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Squiggle Dog · #**540** 01-02-2020, 09:01 PM

Whew, long thread... I'll add that no, I don't believe in heaven, hell, or the devil. Or a god. It doesn't mean they don't exist, just that I'm not convinced they do, because the only evidence I had fell apart after scrutiny.

My story is that I was raised in Saudi Arabia where it was illegal to practice anything other than Islam. But, I learned about Jesus from a movie called Jesus of Nazareth. I became infatuated with him and modeled my life after him.

When I moved to the United States (Utah), the LDS (Mormon) missionaries immediately started trying to get me to join their church. I was already familiar with Jesus and the things they said made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, so I got special permission to be baptized before the lessons were even over.

I was an active true believing Mormon for many years--and that is not an easy task! The doctrine made sense for the most part, because I had only ever heard the Church's explanation for things, and reading "anti-Mormon literature" was forbidden. I started to believe that every good thing that happened to me was God rewarding me, and every bad thing that happened was God testing or punishing me. But, after a while, I felt like God wasn't there, no matter how much I fasted or prayed. I felt totally abandoned.

I also started to wonder why a loving, merciful God would create animals with the capacity to suffer and feel pain, yet didn't say anything about it. Well, He did, when He said in the Doctrine & Covenants that meat should only be eaten in times of winter or famine, and it pleases Him if it is not eaten at all. There is also a passage saying that a man should not command against the abstaining of meat. Of course, that's the part that no one follows...

I eventually burned out and became inactive. Then after a few years, I was still a believer, but decided I would read the Book of Mormon cover to cover and really study and pray so I would gain a stronger testimony. But, I started to find goof-ups. They added up. Words like "adeiu" were used, even though it was supposed to have been translated into English from "reformed Egyptian". But, it wasn't even translated into the current English of the time; it was translated into King James English. And then there were certain passages which were just copied word-for-word from the King James Bible--very unlikely, as while Jesus would have probably had the same message to the ancient American people, it would not have been word-for-word of what a man had written down, PLUS it wouldn't have errors in it which were specific to Joseph Smith's bible!

I looked for answers on the Church's website, but they weren't satisfactory. So, I started looking outside of the Church for answers, and found lots of things wrong with it that I had never even considered. I also started watching Heart of the Matter on YouTube, which was a former Mormon who talked about the things wrong with the religion and debated current Mormons on their faith. It became clear that the LDS Church is a fraud. It broke my heart and devastated me.

But, I still had faith in God and Jesus. I studied Christianity and what Jesus taught. I decided that the only true religion was actually no religion--but simply believing in Christ and being part of the body of followers. I became a Born Again Christian for a short while. But then I noticed that there were a lot of contradictions in the New Testament. And that worried me. Here we go again... and then Paul's teachings showed him to be a pretty backwards person. The Book of Revelation was a joke.

But, I still believed in Christ. However, I decided that I wanted to strengthen my belief in him by hearing all sides, including the atheist side. So, I started listening to atheist vs. theist debates. I expected the theists to obliterate the atheists with immense wisdom and put them to shame. But, that's not what happened at all. I was aghast to see that the atheists had fantastic arguments, while the theists' ones were ridiculous--and what's more, they were so defensive and judgmental. It blew me away!

I still believed, though my belief was shaken. How could people defending God be so horrible at it? Did they really not have a case? One thing that kept popping up from the atheists was, "But what about the Old Testament? Slavery?" I thought, "Oh, that's silly; the Old Testament was done away with when Jesus came. We can throw that book away. And slavery? That wasn't God who commanded it. That was the corrupt people of the time." But, after reading through the New Testament, I decided to read the Old Testament.

The Old Testament destroyed all my faith in God. Not only did it start out with all the ridiculous fables that we can't possibly be expected to believe, but it showed that God is a bloodthirsty, vengeful, cruel, jealous being. All He does is kill people without good reason, commands others to kill for Him, demands animal sacrifices, makes unjust laws with insane punishments, and promotes slavery, misogyny, and genocide.

So, I'm now an an atheist. The Bible is pure garbage, and so is the God character in it. No wonder religion causes so many problems. Sigh. If there is a god, I have no idea which one it would be, or anything about them. It seems there is no evidence for a god. Or even a soul. Or an afterlife. So, I'll just try to be the best person I know how and make the most of my life, because as far as I know, this is the only one I'll have.