This is the honest truth about my religious past. I’ve always wondered what made me decide to be an atheist and hopefully the people on this website can help me. Input from anyone is welcome and encouraged.
I was raised Christian (non-denominational). I was only a practicing Christian between the ages of 10 and 16; before that my family did not go to church. Though I was a fairly active member of the youth group at my church, I always struggled with the fact that becoming a christian was a bit of a change for me. I had a hard time keeping the morals that my parents and my church tried to instill in me. Then, at age 15, I learned about evolution (my church took a staunch new-earth creationist position). Once I understood how evolution works, why it is so widely accepted within the scientific community, etc., I realized how much my church unfairly demonized evolution. Thus the seeds of inquiry seemed to be sown within my mind. The more I questioned, and the more I learned, the less I was able to believe. Eventually, at age 16, I stopped praying altogether.
What vexes me is the fact that at age 16 I also experienced my first break-up. I was an emotionally distraught teenager when I lost my faith. Later, as I matured (and continued to question things, including atheism itself) I wondered if the reason I was an atheist was because of my emotional turmoil when I lost my faith. One of my first and greatest objections to Christianity was the contradiction between evil and suffering and the existence of an all-powerful, benevolent God. And my own suffering at the time acted as a catalyst.
SO: anyone else have similar stories, and can help me understand how I got to where I am a little better?
First of all it is ultimately you who must answer the question. We can only speculate, trying to relate our life experiences to the mini autobiography you’ve given here.
There are of course great challenges to anyone’s faith. First in my list is that people inherit a religion. They are told what they are, what they shall believe and often crush the inquisitive tendencies we are born with. What ends up happening is that people eventually have to complete a circuit. It becomes, as you’ve experienced, necessary, out of honesty, to abandon what we have always been told to believe. But eventually one may come on his own strength to the conclusion that maybe there was something of value, something hidden, that gives this human existence something that you need, thus completing the circuit.
Another possibility is that your youth played a part as well as your break up. But be it because of the one or the others or a combination of all three, perhaps you should see it as an opportunity afforded to you to do some homework and take responsibility for what you shall believe if at all. And I don’t mean that you devote your energies to resolve this or that objecting so that you might return to the fold, for that is not the ultimate purpose, but to make it your life to question where you must and even live with that because in the question we encounter the real, for we are fallible and finite and because of that we need ideas to defend ourselves from that unwelcomed reality. Those ideas that are most necessary are earned.
The problem of evil is a neighbor for every believer. It is the destroyer of patented platitudes. But it is often not faith that is destroyed but our capacity to relate to reality as a Thou. You will see though that there is faith after faith, but it is an actual faith that swells from within that won’t be denied. It rest on doubts. It remains uncomfortable. But if it happens to you be glad because the most real relationships you will have in your life are precisely those that retain a bit of mystery and give you pause. We are incomplete beings and should concede doubts about ourselves and others. That is honesty for me.
Thanks. What I had always figured was that this time in my life provided the opportunity for me to want to rebel, to leave what I had been told and raised to do behind and find out what I really wanted. But doubts as to whether the path I took was a well-thought-out one have plagued me once I really grew up and got over some of those qualities that pushed me towards being an atheist. And by that time, I had too much love for being what I was to go back. Perhaps you’re right, and questioning things is something in my nature that can’t be put down by any force I may encounter in my life.
White: All is not lost. I am assuming you are much older than 16 now and you are starting to question what we all do as we grow up and mature. Losing a first love is tragic, but we all experience it, well almost all of us. It is part of life and a learning experience. I grew up in a Roman Catholic home - went through all the sacraments, etc until I also was 15 years old. I went to mass every Sunday [and confession on Saturday]. Although I believed in God, I really didn’t know Him. I would think in my mind, “Why am I sitting here week after week, hearing the same thing and being bored? Why don’t I want to be here if I am supposed to want to be worshipping God?” That distrubed me, but that was the way it was for me, even at such a young age. I stopped attending church and went on my merry way. Not so merry now looking back. We only get one chance to do things right, and in our naive minds, we just go along with the crowd considering it the norm. When we go through life on our own, without God, we make lots of mistakes and sometimes have regrets. However, God is good and will present Himself to every one of us at some point in time in our life so that we can make the most important decision we will ever make. Many years later, I attended a church [a Bible Church-nondenominational] in the neighborhood that I just moved into. I thought that there are so many “religions”, how can they all be right? There can only be one right answer for One God. It didn’t make sense to me. So, I went to this church not really expecting anything different, but hoping that it would be. I heard the Gospel preached clearly for the first time. I believe that you did, too, when your parents took you to church with them. After the service, one of the people came to meet me and asked me, “If you could know for sure that you would go to heaven when you die, wouldn’t you want to know?” Of course, who wouldn’t want to know, but of course, I was skeptical because from my background all I could do was hope for the best. If maybe I would make it, but I didn’t think anyone could know for sure. So I said, “Yes, but how can I know?” I prayed with this person and I knew immediately that my life was going to be different! I was so excited because I knew that “This is It!” What I was looking for I found because God knew I was seeking to know the Truth, but I didn’t know what that was. For you as a young person, it is understandable to be confused by what you think is “wisdom”. You were confused because you did not have the experience or the maturity, or the time to grow spiritually, to be strong enough to understand the workings of worldly matters. You are obviously seeking answers right now and that’s a good thing. Don’t delay, get yourself into the Bible and take your time reading the Gospel of John first. Pray and ask God to forgive you for your sins and trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. Talk to him and tell him you want to understand and He will show you…after, all, He already knows. John 3:3 = “Truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:16 = “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life, For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” Romans 10:9-10 = “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” I am praying for you, friend.
Just as you I grew up in a non-denominational Christian household. As it was suggested earlier I think a person’s religious beliefs are inherited. I also wondered why I was completely bored with church. Eventually I stopped going and as I matured started looking into other religions for the answers Christianity didn’t seem to answer. I always felt (even as a young adult) that most religions preached the same basic principles: Don’t lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc… I also wondered why, if Christianity was the one “true religion”, was there different factions within it such as Baptist, Catholic, Protestant, etc… Was it not enough to be Christian but also a specific type of Christian? Was everyone else doomed to burn eternally if they chose the wrong path? If so there are so many more people burning in hell than there are people rejoicing blissfully in heaven. Why would any god create so many people only to have a majority of them end up suffering forever? Why would your initial thinking be so negative when, as a god, you could make everything perfect right off the bat? A Christian will always say “Nobody knows the mind of God, therefore man can not always explain his actions”. To me that always meant “I don’t know, just accept what I say without question”. I’m not the type to do that so I explored other options. At this stage of my life (34 years-old, 4 kids) I believe if you act morally and don’t intentionally deceive or cheat or lie, kill, whatever, you’ll be ok. I believe in God and that there is a life after this one, but I think everyone gets to the same end eventually, it just takes some people longer than others. Eventually we all end up in the same place because we all originated from the same place (God). We are all God, just in different forms. God created existence and instead of sitting back and observing what was created God wanted to experience “his” own creation first-hand and broke himself up into an almost infinite amount of pieces (humans, animals, plants, air, etc…) in order to experience his own creation from every possible angle. Eventually we as “individuals” cultivate our own consciousness up to a level more and more advanced until we eventually return to the Source which is God. That’s all there is, is God. Nothing exists outside of God (In my belief). Christianity puts a limitation on things, as does any other religion. Basically I would say there is a God and he would want you to do good in your life and believe there is something after this life. Other than that… do ya thang. You might not get it right this time but nobody’s perfect. You’ll get to where we’re all going eventually.
For me and what I believe, intuition is no different from ignorance. If you can’t explain why you know something, then you don’t really know it. True, wisdom comes with age. But so does the hardening of one’s beliefs to the point of irrationality.
I have read the Bible, and I cannot accept it as the truth. God’s actions and motivations are simply too inconsistent and contradictory throughout the Bible for it to be anything other than a mutated nationalistic religion, as far as I am concerned. I’m not an atheist because I hate the idea of God, I simply ask too many questions to stay in one place for long.
I disagree with your opinion of intuition. Sometimes we know with more certainty that which we cannot explain. Explanations are often rationalizations- pegging some rational disguise to a naked irrationality.
But in the end every rational system, construct, rest in some way above an irrational foundation, an unprovable…what else? Intuition.
Asking lots of questions can be a great strategy, especially if you take it as far as you can. By that I mean, why stop with questioning theism? You can ask a lot of inconvenient questions of atheism too. You can subject atheism to the very same rigorous analysis you understandably apply to theism.
You’ve already analyzed your way out of theism. If you wish, you can use the very same procedures to analyze your way out of atheism. And then you’ll be left with nothing. Now what?
At that point, you may decide to forget the whole thing and turn your attention to other matters. Surely everybody is entitled to make this choice.
Or, if you find that your interest survives the death of both theism and atheism, this could be the point where the question becomes even more interesting.
I think all you can do as a human being is try.
We’re so tiny and short lived compared to the vast power and age of the universe.
How can we honestly expect ourselves to understand the creator of reality if we can’t even understand reality fully?
I’m saying this under the assumption that reality’s source is more complex than reality. And thus harder to understand.
I’m not saying reality has a source, though.
If I designed a reality, i would put air bags in it. So that when an earthquake happened, nobody would get thrashed.
Surely many people feel this way. Some people drop the whole subject, and some never pick it up in the first place.
I’m not sure the time is wasted. If one has a sincere interest in these topics, then why not pursue that interest to where ever it may lead? How else would we discover the destination that’s right for us?
Ignorance as in never having learned something or ignorance as in having learned it, but still not knowing it (better known as stupdity)?
Intuition I think is sort of a middle ground between the above two. Its an experience of sensation and perception without being able to interpret or translate it.
There is a deeper knowing that may come to us through intuition. Anyone can use words to define or prove something but it doesn’t necessarily make it real.
Wisdom does not necessarily come with age. Some children have more wisdom than do elderly people. Age is not a prerequisite of wisdom - self-awareness, consciousness and following through on that IS.
The hardening of one’s beliefs comes from fear of letting go of what might be illusion and a lack of the desire to know the whole truth - fear of taking that quantum leap into the darkness.
You don’t have to - but there is historical truth in it.
There is also a ‘truth’ of self (or ongoing self knowledge) which might come to you through the stories of the people in the bible which might make it come alive to you. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I also personally don’t feel they are a god’s actions. They are a translation or an interpretation of what people perceive as such…and that begins and ends in the human psyche through our relationship with others and the world.
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If you’re asking questions, you’re not an atheist, you’re an agnostic like myself. If you are an atheist, your belief is just as hard as the believers.
