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If you were once a fundamentalist theist of any kind, what was it
that first caused you to doubt your beliefs? How did you react to this
at first & what caused you to continue doubting?
That, and lots of silly stories. (Rev. Karl E. Taylor #1143)
I goto church with them every sunday and wednesday. I lead singing at times. I even help take up building fund on occasion. I am living a lie.
In my community It would be slightly accepted, though not much. I would
be ridiculed. All my immediate and extended famliy would disavow me.
Christianity sucks. (Bobby)
What got me really concerned about my faith, however, was when I
asked my Sunday School teacher about it and she tried to sweep the
whole thing under the rug. I never got a straight answer from any
church leader that made me feel OK with it, so I started asking
other questions. Once that started, I couldn't stop. (Nemo #1331)
The initial euphoria wore off after about 24 hours and never did return,
no matter how hard I prayed. I felt that God was never there, that I was speaking to thin air; this certainly wasn't the "personal relationship"
I was led to expect! With effort, I could conjure up warm fuzzy feelings, but experimentation at the time proved that I could do the same by
praying to my fridge.
In the meantime, I was dissatisfied with the behaviour of my peers in
the church. I saw self-righteousness, condemnation and scorn for other beliefs, and I didn't like it. In retrospect, the most chilling thing
I saw as a teenager had to be when my best friend -- as liberal as most teenagers I've encountered before her conversion -- explained that she didn't see anything wrong with homosexuality, but if the Bible spoke against it, it had to be wrong. I'm now happily bisexual. At that time
I spoke to a church counsellor who calmly explained to me that I was
being influenced by Satan to have these thoughts and desires. I think
I'd even come out to my friend some months earlier; it may have been
later.
I spent the next few years alternatively trying to find God for a few months or weeks, and backsliding. I eventually found a very wonderful person who encouraged me to stay away and -- though it took a long time
-- become the well-balanced atheist I am today. Following a.a. was a
great deal of help to me when it came to clarifying what I *really* thought. I originally came here via alt.bible.prophecy -- I found that
the crossposted threads from here were of greater interest than the discussion in the group I'd subscribed to!
To answer your question, I'd say that I converted because of an
experience, and that my faith and belief hinged on that, not on any
sort of logic or reason. I think that fundamentalism is a mental
pathogen, and that as many people are crushed by such beliefs as are
lifted up. Leaving that trap -- and it was a mental trap -- behind has freed me of a lot of guilt and anguish, and I don't miss it, though religious experience is as addictive as any drug. (Rachael Munns)
My father is the one who took me to church. You'll notice that I never
say "forced" because in the strictest sense, I never was. When I
finally said, "I don't want to go," Dad said it was ok. My mother did
not attend church because she didn't like the one Dad went to. She
never dissuaded me from going, but I could tell that she didn't think
much of the folks who went there.
There was one instance that really forced me to remove myself from religion. It happened during a special school that the church held for children who were supposed to join soon. We were 12 years old and the
man who taught the course was an asshole. He beat on the bible and
screamed at us about hellfire, damnation, brimstone, etc. He told us
that we were EVIL, that we weren't worthy of God's gift, but that's how special God is, to give his son for worthless shits like us. Out of the class of maybe 8 kids, at least 3 stopped going to church immediately.
I stayed for a couple of months, but I refused to join even when being pestered by every member of the church. I didn't join, the guy was
banned from teaching children, and the church is now, (25 years later), dying. They are currently looking for a cellphone company to put an
antenna in their steeple because they need the income so badly. They
rent out the parking lot to a mosque down the street since they all
believe in the same God. Really? That's a new one on me, but "Business
is Business!"
At any rate, it wasn't until much later that I came to the realization
that I was an Atheist. It didn't happen in college, or even when I was
in my rebellious 20's. When I did reach the unavoidable conclusion, I
was afraid that my father would disown me if I fessed up, so I kept my Atheism a secret. When I told him, I gave him some books to help explain
my position. His reaction was that it was that evil teacher's fault that
I turned away from religion. It was his contention that if I started
going back to church, things would be different. He actually used the argument that it wouldn't hurt anything to just attend and pretend I believe JUST IN CASE THERE IS A GOD! That wasn't going to happen.(Uncle Rocco #1724)
Perhaps the first major thing that caused me to start doubting 'God's' existence was actually a miracle; or at least I initially thought that
it was a miracle.
I was 19 years old, and I was deep in silent prayer, asking God if I
should follow a particular local evangelist in his work to spread God's word. I thought that I *heard* God answer me with a "Yes". I really believed that God had answered my prayer, out loud, with an audible
"Yes" to my prayerful question. It did not seem, at all, like I just
heard this "yes" in-my-head. (During this time: I had put myself under
a lot of stress.)
As it turned out, "yes" was pretty shitty advise. This 'evangelist' ended up being someone who was trying to start a denomination which basically worshipped him, as some divinely inspired prophet.
Almost simultaneous to this, I began to question how Evangelical
Christians seemed to rationalize away anything which did not fit into
their view of reality, via faith in their God. I began to realize that
they criticized other religions for doing exactly the same thing.
(making, what seemed, silly rationalizations).
I feel that I am more cynical than the average person. I was raised an Episcopalian, but later became a Pentecostal styled Christian; because
I became skeptical as to whether the Episcopal form of worship was
actually the form of worship portrayed in the Bible. Pentecostalism
(e.g. Charismatics) seemed to come the closest to the form of Christian worship described in the Bible (as in the book of Acts).
But even though I had a 'born-again' experience; I could not shut-off
the skepticism, which had led me from being an Episcopalian to a Charismatic (i.e. I couldn't stop 'questioning things'). And I now feel that it was this personality trait, more than anything, which eventually led to my rejection of Christianity.
Critical thinking is definitely a 'faith killer'. (pan #1432)
For the next several years, I spent a great deal of effort trying to
shore up my faith. I tried to quash every little doubt as it raised
its head, before it could grow bigger, because that is what all of my doubts were doing: growing bigger with each passing day. Unfortunately,
I was a very stubborn person; I refused to abandon my beliefs, even when
it was clear I was losing ground at an alarming rate.
It got to the point where I was actively trying to filter out anything
that might cause my doubts to flourish. When I went to the library,
for example, I would even hold up a notebook to block my view of the shelves when I walked past the science section, since I had learned
that just catching a glimpse of a book's title could pull my attention
to it, make me pull it off the shelf and start reading.
After a few years of this torture, I decided to grab the bull by the horns and intensely
examine my faith and my doubts, to try and find some kind of final resolution. When I
finally concluded that my faith was groundless, that my doubts had genuine merit, I firmly
came down on the side of atheism. (Carl Funk #1229)
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