How did you stop believing?

johnson1010 · Sat Aug 28, 2010 11:17 am

My favorite atheist story, so far, comes form Ricky Gervais.

http://www.vido1.com/QWxEFeSdVMtN1MW1WU ... and-being-

I wish my de-conversion story was as elegant as that.

For me, there was no catalyzing moment that stands out clearly. I remember that the last time i actually tried to believe was in 7th grade. i was outside, looking at the stars, and i started speaking to the sky. I promised that i would try to pray once a week, just to try to keep in touch, because i thought i really hadn't been doing my due dilligence in regards to flattering god about how great he was.

That was the last time i can remember thinking i was actually speaking to god. Then, i just started to make connections as i learned things. They used to ACTUALLY believe that Zeus was real. They didn't treat the subject like mythology. That was their god. Being a science fiction kid, i thought, well what happens in seven hundred years and humanity has to re-build after the alien invasion and they come across the bible? They will look at that and say, they actually BELIEVED that this guy was a god!

I think it was empathy, the ability to put myself in other people's shoes, that told me there was no god. Every practicioner of every religion thinks they are following the truth. The ONLY truth. They can't all be right. These thoughts came to me long before i started comparing the claims of religion against reality. This was just a mental exercise. Millions of native americans lived their lives without ever having heard of Jesus... so they never accepted him... so they are all in hell. No matter how good a person they were, they are burning in a pit of fire because of their ignorance.

Foolish, short-sighted ideas like this made me realize how limited, and self--centered the biblical narrative is. There is no conception of what other people might have been up to, or that important things might be going on somewhere else. It is just so plainly an imaginary story that i could find nothing to stand up to my scrutiny.

Belief fled like a shadow, wherever i shone the light of inquiry.

What's your story?

President Camacho · Sat Aug 28, 2010 1:32 pm

Before leaving to conquer Troy, Agamemnon was held ashore because of bad weather. The troops all wanted to set sail but the weather didn't permit them and they assumed it was a sign from the gods. Agamemnon appeased the gods by sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia. He killed his daughter in the hopes the gods would grant his army fair weather for their crossing. We probably descended from these people. They are nuts. We are nuts.

I think I stopped believing in god after one of my wrestling coaches brought me to a christian gathering aimed at young people. There was rock music and it was entertaining. He was so into it. I have joy because I do this for god... I do that for god... I do for god. I dunno. God always struck me as just out of my reach and the older I got the more ridiculous he became. I always felt on the outside looking in and deathly scared I would catch whatever bug some of these people had. I participated for a while because I loved the comradery and the community. The people were so happy and friendly while they were there. It was like being in a world where everyone lived far apart from one another and then gathered once a year to say hello to everyone else. They all put their best foot forward, adorned nice clothes, and went the extra effort to make a good impression. They also enjoyed that you did the same and reveled in it all. It was a great time full of happy people. Whatever... it was all bogus and fake but the feeling of holiday and fairy tale is a happy and delightful one. It's shallow and it ends when the clock strikes but it's fun while it lasts.

Today another christian came to me while I was cleaning my car. I had on my dirty "Beer, because everyone needs a hobby" t-shirt. He introduced himself and his very cute daughter, Rosie. She was adorable. He asked me... awkwardly... how I felt about all the global warming (hahaha - the laugh had me thinking he didn't believe a single word about global warming) and the world coming to an end. I focused on him hoping he'd keep talking so I wouldn't have to speak. He moved closer and held out his bible. He was very nicely dressed in slacks and a tie - despite the heat. He began to read Psalms something - I tried to remember the numbers. It said something along the lines of when the world ends those who believe in Jehova will be saved. Something along those lines or maybe his previous talk about the world ending has altered my memory or interpretation.

Now I can't find the passage on the internet. There isn't even a 'Jehova' when I did a find. Anyway, I know it was Psalms because I saw it on the top of the page. Anyway the passage stated that those who believed in Jehova would be saved.

Of course, I thought about all the people that didn't believe in Jehova. All the good people. I also thought how a kind god could allow good people to burn in hell just because they didn't believe in someone who didn't present themselves and prove themselves. I also didn't like how there was an ever lasting life - that seemed wrong and unnatural. Everlasting anything seems wrong and unnatural.

His daughter was very cute though in her long dress and pinned up curls. She was as quiet as I was the entire one-sided conversation. I thanked her Father and sent him on his way and thanked her, too. What a beautiful pair of people. Very nice, dignified, and respectable... going out of their way to show others what they think will be their salvation. They are trying to help people. That's a wonderfully tragic thing.

It's such a pretty package. It's pretty and inviting and wrong. It's the most beautiful bane of humanity.

Robert Tulip · Sat Aug 28, 2010 9:59 pm

I have never believed in belief. At scripture classes in school I could not stand it when preachers tried to convince us to believe claims that lacked evidence. When I then read The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels many years ago, it helped me to see that belief has been hotly debated within religion, but those who focus on knowledge (gnosis) rather than belief as a framework for ordering their understanding have been cast to the margins. This social bias has gradually changed with the rise of science and reason, as the status of knowledge has increased. Belief has the social advantage over knowledge that it can unite ignorant people, who accept claims on authority in order to participate in community. Rejecting belief involves criticism of believers, and that is often a hard path. Where this relation between belief and knowledge becomes problematic is that often belief has an origin in knowledge, but the knowledge has been lost and people accept the belief as the ultimate truth. People who rely on evidence then assume that the belief is entirely without foundation. It is like believers have climbed to the top of a ladder (knowledge) and then kicked the ladder away and forgot it was there. Richard Dawkins suggests that this destruction of earlier foundations could be present in the evolution of life. It is interesting to analyse the Bible against this evolutionary framework, to ask what was the genuine knowledge that inspired the false beliefs, and can we reconstruct it.

Suzanne · Sat Aug 28, 2010 11:17 pm

Yes, let us all bare ourselves, and tell our stories. Here's mine for what it's worth.

I don’t think I ever stopped believing in God, I never believed in the first place. I don’t really understand how this happened to me. Yes, I went to church every week, I sang in the choir, went to bible school in the summer. I loved the songs and the stories, but for me, as a child, religion was only that, stories. Maybe attending a Methodist church lended itself to how I felt, church was fun!

My father was Catholic, my mother, agnostic. My mother demanded of my father to convert to Methodist before they were married. Religion was important to my father, my mother’s intention was to keep religion in the family for his sake, but wanted to change brands, change to a less enthusiastic brand of religion I suppose, but religion was never discussed in our house. However, I did witness the cruelty of my grandmother towards my mom. My grandmother, Russian Orthodox Catholic, she hated my mother. I can still see my grandmother's ravaged angry face, screaming in Russian. My parents elopement by a justice of the peace, and my father's conversion surely had something to do with this. This may explain my own mother in laws feelings towards me, my husband and I eloped as well, but my mother in law screamed in English!

Organized religion completely left my life at age 11, my parents divorced. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer some 20 years ago, she asked to be cremated and to have her ashes scattered in the ocean. She said, “I want to go back to nature”, I love these words, I loved my mother’s words. She said, she wanted to be fish food and travel all around the world. :lol:

I did perform my mother’s last request, and every time I visit the ocean, and smell the sea air, I hear her words, and I know she is where she belongs, were she was meant to be, she went back to nature.

OK, I get it from my mom!

oblivion · Sun Aug 29, 2010 3:00 am

I certainly don't have anything poetic or meaningful to offer, but I suppose it began with the Easter Bunny (who, uh, "exists" in Germany as well): I certainly couldn't figure out how the anatomy of a rabbit made it possible for it to carry eggs without breaking them. Nor could I figure out why in the world a rabbit would want to carry around eggs to begin with. After badgering my parents for weeks, they finally gave in and admitted that the Easter Bunny did not exist. Its tracks leading to the nest of moss outside in the yard had been provided by my mother using 3 fingers dipped in flour. My parents did not attend church. I then went on to assume that any creature doing odd things not keeping in line with its speicies most likely did not exist, especially if one could not see it. And so I slipped effortlessly into not believing in god/s.

seespotrun2008 · Sun Aug 29, 2010 5:49 am

What a wonderfully sweet story about your Mother, Suzanne. I am sorry about your loss.

But how wonderful to remember her when you go to the ocean.

President Camacho · Sun Aug 29, 2010 9:21 am

See? That's an amazing thing. Holy days that have turned into holidays with a theme are fun and can bring families and communities closer to each other. The myth makes it all the more fun and wherever the rabbit came from... that just makes it awesome. Easter is a great holiday for families! There's so many opportunities for fun with your kids. It's that way because Easter is a mixture of other great holidays such as Christmas (morning surprise of Easter Basket) and Halloween ( hunt for candy and dress up like a bunny) and it has some of its own original fun like coloring eggs!

Good holiday. Your Mom wanted to make you happy and I bet she felt something special. She got a chance to spread around some of that magic Mom's have.

It's all completely absurd but I believed in the Easter Bunny! I don't remember when I stopped believing but I don't think I harbored any ill feelings at all for being duped. The holidays don't have the same appeal they used to as a small child.

Interbane · Sun Aug 29, 2010 12:25 pm

I think the understanding that belief is different from the truth is what did it for me. I remember believing in god when I was young, but after I'd learned that santa claus didn't exist. I remembered back to when I believed in santa, and how real it all was. Then it dawned on me that the same thing could apply to my belief in god, that even though I believed he was real, it was only belief, and the truth is often something else. So I started questioning everything, even my own beliefs. God didn't survive my examinations, he's been gone ever since.

President Camacho · Sun Aug 29, 2010 1:01 pm

You're not believing hard enough. 2 +2 = 5. Just keep on repeating it.

froglipz · Sun Aug 29, 2010 1:44 pm

In a Catholic Church during a Sunday mass was when I finally admitted I didn't believe a word of it...LoL I did cringe down a little bit like I thought I would get struck by lightning. I already didn't believe in religion, but my (now ex) husband wanted our children to be raised Catholic. After his annulment, our marriage was blessed, our youngest was baptized, we began attending weekly services. The parish did NOT welcome us with open arms, it was difficult to socialize with these people, but we persisted, I sent my children to the school (it is a FAR better education than you can get through public schools and it is very cheap) My ex wanted us to all go together and I did for a while. It got harder and harder, and during the sermons I was questioning everything when I was listening at all, and then I realized it was pointless to go at all, so I stopped going. That didn't go over well at first, but eventually we all got used to the new routine, and I appreciated some quality time with myself every week.

Chris OConnor · Sun Aug 29, 2010 10:09 pm

I've made this the featured post on our home page.

oblivion · Mon Aug 30, 2010 1:28 am

And we're waiting for your "confession", Chris.......!

DWill · Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:40 am

I have some kid memories of religion. My brother would tell me that behind a red velvet curtain at the church we attended was the devil. This was scary but also thrilling. I liked a comic book character at the time called Hot Stuff. The devil had a definite shape and character for me, unlike God, whom I didn't picture as anything. I don't remember anything else about church except my father always winding his watch and my mother telling him to stop.

I'd go to Sunday School when I hadn't conveniently disappeared into the woods. Once I recall a substitute telling us how we could show daily appreciation for God. Say we were told by the teacher to go up to the blackboard and do a math problem. If we did it right, on our way back to our seat we could say to ourselves, "Why, thank you, God." It wasn't long after this that I had to go to the board at school, and unfortunately I screwed up the problem so that the teacher in exasperation had to tell me to sit down. What had gone wrong there? Why had God decided to desert my brain?

At night, if I remembered that I'd gotten into bed without saying my rote prayer, I'd roll out, kneel by my bed and quickly mumble it and get back in. No sense in taking chances.

The 60s, 70s and even part of the 80s were maybe the most secular period in our history. I don't recall ever thinking about religion during this time. It didn't seem that the topic came up in the media very much, either, so for me it was out of mind. I had "joined" a Congregational church in Guilford, Conn. in about '64, but then my family moved and we never got involved in another church. I can only recall a couple of times setting foot in a church for the next 25 years.

The next part is familiar to some parents. We had a daughter a bit late in life. She began to have some questions about God. Though I wasn't at all sure that I had turned out well, it didn't seem that I could place much blame on the mild religion of my parents. Not wanting to experiment, and wanting Laura to be able to explore a bit, I signed us on at a Presbyterian Church. I thought, naively, I could just kind of talk about religion without being expected to believe anything in particular. This worked for a while, and it was kind of nice to meet people in the town we were still new to. But before long I was asked to participate in things such as the board of deacons and the youth group and began to experience a lot of conflict. I was amazed to realize that so much of Christianity rests on events that were supposed to have happened. What a flimsy basis for any faith, that such-and-such merely happened. Isn't there anything greater that can be said for the religion? When we'd have to rise for the Apostles' Creed, I'd always involuntarily think of "Apollo Creed" and once asked my wife if Sylvester Stallone might have gotten the name of his nemesis in "Rocky" from that. I think she poked me. The creed was the most absurd part of the service (other parts I rather liked). Since after a while I didn't even bother to mumble the words of the creed, but just stood there silently, I knew it would be time to go soon. But it took me almost 8 years to extricate myself.

After that I tried the Unitarians, but that didn't work out either, for reasons I won't bore anybody with.

stahrwe · Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:49 am

For President Comacho:

Was it perhaps Psalm 83?


	Quote: Psalm 83 1 Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. 2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. 3 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. 4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. 5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: 6 The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; 7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; 8 Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah. 9 Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison: 10 Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth. 11 Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna: 12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession. 13 O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind. 14 As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire; 15 So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm. 16 Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O LORD. 17 Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish: 18 That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.

Were your visitors Jehovah's Witnesses?

President Camacho · Mon Aug 30, 2010 9:39 am

I would have remembered key words like dung. I don't think this is the one. It's similar but the one he read me wasn't as dark. To tell you the truth I'm not sure what they were. I just assumed they were christian.

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