[ExI] The void left by deleting religion

[Anne Corwin]

I guess this question isn't technically directed at me (because I never found religion to be a particularly positive experience) but I'll comment anyway because I've been thinking about this subject rather a lot lately.  I was raised Christian -- generic Protestant, I suppose, would be the most applicable term since my family attended numerous different church denominations during my formative years (though we spent the longest in a Presbyterian congregation).  I "believed" by default, though I never felt any kind of real connection to religious teachings -- my overwhelming feeling was that this religion stuff represented material that I was supposed to accept, sort of like history lessons in school.  

But the ritual and community aspects of church fellowship always seemed extremely bizarre and somewhat unnerving to me.  I never wanted to sing in church, in part because I had no idea what I was actually singing.  I got scared when adults talked about things like "speaking in tongues" in the same way I (still) tend to get scared when I am around drunk people.  I also had many, many questions about the Bible (in addition to problems with some of the stories) -- who wrote it, where it came from, and how could anyone really be sure about the translation? But I didn't really see myself as having a choice but to "be Christian" until early adolescence.

What happened at that point was that I started learning that some people I respected and liked believed -- really believed -- that non-Christians were doomed to Hell.  Even if they'd never heard of Jesus.  Additionally, I found out that supposedly, even if a person was good and moral throughout their whole life, none of it mattered unless they "accepted" Jesus -- whereas a murderer could simply repent on his deathbed and be saved.  So even though I didn't yet know much about evolution or the various logical arguments in favor of atheism at that time, I rejected organized religion on moral grounds at about age 13 or so.  I don't recall if I told anyone about this; probably not.  But I didn't call myself an "atheist" then; I only heard the word once in passing growing up, from some people at church who were talking about so-and-so's atheist husband (or something along those lines) and were expressing worry about him. 

When I got into my senior year of high school I read a book at the library called "Atheism: The Case Against God", and also came across some of the writings of people like Bertrand Russell, and that pretty much had me convinced that not only were atheists not "evil", they were probably on the right track.  It was like the whole universe suddenly started making more sense when I realized that I wasn't the only person who found the notion of god(s) incoherent.  I did go through a period of "what if I'm wrong"? at that point -- I still would have rejected religion on moral grounds regardless, but I went over and over the logic associated with nontheism for several years because I had a hard time understanding why more adults weren't atheists if atheism made so much sense.  

Part of me felt like maybe I was somehow being "arrogant" and presumptuous, and some of the religious literature I read at the time (since I was trying to get a diversity of viewpoints) seemed to confirm this, claiming that "people who called themselves atheists" are just egomaniacs who think they "don't need god".  The logic all seemed to work out in favor of atheism but part of me had a hard time accepting that I'd "figured something (huge and important) out" that seemed to run counter to what I'd been raised with.  

I'd been okay with a moral rejection of religion for a while, but the idea of asserting that I lacked belief in god on rational grounds felt much weightier, since anyone can have an opinion (even a moral opinion) about something whether or not it "really" exists, but people who make positive or negative claims *about* existence are necessarily held to a higher standard of evidence.  And I didn't know if I met that standard (and not having been raised atheistically, asserting a lack of belief in god *felt* like a positive claim even though I later learned that it was the god-believers making the positive claim).

That was probably the most "painful" part for me in terms of breaking away from religion entirely -- I certainly never found it (religion) much of a comfort, but I was terribly concerned about making sure that my newfound atheism wasn't a kind of "subconscious rebellion" or manifestation of overconfidence bias.

Though I've never been one to just believe something because it's the majority belief (since I had many, many experiences in direct contradiction of many majority beliefs while I was growing up, not the least of which was the fact that my own behavior was often met with the response, "but girls don't...!") religion was a tough one to fully detach from because of all the messages I got that what I was doing (in researching the origins of, and motives for, religious belief) was somehow self-serving or rooted in adolescent power-trip delusions.  I wanted to seek truth, not "go on a power trip" or "assert my independence through rebellion", so it took a lot of reading and obsessive pondering and proofs, etc., before I was able to accept that my own motives were genuine.  

Eventually I did come to terms with the fact that there are a lot of reasons people believe in religious teachings that have nothing to do with rationality, and became quite comfortable with the whole atheism thing, but it definitely wasn't an easy process getting there.

- Anne



spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote: > Max More wrote:
> > A question for those, like spike, who found religion to be "an
> > extremely positive experience"--especially those of a Fundamentalist
> > belief system... period of
> > aggressive, sometimes obnoxious, atheism. I'm curious how others felt
> > as they struggled out of those chains.  Max




"Like and equal are not the same thing at all!"
- Meg Murry, "A Wrinkle In Time"
       
---------------------------------
Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
 Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20070506/7e5f7142/attachment.html>