When did you come to your current faith, or lack thereof? How were you convinced?
I was raised Methodist but came to be an atheist at around 6 or 7. I am now interested in hearing others' stories.

>>17845857 (OP)
I'm a reason-based, evidence-prioritizing non-believer who leaves room for possibilities. However I was baptized as a child. I guess you could call me an Agnostic Atheist.

>>17845857 (OP)
I'm a reason-based, evidence-prioritizing non-believer who leaves room for possibilities. However I was baptized as a child. I guess you could call me an Agnostic Atheist. I never really believed in a God except when I was a child and told about it, so probably became atheist around 10 years old onwards.

>>17845857 (OP)
I'm a christian because there is no reason not to be a christian.
>but there's so many degenerate things you can experience when you're not a christian.
I'm above all that schlock. I actually have a brain in my head and realize that (under the atheist worldview) killing myself right now is equivalent to living a life of pleasure, because under the atheist worldview, nothing matters. There is no value to anything one way or another.

>>17845974
That does't explain why christianity is true

>>17845978
Why Christianity and not any other religion?
The only 3 religions even worth talking about are the abrahamic ones.
- Judaism: Jesus came along and is convincing in his teachings. If I find Jesus convincing then I'm already pretty much a christian. Judaism is lacking in profound teachings and can also be nonsense in its ideas about gentiles.
- Islam: Some dude claimed to see angels in a cave. lol.

when i was a kid in the 2000s this was the height of new atheism, dawkins, bill mahr, shit like that, also being a right wing evangelical was uncool, being the easily influenced mong i am i was a young atheist too.
At the same time i was being dragged to sunday school and had to do my confirmation.

eventually things changed, the new atheism shit died down, evangelicals lost to the homosexuals, liberals stopped being cool and became moral authoritarians, what would be called a social justice warrior.

after graduating high school and going to college for a few years, i quit to become a full blown neet/hikkimori. during this time i would research many political ideologies and also many different forms of spirituality, different religions, and even the occult. eventually i came to the conclusion i like jesus but not Christians, protestants are just con men who worship israel, and catholics are pedos who havent been the same since Vatican 2, and dont get me started on far right trad larpers who probably never read the bible or set foot in a church

eventually i would come upon something called perennial philosophy which posits that all religions lead to the same god and that its best to follow the religion of ones culture and birth.

so i dont know what i am now, i guess im sort of neo new agey as cringe as that sounds, but without the crystals kek

>>17845984
Youvare still not explaining why it must be christianity; having teachings you personally like isn't proof

>>17845987
There is no proof for evolution but you only believe it because you personally like the evidence.

>>17845989
cont. as such, I personally like the evidence that the bible is true. Information is subjective after all. And people see what they want to see in so-called "objective evidence".

>>17845974
>there is no reason not to be a christian.
Except logic, science and reality that surrounds you.

>>17845989
That's irrelevant to the question; answer without pivoting

>>17845994
>I personally like the evidence that the bible is true. Information

That's not how evidence works; you just like what the bible say and want it to be true and you can't actually justiftly your previous claim

>>17845989
Except there is. Now the proof is even genetic, so it's pure hard science. You can't say that similarities between apes and humans are superficial because we sequenced their genomes and we are indeed related.

>>17845995
yeah sorry I don't chat with bad-faith neckbeards.

>>17845997
I find the bible convincing all by itself. I once cared to look for archeological finds which serve as evidence for the bible and there have been a few found. One being a "curse tablet" found in the egypt/ancient israel area which lines up about right with the Exodus by Moses. Although like I said, the bible speaks for itself in my opinion. It's a wise book for sure.

>>17846006
>I find the bible convincing all by itself
Ok, how does that extend to it being the only option? You saing you like it isn't an argument

>>17846002
People see what they want to see in evidence. Perhaps the scientists are letting their bias get in the way of the information.

Or lets say the scientists are right. I don't deny that apes and humans are genetically similar. Seems like a nothing-burger to me.

>>17846012
>>17846001

You and I seem to have a different world-view. I believe that water flows downhill, or might makes right. I've already explained why I am a christian, and if you can't fathom anyone taking a "book of fairy tales" seriously, then I can't help you.

>>17846013
>Seems like a nothing-burger to me.
Except that is what we would expect under common descent and not magical creation out of nothing

>>17846019
I understand why you believe but you can't explain why it is really the only option like you claim; your arguments starts and finishes with "I like it therefore it's true".

>>17846006
Lol, this is such a weird take. Even if Exodus was real why does this mean that all the supernatural events surrounding it were also real?
Trojan war was most likely real too. Do you think all the events described in the Iliad are factual? Like, there were gods helping mortals, demigods fighting each other?

>>17846020
I don't let the fact that all mammals have pretty much the same organ layout. You would call that evidence for atheism but I would just call that a nothing burger.

>>17846023
>I like it therefore it's true

literally all humans are slaves to this mindset. There is no other way to think.

>>17846027
I don't find greek gods convincing because they are supposedly both powerful and yet can make mistakes? I believe in the I AM of the bible because he is claimed to be perfect.

>>17846033
It's evidence for commom descent and predicted by evolution; magic creation out of nothing doesn't predict that

>>17846043
>literally all humans are slaves to this mindset. There is no other way to think.

That doesn't make the mindset a good way to reach truth regardless

>>17846043
Your god is supposedly omnipotent, but in the Bible he's incredibly flawed and limited in power.

A being that explodes stars with his will gets angry at a bunch of tribals eating pigs, changes his mind all the time, want to be worshipped, but revels himself only to a bunch of Near Easterners.

>>17846043
>literally all humans are slaves to this mindset. There is no other way to think.
You're projecting. I don't like atheism being true but I think it's true nonetheless.

>>17845857 (OP)
>When did you come to your current faith, or lack thereof?
I was raised in the most lukewarm Christian household you can imagine, I couldn't even have told you the names of the four Gospels, had an existential crisis at 17, dabbled in Occultism for a couple of years, now at 27 I'm a hardcore Catholic traditionalist.

>>17846134
In other words, it's just a cope.

>>17846192
No, I geniunely believe Catholicism is the one true religion.

>>17846227
I know you do, otherwise it wouldn't work as a cope. You suffered an existential crisis and then solved that by memeing yourself into believing in Christianity as a coping mechanism. It's a very common story.

>>17846252
>I know you do, otherwise it wouldn't work as a cope.
So no one's allowed to sicerely believe in something without it being cope?

>>17846252
>>17846274
Also, you seem to have skipped one part of my story, I didn't have an existential crisis and then jumped straight into Catholicism, I said that I spent some years into Occultism, by the time I abandoned it and came to Catholicism I had already solved my existential crisis.

>>17845974
The second argument does not logically follow.

>>17846274
Quote where I said that.
>>17846279
So you solved your existential crisis by memeing yourself into believing in mumbo jumbo and then later settled on your particular flavour of mumbo jumbo being roman catholicism.

>>17845857 (OP)
I hark from the Bible Belt and I stopped being religious pretty early even after being sent to youth camps, youth group and forced to go to church for years. I was probably 10 or 11 when I realized, based on church logic, that other 10 and 11 year old boys who lived in the Amazon rainforest would go to hell, and that the kids in Africa would also all go to hell, or at least their communities would because they didn’t know Jesus and that is fucking stupid and unfair. When I was a teen we had this crackhead after crackhead give their testimony about how shitty they were and then they turned their life around and once again, I was like “thats fucking stupid” and it just, made the performative aspect of the Christian faith so cringy. I married an ex Jehovas witness and she’s shunned by her entire family so it makes holidays super easy. There’s still cult members out there but they’re crumbling

>>17846292
>Quote where I said that.
So it is possible? How do you determine when it's a cope and when isn't?
>So you solved your existential crisis by memeing yourself into believing in mumbo jumbo
No, I found evidence of the supernatural, which is what I was looking for.

>>17846386
>So it is possible?
Of course.
>How do you determine when it's a cope and when isn't?
Essentially it's likely a cope when it comes about as a consequence of something the person in question is trying to cope with.
In contrast, there's people like my late grandma who was a cradle Catholic and fervently believed her whole life. For her, it was something that surely helped her cope at times, but not a cope on the whole.
>No, I found evidence of the supernatural, which is what I was looking for.
You were looking for evidence of the supernatural because you needed a way to cope with your existential crisis.

Raised Presbyterian. In the 4th grade I met an avowed atheist for the first time, which disturbed me. As far as I know I was 12 years old when it occurred to me there's no way prayers get answered, and then I started listening to internet atheist perspectives and it made sense to me that Christianity was nonsense.
When I was about 20 I learned about Gnostic Christianity, and its strange engagement with some of the traditions I grew up with made me interested enough to read a book on it, which so happened to be Hans Jonas's classic. That got me hooked on critical history of religions. In studying that, I think I've begun to understand what religion really is, and that there are traditions which aren't as easily dismissed as parochial Christianity. Now I consider myself an atheist, but I engage in my own religious speculations.

>>17845857 (OP)
I was raised Orthodox and started taking interest in the faith during my obsession with philosophy in my early 20s. I slowly realized I had no clue what the religion was trying to tell me besides the fact that Jesus was crucified and that this has some kind of an effect. Since then I've come to at least some understanding, but the key insight is that propositional knowledge is not fit for evaluating religion. The only way you can check it is to live it.
>How were you convinced?
I don't know what a finish line of "being convinced" would look like, honestly. Finally finding that one syllogism that won't get deconstructed? Affirming the historical basis and inferring the supernatural inferences from there? Having an experience God? I'm inclined towards the last option. And if that's the criterion, then I was not yet "convinced", but I'm seeing enough fruits of my efforts to keep going and hopefully one day say without any doubt that Christ is Lord.

>>17845857 (OP)
Unmoved mover, historical evidence and a deep love for the Son of Man presented in the New Testament.
In addition the sheer amount of occult and satanic ritualism that the elites indulge makes me susceptible to think that maybe satan really rules this earth.
Faith is a spectrum, we're commanded to ask to help our unbelief, I'm don't claim I "know" God is real but he's my best guess.

Why Christianity specifically? Aside from personal love for Jesus monotheism does line up with the logical argument for God (but of course the argument isn't bulletproof, it just makes sense to me). The alternative monotheistic religions being either Islam (disgusting) or Judaism (also awful). If not that then a general deism would.

>>17845857 (OP)
I came to islam by reading the Qur'an. I left by studying it.

>>17845984
>The only 3 religions even worth talking about are the abrahamic ones.
You will never be able to give any good argument for this retarded take.

>>17848251
Peak npc

Also there's literally no evidence for rabbi Yeshua than your anonymous gospels written 70 years after his supposed life

Not a single letter, note, or scrap written by Jesus himself exists

Also David is a brown semite not a white kid. Goliath was genetically European

>>17845984
All of them are Jewish psyops

Wide is the gate that leads to destruction

>>17845857 (OP)
I don't think I ever believed in God so I guess I've always been an atheist.

A few years ago I became curious about Christianity but when I looked into it I just saw bullshit upon bullshit upon bullshit. So I'm still an atheist.

>>17845974
>(under the atheist worldview) killing myself right now is equivalent to living a life of pleasure, because under the atheist worldview, nothing matters. There is no value to anything one way or another.
I'm an atheist and that's false. I value living above dying, and there are things that matter to me.