There was no one moment, it was a series of half-lapses interrupted by periods of religious terror that steadily gave way to comfortable atheism. I think by the time I was in community college I was atheist.
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“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
I would be skeptical of anyone who claims a "moment" did it for them with any kind of religious belief. Any religious belief that can be decided upon in a moment is, at best, uncritically analyzed to see if it holds up to scrutiny. And, at worst, incredibly shallow and reactionary. And that's even if the final explanation or rationale is simple.
Anyway, I started doubting individual aspects of my Christianity somewhere during college. It was all fairly independent, not due to a particular person or text. I don't even remember where or when it started. But that led to research, which led to further doubts and research, and it was a period of years that took me through dozens of texts and resources for various points of view. Much of it was a stripping away of magical thinking of one sort or another, or discovering that religious beliefs can either be debunked or that they lack sufficient evidence to be maintained rationally. After briefly flirting with Taoism - before realizing that the parts of it I could agree with were those that could comfortably be referred to as philosophy - I somewhat grudgingly adopted atheism. I say grudgingly due to the cultural stigma, not because it doesn't accurately describe my position toward God/gods (it does). A longer explanation of my journey and reasoning can be found here.
Well, when I was sixteen I went off to school, and I wasn't forced to go to church every Wednesday and Sunday. So at the time, I remember thinking "What's the point in believing in a god?" I just didn't care either way. I didn't really actively think about it.
Then in my twenties, I went through a period of serious depression and tried to find some comfort in religion, but I found it made me feel worse than better.
So I just decided that I would rather believe in no god than a god that clearly doesn't care about this universe or the beings in it.
Your particular sect of Buddhism seems abnormally rational in its approach, even for an overarching religion (Buddhism in general) that tends to eschew blind faith as a valid reason.
When I was a devout Catholic, fully embedded in the Church, I prided myself on believing what I did because it made sense to me. It took me a long time to realize many others didn't approach it that way. I don't know if it was learned or innate, but apparently I don't have the capacity or tendency toward faith like many do.
Heh. Well, I tend to agree with your conclusion. Perhaps not the rationale, but for the most part it's about what works best for you, so long as it's not actively harming others. So...cool.
Ha. Thanks, I think. I'm not sure there's a practical difference, though. If someone's going to be upset at stubborn, dogmatic atheism, they're equally as likely to be upset when I listen to them and consider their points, then wholeheartedly disagree with them. I certainly feel better, though, knowing I can at least engage the most popular defenses of theism.
i was raised loosely catholic. got baptized, took communion and all that, but didn't really go to church much besides that and never really cared for it anyway. i believed in god and the devil and all that shit cause adults said it was true. besides that, my religion was just a cultural label. never knew a damn thing about the bible. my family didn't really focus on that shit too much. it was like an accessory.
when i was a freshman in high school i took a bible study class as an elective cause i signed up way too late and all the good shit was taken. we read the first couple of chapters of the bible and i couldn't believe what an amazing book it really was. i always assumed it would be some boring shit like a bunch of sage wisdom and nice stories of nice people doing nice things for eachother. i had no idea how much carnage, hellfire and sex there was. i'm not gonna lie, that class was great. but i do remember thinking the stories sounded pretty fake.
not long after that i discovered online that it was an option not to believe in all this shit. i mean it's always an option but i never really thought about it... anytime anyone said 'atheist' they made it seem like devil worship so i avoided it. until i went online and found out it was no big deal.
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
When you wrote "Ha. Thanks, I think." I was relieved to see that you had gotten my meaning, but now I am not sure. Let me explain, above you gave me a left handed complement, so I gave you one back. It was just for fun. No need to defend your beliefs.
Ah, ok. I understood. I just have a bad tendency to over-explain.
So, thanks...I think.
I never quite understood this either. I feel like the biggest thing we could possibly do for worldwide atheist acceptance would be to distribute a wikipedia definition of atheism to every person. I literally had to tell my own mother "I don't believe any crazy stuff" when I had the talk with her. The relief on her face was palpable.
Gender: Male Location: 4th Street Underpass, Manhattan
My mom is Catholic and my dad is Muslim, so I started questioning religion at an early age. It was when I went to Catholic school that I started distancing myself, although it wasn't until around 2012 when all those crazy GOP nutbags were spouting their religious crap that I comfortably became agnostic.
As I stated before, I do wholeheartedly believe and pray to God, I just do not believe the Abrahamic version is the correct one due to it's discriminatory dogmas, obvious scientific inaccuracies, and obsolete myths.
I was 11. I was at the public library reading an astrophysics book about black body radiation. Not sure why but something about hawking radiation and how it was described in that book gave me an epiphany and I was convinced that there is a Master Creator behind everything. That's when I decided my career was going to be astrophysics and I set on a long journey to work towards doctorates in it...and then, 2.5 years into a general physics degree, I abandoned it: astrophysicists get paid horribly.
At this point, you're probably thinking that I will say that I had another epiphany where I abandoned any theistic beliefs but I didn't. Still the same.
I think there is a God out there and based on my tautological argument, this being needs to be benevolent. I've settled with Mormonism being the closest and most logical idea of how this stuff should work.
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Sep 28th, 2014 07:56 PM
