Lucky you.axordil wrote:I became conscious of the problems I had with the details of the religion I was raised with long after I simply stopped believing.
Why I am not a believer
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axordil
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Well, it means I lack the intellectual justifications others can point to, but yeah, it was pretty painless. Which was the point--if it hadn't been, would I have left?yovargas wrote:Lucky you.axordil wrote:I became conscious of the problems I had with the details of the religion I was raised with long after I simply stopped believing.
I think there are as many paths away from faith as there are to it.
I don't think we have the capacity to understand very much in this universe. I think most of it is way beyond us. We call things remarkable and wondrous when we come across things, that are to us, inexplicable.
We invent things or maybe tailor them so our feeble beings can try and cope and come up with answers.
We have millions of unanswered questions and invent reasons or maybe make what we call educated guesses or beliefs. We go with our gut instincts, teachings and experiences in this world.
We watch people die and wonder about our own fate.
We get scared and look for comfort. We accept things and resign ourselves to our beliefs. We don't accept things and try our hands at conjectures, irrationalities and many things in between.
Personally I don't know enough to believe or not believe.
I marvel at pretty sunsets and I marvel at things like love.
I marvel at the inhumanities I hear about everyday and also the selfless acts.
I like oceans and beaches.
I can't really do much but let be what will be and be who I am.
So that's what I do.
That's what I believe in.
The rest will take care of itself with or without me.
We invent things or maybe tailor them so our feeble beings can try and cope and come up with answers.
We have millions of unanswered questions and invent reasons or maybe make what we call educated guesses or beliefs. We go with our gut instincts, teachings and experiences in this world.
We watch people die and wonder about our own fate.
We get scared and look for comfort. We accept things and resign ourselves to our beliefs. We don't accept things and try our hands at conjectures, irrationalities and many things in between.
Personally I don't know enough to believe or not believe.
I marvel at pretty sunsets and I marvel at things like love.
I marvel at the inhumanities I hear about everyday and also the selfless acts.
I like oceans and beaches.
I can't really do much but let be what will be and be who I am.
So that's what I do.
That's what I believe in.
The rest will take care of itself with or without me.
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TheEllipticalDisillusion
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JewelSong
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Worth a look, I think:
“I Have Not Lingered in European Monasteries”
I have not lingered in European monasteries
and discovered among the tall grasses tombs of knights
who fell as beautifully as their ballads tell;
I have not parted the grasses
or purposefully left them thatched.
I have not held my breath
so that I might hear the breathing of God
or tamed my heartbeat with an exercise,
or starved for visions.
Although I have watched him often
I have not become the heron,
leaving my body on the shore,
and I have not become the luminous trout,
leaving my body in the air.
I have not worshipped wounds and relics,
or combs of iron,
or bodies wrapped and burnt in scrolls.
I have not been unhappy for ten thousands years.
During the day I laugh and during the night I sleep.
My favourite cooks prepare my meals,
my body cleans and repairs itself,
and all my work goes well.
-Leonard Cohen
“I Have Not Lingered in European Monasteries”
I have not lingered in European monasteries
and discovered among the tall grasses tombs of knights
who fell as beautifully as their ballads tell;
I have not parted the grasses
or purposefully left them thatched.
I have not held my breath
so that I might hear the breathing of God
or tamed my heartbeat with an exercise,
or starved for visions.
Although I have watched him often
I have not become the heron,
leaving my body on the shore,
and I have not become the luminous trout,
leaving my body in the air.
I have not worshipped wounds and relics,
or combs of iron,
or bodies wrapped and burnt in scrolls.
I have not been unhappy for ten thousands years.
During the day I laugh and during the night I sleep.
My favourite cooks prepare my meals,
my body cleans and repairs itself,
and all my work goes well.
-Leonard Cohen
"Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame
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TheEllipticalDisillusion
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That final verse is the key to the whole poem. Someone in my class pointed out an interesting aspect to the "I have not" lines.
I have not lingered
I have not parted
I have not held
I have not become
I have not become
I have not worshipped
I have not been
I laugh
I sleep
Interesting breakdown of it.
I have not lingered
I have not parted
I have not held
I have not become
I have not become
I have not worshipped
I have not been
I laugh
I sleep
Interesting breakdown of it.
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Lidless
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Why I am not a believer
The phrasing of the question is interesting in itself. “Why” is defined as: For what purpose, reason, or cause; with what intention, justification, or motive.
For myself, there was no purpose, intention or motive - there was no drive for it. As for reason, that was the cause and later on the justification for not believing in a deity. Yet one cannot truly apply reason to faith from the very definition of what faith is.
Therefore the question as phrased defeats itself, particularly when one realises that not believing, when pared down to the bones, must essentially be a belief in itself. I can, however, explain the history of how I came not to believe and how that belief has been strengthened over time through reasoning and observation. My personal journey.
As a child I had a standardised Western upbringing when it came to religion. I went to a Baptist church every Sunday, followed by Sunday School where painting of arks, whales, wise men and palm trees were fun to do. We were taught how loving Jesus was and how angry God could get. I even went to a Christian summer camp for a week that taught the same thing. I had a large colourful copy of the Children’s Illustrated Bible which I actually enjoyed reading – so much so that in 1974 I was awarded Best Boy in the Boys Brigade for my ability to quote the Bible.
Since the BB is not very well known in the US, let me elaborate. It has around 500,000 member in over 60 countries and is an interdenominational Christian youth organisation which combines drill and fun activities with Christian values. Its stated objective is: the advancement of Christ's kingdom among Boys and the promotion of habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-respect and all that tends towards a true Christian manliness. So to be awarded Best Boy in the UK (30,000 children in my age bracket at the time) was quite the achievement.
I prayed most nights. I didn’t just say the words. I meant them.
So with all of this background, all of this unquestioning belief, where did it go so horribly wrong at 11 years old? The only way I can describe it was that I had an epiphany, or an anti-epiphany to be more precise.
There are only a few moments from my childhood that I remember with absolute clarity and this is one of them.
September 1974. A grey Saturday morning and for once my pyjama bottoms hadn’t twisted around my legs when I woke up. It was one of those serene wake ups where consciousness slowly invaded the dreams until I was fully awake with my eyes still closed, absorbing all the muted sounds and smell of cheese-on-toast for the early birds of the house. My breathing was still deep and my mind floated, but I was fully conscious.
Infinitely sad but true, this was when I would normally make up algebraic problems in my head and then try to solve them. Mental gymnastics. But not that morning. I was about to start a new school and was nostalgic, fondly remembering past friends – friends who had moved out of the area, friends I had met on holiday, and school friends who I would hardly see again.
I had been brought up in an area which was quite culturally diverse. I had Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish friends. I had Catholic and Protestant friends. I had been round their houses, seen the different religious symbols, adherences and customs and had an inkling of where they were coming from. I hadn’t really thought anything of it. Until that morning.
Then it hit me. It hit me with such cold force I actually shuddered and sat up in bed.
There are thousands of different religions around the world, each fervently believing in their own god, who can feel their god within them, guiding them, protecting them. They know they are right. My friends and their families most certainly did.
All of these religions claimed that all the others are false, that their believers are misled by their feelings. I myself was a Christian, at least I would be for another few seconds. Jesus was the only way to God and everyone who thought otherwise had it wrong. Yet my non-Christian friends believed in their religion just as much as I did in mine.
I extrapolated. Say there are 1,000 other religions other than mine. What were the chances that if all 1,000 beliefs are wrong, but can still inspire such emotion, such art, such nobility and such adherence, that mine was wrong, too?
I did a quick calculation. It came, for all intensive purposes, to 100%.
I was obviously quite shocked by this ‘anti-epiphany’, but suddenly I felt awake in more ways than one. With hindsight I saw the Bible as the equivalent of Aesop’s Fables, another wonderfully illustrated book I had near my bed – stories with a moral message but not to be taken literally.
But wait a minute. The Bible said it was the true word of god and yet these stories were obviously allegories. People in whales for three days?
I revisited those stories in my head. Suddenly the Old Testament was describing quite a vindictive, butchering god – certainly not one to be praised or admired – only feared as a dog would fear a vicious owner. The New Testament was different – the carrot to the Old Testament’s stick, though convenient that only those that saw Jesus resurrected numbered less than twenty.
Why on such a paramount piece of evidence were the witnesses so few and so biased? On a witness stand in court their evidence would be thrown out.
Now I knew there were Christians who did not literally believe many, if not most parts of the Bible – Jonah, the Ark, pretty much everything in Leviticus and that it took six days. I also knew most Christians misquoted the Bible – Noah, for example, took on board seven of each of the ‘clean’ animals and birds such as sheep and chickens; they did not all go in ‘two by two’. Yet when it came to the tales of Jesus, they had to believe the stories. That was what a Christian was. You had to believe Jesus walked on water and rose from the dead. This picking out what was literally true from what was not from the fantastical stories seemed…illogical.
Faith. It all came down to faith. And suddenly I had none. For any religion. How did I feel? Lost at first of course. How was I? Why was I?
Yes, these were the exact thought processes that went through my head in that minute back in September 1974. Now remember, as an 11 year old I was obviously thinking of organised religion – the only version of religion I truly knew and had experience of, which most posters here think, at best, is a poor estimate for any true path if there is only one.
But was there a true path? Was there an underlying truth undressed by man-made clothing for me to discover? I already knew that the story of Noah was common to Jewish, Muslim and even Hindu faith (albeit using a different name, Manu, IIRC).
Thus my quest for enlightenment began and after 35 years continues.
How did I approach the problem of finding the naked truth? The only way I could try, as I saw it at the time (and still do) was to understand the overall concept of faith and religion. If one is looking through a telescope and has a distorted image of Mars one must examine the lens, and from knowing and understanding its deformities can possibly work backwards or add a corrective lens to produce a perfect image.
So where has it taken me so far?
Simply put, I now view religion, all religion, as by far and away the most wonderful, multi-faceted man-made invention ever produced. Brilliant.
I could go into detail about the need for religion to control growing societies both in terms of enforcing a moral code and enabling rulers. I could go on about how it is/was a social glue that defined Us from Them and how it was used as justification for temporary savagery against Them. I could go on about the need for religion to explain the inexplicable and both the meaning and meanness of life for our enquiring minds. I could go on about how religion is the dark matter of the soul, the X that balances the unbalanced and gives comfort to one’s own mortality. I could reprint the evolution of religion and the inevitability of it.
It’s very tempting, but I won’t. It’s all there on the internet. Richard Dawkins is on YouTube, and the evolution of morality and (separately) religion can be found all over the place. Wikipedia has a reasonably good summary of the latter two.
Religion has to be taught at an early age for the idea to stick – particularly nowadays. Does it never bother people that the vast majority of people believe what they were taught as a child? That it is mainly an accident of parents and geography? Exceptions to the rule of course, and people are becoming more circumspect over time – people nowadays when I explain I am an atheist do not automatically assume I have no moral values for example.
If you had never heard of the idea of a god and came across a bible, Qur’am or other such texts in a bookshop in your thirties and read it, I doubt many will think, “You know, that’s what’s been missing in my life. This is Truth.” More likely, “Well, it needs an editor and Tolkien did it better, but the underlying message of love and respect in the second half I can get on board with.”
The fact that humanity became designed to believe has warped the lens so much that I believe there is no God. The logical seduction is too strong for me.
But this is not up for debate. How could it? We are talking belief here. Ultimately, faith cannot be justified or defended - it can only be questioned. If I cannot prove what I believe, I expect no one else to be able to do the same and will not try to convert. Perhaps all faiths are indeed a trick of the mind. But get this: all human life, all human life experiences, are filtered through a state of mind. If someone's state of mind doesn't affect me, or is attempted to be pushed onto me, then I'm glad it works for them.
This post was merely a narration of my journey to date.
People open their hearts, others open their mind, and all can end up on different sides of the fence or even sitting on it. That’s what makes horse races and life quite interesting.
The phrasing of the question is interesting in itself. “Why” is defined as: For what purpose, reason, or cause; with what intention, justification, or motive.
For myself, there was no purpose, intention or motive - there was no drive for it. As for reason, that was the cause and later on the justification for not believing in a deity. Yet one cannot truly apply reason to faith from the very definition of what faith is.
Therefore the question as phrased defeats itself, particularly when one realises that not believing, when pared down to the bones, must essentially be a belief in itself. I can, however, explain the history of how I came not to believe and how that belief has been strengthened over time through reasoning and observation. My personal journey.
As a child I had a standardised Western upbringing when it came to religion. I went to a Baptist church every Sunday, followed by Sunday School where painting of arks, whales, wise men and palm trees were fun to do. We were taught how loving Jesus was and how angry God could get. I even went to a Christian summer camp for a week that taught the same thing. I had a large colourful copy of the Children’s Illustrated Bible which I actually enjoyed reading – so much so that in 1974 I was awarded Best Boy in the Boys Brigade for my ability to quote the Bible.
Since the BB is not very well known in the US, let me elaborate. It has around 500,000 member in over 60 countries and is an interdenominational Christian youth organisation which combines drill and fun activities with Christian values. Its stated objective is: the advancement of Christ's kingdom among Boys and the promotion of habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-respect and all that tends towards a true Christian manliness. So to be awarded Best Boy in the UK (30,000 children in my age bracket at the time) was quite the achievement.
I prayed most nights. I didn’t just say the words. I meant them.
So with all of this background, all of this unquestioning belief, where did it go so horribly wrong at 11 years old? The only way I can describe it was that I had an epiphany, or an anti-epiphany to be more precise.
There are only a few moments from my childhood that I remember with absolute clarity and this is one of them.
September 1974. A grey Saturday morning and for once my pyjama bottoms hadn’t twisted around my legs when I woke up. It was one of those serene wake ups where consciousness slowly invaded the dreams until I was fully awake with my eyes still closed, absorbing all the muted sounds and smell of cheese-on-toast for the early birds of the house. My breathing was still deep and my mind floated, but I was fully conscious.
Infinitely sad but true, this was when I would normally make up algebraic problems in my head and then try to solve them. Mental gymnastics. But not that morning. I was about to start a new school and was nostalgic, fondly remembering past friends – friends who had moved out of the area, friends I had met on holiday, and school friends who I would hardly see again.
I had been brought up in an area which was quite culturally diverse. I had Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish friends. I had Catholic and Protestant friends. I had been round their houses, seen the different religious symbols, adherences and customs and had an inkling of where they were coming from. I hadn’t really thought anything of it. Until that morning.
Then it hit me. It hit me with such cold force I actually shuddered and sat up in bed.
There are thousands of different religions around the world, each fervently believing in their own god, who can feel their god within them, guiding them, protecting them. They know they are right. My friends and their families most certainly did.
All of these religions claimed that all the others are false, that their believers are misled by their feelings. I myself was a Christian, at least I would be for another few seconds. Jesus was the only way to God and everyone who thought otherwise had it wrong. Yet my non-Christian friends believed in their religion just as much as I did in mine.
I extrapolated. Say there are 1,000 other religions other than mine. What were the chances that if all 1,000 beliefs are wrong, but can still inspire such emotion, such art, such nobility and such adherence, that mine was wrong, too?
I did a quick calculation. It came, for all intensive purposes, to 100%.
I was obviously quite shocked by this ‘anti-epiphany’, but suddenly I felt awake in more ways than one. With hindsight I saw the Bible as the equivalent of Aesop’s Fables, another wonderfully illustrated book I had near my bed – stories with a moral message but not to be taken literally.
But wait a minute. The Bible said it was the true word of god and yet these stories were obviously allegories. People in whales for three days?
I revisited those stories in my head. Suddenly the Old Testament was describing quite a vindictive, butchering god – certainly not one to be praised or admired – only feared as a dog would fear a vicious owner. The New Testament was different – the carrot to the Old Testament’s stick, though convenient that only those that saw Jesus resurrected numbered less than twenty.
Why on such a paramount piece of evidence were the witnesses so few and so biased? On a witness stand in court their evidence would be thrown out.
Now I knew there were Christians who did not literally believe many, if not most parts of the Bible – Jonah, the Ark, pretty much everything in Leviticus and that it took six days. I also knew most Christians misquoted the Bible – Noah, for example, took on board seven of each of the ‘clean’ animals and birds such as sheep and chickens; they did not all go in ‘two by two’. Yet when it came to the tales of Jesus, they had to believe the stories. That was what a Christian was. You had to believe Jesus walked on water and rose from the dead. This picking out what was literally true from what was not from the fantastical stories seemed…illogical.
Faith. It all came down to faith. And suddenly I had none. For any religion. How did I feel? Lost at first of course. How was I? Why was I?
Yes, these were the exact thought processes that went through my head in that minute back in September 1974. Now remember, as an 11 year old I was obviously thinking of organised religion – the only version of religion I truly knew and had experience of, which most posters here think, at best, is a poor estimate for any true path if there is only one.
But was there a true path? Was there an underlying truth undressed by man-made clothing for me to discover? I already knew that the story of Noah was common to Jewish, Muslim and even Hindu faith (albeit using a different name, Manu, IIRC).
Thus my quest for enlightenment began and after 35 years continues.
How did I approach the problem of finding the naked truth? The only way I could try, as I saw it at the time (and still do) was to understand the overall concept of faith and religion. If one is looking through a telescope and has a distorted image of Mars one must examine the lens, and from knowing and understanding its deformities can possibly work backwards or add a corrective lens to produce a perfect image.
So where has it taken me so far?
Simply put, I now view religion, all religion, as by far and away the most wonderful, multi-faceted man-made invention ever produced. Brilliant.
I could go into detail about the need for religion to control growing societies both in terms of enforcing a moral code and enabling rulers. I could go on about how it is/was a social glue that defined Us from Them and how it was used as justification for temporary savagery against Them. I could go on about the need for religion to explain the inexplicable and both the meaning and meanness of life for our enquiring minds. I could go on about how religion is the dark matter of the soul, the X that balances the unbalanced and gives comfort to one’s own mortality. I could reprint the evolution of religion and the inevitability of it.
It’s very tempting, but I won’t. It’s all there on the internet. Richard Dawkins is on YouTube, and the evolution of morality and (separately) religion can be found all over the place. Wikipedia has a reasonably good summary of the latter two.
Religion has to be taught at an early age for the idea to stick – particularly nowadays. Does it never bother people that the vast majority of people believe what they were taught as a child? That it is mainly an accident of parents and geography? Exceptions to the rule of course, and people are becoming more circumspect over time – people nowadays when I explain I am an atheist do not automatically assume I have no moral values for example.
If you had never heard of the idea of a god and came across a bible, Qur’am or other such texts in a bookshop in your thirties and read it, I doubt many will think, “You know, that’s what’s been missing in my life. This is Truth.” More likely, “Well, it needs an editor and Tolkien did it better, but the underlying message of love and respect in the second half I can get on board with.”
The fact that humanity became designed to believe has warped the lens so much that I believe there is no God. The logical seduction is too strong for me.
But this is not up for debate. How could it? We are talking belief here. Ultimately, faith cannot be justified or defended - it can only be questioned. If I cannot prove what I believe, I expect no one else to be able to do the same and will not try to convert. Perhaps all faiths are indeed a trick of the mind. But get this: all human life, all human life experiences, are filtered through a state of mind. If someone's state of mind doesn't affect me, or is attempted to be pushed onto me, then I'm glad it works for them.
This post was merely a narration of my journey to date.
People open their hearts, others open their mind, and all can end up on different sides of the fence or even sitting on it. That’s what makes horse races and life quite interesting.
Last edited by Lidless on Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:07 am, edited 3 times in total.
It's about time.
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Lidless
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When I discuss religion with a religious person, I always paraphrase Stephen Roberts:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer religion than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible religions, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer religion than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible religions, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Last edited by Lidless on Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
It's about time.
I hadn't really thought about the title of the thread as it applies to me. Lidless has made that thought process finish in my head.
The "reason" I don't "believe" is that there is no reason "to believe". As I said before it's not a reaction but more just a realization. Thanks again to whoever said that first.
But I won't alter the title.
The "reason" I don't "believe" is that there is no reason "to believe". As I said before it's not a reaction but more just a realization. Thanks again to whoever said that first.
But I won't alter the title.
Dig deeper.
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TheEllipticalDisillusion
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Lidless wrote:When I discuss religion with a religious person, I always paraphrase Stephen Roberts:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer religion than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible religions, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Good one, Lid'You just said "your getting shorter": you've obviously been drinking too much ent-draught and not enough Prim's.' - Jude
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nerdanel
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I enjoyed your post, Lidless, and relate to several of the ideas you've expressed. Thanks.
I won't just survive
Oh, you will see me thrive
Can't write my story
I'm beyond the archetype
I won't just conform
No matter how you shake my core
'Cause my roots, they run deep, oh
When, when the fire's at my feet again
And the vultures all start circling
They're whispering, "You're out of time,"
But still I rise
This is no mistake, no accident
When you think the final nail is in, think again
Don't be surprised, I will still rise
Oh, you will see me thrive
Can't write my story
I'm beyond the archetype
I won't just conform
No matter how you shake my core
'Cause my roots, they run deep, oh
When, when the fire's at my feet again
And the vultures all start circling
They're whispering, "You're out of time,"
But still I rise
This is no mistake, no accident
When you think the final nail is in, think again
Don't be surprised, I will still rise
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Lidless
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A wonderful piece of satire that actually sums up my thoughts...
I should warn though that, as is standard for many YouTubes, many of the comments underneath are puerile and offensive in both tone and phrase. Please do not click unless you are comfortable with that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgjGpPLCFhE
I should warn though that, as is standard for many YouTubes, many of the comments underneath are puerile and offensive in both tone and phrase. Please do not click unless you are comfortable with that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgjGpPLCFhE
It's about time.
I don't post here often but I am curious.
Question for those of you who don't believe in any higher power or deity, what is your stance on an afterlife?
Almost all the atheists I have met firmly reject the idea of a possible life after death and I can't figure out why. Surely you don't have to believe in a god to consider that maybe there is something in a human being that transcends the physical?
I find it strange that a lot of people I know, when asked about their opinion on the afterlife automatically start talking about why they don't believe in the Christian God or Heaven and Hell, when that is not at all the question I asked.
I know I live in a predominantly Catholic environment but it's not like we have exclusive rights to the afterlife.
Question for those of you who don't believe in any higher power or deity, what is your stance on an afterlife?
Almost all the atheists I have met firmly reject the idea of a possible life after death and I can't figure out why. Surely you don't have to believe in a god to consider that maybe there is something in a human being that transcends the physical?
I find it strange that a lot of people I know, when asked about their opinion on the afterlife automatically start talking about why they don't believe in the Christian God or Heaven and Hell, when that is not at all the question I asked.
I know I live in a predominantly Catholic environment but it's not like we have exclusive rights to the afterlife.When I say transcend the physical, I am touching on the fact that for all the studies that have been done on the human body and brain and how the physical affects our character, there's still a lot of unknowns there. There is as far as I know no definite explanation for why a person is the way they are. Know what I mean? I'm trying not to use the word 'soul' because it's so weighed down by religious meanings.
When you say no reason, do you mean no scientific reason or no emotional reason?
I'm just confused when you say there just isn't a reason. Once, people didn't think there was a reason for believing in many things we now know are facts. How is this different? I mean, why not speculate about this great unknown, why rather say it is not true, period?
ETA: Actually, nevermind, I just realised why it's idiotic to even ask non-believers that. carry on.
When you say no reason, do you mean no scientific reason or no emotional reason?
I'm just confused when you say there just isn't a reason. Once, people didn't think there was a reason for believing in many things we now know are facts. How is this different? I mean, why not speculate about this great unknown, why rather say it is not true, period?
ETA: Actually, nevermind, I just realised why it's idiotic to even ask non-believers that. carry on.