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Farmer-Rick

(10,192 posts)
1. I use to call myself an agnostic
Wed Mar 20, 2024, 09:57 AM
Mar 20

If you look the word up, it says:

"a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (such as God) is unknown and probably unknowable

broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god

a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something"

So, the Beatles idea of agnostic maybe different from the American dictionary.

I believed that when I called myself an Agnostic, it meant: I didn't believe in an established religion but I believed there was some kind of god. Buying into the logical fallacy of the "god of the gaps".

Today, I have given up all pretense of thinking a god exists. I have found absolutely no valid evidence for anything supernatural, magical or demonic. But I'm still open if any of it shows up.

So I call myself an Atheist now. My unbelief is so strong that watching supernatural horror stories about ghost and monsters doesn't even scare me anymore.....though I still love to watch them.

It has been so freeing to give up this notion that one day, after I die probably, I will have to pay for all my mistakes. Yes mistakes, because I, like most people, didn't commit sins on purpose. They were accidents, self control issues and emotional blunders.

I would have to pay for all those mistakes by being tortured for all eternity. That is one scary death priests, pastors and religions have made up for us.

Martin68

(22,825 posts)
2. I'm in the same camp as the Beatles. I don't get atheists who are anti-religious. What's the point?
Wed Mar 20, 2024, 04:26 PM
Mar 20

While conservative Christians are often evil hypocrite, there are just as many Christians who are basically good people.

Farmer-Rick

(10,192 posts)
5. Are you not aware of the horrors caused by religion?
Thu Mar 21, 2024, 12:29 PM
Mar 21

Witch burnings, the Inquisition, Catholic priest pedophile rings, child sexual abuse at almost every religion, prepubescent little girls as wives, slavery, stoning

All these things have been publicly supported by many religions. Anti-religion should be the standard.

Yes, there are good people who belong to religions. But they will go along with the horrors created by religion without speaking up.

All those forced birth Christians probably don't go around killing women but they add their votes and voices to allow it. They aren't trying to do harm but that is the end result.

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion."

Steven Weinberg

BigmanPigman

(51,613 posts)
3. Beatles were more popular than Jesus
Wed Mar 20, 2024, 06:12 PM
Mar 20

John got into so much trouble over that. They burned Beatles albums in the very religious and conservative cities in the US

"More popular than Jesus" is part of a remark made by John Lennon of the Beatles in a March 1966 interview in which he argued that the public were more infatuated with the band than with Jesus and that Christian faith was declining to the extent that it might be outlasted by rock music. His opinions drew little controversy when originally published in the London newspaper The Evening Standard, but drew angry reactions from Christian communities when republished in the United States that July."

Martin68

(22,825 posts)
4. I am aware of John's famous statement. It was not ant-religion. He clarified his intent at a press conference in Chicago
Thu Mar 21, 2024, 10:13 AM
Mar 21

in 1966 when he stated, “I’m not anti-God, anti-Christ or anti-religion. I was not saying we are greater or better. I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I’m sorry I said it, really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. From what I’ve read, or observed, Christianity just seems to be shrinking, to be losing contact.”

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-lennon-sparks-his-first-major-controversy

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