Many Atheists on twitter and elsewhere have extensive backgrounds as Christians since birth.
Speaking only for myself, I had doubts about the veracity of Christianity starting around age 5 ½.
There was, even then, a cognitive disconnect between dogma I was being taught and reality that I could see and experience. Still, at 5 ½ one does what is expected of one by parents and other authoritative adults. I learned the dogma, memorized the prayers, went along to get along.
“I believe in one God… and all things visible and invisible..” is the part of the Creed I was forced to memorize that began my youthful skepticism.
Age 18, out from under my parents immediate influence, church things ceased to be part of my life. I simply had no firm belief, no compelling desire to maintain the facade of childhood.
Many years of just cruising through life passed, I grew in my profession as one does with experience, became a rather voracious reader, hated the imbecility of TV. My reading was primarily what I considered then and now as trash fiction, lots of detective novels, some SciFi. I’m reading instead of TV or movies, escapist stuff, suspended belief.
Then I discovered action adventure travel true stories, Travels With Charlie, Blue Highways, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (awful book, took four tries over ten years to complete it, Pirsig was an idiot), Cannibal Queen (where Coonts achieved what Pirsig set out to do, Coonts having no such goal). I’m reading real life now, digging it.
Moved along to Michener’s historical fiction where he follows the general sweep of history and major events, flushes things out creating personalities and dialog at a level that history rarely if ever records.
Now I’m liking history.
American History, the Revolution, oops, Tale of Two Cities slips in, The Civil War, First Immigrant (Native American) culture, Indian Wars/Genocide, WWII.
To this point I’m still more or less religiously indifferent.
Then came Biographies, Autobiographies. Read several, most now forgotten, Ansel Adams, Mark Twain and Tecumseh stand out.
I read several, back in the Library one day with no idea who to read about next, I stumbled across Darwin. Hmm though I, he’s that Evolution guy, huh. I’ll give him a go.
Mind, this was a biography, not an autobiography, not Evolution of Species, not Descent of Man, a biography.
Opened my eyes to a whole range of thought and science I had been oblivious to previously.
I started to THINK about what is really real, wonder about all the dogma I had learned as a youth.
But I still clung to a simple and basic belief in god, it was ingrained.
More years passed, the internet came along.
I watched the original Cosmos with/by Carl Sagan on YouTube. Not long after, the new Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson came along, I eagerly looked forward to each new episode as soon as FOX released them on-line.
Watched a lot of Nova ScienceNow on YouTube.
Found and watched too many debates between Atheists and/or Scientists against varieties of theists.
SCREAMED at my monitor watching Bill Nye Debate Ken Ham, screamed more every time I watched William Lane Craig lie like a used car salesman/MLM huckster debating anyone, he’s the same every time. Need a raincoat and hip waders to get ready to watch him, a long shower afterward.
Found Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Ayan Hirsi Ali, AronRa, Matt Dillahunty, Seth Andrews, many more doing debates, lectures, call ins.
I cried a good long time the second time I listened to Julia Sweeney’s journey, “Letting Go of God”.
I have a lot of doubt by now, still clinging to a little faith.
THEN, I started reading the bible.
All remaining shards of my faith were now irrevocably shattered.
I cheated a bit, started with Revelations which I can only describe as hallucinogeniclly inspired. Whether the writers were using cannabis, opiates, psilocybin or peyote I cannot say but all were known and readily available in the Middle East in ancient times. The Authors of Revelations were stoned like Hunter S. Thompson on an extended bender.
Well, Revelations was great fun to read and dismiss, time to get serious, start at the beginning.
I took notes at the start, listing all the immorality I came across, didn’t bother noting all the contradictions, there were just too many.
I took notes only through Genesis 30.
Only up to chapter 30, we’ve seen, passive aggressive manipulation, godly threats, intimidation, coercion, homicide, attempted homicide and infanticide, adultery, slavery, repeated lying, incest, genital mutilation including infants, voluntary servitude extended by double through lies and misrepresentation, mass murder, pimping and pandering, prostitution, multiple exceedingly cruel, unjust and unusual punishments for extremely petty offenses, polygamy, misogyny.
Throughout I find the god of the bible to have great power over one small corner of Earth, no awareness that any other part of the world exists, awareness only of the pedestrian, completely ignorant of anything on microscopic and cosmic scales, has an attitude comparable to an 8 to 11 year old boy having trouble with playground bullies and writes out his revenge fantasies.
I cannot, will not, absolutely refuse to worship the capricious cretin that is presented as god in the bible.
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Oh where was I back at the beginning, oh yeah.
Matt, Errol, if you are here trying to convert anyone back to christianity I suspect you’ll have little success.
If you are here wondering what makes atheists tick, a lot should already be apparent.
It’s a hard thing for us to avoid mockery on religion as we find it so very mock-able. I think this unfortunate because it’s a poor way to change hearts and minds.
Maybe you are here because you have some doubt gnawing at the veracity of your own faith. I hope you can see through the mockery, find yourself an enlightening path to rational thought.
I’m tiring here. Every thing I’ve written here brings another thought I’d like to put down but I’ve expounded rather long already.
I’ll leave with a partial Daniel Dennet quote of a powerful question that’s hard to pose, he does it poorly, I can do no better so;
“…there is no polite way of asking somebody: have you considered the possibility that your entire life has been devoted to a delusion? But that’s a good question to ask. Of course we should ask that question and of course it’s going to offend people…”
Matt, Errol, can you ponder that question? Admitting the possibility takes tremendous self reflection, it’s not easy. The reality based answers I’ve found are some of the most rewarding and liberating things ever in my life.
Life becomes amazing when you live life not for some alleged afterlife but life for the sake of the one life we know for certain we have.
The reward for having lived life well is having lived life well.
It seems to me to be a pitiable thing to live in fear of alleged damnation or greed for an alleged eternal reward.
The heart cannot embrace what the mind regards as nonsense.