I suppose my journey to atheism started with spirituality. When I was a kid, I attended a Unitarian Universalist church in Seattle. We had both a Solstice and a Christmas pageant, celebrated Easter and the Equinox. My parents sought not to force an ideology upon me, but to expose me to many traditions so that I could piece together my own collage of beliefs. I remember one day, standing in my living room, when someone inquired as to my religion. Bewildered, I said “I don’t know…” and turned to my mother, who replied “Good.” When my sisters were born, though, our house and traditions were suddenly too small.
We moved to a cohousing community about half an hour away when I was nine or ten, and my father moved back to Seattle soon afterward. He was and is a very scientifically minded person, fascinated with the acquisition of any kind of knowledge he can get his hands on, and I believe his transition to atheism came soon after my parents split. I began attending a New Thought church with my mother (and later my stepfather). In this place, I was taught that god is just a word for some spiritual thingy that makes up everything, a person’s natural state is perfection, that our thoughts affect what happens to us, and that heaven and hell are merely states of mind. After a while, though, I became disenchanted with that fat box of joy. They started asking people to tithe after every service. They acquired a new TV spot, associated themselves with Deepak Chopra, and built a new “celebration hall” with the money they constantly milked their audience for…. The average wealth of the people attending rose visibly, and not because the church was making anyone richer. Our old holding-hands-during songs tradition was abolished without a word. Not to mention the fact that we were building ugly new buildings instead of, say, helping people through devastating world crises. Attached to my previous participation in the music program and to the friends I’d made there, I dangled on for a little while before I gave up.
As I began my college career last year, I discovered my fascination with anthropology and psychology; the reasons people are how we are, and how we perceive the world around us. And in the light of my recent split from the New Thought movement, and the insight I was being given into humanity, I turned my questioning nature upon my own beliefs. I’d read Pharyngula before, and was already better versed in biology and the scientific method than most people my age, but had held tightly to my vague, earthy spirituality. Under closer scrutiny, I was shocked at my conclusion:
None of the important values I was holding onto and associated with spirituality- self-fulfilling prophecy (a well-known psychological phenomenon), respect for life, empathy, getting to know oneself- needed to be assigned to any sort of supernatural being or force. There was just no reason I had to believe something quite frankly silly to be a whole, happy person living on a fascinating speck in a vast and astounding universe.
So I did. And now I’m an atheist.
Natasha Krasle
United States
…and now I´m an atheist. Good for you.
It is interesting to me that many of these essays show someone who started out with a religious belief, and as they grew older, finally reasoned it out and rejected it. This would indicate that as one matures and begins thinking for themselves, they start to realize how silly this god-thing is. But that isn’t the case.
There are people who never give up the god-thing, and they would say that they are the ones thinking for themselves. And there are people who are not indoctrinated into religion when they are young, but grow to accept it as they age.
So, it isn’t so obvious who is the ‘thinking man’ and who is the deluded person. Each side would take that they are the former, and not the latter.
Well, since the atheists aren’t the ones believing in the thing with no evidence, I’d say they were the thinking ones.
Some people never give up the god thing because they’re either too lazy to think, or too invested in the community they are part of.
Those who ‘find god’ later in life. Not sure. Possibly they’re looking for a community to fit into. Possibly they are scared by life’s complexities and want simpler answers and someone else to do their thinking for them. Some conversions are due to their loving someone who is strongly religious and not wanting to give them up.
@ 3
“Some conversions are due to their loving someone who is strongly religious and not wanting to give them up.”
Indeed, our first conversion, when born into a religious family, is due to loving our parents and not wanting to either give them up or let them down…
Later in life, if you fall head over heels in love with someone deeply religious, the default used to always be “you convert” because it´s so important for the other person… and their family.
I would say, one approach is say “what the heck, if s/he (they) want this, I´ll just do it”. Or, the other approach, what if you play hard to get and expect hir to “convert” to atheism
@4
Not a problem for me personally. I appear to be non-limerant so I’m not likely to become a hypocrite to keep somebody as a partner. Because that is what it would involve, pretending to believe in something that I didn’t.
@5 WTF with the Tralalalaing?
PZ! Serial spammer in this thread! Is killfile on username or something else? Because I’m having to killfile each instance.
It is amazing how all of us are determined to get right with god even as we cast him off. When I cast off formal religion I was still determined to find an allegorical place for god. First god was the name given to the mystery of the unknown. When that didn’t work I tried seeing god as the representation of ultimate goodness. Then I tried mother nature. In time I guess all of us do reach that final conclusion. God is another name given to B.S.
Von Frundsberg served the Austrian Hapsburgs, through a number of campaigns, the other reference I can find for him refers to the Waffen SS’s 10th Panzer division being named after him, not sure what relevance if any this would have to any declaration of “why I am an athiest”
According to someone in another thread it’s most likely someone called ‘Chris’ who may be spamming via Tor. Why they are doing this since as far as is known Chris isn’t banned is unknown. I wonder which takes more time. Them spamming, or me clicking the ‘kill’ link thanks to my greasemonkey script.
That has a name. It is called hormonal conversion.
It doesn’t look like a good idea to me at all. What is the point of being with someone if you can’t be yourself? And just how do you force yourself to believe in silly things? Hammer to the head, waterboarding yourself, dropping weights on your toes?
Does anyone know of any research on whether some denominations are easier to mentally shed than others? Natasha’s experience seem downright smooth sailing compared to some.
No idea myeck. It may be partly due to how much of your social surroundings are filled with it. So family, plus the children you are allowed to hang around with, and so forth. The more you are surrounded by those who believe, the harder it may be to give up, especially if the surrounding people are not overtly crappy to you.
This is a problem. There was a serial spammer here, dumping large quantities of irrelevant German song lyrics, which I’ve since deleted wholesale. That IP address has been banned.
Now the new problem: the only other person on the blog associated with that IP previously was ahs, aka strange gods before me. Are you using an anonymizer, ahs?
It looks like I’m going to have to require comment registration soon to block this kind of petty attempt to drown out comments here. Brace yourselves: I’ll probably switch it on over the thanksgiving break this coming weekend.
Ariaflame:
I think this is key. It seems the ease with which you might shed religious belief is inversely proportional to the blowback you’ll receive from family and friends.
This means there may be entire churches in which nobody really believes, but everyone keeps on pretending, because they believe everyone else believes.
But all that’s just a guess.
Honestly, PZ, I think the only way you’re going to get rid of the trolls is to start forcing the use of real names around here.
I’m impressed by how many of the Pharyngulites came out of non-traditional religions and versions of God. It’s dreary hearing the constant refrain from critics of atheism that atheists must only know about the fundamentalist God and “they don’t believe in that God either.” Punitive Old Man in the Sky with a Beard? Ah, if only we atheists were aware of the fuzzy transcendent numinous mystical new-agey feel-good creative-force consciousness-fields science-friendly God THEN all our objections would just melt away.
Theists underestimate how wide our backgrounds are.
PZ
You should clean up the Pharyngula sells out thread, too.
Right, because a troll wouldn’t think to pick a name out of a phone book.
Or do you think PZ has the time to start on a series of home visits?
Forcing the use of real names? How the heck do you do that? Ask for a drivers license or passport before you’re allowed to comment?
I will instead impose a registration system that takes a little effort to register, but allows you to register under any pseudonym you desire. Pseudonyms are not a problem. Assholes who trash sites with spam are.
Demand Facebook credentials or similar.
Does this mean we-who-are-registered will need to register again?
Sorry if that’s a stupid question.
I rarely understand what is going on in my computer.
Not so good for those of us who don’t use Facebook, or whose Facebook access is blocked during the day while logged into the work network.
I do not Book Face, and I don’t intend to start.
What baffles me is why all adults do not take the same logical path. Christians embrace Santa Claus only to realize it is a story/myth, but they never seem to apply the same logic to their god. Same thing happens with the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny…etc. Christians quickly dismiss ancient Greek and Roman religions as mythology, but lack the ability to see stories/fables in their bible.
I am new to the non-believing world as well. These posts stating why you and the others are atheist and the path taken to be able to speak clearly on the matter have been extremely helpful to me. I thank you for posting. I hope to add my story to the mix eventually. For now, I am mostly reading and learning how to eloquently state my position of non-belief. How to deal with christian loved ones (mom, dad sister, close friends) is still a challenge to me. Though I guess many of the people close enough to me (those who are Facebook friends with me) should at least get the hint. My religion stated on Facebook is E=mc2.
OK, much is clarified. I tuned out this “Chris” bozo on the “Pharyngula sells out” thread since he was clearly demented and not very bright, but now it’s clear who the guilty party is. ALL of his comments have been burned to the ground. He’s banned forever.
Also, I’m on Facebook and the only thing true in my profile is an email address.
What the fuck is it with the Real Namers™? Was there a recent convention?
Fittingly, in another thread, ahs ॐ just posted a link to a pertinent essay on this very topic.
What a fucking douchenozzle. Given his commitment to trolling, I’ll wager we won’t have seen the last of him. He’ll turn out to be another Wally Smith, or other such waste of skin.
I don’t think real names would be that effective or helpful. For example, if you google “Erulóra Maikalambe”, you see only things related to me. Actually, you probably don’t even need to include Maikalambe for that to work. But, if you google my real name, you see nothing about me, but stuff about people I’ve never met. Because it turns out sometimes there’s more than one person with the same name. Whodathunkit?
Yes. If you need more information about this one, I can email you. But as for technical advice, there isn’t much more to say; enabling WordPress registration is the best solution.
G.L. @ 16
Much time at this blog is spent discussing kooks. And dealing with kooks, like the subject of this thread.
Yeah, let’s give ’em our real names.
Brilliant!
Wait. There’s a Facebook that doesn’t have trolls? Is that, like, a special pay version?
Uh oh. Better not give PZ ideas.
@Kamaka: If anything, there’s a form of trolling that involves using the real names of other people.
My phony real name is “Monte Grumwald.”
Damn, I almost had the song lyrics memorized.
Thanks, Natasha.
as for the “Real Name” idea : anyone can make up any kind of completely false but very detailed identity, and register it on facebook, google+ or whattahellsever.
Trolls are just attention-seeking misfits. Even when talking about banning them or ignoring them, we´re still talking about them.
Back to Natasha. Thanks for your post!
So, it isn’t so obvious who is the ‘thinking man’ and who is the deluded person.
yes it is.
one CLAIMS to have reasoned to maintain their faith, but you damn well know that on examination, those claims are inevitably and obviously false.
thus, it actually IS quite obvious which are suffering from delusions.
Christians embrace Santa Claus only to realize it is a story/myth, but they never seem to apply the same logic to their god.
that’s because there hasn’t been an official religion created out of Santa Claus to give it a false sense of deference as a bad idea.
It will take several more generations for people to realize that yes, indeed, there in fact IS no difference between Santa and Yahweh.