A Question For Atheists.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

When and how did you decide that you didn't believe in god?

[leniwhite]

Dione - it does make me despair because they're all intelligent and have reasoning minds. Most either were brought up within their religion or turned to it after some sort of life trauma. I don't mind explaining exactly how I manage (!) to live without needing a higher power to force me to live morally and how actually I find it very freeing to know after I die it'll be exactly as it was before I was born. A few have told me that it's made them think about their beliefs slightly differently actually.

I think it would make the world a much better place if people could learn to be responsible rather than putting everything on to a deity.

[leniwhite]

And by that I mean they should be able to reason out that morality and religion are not mutually exclusive

[GetOeuf]

fair enough.

Just plenty of annoying people start threads on here to have a chat which goes to inform an article.

I have no axe to grind - I am very happily an atheist, and cannot remember believing, other than really enjoying going to Sunday School as a child and having a good sing song. I still like strolling around churches now - they are lovely places to sit and think.

But I can't get over that place in my head which convinces me that of course there isn't a god. It just seems, and always has seemed, utterly preposterous.

I can see how faith gives others comfort and happiness, and I don't feel bereft in that I have no faith at all. I don't need the idea of an afterlife to make this one more palatable.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

I agree Leni and I commend your patience.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

Chippingin, if you think that this thread us anything other than I have said, please report it to MN rather than accuse me of being dishonest.

[leniwhite]

Noble I think the same, and there are also questions for me around how, if people with neurological damage can lack the capability to believe in a god, can it be the only way to be. That goes back to the thing about babies being born without belief. I've spent 6 years studying psychology and once you realise just how biologically based much of our behaviour is, and how many of the things that used to be thought of as 'religious experiences' can be traced directly to our biology and chemical make up, it makes you wonder

[backonlybriefly99]

I assumed god must exist as a child since people mentioned him around me and spoke of people going to heaven & hell. We went to Sunday school as kids - mostly to get us out of the house I think :)

I quite liked some of the hymns, but I didn't give it much thought until I was given a bible. I read it like I did the little child's encyclopaedia I was given and when it didn't make sense I asked people about it. The answers were like those you get when you ask how Santa gets down such a small chimney. I kept studying it and making notes until I was sure it made no sense. Not just no sense in the larger world, but no sense internally.

Just in my experience people who are not priests/vicars etc seem not to read the whole bible. They tend to read inspirational passages. Reading it all it seems inevitable that I'd discount it.

About the default position. It seems impossible that babies can be born Christian, Baptist, Muslim or Mormon. How could that work? They could possibly be born ready to believe that something powerful and caring existed to protect and guide them. If so they would be correct. They are called parents. At some point in their development most children feel an urge to make their own decisions.

[DadOnIce]

Dione - what I mean is that you said (or asked if) atheists come here to start threads and "kick off". I've never seen any such thing. I've only ever seen atheists weighing into threads started by believers - either about the nature of religion, or god, or threads like yours specifically asking atheists for an opinion. I can't recall the last time I saw a thread started by an atheist in P-R-S. In general, atheists don't go looking for a fight.

[DadOnIce]

leniwhite - I find that sad too. Religious people have said it to me as well - in a slightly pitying way. I try to point out that I am able to lead a moral life without a god. That I commit offences as often as I want to - which is precisely not at all. I find it quite worrying that they, on the other hand, need to have God watching them like a stern headmaster. Are they implying that, without his baleful gaze, they'd be off gleefully raping and murdering?...

Like GetOeuf I find the idea of a god quite preposterous, and I get quite irritated when asked to "prove" there isn't one. Quite apart from this being logically impossible, I shouldn't have to - it's the person making the extraordinary claim who should have to prove it, or at the very least provide evidence. But for them, their belief has become some normalised that they don't, interestingly, see it as an extraordinary claim at all.

[Blu]

I don't think I ever did really believe in god.

I was brought up as a fairly regular attender of the Methodist church, and did Sunday School, and mothering sunday and all the rituals and paraphanalia, and I entered into a feeling of a sort of shared collusion that 'this is the story we all tell each other and talk about' but I never really felt on any deep level that there was actually 'god'.

By the age of about 9 or 10 I had thought about it consciously and decided there definitely was not, a view that has been added to as I grew.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Well I have started threads in the past, eg about how anyone could reconcile being a feminist with being an active member of any of the Abrahamic cults.

Actually, getting back on topic, I think my revelatory moment was about birds. I would have been about 7, a year or two before we got any sex education, and I wanted to know about How Birds Got Married. EG, to my understanding at that age, you couldn't have a baby unless you were married, so how did birds manage it? I think someone told me that God dealt with it and that just sounded entirely ridiculous to me.

[GetOeuf]

I find it quite sad that religious people seem to think that goes hand in hand with having a moral code. I find it perfectly possible to be a good person without the idea of god looming over me.

I also would find no comfort in going to heaven/hell, or any kind of afterlife. I am very happy with the notion that when I am dead that's it, turn into worm fodder or whatever, and whatever kind of afterlife I have is only in the memories of others - and if I am a good person more people will remember me fondly. I don't need to have a god or any faith for that.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

Quite a few atheists start threads here. Not all do to kick off, but some do. There are some running currently DadonIce.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Atheists have as much right as the superstitious to start threads in this section. It's called philosophy/religion/woobollocks, which means it's open to the rational as well. And everyone is at liberty to ignore threads that are either of no relevance to them or which they think are 'goady' or might expose them to people who don't agree with them.

[DadOnIce]

Just an observation that I hardly ever see atheist-started threads, that's all. But maybe the originator is not always clear from the title.

[thecapitalsunited]

Dione, you asked me somewhere up thread whether I questioned my atheism as I grew up. I read a lot about various religions as a teen but nothing really struck a chord with me. In fact quite the opposite, I actually find it quite bizarre that people can believe in a god because it has never been part of my life.

[PedroPonyLikesCrisps]

About the default position. It seems impossible that babies can be born Christian, Baptist, Muslim or Mormon. How could that work? They could possibly be born ready to believe that something powerful and caring existed to protect and guide them. If so they would be correct. They are called parents. At some point in their development most children feel an urge to make their own decisions.

I completely agree, it's actually an evolved trait certainly in humans and in a large proportion of other animals for young to intrinsically trust their parents because it's beneficial for survival to lean on their experience until such time as they are ready to go it alone. A side effect of this trait is that children will tend to trust any authority figure they come in contact with, so when sent to Sunday School, for example, it is very easy for the messages to be transmitted as fact and ingrained at an early age and this becomes deeply seated in the mind of the child.

As for the original question, I don't ever remember believing that god did exist and I'm not sure why I ever would have. I'd ask when did you decide that you didn't believe that Spot the Dog existed, or the Billy Goats Gruff, or Cinderella? For me, the stories I heard from the bible or other affiliated publications were just that, stories. I really don't understand why any child would ever take them as anything more plausible than that unless they were taught as historical fact, which, regardless of my personal beliefs in the truth of them, I don't agree they should be taught in that manner.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

I think the irritation that you feel when believers question your morality is the same as the irritation they feel when some atheists question their intelligence. Neither intelligence nor morality are the sole preserve of one group.

[narmada]

No I understand your explanation of your faith dione. Did it come out of nowhere? at a significant time of your life? I just cannot imagine that ever happeni g to me...but then I am not ever so imaginative

[DioneTheDiabolist]

It did come out of nowhere. There was nothing at all significant going on in my life, no sorrow, no joy, just a weekday afternoon. I was in the living room of the house I was renting at the time, so I wasn't even in a particularly inspirational location.

[narmada]

What a shock. Did you wonder if you'd had some sort of cerebral...event?? Hope don't take that the wrong way, but I can imagine myself thinking that, if I were in your shoes ...

I hope you find your answers in your reading. At least no danger of your life being boring

[fortyplus]

DioneTheDiabolist I can't really remember the sequence that these childhood beliefs fell by the wayside. I do remember walking home from primary school (but in those days I walked home from age 5) and thinking that I didn't believe in God but worrying that if He did exist would he mind that I didn't?! As an adult atheist I hold the same view - I don't believe in a supreme being, but if there is one I'm sure he/she/it wouldn't give a hoot whether people believed in them or not! A supreme being with an ego wouldn't be right, would it?

[DioneTheDiabolist]

Totally. When I "came out" to some friends that was one of the first things they suggested, once they realised I wasn't taking the piss. A few years later I had an MRI scan on my brain. I mentioned it (called it an episode so they wouldn't think I was a mental time waster) and asked if they would check, but it all came back clear.

Don't worry about me taking offense, it's nothing I didn't get from my mates at the time.

[noblegiraffe]

So you were sitting at home and suddenly felt like there was a god?

[DioneTheDiabolist]

As I say, it raised more questions than it provided answers. I suppose if it was that important to god, she'd give it to everyone. So I, personally have come to the conclusion that belief isn't important. However I could be wrong, so if there are Pearly Gates manned by Peter, I don't expect that "Dione said it will be alright" will help.

Anyway, this isn't a thread about my personal belief, it's about atheism and I don't want to derail.