Agnostic/Atheist Epiphanies

Great Debates
1

I hear and read a lot accounts of Christians, particularly the “born-again” variety, describing the sudden epiphany that makes them believe God has announced his presence, a la Saul on the road to Damascus. I was wondering if any of the agnostics or atheists on the board have had a similar experience.

I was raised in a very fundamentalist Baptist family - church 3 times a week, bible study on Thursdays, chrurch camp, etc. I remember even as a very young child, maybe 7 or 8 years old, being troubled that everyone seemed to feel the presence of God except me. Counseling sessions did no good, and by the time I was 13 or so, I learened to just shut up and pretend to believe to avoid the anger and contempt of my peers and youth ministers (mind you, this happenned in quite a number of different churches, as I was a Navy brat and we moved all the time. This was not a fluke but a consistent pattern). At 17, I was finally able to move out and explore on my own. I went to a number of churches and religious groups for years. I read all sorts of material religious & non-religious. It was actually pretty stressful, all this seeking to find something big to believe in. My turning point was a long weekend of camping shortly after reading Stephen Jay Gould’s “Wonderful Life”, about the Burgess Shale. Sitting around in the desert, it suddenly occurred to me that all the time, I was missing the point, because I was trying to find an already existing dogma that fit what I deeply beleived to be true about the universe and my place in it. Why not relax, take the parts that really felt right to me, and toss the rest? Sort of like a big cosmic smorgasboard. The feeling that washed over me as I came to this realization was wonderful. I felt free and happy and suddenly very confident that I had struck gold this time. All these years later, I feel it even more strongly than ever.

Sorry that was so long - it was supposed to be just a quick little epiphany story of my own. Thanks to everyone who helped on the journey, including those who think I’m going to burn in hell. Special thanks to Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould and Michael Shermer.

2

Wow, on reading that again, I have to say sorry for all the misspellings. I forgot to proof it before hitting send.

3

I was sort of like that, only I went through the stages a bit differently.

I started out being raised by fairly conservative parents that stressed ‘church’ in general rather than a specific church. Then I went into my ‘angry atheist’ phase in which I was determined to eradicate the evil that was ‘religion’. Right. Now I’m an ‘apatheist’. It just doesn’t matter to me any more. I don’t really know when each one came about, they were sort of gradual.

I slowly came to realize that I believed nothing about Christian doctrine, and somehow did a total reversal and became bent on destroying it. Then I slowly got disgusted with all of it, and am now a far more relaxed person.

4

I went through similar phases, Surgoshan. I was raised Church of Christ, even went to Sunday School, but I left when my family moved. After I left I felt more, well, free. I wasn’t being pushed to go to church to keep up appearances (my family isn’t what you’d call churchy, but in a small town those who don’t go to church are questioned to say the least). I became more able to think for myself. I became rather violently atheistic once I realized just how stupid the idea of organized religion is, and how much of my life was wasted in something I never believed in. I’m a lot less radical now. But my beliefs in individual rights makes me anti-organized religion for different reasons.

5

My mom had this conviction that I had to go to sunday school and confirmation stuff and get confirmed in the church, and I went to a parochial school for a long time. I always felt uncomfortable in the sense that it was the wrong thing for me, and that it stifled my opinions. My epiphany would be on a trip to the christian night of fun at disney called “night of joy.” Had my stepcousin with me, she got seperated with some of my friends, and I was worried b/c this was her first time in the US. I sit down and worry while we wait for someone in the remaining group to use the bathroom, and this one lady comes up to me and says, “Don’t be sad, Jesus loves you.” That just made me realize how blind a great deal of the people were. This wasn’t the religion for me, it didn’t make me feel good, it just repressed me.
…Now how to tell my parents, and when would be an apropriate time?

6

We were not church-goers when I was a kid. We were what I call ‘generic Christians’ – my Mom told us about Jesus, we had some bible-story books knocking around, we observed Christmas and Easter… Generic Christians. After my Dad retired from the Navy, we moved to the same town where his parents lived and started attending the church (Southern Baptist) his parents attended. I enjoyed church – partly for the social aspects and partly because the minister was a wonderful, very charismatic speaker. I was baptised at 15 years old. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Being a researcher by nature I started reading the Bible. As I am also a skeptic by nature, I found much of it deeply troubling. About that same time, I picked up a copy of Dragonflight by Anne McCaffery. This is a book (one of a series) about a distant planet that was colonized by Earth. The series begins thousands of years after colonization. About half-way through the book it occurred to me that there was no religion on Pern. I started thinking about this… If the original colonists of Pern had had religion it would surely have taken root in their new society and been present in some form even thousands of years later. Therefore – the original colonists of Pern must have had no religion. Furthermore, that lack of religion must have been so deeply imbedded in them that they tranferred absolutely no religious attitudes or artifacts to their descendants.

Pow!

I realized that I didn’t have to believe that crap. And so I don’t!

I always wanted to write Anne McCaffery and tell her she made me an atheist…

Jess – “maybe if you send her the wool, she’ll make you one too.”

7

Mine came in College over a year and a half ago. After a weekend shift of working in a gas station (and 36 hours without sleep) I was walking to my house in College at about 8.30 am. I was more tired than I had ever been in my life, when suddenly I realised that every single atom in everything I saw around be was moving constantly.

This is what Francis Capra(?) refers to as the “Dance of Shiva” in his book “The Web of Life”. I realised that somepeople seen the Scientific side, which I could accept, and some saw the religious side, which I understand.
I found great contentment in seeing both sides of the picture.

I still lean on the Scientific side, but it was great to realise.

8

i attended catholic schools, primarily because the public schools were crap. my mother had a christian bias but she wasn’t intense about it. i concluded the nuns had to be lying to me around 3rd grade and they weren’t to smart anyway. started reading sci-fi in 4th grade and was introduced to the concepts of atheism and agnosticism and many other philosophical ideas. sci-fi from the 60’s was dominated by relatively sharp individualists.

in '74 someone loaned me the the book THE ULTIMATE FRONTIER by Eklal Keushana and i, kind of, freaked out. since then i’ve read lots of occult/mysticism/parapsychology junk. i’m relatively sure something is going on but the christians hardly have a clue.

                                              Dal Timgar

p.s. so somebody likes APATHEISM. LOL!

9

I walked in the rain. And realized that nothing made sense.

All those things you take for granted like the fact that you’re traveling infinite amounts of space with each step, that you are experincing a subjective thing of pain from the wound ripping through your hand… blood trickling. That you actualy care about people and that you actualy want things in life all just went snap

along with it went the tenitive beliefs in God, love and everything else. Science means as much truth as religion… I lost any sense of Truth… and all I have is the hope of such a thing.

I evny both the atheist and the believer in that they are sure of somthing. They know what they can trust in.

I don’t. I’m an agnostic on all acounts on my good days, and shocked at reality on the bad ones.

Not all Epiphanies are good.

10

These are fascinating! Thanks to everyone for sharing!

11

A few steps along the way.
When I was seven, and in Catholic school, I remember kneeling to pray during a First Friday mass. We were taught that praying should just be talking to God inside your head. I did that, and felt that I was speaking in an empty room.

When I was 9, I got into a lot of fights with the nun teaching my class. She was pretty much a reactionary idiot, and I knew that a lot of the things she was saying was just plain wrong. (what helped with this was that I have an aunt who’s a nun, so I wasn’t intimidated by clergy, and saw them as people).

Within a year or so of that, I started reading heavily about science, and started to realize that many of the things attributed by my catholic teachers to god were really based in science.

Sua

12

No real epiphany for me, unfortunately.

It was mostly just a series of internal conversations trying to logically deduce the nature of Life, the Universe, and Everything, and always getting back to one central point in my mind: God is too big to be understood by the mortal mind. He’s too large, too incomprehensible, too ‘outside-the-box’, as it were. While answers to specific small questions may be attainable, integration of all of the small answers into one complete whole is the equivalent to trying to visualize a fourth-dimensional object. Unattainable.

Ergo, if the true nature of God and true understanding of God is unattainable, what’s the point of trying to achieve it? I can never truly know or understand God; ergo, it’s better to focus upon that which I can understand and know- human society. So I’ve become- take your pick- a Kantian, a Golden Ruler, a Humanist, whatever you wish to describe it as.

13

The first intimations that something was wrong with the whole theism thing that I can remember were when I was pretty young, around 10 or so. I had always just accepted that God was there, Jesus had died for my sins, the ark, burning bush, and the rest. It never occurred to me to question it at all until then. But I can remember arguing with a neighbor lady who was truly a very good Christian woman. She lived the life as best she could and was always interested in talking about the Lord. But the more she discussed her beliefs, the more nonsensical they seemed to me.

For one reason or another, rationality has always been more important to me than faith. Perhaps my faith gland was underdeveloped, but after asking my first few questions about things, it was a steady progression from then on to total lack of belief, although I still wanted to believe, and even actively tried during a couple of periods. It just isn’t in me to do so I guess. No grand epiphanies. For me, Christianity, and later theism in general was like a movie whose plot stretched my suspension of disbelief until I finally just thought, “Oh come on. No way.”

14

Growing up, I was essentially forced into going to whatever church my parents/guardians attended. I have, at various times, been baptized as a Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon, Southern Baptist and Methodist…all against my will (I was ‘too young’ to have a say in the matter). So, my whole life, people have been trying to force-feed me their beliefs, all the while never mirroring their beliefs with actions. And, when I actually stopped to think about what I was hearing in these various churches, the less what I heard made sense.

Over the course of my life, numerous events have had their (often negative) impact on me. Every time I developed my own system of beliefs, something would happen which would bring the whole thing crashing down. Every time I found something I thought I could believe in, it turns out to have all been a lie. As such, I have very little faith in anything right now.

Like Ted, I envy those who know what to believe in. I really wish I could find something to believe in right now…

15

Epiphany #1… I sort of talked myself into it. I was having an argument with someone who believed that lying, cheating, stealing, murder etc. were the logical things to do for an atheist and that any true atheist would inevitably turn to violence. I was saying, “No, just because you don’t believe in a god doesn’t mean you don’t care for the people around you.” I said, “Look around you. Think about this. This is all there is. Not much, I guess, compared to eternal life and cosmic purpose. And there’s no higher power to punish you for beating up your brother. But, WE are the highest power. WE are responsible. There’s no higher power to bail us out when we fail. With freedom comes responsibility. Your sins cannot be wiped away.” Suddenly, I realized that I believed every word I was saying. The guy I was talking to never did understand.

Epiphany #2… Years later I read some Camus in a philosophy class. Class discussion ran along these lines and it suddenly hit me that Camus felt responsible not only for his own actions but for the actions of all people. I felt it for a second and broke down in tears in class. I got over it in about ten minutes though. I can’t maintain a belief that I am responsible for all humanity. I definitely can understand the feeling though. It takes a very powerful mind to be able to believe this and still go on attempting to take on the incredible responsibility to the universe. I believe that Camus was such a person and that his idea was to change the way others acted by writing and teaching. But, every incident of suffering he felt was his own fault. Every incident of joy was to his credit. Like someone said a few posts back, not all epiphanies are good. I’m glad that this one did not hold up in the end for me.
This is a great thread. I have one more thing to say. Some of you seem to regret your christian educations. I don’t. It was worthwhile learning about the belief system that a large part of my country (USA) maintains. Also, the summer church camps were great. I tried YMCA camp once but it just wasn’t as good. I’d would volunteer to work at a atheist camp where morals and philosophy were taught instead of religion. <hijack>Are atheists mostly opposed to organizing themselves? Is that a reaction to the hypocrisy of organized religion?</hijack> Well, this post is long enough.

16

My parents were vaguely Methodist when I was a toddler. I remember attending Sunday school, but not much else. They stopped attending church (I don’t know why) and I never gave it much thought. I was “saved” eight times as a child - had no idea what they meant, I just liked the little books they handed out. But we still celebrated Xmas & Easter, etc. ‘Generic Christians’, as Jess called it. I’d say that still describes my Mom.

Since I wasn’t anything else, and everyone I knew was some type of Christian or another, I had always assumed that I was one too.

My epiphany came at about age 15, when I suddenly realized that I was not Christian, as I actively disbelieved several of the required items of faith and actively disagreed with much of the dogma. This truly was an epiphany, arriving in a mental ‘blinding flash of light’. It was quite a shock to me.

I’ve done some study of religions since, but mostly on an intellectual level. I find religion and religious study fascinating. However, I’ve never felt the need for someone/something to tell me what to do - which seems to be one of the primary purposes of religion IME. Nor have I felt the need for supernatural support and guidance, which seems to be the other primary reason folks turn to religion. I’m not knocking those things - I’m glad that people who need such things can find great comfort and happiness in their religions. It just doesn’t do anything for me.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten seriously anti-religion (well, I was a teenager, so I probably got some obnoxious for a while, eh?), but there are those who would disagree. I can get pretty vehement about people who assume that their religion and/or religious values should take precedence over mine. And there seem to be a lot of folks who assume that their values are the only ones around.

Redtail - devout Anti-Denominational Existential Eclectic Zen Agnostic

17

To clear up a few misconceptions: Atheists are no more sure of anything than agnostics are. An atheist questions everything and only holds as a fact what evidence supports. Atheists don’t ‘disbelieve in God’, atheists don’t believe in anything. We could well be called skeptics in the old sense of the word, meaning that we have no Truths, only facts. Truths require some belief system that holds some things as absolute. Atheists do not have a belief system. Ergo, no Truths. Facts, however, are supported by evidence. It is a fact that I am sitting here typing (Or was, when I was typing this). It is a fact that I am alive. Some faiths hold as a Truth that life is sacred. I do not share that truth. I think that life is a great thing, as I have no place in my mind for a concept like sacred in the religious sense of the term. Do you get it now? Atheists use reason as opposed to faith. Well, it’s how I am.

BTW: I dislike the term atheist. It only describes what I am not, and badly at that. I like the term skeptic better. It describes my logic better.

18

Derleth

I understand your point, and it is a good one, that you are convinced by the evidence available to you that you are sitting there and alive. But I do think its important to point out that those are “facts” only within a very narrow epistemology. You are not alive, for example, within the empirical epistemologies of billions of people.

Atheists in General

It is interesting to me that your “epiphanies” are similar to many of us who do believe. Like many of you, we journeyed to where we are over quite a bit of time. There was a brief rush of realization, then suddenly a new way of seeing things.

19

From the American Heritage Dictionary,

Agnosticism - 1. Philosophy. The doctrines of the agnostics, holding that certainty, first or absolute truths, are unattainable, and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge. 2. Theology. A theory that does not deny God but denies the possibility of knowing Him.

Atheism - 1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God. 2. Godlessness

Atheist - 1. One who denies the existence of God.

Derleth, Atheist does describe what you are not. You are not an Atheist. You are a skeptic, and possibly an agnostic. The meaning of words change and I have heard a few philosopher types use some different definitions of these words to clarify their arguments. However, I think we can all agree that when posting to a forum like this the dictionary definition is generally accepted unless explicitly rejected at the start.

20

Epiphany #1 (early Catholic grade school)

People seemed to have a lot invested in having me agree with what they believed in. The reasons were unclear to me at that time, but seemed to be unrelated to the actual truth or falsehood of what they were saying. This was indicated by the fact that questions I asked about the nature of God and spirituality at this age were rebuffed by recitations of dogma rather than engagement in dialog. It was more important for me to accept than to understand. Something seemed very wrong with this.

Epiphany #2 (middle catholic grade school)

I saw that challenges to dogma aroused suspicion because people were afraid of being challenged. They were afraid because either A) they didn’t understand themselves and therefore felt threatened by being asked to explain or B) they had made sacrifices which were justified by their belief systems, thereby personalizing the system (eg, a set of beliefs that were given to them externally become conflated with ideals generated internally - internalizing doesn’t just mean accepting as fact, it means conflating with the self, even when it is not the self) and hence anything that threatened the belief system threatened them personally. Again, this was irrespective of the truth or falsehood of the belief system, but had to do with human nature. Real spiritual growth would therefore entail antagonism and rejection by many of those around me.

Epiphany #3 (secular high school)

There are valid ways of living which do not involve reliance or belief in a God. Moral systems do not require the existence of a God to justify themselves. Existence on the planet can be rationally explained without recourse to a God. Hence, every argument I’ve been taught for the incontrovertible existence of God falls apart. Since the alternative points of view have been around for a while, why has my religious teaching not attempted to address them, even when I asked specific questions about them? Did this mean that belief in God is inherently flawed? Or just that many people’s rationale for belief in God was deeply flawed?

Epiphany #4 (still high school)

Humans exhibit various psychosocial behaviors (projection, transference, etc.). These behaviors extend to their relationships with their Gods. God can even become a stand-in or extention of a parent. However, these behaviors do not represent the reality of the situation. E.g., I project behaviors onto a friend that are not the friend’s behaviors. Likewise, rather than having an objective relationship with God, we have relationships which cloud the reality. If God is real, and I really want to know the real God, I need to understand where these behaviors manifest and account for them. I can’t know God clearly unless I understand myself clearly.

Epiphany #5 (late high school)

The previous Epiphanys extend to all aspects of life, not just social behaviors. (Epiphany 3 + 4 = 5) So. A) It should be possible to construct a moral existence which is consistent with God’s will (if there is one) without recourse to knowledge of God, or predication on his existence. (I.e., if there is such a thing as absolute right, it should inherently be consistent with God’s will.) On the other hand B) if there is not such a thing as absolute right, it follows that either there is not such a thing as God, (since a God who cares would predicate absolute right), or that God doesn’t give a damn about absolute right. Hence the issue of whether God exists is not relevant to deciding on a spiritual path which is “correct”. Either it’s right, regardless of God, or it doesn’t matter. So, how does one determine what is “correct” in the absence of God (or by extension any conventional religious belief system)? Or if it “doesn’t matter”, so to speak?

Epiphany #6 (college)

In a word, Existentialism. In a few words it is possible to construct a valid, morally consistent reason for living even if there is no God and no inherent point to existence. But how do I compare this construct with external experience, so as to try and see whether there is such a thing as objective “good” and to see how consistent any particular system is with it?

Epiphany #7 (after college)

Extending on point #4 again, I can’t answer that last question without a considerable amount of additional work on myself. Enter Buddhism as a tool for coming to grips with my own mind and heart.

…
Epiphany #942 (recent)

I noticed how we construct systems of belief that posit existence outside of the physical realm or beyond the span of our lives as a means of escaping our fear of death. This can range from the extremely obvious belief-in-an-afterlife to the more subtle attempts to construct physical (monuments, inventions, books, children) or emotional (friendships, time capsules, letters to grandchildren that they will read later) lasting reminders of our presence. How many of us see God’s love as such an extension, and let that comfort us, rather than simply accepting grace as a manifestation of something in the moment, and not necessarily a proof of the eternal? A genuine experience of the divine needs to be predicated on something else. One should be able to embrace the idea that life simply ends and still have a direct experience of the divine (if it exists).

…
FWIW, I don’t know if God exists and I don’t really care, at least not in a personal sense. For me it is an interesting question but not one which fundamentally matters or affects how I choose to live. I am deeply suspicious of any belief system that A) does not allow or encourage skepticism and challenge as a road to true understanding or B) does not encourage me to trust my own experience. I am open to the idea that there is the divine, and extremely skeptical of most accounts of it, which seem at worst childish fabrications and at best subtle expressions of human longing for eternity .

I also believe that proselytizing is useless because the divine can only be experienced directly and not by someone telling me about it, and each person must come to it on their own. In fact my experience tells me that proselytizing has everything to do with the wish of the actor to extend their personal agenda, and alleviate their own fears, and nothing to do with God or the divine.

Not that anyone here thinks they need permission, but feel free to disagree with all of this entirely…