sunday school. I know by the time I got to high school (12), religion just wasn't any part of my life, except for having to sit through the stupid scripture classes in year 7 (because I wasn't smart enough to know that I didn't have to). As I got older, the whole concept just seemed to become more and more ridiculous. The events of the past several years have solidified what was a general disinterest into a genuine dislike of religion.

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Me too. Over the years I have learned that religion does more to separate people, then to bring them together. The entire concept of a "big daddy in the sky" makes absolutely no sense to me. I find the idea of worship obnoxious.

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A life without religion.

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