gobots

I worked to teach myself how to program. Started at the age of 9, pursued it off and on until I was 21 then went hard at it. I dropped out of community college because I had to work – so you're correct, working is something you must do to make money sometimes. But I had other options available to me. The easiest path I could have taken was to continue working construction for my father or paint houses with my cousin. These were neither fulfilling lines of work nor would they allow me to accomplish the life I wanted.

I was forced to drop out of college due to lack of money, but I would hardly consider what I have done to be less of an accomplishment. Over the last decade I have learned PHP, Perl, Javascript, Node, Python, CSS, HTML, various databases and now I am trying to transition into video game design and development which is what my plan has been for the last 15 years.

I disagree that college is the highest form of validation one can receive.

Edit: Grammer, spelling and this: forgot to mention that I have worked for several well known companies in a major US city now, one of them for 2.5 years, another for 5. I have also maintained a steady stream of side projects and clients.

So a non-believer has less rights than a believer?

What is your point?

explain.

"By definition you can't learn about religion either because the only thing required for religion is to believe in it."

That is a very weak argument. One cannot learn about religion because all you have to do is believe.. and since I don't believe, I can't learn it?

Edit: so there is no proof or evidence needed for religion – you just have to believe. Would you like to buy this rock i have? it keeps tigers away...

Indeed – or more to the point: I wasn't clear in my original statement. I am learning about certain aspects of religion – not learning comparative religion.

I am not however "learning atheism" as others have decided to claim in this thread. I stopped believing in god years ago, at that point by definition I was an atheist.

I am interested in the origins of religion, the scientific reasons that it exists, and the negative impact it has on people.

Currently reading The Greatest Show on Earth and I have to agree, but I do agree with many of the points that were made in The God Delusion. I will say he should have spent less time on his memeology ideas.

Once again, I have to point out I am an atheist, I'm not learning about atheism. Science != atheism. Reading about the evils of religion != learning atheism.

I missed the article but it sounds interesting, please link it if you have it.

You are correct only to a point when it comes to self-knowledge. I am horrified that I was never allowed to learn about evolution and science in general, though I've done my best to catch up (started with the cosmos series from the 70s, just finished The Grand Design for the second time and am currently reading Cosmos and the Greatest Show on Earth).

I suspect the idea of the sacred and profane is a vestigial part of most human's brains.

Thanks, but I'm way less hopeful now. When I utter the "atheist" word it seems I am actually handing people an exclusive ticket to explain to me why I'm wrong. Explaining non-belief is harder than explaining belief.

I'm less hopeful because it seems that the general population is much stupider than I had anticipated.

And the "whys" will be answered by religion? I find that science does a better job of that. I'm infinitely more interested in physics and cosmology. As I have stated in other replies, I'm more interested in the negative aspects of religion.

I think there is a misconception in this thread that I am arguing against the study of religion, but I'm not. I understand the value in comparative religion classes in terms of enriching one's understanding of history and human culture.

I personally have no use for this in my current course. I am interested in the harmful aspects of religion.

My definition of religion isn't "spirit beings". My definition of religion is more along the lines of: A crutch for the weak, a tool for manipulation, an excuse for the lazy, and a template of evil for the manipulators.

Edit: I don't believe for one second that morality springs from religion. We have morality in spite of religion.

I'm sorry, what? I should avoid labeling myself as an atheist... when I'm an atheist? Why?

Just to clarify – religion is a template, not THE template.

The only proof I need is the proof of my own life experiences and the lives I've seen destroyed religion.

See my other comment here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7912955

And then take a look at these reddit communities:

http://www.reddit.com/r/exjw http://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon http://www.reddit.com/r/exmuslim http://www.reddit.com/r/moonies http://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai

As I stated above, I recently read How Religion Poisons Everything as well. No idea if you've read this book yourself, but it has some very compelling arguments as to the evil nature contained within religion.

Putting faith and believing in the creative works of human beings, using those beliefs to start wars, shun homosexuals, commit acts of horror and atrocity.

And this doesn't just come from "large hierarchies". Have you considered the religious suicide cults of the world? Even on a small scale, group think through the template of religion can be very deadly.

Sorry I misread your comment earlier in the tone that you were attempting to get an atheist to consider other religions.

I believe there is a difference in the aspects of religion I am interested in from what you are describing. I simply am not interested in making a study of the worlds various minor religions, and I know a great deal about the major ones already. I am more interested in the psychological damage that is done to people by fundamentalist religion and the negative impact it has on their lives.

I'm not sure why you are pushing other Eastern religions though – I'm aware of many of these teachings, it's just not my primary focus.

As for personal beliefs and what not – I don't care to learn how "god is in me" or "around me". The esoteric nature of religion is bothersome as are the delusional lies of the people who founded them.

I'm the person above, to clarify some things:

I was suicidal prior to leaving the religion. I didn't leave until age 29, but I have been suicidal since age 16. Leaving the religion however did worsen my depression. This is because my friends and family shunned me, I no longer knew where to turn for "answers" (more on that below). Ultimately I was depressed that I had dedicated 29 years of my life to a lie.

I wanted to be so many things in life and I am a person who actually has the ability to achieve those things. My religion robbed me of those opportunities. First by suggesting college was a bad thing in the 1970s and thus preventing my father from attending, second by pointing out the bad in every possible career or lifestyle choice that fails to conform to the Jehovah's Witness standard.

It would be a very foolish to think the source of my depression is caused by the loss of "Jehovah" (the god of the Witnesses, thus the name). Jehovah is nothing more than a delusion. Jehovah, who I knew as the one true God, creator of everything – a being that I called "father" in my head; a creature that supposedly loved his son so much that he killed him for the sake of human lives (I can't help but wonder if this is why Witness parents can write their children off so easily) is simply an adult imaginary friend.

This imaginary friend is spoken to in in prayer. Any faithful Witness says at least four prayers a day (one before each meal, and one before bed). That adds up to 28 prayers a week. Unless you count the group prayers said at the weekly meetings (church), then you're looking at 34 prayers a week. Oh and let's not forget personal study (preparation for the meetings, three times a week) and family study (once a week). Now you're up to 38 prayers. Oh wait, I forgot about field service (preaching door to door) at least twice a week (more if you're a full time preacher). That's 40 prayers a week. My father once gave a talk at one of our meetings and said he prayed on the ride to and from work everyday, and we were also told to say silent prayers to ask for courage when preaching. I would say praying 50~ times a week is pretty common for a faithful Witness. And these are very personal prayers – like talking to a friend, but in your mind (unless it's a group prayer). Nothing is by route, save for the sign off "in Jesus name we pray, amen", but even then people get creative – "in your son's name whom we all deeply love, amen" etc.

A typical group prayer is something like this (imagine you're at a Kingdom Hall (church) on a Sunday and the study is about Christ's death:

"Jehovah our God in the heavens, we approach you this fine Sunday morning, the Sun, though hot reminds us of your glory and infinite power. Jehovah you truly are worthy of the praise and honor that your son so lovingly died for, and as we gather this morning to talk about his death we ask that you give us an appropriate portion of your Holy Spirit so that we may fully digest the spiritual banquet that you have laid before us. Jehovah please continue to watch over the faithful and discreet slave class so that they may in turn continue to provide us with the proper food at the proper time. Also we ask that you be with the Smith family, we know they are going through so much and we ask that you help them cope with their loss. In Jesus name we pray, amen"

That would be considered an appropriate prayer in terms of length, subject matter, and conclusion and the fact that it was made up on the cuff as opposed to by rote.

Individual prayers are very similar, but more personal. You're supposed to pray about any decisions you have to make, pour your heart out, and throw your burdens on Jehovah.

I did this for 29 years. I'm pretty sure the waves of depression I get about the religion are something akin nausea, but in my brain. I don't miss god, I despise the very notion that one would exist. I don't miss religion, I despise it for essentially driving me to the brink of insanity when I admitted there is no god to myself.

Imagine praying like that for 29 years, not thinking you would die, spending countless hours preaching from door to door, studying books filled with lies and misquotes, having your mind filled with an alternate history of reality made up by groups of men in ties.

Witnesses are mind raped and very few people are equipped to deal with that sort trauma. I'm pretty certain depression and suicidal tendencies are a natural reaction.

All of that said, I could see how some people would cling to religion and claim it saved them from suicide. Some people need lies to get through life.

Edit:

on "not knowing where to turn for answers" – nearly every question on religion and life in general that you have can be answered by a Witness using Watchtower literature and circular logic. What you should watch, eat, drink, wear, think; how you speak, the friends you choose, when you should date, the types of entertainment to watch, how to deal with -insert religion-, how to deal with -insert objection to core witness belief-; you name it, it can be answered. You aren't really taught to think for yourself when you're raised by a very faithful witness family.

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and the God Delusion are books about religion. I mentioned a few authors that I have read whose books cover either science, religion or a mixture of the two. I will grant you that I am not making a hard study into comparative religion and certainly did not mean to imply otherwise.

What proof do any of these religions have?

Congrats on getting out. I was the son of an elder and a Bethelite, so I definitly understand the difference between "week" and "strong" Witnesses.

Sure thing, I'll shoot you an email now.

Religion is the prefect template for corruption. Anywhere from hundreds to millions of devout worshipers who believe the unfounded teachings of a human (either in book form or spoken word) and are typically willing to die for those beliefs has all the makings of disaster.

And I agree, this applies to governments and corporations as well. Pretty much anything that exploits an ideal.

(edited this thought a bit)

I'm glad you said this – I recently had the same thought. Jesus seems more like a humanist than a religious zealot. I would not be shocked to learn some day that the claims of being god, or god's son were later additions to his teachings.

Whereas I do believe much can be learned about the human psyche from religion, and that having a strong understanding of why religion exists is important, I don't feel it is necessary to make a deep study of each religion's core beliefs. I do feel I have a strong grasp on the metaphors contained within religious practices.

In my opinion religion exists for both good and evil. It helps certain humans who are unable to cope with the reality of permanent death and loss. It helps people who have become unfocused or destitute to dedicate their lives to something they feel is larger than their own issues.

The evil it serves is obvious. People are robbed of time, money, creativity and hope. Wars are started over it and scientific progress is halted due to it.

Not all religions / religious practices / beliefs are good or evil of course. That would be too broad a statement, but even some seemingly harmless religions such as buddhism lead to violence and oppression.

I personally stand to gain nothing from committing to a religion or conforming to a belief system, but there are others who need to be told what to do by men who claim a higher authority. Far be it for me to try and discredit their belief system, but I do believe that the world would be better off without religion – I just don't think the current populace is ready for that change.

Ah, I understand what you are saying. The problem is that, I truly don't believe in gods or spirits anymore. Without gods and spirits, what is the point of religion? I consider myself to be a secular humanist.

How Religion Poisons Everything is "slanted" in a way to be sure, but I actually agree with the arguments presented in the book. What do I stand to gain from studying other religions closely?

This is very true. I have since come to realize that I was constantly trying to skirt around certain beliefs and rules. I found myself rationalizing more often than I care to admit.

Yes, but my brain doesn't work that way. I believe I have some form of ADD. I can typically get about 6 hours of quality programming in per day and then I have to crash. My side projects fail miserably if I don't put all of my effort and concentration into them. These projects are usually involving some form of art and my process involves a great deal of silence. I'm an introvert and am much more comfortable alone or with one other person. I have a girlfriend now who is almost identical to me in these ways. I work on my projects for 12 hours and she draws. When I get a contract, she helps with the paper work and client relations.

The internet and some really shitty people that I worked with a while back saved me.

Here's a bit of backstory.

I believed 100% that I would never get old or die because Armageddon would come before then, the Earth would be restored to a paradise and sickness / death would be wiped out for good. I started preaching from door to door at age 5 and was baptized at age 11. My parents have been in since 8 years old, and their parents have been in since their late 20s. Most of my family is in the religion and all of my friends were in it.

I believed in demons and angels.

I believed (as all true Witnesses do) that there were angels watching over us when we were preaching. In the 90s when I was 14 I would preach on a street that had the highest murder rate in Joliet. It was called the hill and was lined with crack houses and gangs on the corners. Also I'm white and everyone that lived on the hill was black. I preached without fear because I knew that I couldn't get murdered because god would save me with his angels.

Demons were very real as well – every Witness knows a few stories or has a friend of a friend that had a demon possessed item. I had reoccurring nightmares from the time I was a child onward that I was being attacked by demons, or that a family member was actually a demon waiting to kill me. I was genuinely afraid of the dark and especially mirrors in the dark until I was 28 years old.

I had never been exposed to other religious teachings or education surrounding evolution or cosmology. Instead I learned about these things from the Watchtower's publications which are of course slanted against science in their own special way.

the people I worked with were atheists and had no idea I was in a (mostly) fundamentalist religion until I had been hired. They launched a series of attacks on my beliefs, looked up videos and stories on the internet about Witnesses (after I told them I wasn't allowed to) and essentially forced those things on me. In truth, this just strengthened my faith... but then something changed. They started acting friendly to me instead of attacking me on a daily basis (I think that's because after 2 years I had enough and threatened to sue in an email). Down the line this gave me the chance to ask them if they had ever seen demons (I knew they all did drugs and I was always told this is a way for demons to take hold of your mind).

They of course laughed at this question and assured me that they had never seen a demon. I then asked a good friend of mine from that job who had grown up doing drugs and around drugs if he had seen demons. He hadn't either. This got me curious so I started researching demons on the internet and found that they're basically treated as mythology. That pretty much opened the floodgates. I researched homeopathy (I didn't have a real doctor until my teens – only a homeopathic chiropractor) and found out that it was pseudoscience. When I brought that up to my mother, she had a reaction that was similar to attacking someone's faith – that bothered me greatly and I realized in that moment that she was willing to believe everything. From there the entire house of cards fell, though very slowly. It took about 2.5 years to fully break free from the beliefs I once held as true and the internet is ultimately responsible for keeping me out. I was able to use it to research forbidden knowledge and join communities of other ex-witnesses who were struggling with the same issues.

Now I'm an atheist. My family relationships are strained at best (I've seen my parents and sister one time in the last 4 years, though they will speak to me briefly on occasion). I lost all of the friends I had built up over the years and as of last year I was totally alone save for the one good friend mentioned above and his girlfriend. They helped me to get through this by letting me hang out at their house a lot.

These days I'm doing much better. I'm so much happier without religion. It vacuumed up every iota of my spare time and I received nothing in return. I am convinced that all religion is destructive and corrupt, including Eastern religions. I think the notion of a god and spirits is laughable to the point of embarrassment and to deny science is to deny your own existence.

You are correct that most born-in Witnesses would never leave. That's because it means completely upheaving your life and becoming someone new. For many people that means drugs, sex, alcohol and partying – the things they weren't allowed in the religion. I did these things myself, but I was able to slow down and catch myself before I hit the bottom. Others hit bottom and stay there, or come crawling back to the "loving" arms of the organization.

I'm an atheist.

I had struggled with untreated suicidal depression for 15 years. I was very quiet about it. I am a web developer.

Three years ago I was divorced from my wife, left my birth religion and quit my job. On top of all my issues I was suffering from burnout – I hadn't had a vacation in years. Since I was the religious guy at my job I worked the holidays and was promised make up time. Company policy shifted at some point and we were only allowed to accrue a certain number of days with no rollover – when I quit, I also lost 35+ "make up" vacation days.

I tried getting another job right away, but quit after a month – it was an easy job, but I had lost my ability to work around others. I managed to pick up steady contract work for about a year, but this didn't give me much of a breather.

I also found a girlfriend who kept me distracted from my problems, but that wasn't to last.

Winter is when my depression hits hard, and it kicked in during the second year I was dating this girl. Having zero experience with depressed people, she couldn't handle it and dumped me. That's when everything I had gone through prior caught up to me. Long story short – I got on medication and started therapy which helped a bit, but the suicidal thoughts and planning continued.

I don't remember exact time lines, but I think it was around 8 months ago that I decided to weigh the pros and cons of living by making a list. I decided not to off myself yet, and that instead I would try to focus on improving myself.

I am a homeschooled community college drop out. I grew up in a trailer and taught myself how to program when I was a child by making video games. I'm also a very creative person who writes, draws, composes music, etc. I started thinking about these things after making the suicide list, and realized that I had lost my way. I've never been one to care about money, but around a decade ago I was on welfare and living in the middle of nowhere. I managed to pull myself out of poverty by learning PHP and getting a job in Chicago. That was my salvation but also nearly my ruination. I had lost my creativity and life was all about work – I was making $96,000 a year at my full time job, plus keeping clients on the side.

In the last year I have been able to land another six figure job and multiple contracts with pretty big clients, but everything has consistently fallen through. I collapse a few months in, get panic attacks and feel suicidal again... so I had to take a different approach.

My current situation is this – I take on 3 to 6 month short term contracts, live on a shoestring budget (no cellphone, no car payment, nothing but the bare essentials), and then I self educate and work on personal projects for 3 to 4 months solid.

By doing this I have been able to learn 4 different game engines, 2 programming languages and finger pick on the guitar. Being raised as a homeschooled Jehovah's Witness left me with knowledge gaps, so I have also spent large amounts of time educating myself about science (genetics, biology, cosmology) and religion (I've read most of Dawkins, Hitchens and Sagan).

My goals have completely shifted over the last several months. For the first time in a very very long time I'm not thinking about suicide on a daily / weekly basis. I have put all of my creative energy into creating video games, and though I may never make a hit game or be a great musician or a scientist, these things are giving me exponentially more pleasure than working a full time job, spending 8 to 10 hours a day with people I don't love, playing office politics, supporting a platform I don't care about and just waiting for the weekend so I can sleep.