I went through this strange period when I was a kid – probably around junior high – where I tried to force myself to believe in god. I started going to church with my friends. Growing up I was secretly skeptical and fearful. I thought maybe something was wrong with me. Why wasn’t I a Christian? Why didn’t I believe? I thought if I went to church enough, I would see what everyone else saw.
It didn’t work. It only led to feeling isolated and alone with some serious inner turmoil.
I could never deny my true feelings towards Christianity. Why would I put my faith into something that just doesn’t make sense? Even as a little kid I sensed things weren’t right. Going to church actually made me pretty uncomfortable.
I struggled for years trying to come up with a concept of a higher power. As a teenager, I decided that “science is how god works”. God makes things happen and science is how he does it. Deep down I always knew that science was real and god was at best murky. I tried so hard to make it make sense.
Finally, after a life-changing event in my early twenties, I became an atheist. It was freeing but I was also a little scared. I didn’t know what people would think.
It just amazes me how damaging religion really is. My family wasn’t even religious. We didn’t go to church like my friends did. However, I still feel scarred from the pain and confusion I felt growing up in a conservative area.
I’m sure many of you have a similar experience – the struggle of trying to make sense of something as ridiculous as religion. Sometimes I think that last-ditch effort is really just a push into atheism.
I’d love to hear about your experiences.
Nothing dramatic here. I found (USAian) “Sunday School” (read: child indoctrination) absurd and soon refused to attend, and that was that — to the point I didn’t even recognise the local church’s pastor (as far as I know, a good person) once when he came calling to our house for some reason or another. I (now) cannot recall any dramatic showdowns or anything, albeit I do recall that I found both the legend of Mr Noah and (with less specificity) astronomical assertions absurd — It presumably helped that, in addition to fascinated by dinosaurs as a child, I could read quite early, was good at maths, and also fascinated with astronomy (especially), as well as several other sciences. Almost certainly other factors as well (such as (but neither limited to nor this being, maybe, the most important), not, mostly, growing up in a religion-soaked area), but nothing dramatic.
I grew up a military brat and saw so many different religions and how they were practiced, but never believed any of them were true. My mother had all us kids in whatever flavor of Christianity was on the base and had children’s activities that meant free babysitting. We went to catechism and Vacation Bible School and Sunday School and whatever meant we were out of my mother’s hair. None of it stuck with me.
I didn’t really pay attention to religion until I was in college in the USA, where somehow I ended up with 3 fundagelical born-again Christians who really opened my eyes to the idiocy and hypocrisy those people embody.
My experience with early age religion boils down to even little kids know when they are being lied to. My mother was a former roman catholic (excommunicated for marrying my dad a non catholic) who decided her two older boys needed god in their life and she put us through bible school, sunday school, vacation bible school, catholic catechism classes, and attendance at varying methodist, lutheran, quaker, nazerene church she could get us to go to. But when you ask questions and get replies like ‘god works in mysterious ways’ or ‘there are some things men arent supposed to know the answer to’ the jig is up. By the time I reached my teens I wasnt a believer but didnt know atheism as thing until after I got out of the army at 22 and freely admitted my atheism. Now, after 45 years of examination I find any god claims lacking.
I went through this strange period when I was a kid … where I tried to force myself to believe in god. …It didn’t work.
There’s a saying I’ve heard often in the Pagan community: “You don’t choose your gods; your gods choose you.” Even if any or all of those gods are real, it doesn’t really seem like they want everyone to follow the same path and do and think the same things.
I think “Science is how god works” is the best rationalisation for goddism; the alternative is to repudiate the findings of science.
Of course, not all goddists do that.
[I am not being that snarky; ‘goddist’ is the literal transliterated (anglisised) version of ‘theist’. Less mystique, obs.]