I’ve seen proof there’s [a] God.  Do you believe me?  I do not have the proof on me because I saw it with my own eyes.  Do you still believe me?

Religion is an activity that lends itself to abuse more readily than other institutions. Why?

1. No scientifically verifiable proof is required for its knowledge claims.
2. Self-appointed leaders can claim to speak for unproven entities.
3. Founding texts/beliefs can be used to justify horrible behavior.

If you want me to believe that deities exist, it’s incumbent upon you to come up with the proof of your knowledge claims. If you’re stating right out of the gate that you can’t or won’t do this and expect me to play along, I’m not going to take anything you say seriously.

It’s no coincidence that the people that want to control you the most almost always also want you to accept what they claim without objective evidence.

I was forced into Christianity. I was abused by my parents and had it justified by Christian tenets. I never wanted it or liked it. The minute I could disengage from an activity I despised, I stopped doing it. The autonomy I gained from separating myself from religion allowed me to question its validity in whole, not just Christianity.

If you want to create a truth, beauty, and story sharing club, I’ll consider whether or not I want to join. If you tell me I have to belong to that club because some thing out there will hurt me if I don’t/I won’t be truly “enlightened”/I’ll fail to reach my optimum “state,” then I’ll reject your coercion tactics flat out.

Have you got any independently verifiable proof that I can test and retest with instruments, senses, and mathematical formulas and reach the same conclusions each and every time? No? That’s a big mark against religion being literally true. Are there literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of interpretations, myths, stories, and practices throughout the whole of human history that constitute religion? There are? That’s evidence that religion is an activity humans made up.

I focus on the people, not the claims, what their motivations are, and whether or not they would object to me deciding not to join their clubs of the unverifiable.