Have you religious views changed as you have aged?

[andthighbootsforall]

In my youth I recall going to church and being told about how God controls everything. He has always been here, knows the date of my birth and death. Knows what I think and what I do in the bedroom and with whom. Now, having taken 50+ trips around the sun I’m starting to listen to people like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. I’m wondering if this is all a ruse and more or less something to keep the masses in line?

Has anyone else started to doubt early religious teachings as they grew older?

Thank you!

 

[ll74]

Yes.

Grew up Catholic.
Now Atheist.

 

[Typo Fu Master]

I have my own beliefs which haven't changed significantly in the last couple decades.

Regardless of what you believe, if an all-knowing, omnipotent being is responsible for our existence, It's an asshole. And I'm being very polite.

 

[Saint_Ann]

'Bout the same.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I have changed my mind about a lot of things.


I did some experimenting.


Now, I trust my experience.


I really don’t care what the church has to say, although I do listen to one or two ministers because I like their experience.

 

[AnomalyLady]

My religious views have changed a lot.

Grew up atheist / agnostic household, then Christianity was introduced and followed, now I am Spiritual but no definitive religion.

 

[Bn2f]

In my youth I recall going to church and being told about how God controls everything. He has always been here, knows the date of my birth and death. Knows what I think and what I do in the bedroom and with whom. Now, having taken 50+ trips around the sun I’m starting to listen to people like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. I’m wondering if this is all a ruse and more or less something to keep the masses in line?

Has anyone else started to doubt early religious teachings as they grew older?

Thank you!

Seems as if you are already well on a journey of questioning. If you take any more trips maybe try and ask the locals what are their beliefs and god(s) they worship and juxtapose those against your religious upbringing. I would be interested in knowing what you conclude after that.

 

[gtnlynn]

My Christian faith is still important to me, but evangelical Christians would consider me a heretic. That's fine with me. I was raised with strict beliefs, but now I emphasize following the teachings of Jesus and not beliefs.

 

[Rotadom]

No. My parents weren't crazy people who beloved in fairy tales.

 

[domroger]

I ceased to believe in my early teens.I now hover between atheism and agnosticism.

 

[glamorilla]

Theyve been reinforced. Only gotten stronger.

 

[Hel_Books]

Religion is philosophy with all the questions left out.

 

[HisArpy]

Since my early teens...

I have my faith. I don't wear it on my sleeve or as jewelry around my neck. No, I'm not going to try and explain it to you because it's mine, not yours.

 

[Chernosoth]

I became an atheist in my teens. I was an angry atheist for a while, but that was mostly in reaction to the silly cult I left. Now I can see the possibility of the existence of gods and many more noncorporeal entities. I have seen speculation that gods decided to do something about overpopulation with a plan to kill a slice of the population and make many more people infertile, to avoid a more disastrous global conflict. That would make the existence of gods more than a philosophical question.

 

[DeluxAuto]

Since my early teens...

I have my faith. I don't wear it on my sleeve or as jewelry around my neck. No, I'm not going to try and explain it to you because it's mine, not yours.

No one asked you to explain anything, Derpy. Do keep up.

 

[HisArpy]

I became an atheist in my teens. I was an angry atheist for a while, but that was mostly in reaction to the silly cult I left. Now I can see the possibility of the existence of gods and many more noncorporeal entities. I have seen speculation that gods decided to do something about overpopulation with a plan to kill a slice of the population and make many more people infertile, to avoid a more disastrous global conflict. That would make the existence of gods more than a philosophical question.

No, that's Thanos once he gets all the stones and snaps his fingers.

 

[Chernosoth]

I was also progressive for a while, around two decades. Now I see Progress is a religion, basically Christianity minus the Jesus and God bits.

 

[Chernosoth]

No, that's Thanos once he gets all the stones and snaps his fingers.

If gods exist and have interest in human events, then they can't ignore overpopulation. Either they are doing something about that, or they are impotent.

 

[Philthy_Phil]

Since my early teens...

I have my faith. I don't wear it on my sleeve or as jewelry around my neck. No, I'm not going to try and explain it to you because it's mine, not yours.

So is your homosexuality, now stfu

 

[Baztrachian]

I was raised in a liberal-left Christmas & Easter Catholic household. That means my parents were devout Catholics only two days out of the year.

At age 13 I was tired of the hypocrisy and I stopped going to church.

At 18 I met my first wife (then girlfriend) and went to her church one time fully expecting to burst into flame as I crossed the threshold. When that didn't happen I listened to the sermon and it touched me.

Over the years I have come to my own understanding. I do believe that God created the Universe because it is a universe of way too many coincidences and it is easier for me to believe in God than it is to believe in two coincidences let alone uncounted trillions of them over time.

Over the ensuing years I have come to love Christ and I appreciate the Bible.

But I fucking loathe phony, hypocritical, fuckfaces who pretend to be pious people while doing the kind of shit that would make your average Philippine whore blush.

I fucking loathe modern Christian music that is repetitive and so fucking vanilla. No highs, no lows, and almost exclusively in the keys of D and C. It is musical pabulum.

Example:

So the result is I have my personal faith and I no longer waste my time with Churchianity.

 

[SissyBrandi19]

I surely hope that people's views on almost anything important in life, change as they age. Learning is not something confined to a building or period of time. You should be learning every breath you take.

I was raised in a very religious household - the religion du jour was "christianity" and while this may sound radical to even an atheist (which I am in the narrow definition but not the true definition), I consider the Bible to be one of the most insidiously evil books in print. I know, first-hand, how it becomes the primary weapon in the abuser's toolkit.

It is an extremely narcissistic and evil philosophy and I distinguish narcissism from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Consider the fundamental, foundational premise of Christianity: You (the lost, the heathen, the unbeliever) are not only going to eternal damnation in hell BUT...you DESERVE that fate. I - because I hold a belief in an entity for which zero evidence exists in support and for which the sole source of information (the Bible) is a logically incoherent mess of...well...Biblical proportions...I have "faith" (a very stupid thing to hold regarding ANYTHING) and therefore I am going to the most highly exalted place, heaven. And I deserve it.

Tell me how that is 1) misconstrued (it is not) and/or 2) how that is not the same underlying mentality exhibited by any and all genocidal persons. YOU...(not as individuals but as a member of a group) deserve not just death but infinitely worse and I...deserve the opposite. My Invisible Sky Fairy - God - is holy and perfect. Sure, he committed genocide over the planet but that is OK. Sure, he advocated for the genocide of entire civilizations many times, but that is OK. By extension, ANYTHING I DO in God's name - rape, murder, slavery - is OK. Not just OK but required.

There is no denying the above. Anyone arguing differently does not understand the ideology of the bible. The bible celebrates killing of your own children - hell, the bible celebrates the most evil acts of it's own admission - but...if done by God or in his name? Totally cool!! Sanctified!

It is not just insane it is pure evil. And many religions have that overall theme - WE are the elite, the holy, the chosen YOU are the worst, the lost, the unholy. We deserve all things good YOU deserve all things horrible and why? Because we believe in things for which zero evidence exists (I thought we called that "delusion") and are logically incoherent.

And the irony? No Christian actually believes in God! That may sound bizarre but think about it: Ask any Christian about God. 100% of their notion of God is derived from a single source - The Bible. So they do not believe in God, they believe in The Bible. One is a (mythical) entity, the other a book. A book. They believe a BOOK. Not God. And remember, the God of the Bible? Allows for NO other god. "But what if the Bible is true?" It cannot be true! That is the "logically incoherent" part. You cannot buy into the Bible because you are simultaneously holding onto directly contradicting beliefs. That is simply factual.

 

[ho_hum_drum]

I could never bring myself to “believe”, as literal truth, the stories of Gods, God, Christ, Messiahs, Prophets, Saints, miracles or any of it really. I just couldn’t do it and was quite the atheist for most of my life so far. However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to have more “respect” for the institutions of “religions”. I’m of the opinion that there is much, if not all, wisdom to be found in the religious systems of mankind. They are the repository of thought of the “thinkers” of history on such things as ethics, behaviour, social cohesion, how to get along with our fellow tribesmen if not fellow man, and build a “better” world and life… The gods, symbology, fables, metaphors and aesthetics used are just the cultural window dressing and, I would argue, irrelevant to these fundamental ideas which, and I would be amazed if this were not so, are universal to all humankind. It’s a big subject and I am not a serious student of it so, yeah, just my present state of thinking on it.

 

[AnomalyLady]

I surely hope that people's views on almost anything important in life, change as they age. Learning is not something confined to a building or period of time. You should be learning every breath you take.

I was raised in a very religious household - the religion du jour was "christianity" and while this may sound radical to even an atheist (which I am in the narrow definition but not the true definition), I consider the Bible to be one of the most insidiously evil books in print. I know, first-hand, how it becomes the primary weapon in the abuser's toolkit.

It is an extremely narcissistic and evil philosophy and I distinguish narcissism from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Consider the fundamental, foundational premise of Christianity: You (the lost, the heathen, the unbeliever) are not only going to eternal damnation in hell BUT...you DESERVE that fate. I - because I hold a belief in an entity for which zero evidence exists in support and for which the sole source of information (the Bible) is a logically incoherent mess of...well...Biblical proportions...I have "faith" (a very stupid thing to hold regarding ANYTHING) and therefore I am going to the most highly exalted place, heaven. And I deserve it.

Tell me how that is 1) misconstrued (it is not) and/or 2) how that is not the same underlying mentality exhibited by any and all genocidal persons. YOU...(not as individuals but as a member of a group) deserve not just death but infinitely worse and I...deserve the opposite. My Invisible Sky Fairy - God - is holy and perfect. Sure, he committed genocide over the planet but that is OK. Sure, he advocated for the genocide of entire civilizations many times, but that is OK. By extension, ANYTHING I DO in God's name - rape, murder, slavery - is OK. Not just OK but required.

There is no denying the above. Anyone arguing differently does not understand the ideology of the bible. The bible celebrates killing of your own children - hell, the bible celebrates the most evil acts of it's own admission - but...if done by God or in his name? Totally cool!! Sanctified!

It is not just insane it is pure evil. And many religions have that overall theme - WE are the elite, the holy, the chosen YOU are the worst, the lost, the unholy. We deserve all things good YOU deserve all things horrible and why? Because we believe in things for which zero evidence exists (I thought we called that "delusion") and are logically incoherent.

And the irony? No Christian actually believes in God! That may sound bizarre but think about it: Ask any Christian about God. 100% of their notion of God is derived from a single source - The Bible. So they do not believe in God, they believe in The Bible. One is a (mythical) entity, the other a book. A book. They believe a BOOK. Not God. And remember, the God of the Bible? Allows for NO other god. "But what if the Bible is true?" It cannot be true! That is the "logically incoherent" part. You cannot buy into the Bible because you are simultaneously holding onto directly contradicting beliefs. That is simply factual.

I am no longer Christian but I see you are misplacing some blame on the Bible and the Christian God.

Please try to put into your consciousness that what you lived through was abuse and abusers can use any tool to control and manipulate. One of my parents was raised in a cult religion, it was a form of Christianity.

 

[EmmAgain]

I grew up in a stiflingly Catholic household. We went to mass, we observed Lent, etc. But when my parents separated and it was pretty much me, sister and my mom (dad was in and out), everything became odiously hypocritical.

Mom was obsessed with sex - we couldn’t even watch cable - but didn’t see a problem with her own alcoholism. She would chastise us for dressing ‘immodestly’ but fought tooth and nail to get us into sleazy beauty pageants on the southern circuit. I got stilettos before I got Vans, but I was supposed to deal with horniness by saying a bunch of Hail Marys.

So I’m pretty jaded with organized religion. I believe in God, but I don’t think He particularly cares if my skirt is a little short or I’ve spread my legs for strangers on the internet.

 

[Noor]

Oct 7, 2023 and the following years of continuous general antisemitism has strengthen my resolve in the existence of the state of Israel.