Converted!
Offline I am slowly realising that my position may be uncommon.
I had parents that were academics. "Faith" was never an issue in my family.
Add to that a very powerful and very outspoken grandfather who absolutely HATED all things Christian - with a vengeance.
I have never been anything but atheist. It was simply never an issue. I have been raised to believe that the mere act of "believing" and being gullible about ideas and people's motives is the foundations of stupidity, no two ways about it. The freedoms I enjoyed as a child lead me to a life long interest in the "hard" sciences. I looked a little into various areas of faith and superstition during my formative teenage years, but I shied away from the "hippie" feeling of it all. I have never been able to accept the idea of clipping my own wings in an act of surrender to an idea.
However, other people have other experiences.
Faith and absurd beliefs have been forced onto them, often by the people whom they should trust the most; their parents.
I cannot help but think of this as abuse. Freedom of thinking means exactly that; freedom to make your own judgments.
I am appalled and disgusted, personally, by the relative commonality of what to me seems like sheer insanity.
But ten again, thisd is how the human being is. Grotesque, irrational, quarrelsome, narcissistic ... and stupid. Sorry.
So... my question is this: Were you ever "converted" into being a non-believer?
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)
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No. Being Norwegian, I did the standard going to church from about ages 8 to 15 in order to get confirmed. But my parents almost never went to church with me, and I never took the bible to be anything more than a collection of strange stories.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?
Firstly, yes it's child abuse. Tell a kid they have free choice but will be tortured for eternity if they don't go with the doctrine. Tell a kid that to live forever they have to first hate themselves with serious vengeance. Depending on your nature, I don't think it's easy to come back completely from a strong fundy upbringing given it is deconstructive at its core. It's hard to reverse a default position of such profound self deprecation.
My fundy brother despite all his goings on about free will had his kids reading a toddler bible when they were young - yes these things exist. And yes, his kids swallowed it whole. While the threats are veiled it's clear in this book that to be loved you have to believe. Not only that, the things that look good as cartoons including the garden of eden, jonah and the whale and noah's ark figure prominently - and these are the stupidest things in the whole bible.
I had a deconversion that was much like most conversions in that it took time and repetition to take complete hold. It was not a eureka moment. It's common for new christians to convert multiple times before the complete brainwash takes place. Gaia knows, when I was growng up I must have been converted/reaffirmed about 20 times. Every time I had a wank it was a backslide of epic proportions.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I wouldn't call it child abuse. I mean come on! most would call it raising your child. Was i ever deconverted? Well i did the stardard dabble in religion get con firmed and never go to church again. I dn't think I ever really believed. I don't really remember.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Forced on me. I asked too many questions and never felt satisfied by the lack of explanations, always ending in "faith". I wondered why "faith" was bad everywhere but religion. It seemed like a disconnect with reality around one thing.
Also, experience in different religious environments called more questions into play.
Then I learned about other world religions and the development of religion, and that pretty much sealed it for me.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
When I was growing up my parents took my siblings and me to church EVERY Sunday and when we moved to TX my mom became the music minister at the little "Baptist" church (we got kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention for allowing women to be deacons and gays to attend services) in which I was raised, pretty much. She still leads the songs and organizes the choir every Sunday at the same church. Everyone I knew was Xian. I had no reason to doubt my parents and I'm a very trusting person anyway, so I never even questioned it. I did my Bible study, I recited passages, I went to church camp, I prayed, I listened to Xian music... all the way through grade school and high school and my first few years of college (I ended up at a Baptist university in KY).
My deconversion was a process that lasted about a year, starting when I watched an internet movie called Zeitgeist. At the beginning of the movie it covered a loooooong list of deities that had similar background stories as Jesus, and I remember thinking, "That's kinda spooky." And then I felt kind of excited, kind of scared, and very confused. Then all that kind of faded into the background until I started attending University of Houston this past August. I was so stressed out and unused to living in the city and I was going crazy for all the traffic and homework and my stupid job and bills and I felt like I was going to fucking rip a new hole in every single person that crossed my path, and I struggled violently inside my own head with the idea that God just didn't give a rat's ass about me. I mean, that couldn't be right, could it? That's not what they told me my ENTIRE LIFE. But as far as I could see, what with all the shitty relationships I've been through and seemingly unattainable financial independence and now I can't seem to even get to fucking class on time, where the hell was the love, man??? And then I thought about something I remembered about Genesis. Didn't it say somewhere that God was pretty much just bored and created the universe to entertain himself? And didn't he just create Adam and Eve to keep him some damn company? But they do one wrong thing and suddenly they're not so special anymore, are they??? So then I thought I was an agnostic. I didn't know if God existed, because it didn't make sense to me anymore. But of course I couldn't talk to my family or friends about it, so I got on the internet, found this site, and the rest is... rather recent history.
Wow sorry for the rant. But yeah... if anything people have tried to KEEP me from deconverting.
I was raised in a fairly religious environment; at least I went to church every Sunday. In regards to religion and my childhood two things stand out in my memories. The think that stands out in my memory the most is fear. As a child, as far back as I can remember I remember being afraid of hell. I can’t remember who it was that first described hell to me, but I must have been fairly young, at most 8 years old. They didn’t describe a friendly version of hell to me either, they described the version with eternally burning flesh, mashing of teeth, and all that fun stuff. Some of my earliest memories are of a constant fear. I remember praying constantly, asking god into my heart over and over again because I was afraid I might have done it wrong. Sometimes this would go on for hours at a time. I also remember fear of my own thoughts because someone had of course told me that god knew everything including what I was thinking. A lot of my life was spent apologizing to god anytime a stray thought of mine led me to think anything I felt might offend him.
Another thing that stands out in my mind in regard to religion and my child hood is censorship. I wasn’t allowed to go near anything that related to magic in any way. I remember that I couldn’t watch the smurfs because they were magical. I also couldn’t watch the x-men for the same reason. I remember that my sister had a picture of a unicorn, and one night my mother snuck into her room while she was asleep and stole it. I was as home schooled for a number of years because my mother didn’t trust what they would teach us in public schools. For the same reason, when I did start going to public schools I was never allowed to take sexual education. I never learned about any of that stuff until I was in college.
In regards to how I converted into being a nonbeliever, it started off as a gradual process of moving farther and farther away from the church I grew up in. Then at some point I realized that if it was my choice I wouldn't want the god that was described to me as a child to exist. That seemed to be the final nail in the coffin of my faith.
beautiful girl like you should not have all those problems ill talk to the flying spaghetti monster for ya
j/k
i agree with clockcat response its similar to what i went thru
Not really.
My parents never really had any true belief. My dad has "a feeling there's something greater," but he can't ever say what that is. My mom, who's a biologist and a science teacher, has been an atheist as long as I've been alive.
When I was young, they trucked me off to church. Not because they believed, but because they thought it might be good for me.
Once when seeing a huge swath of sunlight breaking through the clouds, I said, "That's god talking to the world." My mom said, "No, it isn't. It's sunlight." I was four. It's one of my earliest memories (confirmed true by my mom).
I can't say I've ever believed. Even then, I was being more romantic than serious. It just seemed to me that something that beautiful would have to be god talking, if there was a god.
I've been an atheist well before the age of reason (commonly accepted as
.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
My family generally professes belief, but most of them are non-religious. My mom took us to a Methodist church for awhile. But that soon grew old, she quit, then we quit. I was the last one to quit going, not because I believed but because I sang in the children's choir and I loved singing.
When I was in junior high, my very best friend was a preacher's kid - Foursquare Gospel. Wow. I was amazed at what they taught and at the whooping and hollering and speaking in tongues. It sure wasn't like the Methodists! But I stayed because of my friend. Her dad asked for a larger church as this one was so small they were literally eating plain boiled rice three times a day. After they left, the new preacher and his wife were on Social Security, so a small congregation was okay. But by then, I was asking too many questions - including most memorably - Satan was going to leap out of the cards when I'm playing solitaire at home by myself? And so I quit.
Then, in my mid-twenties, a friend and I were tired of kids and tired of husbands too tired to party. So we joined Base Chapel (we were living on a military base). I got very involved - adult bible study, picnics and potlucks, even got myself baptized Lutheran. Hey-Lutheranism is the ultimate answer of Pascal's wager. Once you are baptized, you are in a state of grace and WILL go to heaven regardless of subsequent sins. At least, that's what I understood. But then, we moved. And I started to have too many questions. Why can't I find a church I like? Why can't I believe this stuff anymore? What is wrong with me? (I am always to ready to believe it is my lack, not something lacking in others.)
And then my youngest son was diagnosed with learning disabilities. He was six years old, sitting at the kitchen table. He had been working on his homework steadily since he got home from school, he was barely half way done, and it was after 9 pm. He knows he is different from the other kids. And he was crying because he can not get his work done. That was it for me. That LOUSY, NO-GOOD, S.O.B. OF A FREAKING GOD IS SUPPOSED TO BE ALL-BENEVOLENT? THEN WHY THE HELL DOESN'T HE HELP MY SON WHO IS TRYING SO HARD TO BE A GOOD CHILD? Sigh, and it isn't only my child, there are millions--dying of preventable diseases, dying when raped by adults, dying from lack of food or shelter, dying from wars and natural disasters. And this is his plan? If he wants them in his heaven at such a young age, why does he have to torture them first? Nope. Won't believe. Up his with a rubber hose. And when I am asked what I will say to god when I die by the fundy types - that is what I tell them. I'll tell god to put it where the sun don't shine and where is the down escalator?
Funny. I was never afraid of hell, even as a child. What freaked me were the descriptions of heaven. You mean you just sit around all day singing to god? Boorrrrriiiiinnnnnng.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
shudder...let me ask you something. you can actually be helpful because you seem to have deprogrammed from the same kind of christendom i ran around in: new, teenage, "cool" christianity, with wwjd bracelets and thorny cross bicep tatoos for the "tough guys," and lots of hugging and calling each other "bro," and "worship leaders" with acoustic guitars trying to sound like jack johnson on jesus and picking up chicks left and right (even though it's "forbidden" ), and everybody listening to bebo norman and jennifer knapp and justin mcroberts--cargo shorts and baseball caps and soul patches EVERYWHERE!
so i have to ask you: did you really like christian music? i mean, did you think it was good music? because even during my most evangelical period, i couldn't stand the shit. i even tried forcing myself to like it but ironically enough my mind would not allow that level of self-delusion. i mean, to be honest, i hated the whole modern teenage/college-age christian culture (what i tend to call the "bros-without-beers" culture) but i absolutely loathed the music. i couldn't help telling this to a few of the guys i hung around with and they sort of looked at me as if i had just said something utterly incomprehensible. i especially hated "praise and worship" sing-along times and i always felt contempt for the people raising their hands in the air as if they were channeling jesus or something.
please tell me, honestly, did you like it, or did you listen to it--even delude yourself into liking it--out of a sense of duty? the last tatters of my faith in humanity might hang on your answer.
oh christ, it wasn't southern baptist in louisville, was it?
no, it was a glorious rant! as you can see, i often utilize the rant myself, and i can totally relate to your story. the "cool" christian culture i described might do less psychological damage to its members than the batshit scary hellfire-and-brimstone fundies, but i think they actually do a better job retaining their members. fundy kids often grow up hating their parents and social circles and can't wait to break free. "cool" christian groups--e.g., campus crusade for christ, baptist student union, intervarsity fellowship, young life, fellowship of christian athletes, etc.--have discovered a technique no fear of hellfire can match: peer pressure and suffocating love. they channel you into a world full of beautiful people and they accept you as one of their own!
they also engineer periodic events--"retreats," "conferences," etc.--designed to produce intense positive emotions and thus leave you with a desire to return to those emotions--and of course, only they know how to get you back. they basically hook you on your own endorphines. it's like returning to the fucking womb. everything is warm and fuzzy. the only problem is, they lose you if they let you go, because it's cold outside the womb and you end up feeling like you were tricked. once you're no longer surrounded by "disciplers" and "small group bible studies" and "huddles" and "prayer times," the warm-and-fuzzy effect starts to wear off, and the belief that was so dependent upon it wears off too.
THEN you finally start to realize that underneath all the fuzziness there was a lot of passive-aggressiveness, manipulation, and often just fucking sick and evil psychological control. the only reason i never became really bitter was because i was a little too clever: i enjoyed the warmth but i also saw the manipulation behind it and set up appropriate defenses. of course, this meant the group only halfway accepted me and i was considered kind of a black sheep, thus the warmth was never too warm towards me. looking back, i'm glad of that.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
That sounds oxymoronic... but I guess I'd stomp my hoof if you mean such things as this:
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)
http://www.kinkspace.com
no, holy fuck, man, this is the shit! but it was very rarely called "christian" music. it was generally known as "gospel" or "sacred" music and i'm a HUGE fan of this stuff.
no, what is called "christian" music, or sometimes "contemporary" christian, is a musically inept, steaming pile of shit, usually masquerading as pop or rock, but also hip-hop and even all types of metal or punk. it should be classified as a human rights violation.
in honor of the good shit, i can't help but post my all-time favorite yet again:
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I know this may destroy my athiest street cred but there were a few christian bands and 'christian sympathetic bands' which I thought were musically talented. Of course what they were singing about was complete and utter.... how do you say it in your language? BULLSHIT
Yeah I was down with da "G-O-D".... so I know all about the hipster Jesus....
If you haven't seen "Saved" you should rent it immediately... it will give you flashbacks if you know much about christian
youth ministries, etc. You'll laugh and you'll facepalm and cringe.
"Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such."
Homer Simpson
I've always been partial to *I don't know how to love him* from Jesus Christ superstar, and *day by day* from Godspel. I like the music but not the sentiment.
My favorite piece of music however is still *Nessum Dorma* {"you don't know my name"} and when Pavaroti sings I am ready to roll over; light up; and watch Letterman.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Nekromantix may not actually be Christians (even though they have a cross-bass) but it is still the shit.
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)
http://www.kinkspace.com
That is goood shit. I also like Odetta - I saw her last concert here in Portland. And I cried. Still lovely even though she was having problems breathing.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
I am a bit different as well.
When I was young, I "believed;" I use the word in quotes, because in retrospect I had no idea what it actually meant. In elementary school, I was reading at an unusually high level which presented the following problem: I actually read the bible...multiple times. To my mind, a significant problem arose when I would question my parents about the more horrific passages; the result was typically unequivocal: you'll understand when you're older.
Yet when we played "bible trivia" I consistently beat them without significant effort- my knowledge of the text was significantly higher than that of persons thrice my age; this obviously did not sit well with me.
Here I was, a young man, who was told that I didn't "understand" some of the more blatant passages, yet at the same time I was told that that the bible was the literal word of god. Hmm...
As a few posters have mentioned, I went through a "cool" phase when jesus was the proverbial shiz-nid and non-believers were simply "losers." One event, however, changed a lot of things: the owner of a xian camp would not hire me as a counselor since he didn't think my appearance was "what we wanted to communicate about christianity."
You see, I had long hair and wore earrings.
I began to realize that xians had not cornered the market on morality. Instead, they represented an insular group of opinionated (yet often remarkably uneducated) people whose hypocrisy in daily life was exactly the same type of sin so often railed against on sunday mornings. In short, I began to realize that the religion was a fraud. As such, it allowed me to examine my own understanding of the universe; I would think the result is rather obvious.
It did not take a "deconversion" per se, neither did it take a particularly traumatic event. Rather, it took one man acting in a fairly standardized format to precipitate the transformation of a questioning attitude born in younger years due to the ignorance of others into a full-blown self-inquiry.
The rest, as they say, is history...
I was converted into non-belief twice. My mom happened to bring me to church for the first time when I was about 8, so I naturally took the religion seriously and assumed it was true so that I could learn to be a good little boy for my single parent mother. I then attended a christian school for a year where I continued to have all sorts of questions and curiosities about this God concept that none of the other kids or adults cared about. By the end of the first year I chose to call myself an atheist because the school's description of such sounded like what I had determined from examining the information they taught. The final decision was determined by the realization that faith is arbitrary, yet this God judges people as being bad for being incorrect. My childish honesty which believed in Santa Clause longer than most couldn't sit with this idea. I was then very conflicted with my mother from that day on because she never had the capacity to think so in depth about anything.
Later in my teens I was consumed with a desire for friends in my community and gave myself a longstanding what if clause for going to youth groups. By the age of 23, I started going to college for the first time and found out many of the lies that public school taught about sex and history to cover up religious pretexts. Here I found extensions to my original clause for leaving religion as a child. God judges wrongfully for being naturally gay, for questioning, for trusting anthropology and science, and as my what if clause did include the idea that God might somehow not have meant that He was judging these things and that such was subject to interpretation, I finally let go for good when I realized that this God also did nothing, absolutely nothing, to try and prevent against these otherwise moral misunderstandings. Today I say good riddance, because Christianity was really turning me into an ass.
Haha I'll be honest some of it I did enjoy, but the vast majority was indeed a pile of poo. I most liked the classical hymns we sang during services. Ours was not exactly one of those "new-age" churches with the live rock band playing the same three chords for an hour and a half. I've been to those churches and never much saw the appeal. I also enjoyed when we sang Handel's Messiah when I was in the university Chorus (I was a music major at the time). Of course, my taste in music might be a bit difficult to appease anyway. Both my parents have earned PhD's in that particular subject and music has always been a very large part of my upbringing.
No, it was Campbellsville University in Campbellsville Kentucky. I went there for their music school. And also because UT Austin was too full of mediocre rich kids to accept me.
Yeah I did enjoy the warm fuzzy feelings I got from being around other people who agreed with me. But I drifted away from it because I got into a relationship with a guy who was pretty emotionally abusive and I was too busy trying to please him all the time to worry about, you know, HAVING FRIENDS. After that I guess I've kind of had a hard time giving all of myself to any one thing or person. Maybe my deconversion began earlier than I thought....
then we're cool. i'm a fan of old-school hymns as well, and handel definitely gets a big thumbs up from me. i also love the old styles of american church music, like sacred harp singing and old baptist singing (call-and-response, or what the old-timers call "lining out" or "wording out" a hymn). i also like eastern orthodox choirs which, unlike roman catholic choirs, often utilize wonderful bass and lower baritone harmonies. i got the chance to hear a couple when i was in macedonia a few years ago.
i'm a self-taught musician from a family of self-taught musicians. none of us can read a note. i play harmonica and can figure out pretty much anything with strings, unless it requires a bow. i make a little money with my band, as well as a lot of praise, so i guess i'm doing something right.
i've had mixed experiences with music majors. i met a lot of them in college and usually they were either really nice guys who didn't flaunt it or total stuck-up pricks who looked down on me for not knowing theory. nine times out of ten, however, i was much better at praxis than the pricks. as for the nice guys, we usually learned from each other: sometimes i was technically better, sometimes they were, but when nobody has chips on their shoulders it doesn't matter.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
to add to the wonderful music here, here are the two grand-dames of american music: sara and maybelle carter.
they do two songs, one secular and one sacred. johnny cash joins them on the sacred number.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I love these threads when they pop up.
I've condensed my 'story' so that I don't get tl;dr.
A 'creation scientist' tried to tell the assembled children at Hanging Rock christian Academy summer camp that dinosaurs and man walked the earth at the same time. I was the only kid that laughed out of about 400. However, I never heard or read the word 'atheist' until I was 17. I had been one for eight years before I knew what one was.
Of the many adjectives selected to modify the word atheist, I am partial to either 'fundamentalist' or 'unapologetic'.
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists.
Yeah I know.... but I just can't help myself...
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)
http://www.kinkspace.com
I've always been jealous of people with natural musical skills. I mean, I can sing and kinda-sorta play the piano and the clarinet, but in all honesty just because I took lessons and several years of theory classes doesn't mean I understand it any better. My "singer's pitch" (as opposed to "perfect pitch"
is no match for my sister's natural harmonizing abilities. *sigh* Oh well. Nobody in my family can draw as well as I can, so BOOYA!
And yes, a lot of music majors (especially vocal majors, for some reason) have some kind of superiority complex that is often not even justified by a reasonable amount of technical ability. *shrugs* Combine that with the already holier-than-thou attitude of a lot of your favorite Xians and you get the environment in which I was immersed for three years.
Any chance of a photo from this period doing time as avatar, Unrepentant?
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Oh, yes please!!! I would pay money to see that photo!
Was never religious, but I definitely sympathize with this. It always pissed me off when people would tell me I'd understand something when I was older, or worse, that I was too young to understand. It always seemed like a cop out. Now that I *am* older, I realize that I was right; it *was* a cop-out. That pisses me off even more.
People should be honest with kids, and just admit, "I don't know." I think there's a taboo on those words, or something. People are ashamed of their ignorance, when they shouldn't be. If we were honest with kids when we can't explain something because we don't know, then those kids will get the message that there's nothing wrong with not knowing. Realizing that you don't know something is the first step in learning about it.
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this
Thankfully (for the benefit of humanity in general), the aforementioned pictures pre-date the universal digital age; as such, you Will have to do with my current, arrogant, bemused, and slightly off-kilter picture. If it is any consolation, I have managed to grow my bangs below my chin at this point for the reason that describes the majority of my actions: just to keep the hoi poloi guessing!
UE
As I mentioned to AE, to track down and digitize the forgotten images of my natural debauchery and Epicurean tastes would require me to dust off my abacus as well as oil my slide rule in order to calculate your fee
.
Nevertheless, I will someday submit an avatar that is a bit closer to my present appearance (the current photo is year old)- replete with Einstein-like shag and a pocket protector!!!
UE
Your phrase "realizing that you don't know something is the first step in learning about it" is particularly prescient in our society: to wit, many people have opinions, but few have the knowledge to back up their suppositions and outright fallacies. It is a sad note on our world that the profane and ridiculous of our species are given the most overt platform while the intellectual is relegated to be the recipient of pat phrases and idiotic aphorisms. We dance around the inevitable day in and out, but the fact remains: coerced religious indoctrination is tantamount to child abuse, to describe it as anything other is to subscribe to euphemistic descriptions of a mental holocaust.
UE
This is true. Not surprisingly, a lot of kids get around the issue by accepting the doctrine and thinking no more about it. I know quite a few minister's families and while almost all the kids love jesus there is a leavening of those who think he is an arsehole and his teachings a crock of shit. I was talking to a fellow minister's kid a while ago at a party and he said he was not a christian because god was a f****** C***.
The hidden implication of this is that the unbelieving child has trouble getting free of god by rational means. Brainwashed to believe from a very young age, there is inevitably a parallel universe in the indoctrinated person's head in which there's always a god.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I haven't been an atheist long, so I guess it's normal, but I do still look up at the sky sometimes, wanting to tell God how shitty things are around here but knowing that there's nobody there. And I'm not really comfortable talking to actual people about a lot of things, so it's incredibly lonely just sitting and wishing I could be God for a day and fix everything.
i can relate to this. this is precisely one of the areas where studying zen has helped me the most. the basic idea is, "beneath it all there is nothing, and that is the coolest fucking thing ever."
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
If I ruled the world, it would be perfect. But I don't. And I can't fix everything, or much of nothing. Some days it hurts really bad and most days I fix what I can. Focus on what you can fix, do what you can, don't let yourself burn out, realize that caring for one another has nothing to do with religion. No need to be lonely, come tell us.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
this reminds me of one of my least favorite movies of all time, bruce almighty. besides the fact that it was just a shitty movie to begin with, i hated the whole feel-good theistic messages: you shouldn't judge how bad the world is because it would be really hard being god.
the whole film i just couldn't help thinking, "no...no, it wouldn't."
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
This is a great thread! I haven't had time to read through everything but Gallowsbait's experiences mirror many of my own. Every Thursday night was roller-skating to Christian Rock bands like Petra, David Meece and Amy Grant. And to be honest...yeah, I did enjoy it to a certain extent. I also enjoyed the hymn singing at my church (one of the only things I truly DID enjoy), as well as singing in large choirs that performed the likes of Handel's Messiah. There is some awe-inspiring music there. The Mennos are know for their four-part harmonies and they live up to it admirably. So, yeah...I enjoyed it. Did it REALLY have anything to do with my faith? No. And part of me always questioned the importance of having EVERY song revolve around Jesus. I mean, really. Isn't there more to life? But in a true Christian environment...the answer to that is NO.
OH, and btw...I, too was shocked--SHOCKED I tell you to hear when AMy Grant left Christian music to persue other, more lucrative interests.
And I, too, went to the youth conventions and felt those warm fuzzies. I listened to Tony Campolo speak and stood with EVERY ONE Of the thousand or so teenagers who stood when he called upon us to renew our faith, and our commitment to God. And, yeah...even then...even at the moment that I stood I knew it was a sham. I was doing it because everybody else was standing up, waving their arms and doing it. It's a mass-mania mentality. And that's what these Christian Youth conventions are all about.
I still have connections to our old church through family and must endure hearing about all the "fund raising" that the youth do in order to raise money to go to these conventions. And I always grate my teeth in silent, seething rage at it. If they were, at the very least, raising money to go out and feed soup to the homeless or distribute blankets, THEN maybe I could see my way clear to support it. But the fact that people get tax breaks for supporting teenagers to travel around and party under the guise of Christian Education is such a farce. It pisses me off no end.