...for your hard work? I understand that you believe in something higher than yourself, and I'm not about to take that away from you, but you've worked too hard to give the credit to something that, to my personal understanding, probably doesn't exist. Even if he does exist, I don't think he did anything that great anyway. As an Atheist, the way I see it is like this.

If God is so great, why let this happen anyway? I have had a few responses to this.

1) He gave us free will. OK, wonderful, we have free will, unless our free will is tossed aside by someone else for their enjoyment.

2) It was a test. Any being that would test a living human with this kind of pain, I do not want to exist anyway.

3) He does not give you anything you can't handle. Sorry, I wake up every morning feeling I can't handle this. The fact that I do, I feel, says more about me personally, than anything else.

I live next to a church, I see news everyday about religion's fight to remove my rights, or to keep me from attaining my rights because I happen to be gay. I have been told by church officials that I need to forgive my brother. Fuck. That. Shit. No, I am an Atheist, I am Anti-Theist, and while I may not be entirely happy with my life as I see it, I am damned happy with the result of my struggles, and God gets no credit in that.

Thanks for listening to my little rant.

i have been pondering the answer to this ? for some time now and this is not to start an argument or to belittle any one or ones beliefs

i respect your being an atheist

for me all i can say i have to give credit to my God because i lived in such hell and could not find my way out of it . so i set out to just "try this whole GOd thing out"

when i started to live for him and what i have come to no as"his will"

my life unexpectedly and i do mean unexpectedly because i really was not expecting anything less than the hell i was living in but
my life changed for the better i no longer live in that hell i used to
so for me i can only give credit to this God that has helped me more than i could helped myself.

i tried it my way for yrs and it almost killed me and when i tried it his way
things changed in ways i NEVER thought possible .


like i said this i not start anything just answering the ? for myself
why does God get the credit

I'm also an atheist and don't give credit to any sort of supernatural force for my progress. Having said that, I'm not necessarily a militant one and prefer to co-exist with believers when its not too painful. If you don't mind my asking, what kind of church did this happen in? Is this the same one you live next to? I like your rather blunt response to being asked to forgive your perp. I certainly have no intention of ever forgiving mine.

I was raised a Catholic, and I am fortunate in the way that it was never a priest that abused me. But priests I have told have always come at me with that response, as well as a lot of religious folk. I just don't understand the whole thing of working your life away and not taking the credit that you've earned. I just think it's a tad bit rediculous.

who says you don't deserve the credit?

of course you deserve credit if you work for it....

but i also believe that God provides us with the opportunities to work, apply ourselves, whatever you want to call it, to earn the credit....

so, i give credit to God for providing me the opportunity and i give myself the credit for working for it...

just how i see it...

Have you also noticed a strong correlation between ex-Catholic and atheism?

My perp wasn't a priest either, but one tried to molest me.

You mean to forgive the perp? Don't make me laugh.

Yep.

the parish priest told my parents we four all needed to forgive the pedophile for molesting me and my sister, as that is what god would want. but he didn't tell the whole story ... he left out the bit about who he was shacked up with, and that guy (also a priest) was working with our pedophile to get other kids. so it was in our priest's best interest (and god's in my view) to protect the status quo and not make waves. forgive and forget, that is the great catholic way.

i just give god great credit... for showing me that he doesn't exist, and for reminding me that staying grounded in reality, the here and now, is not such a bad way to operate.

If he does exist, I'll go to Hell gladly anyway, because he's an asshole extraordinaire.

I'm a clergy victim and its my faith in God that pullrd me from the brink to recovery. I guess we all heal our own ways and like each of you here I wish everyone here healing and peace. Keith