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Question 5

When you realized that you were an atheist, did you feel relief, fear, happiness? What emotion, exactly?

• What emotion did I feel? A little bit of anger and disgust at first, directed mostly at myself that I could have fooled for so long, or that I accepted what people told me as fact without questioning.

  Later, contentment in the knowledge that one does not need supernatural constructs to have a reason for living. (Alex #616)

• The first thing I felt was embarrassed. I had believed this shit for 16 years?!?! I couldn't believe that I had been so stupid. Later, I felt lucky that circumstances had led me to question my faith and that I had come to the only logical solution. (steve shriver #553)

• I felt like a complete fool for having let myself get sucked into believing all that bible nonsense. I once heard a comedian refer to born again Christians as "fooled again Christians", meaning people who've fallen twice for the same crap. I feel embarrassed that it took me so long to wake up. (Sally #939)

• I felt victorious. I had all those nagging doubts and guilt removed. I found that the things that I instinctually felt, and which I reasoned to be true, were indeed true. I also felt free, and relieved. I also felt vindication. I was happy to see the sham of christianity wilt under the scrutiny of reason. I did NOT feel any sadness, remorse, or fear. (Dedgod #655)

• I felt quite sad, because it's very comforting to believe that there is some super-powerful father figure batting in your corner and caring for you. This was the last part of my faith that I let go. It had been a fairly long process - about 10 years - of becoming atheist. The more I learned about science, the more I changed my idea of a deity to fit in with new knowledge, until it was very little like what is taught by Christianity.

  To offset that, I also felt enormous relief; relief that I could be my natural self without questioning everything that I said, did or felt. I also felt a little bit proud that I had the strength to stand on my own two feet without the crutch of religion, and a security that I hadn't known before. This security came from the _feeling_, not just the thinking, that it was right to live _this_ life, rather than to give it second place to a possible hereafter. (June Gill #364)

• First of all, the process took a long time. Born into a Baptist family, adopted into a Catholic family (I quit catechism because the other boys and girls weren't serious enough about it), I became disenchanted with western religions that I encountered (the Santa Clause factor was too high). I entered Yale double majoring in Physics and Eastern Philosophy (it was a fashionable pairing, the Tao of Physics and all). Transferring to Comp Lit, I was tutored by Harold Bloom and a wonderful man name Bentley Latham (who helped translate the Nag Hammadi library). They introduced me to Gnosticism. Being rid of the faith issue attracted me strongly. Still, however, there was a nagging bit of superstition left.

  Agnosticism, did not appeal to me because I misunderstood what it was (thanks for the FAQ and the clarification of that issue), and I hated what I perceived to be weak-willed fence sitting.

  When I realized that I had finally come to be an atheist and that it seemed to be an unavoidable position, I recall being very quiet for a moment. My body relaxed. There is comfort in a durable idea. (Don McManus #764)

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• In my case it was at about age 12 that I fully realized that I just couldn't believe what I was being told in church and in the bible. I don't even really know what caused me to question it, or whether I ever did believe it and was just finally thinking for myself.

  However, when I finally and fully realized I was an atheist, I did go through quite a few different emotions:

  ANXIETY: When telling my parents I no longer wanted to go to church because I couldn't believe in it. I was no older than 12 at the time and didn't know what the reaction would be. If I remember correctly, their reaction was along the line of the fact I was too young to make such a decision. Anyhow I still had to go to church, but I think they must have known it was extremely doubtful that it would make any difference. I am well-known for being stubborn once I make up my mind.

  FEAR: When the minister cornered me one day and asked why I wasn't being confirmed. He was well over six feet tall (seemed like a lot more, especially as he was leaning over to talk to me and I was only 12 or so). But I told him why, he asked me whether I wanted to talk about it, and I said no. After that I felt much RELIEF and was PROUD I had stood up to him and said what I believed (or rather what I didn't believe).

  BOREDOM: Even after telling my parents, I still had to go to church for a while and distinctly remember "counting things" in the church during the service. Things did liven up during sunday school when I found out there was another atheist in the class who was not afraid to speak his mind (much more so than I did, but I did give him some support).

  And finally, HAPPINESS, when my parents finally relented and I no longer had to go to church. (Keith Brannen #713)

• As I remember it, I woke up (literally and figuratively) sometime in the middle of the night, sometime in December 1999. I had gone to bed several hours earlier...I remember just waking up (maybe a noise caused it...dunno) and having a feeling of "Oh, well that makes sense now." No particular feeling attached to it--just a slight change in focus, attitude, etc.

  I think I was already an atheist for most of my life and it just took me that long to acknowledge it. (Dr. Smartass)

• Empowered, actually. I knew I was never a believer, but I was never really vocal about it until about 2 years ago. A theist friend of mine got super offended when I made a sandwich and left the loaf of bread upside down. Apparently he thought that this would offend god (although I still haven't heard this from anyone else since). What followed was a 3 hour debate (fight) about the existence or non-existence of god, during which time I heard for the first time some of the stupidest arguments I have ever heard. Funny thing is that I have heard the exact same idiocy over and over again since joining this NG. Regardless, that was the day I became a full fledged and outspoken atheist...and it felt really good. I know this sounds pompous as hell, but I like being included in the 14% of intelligent freethinkers in the world. I felt (and still feel) proud and independent for not swallowing what I was fed, and having the intelligence to question what everyone else just accepts. (Alex Traxel)

• When I realized god was a fairy-tale, I nearly drowned in a melange of emotion. First, there was the anger at my family and the rest of society for having lied to me about something so important, sadnees and disappointment at all the time I'd wasted in pursuit of that lie, fear at the prospect of a future without my religious security blanket, grief at the loss of a familiar comforting idea...and _relief_. Relief at no longer having to reconcile the evils of the world with a kind and loving god, at no longer having to ask "What did we do to deserve this? Why are we being punished?" Relief that I didn't have to live up to an arbitrary standard set by a being that could change its mind on a whim. Relief from the fear that I would never measure up and would be damned despite my best efforts. And finally, an overwhelming sense of responsibility as I realized I had noone to answer to but myself for my own actions, and that I had no scapegoat to take the fall for my own misdeeds and no magical being to assuage my conscience with a mere wave of a hand. I grew up. (WhiskeyJack)

• Well, it wasn't a decision. It was the result of a fairly long process that took about three years starting when I was about 15, and first encountered the philosophy of deism in a world history class. I read stuff lilke Paine's "The Age of Reason," Mark Twain's "Letters from Earth," "The Passover Plot," and so forth, and was led by the logic of the issues step by step into atheism, a process I tried to resist every step of the way. When I finally saw that the teleological argument was bunk, that was it. (A tip of the hat to the divine David) The emotions I experienced were sadness at losing my imaginary friend in the sky and rage that I had been taught such fairy tales. (Brian Holly)

• i am a third generation polish american, born and raised in cleveland, ohio. my mom, dad, and most of my relatives are devout roman catholics. i was baptized as an infant, made my first communion in second grade, etc. i went to parochial school for 8 years, followed by 4 years at a jesuit high school. but i had become an atheist by 13 or 14 years of age. at first i felt a bit guilty (catholicism will do this to you), largely because i felt like i was betraying my family. i pretended to be a catholic and kept my atheism hidden until i was about 16 or so. when i finally came out, my immediate family was much more supportive than i'd expected (can't say the same for the older folks, but most of them are from "the old country"). since that time, i have experienced nothing but an overwhelming sense of freedom and joy as a result of my atheism. (nathan j. jun)

• When I realized that I was an atheist, the first thing that I felt was relief, as if a heavy weight or chains were removed from me. I described it once as walking out of a dark cave into the sunlight. There was also a sense of having a new weight placed on me, that is the responsibility of deciding what to do with my life now that I was on my own, and no sky-daddy, church, or 2500 year old books around to tell me what to do. There was a little fear too, in that I had many new choices to make, and sometimes I was afraid of making the wrong ones. Also, how was I to live in a society where the majority were theists. Do I run up to every one I meet and shout: "Look at me, I'm an atheist!", or do I hide my atheism, lie about it and live in a closet? What about my theist family, who I loved and didn't want to hurt?

  In time, I solved the problems and the fear subsided. At first, I was neither happy or sad, but as time went by, as I became more secure in my atheism, and I became very happy with my non-belief. (John Hachmann #1782)

• I can't really remember when the "decision" was made. I was never really a christian, although I did have a fear of what god might do to me as a child. I gradually moved into deism (even though I didn't know the word at the time), mainly because everyone around me believed in god. Even at that time, I was once sent to the principles office for refusing to read the 23rd psalm in class, but that was more of a rebellion against that specific "teacher" than against religion.

  It was just a general discomfort with the whole idea of worshiping something that never showed itself, I guess.

  I was never a vocal atheist until I came into the military. I just kept hearing so much crap spewing from the mouths of "Real Americans" that I finally had to speak up for myself. And now, 14 years later, I still find myself voicing those same opinions to the same "Real Americans." (Wolf333)

• Relief, in the way you feel relief when you've finished a hard work. The way you feel on Friday evening after a hard work week, an "OK, that's over, I'm tired but satisfied, let's get some joy now" feeling.

  The process until I accepted I was an atheist was a bit more frightening, with all the "someone looking over my shoulder" thing. (Angel Arnal #1443)