04-18-2007, 08:37 PM
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#1
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Guest
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Most people I have talked to and most stories I have heard have involved somebody coming to the conclusion of atheism through science. For some it was evolutionary biology, physics or even geology that convinced them that religion is bull shit. I, on the other hand, became an atheist at least a good 2-3 years before I ever realized that I wanted to become a physicist. In fact, the reason I started getting interested in physics was because of the inadequacy of the theists answer for the existence of the universe and life. I wanted to know why we are here and where we came from, but I recognized what bollocks religion was.
Did anybody else experience their atheism first and science second or did most of you figure it out the other way around?
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04-18-2007, 08:53 PM
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#2
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He who walks among the theists
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: The Big D
Posts: 12,119
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For me, atheism came first. Even though I didn't comprehend the concept of atheism when I was a young 'un, I don't ever remember believing.
I was always good at math, and took an interest in science after that. Ended up as an Electrical Engineer.
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."
George Bernard Shaw
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04-18-2007, 08:54 PM
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#3
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Guest
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The most powerful realization for me was the that there are other religions in this world that hold absurd beliefs that are logically indistinguishable from those of Christianity. I remember sitting in church as a kid thinking "these people have got to be kidding, don't they know anything about other religions?". Once I found out that there were millions of people in this country who not only sit in church, but actively believe in the literal truth of the Bible, I found I had to study science as best I could to refute them.
Interestingly, though, my girlfriend is almost completely indifferent to science, but is just as atheistic as I am, though perhaps less belligerent about it.
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04-18-2007, 08:56 PM
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#4
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Guest
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Quote:
nkb wrote
For me, atheism came first. Even though I didn't comprehend the concept of atheism when I was a young 'un, I don't ever remember believing.
I was always good at math, and took an interest in science after that. Ended up as an Electrical Engineer.
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dammit, if I'd waited a minute, I could have just said "ditto"
:cheers:
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04-18-2007, 09:17 PM
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#5
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Guest
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Comparative religion had more to do with it than science. I didn't start to take science really seriously until about a year after my conversion, but that had more to do with The Demon-Haunted World than my atheism.
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04-18-2007, 09:20 PM
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#6
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Guest
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Does science fiction count as science? I was a huge A.C. Clark/Asimov fan when I was a kid, and they wrote quite a few stories questioning faith or at least positing different interpretations of what faith is. This is what started me questioning religion. It was more a love of space that led me to science. Atheism was always kind of a given.
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04-18-2007, 09:23 PM
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#7
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 4,765
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It was science that cursed me with knowledge, and that, in turn, drove me back to a rejection of beliefs. Although technically, it was logic that forced me to confront the utter baselessness of religious faith.
I was raised Catholic by my grandparents until I was seven, at which point the woman who birthed me had gotten enough of her shit back together to convince a judge to reinstate her parental rights. Unfortunately, she had "gotten her shit together" by finding G`Zus only after making more than her fair share of mistakes (why is that such a common story amongst born-againers?), so I went from the pan to the fire, as it were.
Like most, though, I just didn't know that there were people who believed other, fully contradictory faiths. So for a few years in my early teens, I was a bit of a Jesus-junkie. Being intelligent, however, I thought that I could use my intellect by dabbling with apologetics; I studied up on Chuck Missler (the joker in the video that pretends that peanut butter disproves evolution) and became quite fond of the Watchmaker Axiom, actually (which kind of explains why I so despise it now).
But the more I studied philosophy and logic, the more I realized that the beliefs I'd been indoctrinated with couldn't stand up under critical scrutiny. The more I studied history and literature, the more I understood that the evidence just didn't support the assertions that religion was making. So for me, religion really undid itself. Religion prompted me to study logic in order to defend religion, but the logic that religion prompted me to learn made me understand that religion was logically indefensible.
Religion brought me back to atheism.
a‧the‧ist (n): one who remains unconvinced.
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04-18-2007, 09:31 PM
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#8
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Guest
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Where are all of the people who came to the logical conclusion of atheism from science. I know I have heard at least a couple of people on this forum claim that they deconverted after discovering evolution. I guess my approach is much more common than I originally thought.
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04-18-2007, 09:34 PM
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#9
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Guest
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Quote:
anthonyjfuchs wrote
Religion prompted me to study logic in order to defend religion, but the logic that religion prompted me to learn made me understand that religion was logically indefensible.
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My head hurts. I'm going to go masturbate.
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04-18-2007, 09:37 PM
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#10
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I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: prick up your ears
Posts: 20,553
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It never occurred to me to take religon seriously. I became interested in science because of the babes.
You can always turn tricks for a few extra bucks. If looks are an issue, there's the glory hole option, but don't expect more than ... tips.
~ Philiboid Studge
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04-18-2007, 10:39 PM
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#11
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I Live Here
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Around the way
Posts: 12,641
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I'm one of the biggest science dummies ever. But, even as a child, I knew that there was something logically inconsistent about the idea of a giant, yet invisible, Santa Claus-like god voyueristically surveying every bit of minutiae going on in the world. I'd long ago realized that clay dust does not magically yield fully grown men, that seas don't part on command and that hideously abused dead bodies do not magically reanimate and ascend to another plain to resume their peeping Tom activities.
Outside the realm of religion, no one I know takes such claims seriously. Often, we discourage such flights of fancy in the very young, and we seek to isolate adults who profess firsthand knowledge of such events occurring. As the product of a 20th century upbringing, daily immersed in the marvels of modern technology, I didn't need to be rocket scientist to figure out that magic-- religion's answer to the mysteries of life-- is all bunk.
"So many gods, so many creeds! So many paths that wind and wind, when just the art of being kind is all this sad world needs."
--Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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04-18-2007, 11:00 PM
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#12
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Guest
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Quote:
Choobus wrote
It never occurred to me to take religon seriously. I became interested in science because of the babes.
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Yeah baby, grab my graduated cylinder.
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04-18-2007, 11:25 PM
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#13
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Guest
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I'd put my starter culture in her incubator, if you know what I mean. ;)
(I mean I wanna bang her, btw.)
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04-18-2007, 11:37 PM
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#14
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I Live Here
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Around the way
Posts: 12,641
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A-hem...
Nothing against the lythe, leggy lab technician in her prop spectacles and fishnets, but I'm demanding equal time.
Big, black nerds with equally big brains are babes in my world. Just sayin'.
"So many gods, so many creeds! So many paths that wind and wind, when just the art of being kind is all this sad world needs."
--Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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04-19-2007, 05:53 AM
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#15
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: May 2005
Location: 3rd notch in the bible belt
Posts: 1,342
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That's not fair - you posted an actual scientist! Not that a woman that looks like the lab-coat chick couldn't be a scientists, but for some reason I don't think the woman in the picture actually is a scientist.
Christian: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. - Ambrose Bierce
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