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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As an atheist, I am not surprised by this study. People are generally shocked to find out I don't believe in god, and tell me things like, "But you're such a nice person." I do think that most Americans equate belief in god or participation in an organized religion with morality.

The reason I became an atheist is because I grew up christian and about 50% of the people in my church were awful people most of the time. Now don't get me wrong, I don't in any way think all christians are this way, but the fact that these "Sunday christians" were so willing to be terrible people and then come to church and raise their voices the loudest (and with the most judgment) made me question the faith.

Not only that, but the church's more literalist beliefs (in e.g., 2 Timothy wrt women's role in culture), seemed bizarre in a modern world with gender equality. Also, to restate what a few PPs have discussed, it was the teaching of my former church that a murderer who underwent a deathbed conversion would go to heaven, but that anyone who didn't accept Jesus as their personal savior and confess their sins (e.g., atheists, people who believed other religions, people in isolated cultures who had never heard of Judeo-Christianity) would go directly to hell, regardless of the decency of their lives. Years of this sort of dissonance between the church's teachings and my own personal views on morality led to me questioning and eventually renouncing my faith.

I do personally think that humans are predisposed to religious thinking due to brain anatomy, so I don't think less of people who believe in god. However, I do not in any capacity believe they are more moral or good people than those who do not believe in god. [/quote]

But PP, don't you realize that idea--that God would "accidentally" let bad people party in heaven while good people were tortured for all eternity--is not a reason to not believe in God?  Don't know you that most Christians throughout history would find such a belief abhorrent, and directly contradicted by Jesus' words, not to mention reason and logic?

Put aside those childhood memories and ask the big questions:  where did this all come from?  Doesn't creation have a Creator?  Someone who set everything in motion?  Who is this Creator?  How do we have the ability to reason?  Who gave us that ability?  Who was Jesus, really?  When did Christianity start to splinter, and why?  Does ancient Christian theology make sense--is it reasonable?  Is there such a thing as right and wrong?

Ask the big questions, and don't trip up over bad theology.  And you'll find God.  Because He is Truth itself.[/quote]

Sorry, PP. I am the PP you are responding to. I addressed only the morality- and ethics-related reasons I became disillusioned with and broke with religion.

I am a scientist by training, and I have asked myself all of those questions. I do not believe in "creation", and I think it's a logical fallacy to believe that a deity is responsible for the existence of the universe. I studied physics and chemistry, but I am somewhat of a biology enthusiast, and I can tell you, I think that the idea that some big guy in the sky is cranking out people and animals for our little blue-green marble is pretty far from "truth."

Rather, my personal reflection led me to find that: 1. there is no afterlife, because life depends on the physical body, 2. the laws of physics and cause and effect dictate what will happen in our universe, 3. People can't understand the universe because we did not evolve to need to understand the universe, that said, we are capable of empirical thought and reason, and through those, our knowledge of the world and universe can come closer to being complete (e.g., a sort of Pragmatic Peirce-inspired idea of scientific thought), 4. As I said above, the brain is a weird and wonderful thing, but it's evolved some interesting ways of dealing with reality, insofar as humans have structures within the parietal lobe that seem to dictate their level of spirituality and belief in religion. This means some people will believe and others won't, and some believers will be stronger in their beliefs. It also means that believers are not always capable of understanding that non-believers are valid in their thoughts and views (as belief holds an element of biological determination and is therefore not always something people can put aside for empathy's sake).

So, no, I will not ever find god. But in its absence, I've found a lot of very meaningful and beautiful things in the real world instead.[/quote]

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