What age were you when you realised God didn't exist

Scanlas The 2nd

Wibbs wrote: »

No proof is required? This is teenage/newage "ohmigodI'mhavinganovelthought!" stuff. Nope you're not. You're really not. This stage usually comes after or alongside the "amItheonlyonethatexistsandalllifeisillusary" notion. Whatever about a personal deity(and whatever floats your boat there) a creator deity or motive "intelligent" force that created the universe is still somewhat up for grabs. It certainly can't be disproven. There are a number of questions we're still asking and some of the current answers are... well out there, some IMHO hooey(tm) masquerading as science. Dark matter/energy for a start. A major fudge to make the existing theories figures fit. If the figures don't fit the equation rather than invent an invisible factor to balance the books, step back and revisit the equation. Think outside the box a bit. If you have ten apples in one hand and 5 in the other, it doesnt just tell you you have 15 apples, it also tells you you got huge fcuking hands. String theory? Nice enough, but unprovable and not a little weird in places(not always a bad thing). Hawkings recent stuff about the time "before" the universe fudges things and explains eff all just puts the creation bit back. Again. "Oh it didn't need any motive external force, just the laws of physics and gravity" yea brilliant that Ted. And where pray tell did they both come from?

Annnnyhoo. :D A creator force of some nature is likely to exist. It may be internal and "natural" to this universe or it could be external and "supernatural". That external may be a blind watchmaker fumbling in the dark or it just might be conscious and directed in building the cogs of our reality. The latter would to all intents and purposes be "God".

To be more precise I was 9 when I realized there wasn't really a God up in the sky with magical powers. I couldn't prove it then and I can't prove it now but I realized it was madness to believe so.

Vinny-Chase

Duggy747 wrote: »

Was never one for mass, praying or anything like that as a kid. Always saw as a waste of time since I utterly dispised having to go to mass and watch everyone mumble the prayers. (I used to mime the words "Mars Bars" so it looked like I knew what I was saying, could never remember the prayers :pac:)

While I never thought of God in the traditional sense of the Bible I'd just accepted that there was probably some higher power that plonked us here. Was around early teens, 13 - 14, when I came to the conclusion that there isn't a God, spiritual mumbo jumbo or anything beyond the 1 life I have.

What always stuck with me was when in 2nd class our teacher brought us out around the outskirts of my town to a crappy, unmaintained graveyard populated with babies & children who weren't christened. The grave was hidden out of sight (out of shame in those days) and we were told that it's residents were stuck in limbo for eternity because some water wasn't splashed on their heads.

The fact that people could go to mass / confessions, clean their slate with God and then carry on causing "sins" for another week while kids in that grave had to pay an unfair price for an "eternity" never sat well with me.

SeaFields wrote: »

I despise those graveyards as well. There is one by my girlfriends house where there isn't even headstones. Just a plate sized stone flat on the ground. Each stone represents the resting place of a child and there are hundreds of them. I believe for a period of time there wasnt allowed be a funeral/service/blessing either. The father alone of the child had to bury them after dark. Some backward teaching by the church.

Again, that's religion, not God.

Wibbs

Chuck Stone wrote: »

It can't be disproven that aliens exist on other planets but it is highly likely that they do.

Not really. We have an example of one. Earth. And it happened just once here even with our "goldilocks" conditions. Intelligent life? In four billion years it's happened just once and so far only for less than 80,000 years. This may never have happened anywhere else. So "highly likely" has zero objective scientific reality to it. Life is possible elsewhere and it's possible it may on very rare occasions become intelligent and the vastness of the universe lends itself to the idea that they're out there, but "likely" is still a stretch. Plus in an "infinite" universe with infinite possibilities, the possibility has to exist that we are indeed alone, the only light in the wilderness.

Funny we've always needed not to be alone. First it was spirits in nature and ancestors that evolved into more cohesive gods and angels and now with more agnostics out there aliens seem to be required in the human psyche. They're possible at least I suppose.

coffee_cake

Wibbs wrote: »

No proof is required? This is teenage/newage "ohmigodI'mhavinganovelthought!" stuff. Nope you're not. You're really not. This stage usually comes after or alongside the "amItheonlyonethatexistsandalllifeisillusary" notion.

Ain't that the truth! It's funny how common it is

SeaFields

Vinny-Chase wrote: »

Again, that's religion, not God.

Yep, thats why I called it "backward teaching by the church".

Wibbs

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

To be more precise I was 9 when I realized there wasn't really a God up in the sky with magical powers. I couldn't prove it then and I can't prove it now but I realized it was madness to believe so.

So to be precise you realised there was no Hollywood Sistine chapel god in the sky. Even the most basic theological thought would agree with you.

average hero

Christ almighty, can this PLEASE be the last one of these threads in AH?!?

Rebel021

The age of reason

Killer Pigeon

When I first went into a church.

sbsquarepants

Wibbs wrote: »

Annnnyhoo. :D A creator force of some nature is likely to exist. It may be internal and "natural" to this universe or it could be external and "supernatural". That external may be a blind watchmaker fumbling in the dark or it just might be conscious and directed in building the cogs of our reality. The latter would to all intents and purposes be "God".

Highly unlikely i would say?
If this creator force exists, what created it and so on? Everything has to, by definition, come from nothing - if the universe was created -where did the creator live before hand? Who or what created that place? It goes on infinitely.
We'll never know how all this stuff came to be here, infinity is a concept not an achievable or atainable goal. It's probably way beyond anything we'll ever have the ability to comprehend.
But throwing a god into it is just unneccesary nonsense as far as im concerned. We can't understand so god must have done it. I don't understand how my ipod works, but that doesn't mean god is in there, out of his tits, spinning tiny little decks:D

Scanlas The 2nd

Chuck Stone wrote: »

You'
It can't be disproven that aliens exist on other planets but it is highly likely that they do.

.

read that wrong

Scanlas The 2nd

average hero wrote: »

Christ almighty, can this PLEASE be the last one of these threads in AH?!?

When was there a thread about what age you realized God didn't exist?

MagicMarker

I was -3

Scanlas The 2nd

Wibbs wrote: »

So to be precise you realised there was no Hollywood Sistine chapel god in the sky. Even the most basic theological thought would agree with you.

Yea I agree, but up until 9 I was fairly gullible.

Chuck Stone

Wibbs wrote: »

Not really. We have an example of one. Earth.

This ^^ is the only part of your statement which needs attention - the rest is just blabbering (no offence intended).

You're actually trying to use the scientific fact that there is life on a planet in the universe to surmise that there may not be life on other planets..

say that out loud to yourself over and over

'I'm trying to use the fact that there is life on this planet to put forward the idea that there may not be life on other planets'

So you are using the existance of life on this planet to postualte the non-existence of life on other planets?

That might just have been the most contradictory statement I've ever read.

BEASTERLY

Wibbs wrote: »

This stage usually comes after or alongside the "amItheonlyonethatexistsandalllifeisillusary" notion.

Haha, i remember being told this when i was a teenager, the idea got into my head for a few weeks and i remember being **** scared i was going mad.

On topic, i dont think organized religion is a good thing, it ironically has led to so many sins. But that is totally seperate from god, you dont have to be up front in mass every sunday to believe in god.

In my mind, you cannot disprove god until you can explain all the mysteries of the universe.For example, what's outside the universe? One of my favourite theory of god is that the civilization of a parallel universe became so advanced that they created our universe as an experiment, so god is actually a group of scientists. Thats just one of a million different theories.

The most ridiculous theory i heard is that the universe was just there in a ball of matter before the big bang, it always was, no explanation other than its just common sense to believe that.

dpe

I was 6 or 7. I didn't know at the time but my parents had an agreement that if I should decide for myself about religion (my Mum's a believer, my Dad wasn't), but that I should go to Sunday school in order to make my own mind up. Took about a month for me to realise that the bible made no sense at all (it was Cain and Abel that first got me suspicous), and about another month of coming home every Sunday with more and more "this doesn't make any sense" type questions before me Dad said I didn't have to go any more (my Mum told me years later that he was really pleased at how quickly I'd rumbled it). I'll take the same approach with my own daughter.

pragmatic1

Not until my 20s. But I was never a good Catholic and didnt believe most of the stuff anyway, more a deist than anything.

BEASTERLY

Chuck Stone wrote: »

This ^^ is the only part of your statement which needs attention - the rest is just blabbering (no offence intended).

You're actually trying to use the scientific fact that there is life on a planet in the universe to surmise that there may not be life on other planets..

say that out loud to yourself over and over

'I'm trying to use the fact that there is life on this planet to put forward the idea that there may not be life on other planets'

So you are using the existance of life on this planet to postualte the non-existence of life on other planets?

That might just have been the most contradictory statement I've ever read.

I think you should read his post again. When i take from it is that there is evidence(earth) for life on other planets.

gbee

Hard to say.

From the beginning, born in 1954, I was an avid believer, I was just a stupid kid and have grown up ashamed of it, but that was me.

However, I was also a very questioning kid, my believe in God was absolute but my teachers, family and general behaviour of the public made me suspicious.

I grew up in the second city of the republic were daily prayers, meal graces and evening rosaries were common. I used to be called in from play to pray.

At angelus time in the middle of the day people used to stop what they were doing and drop to their knees in prayer, many taking out the beads and feverishly moving their fingers, delivery drays and [motor] van drivers would stop their vehicles and carts, dismount and kneel right in the middle of the road.

All this confused me as God accepted everything you did as a prayer and lying down in the middle of traffic was never a good idea and having Mrs Jones's cat go late for it milk cannot be what God wanted either.

Then the big change came when they threw out Adam and Eve and then laughed at me for believing in such rubbish. You can do the maths and date this, but that made me question everything and the fact that my parent's lied to me, I've never forgiven them.

The fact that both my most fervent beliefs, Santa and Christ were total fabrications and that my own parents foisted this on me was and is inexcusable.

I wasted a lot of my early life trying to reconcile my differences and naturally the local pub became the new mission. That, of course brought other problems.

So I was still in Primary when I began to change but my beliefs had been so well absorbed that it was well into adulthood and alcoholism that I finally struck off the idiotic veil.

I believe that teaching children religion is child abuse and the law should run its course on the offenders.

Buceph

Chuck Stone wrote: »

This ^^ is the only part of your statement which needs attention - the rest is just blabbering (no offence intended).

You're actually trying to use the scientific fact that there is life on a planet in the universe to surmise that there may not be life on other planets..

say that out loud to yourself over and over

'I'm trying to use the fact that there is life on this planet to put forward the idea that there may not be life on other planets'

So you are using the existance of life on this planet to postualte the non-existence of life on other planets?

That might just have been the most contradictory statement I've ever read.

Tie the original idea about Earth having the perfect circumstances for life, which is an incredibly rare thing, to the fact that we have yet to discover any evidence of other intelligent life and it gets to a point where it's pretty reasonable to believe that there's no other intelligent life out there.

If you take how long we've existed, and how quickly our technology has advanced and predictions for the advancement of future technology. Apply that to the length of time the universe has existed of which a function would be the likelihood of another intelligent being existing during that time, developing (to a point we can't imagine) and travelling the stars. Especially if you take the consideration that one of the first things we did as a species was colonise, and now we're reaching to space, and we generally tend to make ourselves known and generally search for life. So maybe aliens wouldn't directly travel the universe with aliens on ships, but they probably would make themselves known, like pumping out a signal across the galaxies. Then realise that we've had the technology to read quite a few transmissions (forces, radiation, that kind of thing) and you can come to the conclusion that if there ever was intelligent life out there, they would have in some way broadcast their existence long before we came about, so we should now be able to read it, and because we can't it's unlikely they ever existed.

neil_hosey

Buceph wrote: »

Surely realisation needs knowledge. And seeing as I can't disprove god in any scientific way, I can't know. I can however choose not to believe because of a lack of evidence and the general stupidity of the idea. So that's what I do.

thats a great post!

sunflower27

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

No burden lies with me.

I realized I was wrong when I was 9. My realization happened whether there was proof or not. No proof is required really though, just a bit of common sense. It's quite obvious to objective people with basic reasoning abiltiy that it is ridiculous to believe in a God.

Of course I can't prove there isn't a God, but at 9 I realized how ridiculous and astronomically unlikely a God was to exist.

I can't prove that I won't win next weeks lottery, but given the odds and the fact I never buy a ticket I think it would be a bit nonsensical to believe I will win the lottery. So I realize that believing I will win the lottery is wrong semantics aside.

You are really annoying.

dpe

Buceph wrote: »

Tie the original idea about Earth having the perfect circumstances for life, which is an incredibly rare thing, to the fact that we have yet to discover any evidence of other intelligent life and it gets to a point where it's pretty reasonable to believe that there's no other intelligent life out there.

If you take how long we've existed, and how quickly our technology has advanced and predictions for the advancement of future technology. Apply that to the length of time the universe has existed of which a function would be the likelihood of another intelligent being existing during that time, developing (to a point we can't imagine) and travelling the stars. Especially if you take the consideration that one of the first things we did as a species was colonise, and now we're reaching to space, and we generally tend to make ourselves known and generally search for life. So maybe aliens wouldn't directly travel the universe with aliens on ships, but they probably would make themselves known, like pumping out a signal across the galaxies. Then realise that we've had the technology to read quite a few transmissions (forces, radiation, that kind of thing) and you can come to the conclusion that if there ever was intelligent life out there, they would have in some way broadcast their existence long before we came about, so we should now be able to read it, and because we can't it's unlikely they ever existed.

Fermi's Paradox. There are lots of answers suggested for that though, maybe we're looking at the wrong information, maybe we don't understand what we're looking at, or maybe aliens are being vewy, vewy quiet because there are dangerous things out there and its wabbit season.

pragmatic1

dpe wrote: »

Fermi's Paradox. There are lots of answers suggested for that though, maybe we're looking at the wrong information, maybe we don't understand what we're looking at, or maybe aliens are being vewy, vewy quiet because there are dangerous things out there and its wabbit season.

Or maybe they're so advanced that we're like ants compared to them so therefore uninteresting.

Teyla Emmagan

I don't know what you're on about.

Buceph

dpe wrote: »

Fermi's Paradox. There are lots of answers suggested for that though, maybe we're looking at the wrong information, maybe we don't understand what we're looking at, or maybe aliens are being vewy, vewy quiet because there are dangerous things out there and its wabbit season.

Aye, I know. I just think it's a fun thought exercise to bring it up.

ShamoBuc

hilarious really.

Chuck Stone

BEASTERLY wrote: »

I think you should read his post again. When i take from it is that there is evidence(earth) for life on other planets.

You misunderstand.

I'll try to crystalize it for you.

I say 'It cannot be disproved that there is life on other planets but it is highly likely that there is (adding content here) The reason that it is highly likely is because we have an example - 'Us'.

He has taken my statement and said to it 'not really'

He is using the fact that there is life on this planet to make the argument that life might 'not really' exist elsewhere.

For some irrational reason he is attempting to use the fact that there is life on this planet to suggest that there may not be life on other planets - this is an irreconcilable position.

An analogy.

People are living on a small isolated island in the middle of the ocean with no knowledge that there are other people and islands. There is one type of fruit bearing tree on the island.

Islander 1 says 'It is highly likely there are other trees on other islands that bear fruit - look we have an example I'm eating it now'

Islander 2 says 'not really - look at us - we're eating the only fruit known to us on this vast ocean on this little island'

Islander 2 is trying to use existance of an object in an attempt to prove that there may not be any other like it in the vast ocean of yet undiscovered Islands.

sunflower27

What is laughable about the OP is this assumption that there is no God and the OP knows it and wants to brag about how 'clever' he/she is to have discovered the 'truth' at such a young age.

:D:rolleyes::rolleyes: