My journey to Atheism
January 17, 2012 at 7:53 pm
(This post was last modified: January 17, 2012 at 7:56 pm by Cosmic Ape.)
I'm glad to have found a forum of mostly like minded people even if it isnt in the real world..definitely some irony in there. Anyway I'd just like to share my story because rarely do you get to talk to people who care to talk about this topic of beliefs... Anyway, I grew up in a Christian family, but for the most part loose Christians who didnt force me to read the bible or only hang out with other Christians or put me in Christian schools but would still use muddy language like "spirituallty" or "karma" or "there has to be more out there/design has to be involved" pretty annoying but not brainwashing. As a kid, defining myself was really hard mainly because I had no idea what an Atheist was, people go out of their way to make sure the word is hidden thats for sure. And even if I did know the meaning of Atheist, the stigma attached to the Atheist label is mostly negative, even among religiously tolerant people. So growing up I had this identity issue of not knowing I was an Atheist and why that prevented me from getting along with most people and their crazy thoughts.
I never put the Atheist label on myself until my later high school years that I dont believe in any god(s) and started telling people that preached that they have to have evidence instead of just letting the crazy people talk but not taking it seriously. Religion hardly ever got brought up in my childhood, especially as an arguing point. But to back up a little bit, I never actually accepted the god claim or even the santa claim when I was old enough to think about it rationally, maybe about age 6-7. I became an Atheist after I started thinking about santa, then the easter bunny, then god, none of it was reasonable and my parents never actually had to tell me that santa is fake. And it was very odd to me that the other kids in my class didnt put the pieces together and still blindly believed in supernatural fairy tales even though they were plainly told that santa wasnt real, but oh no the other invisible thing that watches what you do...thats not santa...IS watching what you do and judging you, its ridiculous. It was so clearly a control device over people in my eyes.
I dont know, sorry if that wasnt interesting or original but I felt like sharing with someone.
I never put the Atheist label on myself until my later high school years that I dont believe in any god(s) and started telling people that preached that they have to have evidence instead of just letting the crazy people talk but not taking it seriously. Religion hardly ever got brought up in my childhood, especially as an arguing point. But to back up a little bit, I never actually accepted the god claim or even the santa claim when I was old enough to think about it rationally, maybe about age 6-7. I became an Atheist after I started thinking about santa, then the easter bunny, then god, none of it was reasonable and my parents never actually had to tell me that santa is fake. And it was very odd to me that the other kids in my class didnt put the pieces together and still blindly believed in supernatural fairy tales even though they were plainly told that santa wasnt real, but oh no the other invisible thing that watches what you do...thats not santa...IS watching what you do and judging you, its ridiculous. It was so clearly a control device over people in my eyes.
I dont know, sorry if that wasnt interesting or original but I felt like sharing with someone.
