froglipz wrote:This topic is titled right up front "How did you stop believing?" I came in to discuss HOW, not whether, or why not, or if, THIS topic presupposes the lack of belief right up front. If I wanted to debate the other questions there are a multitude of topics for just that purpose. I do not go there because I don't care to participate in that debate. Please feel free to discuss all of that in the myriad of other places people are discussing those topics. I feel free, for my part, to stay out of them.

My response was not off topic. I initially responded to President Camacho attempting to help him identify a Bible verse some door to door evangelists had shown him. That led to a comment about how evangelists proselytize. I also shared by experience about losing faith. It's not like we deviated into discussing Astrotheology here so relax.

I'm with froglipz; this discussion has been completely derailed. Hopefully it can be brought back around to the question.

It's interesting that there are so many experiences that have lead people to reject a religious worldview, isn't it? I was a Latter-Day Saint (Mormon), and I spent two years away from home, knocking on doors, spreading the word. (The above claim that Mormons don't care about you, that their conversion attempts are directly tied to their salvation... both are 100% false and without foundation.) Most of the people I've talked to about their loss of faith (hundreds -- hours a day every day for two years) trace it back to experiences similar to those on this thread: a logical, thought-driven process of realization.

As my favorite singer/songwriter, David Bazan, puts it in a song about his eventual rejection of belief: "...too full of fear and prophecy to see the revelation right in front of me; so sick and tired of trying to make the pieces fit."

For so many people, that loss of faith is incredibly painful and tragic. For me, and many I've known, it's been liberating, marvelous. Which has it been for all of you?

For me also it was liberating, I know many people who feel comfort and joy in their faith, which is why I do not believe that religion is all bad or evil. yamaf, was it your mission work that led your thoughts around, or some other experience that started you thinking?

It's all so complicated for me. I found so much comfort and joy in my faith, sometimes I can't believe it felt so good to leave it all behind. Honestly, trying to convince others of the legitimacy of what I believed in is what lead me to see things from their point of view (which, more often than not, was just common sense), which is what led me to see the world from their point of view.

It is not an easy or fast decision, I learned a lot about many other faiths looking for some answers, I can easily see why many religions don't want people studying other faiths, it leads one to make some conclusions which often don't include remaining in the fold.

yamaf350 said:

For so many people, that loss of faith is incredibly painful and tragic. For me, and many I've known, it's been liberating, marvelous. Which has it been for all of you?

You say that you found comfort and joy in your faith and yet it has been liberating and marvelous to have lost it?

I can only say that I feel diminished at the loss of mine. I don't think it matters that I feel diminished, in the grander scheme of things.

But something, some light, in me has gone out. I am now an ineffectual person. I have lost something crucial. Yet, I am glad that I am aware of this.

Never believed in god myself... but alwys believed in myself... and I never felt like I was missing something or incomplete.

In fact when I compare myself to religious peope as a whole I appear to be more moral, more happy and more complete than the vast majority of them appear to be.

I certainly do not see the benift of all of those regulations and guilt in the name of someone/something that is un-proven.

Later

Frank13 wrote:
Never believed in god myself... but alwys believed in myself... and I never felt like I was missing something or incomplete.

I am quite, moral. I am quite happy. But I HAVE LOST MY 'JOY'.

You know, like 'happy' is not the same as 'joy'.

Like, 'knowledge' is not the same as 'wisdom'.

Like, ignorance is bliss.


Frank, it is lovely to hear from you.

I see "Happy" and "Joy" as interchangable... maybe I have never experienced "joy", but I find it dubtful that only religion can bring this feeling into existance.

In any case I am a complete person... without faith.

And thanks Penelpe... its good t be back!

Later

Frank 013 wrote:its good t be back!

Stick around for a while will ya? It's great having you back!