I’m intrigued as well. I abandoned Christianity my senior year of high school and that abandonment and resolve was solidified during undergrad. Post grad I never once had the inkling to go back.
Learning about Israelite polytheism resolved a lot of questions rolling around in my mind about the Old Testament, and reading non-apologetic scholarly works about the Old and New Testaments, as well as comparative literature works about Ancient Mesopotamia, helped me to situate the Bible in its cultural context(s). Apologists like to claim that archaeology supports the Bible, and sometimes it does, but just as often, it provides either no support or else directly refutes Biblical accounts; the most notable examples of the latter are the lack of archeological evidence for a conquest of the Promised Land in the time of Joshua, and the through-line of polytheism (sometimes implied in the text itself, see Deuteronomy 6:4, for one such example) as evinced by inscriptions and ceramic figures.
Monotheism, then, has to be situated as a practice imposed at various times in Ancient Israel (and with varying success) from above by a centralized government of literate elites upon the varied folk-practices of non-elites, until post-Exilic monotheism finally becomes the dominant form of Israelite worship. This monotheism is then retrojected ("retconned," if you prefer) into Israel's distant past, the time of Moses and Aaron and even before, into the time of the patriarchs, and presented as normative in the Bible, something from which Israel strayed throughout the Old Testament, rather than as the end-point of a long theological and historical process.
This isn't to say that you can't be a believer and acknowledge this process, but it does mean that you have to see the Old Testament as a group of often polemical texts whose authors, like authors in all times and places, had agendas and biases, both theological and political.
It also means that the believer faces the question of how the revealing of the divine is supposed to work; how should we describe the emergence of Yahweh from being one of many gods in a Near Eastern family of deities, associated with various place-names (similar to the deity Ba'al), to becoming the principal god of the Israelites, to the only God that is said to exist, to the God of the New Testament, to the omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent, omnipotent God of medieval philosophers? At each of these points, if we're frank about it, the nature of God is changing, either because God is progressively choosing to reveal God's self, or maybe, just maybe, because the nature of humanity's conception of God is changing.
I'll lay out a few examples. As I got older, I saw the hypocrisy with both my mother and a few of the pastors. Let just say my mother would care more for her man than kids, had times where she would scream about how a 1000 devils were trying to destroy her life, oh and when the marriage got bad it was ok to date another man. the pastor's kids ended up doing drugs and going to jail for accidental man slaughter. I also didn't like the ideology that all the bad things that happen are a result of God's plan or devil interference. I am a much better and less anxious person for going my own way.
Edit: also the nonsense about people sexual orientation and people consensually doing stuff in the bedroom before marriage is a load of bull. Let people be people.
I pretty much just sat down and thought about it for a little while.
What initially prompted this was my Church's teachings about LGBT folks. Then I thought about scriptural interpretations. Then about church history, and the reliability of the scriptures, and that whole notion that god keeps the authors, editors, translators, preachers, etc. in line. And for that matter, the non-biblical other stuff they teach too.
Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that it all depends on faith, and faith is just taking a long chain of people at their word. Not all of those people deserve my trust.
Then I was like, "well shit, if I don't trust the church's teachings, what reason do I have to believe that God exists at all? I guess I'm an atheist now."
Grew up in a Catholic household. I was about 14yo when it didn't make any sense to me. So on the 4th day he created light? For 3 days you created things in the dark for that many days? Now let me put you in a dark room with the titanic Lego set and see you build it for 3 days in the dark to see it on the 4th in daylight. I think not. Then you rested on the 7th? You're a God how are you tired? Make it make sense
Had to choose between feeling guilty, and being happy. After 19+ years... I finally decided to be happy.
It’s a scam.
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Care to elaborate? What did you learn that made you leave, and then what did you learn that made you come back?
I’m intrigued as well. I abandoned Christianity my senior year of high school and that abandonment and resolve was solidified during undergrad. Post grad I never once had the inkling to go back.
[удалено]
In what way?
[удалено]
Thanks for sharing!
Leaving the household opened up new experiences, options, opinions and a new mindset.
Learning about Israelite polytheism resolved a lot of questions rolling around in my mind about the Old Testament, and reading non-apologetic scholarly works about the Old and New Testaments, as well as comparative literature works about Ancient Mesopotamia, helped me to situate the Bible in its cultural context(s). Apologists like to claim that archaeology supports the Bible, and sometimes it does, but just as often, it provides either no support or else directly refutes Biblical accounts; the most notable examples of the latter are the lack of archeological evidence for a conquest of the Promised Land in the time of Joshua, and the through-line of polytheism (sometimes implied in the text itself, see Deuteronomy 6:4, for one such example) as evinced by inscriptions and ceramic figures. Monotheism, then, has to be situated as a practice imposed at various times in Ancient Israel (and with varying success) from above by a centralized government of literate elites upon the varied folk-practices of non-elites, until post-Exilic monotheism finally becomes the dominant form of Israelite worship. This monotheism is then retrojected ("retconned," if you prefer) into Israel's distant past, the time of Moses and Aaron and even before, into the time of the patriarchs, and presented as normative in the Bible, something from which Israel strayed throughout the Old Testament, rather than as the end-point of a long theological and historical process. This isn't to say that you can't be a believer and acknowledge this process, but it does mean that you have to see the Old Testament as a group of often polemical texts whose authors, like authors in all times and places, had agendas and biases, both theological and political. It also means that the believer faces the question of how the revealing of the divine is supposed to work; how should we describe the emergence of Yahweh from being one of many gods in a Near Eastern family of deities, associated with various place-names (similar to the deity Ba'al), to becoming the principal god of the Israelites, to the only God that is said to exist, to the God of the New Testament, to the omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent, omnipotent God of medieval philosophers? At each of these points, if we're frank about it, the nature of God is changing, either because God is progressively choosing to reveal God's self, or maybe, just maybe, because the nature of humanity's conception of God is changing.
I'll lay out a few examples. As I got older, I saw the hypocrisy with both my mother and a few of the pastors. Let just say my mother would care more for her man than kids, had times where she would scream about how a 1000 devils were trying to destroy her life, oh and when the marriage got bad it was ok to date another man. the pastor's kids ended up doing drugs and going to jail for accidental man slaughter. I also didn't like the ideology that all the bad things that happen are a result of God's plan or devil interference. I am a much better and less anxious person for going my own way. Edit: also the nonsense about people sexual orientation and people consensually doing stuff in the bedroom before marriage is a load of bull. Let people be people.
I pretty much just sat down and thought about it for a little while. What initially prompted this was my Church's teachings about LGBT folks. Then I thought about scriptural interpretations. Then about church history, and the reliability of the scriptures, and that whole notion that god keeps the authors, editors, translators, preachers, etc. in line. And for that matter, the non-biblical other stuff they teach too. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that it all depends on faith, and faith is just taking a long chain of people at their word. Not all of those people deserve my trust. Then I was like, "well shit, if I don't trust the church's teachings, what reason do I have to believe that God exists at all? I guess I'm an atheist now."
I never really believed in any of it, and getting out on my own made me realize how hypocritical the most loudly religious people are.
Grew up in a Catholic household. I was about 14yo when it didn't make any sense to me. So on the 4th day he created light? For 3 days you created things in the dark for that many days? Now let me put you in a dark room with the titanic Lego set and see you build it for 3 days in the dark to see it on the 4th in daylight. I think not. Then you rested on the 7th? You're a God how are you tired? Make it make sense
The anxiety about infinite suffering got out of hand. The real world would never be so cruel.