Apostates: what made you lose your religion?

Great Debates
61

I have wandered in darkness many years. At one time I was in the process of seeking nomination by my diocese as a Canon IX priest. I’ve been a licensed lay reader, lay eucharistic minister and youth minister. Some of my fondest memories are of those years when my wife and I raised our kids in the Episcopal church. I believe they’re the fine young men they are because of their church upbringing.

I know what you mean by “default setting.” I’m still drawn back to the auld faithe, even though I actually believe very little of that which is declared in the Nicean Creed. I’ve spent many hours talking to various rectors and vicars about whether a technically disbelieving but “generally spiritual person” is actually welcome in the Anglican Communion. The answer I invariably get is, yes, everyone is welcome, and since I have been baptized with water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I am still sealed as Christ’s own forever. The Church is like your mother – you can turn your back on her, fail to call her, even forget her birthday, but she’ll always love you, and when you step back across her threshhold, she’ll welcome you with open arms.

However, I have this advice: Embrace the church and keep it close to your heart; but do not study your religion too closely, or you risk losing your faith.

62

We’re talking about this thread in particular. If you read the first post, you’ll see that I specifically asked people to talk about their experiences without debating. Czarcasm’s move notwithstanding. (Do you see why the move pissed people off, mods?)

63

I’m the exact same way. I even tried being an atheist for a while, and found that I couldn’t.

Every group of people is going to have some who aren’t very polite, and some who think there’s only one right way to live. I don’t take it personally when the shrill atheists do their thing. I ignore it pretty much the way I would ignore a fundamentalist Christian (or Muslim, or Orthodox Jew) telling me that my beliefs and the way I live my life is wrong and I should be doing it their way.

I think that there are different religions because different people respond to what they think of as the divine in different ways. What makes one person satisfied with their religion might be a huge turnoff for someone else, and in general (there are, of course, exceptions) no one’s right or wrong in that- just different. I believe that if God had wanted us all to practice the same religion, God would have made us all want the same thing in religion, which is clearly not the way things are. It’s not that liberal sets of beliefs are objectively better than less liberal ones, but they’re a better match for some people.

All that said, it’s only human to find fault with a religion that you once believed in (or tried to believe in) and later rejected. I’ll admit that I do that, too (though I do try to keep my negative ideas about Christianity to myself, for the most part). For most atheists that are likely to be posting on this board, the religion they grew up in and rejected is Christianity, so you’re going to see people being critical of Christianity.

Funny- my experience since I converted to Judaism has been the exact opposite. One of the things I love about liberal (non-Orthodox) Judaism as I have experienced it is the emphasis on study and questioning. Like I said earlier, everyone’s different.

I do.

64

I just realized my previous post did nothing to contribute to the OP’s founding question, so I’ll try to address that here.

Two incidents started me on the path out of the Episcopal Church. The first was an article years ago in a publication called Skeptical Inquirer, in which a quoted authority was asked why people continued to believe in UFOs, extraterrestrials, ESP, psychics, etc. The answer was a fairly blunt recitation of the human mind’s need for orderly explanations in a chaotic world, and ended with words I’ll never forget: “People will believe in this stuff as long as they believe that there is an omnipotent god who created the universe and takes a personal interest in their individual lives.” Now, the reason that was such a thunderbolt to me was that, as a journalist, I’d adopted SI as my sanctuary of sanity in a world filled with Baptist preachers and Foursquare witnesses. In almost every issue, the writers had walked right up to the rimrock of atheism and peered over, but “real religion” was never attacked in SI. This time, it hadn’t just slipped over the edge, it dove head-first.
At about that same time (this would have been about 10 years ago) a local Baptist pastor, who published a weekly column in the newspaper I edited, submitted one of his foaming-at-the-mouth anti-abortion screeds, and then went off in my newsroom like a loose cannon on a rolling deck when I had the temerity to publish a letter to the editor disputing his every point. I tried to explain to him that “truth” is a slippery subject, to which he roared, “Nosir! This (slapping his Bible on my desk) is the truth! This is the only truth! You either believe every word of it, or none of it. You do not have the freedom (yes, he used that word, “freedom”) to decide which parts you believe and which parts you reject – it’s all or nothing!” He then stormed out.

That began a very long period of research and deep introspection. At the end of that period, I decided that, because there was no emperical evidence (I came to love those two words) of God’s existence, and since religion did not stand up to rudimentary scientific study, it was all a sham. There is no God, except that invented by humans to explain things they don’t understand.

And yet, on atheist and other message boards across the web, I find myself defending the faithful, because I still believe they hold the key to humanity’s future. Yes, I know all about the Inquisition and the witch hunts and the oppression visited on the innocent by Rome for centuries, and no, the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t get a pass for the evil its popes and clerics have done. But the millions and millions of faithful, God-loving, Jesus-following peasants and merchants and craftsmen and nobles and intellectuals who embody the churches in which they worship have done more good and saved more lives than all of the government entitlement programs the world has ever known.

And so, I guess the old Baptist pastor would certainly label me an atheist. I have been apostate for all these years, yet still give money and time and talent to the church. What am I? I don’t know. But I love the discourse.

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I’m like the guy in O, Brother, Where Art Thou–simply “unaffiliated.”

66

I used to pray at night regularly, especially during grad school. But over the past couple of years, I have come to the realization that it would be hypocritical of me if I prayed to an entity that, even if I believed in, I don’t have a lot of respect for.

I was brought up in a Pentacostal church, by two very devout parents. My parents are cool and not heavily bogged down in church dogma or who’s going to heaven, but their fellow congregants are not that way. Growing up, I kinda-sorta bought into what they were saying, but also felt like what they were saying was unreasonable and strange. God supposedly loves us, but allows millions of us to struggle in agony and misery. An eternity in hell is an appropriate punishment for a mere lifetime worth of sinful behavior. An enternity in heaven is predicated on whether or not you enter a baptismal pool. The same God that supposedly killed Egypt’s first born and turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt is the same God who loves us so much that he gave his only begotten son. You have to worship and praise God before he’ll lift a finger to help you–even though he supposedly loves you and serves as a role model.

I don’t really have the problem with the idea of an eternal, all-powerful entity like God. I just don’t understand why “he” has to love us and care about us and hand down lists of proscribed behaviors and worry about our “salvation”. It just seems to be all so…convenient.

There’s a smarminess about church people that also rubs me the wrong way. A kind of fakeness. I’ve been in church and had people who I’ve never met before say “I love you!” Um…how it is possible to love me when you don’t know me? There’s a “churchy” language you also find in many churches that makes my gorge rise. Folks use words and phrases and intonations they would never use in the outside world. It’s not so much as hypocritical as just unnatural and forced.

So I guess you could say there was no specific moment that I separated myself from the church. And I’m not sure I’m willing to say that the separation is permanent. Right now I just feel disillusioned and uncommitted to developing a particular belief system.

67

Well in my case while I renounced the Catholic Church sometime in my teens I never
completely lost it. Some of the Sunday School lessons stuck (Golden Rule and all
that) but I soon realized a lot of the rituals and beliefs were bull, and had to be,
because I refused to believe in such a capricious God, one who would mete out
his “justice” in such a capricious and dualistic manner.

Thanks to one very fortuitous event 13 years ago I subsequently embarked on a
quasi-Buddhist path, as it seems to be the only religion (and for Buddhism I use that
term very loosely) which seems just; you can’t blame the God, or the Devil, for your
trials and tribulations-it’s all up to you.

Now it actually is much deeper than that. I noticed one objection raised in this thread
which always makes me chuckle, the thing about how God is such an evil muderous
bastard because he “lets” puppy dogs and babies all die. The problem isn’t God but
the dualistic existence we all bought into, every single one of us (the illusion of
separate selves). I’ll stop now because you can only take such things so far using
symbolic language.

68

Ex-Catholic here (and boy, are there many of us!). I went to Catholic school since my first year in school till the last and had to attend mass weekly. It is fair to say that I did not believe as much as just been terrified of god (as perceived by me). Catholics seem to concentrate too much on the idea of hell and eternal damnation, and to a 7 year old child that is simply too much. I spent nights sleepless, terrified of dying in my sleep, knowing that I wasn’t as pure as I needed to be to go to heaven (who is after all?).

Growing up I started having doubts, by 13 I just didn’t believe in Jesus as son of god, but more like cool hippie guy, but I was still terrified of God. By 22 I was simply a deist and had entirely dropped my faith. I remember I wrote to somebody 6 years ago and I remember saying “I cannot live without a God”. That’s how I felt, I just needed some sort of answer to all the questions, however unsatisfactory that answer was. A few months after that I finally accepted that I was just grasping as straws. It pained me to accept that I was deluding myself. I consider myself agnostic, finally everything makes sense. I don’t want a god anymore, but I would love if instant karma really existed.

69

I was raided Episcopalian and went to church every week. My mother was a Sunday School teacher and I was an acolyte (altar boy). I took it all pretty seriously; if it is true, then it is really important and should affect every part of your life. When I was 12-13 I was thinking about being a priest.

My thought process for becoming an atheist is similar to many others; there are a number of religions and their adherents all think they are right. For the most part, people end up the religion of their parents. If I had been born a Catholic I’d believe that, if my parents were Jewish I’d be Jewish. So, what was it about my religion that was special?

In the end, I thought that it was more likely that all religions were wrong rather than all but mine. It took a while to resolve all this, but it eventually felt like a giant weight was taken off my chest.

I still hung around the church for social reasons. Episcopalians are pretty laid back, so it wasn’t much of an issue. My mother and I fought over my not going to church for a couple of years, but I think it was more a shame thing than her thinking I was going to hell.

To this day I respect people who really believe and try and live up to the principles of the church. People with mushy beliefs (like agnostics) drive me nuts.

70

This has been an interesting thread to read.

My mother was baptist I think and my father Catholic but none of that meant much growing up because we never went to church. I accepted Jesus and God through vague mentions and the Christmas story but never gave it much thought.

After high school I had an experience in a store front ministry run by a nice unofficial but sincere pastor. It amounted to me praying “God if you’re really there I want to know” over and over. I was dating a girl who had grown up in the RLDS church and in time became a member. I took it fairly seriously and felt it gave my life, meaning purpose and direction. I ignored some of the questions I had and the occasional unchristian attitudes of other members because of my desire to serve and be a part of that group. Several years later I became a member of the priesthood of that church. I see now years later how certain unmalicious perhaps even unconscious attitudes conspired to keep certain questions unanswered. Christianity and it’s denominations are in some respects a closed society that confirms and maintains it’s own mythology as truth. The social structure and whatever human need it serves becomes so important that many questions remain largely unanswered or the less than satisfactory answers it offers are easily accepted by the group as a whole. It’s the organization as a whole that is being worshiped rather than God. It’s a human trait that is seen in many social structures. But I digress.

I took my commitment to God and my call to service pretty seriously. At some point I succumbed to temptation and my own weaknesses led to some personal decisions that resulted in my leaving the priesthood and the church. That gradually led to a pretty unchristian life style. I carried a sense of guilt and failure with me for a long time.

Years later my spiritual side awakened when I became friends with a wonderful fellow into Eckencar. I began to study that and other religions and realize that I could have a spiritual life apart from my former religion. I realized my years of feeling guilty had served no purpose and believed that God had never condemned me. As I studied other religions I noticed the common threads that ran through many and how people would often focus on the differences to separate their particular group from the rest. It occurred to me that that wasn’t what God wanted.
Because of my Christian background I began to ask questions about Christianity that started with “Is the concept of reincarnation incompatible with what Jesus taught?” I learned about the various groups of Christianity and that some of them did teach reincarnation. This led to other studies and for me a whole new theory about spirituality. This has led to some interesting conversations with some Christian siblings and old friends from the church I once belonged to.

In short, IMHO no religion is correct. Each persons journey is their own and expresses itself in it’s own way. Religions are a mix of peoples desire to answer certain questions and find a sense of purpose and direction as well as deeply ingrained tradition and myth. It spans a wide spectrum in it’s members, from those sincerely spiritually searching to those who use it for self serving purposes.
For me God is an expression of yet unsolved mysteries and true spirituality is seeking love and truth within ourselves and learning to fully understand and live accordingly. All the labels of religion or non religion don’t matter. It’s what is within the person and how that is expressed in their actions. I have had several profound spiritual experiences that are not satisfied by simply saying “God did it” or “It’s just a chemical reaction in your brain”
One of the main things is to be true to yourself. That’s one of the things that impresses me about these stories in that rather than accepting things that didn’t make sense to them people chose to be true to what their heart and mind was saying. IMHO that’s an important ingredient in the journey. The gospel according to Shakespeare if you will “To thine own self be true” In that sense I see atheism as a a sincere part of the journey rather than a threat to spirituality in general.

I think we need to honor other peoples rights to choose their own journey and accept the fact that we cannot know what is right or best for them. Look for the spirit within the person rather than the superficial details of their belief system. Of course our interaction as a society sometimes brings us into conflict with each other. That’s also part of the journey and the learning process. We examine our own beliefs and other ideas by coming into contact with those who believe differently. I’ve appreciated that aspect of the SDMB.

71

When I was quite young and going to Sunday school the text got to the Exodus. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he wouldn’t let the Israelites go. Then because Pharaoh wouldn’t let the Israelites go, God killed all the first born of Egypt. That indicated, to me, an insane God with which I wanted no connection. Subsequently, nothing has happened to change my mind about that, or any religion, in my reading of the Bible and about religions in general.

72

including their own pet theories

There’s other options. People being what they are we can mix and vary these options. We must go forward based on what we believe is true. We can also try to be aware of the difference between what we know, and what we believe.

While your tortured logic here in this post is interesting it’s also reminiscent of the “logic” used by members of organized religion to justify their own beliefs.

Those who strive to be more tolerant are still human and some test your tolerance more than others. Fundies are one test. There are others.

Tolerance does not mean all religions are correct in their own way. It’s a recognition that we all have an imperfect understanding. I claim the right to choose my own spiritual path and in doing so I extend that right to others even when I don’t agree with them. As I said, for me it’s about love and truth. I believe some religious people and some religious practices promote those while others do not. I recognize my own struggle and imperfections and I realize I am in need of forgiveness and tolerance and so I try to extend those to others. That doesn’t mean I don’t think it matters when someone does something hateful in the name of religion.

I propose you don’t really understand the nature of tolerance and how it is applied in this case.

I have no idea what you mean here since theist applies to anyone who believes in a deity from the fundies to the liberals. Do you mean deists?

Organized religion is an expression of man’s inward spiritual journey. Of course things vary from culture to culture and circumstance to circumstance. It is the spiritual quest that is valid not the labels or details of tradition and myth that exist within organized religion.

I think your correct when you say you’re seriously mistaken. You don’t seem to grasp the real intent {even with it’s imperfections} of religious and spiritual tolerance. I would say that all religions contain some bunk since they are made and maintained by imperfect humans, but many of them also contain a real and true expression of that inward spiritual journey.

73

Cosmodan, what differentiates your belief from option 2? I think you give a very eloquent descrption of that viewpoint. I think jjimm is right on the money.

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Chill, cosmodan, when I wrote my post it was in IMHO, and as such I precisely answered the OP by giving the reasoning by which I came to ‘apostacy’, based on how my brain works. It’s now been moved to GD, so you get to get pissed; fair enough. But I what I wrote is personal, and I’m not trying to impose my will on anyone else.

Since you’ve attacked what I’ve written, I’ll address some of your points:

Sure, some can, but only if they’re the Point 2 type that I posited. Fred Phelps doesn’t. Bin Laden doesn’t. Madalyn Murray O’Hair didn’t.

I’m not talking about the milk of human kindness here, I’m talking about whether you tolerate - as in agree with inclusively - their beliefs. Their beliefs may test your tolerance. They don’t test mine: IMO fundamentalists are incorrect, due primarily to the mutual exclusivity of their beliefs with every single other person who doesn’t believe exactly what they do. To intolerant fundies, whatever beliefs you have are as bad as my lack of belief - within the same belief system, and beyond (qv. Sunni vs. Shia et al infidelia, cf. Jack Chick vs. Catholic et al non-Christians).

Fair enough. I extend the same thing to everyone as well. Again, this is a reasonable argument for a person whose beliefs are outlined in point 2. However since you’ve got in a snit, if I wanted to use reductio ad absurdam, I could therefore conclude that you are on the same spiritual mountain as the Taliban, but just finding a different path up it. Would you be able to agree with this conceit, based on what I think you’re saying, or are you in fact intolerant of the beliefs of at least some fundamentalists?

Yes, I used incorrect terminology. Thanks for correcting me.

You are incorrect. This may be so in your (and others’) cultural and philosophical milieux. BUT to others, organized religion is a way to stop the volcano from erupting. To others it’s a way to get the crops to ripen in the field. To others it’s a way to stop angry ancestors from haunting them. To others it’s a means to exact vengeance on their enemies. Etc.

IMO this is the biggest fallacy of your disagreement with my thought process. Some people just worship stuff, from the cradle to the grave, because that’s what people do - and absolutely no “spiritual journey” is involved. The definition of this journey you have given is precisely what people in my Point 2 do, but this definition is in fact not shared by many other religious people - and not just fundamentalist proponents thereof.

Agree, which is why I said “divine texts, and the genuine wisdom within them (as well as the dross)”.

Again, you are incorrect to say this as a universal truth: some of them were divinely written and are the genuine word of [insert deity here] - according to that deity’s adherents. By saying “they are made and maintained by imperfect humans” you are in fact intolerantly blaspheming [insert religion here].

Or is the whole ire I have raised based on your misunderstanding of what I meant by “tolerant”?

75

Raised in a (superficially) strict Catholic family and went to Catholic elementary schools and one year of Catholic HS. We did all the outwardly religious things like going to Church, saying the Catholic Grace before every meal, but religion was never a topic of conversation. The Catholic HS was actually pretty secular-- we didn’t have any req’t to go to Mass and although we had to take a class in Religion, it was more like Sociology (more on HS later). Elementary school was mostly nuns, with weekly mass and a heavy dose of religious indoctrination.

I can remember the day when my faith (if it can really be called that at that early age) started to cumble. Fifth grade relgion class and I asked the nun to explain why babies born before they were baptized coudn’t go to heaven since it didn’t seem fair. I’ll never forget the look I got from her as she explained to me that these things are a matter of faith and we can’t question God’s will. It was all downhill after that. By junior High School I developed a huge interest in science and particularly in human evolution and that was the end of my interest in religion. I actually kept going to mass all thru HS, since it was just something we did as a family, but I didn’t associate it with any part of my belief system. Once I went to college, I never went to mass again (except to attend Cahtolic weddings).

Back to the Catholic HS. My history teacher (not a clergyman) took 3 of us in the class and had us do an independent study program. We did research in the library instead of going to class, and he met with us individually a few times a week after school. We got into a discussion one day about religion and he asked me to explain my beliefs to him. I hadn’t really thought about religion as it pretty much just faded slowly after that fateful day in 5th grade, so I don’t think I was too articulate about what I believed. He looked at me afterwards and said: “Sounds like you’re pretty much an atheist”, and I replied something like “I guess so”. I was 14, then, and I think it’s ironic that a teacher in a Catholic HS convinced me that I was an atheist. :slight_smile: Anyway, he didn’t say it in an unapproving way at all-- more of a way of summarizing what I didn’t artuclate very well. He was probably an atheist, too, or at least an agnostic.

I suppose I’m technically an agonostic, because I don’t claim to know that God doesn’t exist. However, I act as if He doesn’t, and find the semantic distinction to be confusing to most people. Usually if you say your’re an agnostic, people think you’re undecided, which I think leaves more of a door open than I want to, so I usually just say “atheist” as I think it conveys a meaning closer to what I actually am. Alternatively I just say that I have no religious inclinations.

76

I didn’t claim that my beliefs are different than option 2. My objection is the conclusion that option two, according to what I see as incorrect logic is really option one. In that sense I think jjimm is off the money.

My own belief is that aside from what we give lip service to, if we are sincerely seeking love and truth then we are on the same path and the label beyond that is just a superficial reference point. Coming from different parts of the world we would travel diffrerent roads if we were all going to Los Angles. Why argue over who chose the best road.

However, many religious and non religious people have no interest in seeking love and truth and in that sense we are not on the same path.

By the way, for both of you, It’s Cosmos…with the 2nd S.

77

So you don’t tolerate their beliefs. Only the ‘love and truth’ religions for you, all the murderous nasty ones can bugger off. And my argument fails… how?

Sorry about that. While we’re on the subject, mine is jjimm (most people - not you - miss out the second ‘m’).

78

BTW, missed this before, but:

You said: …there is some sort of divine power…

I said: All (or some) religions are worshipping the same thing…

You said: …all religions are human responses to the experience of the divine

I said: …but in their own way.

Seems clear-cut to me, though Y[and probably everyone else’s!]MMV.

79

I don’t know if I’m much of an apostate since I was never very devout and realized from a very early age that I didn’t really buy into the traditions I was raised with, but here’s my story anyway.

My father was Roman Catholic and my mother was Southern Baptist. I was raised with both traditions. I went to Catholic schools (when possible, we moved a lot since my father was in the Air Force and later the State Department) and went to a Baptist sunday school on sundays and sometimes to services. A naturally curious and skeptical mind combined with a frustrating lack of evidence for what I was taught led me to doubt and then actively disbelieve in anything supernatural, including gods, but I was still enchanted by the Bible stories I heard in sunday school. I loved hearing about Joseph in Egypt, Moses out of Egypt (the Book of Exodus was like a great epic novel to me), David and Goliath, Sampson and the Philistines, etc. I loved the stories as stories and later in life felt driven to investigate the historical roots behind them. That eventually led me to pursue those interests in college, where I sought schooling in Biblical criticism, ancient history and Classical languages and I’m still avidly interested in those things today.

So while the “belief” part just never took hold in me, my upbringing did at least give me a lifelong interest in the Bible.

80

Another voice for Cuckoorex.

Amazing, moving, so clearly put.
I felt some heartache for you even as I read.

Little voice in the back of my head said: “This is a classic journey from Modernism to Postmodernism. First the realization that there is a smorgasbord of beliefs, then the realization that in choosing one you’re, well, choosing, which means there may be many valid choices and not just One True Choice, which means none of them is the True Choice.”