Welcome to the Nexus LogicalSanity.

Welcome to AN.

Welcome to Atheist Nexus. This is the world of commonsense. Well done finding it. No dogma here, no doctrines. Just freethinking rationalism.

nice to see you here too :) Happy New Year !

we are few and far between but hopefully we are growing

I remember my first scaptical thought wast in sunday school at the age of five or younger. For some reason I did not trust the teacher and still dont today for some irrational reason. She told us the story of Noah's Ark, now I had heard it before and just assumed it was the Bibles way of telling us how rainbows were made. When she told me that Noah got all of the animals I knew something was wrong. I had recently went to the zoo and I just knew that every animal could not make it on there with no food.
As I grew up I was the kid at church that knew all about the bible because I went to a Catholic school and a Missionary Baptist church. But also I always noticed when god killed someone and the teacher/sunday school teacher would say something to the effect of they deserved it and it was ok because god did it. That never sat well with me. I thought that these people were just disconnected with the pain of those people because of the 4000yr time gap much the way they can be disconnected with kids in Africa or just down the street because they were out of sight and out of mind. College was the real turning point, I didnt have to go to church everyday and was able to question my beliefs especially since I go to college in the South which has a brand of xianity much different from the liberal xianity that I grew up with. All in all one weekend I stayed in my room and looked up Atheism on youtube, and listened to the Atheist Experience and struggled for 2 days with letting go of xianity and on monday I was a new man, I felt so free and overwhelmingly happy for days, and that only lead to me learning about different forms of freethought, humanism, etc. so I figure out the names of who I am and how I view the world.
Long winded (like a Chicago politician) I know but what is your story

Hi Ida, I'm in the UK and our recent history may be different but let me tell you the stranglehold that the church to one extent or another has on a large section of the black community is for me frightening.
Many of my friends and acquaintances have started going to church again as adults! I dont have the statistics but I feel there has been a revival in recent years.
Hope to chat more soon :)
Mary

I have not told my parents my mom is a little bit of a fundie and my dad goes to Jeremiah Wright's church but I think he would be more open, but nevertheless I will not tell them until after college and I am on my own entirely. But I did recently have a conversation/argument with my mother about how I don't pray because it and the omnipresence of god contradict you know the whole freewill vs. determinism debate it takes both sides so I dont do it, and never really did. Do your parents know about your lack of faith

Well JW has a very liberal view of xianity and it is very black power ( black liberation theology). I never went to the church but my dad is otherwise the most rational person I know it is utterly amazing to me how rational and ethical he is considering he is a xian and lawyer. For years i didnt get the lawyer jokes because of how great of a person he was/is. but I actively strive to be atleast as good of a man that he is.

Yes, most of them were 'laid back' church goers but had been in the formative years. They still held views about the world which were xtian based but were not so vocal. They had never considered any other option so the likelihood of them resuming their church going and subtle evangelising was always there. When I say subtle I mean including at the end of normal emails a quote from the bible as if thats a normal thing to do. I do feel that for some they it is 'to belong' as the churches they go to are 99.99% black churches a lot of which have sprung up over the last 5 years. It's almost like when someone asks if you are xtian they are asking 'are you still with us' and in their minds if you are not you have rejected one of the only groups which brings black people together. Which is why a lot of young people are going - to socialise!