Susceptible to religion

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I was born into a religious, far right christian baptist family and indoctrinated since birth. They are young earth creationists who believe that the earth is only 6000 years old and that Noah's ark was a factual event. My uncle even built that ridiculous Ken Ham's ark in Kentucky. They are the type of christians who believe their particular strain of christianity of the like 30,000 different denominations in the world(yes there are that many) is the one true correct version(what are the odds of that?) and everyone else, including other christians are all wrong. Growing up they would bash other religions and even other christians(catholics were a common target of them), bash other races and cultures, sexual orientations, gender identities etc.

Religion never did anything positive for my life, it only ever made my depression and anxiety worse, especially my OCD because I could never achieve the degree of absolute certainty that I wasn't going to Hell. The cure for my situation was skepticism and critical thinking. I questioned many of their beliefs that made no logical sense, filled with gaping plot holes and those that required such astounding mental gymnastics in order to believe(such as trying to explain away the ability to see stars that are over 6000 light years away if the earth is only 6000 years old lol). I also found the christian god of the Bible to be particularly barbaric and immoral, so sadistic and murderous that he would make even the most prolific or serial killers to envy him. I always found it ironic that my parents had issues with me playing violent video games while at the same time they pushed the Bible which was filled with such vile acts and violence that it made my video games look like sesame street lol.

Youtube has plenty of useful resources to help free yourself from the chains of religion. I found non-stamp collector to be particularly useful. He points out plenty of logical inconsistencies, contradictions, and just plain violent and immoral nature of god of the Bible while quoting particular Bible verses for each point he makes. Here are some of my favourite.







The story of Jepthah is a particularly eye opening Bible story filled with violence and immorality that will make you sick to your stomach. It is a story of human sacrifice (not the consensual type) that doesn't end like the story of Abraham does. It is the story you won't learn in Sunday school.

And for those who are dealing with young earth creationists well here's a couple more.





Btw these are all both educational and very funny.

This has never been a problem for me, even though i grew up in a very religious area. Once I reached adolescence and started seriously thinking for myself, it all seemed pretty ridiculous.

Like a lot of AS people, I tend to be very logical and scientifically-minded. I've never understood the appeal or power of religious persuasion. Show me evidence and a clear, logical argument or get out of my way.

My rules is simple let the person know that their behavior is bothering you and give them a fair chance to stop on their own and if they don't then take it to HR.
I have personally seen someone complain to HR before and get ssomeone fired just see the company downsize the person who complained 7 months later.

Some more resources for critical thinking from ASAN and Steve Hassan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STwPgZWFLW8

I hope the original poster comes back to give us an update.

Every now and then, someone will "get religion" for themselves and try to share it with others. I will place a copy of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (1st ed.) on my desk, and wait for the inevitable hate speech. This makes it easier for me to effectively report the person for religious harassment, since most of my co-workers already know that I am a huge D&D fan, and none of them seem to mind it one bit.

I think my colleague would freak if he saw that cover!

Thanks for all the replies. I decided to tell the person himself that I don't appreciate the religious preaching at work a week and a bit ago. And at first things seemed a lot better. We talked about work and movies and left it at that.

We went out for lunch with some other colleagues and at some point I said that 'you only live once' – just as an offhand kind of thing. And he started talking about the eternity of the soul and the two potential fates (heaven and hell) that await. So that sucked. It's funny how he can scare me when talking about hell, because I'm fairly certain it isn't real.

Life's so complicated. Social situations are tricky enough as they are, but when you throw this kind of thing in...

Hope everybody's well!

I know I'm like 6 months late to the party but for anyone who has a similar issue.

There are tons of great advice in this thread. Calling HR is definitely the best choice strictly because this is your place of employment. This will likely continue to happen to you throughout your life. I was raised Christian but have been an Atheist since I was 10 or so. I constantly have people trying to "save" me. I don't bother debating because it's not worth the hassle to me. I'm not trying to "save" them after all. I usually just say "no thanks" then comes arguments like "pascals wager" and the like and I explain I am perfectly comfortable burning in hell for eternity and I'm not worried about it. The more you push back on their beliefs the harder they dig their heels in. Do not entertain them and if it gets too hairy just walk away.

When I was younger I would say I'm another religion then whatever they are preaching and that I'm already being saved. In the end, it doesn't matter what you choose to believe or not to believe. It is not OK for someone to force you to believe something you don't believe regarding religious beliefs. Don't divulge that you've had a bad experience with religion. The less they know the better.

My own approach to religion was...
Meh. Too many words, too many rules unexplained, too many restrictions, too many extremes. And more too many words I can't interpret this because everything's too loud.

I grew up surrounded by few varying practices.

So I'd just treat it as if a culture to accommodate.
Never truly believing, never truly disbelieving in a materialistic sense.

Yet I had an experience. It was the day where religion made sense.
I ended up not having to believe or disbelieve anymore, in a very immaterialistic sense.

But still -- even if I get the messages and the whole point...
I'd still treat it as if another culture to respect and accommodate.

And it's still too loud.

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I used to be susceptible to religious indoctrination and "guilt-tripping" by allegedly religious people.

Then I read the Bible.

It seems that most of what people believe to be in the Bible isn't actually there -- either they were told that it was and never verified it for themselves, or they already knew it wasn't there and relied on my ignorance of Biblical content to enable their lies and manipulations.

I hate religion, but I am not an atheist.