I’ve been an Atheist since I was six. Raised in a religious Jewish family, I was sitting in the back of my Mom’s blue Chrysler and it hit me all at once: there is no Tooth Fairy, there is no Santa Claus, there is no God. No cause, no event, just an epiphany.I asked questions at home and Hebrew school and got lame answers. I tried to care about God, but failed because I couldn’t stop thinking of him as mythology. I was Bar-Mitzvah’d and confirmed as an Atheist, against my will. Mom thought it was a phase.Turns out, Dad’s an Atheist too — he just never told me until I was about 30 — the same year Mom realized it wasn’t a phase.Here’s a thread that’s been requested a few times. Post “your story” here. FYI, we’ve got about 1000 members now, but we get 10K hits/day, so there are a lot of lurkers who want to know if their story is unique, or if they are among kindred spirits (pun intended).
Peach63,
Your comment about atheists liking science fiction rings true. I’ve been attracted to science fiction since early childhood and I’ve been an active fan since discovering science fiction fandom at the age of 26. Most of the other fans I know are atheists or agnostics.
BTW J. Michael Straczynski of BABYLON 5 fame, like Roddenberry, is an atheist.
DocShehan
I’m so jealous of your Asimov communications. Asimov rocks!
Doc Shehan
I don’t know how you sat through dinners with Billy Graham and his mama. That would have been a real trial for me. And rubbing shoulders with Thurmond and Helms…Bbrrhhrr!
The Asimov token is a jewel, however! Guard it well.
Pixel
I’m so sorry that you too were abused, and I hope you got some help for it, and maybe some justice even. The latter wasn’t possible for me.
Your dream reminds me that I’ve often thought that Christianity should not be a trinity, but a quad-rune. What do you call an entity with four aspects? It seems to me that the devil is right up there with the other three and certainly has more presence than the Holy Ghost. Maybe he actually IS the HG?
I no longer have the devil dreams, but can’t really recall at what point in my life they stopped. I was still young. But I was also already embracing disbelief by then. I still have the other awful dreams related to the abuse. It’s easy to tell them for what they are now.
My mother used to tell me I was going to hell for things I won’t go into now, cos they are abuse related. I was very young, 4-6. She didn’t know about the abuse(maybe), but found evidence and signs of it that she chose to blame on me and threatened me with hell. I think that’s where my devil dreams came from. That and Sunday school.
I was raised in a Mormon family. I toed the line until I was 18 and then I turned my back on it all.
My reason for leaving was the encouragement of the Mormon Church to build my “testimony of God” by asking all the questions I needed to ask and reading all the literature I needed to read. The catch was that the questions should be asked of the right people (church leaders/good, upstanding Mormons) and the books should be written by the right authors and not come from the library at the local university.
Red flags started flying. If it was all so true and unshakeable, why all the worry about outside information seeping in?
I have been religion free for 17 years. My only belief system is my belief in the “self”. My parents pity me. They love me even though I have forfeited my place in the kingdom of heaven. I pity my parents. I love them even though their acceptance without question seems weak and their life experiences appear narrow from my point of view.
By the way, I was given up for adoption at birth by a college age Mormon mother. My birth father wouldn’t convert to Mormonism. My birth mother gave up her true love and first child for religion. Her goal? That I be raised in a good Mormon family with strong values. The pain she must have felt giving up a child came to naught. Despite my textbook Mormon upbringing, I left her beloved church after all. At least she has God, whatever that means.
Peach63: I’m in the Chattanooga area and so glad to hear I’m not alone. This is such a hostile place for atheists. My story later (I’m on deadline and shouldn’t be reading this or any other blog in the first place!)
2Rubies
Such sad irony in your adoption story.
Have you ever thought of contacting your natural father? Do you know anything about him other than he wouldn’t convert to Mormonism?
Pixel, I suspected you might be a Heinlein fan when you said your user name was the same as your cat’s.
1nation, you’re so right. “Hostile” is a pretty apt description. Not much “Christian love” I’m sorry to say. I look forward to reading your story! I am working as well with unfortunately more to do than scrolling around this blog, so I’d better get busy. It’s so much more interesting reading these stories than working, though.
karen:
I finally got around to answering your questions on the ?Bible Bash: Old Testament? thread. As I mentioned there, I?ll try to answer your earlier questions as time permits.
When I first heard the story of Jean D?Arc it must have gone deeply into my psyche and since then I?ve wondered how people can so easily hurt others so badly, and in the religious name of love. The same thing with other history in school: the European invasion that blew away the Native Americans, those lousy stinking pagan heathen naked savages. When I realized that Xtianity was the CAUSE of virtually endless suffering in the world I knew I never wanted to have anything to do with any religion again, because they are all cut from the same psychotic cloth. Split minds: I will torture you for the sake of my great god, who created and loves you.
It appears, in my family anyway, that my mother was motivated by a love of ritual and traditions, candles, friggin incense, authority and herd crappola, all of which made church very stupid-looking to me: ?Is that all there is, a bunch of candles and cross-topped staffs being paraded about.? Looked like kid stuff then, looks like it now.
I was lucky because my restrained but firm agnostic dad buffered my mother?s religious affliction; I was given permission to question. I have great respect for all those of you who didn?t have it that easy and had to go down a much longer path of brainwashing before you got your mind right. Congratulations and welcome to the world of the sane. Well, relatively sane.
I forgot one more very important thing:
religions are always and endlessly BEGGING for MONEY !!!!!
A gaping maw into which fortunes flow.
ReluctantAtheist,
Thomas Edison is probably not the best guy to look to for inspiration. He electrocuted neighborhood dogs and later criminals given the death penalty with his own home-grown electric chair in order to prove that AC electricity was dangerous. He stole other scientists ideas and the ones he came up with himself were pretty laughable (imagine coming home and plopping down on a concrete couch or taking a snooze in your concrete bed).
Just like Christopher Columbus, the American education system paints a really rosy picture of Edison and it’s not deserved.
Take a look around on Google, there’s a whole lot about the guy that most people never knew.
I grew up in a small town in Illinois. My parents were very moral and taught us right from wrong though we only went to church a handful of times. Most of the time we goofed off and drew or went out an played during service. I do remember having a Catholic best friend at 12 and going to church out of curiousity. The lecture was on accepting JC. I remember to this day asking JC to come into my life and nothing changed. I can picture that day like it was yesterday. When I joined the Navy I had dog tags that said “No Pref” because religion was so irrelevent to me. I had a girlfriend who was Catholic so I looked into it. I had another girlfriend who was Jehovah Witness so I looked into that also. The turning point was when I saw John Ankleburg explain how JW’s were a cult. I bought a tape from him and asked the JW elders to explain it. None would. Exiting college I had an excellent professor that gave me a book, 20 questions: an introduction to philosophy. Thanks Mr. Buenter. From that book until now I’ve learned to read skeptically. I am grateful to Michael Shermer and Dan Barker for their writings.
Natasha,
“religions are always and endlessly BEGGING for MONEY !!!!!”
Even from little children. I remember going to Sunday School one time with a friend of mine to a “Missionary Bapist Church”. All the SS kids were expected to bring at least a quarter each week to send to the missionaries, and the teacher could become quite hostile if they didn’t, according to my friend. She would accuse them of being selfish, etc, and give them a hard time if they forgot their money.
“Comment from: Natasha [Member]
I forgot one more very important thing:
religions are always and endlessly BEGGING for MONEY !!!!!
A gaping maw into which fortunes flow.”
Anyone know if Mat Groening (creator of the Simpsons)is an atheist? Here is one of my favorite quote from the Simpsons:
Reverend Lovejoy in a sermon about the Movementarians: “This so called new religion is nothing but a pack of weird rituals and chants designed to take away the money of fools.(Opens his bible) Let us say the Lord’s prayer 40 times, but first let’s pass the collection plate.”
Episode: 5F23, about the Movementarians
Sorry, I meant “Missionary BAPTIST Church”….in case any of y’all are thinking they’ve concocted some newfangled Protestant denomination here.
atomictesting: Thanks for the heads up. I knew there was tension between TAE and Tesla, but I didn’t know he was THAT bad.
Gotta take the good w/the bad, tho.
Xtianity has more black eyes than we do, ’tis true.
I’m not sure if Mat Groening is an atheist, but Homer said “god my favorite fictional character”
and Ned Flanders ran a marothon for the cure of homosexuality. Great show!
Matt is oblique about it:
I haven’t seen the one with the maraton to cure homosexuality, I’ll have to look it up
Gays are always portrayed as being regular people in the Simpsons.
Weither he’s an atheist or not, he’s clearly at least critical about it and not buying into most of what’s in the buy-bull.
I’ve always really liked the way that homosexuality is dealt with in Samoa. Samoa is a very conservative christian country, yet they really treasure their Fafafina (homosexual/transsexual) people. they are really treasured members of the community and are simply given any role which suits them within the community.
Hos: I am still waiting for your story. Are you still typing? This is gonna be good!
I am intrigued at how many of you became an athiest from an educational enlightenment!
I am another one of those Catholic School girls, and growing up I was apalled by the cruelty and self righteousness around me. In college I dated a very hot born again christian, and saw first hand that self righteousness and hyprocrasy were not limited to my mother’s faith. After exploring many different philisophies and religions, I rejected them all, yet acknowleged the inherent goodness professed by each one. I told people I was a “recovering Catholic” or agnostic for years; too afraid to admit to anyone my atheism.
Now I am a history teacher, and it is so evident that religion is the basis for unhappiness and war in this world. Like many of you, I suddenly saw that all gods were man made mytholigical beings. Religion is a psychological and social crutch for people who do not believe in themselves.
I do not hate believers, but feel sorry for them and even a little embarrassed for them. How can educated people believe something so irrational, and with such zeal?
Incidently, last year I overheard one of my students announce his atheism. That was one of the best professsional experiences in my entire career!
DeArtemis
One of the first adults I came out to as an atheist was my AP English teacher in 11th grade. We had to write some kind of autobiographical essay at the beginning of the year, and I included my atheism in it. I cringed when I turned it in, fearing she’d fail me on it just because of my non-beliefs. My stomach was in my throat when I got my paper back. I don’t really remember the grade, a high B or an A, I think. But where I had written about my atheism, she’d underlined it and said something like, “It took guts to say this.” After class, I asked her if it bothered her. She said it certainly didn’t, and that I should be proud of myself no matter what. I always got the impression she was a believer. That may actually have been a turning point for me. It had never occurred to me, after my experience with other people, that an atheist could be accepted.
You’re students don’t know how lucky they are!
Thanks, Karen!
I was always a strong minded person , i remember my mom tried me in sunday school and it only took 2 days till i questioned how a man could live in a whale for that period of time and be alright ?? Then next thing you know the teacher was trying top punish me for not believing the crap they were feeding me. After that I was allowed by my mom to not go to sunday school anymore , she asked me if i wanted to go and I told her no its not for me so she let me choose which was nice. After that I never really thought about it too much I was a non believer but not a full fledged atheist yet. Then in College we had to take a few courses on religion , had to learn Christianity and Hebrew , and Muslium basic beliefs !! After that I was converted to an atheist !! Man what a load of crap in all those beliefs. Now i am out and vocal about my beliefs , if people can be vocal about being religious i will be vocal back and let them know how i feel too. Its good to have a site where i can get others peoples opinions who think like i do .
My de-conversion took what seems to be a fairly common path:
Mindless lipservice to (insert religion). Expand horizons-maybe travel, read, question. Search for answers to broader questions in philosophy, sociology, history, ethics, etc.
Sometime in the middle of this one assumes an agnostic position because, as a practical matter we realize that the jury is out and we’re waiting for a verdict. After some time one realizes usually in an epiphany that there is a mountain of reasons why god doesn’t exist and there isn’t a shred of evidence that he does. Poof, I’m an atheist! Sometimes before one admits it to themselves they will investigate just what it means to be an atheist and stumble on sites like this one.
Jim
Orange, MA
I’m an Isist. I believe is is. Is is not what you believe it to be. Is just is.
What one believes has no effect on reality.
Believing the world is flat or round does not determine its flatness or roundness.
Nor does believing or disbelieving in God have any effect on his existence, or non-existence.
There are millions of atheists, billions of theists and, to my knowledge, just one isist.
http://www.hillarysvillage.com
ebonyfax
…(cont) Actually there is now one notist as well.
ebonyfax: You mean the Iranian Society for Information Science and Technology?
This is my first post here, and what better way then to start with my story?
When I was 5, I asked my parents if they would allow me to go to Church with my grandmother on Sunday mornings. We aren’t a particularly religious family…my family is Christian (Greek Othodox to be exact) and although my parents never forced any beliefs on me, they expected me to just believe in whatever they said or whatever teh bible said.
My parents allowed me to go, and by the second week of Sunday school I was out. I remember even as I five year old I was questioning. I think it was the ‘Jesus walking on water bit’…I just sat there and though “No no no…this can’t be right…”
I tried not to think about how much I disliked the church, until I was 12. At this point I just said flat out “I don’t believe in God”. My mom had a fit and my dad seemed to just nod and smile.
At this time, they’re more comfortable with it. I don’t talk to my mom about it anymore, because she’s controlling and is still coming to grips with the fact that I have opinions and a mind. My dad is much more open…we often have debates. I think he’s secretly an agnostic, because he seems to agree with me most of the time, but will occaissionally resist. I’m just relieved to have found a place like this…I’ve been craving atheist fellowship for years. My mom still calls it “a phase”.
As for my friends…the Northeast is pretty liberal about religion. I had a teacher write me up once for not reciting the Pledge, and some would argue with me in class over evolution, but those have been the only times. Some of my friends are strong Christians, and we don’t talk about religion. Those that are are usually very accepting (for which I am glad).
I did have one person attempt an exorcism when I was 15, and I told him that I had no demons because I just didn’t believe they existed. He asked if I was going to hell. “Sure, Chris.” I said, “I’m driving the bus down. Hop on.”
I’ve been out of town, so trying to catch up.
Karen -
Thanks for your concern. I was in therapy in my early 20’s for the incest. It helped a lot. What’s helped more is being in a truly loving relationship with my DH. I think atheism helps too, because you look for REAL answers instead of waiting for divine intervention. I’m not really bothered about it anymore – no contact with the abuser and in a happy place in my life. I hope you are as well!
Peach -
Yes, my kitty is named after Heinlein’s Cat Who Walks Through Walls. His Pixel was a boy tabby. Mine is a girl calico. She’s on my computer desk right now – under the desk lamp. (Why do cats seem to need to be in the warmest spot? Is all that fur just ornamental?)
I don’t know if my Pixel can walk through walls, but I don’t have any proof that she can’t . . . . .
My story is similar to most of yours. I was raised in a very Christian, Southern Baptist home. My parents made me attend church every single Sunday. When I was very young, I believed in God, because at that age a child believes everything a parent tells them. I soon had my doubts, however, from the simple “Are you sure God is really up there?” to “It’s not possible for a man to walk on water.” Unlike most of you, however, I was never brave enough to stir up anything controversial in Sunday school. I kept my doubts to myself, because I found out the hard way how mad my parents got if I questioned anything. I was told it was a sin to question God. After I figured out that Santa and the Easter Bunny aren’t real either, I became even more questioning.
I had nightmares too, but mine weren’t about the devil. To this day I can’t swim. I’m very petite, making it almost impossible to stay afloat. My parents constantly pressured me to “join the church” and get baptized. The thought of being dunked underwater, even for a brief moment, was terrifying to me. No matter how much they told me “there’s nothing to it,” I still thought, “That’s easy for them to say; both of them can swim.” Their pressuring me led to nightmares about them dragging me up the aisle and forcing me into the baptismal pool. I had nightmares about drowning, about my parents and/or the preacher forcing this terrifying ritual on me. A few years later, when I was about 16, when I finally became an Atheist and realized it was all just a myth, the nightmares stopped.
I studied the Bible for myself, reading it both cover-to-cover and the random “I wonder what verse God wants me to look at tonight” way. My parents enjoyed seeing me read my Bible every day. They had no idea I was examining it critically. I found many errors and contradictions, thinking, “I can’t believe my parents never noticed this!” Later I found out they had rationalizations for the things that didn’t add up.
My father is irrational enough to maintain a circular argument and never see what’s wrong with it:
Me: How do you know that God is real?
Dad: Because the Bible says so.
Me: How do you know the Bible is true?
Dad: Because God wrote it.
Although I never revealed my doubts to my parents, I asked questions of plenty of other Christians, and their answers never satisfied me. For example, one friend said, “You can’t see your headache, but you know it’s there.” I said, “No, but I can feel its presence.” Most of the Christians I knew made prayer seem like a direct telephone line to God, where he actively answered them, but I always felt like I was just talking to the wall when I prayed. Praying was such an empty experience for me.
I went from Atheist to Agnostic to Freethinker to almost-believer, unable to make up my mind on the issue, for several years. Just when I thought I had found something that lent validity to the Bible “They found pieces of Noah’s ark!” I would soon spot the flaw in it: “That doesn’t prove that a higher being told Noah to build it.”
In college I took advantage of the opportunity to try out different denominations that didn’t exist in my hometown. I visited Catholic, Episcopal, A.M.E., inter-denominational, a church where people spoke in tounges and were “moved by the spirit.” I truly and sincerely searched for God. It didn’t matter where I went, the result was the same: despite my earnest prayers to God to “Please, let me feel your presence…I want you in my life,” I felt nothing. Attending church was a very empty, completely un-fulfilling experience for me. I couldn’t understand why the others around me were obviously so moved by something and I wasn’t. Visiting so many churches merely led me to wonder why there are so many different denominations anyway. If each of them claims God is telling them what meaning or interpretation He wants them to get from his Holy book, how can there be so many different and even opposite takes on it?
I studied other things, such as astrology, tarot cards, wicca, palmistry, Buddhism, etc., but I soon figured out the common denominator among all the religions is a belief in some supernatural being or realm, and my brain was just too rational to accept anything on faith.
In HS I read one of Ayn Rand’s books, _The Fountainhead_. I was calling myself an Atheist at that time, but I was following the moral standards in the Bible, simply because I knew of no others. Reading this book, I learned that an Atheist can still be a good, moral person with strong convictions, even a heroic figure. I learned that one can have morality without religion, that there is no necessary connection between the two. I loved that book and craved more, so I read more of AR’s books, and discovered her philosophy.
I finally gave up on trying to find God when I read the first chapter of _Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand_, which gives logical reasons why it’s not possible for a god to exist. That cemented my Atheism. I’ve been a rational person and an Atheist ever since.
Some of my friends are Christians. We share many of the same moral standards. I think the main thing that seperates Atheists from the believers is that the believers never question the faith their parents teach them, as I did. They just blindly accept whatever they’re taught. It was a long time before I was even aware that other denominations and religions even existed. If the Baptists are so sure that they’re right, if it’s that obvious, then why do they worry so much when their kids explore and research other religions? My parents were constantly telling me how the Catholics were wrong and the Methodists were wrong and the J. W.’s were wrong…I wasn’t willing to just accept that. I investigated those other beliefs for myself. I was willing to challenge my parents, to question what I was taught to the point of not accepting their pat, standard answers to my questions. Most kids raised in the church don’t do that.
Becoming an Atheist, and figuring out, at last, what my beliefs were, was a very positive, liberating experience for me. I love following logic, because it works every time.
I forgot to mention the role that the Internet played in all this
When I came to college, the huge college library gave me access to books not available to me before: Bertrand Russell’s _Why I Am Not a Christian_, Ingersoll, Thomas Paine, Suzan B. Anthony, etc. While the Bible was confusing and contradictory, these books made sense. Since I actually found books on Atheism, I decided to try my luck on the Internet too. I found a treasure trove: lists of all the contradictions I’d found in the Bible (and then some!), this web site, more books about Atheism, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, answers to all the arguments the Christians had been using in their attempts to convert me…For so many years I had felt like I was the only Atheist, stuck in an endless sea of Christians. Through the Internet, and especially this wonderful blog, I know I’m not the only one 
Christians are always talking about fellowship. Having fellowship with other Atheists for once is great 
I was born to a non-practicing catholic mother and a non-practicing jewish father. When I was 4, they divorced. At 5, my mother, 2 older sisters and I were invited to church by neighbors. I hated it and only went because my mother made me. Until age 12…I started hanging out with a group of friends that made me want to go to church just to see them. I started going to bible study and sunday schools and summer camps and weekend conventions. I even read the bible. Twice. At age 15, I transferred schools and started hanging out with a different crowd. The partiers, if you will. I loved it, and my age 16, those christian friends of mine stopped calling. It was alright by me, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how bogus it all was. Although I still didn’t call myself an atheist. At age 19, I started dating my now fiance who was already a bonafide atheist. He would point out all the cars with jesus stickers that also had support bush stickers. He’d get all pissed off and talk about rear-ending the cars. I realized they made me mad too. And now, at 21, with all the religious pushing going on in our “free” country, I’m very proud to call myself an atheist. I’m really glad I found this website, too! By the way, my dad converted to christianity last year…the insanity! I can no longer talk to him about how stupid the idea of a flooded earth and a virgin mother are!!!
The last entry was 10/22, but this seems the appropriate place to post my question. I spent a long time last night telling my spouse about my “lack of faith” and why I think god and all religions are fictions created by man. She doesn’t think I know what I’m talking about. She wants me to go to her priest for clarification. Any advice?
jminnis,
That’s a huge question. What is your objective by talking with your wife? Did you want her to agree with you? Would you be happy to agree to disagree? Is it important for her that you agree?
Do you know why she wants you to see the priest? What does ‘clarification’ mean? I think you can pretty muc guess what the priest’s position will be.
Maybe you can bargain with her. Offer to talk with the priest if she’ll read a book or two.
Good luck. I fear you are walking down a dangerous path. Take care my friend.
Thanks, HeatheNZ
I doubt I will ever convince her, but you never know. I think her main thing is that how can atheists be right and so many religious people wrong, particularly Xtians? I know the priest. He’s a smart guy. He studied anthropology. He says that made him a stronger Xtian rather than a non-believer. That’s the rub: How can such a smart guy ignore the evidence, or lack thereof?
And that’s another thing: He’s a trained speaker and debater. I’m new at this.
Meanwhile, my twin brother is a born-again Xtian of the worst sort, but that’s another story!
well i was raised by my atheist parents and never really was exposed to christianity. I remember asking the question “why dont we go to church?” when i was about 6. Got we dont believe as an answer. at 10 decided i was atheist. from then i pay close attention to anything they say and i find arguments fun.
now i am a 14 year old atheis living in a town of 14000 people with chuches on every corner.
Happy Birthday Balloons
Smart Start Baby Site MapUnless otherwise listed, all balloons are: self sealing sold uninflated 18″ foils Happy Birthday Balloons & B…
I’m Amela [uhm-ella] & I’m 15 years old. I was born in X-Yugoslavia [Europe, and now known as Bosnia] & a terrilble, cold-blooded war broke out after only 8 months of life. My whole family was Muslim. After about a year of running away from bombs and people wanting to cut your head off because you were a different religion, I found myself in Germany. Now, as I was growing up since Kindergarten I always wondered about God…and I grew up in a 75% Christian hemisphere and my parents being not religious themselves never really exposed me to Islam. I grew up around Muslims, Christinas, Hindus, Jews and all sorts of religions. Few question remained always in my mind: Which religion is the right one? Why are there so many when each claims to be correct? If God loves you then why is it that if you do certain things you’re going to hell? How come people can’t share their BELIEFS, NOT RELIGION, peacefully? Religion is pointless. Religion is a hypothetical idea, religion is a belief and beliefs are man made. & that’s what why I declare myself a PROUD atheist.
Hi all. I was raised Catholic but I gave up on that when I was 14. My parents kept sending me to Catholic school through highschool and I took some flack for criticising the church.
I went to college and got lonely, found a girl and fell for her religion too. I really thought I had “found it”… I became a born-again christian and married the girl. Most of my family (parents, brother, sister) turned born-again too. I finished college, had kids, became a sunday-school teacher, deacon, even treasurer for the church I went to. When I got a new job, I brought a co-worker to church an he converted too. I studied the bible daily, even referencing the original languages.
I wasn’t happy. After my wife quit her career to stay home with the children, our relationship crashed. Trying to be a “good christian husband” just seemed to make things worse. I began to doubt.
Talking with a friend helped me to sort things out. Over the course of six months or so I gradually let go of belief in anything supernatural. My polite letter to the church, “Please cancel my membership,” got me my first hate mail as an “apostate”. The idea that the people “known by their love” would now hate me was totally unexpected.
I was depressed and drank heavily for about five years, even while I was riding high on the “Linux” craze working with Linus Torvalds in Silicon Valley. My wife suffered a psychotic episode, probably due to stress when the California job fell through and we came back to Wisconsin. I drank more until I hit an obvious low point and went to an A.A. meeting.
The supernatural bogey-monster alcohol and the higher power they talked about at the A.A. meeting were so offensive to me that I went sober and never went back to A.A. Instead, I adopted a stoic philosophy and whipped myself into shape both physically and mentally.
I’ve kind of levelled out in the last couple years. I’m not a super-fitness stoic any more but I’m reasonably healthy and I’m coping okay with my family still being fundamentalists outside the occasional raising of voices, although my wife keeps telling me that I should “do the right thing” and divorce her.
Thinking back (just adding to the story), I remember a particular turning point. It was a dream.
I used to read the bible and try to figure out what it was like to be there as one of the people in the story. “What was that one thinking? How did they feel?” I had recently read Numbers 31:15 where Moses tells the Hebrews to kill all the women who were not virgins and all the young boys.
My first thought was, “How did they know whether the women were virgins or not? Did someone check?!? Wouldn’t that person have had to violate basic decency laws to do that?
When I slept though, I dreamt that I was the poor schmuck whose job it would be to kill the little boys… adolescents right down to little babies. How would I do it? Maybe with a club? Then they kept bringing them, dozens of them, and my arms burned sore. I was afraid that I’d have to start hitting them twice if I couldn’t make the first blow hard enough. The looks on their faces! I looked around in despair and saw on a nearby hillside a choir of Hebrew children singing, “Jesus loves the little children, All the little children of the world…”
I woke up screaming, “NOOOO!”
Yeah, me too. “Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury. I still remember how I found it by accident during a tour of the gradeschool library which was just a 3m x 3m room with shelves on three walls. “Just pick a book,” they said.
Hey, I found out how to get past all the mumbo jumbo at a funeral.
Be in charge of a two year old!
When the minister was praying or sermonizing, my granddaughter and I picked tiny wildflowers (it was a graveside service) and replanted them in little dirt patches around our feet. It kept her quiet and quite happy, and my mind off the nonsense being uttered. (We were standing behind the seated people in the tent as there were more than could be accomodated and I wanted to be able to exit with her if necessary.)
Of all the songs they played, one was sort of religious. It just so happened that my little one picked that time to stand on my feet and sway with me side-to-side like we were slow dancing. No one seemed to mind.
Of course, she didn’t understand why we were leaving without getting her uncle out of the box. She explained to me in the car that Uncle was going to fly into the sky with wings.
I told her “Okay, if you say so.” after a slight hesitation. Not my place to tell her otherwise.
I was told at the age of 8 or younger that there was an invisible god who loves us and can do anything. I accepted the idea without question.
At the age of about 13, I was given Protestant religious instruction, leading to baptism. It made little sense to me, but I tried to play along.
At the age of 17, in 1972, I met some Jesus freaks, and joined them. I still did not exactly understand anything, except that I was a part of a large group of people, beyond our little group.
Jesse Ventura once said that organized religion is for people who want safety in numbers.
In 1977 I got back with the same Protestant denomination I was baptised in.
In 1980 I joined the Roman Catholic church.
Sometime around 1999, I became an atheist.
The Bible stories are all parables, as best I can tell. They were apparently written by atheist philosophers.
For example, Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit. Their big mistake was learning about good and evil. The only way that could be a mistake would be if there is no such thing as good and evil.
This fits science, because science tells us nothing about any chunk of matter that is good or evil. Not tectonic plates, not storm systems. So if people are killed by hurricanes or earthquakes or serial killers, there is no evil at work, because there is no evil in the universe. The killer’s brain is the same as the tectonic plates. No evil.
By the way, a nitpick. I agree with the rest of you on spelling god with a small g.
But, as I just explained, the Bible is a treasure trove of wisdom, when each story is read as a parable. So, I like to use a big B when writing Bible.
And, after spending 20 years as a devout Catholic, and because we are swimming in Christians in the USA, and because Roman Catholics alone number well over one billion, I think it is wise to show some respect to Christians. I know, in the long run, they do more harm than good, and we need to fight them. But one strategy is to kill them with kindness. Write Christians. The term xtians rubs me the wrong way.
Anyway, whatever terms you use, keep up the good work, and keep the no faith.
Wow. All of the stories are pretty amazing. It’s nice to see how many of you, like me, became atheists at a young age and still are atheists 30 years later. I’m only 18/19, so my father still thinks that it’s a phase and my mother is just sad that I don’t believe. I had problems with depression when I was younger but I never believed in God and she always thought that if I did believe, maybe it would help me through my depression. I’m not angry with her though, I know it’s only a mother’s worry.
As for the depression, it turned out that I was just extremely unhappy in my environment. I’d been seeing a guy who was very abusive and made me unhappy with myself. After we broke up and I started at a different school and was seeing a therapist, I met a guy and started flirting with him. It was a lot different with him. He was blunt and honest and sincere. He was the first guy I’d ever met that was openly an asshole. After seeing a guy so abusive that seemed to always put a face on to everyone else, it was refreshing. After talking a while, we realized how much we had in common. We were both atheists from Catholic families. We started dating and honestly, I think he’s what really helped me through my depression. We’ve been together over 2 years now. While I was an atheist at a young age, I was still somewhat of a “weak” atheist. It wasn’t until I met my boyfriend and we openly discussed religion that I became a strong atheist. He pointed out something to me that for some reason I never thought of before. He said that he was in control of his own destiny and no one else was. It just struck me that someone could be completely free of religion’s confines. After that, I started being very open about my atheism and found out that my oldest sister and her husband are both agnostic. I also found out that my uncle is also an atheist. For many reasons, he is one of my favorite relatives despite that I have only seen him a few times. He’s a sociologist and my field of study is sociology too. That is only a coincidence though as I didn’t know it was his field of study until a while after I picked my major.
One of the things that probably helped me become an atheist is that I come from a family of highly intelligent people. Everyone has been to at least college, most have masters, and quite a few have doctorates. My father is a biochemist and my mother is an instructor at a college. I’m also the youngest of 5, so dinner-time conversation was always very mature, ranging from topics like science to philosophy to medicine to politics. We never discussed religion though as my father is a devout catholic, but the ability to question things was put in my head from a very young age. I was in elementary school when I started using logic and questioning. I think by the time I was in middle school I didn’t believe in God, but still believed in something. It wasn’t until high school when I started talking to different people that I found out what an atheist was and became one. Then I became a strong and open atheist after meeting my boyfriend. Now, everyone that knows me knows that I’m an atheist. I’m very open about it and I do enjoy discussing religion. My only problem is that I haven’t met other atheists (aside from my boyfriend) where I live. This saddens me, but I’m sure that once I am done with college and move elsewhere I will find more people like me.
Karen,
Your story about crying while being baptized reminded me of something. My boyfriend says that when he was baptized he peed in the holy water. He was a baby at the time of course.
I just found this website and am so happy. I can finally communicate with others who have a brain!
I’m the only one I know of in my family who is a ‘non-believer’. My sister is a devout baptist, go figure.
My husband is ok with this, but my kids (7, 10, 16) are not. They absolutely believe (hey, they’re kids). I don’t throw my non-belief on them, but they know. It’s difficult for me to talk to them about g– because I don’t want to lie or look like a hypocrite and say “yes, honey, if you do something bad you’ll go to hell and suffer the rest of your eternal life.” Bologna. There is no heaven or hell. It’s all up to you on what YOU make of your life.
Anyway, I’m curious to know if there are any holidays or ceremonies or “initiations” one goes though to affirm this new life? A life of truth, justice, and the American way?
epictetus
Welcome, I hope you enjoy sharing and conversing with the folks at the NGB. Having been a regular for a couple of years now, I can say that at times it can be inspiring, and at other times infuriating. I hope you stick around.