by VorJack
I first heard about Adam and Eve in Sunday school. Then I heard about cave men from some pop culture source – the comic strip B.C. maybe.
This confused me. I kept asking people who came first: Adam & Eve or the cave men? I can’t remember ever getting an answer.
Later on someone told me our souls go the Heaven when we die. This confused me. I didn’t have a clear distinction between the mind, the soul and the brain. Alright, I still don’t, but back then it was really pronounced.
So for a little while I imagined Heaven as a place full of disembodied brains walking around on little feet. Somehow this didn’t seem scary, just … weird.
I used to wonder how those disembodied brains played video games. Because Heaven was supposedly the best place ever, so I knew they had to have a lot of arcades. I figured that the brains all stood on really tall stools and moved the joystick with tiny little arms.
What odd questions or beliefs about religion did have when you were a kid?
The one which I suspect gets a lot of people into religion when it dawns on them to ask:
Why is there anything? Why is there space, time, matter, energy, life? What cause or reason is there for all of this stuff to be here?
Same as you: the Adam & Eve tale vs. cavemen raised my first suspects that religion was bullshit. Then when the religion teacher “explained” us the holy trinity, I had confirmation.
Growing up with a Bible Banging Father put all kinds of strange ideas in my head. On that comes to mind now is that “We’re in God’s fish bowl”. He made the world and put everything here and is always watching just like a terrarium or a fish tank. That really freaked me out when I was a kid.
I used to believe that Heaven would contain an infinite supply of Lego.
That would be a heaven worth going to, providing it also had a giant treehouse and an infinity´s supply of soda stream.
Props on the (almost obsolete) corporate plural for Lego.
As a child, I pictured of “God” as as translucent head without a face, flying around heaven, wearing a sort of a arab-type headdress- a white towel held on with a headband, that flowed when he flew around. And the whole “godhead” was a sort of pale turquoise blue.
Go figure.
I was raised catholic. I went to an all girls catholic boarding school, which I loved. A nun told me when the priest blessed the communion and wine before he gave it “a miracle happens and it REALLY BECOMES THE BLOOD AND BODY OF CHRIST”! At that time I just said o.k., like I did everything else I was taught. Now I’m like what the F*****k. If someone did that in there backyard I think they”d call that a Satanic ritual. Religion…….economy resistant product. The easiest to sell, because everyones buying.
If a bird dies and goes to heaven, does it get an extra pair of wings?
Only penguins and ostriches.
Don’t forget the kiwis!
I remember very little when I was religious as a child, just stuff like:
Driving around some villiage in Cyprus, and it was really really humid and wondering why God wouldn’t help all the religious people by making it rain.
Having a Taiwanese best friend who wasn’t Christian but got all the good grades in school and was nice to everybody and thinking that if I went to ‘Heaven’ and she wasn’t there I would be really lonely.
Asking my mother over and over why people were still poor and unhappy… stuff like that.
I guess when I thought of God I thought what I was supposed to think he looked like: a more ‘serious’ version of Santa. But I didn’t feel comfortable talking to a really old man because I felt like we wouldn’t have anything in common. But I do distinctly recall feeling terrified if I swore against him in my head, like I was ‘tempting fate,’ and that my parents were going to die if I dd do something ‘ungodly.’ Idk, religion always seemed to come a lot quicker to my cousins, whilst I felt unstable and paranoid. God and I had a personality clash, I suppose.
“Having a Taiwanese best friend who wasn’t Christian but got all the good grades in school and was nice to everybody and thinking that if I went to ‘Heaven’ and she wasn’t there I would be really lonely.”
I think that is the best argument against the Judeo-Christian god that I have ever heard…
I remember that I believed that when you die, you got buried, and after that, angels would come and dip up the coffin and they brought that to heaven. That is how I believed how one of my grandfathers went to heaven. There was one problem however. He was cremated.
Oddly enough, I never had any questions about religion as a kid because I didn’t think anyone actually believed it.
My parents are both non-religious, and on the very few times I had to do something related to a church or mosque or whatever (be it part of religious education, youth groups, etc) I always just assumed it was some kind of ceremonial thing that was just part of tradition. I was not a little surprised when I grew up to learn that people thought it was all real.
Ha! I had the same experience, when I realised that the kid next door thought that Adam and Eve were real people … unfortunately, I was only seven, and was unable to articulate my objections beyond thinking that was really stupid.
Mind you, thirty years later, this same basic objection remains.
I too grew up with two non.religious parents, my dad was even a bit of anti-religious. So I remember one time when i wanted to go with a friend to something in sweden called “miniorerna”, its like church but just for kids in the basement of a church. I remember likign to sing the songs but since my dad had told me once to compare god and jesus to pippi longstocking (astrid lindgrens carachter in childrens book, a girl strong enough to lift a horse, throw thiefs away into holes and with a rich dad traveling the seven sees) i startaed to laugh when the churchlady taking care of us during these hours started to pray. I was sure she was acting and that it was suppose to be fun. I wasnt yelled at for it, but i remember feeling so uncomfortable after that, that i never went there again.
From an early age i learned that the bible was fiction, just like lord of the rings.
Wait… Lord of the Rings never happened?
Don’t listen to them Dutchhobbit. They are just haters. If they just read LOTR with an open heart, then they would believe.
I’ve always believed Jesus was sort of a Gandalf-figure.
I had this too. I grew up as a catholic but never in my mind I realized that people actually believed it to be true. I thought it was just a cultural story. The old Testament was very cool, it had dramatic stories, but the New Testament was boring since they only talked about this jesus person. And some thing weird called “love”. Their word of “love” did not fit with my observations of reality.
My biggest surprise that people actually believed this to be real was the Dover trials in 2005? Up until then I never even remotely thought that in these modern times people would believe this as being real! I expected people that believed this to be true to be locked up in psychiatry. It was so weird for me to realise this, very scary too.
Speaking of B.C., Johnnie Hart is an Evangelical Christian. What I always wondered is how he squared his comic strip with the Bible.
When he started the cartoon he hadn’t yet turned to the dark side. Upon becoming a believer he introduced some new characters and started involving his characters in religious themed stories.
If I’m remembering correctly, about a decade back he implied that Jesus was born during a strip. So, yeah, there were cavemen when Jesus was born. I guess this jives with the people I’ve talked to who say Jesus came to wipe out the dinosaurs.
No wonder so many kids were so messed up.
My parents never lied to me. The closest I got to believing in anything was reading the UFO books. I was pretty convinced that we were being visited back when I was nine. Then my dad introduced me to Carl Sagan and it vanished with a whiff of skeptical smoke.
I remember that there was Krystal Burger joint next to our Methodist church, and my sister and I used to take our “Sunday School” money and have ourselves a feed. We were always afraid we’d get busted or whatever….when it never happened, that only confirmed my hunch. All bollocks….and then some. I had questions before, but I was too shy to ask…plus all the other kids knew the correct answers already.
My dad had a belt buckle from WWII. “God is with us” Since, he was on the side of the Nazi’s there was no need to worry about him. Never had to figure out religion.
“Because Heaven was supposedly the best place ever, so I knew they had to have a lot of arcades.”
Wow, total deja vu. As a kid, I would imagine that heaven was a giant mansion I lived in, that had floor after floor of video games, all of em free of course!
Funny how other adults don’t see how silly the concept of heaven is, given that most of us should have similar memories of our childhood ‘heaven’ as opposed to what they imagine it is now, and how your adult ‘heaven’ would seem foolish and childish to an eternal being.
VorJack, I have a suggestion for the next QotD.
There are a few lifers here like me. I was drawn to the atheist movement primarily out of a fascination of people fundamentally changing what they believe. I was also interested doing my part to keep religion out of government.
What is the difference between atheists raised by non-believers and all you converts? What is the difference in the motivation to be part of a group?
I used to think that God was a large white man with a beard and a suit who was alive on Earth today and had an office. Probably in Washington D.C.
So god is a lobbyist??? Definitely keep him out of government :)
When I was about 10 I asked my Vacation Bible School teacher who made God. She sputter out the usual line about God not needing a creator and that He had existed forever. I didn’t find the answer convincing then either.
Heaven was always in interesting concept for me.
On the one had it was supposed to be the best place ever. But I also knew that to get into heaven you had to be meek and honest and good and essentially boring (to me).
I was also told things like, “In heaven people get to worship God for ALL eternity and they get to SEE God in all his glory!”.
“Yay…” I thought, “Heaven is eternal church filled with people I can’t relate to.” Even in my strongest moments as a Christian Heaven didn’t seem that great.
Lol, even more so when I was in my later teens. I used to think “Man, I really enjoy sex… something tells me they don’t have that in heaven.”
I wanted to know where god came from. This was during my mom’s Mormon phase (there were several “phases”). The answer I got from the missionaries was that as we are now, so god once was.
Yeah…I still say WTF.
Someone invited me to healing crusade and I went out of curiosity. Swallowed it line, hook and sinker. I did not know then holy men could tell lies.
I always had a hard time with the whole virgin birth thing. I never quite understood how Mary got preggers without, you know “doing it” with either god or the holy spirit. I had a picture of a ghost hand entering her womb and placing a fully formed tiny baby in there.
I was just trying to explain to my 10 year old son what his (Catholic) grandmother believes and it really came out all muddled. He actually spoke the words “Well, then who mated with her?” I kinda had to say, “Christians believe nobody did. God just put the baby in there.” and then he said, “And grandma believes this stuff? It seems pretty silly to me.” I had to agree with him while trying not to let him think his grandmother is a kook.
Actually females can spontaneous get pregnant when virgin. It is extremely rare, so the virgin thing could happen. Only…. jezus would be a girl and identical looking like the mother since she would be a clone.
Moral of the story, don’t “eat” fish when you are ovulating if you are a virgin.
Yes, that’s true, but it’s never been seen in humans, which makes it irrelevant in this circumstance.
I always used to wonder if Purgatory had sofas & TVs…
Probably…just not high def. Gotta get to heaven for the upgrade.
- and old copies of golf magazines.
My childhood pictures of heaven were from cartoons, of angels playing harps while sitting on clouds. Playing harps for all eternity? I might be able to abide an occasional concert of an hour or two, but all freakin’ eternity? When I was eight or ten, we took a family drive up through the mountains. As we were engulfed in a fog, Dad remarked that we were actually driving up into a cloud. Whoops, this stuff isn’t going to support any angels with harps, and what about those heavenly mansions and streets made of gold? They’ve gotta be heavy. It just ain’t gonna happen.
As a child I could accept that heaven was “up”. And “up” was as obvious to me as was down. But as I learned of the spherical shape of the earth, and that “up” was relative to where you were on earth, I was bothered with the question of “heaven is up from where?” Then learning of earth’s rotation “up from where, when?” Add in earth’s revolutions about the sun. And as I began to realize the scope of the solar system and the galaxy and the whole universe so the question became “and how far out is it?” We’d already put men in orbit and satellites beyond the moon. If heaven was close enough that Jesus could travel to heaven without even a spaceship, why haven’t we seen it yet with telescopes or space probes? Jacob’s ladder? Tower of Babel? Gods fearing that men might build a structure tall enough to reach them? I don’t think so.
Next chapter: the astronomy of Captain Midnight and of Rocky Jones Space Ranger.
I asked my sunday school teacher why the dinosaurs aren’t in the bible. I never got an answer.
Growing up, my parents, Primary teachers and church leaders told me a lot of things that made sense to me, in the context of religious belief. For instance, I’m a huge reader. So when I was about 8 or 9, I happened to read something referencing the idea that Eve is the reason for original sin. It was actually the first time I’d even heard the concept of original sin. In church, I’d been taught that the Fall was all part of God’s plan, and that Eve was to be honored for her role in the Fall, because without it, we wouldn’t be free to follow God’s plan.
One thing that did draw me up short was when my Primary class was taught about our potential to become Gods with worlds of our own — a uniquely LDS belief. The concept of living righteously and becoming a God didn’t bother me. Nope, it was that after teaching us this, our teacher asked us to draw pictures of our future worlds.
Mine had Pegasuses, unicorns and pretty little fairies. Also, wizards doing magic. Because I was 8, and it was my world. Even to this day, if I was able to design a world, it would definitely have magic and fairies. But probably dragons instead of flying horses and unicorns. Anyway, the teacher saw the picture and shook her head sadly: “No,” I was told. “We have to obey the natural laws of the universe. There will be no unicorns.”
I was furious. If I was going to be a God, with my very own world, why couldn’t I make it however I wanted? I wanted magic and unicorns! Isn’t a God all-powerful? Why couldn’t I make NEW natural laws?
The teacher couldn’t answer, and neither could my parents or anyone else. But they were all certain that I couldn’t have magic or unicorns or people who could talk to animals.
That was the beginning of the end. I just figured if fantasy couldn’t be real for one God, then it couldn’t be real for any God. And if God could do anything, then fantasy could be real — but they were telling me it couldn’t. They were two opposing statements. Either fantasy could be real AND God could do anything, or fantasy couldn’t be real and God was finite.
And once God becomes finite, he becomes fallable and easy to question.
A Greek philosopher came up with argument similar to yours:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able or willing? Then why call him God?”
Epicurus
I agree with the video games part. When I hit puberty, I also started imagining lots of hot girls in heaven. Lots.
However, I realized God didn’t go in for that kind of stuff. Then I started thinking, “If there aren’t any chicks, I’m am definitely not happy. So, how is it heaven?”
I was approximately age 7 and I must have been asking a lot of questions, though I don’t remember anything from the conversation except for an answer my mother gave me. I vividly remember her joyful face looking down at me and her saying in an awestruck voice, “Because all the streets in heaven are paved in gold!”
I just stood there and stared up at her, with a child’s equivalent of W…T…F…!!! running through my mind. I stood there for so long, staring at her with no reaction whatsoever, that she became uncomfortable, began to fidget, finally turned and walked away. As an adult, I’ve always wondered if the silence that followed her statement gave her time to reflect on how stupid it sounded. (I’ve never asked, they like to pretend my atheism doesn’t exist and I leave them to their bliss.)
Not long after, I became obsessed with Greek mythology and just came to associate the religion with the myths, though I didn’t realize I had done that until I was 16 or so. I now understand that I was born a natural skeptic and never really bought into the religious BS. I always felt as if I was standing on the outside, looking in on a freak show. (My father is from a rolling-in-the-aisles Pentecostal family.)
The most I can remember ‘believing’ as a child, was wishing upon a star. But after several attempts of that and it not working, I gave it up.
=D
For a while I had God and Santa Claus confused. So one December I prayed really hard for a toy electric car for Christmas (without telling anyone). When the toy didn’t arrive on Christmas day I stopped believing.
One of the concepts that always caused me to question religion is this:
The Judeo/Christian god (allegedly) made man in his/her/its own image.
Then which part did (s)he leave out that makes us NotGod?
And how then is that “in his image”?
‘I said ye are gods’ Ps 82:6
John 10:30-36…
10:33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
10:34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, YE ARE GODS?
10:35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken..
All things reproduce after their (own) kind so a dog has a dog, a cat a cat, and God a ‘God-man’ in his own image/nature (once His life and nature have become ours, again as it was in the beginning). This is why Christ came. 1 John 3:8
John, that in absolutely no way answered the question. In fact, you just *repeated* the question.
Sorry I didn’t live up to your expectations this time Custy! I will try harder next time bro. :)
You’re a strange strange man and I try very hard to pity you.
Custy?
Hrm. I’m assuming Custador is a nickname, as Revyloution is for me.
People often call me Revy, in the real world as well as the digital one.
Custador is a bit weighty for a spoken nickname, but I don’t think I would cut it down to ‘Custy’. It’s just too damn close to Crusty, though that could be cool…
Custor? Like Custors last stand? (American history reference to a general that was slaughtered by natives due to conceit and poor planning)
Custa? Kinda sounds like your talking about cursing. /rap artist accent “He custa bitch up one side an’ down ta other!!” /rap artist accent
Hrm, I think Custy might be the best shortening of your moniker after all. I think Ill just stick with typing it out in full.
I honestly don’t mind, Revy :-)
“Sorry I didn’t live up to your expectations this time Custy! I will try harder next time bro. :)”
What, Demi God?
“and God a ‘God-man’”
Hi, Demi God, how are you?
Looooog
time
no
see.
He left out the omni- parts.
I was the type of kid to listen very carefully in Sunday School and church, and I wanted to understand everything. I read the Bible all the way through at a pretty young age – probably around seven – and I was confused about God’s killing policy. The Ten Commandments were pretty explicit about not killing other people, but God still sends his kings to kill entire races of people (including the women and children and livestock).
When I asked my parents about it, they took me to our pastor. I remember him telling me that it was okay when God directly commanded things, because it meant it was part of his plan. This didn’t quite satisfy me, but the adults seemed to accept it, so I pretended to accept it too.
God’s relation to the Ten Commandments is a case of “Do as I say, not as I do (or I’ll f*cking smite you!)”
Well, I wasn’t raised particularly religious so it wasn’t really an issue. Heaven was never an issue to me; I equated it to Hades/Elysium, stories, really. Then I learned people actually believe this stuff and was kind of baffled. I never did manage to believe the crazy.
I did, however, think after death we’d simply begin all over again – be born, grow, etc, without any memories of the previous life. I’d be me but not quite me, y’know?
It made a hell of more sense than paradise/hell to me. I wondered if I’d be reborn sometime in the future or if we could actually be reborn in the past.
The original sin was anal intercourse. For the exegesis, google the first scandal Adam and Eve. Then click, read, and comment. You won’t like what you read. That’s a guarantee. So there must be something wrong with the exegesis. But what’s wrong with it? When you discover what’s wrong, with whom will you share your discovery?
I based everything on the Flintstones….after all, we all watched it every Friday night as a family. That was the closest to church my Dad would do.
When you view the Bible for what it really is, it’s really not that complicated; a metaphorical story to teach history and other lessons of life.
First, Adam and Eve are not the first man and woman, it’s a metaphor. Adam means red, or ruddy skin people. So Adam is figurative of the first people. And Eve is figurative of knowledge, maybe knowledge of good and evil, maybe just higher knowledge, or even an evolution if you will.
Now combine that with what we know is real history through science. Man’s oldest remains come from East Africa, hence the ruddy, or dark skinned color of man, Adam. We also know that there were other earlier forms of man. But we are the only remaining ones, modern man. Plus the earlier ones were not as smart, nor as cultured.
Now whether we wiped out the other ones, or they simply died out is up for debate. Personally, I think we wiped them out in prehistoric turf wars over hunting grounds. What is not up for debate, is that we made the leap in knowledge (even our brains are bigger than other forms of man, key to knowledge retention, memory), welcome Eve.
The books are simply metaphors people. It’s a shame that we have been fed this horrible idea of a literal translation. Think outside the box and you will understand what’s really in the book.
I remember as a child being really ticked that dogs did not go to heaven. I knew all dogs did was love us and try to make us happy – why didn’t they get to go? “No soul.” So we had a soul, but were sinful and our trip to heaven was always iffy, but the pure, innocent dog did not get crap. AND that’s what I wanted in heaven! Talk about unfair as hell! So it was all BS and wrong. To this day I hear people say “I don’t care if they (whoever THEY are) say animals can’t go to heaven, I believe they can.” In my head I add it to the stack of things I hear people make exceptions to while still hanging onto the rest of the dogma. So silly.
I went to a Christian preschool, and I remember asking why we always bowed our heads when we prayed instead of looking up at God. I never really got an answer to that, haha, but I couldn’t stand the thought of praying towards the devil, so I always looked up.
When I was a little older, I imagined heaven as another earth, but a separate continent for every religion. So, everyone ended up in heaven. I always hated the idea of hell.
When I was six years old I was told, in Mormon Sunday School, that you can tell the people who were given a second chance from Hell. They were reincarnated but marked to walk the earth with dark skin. And these people could not go to heaven, even if they were good in this life.
I am half caucasian and half mexican from a very dark skinned mother giving me a couple shades lighter than my mom. So I grew up knowing that there will be no heaven for me.
I was young (12 years old) and learning another language. The church talked about the tower of babel and I was confused and nervous. Why was being able to speak to others a bad thing?
I also thought why would a god hate teamwork and all races/languages working together. Also why hasn’t god done the same thing since most people are bilingual (ok not americans.. I KID I KID!!) and the space shuttles have gone farther up than a silly tower which was impossible to build to the heavens. And a god should have known that if god was smart.
I was told by the church that the Tower of Babal was not a real story but a parable. I said well then is it possible the rest of the bible is one huge parable? So this was first of many questions and open minded thinking.
My Family tried to bring me up christian but it didnt hold well. I remember my veiws of heaven were fun. It was like the coolest fort i could ever make with all my friends and family. But only “believers” go to heaven and ive been atheist since i was 6. The concept of an all seeing all knowing God was scarry beyond belief like a giant eye in my window watching me sleep. But being raised christian i didnt know that i didnt have to believe in God and it wasnt until my uncle came out about being an atheist that i realised it was okay. Sometimes i wish i could believe in a “Heaven” but the concept just seems crazy now!
Yeah. My version of heaven was me watching my b*tch of a step-monster burn in hell while I pointed and laughed. I got the idea from the “rich man goes to hell” story in the new testament.
I was always really baffled as to what age you would be in heaven. What if your favorite age to be was 9, & you really wanted to be with your mom. Meanwhile your mom’s favorite age to be was 15. And would really old people still want to be old? And if not, they how could they be there as your grandparents? Good thing I wasn’t raised xtian. I was already a dreadful skeptic. I surely would have been much worse.