So I think I’m an atheist (or at least a really strong agnostic) now

[Crazydog7]

I had a conversation about a week ago that threw me for a loop. On the one side of it was my cousin and me. My cousin is a total prick but maybe he just lacks the good manners to say what the rest of my religious family members would like to say but are too polite to say he always spouts the typical Republican usually something having to do with illegal aliens I think he used the term “death panel†in the conversation and I was just to make a polite excuse and hang up the phone when the topic came around to drug abuse. He maintained that drug abusers were habitually evil because of their inherent sinful nature (???)

I maintained that when my father (whom he has never meet) started abusing cocaine (again) back ’03 he did it because he was lonely and scared and has no other way to cope (he also suffers from paranoid schizophrenia but that is an entirely different thread) again this problem isn’t due to any emotional problems or feelings of loneliness my father might have it was all about sin.

I pressed him further and it turned out that this was also his justification for the member of their congregation that was caught molesting children recently (well not sin exactly, demon possession)

I hung up and started to really think about this conversation and the conclusion I have reached is that any system that grants you an automatic get out of jail free card because of what you supposedly adhere to one hour of one day out the week is a seriously fucked system. Any system that allows people to pass off their shitty behavior onto something else weather it is the devil, sin, demon possession or one of 100 other things needs to be closely examined because they are trying to sell you something or take your money.

I thought about it further now my contention in all these religion threads for all of these years was that A. even if religion is all made up and bullshit working towards the betterment of society is ultimately a good and also B. That religion deserved to be taken with a grain of salt because of the sacredness or a thing

Now I think that using B as an argument makes no fucking sense. Why shouldn’t religion be able to stand up to same intellectual scrutiny as everything else in this world and the more I reflected on this the more I realized that it does not.

Think on it as the differences between the two saying “Think through something logically†and “just take it on faithâ€

As for the nature of God I’m not exactly sure anymore I think the most plausible explanation is the old “watch without a watchmaker†argument.

This is really just my long ass posty way of apologizing to all those atheists and non religious I have butted heads with every time a religion thread has come up. Still, I am at a crossroads while I am living in my mother’s home I will continue to attend services am I being a hypocrite or am I just being polite? Am I being more of a hypocrite for staying silent? Has anyone else had the experience of “coming out†as an atheist or agnostic to their more religious family members?

[Lord O' Bones]

First, this may sound weird coming from me, but the system is the problem. Religion is the problem. You don't necessarily have to lose your belief in god when confronted with the last straw re: religion.

As to polite or hypocrite, no one can tell you that. They can tell you how they would feel, or how they hope you would feel. The question is, do you feel more polite for sparing your mother's feelings or do you feel more hypocritical when you are sitting in that pew? By asking the question at all, you should accept up front there will be some portion of both.

[Xray the Enforcer]

:grouphug:

Crazydog -- it can be tough, these questions you ask. Some people never answer them to their satisfaction, but even a life of inquiry can be its own end.

Do whatever you feel is most comfortable for you and the rest of your immediate family, with regards to church. Maybe continuing to attend, to look at the proceedings with your new intellectual context, would be useful for your inquiry? Or at least keep things easier with your mom. I don't think it's hypocritical to attend services when one is a non-believer, tbh.

I've been an atheist for most of my life. It's just how things turned out (I came to this conclusion by myself, rather than have it inculcated by a parent), and that's fine by me. We only have one turn on this fantastic little blue marble, so make the most of your time and continue to question. You might end up being merely agnostic. Or something else? Just follow what your intellect tells you. And good luck.

[Eponine]

This is really just my long ass posty way of apologizing to all those atheists and non religious I have butted heads with every time a religion thread has come up. Still, I am at a crossroads while I am living in my mother’s home I will continue to attend services am I being a hypocrite or am I just being polite? Am I being more of a hypocrite for staying silent? Has anyone else had the experience of “coming out†as an atheist or agnostic to their more religious family members?

How old are you, and how long will you be living with your mother? Besides the living situation, are you financially dependent on her?

How involved are your relatives in your spiritual life? Do they talk about Christianity a lot and ask you direct questions? Or if you didn't bring it up, would it not be a common discussion point?

You don't owe anyone else information about your personal beliefs and you're not a hypocrite for staying silent at certain junctions, especially if you believe that blurting out "I'm an atheist" will cause both you and your family a lot of emotional turbulence. You were possibly told that if you're a Christian, you need to be proud of it and not ashamed to let other's know. But the reverse isn't true... if you're not religious, you don't need to go around telling everyone. Maybe if your family isn't too nosy, you can say that your spiritual life is personal.

OTOH, if you've been socially involved in religion, and part of your family life revolves around that, it can be extremely stressful and "fake" feeling to keep pretending that you believe. If your family is very religious, keeping your disbelief a secret might mean outright lying and building up a fake persona. If you need to do this for a time, it can help you to get your thoughts in order and make some decisions. However, it seems to me like being this fake person forever wouldn't be healthy. (And believe me, I've tried and it ended up taking me all sorts of bad directions).

Since you're living with your mother, without knowing anything else, my recommendation would be to not make a big announcement, but try to lose the religious trappings without actually saying you don't believe anymore. Find productive substitute activities. When you're out of the house, you can decide whether you need to come all the way out (writing a letter can be helpful) or if it doesn't need to be an issue unless someone else specifically brings it up.

Remember that you are not responsible for your family's feelings and emotions. You have a responsibility to be respectful and considerate in how you deal with them, but you DO NOT have a responsibility to be the person they want you to be instead of the person you are. I struggle with this, because I can see how sad my parents are, believing that I'm going to Hell, feeling that they've failed to some extent as parents. Every year in my birthday card, they told me that their greatest desire was to see me grow up to love god. Feeling like you've denied someone else their greatest desire isn't easy. My parents did tell me that they still will always love me, but the relationship is undeniably strained. I feel that they love me for who they wish I could be more than for who I am.

But other people who've come out to their families have actually had family members say they agreed but were too timid to come out on their own. There's a wide variety of responses. I assume that if you were in danger of having your family attempt to ruin your life before disowning you forever, you'd have said so. So probably the biggest obstacle you'll have is in knowing that they're upset, fending off a few attempts at reconverting you, and having something that was a common bond between you broken.

If you want to know anything else from me that's lengthy, you can PM me so I don't derail your thread by going on and on.

[gladius]

Well you've chosen your path, good for you.

I come from a family where the only openly religious person is one of my grandmothers. My sister and me weren't baptized and we were simply left to find our own path (i will always be grateful for that). I started as an atheist and i found it very funny when my grandma tried to convert me to catholicism (she gave up a long time ago). I had been an agnostic for years before i became very interested in spiritual matters. I find it a fascinating field of study. My current beliefs (they keep evolving as i gain more knowledge) can be best approximated as an unholy mix of agnosticism, gnosticism, buddhism and cathar beliefs. :wideeyed:

I don't even care if i am right or wrong, i just want to know the truth or come as close as possible without dying.

[Altherion]

I hung up and started to really think about this conversation and the conclusion I have reached is that any system that grants you an automatic get out of jail free card because of what you supposedly adhere to one hour of one day out the week is a seriously fucked system. Any system that allows people to pass off their shitty behavior onto something else weather it is the devil, sin, demon possession or one of 100 other things needs to be closely examined because they are trying to sell you something or take your money.

You are far from the first to feel this way. In fact, organized religion used to be much, much worse -- it used to be that you could simply pay agents of the church some money and you'd be all set with any sins you choose to commit in the next couple of centuries (as long as you confess them and receive absolution). This is essentially what split the Western branch of Christianity into dozens of denominations. It's also the reason I don't really bother with organized religion any more than is required by tradition.

Still, I am at a crossroads while I am living in my mother’s home I will continue to attend services am I being a hypocrite or am I just being polite?

I don't think attending services implies anything about your beliefs.

[TerraPrime]

I'm glad that you've given the subject some thought. That you now think you're an atheist is less important than the fact that you have thought about your faith critically rather than simply following the momentum of culture and customs. Don't be afraid to keep thinking on this, and revising as needed. You might very well end up back in the religious camp, though maybe with a different sect. I don't want to presume, but so far, your stated reason to object to religion is quite specific to the denomination that you're participating in. It's quite possible to still believe in god/gods, just not this particular sect. If you're a Christian, this is especially true. There are so many variants out there that it's almost hard to not find one that might fit you as long as you can still accept the existence of a god.

As far as your living situation goes, Eponine had some good pointers.

In general, I don't think it is hypocrisy to observe the religious rites of the people who're host to you. This should be even more so for your parents. I don't think attending services is any more than bowing your head during a prayer before meals (I do this for my religious hosts if I am a guest). The trick is when it comes time to take communion. I know some sects say that you shouldn't take communion if you don't really believe. Alternatively, if someone presses you directly, then you have to decide whether to lie or to tell the truth. I think one good way to dodge the point without being deceitful is to say something to the effect of "I am experiencing some doubts concerning some aspects of my faith, but I'm working on it." Depending on your social situation and your level of independence, you may or may not find it easy to admit to your family and close relatives that you have left the faith that they all belong to.

Now, if you do tell them, be prepared that some of them will try to help you find your way back to the fold. I suggest be polite but firm (e.g. "I understand that you're concerned about me. I appreciate your advice in the spirit that it was given, which is that you are trying to help. But I've thought about it quite a bit and right now, I don't really have the faith to believe any more"), at least for the first couple of times that they bring it up. After that, then put your foot down and inform them that they're being disrespectful of your belief.

[sologdin]

even if it's 100% erroneous, it is still the expression of real suffering and simultaneously a protest against real suffering--the heart of a heartless world.

[Kat]

I basically agree with TerraPrime on the going to church thing, mainly because I've been doing it for a long time. I think I realized I was a nonbeliever when I was 13 and had to go through confirmation, but didn't realize I could have gotten out of it if I had just told the truth. After that, I kept going to church (I liked being in the choir) and to this day sometimes still sing with them. There are non-Christian members of the choir as well who do not say prayers or take communion either. n the other hand, I attended an Episcopal church and members tend to be on the private side about their faith already, and other than singing and occasional responses, there's not a lot of, er, active stuff during services, so it's easy to go without participating and without being obvious that you're not participating. Another option, at least in my church and I hear in the Catholic church as well, is that instead of taking communion you can be blessed by the priest. Since I don't believe, being blessed doesn't mean anything. I gave up on that a while ago, but if your denomination does something like that it might be a more palatable option for you.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Crazy, I went through the same thing years ago. Now you get to enjoy the best part--NO CHURCH ON SUNDAY!

[Lord of Oop North]

I've also been doing a bit of self-reflection lately, on life and shit, you know, introspective type stuff? Not my usual cup of tea, I assure you. Imagine me like that statue of the guy with his head on his palm. But wearing a beer hat. And less naked. Not that I have anything against being naked. Nudists are a-ok in my book and not on any of my shitlists (yet). Anyway, I recently decided that I really hate religion. This is despite twenty-three years as a member of the best of all religions, Catholicism (Go Crusaders!!). The brainwashing was quite effective, it seems.

First off, let me get this out of the way, so that all those whom are easily offended (mostly, the religious) can leave the thread or immediately flame me (which is what I am hoping for, so please, hang in there guys!). I'm not a bigot, but your religion sucks and I hate it. Religion is nothing but a crock of shit for stupid people. It is a psycologoical crutch for the weak-minded, the cowardly, and the foolish. Christians and Jews, your God is a racist cunt. Muslims, your moon god can suck my balls. Buddha was a big fat idiot. Confucius liked to rape little girls. Ganesh is an elephant, seriously. And so on. Oh, and Mr. Mormon was just a stupid drunk who found some golden plates and apparently accessed Megatron's secret message for the Predacons. Yeah, right. Okay, we can continue.

Next, I believe that every person on this Earth has the right to believe whatever the fuck they want, despite how retarded or vile it may be. That's your right, I guess. But I also believe that I have the right to make fun of your stupid religion. Fair is fair, yay! If you are offended by any of this, then please stay, because I hope to offend you some more. But I do hope that you realize that there is a clear difference between criticizing the religious and criticizing your stupid religion. Just please remember that I love you all (despite your retarded religion). I can't hold you responsible for an accident of birth.

And this is really where the whole thing gets silly. I'm a Catholic only because I was born to Catholic parents. So I followed Catholicism. If I was born in the Kingdom of Saud, I'd be a Muslim. If I was born in India, I'd likely be a Hindu. And so on. It's all so arbitrary. There really is no reason why what I believe is any truer then what anyone else believes. It's all a grand accident, really. Apparently, salvation is based on nothing more than birth, which makes God’s Plan absolute bollocks at best, or a crooked game of yahtzee, at worst.

It is not necessarily what religion says that pisses me off - although it says a lot of things that piss me off, like; stoning women, hating homosexuals, loving lepers, destroying your heathen enemies, and having as many babies as possible - but it's the sense that you have to suspend rational thought in order to believe. I absolutely despise the anti-rationality that is espoused by so many of the 'fundamentalists' around the world. It drives me fuckin' crazy.

Now, you might say, that you are religious but not anti-reason. In response, I'd say that you are lying. The very act of being religious is anti-reason. You are wilfully choosing to believe in something, regardless of the complete lack of evidence. That is fine, I suppose, but that's the truth. To be religious is to be a fundamentalist. There isn't really a middle ground. Having faith is anti-reason. Deal with it.

[Sis Who Swears]

I've also been doing a bit of self-reflection lately, on life and shit, you know, <snip>

To be religious is to be a fundamentalist. There isn't really a middle ground. Having faith is anti-reason. Deal with it.

:bow: *clap* Thank you!

[Guest Nadine]

Crazydog, as one of the rabid athiests over the years, I actually find it sad when people go atheist. Religion can be a very large part of someone's life, and its always sad to lose something that meaningful. I also want to say that you shouldn't let the behavior of a few influence you too much. There are always bad apples. Even as much as Religion makes my hands shake in anger and disgust, logically I know that the majority of religious people are fine, upstanding people and any organization is going to have a few loud minorities who make the entire organization look bad. I also promise if you recant your recanting, I would never mock you for it or otherwise use it against you.

As for your mom...that is hard, and it depends on how determined you are to start a new way of life. I don't see anything wrong with attending services with family members. If you believe, you just got your soul batteries charged for the week, if you don't believe, you just spent one hour with your mother, making her happy with nothing more than your presence.

I am about as rabid as you get, but I still have told my kids about religion, and not in the omg, look how dumb these people are lol way. Both my children believe in God, and I am totally ok with that (and send them to church with gramma and grandpa so mommy can sleep in :D ).

[Guest Nadine]

I've also been doing a bit of self-reflection lately, on life and shit, you know, introspective type stuff? Not my usual cup of tea, I assure you. Imagine me like that statue of the guy with his head on his palm. But wearing a beer hat. And less naked. Not that I have anything against being naked. Nudists are a-ok in my book and not on any of my shitlists (yet). Anyway, I recently decided that I really hate religion. This is despite twenty-three years as a member of the best of all religions, Catholicism (Go Crusaders!!). The brainwashing was quite effective, it seems.

It is not necessarily what religion says that pisses me off - although it says a lot of things that piss me off, like; stoning women, hating homosexuals, loving lepers, destroying your heathen enemies, and having as many babies as possible - but it's the sense that you have to suspend rational thought in order to believe.

Me too!!

OMG, that loving lepers thing is what sent me over the edge too!!

[Lord O' Bones]

Wow, two epiphanies in one thread. Can I get a third?

[Brude]

I honestly don't remember when I became an agnostic, and there certainly wasn't a single moment of epiphany or decision where I changed. There was a long gradual change in my beliefs, I do remember that much, but any memory of the point at which I started referring to myself as such eludes me.

I guess the enviornment I grew up in made such a decision about my beliefs much easier. My family were non-practicing, my dad is Jewish and definitely believes in God but going to Hebrew school as a child had been my choice and not something foisted upon me. My mother was raised Catholic but never really agreed with much of the faith. At various times she's described herself as a Deist, though it was more along the lines of saying that system of beliefs meshed most closely with her own. Also, growing up, while most everyone I knew was Jewish by heritage and all went to Hebrew School and made their Bar/Bas Mitzvas, a very large number of them were pretty openly atheists at least by the time of high school. I remember being rather shocked when some of them just openly admitted in a conversation we were having that they had no belief in God.

Now I'm probably what you would call a "teapot agnostic," which is to say I am highly skeptical of the existance of God, but since I cannot prove a negative I am hesitant to say with absolute faith that he/she/it doesn't exist. In truth, I would really like for there to be a powerful, benevolent Supreme Being and hope that there is, but I think it's probably not so. At the very least, if there is a Supreme Being, it probably doesn't much care for us, pay attention to us or even like us and if the stories found in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible are anything to go by, it might be quite insane, as well.

[King Nobody]

As for the nature of God I’m not exactly sure anymore I think the most plausible explanation is the old “watch without a watchmaker†argument.

This argument is flawed. If they're going to apply that to the universe then they have to apply that to god as well. At some point you have to accept that something has either always been, or was formed out of nothing. So now you can either accept that the universe either always has been or was created out of nothing, or you can accept that god either always has been or was created out of nothing. We may not know how the universe got here, but we know for a fact that it exists, whereas god has zero proof of his existence, the simplest answer is to believe the universe either always was, or was created out of nothing, adding a god just complicates things.

[Eponine]

If you decide that going to church to make your mother happy is a compromise you can make, just make sure not to get too carried away with believing that you can make her happy by pretending to be religious.

At the end of high school and when I was in college, I thought this compromise stuff would be no problem- I'd made it through 12 years of Christian school and tri-weekly church services- going to Sunday morning church a few times a month to keep my parents happy would be no problem, right? Probably something I could do until they died, a small sacrifice of a few hours on my behalf in exchange for their peace of mind. I didn't want to outright lie, but I thought I could honestly stay a "seeker" and not entirely close the door to the possibility of believing in religion.

Once you start believing you can sacrifice things in your life to make someone else happy, where does it end? I hadn't thought it through very well, and I let myself be stretched past the breaking point. I was dating an atheist boyfriend, a real good guy. Somehow my parents found out (note that I was not living at home at this point) and by this time, I'd developed a real fear of having my cover blown and I still thought I had a chance to have a satisfactory marriage to a True Believer . I thought only dating Christians was a sacrifice I could make for their happiness, and it was that which did me in. I was becoming increasingly depressed over realizing that pleasing them was taking control over what I wanted in life, but I still wanted to try to be who they wanted, and I ended up accepting a proposal from the first devoutly Christian man who they approved of.

After the divorce, there was just no way I could agree to keep pretending. But I consider myself extremely lucky in one way- if I'd married a wonderful, non-abusive, but devoutly Christian man who I loved, how would I have ever untangled myself from living a lie for someone else's sake?

Hey, I'm NOT telling you not to go to church with your mother. I am telling you to think carefully about your boundaries and how far you're willing to go before pretending is affecting the rest of your life. I know that my experience makes me sound like a really unstable person, but I'm actually not a person who has trouble saying no if I've thought through everything first. Problem was, I didn't think about the consequences, and once I'd decided that my personal time was less valuable than my parents' happiness, I kept thinking I could compromise one more thing, and one more and one more.

***

I consider myself a non-Christian agnostic. I don't consider it worth my time to attempt to completely rule out a Deistic god or to debunk all the religions in the world, and simply think that there is a very high likelihood that either no god exists or that a creator with quasi-godlike powers in relationship to our universe has no interest or demands on humans. However, I maintain that the Christian god does not exist and that Christianity is a man-made religion and not divinely inspired. As far as liberal Christianity, I think it's ridiculous and useless as a religion, although makes for nice charitable social clubs.

[Tears of Lys]

even if it's 100% erroneous, it is still the expression of real suffering and simultaneously a protest against real suffering--the heart of a heartless world.

That's beautiful. Now you're going to make me cry. :cry:

Unfortunately, it's also the cause of much of the suffering in the world. Or maybe that's just the product of humanity's perversion of a basically beautiful idea.

[Ocean of Notions]

I've gone to church several times in my lifetime despite spending most of it as an atheist. Remember the church isn't just about religion, it's also about tradition and community. For example, if I was staying with a friend for the holidays and they attend church, I'd go with them because it's their tradition and it's important to them. I don't think it's necessarily hypocritical to still attend church as a nonbeliever as long as you realise where you stand and you are honest about the reasons why you're still going.