By Matthew ~
Hey everyone. I have been on the path to atheism for a long time now, but found it really hard to break free from the brainwashing until recently.
Image by The U.S. Army via FlickrI was homeschooled and went to church three times a week my entire childhood (yada, yada, yada). Basically every bit of input was controlled through my first 18 years even though from around 14 on when my grandpa whom I loved dearly died, I had begun to question things like God's promise to Christians who pray in Jesus' name and believe... the whole moving mountains bit. I'm sure you've heard it before.
Christians have an answer for everything: "It was not in God's will," and "Who am I to question this?" (aka hold God to his promises). I was really naive at the time, but this doubt started me on my journey to freedom.
There were many things that led me to atheism, but when I was in Iraq we killed a few people and one instance helped me make up my mind about the whole issue. We killed a guy who was shooting at us (totally legit), but when we shot back and the guy died, his wife and children came running out of a nearby house, crying and screaming over their husband's/father's bloody body. I had a two kids back home, and I could relate to this scene. I was so upset over it that to this day it bothers the hell out of me. It made me think about the Children of Israel and God ordering them to kill every living thing in Canaan. How the hell could a God who would love everyone so much that he would come to earth to die a horrific death for all mankind order this sort of thing? And supposedly even punish the Israelites for showing compassion?
Normally you just push these ideas out of your head in combat, but when it's in your face, you realize just how unloving and hateful a God must be to order this kind of thing. Unless you take a minute to think about it fully, you probably have never had the picture in your mind of grown men running up into Canaan, hacking up children and babies with swords and spears just because God told them to. I cannot think of a larger contradiction.
Hey everyone. I have been on the path to atheism for a long time now, but found it really hard to break free from the brainwashing until recently.
Image by The U.S. Army via FlickrChristians have an answer for everything: "It was not in God's will," and "Who am I to question this?" (aka hold God to his promises). I was really naive at the time, but this doubt started me on my journey to freedom.
There were many things that led me to atheism, but when I was in Iraq we killed a few people and one instance helped me make up my mind about the whole issue. We killed a guy who was shooting at us (totally legit), but when we shot back and the guy died, his wife and children came running out of a nearby house, crying and screaming over their husband's/father's bloody body. I had a two kids back home, and I could relate to this scene. I was so upset over it that to this day it bothers the hell out of me. It made me think about the Children of Israel and God ordering them to kill every living thing in Canaan. How the hell could a God who would love everyone so much that he would come to earth to die a horrific death for all mankind order this sort of thing? And supposedly even punish the Israelites for showing compassion?
Normally you just push these ideas out of your head in combat, but when it's in your face, you realize just how unloving and hateful a God must be to order this kind of thing. Unless you take a minute to think about it fully, you probably have never had the picture in your mind of grown men running up into Canaan, hacking up children and babies with swords and spears just because God told them to. I cannot think of a larger contradiction.
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