Comments on: Happy Blasphemy Day: How I became an atheist

By: tarrich

tarrich — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:32:54 +0000

blasphemy laws are inhuman..read more..
http://tarrichmania.blogspot.com/2011/01/blasphemy-is-it-really-worth-punishing.html

By: Tatiana

Tatiana — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 23:54:52 +0000

http://nightswolf.wordpress.com/

By: jake

jake — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 04:40:53 +0000

Typical moderate Christian upbringing for me. My doubts began when I was around 13; when I realized that all of the magic stories that I heard in church did not jive with how I understood reality at the time – in other words, I wasn’t seeing miracles or having prayers answered. I also figured that if there was someone up in the sky, that I would somehow feel something when I looked up… Then I realized there were other religions and that was that.

By: Mike Hanson-Haubrich

Mike Hanson-Haubrich — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 01:32:53 +0000

The bullshit of catholicism didn’t make me an atheist, it made me a religion hunter who believed in God but thought that there must be some religion that didn’t have to mask the fact that they really didn’t know anything by making shit up.

I must be pretty thick in the head, because it took me about 30 years to realize that religion is bullshit because the concept of God is bullshit. GIGO, after all.

But, a Catholic kid in a pre-school had told my then-kindergarten aged daughter that if you stick your middle finger up in the air at God then you would go to Hell. So, she and I tested it together.

Now, the funny part of it all is that, as you said, the catholics teach that one can be forgiven of any sin through confession. Even swearing in the boys’ room.

By: Doris Gerhart

Doris Gerhart — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 21:16:27 +0000

The only college in Great Falls, Montana when I was a senior was a Catholic one. The teachers were priests or nuns. One day I was the only student in a class because of a flu epidemic. The priest said we could talk about anything I wanted. I said that history has records of people like the Caesars and Pliny the Elder, who lived at the time of Jesus, but there is no historical evidence that there was a man names Jesus. He looked at me sharply and said, “Fact and faith are not compatible, You ACCEPT and do not Question”.
I’ve been questioning ever since.

By: Doug Alder

Doug Alder — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 20:32:27 +0000

Being raised a Southern Baptist was all hellfire and brimstone – nasty stuff. I started asking “awkward” questions in in the kids bible studies about the age of 8 when I realized that Santa and the Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy we’re about the same plausibility as this religion crap being true.

So happy fucking god damned belated Blasphemy Day Greg

…..hey where’s the floor ……..

By: Curt Howland

Curt Howland — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:35:12 +0000

No one believes in Zeus, or Jupiter, or Marduk.

An Atheist simply believes in one less god than a theist, even though the theist doesn’t believe in 99+% of the gods either.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:21:52 +0000

Jean-Denis, we are not too different in age. I am not making this up, or even exaggerating. Rather, I’m leaving a lot out. And, having met a lot of ex catholics, I can assure you that my experiences are not unique or unusual.

By: Jean-Denis

Jean-Denis — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:16:04 +0000

Greg, how old are you? Did this really happen within the last 100 years? I have a similar background to yours: I went to a catholic school for several years, ie primary school. Later, I attended religion class in public high school (Alsace Lorraine was- and still is – under Napoleon’s concordate rules, whereby state-funded high schools have religion classes).

However I lived through none of those events, nor anything remotely similar. Priests and nuns were educated enough, and smart enough, not too lie in such a blatant way.

Swearing was not accepted, but if we did, we only would face their mild punishment (probably writing down 100 times “I won’t ever swear again” or some such). Never, for anything, was I threatened with hell or the wrath of God. God in their words was only love. Not punishment or violence. Of course, they didn’t talk much of those parts of the bible where God was violent.

In high school the teaching priest there even invited pupils of other religions to present their faith, and encouraged debate among us all.

It’s only later, after a much thorougher study process that I became an atheist.

If anything, the nuns who told you stupid things like that were shooting their own faith in the foot.

By the way, I was born in 1963. All the events I mentioned here happened between 1969 and 1978.

By: Stephanie Z

Stephanie Z — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 13:51:58 +0000

Ender, you might want to familiarize yourself with Occam’s Razor before you start calling other people stupid. The level of simplicity it suggests as optimum is specified by the evidence and changes as new evidence becomes available.