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Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 6:55:55 PM

LadyAngelika

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So I was thinking earlier when answering OrpheusAgonistes's Which religious beliefs still influence you? thread about what was the pivotal moment for me seriously considering atheism.

For me, it was "Dear God", a song by XTC on their 1986 album Skylarking. I'll quote this Wikipedia passage as it's quite the excellent interpretation:

The lyrics are addressed to God, and vividly describing the range of human suffering, which the narrator attributes to God. The singers conclude every verse with the line "I can't believe in you." Despite the prayer-like quality, the lyrics strongly imply doubt about God's benevolence ("The wars you bring, the babes you drown, those lost at sea and never found."), His/Her existence ("Did you make mankind after we made you?"), and the value of the Bible as God's word ("Us crazy humans wrote it [...] Still believin' that junk is true / well, I know it ain't and so do you").

The song riled believers because of its anti-God sentiment which might be interpreted as either dystheism or atheism. In the UK, when the song was originally released as a single many record shops refused to stock the track, fearing a religious backlash.

Now I was 14 when this song came out and I remembered playing it on my walkman and never on my stereo because I was afraid of what my parents might think of the lyrics, especially my mother, a catholic. But it lit up all sort of questions and concerns for me.

Today my atheism is much more benevolent and personal, not angry at all. But is interesting to go back to the route of this. In the end, with all the influence music has had on my life, I'm not surprised it was a song.

Can you identify a pivotal moment for you?

- LA

< Message edited by LadyAngelika -- 5/17/2010 6:56:11 PM >

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 7:11:33 PM

TheHeretic

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When I discovered that saying "there is no god," was a great way to royally piss off Mom and some of the relatives.

I only stayed an atheist for a few years, so I might not qualify for your question, though.

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 7:17:49 PM

Musicmystery

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Ex cathedra in the face of some really irresponsible positions didn't help.

Mainly, I grew up, and bit by bit, what I learned of the world and of what I'd been taught as a child didn't jibe. So I went on a years long exploration of philosophy, science and religions of the world, learned to see a lot of things differently, then to respect a lot of different beliefs and positions.

(in reply to TheHeretic)

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 7:24:45 PM

FirmhandKY

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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika

Can you identify a pivotal moment for you?

You mean the moment when you "saw the light"?

You mean your "road to Damascus" moment?

Firm

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 7:26:37 PM

LadyAngelika

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

Ex cathedra in the face of some really irresponsible positions didn't help.

Mainly, I grew up, and bit by bit, what I learned of the world and of what I'd been taught as a child didn't jibe. So I went on a years long exploration of philosophy, science and religions of the world, learned to see a lot of things differently, then to respect a lot of different beliefs and positions.

Like you, it was a process for me after that song. But I clearly remember it being the first time not believing in God was ever suggested.

Where there key books or other influences along your path?

- LA

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Une main de fer dans un gant de velours ~ An iron hand in a velvet glove

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 7:27:29 PM

Real0ne

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What makes me laugh is that people really expect main stream religion to be any better than main stream media, main stream schooling, main stream guverment, et al.

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 7:29:46 PM

mikeyOfGeorgia

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quote:

Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist?

yeah, when i discovered there was no god (or, at least, he had no powers any longer). i think it happened when i grew up and started thinking for myself.

(in reply to LadyAngelika)

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 7:31:24 PM

Real0ne

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the problem isnt the religion in and of itself, its the way it was and most often still is taught.

Just like physics in the early 1900's when they forgot all about and cut out quaternion solutions and we wonder why nothing has "really" progressed since then.

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"We the Borg" of the us imperialists....resistance is futile

Democracy; The 'People' voted on 'which' amendment?

Yesterdays tinfoil is today's reality!

"No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 7:32:53 PM

LadyAngelika

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RealOne, would you kindly mind not derailing this thread? This isn't a thread to debate the merits of atheism vs. religion but rather for atheists to discuss pivotal moments.

- LA

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Une main de fer dans un gant de velours ~ An iron hand in a velvet glove

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 7:34:02 PM

Musicmystery

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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
Where there key books or other influences along your path?

All of them.

No, not being a smart ass. I got several multiples of the education I was getting from school. I didn't understand a lot of what I read (I was twelve when this started), but I struggled through anyway, giving the foundation for later learning and later careers.

(in reply to LadyAngelika)

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 8:00:33 PM

Real0ne

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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika

RealOne, would you kindly mind not derailing this thread? This isn't a thread to debate the merits of atheism vs. religion but rather for atheists to discuss pivotal moments.

- LA

for me?

Arguing heaven and hell, adam and eve (and a few other things) at the age of 6. That was my first pivotal moment.

But I am not there now.

I wasnt aware I needed a club membership.

_____________________________

"We the Borg" of the us imperialists....resistance is futile

Democracy; The 'People' voted on 'which' amendment?

Yesterdays tinfoil is today's reality!

"No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session

(in reply to LadyAngelika)

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 8:22:35 PM

MotownSingleGuy

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The first one was when I was about 17 and stared being groomed to become a church elder. Part of that indoctrination included being invited to the church business committee, in which I learned that the church paid for a secular property & casualty insurance policy. The usual contract, in which the church agrees to pay a premium each month and the insurance company agrees to write the church a big check after an Act of God.

That didn't seem rational - why would the House of the Lord need State Farm's protection against Acts of God? Does the Big Guy periodically get drunk and destroy his own house? Didn't seem like someone I should rely on to protect me.

Then when I was in college, I learned about negative results. You conduct an experiment or observation, nothing happens, and the fact that nothing happened is significant.

(in reply to Real0ne)

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/17/2010 8:38:28 PM

OrpheusAgonistes

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This isn't exactly what you're looking for, because in my late teens and early 20s I made various halfhearted efforts to believe in half-baked interpretations of assorted Eastern religions/ways of liberation. But the pivotal moment when I lost my faith in Christianity, and more or less lost my capacity to have blind faith in any religion, came when I was 13.

My father was having surgery (which ended happily) and I was speaking with my pastor, who was a man of true faith. I'd read more theology than the average 13 year old, and we were talking about a few theological puzzles that kind of fascinated me. He was very indulgent and patient as we spoke, but he eventually tried abruptly to steer the conversation to the comfort and solace that I was supposed to be finding in God's superabundant love and grace. I remember being polite and deferential, but also kind of troubled. It had never occurred to me, for some reason, exactly what it was supposed to mean that a personal God was out there somewhere, keeping watch. I'd learned all my lessons, I knew the Bible and various glosses on the Bible. I could say all the creeds and explain what each line meant. I enjoyed the attention that a precocious and outwardly devout, somewhat pompous little boy received from adults in church. But at the end of the day, when I was supposed to reach out to God for some kind of comfort, I knew with a stone cold certainty that there was just nothing there. It took some time after that for me to come to terms with being a nonbeliever, but after that one moment the fall from grace was a fait accompli. For a long time after that I still prayed occasionally, but it was mechanical, habitual, and I was never on my knees.

_____________________________

What I cannot create, I do not understand.--Feynman

Every sentence I have written here is the product of some disease.-- Wittgenstein

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/18/2010 3:52:55 AM

LadyAngelika

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
Where there key books or other influences along your path?

All of them.

No, not being a smart ass. I got several multiples of the education I was getting from school. I didn't understand a lot of what I read (I was twelve when this started), but I struggled through anyway, giving the foundation for later learning and later careers.

That's fair.

- LA

_____________________________

Une main de fer dans un gant de velours ~ An iron hand in a velvet glove

(in reply to Musicmystery)

Post #: 14

RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/18/2010 3:55:26 AM

LadyAngelika

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MotownSingleGuy

The first one was when I was about 17 and stared being groomed to become a church elder. Part of that indoctrination included being invited to the church business committee, in which I learned that the church paid for a secular property & casualty insurance policy. The usual contract, in which the church agrees to pay a premium each month and the insurance company agrees to write the church a big check after an Act of God.

That didn't seem rational - why would the House of the Lord need State Farm's protection against Acts of God? Does the Big Guy periodically get drunk and destroy his own house? Didn't seem like someone I should rely on to protect me.

Wow, that's perhaps one of the most pivotal moments I've ever heard. Thanks for sharing!

- LA

_____________________________

Une main de fer dans un gant de velours ~ An iron hand in a velvet glove

(in reply to MotownSingleGuy)

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/18/2010 4:23:59 AM

LadyAngelika

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Thanks for sharing your story.

I too felt a certain amount of distancing when I was 7. I was in Catholic school and one day, while discussing salvation through baptism and limbo and such, she came along to telling us that if we weren't Catholic and free of sin, we'd never ascend to Heaven. I think your average Catholic wouldn't say such a statement, but she was undoubtedly a dumb ass telling this to young children. To make things worse, a few weeks before, my paternal grandmother had passed away and she was a Protestant Presbyterian and perhaps one of the most devout women I'd ever met. Needless to say, I had my first week of insomnia, fearing what would happen to my grandmother's soul. When my mother finally discovered the cause of my stress and insomnia, I know there were consequences because the next week, our priest had come in to revise things with us. No matter how much the school tried to retract this, one week of sleeplessness over it was enough to plant a seed and let things germinate for me.

The fact that my parents were raised in two different faiths was also huge. My mom was a devout catholic and the most I ever got out of my father was that he believed in God, but despised religion and he said this the for the first time when I was 7 in response to the above mentioned incident. He won't talk about things more than this.

quote:

ORIGINAL: OrpheusAgonistes

This isn't exactly what you're looking for, because in my late teens and early 20s I made various halfhearted efforts to believe in half-baked interpretations of assorted Eastern religions/ways of liberation. But the pivotal moment when I lost my faith in Christianity, and more or less lost my capacity to have blind faith in any religion, came when I was 13.

I personally don't see many Eastern spiritualities and atheism as mutually exclusive, all depending on what kind of atheist you are. I consider my atheism as weak or de facto and I know there is more to life than the physical, but I don't feel that Western religions in their present form come even close to capturing it. Many Eastern spiritual philosophies tend to have a systemic view rather than a hierarchy-based one and many atheists find that the two can work quite well together. I think the key is whether Taoism becomes a religion or rather a philosophy, as it was intended to be at it's origin.

- LA

_____________________________

Une main de fer dans un gant de velours ~ An iron hand in a velvet glove

(in reply to OrpheusAgonistes)

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/18/2010 5:56:31 AM

OrpheusAgonistes

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quote:

I personally don't see many Eastern spiritualities and atheism as mutually exclusive, all depending on what kind of atheist you are. I consider my atheism as weak or de facto and I know there is more to life than the physical, but I don't feel that Western religions in their present form come even close to capturing it. Many Eastern spiritual philosophies tend to have a systemic view rather than a hierarchy-based one and many atheists find that the two can work quite well together. I think the key is whether Taoism becomes a religion or rather a philosophy, as it was intended to be at it's origin.

I read Psychotherapy East and West by Alan Watts at a tender age, and this was a point he made extremely eloquently. He differentiated between "religions" and "ways of liberation." Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam were religions whereas Zen Buddhism and Taoism, rightly understood, were ways of liberation.

This ties into the thread because I think Watts was instrumental in helping me realize that the existence of an active, personal God was not necessarily necessary for the existence of human qualities like kindness, honor, and other virtues. I knew that I couldn't believe in a God in any way that mattered, but it was eye-opening to realize that the only alternatives were not "faith in God or a descent into a bleak worldview of perpetual savagery."

_____________________________

What I cannot create, I do not understand.--Feynman

Every sentence I have written here is the product of some disease.-- Wittgenstein

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/18/2010 12:47:26 PM

NorthernGent

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Was never interested.

I grew up in a religious family by England's standards. All of my Mother's side of the family are/were religious.

Problem with the Church of England and Anglicanism is that it's not a particularly dogmatic form of christianity - all it wants from you is to turn up at church now and again and have inner faith. So - due to limited dogma - unlike Catholicism - it really lacks the capacity to indoctrinate you - its biggest strength is its biggest weakness in terms of attracting followers.

Due to a lack of indoctrination....being born in the industrial North.....and being born in an age where religion had had its day in much of England.......it was never really going to happen

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RE: Was there a pivotal moment in your becoming atheist? - 5/18/2010 1:38:25 PM

Saint

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Two pivotal moments for me. Bear in mind that before this I have always explored other belief systems, read and studied various spiritual paths and actively practiced meditation and symbolic self-hypnosis. Anyways the first incident: 1) Dying on the operating table during a knee surgery caused by an overdose of the wrong medicine which resulted in cardiac arrest for 34 seconds before they could restart my heart. Then waking up in more pain then I have ever been in while realizing that I had indeed been dead and that I had no great revelations, saw no white light, experienced nothing, etc. That woke my eyes up to the fact that there is not heaven and hell as we typically think of it. I experienced nothing during that time frame other than to close my eyes and wake up.

The second pivotal moment came for me when one of my aunts had her house burn down after being hit by lightening. This lady had been an active catholic church goer for all of her life and had helped with fundraisers, charity events, etc.etc. She was always there with a helping hand to whoever needed it and never spoke a bad word about anyone in her entire life. Anyways, after her house burned down she turned to the church and the community that she had been involved with for over 40 years. They in turn refused to help her out because her youngest daughter had overdosed the year before on sleeping pills. So in their eyes her daughter committed a cardinal sin by killing herself. As the parent of a suicide, she supposedly was to share the blame for this in their eyes. As a result they basically turned their backs on my aunt and she was even written a letter from the church committee telling her why they would not help her out. So imagine the heartbreak this poor woman experienced. Not only did she lose her daughter the year before to suicide, now she had lost her house and she had lost the support of people she had been such a part of for over four decades. Luckily enough my family had the resources to step in and help her out and make sure that her house got rebuilt but I will never forget how they treated her.

Anyways, I would ultimately say through my own studies, experiences and observations that I am more of a spiritualist than anything. I also realize that ultimately we know nothing and have no proof of anything and that if a divine presence somehow exists it certainly is not in the ritualized institutions and dogma created by mans greed and confusion.

_____________________________

"Anonymity is synonymous with longevity."
Faethor Ferenczy

"I wish I had an angel
For one moment of love
I wish I had your angel tonight"
Nightwish - Wish I had an Angel Tonight

(in reply to NorthernGent)

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