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Question 41

Has any atheist reading this really tried to accept God/Jesus/Buddha/ Vishnu /whatever and failed?

• This is hard for me to admit, but there was a period of time, about the first year after I joined Alcoholics Anonymous, that I sincerely tried to believe in a god. I was sick and vulnerable during that time, having ill health, no friends, and a bitch of a drinking problem.

  I was subjected to the usual barrage of propaganda that A.A.ers subject all newcomers to. A.A.ers like to talk about god a lot; in fact, they devote whole meetings to some variant of "how god works in your life", or "Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity". One particular idea you hear repeated a lot is "I make bad stuff happen but god makes good stuff happen". So, there I was, sick and miserable, trying to quit being a drunk and rejoin the human race, and these assholes are telling me (not to put too fine a point on it or anything) [1] that every miserable rotton thing that *ever* happened to me was *my* fault, and [2] that only "god"(tm) could make it better since by definition, all drunks are congenital fuckups incapable of doing anything right. As far as I was concerned, that whole notion sucked raw sewage.

  Finally, I just couldn't handle the guilt and shame these people were laying on me and the general feeling that I was being fed a line of bullshit and came to the conclusion that sure, *I* fucked up my life with my drinking and all, but *I* was also the one to decided that *I* needed to change and that *I* was the one doing all the work involved in recovery. And that was something to be proud of. No ectoplasmic sky-parents or spooky invisible guidance counsellors involved. All the help I recieved came wrapped in skin.

  And the god-botherers couldn't handle that.

  Never again will I accept or even be *willing* to accept stuporstitious drivel in lieu of practical advice. (Erikc #2)

• Intellectually? Not really. Early 80's, failing marriage, 2 year old son, the Bitch, (her official title) got religion in a backwoods Virginia sect called Church of the Brethren. They had missionary postings in Rome, Italy to convert the heathen Catholics to the (say it with me) One True Faith. To keep peace in the family, stay close to my son, and "save" the marriage, I joined the church. It truly opened my eyes, as I'd never had any real up close experience with gawd, and suddenly I was thrust into one of the more extreme fundie faiths, whose teachings include speaking in tongues, healing through prayer and touch; literally everything is a direct communication with gawd. My sister in law, who's husband had a relatively high paying job for the Shenendoah valley, was certain that all her material wealth came as a direct result of her relationship with (you guessed it) gawd. Poor man never got credit for anything he ever did for his family. I was asked to join the men's bible class, and being a natural born skeptic, I had a hard time controlling my tongue, nor was I always successful. Numerous prayers were said to open my heart to jeezussss, all to no avail. Needless to say, it didn't take, and as you might expect, the marriage ended shortly thereafter, and I haven't seen my sons since 1985. The older will be eighteen this year, and I hope he tries to get in touch, as I have been unsuccessful for the past thirteen years. Before Spammy or Ol' Ed chimes in, no, I have never believed, and never will, as I find religion to be intellectually dishonest, as well as the root cause of the vast majority of the world's woes. I tried, but the off switch to my brain is apparently broken beyond repair. (Roy Fulmer #1052)

• Yes, I did. I was pretty much an agnostic and when I was 15 I joined the Mormon church; I liked the community. But try as I might I could not accept their beliefs or their god. I was out of the religion completely after a year, but when I was 20 I tried to go back afte a suicide attempt but I couldn't accept it then either. I had thought I could be part of the religion and just not accept their god, but I couldn't be that hypocritical (not only that but I couldn't accept the less savory aspects of their religion). (Chani #1118)

• Do you mean before I was an atheist, or since? I was the best Gosh-darned Christian you might wish to meet 20 years ago, Miss Mickey. Had there been an Internet, I would have out-spammed Spammy and out-boated Boaty.

  I spent years as an usher. I spent years as an evangelist. I spent years as a Christian student. I damn near (puts fingers together) became a minister. I 'scaped by the narrowest of margins.

  So, yeah, I tried. I failed. Why should I ever try again? I know where _that_ road leads! (Ernest Fairchild -Atheist Man - #1190)

• . I spent years trying to maintain my belief in God. It was a futile endeavour in the end. I'm free now. (Paul J. Koeck #360)

• If you mean after becoming an atheist, the answer is no. Once I discarded the myths there was no possibility of returning to them. To me, it would be as ridiculous as trying to re-kindle a belief in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny (although he does have good chocolate).

  During my "road to atheism" I was looking for facts and proof, to determine what was real "history" and what was false "history". I could not accept it on "faith". I became an atheist no older than aged 12 (I celebrate my 30th known anniversary as a declared atheist next year!) and have never looked back.

  As a side note: I have noticed that there many atheists in this group who became atheists (and discarded a religion) at around the age of 12. I wonder whether this is an "age of reason" when some begin to critically examine what they have been told/taught, especially in the religious/philosophical area. (Keith Brannen #713)

• I was born and raised a roman catholic for the first 28 years or so of my life. I never felt really comfortable in church, tho. I *hated* the part where I had to shake hands or, ugh, the newer part where you had to hold hands with the persons sitting next to you while you recited the "our father." Hated that stuff. I didn't volunteer to be an altar boy in grade school, which really bugged my mom. When I was older, I tried to force myself to get more involved with the church, thinking it may help me feel more a part of it. I did the bible readings at mass for several years, I taught "sunday school" for several years. That was while I was still an undergraduate. When I was in graduate school, I started to read more, understand more, think more. And the more I thought about it, the more disillusioned I felt. Part of it was the circumstances of my mom's death (watching her suffer from cancer as a devout catholic made me think god was a sadistic bastard.) She prayed every day of her life, did everything her god proscribed, yet still she was made to suffer. Priests told me it was all a part of god's plan and that this was her test. I didnt buy it. It all seemed like bullshit. It took me 5 years after my mom's death to finally break from the church and my upbringing. I'm a much better person now, certainly more happy and content. No agonizing, no guilt.

  So, I gave religion/god a chance. I gave it a chance probably far longer than I should have. (Dan Chaney #1144)

• My mother was very christian and so was I as a child. My father never spoke about it, until later, when he confessed he didn't believe any of it. He only went to church because of my mother. During my childhood my mother had been ill very often. She sometimes thought she was being punished for something. As a child, I just couldn't imagine that this could be true. If God was good, he wouldn't punish anyone, most certainly not my mother, who never did anything wrong (darling son I was). Then I slowly realized that this 'good god' wasn't helping in any way either and I started to have serious doubts. At first my faith was so strong that I prayed to god for help against my doubts. It remained silent. Always has been, in fact.

  I was 15 years old when I considered christianity a fraud. I started to study Greek mythology and eastern philosophy, especially Buddhist and Hindu texts. At one point I even called myself a Buddhist. This was when I was 18 years old. By then I hated mankind and I hated life itself.

  Buddhism was the best answer: try to get out of it all. But soon I found that being serious about Buddhism, also meant I had to get rid of the few pleasures I had in life. I decided against it and I became a very bittered atheist, a cynical philosopher.

  When I look back on my life so far, I can only say that I've been depressed from childhood until my thirties. It took four years of counseling to get rid of this depression. Nowadays I am a happy person, a happy atheist, a full human being. I can say yes to life, whatever it brings me and I don't need any god or religion to tell me what to do. I can only wish this feeling of freedom to anyone. (Don Antropos #1001)

• (Fuck, this is embarrassing, but...) ... Yes. I'm ashamed to admit this, but I tried for over 20 fucking years I'm afraid. I was quite a devout Christian in my younger years, a real honest-to- gawd TRUE™ Christian© as it were. But as time went by, I came to the slow realization ("slow" being an understatement here folks!) that it was all a bunch of horse shit. I finally renounced xianity to my family in '93 I think it was, but hung onto a theist belief for several more years until stumbling upon alt.atheism last year. After a few months of lurking and reading the posts of Stix and so many others (I won't try naming them all here -- they're too many. But Stix was a major contributor to my apostasy so he gets special mention. :), I made to conscious and informed decision to become and atheist since there didn't seem to be any rational reason to continue to believe in what is essentially just wishful thinking.

  I haven't stopped my wishful thinking (who really stops wishing for things?), but I now recognize it as such whereas before (while I was still suffering from the fever of theism) I misidentified those wishful thoughts as being the way things actually were.

  It all seems so, so, ... *childish* now I'm still slightly embarrassed that it took me so long so GROW UP! And I'm continually saddened by the fact that so many others remain infected with the mental illness of theism. But I don't let it get to me. I take heart in the fact that for the most part, those who profess theistic belief are still all-in-all good people who live good lives and don't left their theism affect others to a great degree.

  But then there's the fervent, fanatical, evangelical, god-soaked idiots that mess it up for everyone else. That's when I take real offense and the BAAWAism inside me comes out.

  But I digress... (as I always seem to do %) ("Fish" - David B. Trout - #623 )

• Yes, for a while. As I child, I had a "don't care, keep that crap away from me" position on religion. Due to a hell-on-earth period in my very early teens, however, I made the big mistake of trying xtianity, as that was the only available "choice" (although my gut feelings had always warned me off religion). For maybe three years, I really, honestly tried to believe, but to no avail. Try as I might, I never got the rap down, and those feelings of "wrongness" never went away. I was a standard lutheran protestant, BTW, nothing out of the ordinary. There was lots of stuff in the babble (namely the entire OT and much of the NT) that disturbed me to no end, but the pastor tried to "pacify" me by telling that "this doesn't apply anymore", or somesuch crap.

  After that, I turned agnostic for a short time when I discovered feminism (at about 15 years of age), started coming out, etc. -- xtianity simply made no sense whatsoever, and so I admitted that to myself and got the hell outta there. I used to be a Wiccan for maybe another four years following that short agnostic period. The entire philosophy appealed to me, it made infinitely more sense, but I quickly discovered that the whole "supernatural" stuff, while pleasant and far more consistent than xtianity, was still nothing I could "believe" in. So I drifted into atheism, and finally made the decision to cut myself loose from mysticism.

  As I've said before, I'm still heavily influenced by the Wiccan mindset, so if I had to describe my standing, I'd likely call myself a Wiccan strong atheist. (Sarah Jaernecke #1102)