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Dr Shari
Skeptic Friend
135 Posts |
 Posted - 01/28/2002 : 01:09:20
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Do you remember the day you lost your faith or discovered you did not have the faith you were told you were supposed to have? I do to the tiniest detail. Being a doctor people might guess it was when something profound happened in my practice but it was something much less dramatic yet infinately more telling that happened.
As a child I was taken by my parents to a Lutheran Church, or more often just sent to Sunday School along with my siblings, every Sunday. The first Sunday of the month the children were allowed to spend the first half hour of the service with the adults in the large sanctuary where I would look in wonder at the stained glass windows and at least try and be interested in the sermon.
I was seven years old and was dressed in my finest Sunday clothes sitting proudly next to my mother who I remember was more interested touching up her lipstick and making sure her stocking seams were straight then in the service. It was Easter and the Pastor was telling the story of how the rock was rolled back from in front of the tomb and the body of Jesus was gone. GONE VANISHED
hmm...Amazing! That year I found out there was no Santa, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy and now I am supposed to believe that a dead guy just disappeared.
My young mind raced quickly through the stories of the miraculous things I had heard in Sunday School. Noahs Ark, burning bushes, and it all seemed so silly to me. Why in the world if a rabbit did not bring me colored eggs and a guy in a red suit did not come down chimneys was I supposed to believe the stories taught to me in church. The pictures I colored in the Sunday School Workbook were no more real then the "Night Before Christmas" book I had. "Away In A Manger" was just as nonsensical to me as "Here Comes Peter Cotton Tail". I remember sitting in that pew with my blue dress and petticoats on.My black Mary Jane shoes shined. Hair combed, teeth brushed and feeling lied to all over again. I never discussed it with my parents that day or for many years. I sat dutifully in Sunday School after that but felt that I was there because it was the polite thing you did on Sunday mornings but never again did I feel anything when we discussed Baby Jesus or the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
I tried several times over the years to get that feeling of innocent belief again. I almost in High School, because of my boyfriend, believed the New Age Bible he had given me but saw that what I was feeling was a need to please another person and not a personal reawakening of faith. When I finally told my father I was an atheist he just looked at me and said "No your not." No argument or attempt to prove me wrong. Just a statement that I did not know my own mind.
If someday I get the Calling or suddenly have a Revelation I will be the first person to jump up and admit I was wrong. If the Rapture my fundamentalist sister speaks of happens and I find myself left behind I will cry out "Alleuyah, Get Behind Me Satan " and mean every word. But until then even 42 years later I still just feel lied to.
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 04:48:30 [Permalink]
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I don't remember much about that time, but I don't think it was one day, but a long period of reading and thinking. My father said the same thing when at 16 I announced I was an atheist. He said that I was born a Presbyterian, and that's what I would continue to be. Of course, I didn't and I laughed the day that I found out Madalyn Murray O'Hair had been a Presbyterian. I live about a half hour away from Ashland College, which M. attended and which is owned by the Brethren Church.
In the years after that, I still thought that there must be something to the whole idea of gods and healings and psychic stuff, and tried different things. I always came back to atheism.
The last few years I investigated New Age stuff.
I rejected most of it because it was obvious crap, but some ideas seemed to have some merit, so I investigated those and found nothing. I ran into Quackwatch a couple of years ago on the web about the same time that a friend of mine bought thousands of dollars worth of bottles of colored water. That was when I realized that this wasn't funny anymore. I announced that I was a skeptic and an atheist shortly after that. I've finally rid myself of the idea that there be some basis in fact if so many people believe. I thought there mustbe something to it. There is nothing. People made up Jesus, they made up gods, they made up homeopathy, they made up all of it, and they put it up on a shelf and worship it as though it came from somewhere else.
Believing is an addiction, just like drugs or smoking or overeating and I lost the need for it entirely just a couple of years ago.
quote:
Do you remember the day you lost your faith or discovered you did not have the faith you were told you were supposed to have?
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 05:57:06 [Permalink]
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The moment itself was not attended by any dramatic trappings, but the road to it was.
I was the worst kind of believer (in my own estimation) because I knew I was being dishonest.
I remember knowing and understanding the myriad inconsistencies and silly stories associated with religion in general and Roman Catholicism in particular, at a very early age, but I assumed the fault was within me, so outwardly I remained a very good christian boy. Eventually, I stopped assuming I had fault but did not abandon my belief because I hadn't the courage to do so (Pascal and all that, plus 'what would momma think?').
Followed by years of mixed success and failure and near constant turmoil.
Until I sat down alone one day and decided it was time to stop being cowardly and simply admit that I knew what I knew and would no longer support the ridiculous. Not so coincidentally, I decided at the same instant to stop being terminally shy and unrealistically polite.
Voila! The veil lifted, the burden shifted, and I've been happier since.
One caveat in the form of admitting my one concession to cowardice. I do not deny my atheism to anyone, and sometimes volunteer it when it seems appropriate, but I have no plans of volunteering it to my mother, though I'll answer if asked. She knows I'm not devout and do not regularly attend mass (there are exceptions when I do attend), and I would bet she suspects I'm atheist and so has chosen not to ask me.
Ah, well. I didn't expect to be perfect just because I became honest.
My kids still love me. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 06:13:41 [Permalink]
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It's probably not cowardice, but that's for you to figure out. Since I went back and forth over the years, I did have a long talk with my mother about where I was a few months ago. I sort of broke the ice by having my little American Atheists desk clock in the living room, but she can't see very well, so I'm not sure if she knew from that.
quote:
One caveat in the form of admitting my one concession to cowardice. I do not deny my atheism to anyone, and sometimes volunteer it when it seems appropriate, but I have no plans of volunteering it to my mother, though I'll answer if asked. She knows I'm not devout and do not regularly attend mass (there are exceptions when I do attend), and I would bet she suspects I'm atheist and so has chosen not to ask me.
Ah, well. I didn't expect to be perfect just because I became honest.
My kids still love me.
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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steinhenge
Skeptic Friend
USA
69 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 06:53:19 [Permalink]
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I feel lucky to have avoided much of the parental discomfort that many others have had to deal with. As a child, my parents never tried to stear me towards any belief (even though they did, and still do, attend church regularly) and pretty much just left my beliefs up to me. When I was maybe seven, they asked whether or not I'd like to attend Sunday school. Since everyone else did it, I figured I'd give it a go. Only went once. When I realized that asking questions was less than encouraged I told my parents that I didn't want to go anymore and why. They had no problem with it.
Basically, my parents are an enigma to me. They obviously believe but are never pushy or preachy and they openly scorn much in the Christian world. Don't even get my mom started on the Pope....
It took me maybe fifteen years after my Sunday school experience to fully get the whole "supernatural" and/or "quackable" (quacktastic?) thing out of my system, but I've managed. Not that I bought into any of it, but I was much less credulous than I am now for a long time and I used to have so much more patience for people who do buy into that crap. Actually, it was reading Hoaglands' City on the Edge of Forever (for which Harlan Ellison should track him down, skin him and eat him) that started the great purge of my system. To paraphrase MST3K, that book made me "mad, mean-mad!" I'm a big space buff and to think that I had friends that bought into that junk just got to me.
"Oh good, cookies" |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 08:38:49 [Permalink]
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My family has never been big on church. I seldom went, even as a child. I'm not sure there ever was a defining moment for me.
It only takes one lookout mid-watch in the North Atlantic to realize that the Universe is much too grand to have been concieved by a mere, supreme being.
f
"They will take away my Darwin Fish only when they pry it from my cold, dead bumper!" |
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Donnie B.
Skeptic Friend
417 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 09:24:26 [Permalink]
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I'm not sure I ever really believed, deep down. But because of my situation, church (and church-related activities) were mandatory right up through high school.
I do recall one episode on the way to acknowledging my own lack of faith. One Sunday I was sitting at the very back of the sanctuary (my usual spot in those days... hmmm... as far from the action as I could get?) I was probably around 12. I had a sudden thought... wasn't it lucky that I was born into a family that practiced the "right" religion? After all, there were so many other faiths I might have been brought up in, and here I was, in the best one of all...
Then I did an internal double-take -- "Huh? What did I just say to myself?"
-- Donnie B.
Brian: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!" |
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James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 09:26:13 [Permalink]
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quote:
Do you remember the day you lost your faith or discovered you did not have the faith you were told you were supposed to have?
I guess I never really believed. My family was kinda like filthy's, in that we hardly ever went. Whenever I did go, it was usually with my Dad and I just gave everything the usual mouth treatment and I was always a bit, if not totally, uncomfortable while the pastor was speaking. I don't even remember going with my mother to church.
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." -Buddha |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 10:36:03 [Permalink]
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The more I get asked this question, the more I remember that kinda kicked me on that path. I asked questions during CCD classes. The priest didn't like that.
Pretty much thought something was wrong with me because I couldn't pay attention in church. My mind ran around my homework, the book I was reading, anything but where I was. So I tried to believe. Sang in the youth group during high school. But there were two defining moments for me. The one where during the homily the priest said that we had to pray that a woman who had just been diagnosed with cancer would understand that this was god's punishment for her. I walked out of the church in the middle of mass. The other, I had a problem and I sought counseling from a priest, I didn't like his answer, so I went looking in the bible and found he was right according to this book. I couldn't stomach the hypocracy of either sentiment. So I had to find answers elsewhere.
I didn't find them in religion. Haven't really found them yet and I may never find all my answers. But it took having something said that I just could not in any form believe to set me on the path to finding answers. It was probably two or three years after this that I decided I couldn't call myself a christian any longer and decided that belief in a god was irrelevent to my life.
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There is no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've known. Sagan |
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Badger
Skeptic Friend
Canada
257 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 14:42:25 [Permalink]
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Looks like most people here define "faith" as belief in Gawd, and Jeezus CHRIST!!.
Personally, I never had that faith. My parents weren't church (crutch?) goers and left it up to us kids to figure out for ourselves.
However, I'm still wrestling with faith in the "Is there some meaning to all this?" definition of it. Part of it is that for myself I would find it a bleak proposition if my little flash in the pan was all there was to my consciousness, and part is that I'm an engineer and so am continually searching for how this connects to that and what happens when the lever over there is pulled.
I'm not an atheist, but agnostic until furhter notice.
Just because we're hypnotized, that don't mean we can't dance. - Tonio K. |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 14:51:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
However, I'm still wrestling with faith in the "Is there some meaning to all this?" definition of it.
Would it not actually be up to you to attribute a meaning to your own life instead of buying a pre-fab one?
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Part of it is that for myself I would find it a bleak proposition if my little flash in the pan was all there was to my consciousness...
Bleak? Why bleak? How much more of a "flash" would it take to make you feel cheerier? Do you actually want "eternal" life? And if so, why?
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Xev
Skeptic Friend
USA
329 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 15:03:42 [Permalink]
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I didn't have religious parents, so I more or less wandered around in a state of comfortable agnosticism. But what knocked me off my fencepost was last September 11th (THAT one). I remember being slightly dazed, and just praying that the death toll would be low. 'Keep it down', over and over in my mind. Of course it wasn't, so I realized that the concept of a loving/caring God(s) is useless.
Xev-Come not between the creationist and his pseudoscience-Bellringer |
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Badger
Skeptic Friend
Canada
257 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 15:08:48 [Permalink]
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Good points, Slater.
Nope, it's not up to me to attribute meaning to my own life. I may think it has meaning but in reality, I might be a waste of skin. I'm referring here to people who think they're the center of the universe when really they're just windbags.
It's up to me to find out where I fit in, though. Thus the "what does it all mean?" If I know what it all means, I know where I fit in. So far, astronomy and physics are in the lead.
I would find it bleak to only have a few years of consciousness because there is so much to see, learn, enjoy, and do. Just one human lifetime is not enough to get everything done.
Yes, I'd like to live forever. I could then do everything here on earth, and then head off to the stars to see what there is to learn out there.
Therefore, the amount of flash I'd need to be satisfied is infinite. I choose the word "satisfied" consciously, as I wish to separate it from use of a word such as "happy" or "content". This is because I am content, yet questing for more. Every day is a good day, and I yearn for the next to come.
Just because we're hypnotized, that don't mean we can't dance. - Tonio K. |
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Rev. Tarthpeigust
New Member
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 15:34:08 [Permalink]
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I can't remember exactly when I lost my faith. To the best of my recollection, it was about 6 years ago when I was in 5th grade, after my mom got me a bible for an Easter present. My confidence in its accuracy declined steadily as I began reading it. I was never very religious; my parents didn't attend church regularly, but until that point I had always believed in god. I can remember one time when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade asking my dad how, if the dinosaurs lived millions of years before humans, everything was created in 6 days. He simply told me that he didn't know, and I think that played a very big part in developing my skepticism, the way he didn't tell me something was true just because that's what the churches said. I'm sure that is a rarity down here in the Bible Belt.
I've never felt a need or an urge to go back to believing in something, whether religion or New Age mumbo-jumbo. It is a strange feeling to be one of the very few, less than 10 people, I'm sure, in Smithville, Mississippi, to not believe in god. They still read the bible in class here and still have an invocation before the football games, and I often feel like an outsider. But I realize that just because everybody else believes something, that doesn't make it true, and I keep that in mind, even when confronted by the mindless robots.
An interesting thing happened to me just today. (I hope I'm not droning on too long) As I was walking into my 2nd period class, somebody asked what I was going to do when I get out of school. I told her in jest that I was going to be a rabbi because I honestly don't know yet. She didn't know what a rabbi was, and I explained it to her, which took a lot of the fun out of it. Then she asked me, "Seriously, what religion are you?" (Her parents are hardcore baptists) I borrowed a line from a poll question on this site and said, "Does my answer affect my chances at survival?" She looked at me with as much disdain as it's possible to bestow upon someone. I thought that was a telling example of how intolerant some religious folk can be. I guess that's really a story for another topic, but oh well. :-)
"I believe that the extraordinary should be pursued.
But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
--Carl Sagan |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 15:55:08 [Permalink]
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This is the key, in my mind. We people are taught that we're not enough as we are, that we need something else to give us worth. We need some daddy to approve. Regardless of whether or not you create gods to give your life meaning, it's you that decides whether or not your life has worth (meaning) as it is, or not, and no one else.
Create your own meaning, and then try to live it. Your life is not worth one dime more if it's an eternity, or fifteen minutes. Do what you want. If you want your lie to be longer, fine, then work to make it as long as you can while you're alive, but it won't give it one more dime's worth of meaning for it to be longer.
quote:
Nope, it's not up to me to attribute meaning to my own life.
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 15:55:54 [Permalink]
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Tarthpeiquest, are we supposed to believe that someone who writes this well is only in high school?
I don't think that you have any worries about what you are going to be. Whatever it is, you are going to be just fine.
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it.
Edited by - slater on 01/28/2002 15:58:32 |
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