When/if you ever decide to have children I promise you'll see what we are all so proud of
There's just something so cool about making life and just watching them grow and succeed. The coolest thing is watching them develop their own little personalities. As I'm sure most would agree, there's nothing quite like having your own child. I think I have the coolest, and most beautiful children in the world.... But then again, I'm a little biased.
Something you said caught my eye. I'm not judging you or trying to turn this into a religious debate, but I have to ask why you're so proud of letting your belief in God cease? Again, I'm not judging you at all bc we all have our own beliefs, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that they're proud of becoming an atheist. I'm just curious what your reasoning is bc actually one of my proudest days is giving my life to Jesus Christ and completely surrendering myself to him. Feel free to PM your reasoning if you're more comfortable with that.
LOL i hope your right about the children part, growing up all you see is your parents complain and direct you in life, so you kinda see your downfalls more then your acheivements, but ill take your word on it.
im happy to discuss the topic on god aslong as your open to the discussion or idea as i know its a sensitive topic for alot so i usualy dont get into it.
I come from a heavy Roman catholic family, fathers Italian, Mother croatian, grandparents and cousins all big wogs, so was raised heavily on religious ideas, beliefs, church, etc, etc.
I always through life found my family doing the better or right thing because of there belief in god, e.g they believed they should do the moraly right thing because it would get them into heaven, death wasnt the end and heaven was beyond it, they wouldn't live there life to the fullest or neglect doing things because they wanted to go to heaven or serve gods ideas, spend every sunday in chruch to worship the idea of god, judge others based on their decisions because the bible says they are wrong,
the worst i think is they would thankgod for everything good in there life, and then pray to god whenever things went wrong, or for the unfortunate.
The other part is obviously i see extreme ideas in other cultures/demographics of god/religions such as anti gay, no drugs policys, absinence, etc.
So throughout life i began to grow to not like the idea of god, i didnt wanna thank him for my accomplishments because i felt i was the person who achieved the accomplishment, it was my strength, not gods strength. So i felt i had no one to thank other then myself.
I began to not like the idea of praying to god to solve my problems or better fortune, i didnt like praying for others in hope things would change, because i felt change occurred because of what people do, and the misfortune of people was a result of the environment (mother nature) and the influences of all other people actions that create the balance/imbalance in the world that causes the good/bad and poor and rich.
I began to grow a passionate hate for over opinionated and stubborn religious groups who couldn't allow change to occur in the world, and put there beliefs before other people's rights and standard of living.
The hardest part of letting go of god, was the idea of death, its scary to think that there is nothing beyond death, and the idea of god i felt was created to give hope in people, especially the less fortunate in thinking beyond their death a better life awaited. I always and still do fear the idea fo death and becoming nothing so god was something to hold onto in thinking beyond death i was something more. So when i let go of god i accepted that fate would have me become nothing.
Once i did finally let go of god i achieved a lot more and my life became a lot more fulfilling and enjoyable, i was more motivated to do things and work harder because i believed nothing would change unless i did something. I believed my fate was a result of my life decisions/actions in the environment i lived in and my success/failure was dictated by my life choices.
I started to do more things i enjoyed and live life more to the fullest because i believe my time is short on this planet, or limited and i need to make the most of it.
I also became more open to ideas and people because i made up my own moral beliefs and ethics in what is right and wrong, and didn't feel the pressure of culture or religion to influence my beliefs.
I guess letting go of god made me become more independent/stronger and happier person.
Of course i have nothing against peoples beliefs, i still celebrate Christmas, easter, etc and go to church with my family because i believe in family, and although i don't believe in god, most religions do have ideas/beliefs i do agree with, as well as a lot of them do community work, fundraisers and support for community's/the poor, so im always happy to help volunteer and donate when i can. i do like the idea of helping others which a lot of religions do, but when it comes to god himself and turning yourself over to god, i dont believe in the idea as i feel the power is within yourself to do right/help society and lead a happy/fulfilling life, not a spiritual idea that will grant you this.
In saying this though, i couldnt classify myself as completely atheist because i believe atheism has developed itself a culture in hating/blocking out religion, or pushing science over others, or making a mockery or religion/god which i dont agree with as its basically acting like an extremest, like some religious partys do by pushing their beliefs on others. which i feel is wrong because atheism doesnt have a set of beliefs but there is a group or culture of atheism that feels it needs to push certain ideas and beliefs on religion, worse a a lot of them focus on disowning religion, while not teaching or developing its own set of beliefs and ideas to benefit mankind. Atheism of course not having many beliefs does develop or attract a variety of people and when people are given no guidance/direction in what to believe other then they can decide for themselves, they dont always develop the right set/or ideal beliefs you would want or see in society and as such atheism i feel destroys a lot of good cultural beliefs and family culture.
my feelings anyways, like anything i accept all peoples views and beliefs, aslong as no one pushed there beliefs on me i accept others and consider/are open to them.