Actually it makes a lot of sense to me. My experience has been there is a lot of crossover between militant atheists and militant fundies. I imagine it’s because both groups think about things in very black and white terms, or that there is a backlash reaction that makes them swing all the way over when they do change.
From observant Roman Catholic to a deist whose concept of the Divine is so diffuse that I wouldn’t object too strenuously if someone wanted to characterize it as atheism.
I’ve had two massive changes, I’m not sure how to rank. The first was Christian to Jewish.
The second was die-hard, far right wing, Limbaugh listening, Bush voting, anti-choice, pro-war, pro-death penalty, hyper capitalist Republican to the exact and fully polar opposite.
Back in 2005 I started a thread about a dilemma that I was facing regarding teaching my 3yo kid morals w/o religion: Growing Up in an Irreligious Household, where I was wondering how does one teach a child morals w/o the traditional Western vehicles (i.e., church) to do so.
Likely received some good advice, too.
Sophie is in her fourth year of Catholic school (started in Kindergarten). She’s an altar server, and sings in the church choir. The school (and church) have been of immense benefit to her life: she loves it, loves the activities, loves the friends that she made, loves the priests, loves the entire Catholic thing - she even wants to visit Rome to see the Vatican.
I myself am still the same person - largely not religious, don’t believe in Jesus as a personal savior/son-of-God/etc, but I am thrilled that my little girl has found happiness and acceptance in the church, even if it is in a place where I didn’t.
In my youth I was very anti-gay. It is the way straight men are brought up - or at least the way they were in my small town, in my youth. I remember being appalled when I read Plato at the age of 19.
As I have aged I have grown in many ways and I no longer think that sexual preference should be a factor in the way I view someone.
I do find it annoying if it is constantly “in my face” - but find that more common with straight men than anyone. I remember one straight man (or perhaps bi-sexual, I wasn’t sure) who was part of my social group in my 30s who had to make *everything *be about sex - I found him rather tedious.
The (nearly) 50 year old me would not like the 20ish me. That young man had many good attributes, but was still too often an asshole. (That is probably still true, but I hope, *much less *so.)
Awareness of the concept of the technological singularity has altered my view on the nature of life and the destiny of the human race.
Also awareness of evolution and evolutionary psychology answered many questions about the meaning and purpose of life that I could never find the answers to in philosophy and religion.
What led to the change in politics? I have heard of people doing the opposite (going from liberal to conservative) but that has usually been in response to 9/11 when I read about it.
Me too, well except for Bush voting because I’m Canadian. It’s been a gradual process over many years and I still think it’s odd that I changed that drastically. I’m sure happy I did though, there’s a lot less hate and anger this way.
I loved me some Jesus growing up–now I’m an atheist.
I was a communist in 8th grade (I preferred the term “communalist” though, not for any good reason probably). Now I’m a fiscal conservative.
Going from someone who never wanted anything to do with children ever to someone who likes (most) kids and even wants one or two someday if the circumstances allow it.
Also, going from someone who used to get nervous meeting new people or even just going out with a group of friends to a place I didn’t know to someone who now actually enjoys going out and doing things and meeting new people.
Also, I gave up caffeine and soda after a lifetime of drinking 1 to 2 Mountain Dews a day. Once in a while I’ll drink a little Dr. Pepper, but it’s pretty rare.
These have all been pretty recent developments.
One change for me was going from a hardcore Republican voter to a hardcore Democratic voter over the term of a certain president with a middle initial of W.
[ul]
[li]“Mission Accomplished” when, at the time, Saddam Hussein was still in a rathole somewhere. Oh, and Bin Laden was still at large. Oh wait…[/li][li]Darth Cheney, Darth Rumsfeld and the war they prosecuted. Abu Grahib, the way it was dropped in the laps of two women, the fact that it was just the tip of the torture iceberg[/li][li]The quid pro quo of putting John Roberts on the Supreme Court, dirty business that, and look where it’s led us.[/li][li]The right’s unrelenting war on my rights as a non-heterosexual person.[/li][li]The realization that, issues of sexual orientation (and gender) aside, as a person of color, I was a token for the Republican party, pure and simple. Eyes lit up when I attended events because my mere presence offered “diversity.” But there wasn’t any interest in my perspective, if I wasn’t toeing the party line, then my presence wasn’t welcome, period.[/li][/ul]
I wish there were a way to say this without implying snide things about your intelligence, but how come it took longer than a glance at the stated positions of your party to come to these realizations?
Were there some subtle implications in the Republican positions that you took for signs that they were supportive of gay or minority rights? How long did you have to listen to Rush Limbaugh to understand that he was supporting the positions that tend to oppress you?
Or was it that you just think these things were unimportant compared to fiscal conservatism, or something else?
IANAR, but it wasn’t that long ago that not every Republican was an apologist for Limbaugh and their ilk.
And still isn’t true across the board, of course, but my point was that it wasn’t a particularly subtle or elusive position.
I did the exact opposite. Was a true believing mormon in high school, now not-bitter-at-all atheist.
Apparently, we’ve balanced each other out.
The national platform was a closer match to my ideals, at the time, on the big ticket items (particularly abortion, guns & fiscal matters) than any other, so I was able to ignore the LGBT issues until the party started making a big deal of them. There were also issues of my own personal identity and alliances in play.
Actually, on an individual level, because so many of the Republicans I interacted with personally are also evangelical Christians, while they weren’t down with LGBT rights, they were and are pretty good about racial issues on the micro level. But on a macro level they really do believe, in their sweet little hearts, things like “social safety net programs create dependency that holds minorities down” which we can argue, but their logical follow from that is “so abolish them” (which I would’ve said myself for a while) rather than “change the nature of these programs so that it’s a solution rather than an additional problem.” And so it goes.
It was more a matter of coming to the realization that yes, as a [multiple minority] woman, I actually am part of various groups that are, in fact, oppressed in this country, particularly by public policies. Because I have personally benefited from relative economic and educational privilege, for a very long time I believed that those vitiated my minority status(es) when they really didn’t.
There’s a perfectly legitimate way of distancing yourself from the current makeup of the Republican Party without debasing yourself by moving toward the Democratic Party. Have none of you never considered supporting the Libertarian Party?
I used to think Kiss was the best rock band in the world; now I’m convinced it was the Beatles.
On a more serious note, I’ve flip-flopped on capital punishment too. I don’t see it as being much of a deterrent and the thought of someone like Russel Williams having to serve out his time in jail, as opposed to taking the easy way out, makes me happier.
I used to be a member of the loony left who once supported and voted for Dennis Kucinich.
Since then I realized that I love freedom. I came to this change partially as a result of reading the SDMB. Thanks, everyone here!