I was raised in a religious family as well. Went to private school, went to church, and despite having been indoctrinated since birth, I never felt any joy or presence or anything that the others claimed to feel. Whenever I tried to think about what I was being taught, it became more confusing or just fell apart. No one ever had any satisfying answers. Eventually the whole thing just made me angry. I felt that I was being threatened with eternal torture for not being able to accept what was clearly unacceptable.
When I allowed myself to know that I didn’t believe, it was a wonderful relief. Everything makes sense now. My family, of course, wrings their hands and prays for me, and I try to respect their beliefs enough to just keep my mouth shut. I tend not to advertise my atheism to others, as I live in the Bible Belt, but I also want to be honest about it. Most people just assume that I believe as they do.
Congratulations, Skald. How is your wife taking this and do you anticipate problems?
I went through this just a few months ago myself. For about 6 years, I had growing doubts about the hardcore Catholicism I was brought it and stopped feeling like God was at all involved in my life. I also very much wanted to believe, because it was the ‘right’ thing to do. I then started dating an ex-Catholic and realized that my doubts sounded a lot like what he had already gone through. I spend Lent feeling very guilty and then finally admitted to myself that I’m pretty much agnostic and will probably be atheist when the dust settles, so to speak.
I haven’t quite come to terms with the possibility of non-existence after death and I’m still trying to figure out what chunks of my moral code now have holes in them. It’s been an interesting ride.
I’ve told a small handful of people and I’d imagine more have figured it out. My peer group (science grad students) is mostly non-religious anyway, but I am terrified my mother will figure it out. Her faith means so much to her and I expect it will damage our relationship.
I saw a thing on cults last night, and the cult experts pretty much said the same thing. They said that some people are always in search of a better way. My question to them would be "what is is about your newly found belief pattern that makes your way “better?”
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That interests me. It interests me because I can’t imagine my relationship with someone depending upon what their esoteric beliefs are about religion. I gladly make friends with people from all walks of life, and from any and every conceivable religion, or lack thereof. What makes a person is not what they believe, but how they act. You can be a great person and be very religious, or you can be an asshole and an atheist: therefore the converse holds true. You can’t choose your relatives, but to think that somehow a relationship would hinge on one’s own personal beliefs is just mind boggling to me. I’ll believe what i want. You can believe what you want. Now let’s get back to what’s really important: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That was last time, in my teens. This time was more like the time in college that I realized a girl I’d been going out with had, for reasons known only to her, stolen my high school class ring weeks before, only I hadn’t noticed because I hadn’t wanted a class ring in the first place (as I don’t like wearing jewelry), I hadn’t much liked this one in particular (because my father, who desperately wanted me to have a class ring, had forced me to choose the one HE liked rather than the only one in the catalog I cared for).
Leaffan I agree with your views on personal relationships, and how religion (or the lack thereof) shouldn’t have any kind of bearing on how you interact with those around you. Sadly, it seems that a large portion of the population believes - and I’m speaking for theists and atheists here - that if you don’t share their beliefs, it makes you less somehow.
Why do you think I never go into the religion threads?
By the way, a few persons have used the word epiphany in reference to my realization (hell, I may have; I’m too lazy to re-read my OP right now), and I wanted to say I don’t think that’s an accurate description. To me, epiphany connotes an emotional element to a sudden realization, and that’s not what I’m going through. It’s mmore that I noticed a change in my belief system that had been gradually developiing; there’s no passion involved.
Ideally, this shouldn’t be an issue, but religion is deeply personal and not everyone is comfortable with alternate world views. Personally, I don’t really care what most people believe. However, I’ve been in a position where I felt threatened by atheist friends’ beliefs, mostly because I was not secure in my own beliefs. It made me uncomfortable and I was less eager to be around them. I’ve also gotten prickly at fundie street preachers. When someone is not interested in hearing alternate views, conflict often follows.
My mother is a special case. She raised me to believe certain things and I no longer do. I imagine that she will interpret that as a failure on her part. Also, in her mind there is nothing more important than one’s immortal soul. I expect to get a lot of lectures and magazine articles trying to change my mind. I don’t think she will be comfortable letting me find my own way.
It’s interesting that you had such a sudden epiphany; I know that I couldn’t point to a single moment in my life where the switch suddenly flipped and I went from “God is everywhere” to “the idea of God just don’t make no sense.” I know that I made the change somewhere around age 20 while in college, and most likely during a philosophy class on ethics that I was taking as an elective. Up until then, I’d been calling myself a “non-practicing Christian” for about two years. Once I came to realize through logic that morality isn’t all about God, and the problem of suffering (which appears to be the subject of that book), I turned my back on religion entirely. And as young people tend to be when a new idea takes them by storm, I became a very ardent atheist for a while. I argued against religion at every opportunity. Nowadays, I’m much more at peace with my atheism and with religious people in general, as long as they don’t force their views on me.
But you know, when I look back on my childhood, I can see the foundations of atheism being laid way before college. Even as a child, I wondered about the stuff they presented to me at church and in my children’s Bible. A lot of the stories just didn’t make sense to me. Stuff like, say, the plagues of Egypt. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through, you know? Especially when God’s powerful enough to just jump straight to the finish. And things as simple as, “On the seventh day, God rested.” He rests? God takes naps? Even as a child, I had the earliest inklings that these were probably just stories, stuff you tell people to explain the world when society’s not sophisticated enough to figure things out for real.
I went to a Catholic high school, which was another fun little adventure. I got in trouble a few times for rolling my eyes while saying prayers before every single class, every single day. That got old really fast, and once again, I was thinking, “Does this really make God happy? Us repeating the same words, over and over again, like robots?” That’s why the eyerolling started. Kinda went downhill from there.
Anyway, it might be interesting for you to look at your own past, analyze your old attitudes toward religion. In retrospect, I was kinda surprised at how early I started having doubts.
As I wrote above, it wasn’t a sudden change in belief; it was more an unexpected realization that I’d slowly changed belief systems without noticing. An analogy that occurs to me is that of a person embarking on a weight-loss regimen–daily exercise, better diet, et cetera–who doesn’t check the scales every day. The small daily changes are hard to notice, but when you happen to see yourself naked after two months, you’re likely to say “Wow! When did that happen?” Also, I’ve shifted paradigmsbefore; the first time it was from passionate theist to agnostic (age 12) and then from agnostic to liberal Christian (age 28).
As to your advice, I’ve done that before. There may be a post about my reverse journey, but given the five minutes between searches I’m not going to look for it now.
I’m really sorry to hear this. I hope things improve for you both.
For myself, I’m finding it harder and harder to believe, myself. I’m not worried about it, I’ve been agnostic for a long time, but I liked thinking that there was a possibility of existence after death. But getting slapped around in the face by just how much personality is linked to the physical structure of the brain does tend to challenge the idea of a soul.
I keep trying to remember what transitions I went through. My family was nominally non-church going Christian. I don’t think I ever believed but was maybe more agnostic in high-school and probably didn’t realize I was an atheist until university. I just never thought about it.
It really wasn’t until I moved to the States and started living among more religious folks (especially in Texas) that I started to examine my beliefs more and just became a stronger atheist. I don’t remember what started it but about 3-4 years ago my mom was visiting and we had an argument where she insisted I was a Christian against my objections. I finally picked up the God Delusion last weekend and am amazed at how obvious it is and how shallow and non-sensical the belief arguments are.
I don’t think I will ever get over the shock when I hear how difficult it is for some Americans to be honest and tell those that they love what they believe. You have my sympathies it must be difficult.
Silver Tyger Girl The JREF converted me from CofE ‘Christian’ to atheist also, no point arguing with facts.
Thanks for the sentiment. I don’t mean to over-state my discomfort with her response, which was basically “I’ll do whatever you want to do, honey, so if you say we’re done with church, we’re done with it.” It’s just that, after her severe depressive episode earlier this year, she changed medications, and while the new meds work fine in general she’s more submissive to me than I’m comfortable with. I don’t want her to make changes to her belief system for any reason other than that she wants to–certainly not because she feels obliged to do so for my sake.
One of my favorite episodes! You remember it mostly right. There is another part of the episode that goes like this ( from Seinfeld Scripts - The Burning )
