Julia Sweeney - Letting Go of God Part 1-13

Julia Sweeney - Letting Go of God

A journey from Catholic upbringing to atheism.

Julia Sweeney says she was a "happy Catholic girl" when, one day, she walked into church and signed up for a Bible-study course. "What an eye opener that was!" she says. "Next thing you know, I was on a quest for something I could really believe in. I traveled to places like Bhutan, Ecuador, and my local Starbucks looking for answers. Would I embrace Buddhism? New Age pseudo-science? Was I a freak for feeling the way I did, or were there other people out there just like me? I was grappling with serious questions. But, somehow, a lot of the things that were happening to me seemed, well, funny." Equally comedic and insightful, Letting Go of God is Sweeney's brilliant one-woman show about her struggle with her faith. Grappling with the seeming contradictions in Adam and Eve, Noah, the Ten Commandments, and even the teachings of Jesus - and trying to understand the Bible's messages about morality, family values, and human suffering while faced with door-knocking Mormons and wise-cracking priests - Sweeney takes listeners on her very personal journey from God to "not-God". This performance was recorded on November 19, 2005, at the Ars Nova Theatre in New York City.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Atheism
• Atheist
• Agnosticism
• Agnostic
• Belief
• Disbelief
• Religion
• God
• Faith
• Julia Sweeney
• Science
• Truth
• Knowledge
• Education
• reason
• truth
• Moral
• Ethics
• Catholic
• journey
• church
• Bible-study
• New Age
• pseudo-science
• Bible
• morality
• family values

[Devoti]

funny how parents always tell their children not to lie.

[SusDgs]

For being God, he sure does things the hard way. Made people but added the tree, oops, sin. Why not leave out the tree? .Jews were slaves so God sent moses. But no, he had to "harden pharoahs heart" so he could send plagues and murder babies. Yep, that's love. people got too sinful, so oops, send a flood and kill them all. but wait, the jews just aren't getting it. Why not send himself to earth to be killed for the rest of the people. He is God, right? why all this hassle?

[MyBrosRNinjaNFarmer]

I knew there was no Santa when I looked up a chimney and realized no morbidly obese man was comin' through.

Also, I'm pretty sure if I stabbed a long-haired, bearded dude traveling around with 12 bros, he'll stay dead.

[Wayfarer515]

Wow, Julia Sweeney

[livingdeadgrl18]

the story about her mother lying to her about her birthday is hilarious!

[CarnegieFelon]

@iGlomp SusDgs listed a sampling of the nonsensical and often atrocious things that God supposedly did, and your response is basically "It's perfectly fine because, after all, God is our parent." I don't know what your idea of parenthood is, but it sounds to me like you are endorsing psychological and physical abuse, if not outright murder. I'm sure you don't actually mean that, but you should read the bible more carefully if you think it is a good model for parenthood.

[iGlomp]

@SusDgs Because, God's our parent. Parents have to let their children make mistakes in order for them to overcome obstacles. If everything is just given to us we'll never learn to achieve it. For example, when you play a game, you want there to be challenges. If it's easy what would be the point in playing the game. You gain no sense of accomplishment. The reason God created sin is to show that we have the ability to make mistakes, but that we can grow and learn from the mistake we've made.

[buzzkill9595]

Just watched all 13 videos, defiantly worth my time.

[nlytend1]

@SusDgs It makes for an interesting story.

[iamnotyourface]

Virgos FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wwhisko]

@MrTmapp LOL! I did that on purpose, just for you! Gotta feed the religious trolls...otherwise, you'd all starve.

But my original statement stands, as irrefutable truth. So by all means, continue to worship the imaginary asshole in the sky, until you're blue in the face! Or at least until he decides to smite you for something truly petty and insignificant (he seems to be good at that)...IF he can pull himself away from giving AIDS to babies.

Now, go crawl back under your bridge! LOL!