What was it like being an atheist?

[Mister Agenda]

One of these things hasn't changed.

I am not miserable now. I spend several hours a day meditating on the Christian faith and sharing with others. I promise you that I get great joy from it, I never feel frustrated, I feel a deep sense of groundedness and peace in my soul, my doubts are gone, the problems I used to see in religion I have overcome.

Yet, you come here and frequently say horrible things about people you don't know.

I am happy whenever I think about God, because I feel such a sense of freedom inside of me to challenge ideas and the more I challenge them, the more I learn.

Maybe if you thought about God more when you're posting here, you'd come across as being happier.

Atheism is so dreary intellectually, there is no beauty or joy, you have to make everything up. Atheism is so painful.

Part of growing up is realizing that you can't apply your own experiences to other people. Theism was painful for me, atheism was like a breath of fresh air...but I wouldn't go so far as to say theism is so painful.

Materialism is so painful.

I don't find it so.

I used to listen to music 20 or 30 hours a week. It felt like everything was so meaningless, so empty. Everything seems like a joke, everything is absurd. I think that is what hell is like, feeling like that, everything is a joke, there is no sense of respect attached to anything, there is no sense of love, everything is like a joke.

That's being an angsty teenager, not being an atheist.

Everything is like a joke, because philosophically that is the condition of a world where nothing is intrinsically valuable, everything is hollow. That is the post modern condition, a sort of hallow materialism, a reflection on a reflection of nothing.

Maybe you're just prone to gloominess.

I used to take the ideas fairly seriously that God does not exist. I had some lingering doubts about maybe God exists, because I had had thing happen to me where I felt that God could be responsible. But I didn't pursue it because I wanted to keep sinning.

Maybe you would understand us better if you realized that it's unlikely ANY of the atheists you're talking to are in it for the sin. Frankly, I've observed sinning isn't much of a barrier to believing God is real. However, I'll take it as a compliment that you think atheists have too much integrity to sin and believe in God at the same time.

[CapnAwesome]

The question remains, German. What would lead you to suspect that they are dishonest in this?

I also think that Christians (and Muslims) generally lie about having been Atheists. A couple of things make me doubt. Number one, the similarity of the narrative that you hear from people about having been an Atheist. I've been involved in the Atheism debate for a while and I've come to the conclusion that people are regurgitating the same story. Look at JDStrodel's story of being an Atheist. Does it sound similar to anything that real Atheists on this board write about their life experience? No. This isn't a realistic story. A common idea amongst Christians is that they were 'angry with God' when they were Atheists. Also this shows when they believe Atheists are currently angry or rebelling against God. However no Atheist that I know actually expresses these ideas. I think this story is being fed to people one way or another.

The second and perhaps more compelling reason that makes me think this is a lie is the pure numbers. There are polling numbers about trends in Atheism and Christianity in the US and Europe. If all these Christians used to be Atheists, there would be much more Atheists around to start with, and you'd think that polling numbers would show a shift towards Christianity. On the contrary, the reverse is true. While undoubtedly there are a few Atheist to Christian conversions, I think most stories that we hear about 'having once been an Atheist' don't hold much water and are a thinly veiled attempt at converting Atheists.

[Mister Agenda]

FallenToReason you don't think that atheism entails existence is objectively meaningless?

Meaning is subjective. Existence doesn't have any meaning on its own, the only meaning it can have is the meaning it has TO someone. You're a someone, too.

What is beauty? How do you distinguish beauty from carnal self gratification?

If you think others can't distinguish appreciating a starry night from carnal self gratification because they don't believe in your deity, your theory of mind may be impaired.

---

I also think that Christians (and Muslims) generally lie about having been Atheists. A couple of things make me doubt. Number one, the similarity of the narrative that you hear from people about having been an Atheist. I've been involved in the Atheism debate for a while and I've come to the conclusion that people are regurgitating the same story. Look at JDStrodel's story of being an Atheist. Does it sound similar to anything that real Atheists on this board write about their life experience? No. This isn't a realistic story. A common idea amongst Christians is that they were 'angry with God' when they were Atheists. Also this shows when they believe Atheists are currently angry or rebelling against God. However no Atheist that I know actually expresses these ideas. I think this story is being fed to people one way or another.

The second and perhaps more compelling reason that makes me think this is a lie is the pure numbers. There are polling numbers about trends in Atheism and Christianity in the US and Europe. If all these Christians used to be Atheists, there would be much more Atheists around to start with, and you'd think that polling numbers would show a shift towards Christianity. On the contrary, the reverse is true. While undoubtedly there are a few Atheist to Christian conversions, I think most stories that we hear about 'having once been an Atheist' don't hold much water and are a thinly veiled attempt at converting Atheists.

You raise good points, but I don't think its dishonesty. Many pastors tell their flocks that an atheist is someone who is mad at god and doesn't really disbelieve, because no one could possibly sincerely disbelieve there's no God and there's that bit in the NT about it being self-evident so no one has an excuse not to believe. People who start to take their faith more seriously can sincerely believe their previous, more apathetic state really was atheism, even though they believed God was real at the time.

I know of a very few conversions of atheist to Christian or Muslim where there wasn't really any doubt the person was genuinely an atheist before. They never have some killer argument that convinced them, it was always something emotional and personal, and to my knowledge, the ones I know of had been theists before and returned to the faith they were raised in.

As a former Pentacostal I set the bar very low for what would bring me back: the right words from the right person would at least convince me to make a sincere effort to 're-convert' myself. My reasons for making it so easy are a promise I made 'to God' years ago, and I don't intend to go back on my word, even though I know the other end of the deal could be fulfilled by coincidence.

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Ignoring this last little altercation and getting back to the OP a little, it occurs to me that the questions suggest that, to the poster, Germans, atheism implies more than simply "lack of belief."

If more 'former atheists' understood that atheism is a lack of belief in God and that the position isn't made up just to avoid the burden of proof, it would be easier to believe they used to be atheists.

Getting them to say 'I didn't believe God was real' instead of just 'I used to be an atheist like you' tends to be an uphill climb.

Most of the people who say they used to be atheists don't even know what an atheist really is. Instead, they usually fall into the 'of course I was an atheist, you wouldn't believe all the drugs I did' or 'I was hateful and my life was empty' camp.

Now there will be people who were atheists whose experience won't resonate with us skeptics because it is so different: people who were atheist because they were raised atheistic communists, for example; but at least with them it is obvious why their experience was different, they may not sound like rational skeptics, but they won't sound like posers, either.

If you used to be an atheist, I'd be very surprised if you couldn't convince even Germans of it.

[Whateverist]

So, you don't think I could convince anyone on this forum that I was once an atheist?


Okay. If you say so.

Oh I believe that alright. It's just the part about that being in the past and not the way of it now that confuses me. At the risk of being way too forward, may I ask what sort of theist you are now? I think I've heard you claim Taoism and Hinduism. Tao is cool and I like how inclusive Hinduism can be. Please do share. I may be prying but at least I'm not clamoring for boob shots. (Not that I would turn those down either and if you ever need some glossies of my junk just say the word.)

[archangle]

what was it like for me?

Nothing really, They called me an atheist. I said what was the proof the body rose? they said they had 3 people that saw it, and a few others they were visited. I said I see 5 billion people that died and never rose, and those 5 billion never saw a person rise. so I stack up my list to theirs and ask, what seems more logical? they called me an atheists. yep, so what. let's go party. and off we went. I wish I could remember what happened but they said we had some fun. At that point it didn't matter what we were, we were friends first.

[TromboneAtheist]

Off topic, but I get 50% of my daily laughter from Strodel, and theists in general, on this site hahaha

[frz]

what was it like for me?

Nothing really, They called me an atheist. I said what was the proof the body rose? they said they had 3 people that saw it, and a few others they were visited. I said I see 5 billion people that died and never rose, and those 5 billion never saw a person rise. so I stack up my list to theirs and ask, what seems more logical? they called me an atheists. yep, so what. let's go party. and off we went. I wish I could remember what happened but they said we had some fun. At that point it didn't matter what we were, we were friends first.

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[Fruity]

trombone:

Off topic, but I get 50% of my daily laughter from Strodel, and theists in general, on this site hahaha

lol me too!

[KichigaiNeko]

The stupidity? The ignorance? the lack of education? The blind insufferable ego?

Plenty to laugh at

[Angrboda]

The question remains, German. What would lead you to suspect that they are dishonest in this?

I also think that Christians (and Muslims) generally lie about having been Atheists. A couple of things make me doubt. Number one, the similarity of the narrative that you hear from people about having been an Atheist. I've been involved in the Atheism debate for a while and I've come to the conclusion that people are regurgitating the same story. Look at JDStrodel's story of being an Atheist. Does it sound similar to anything that real Atheists on this board write about their life experience? No. This isn't a realistic story. A common idea amongst Christians is that they were 'angry with God' when they were Atheists. Also this shows when they believe Atheists are currently angry or rebelling against God. However no Atheist that I know actually expresses these ideas. I think this story is being fed to people one way or another.

I don't think this is necessarily an indication of lying. It is a not uncommon theme that people tend to "re-remember" their past along the lines they want to believe things happened. Thus a jilted lover will misremember the breakup as being his initiative and so on. It's an aspect of cognitive dissonance I suppose, but I suspect in some if not most cases, the memories are actively "rewritten" and reinterpreted along lines consistent with anti-atheist myths and stereotypes. It may be that they were never the atheists they portray themselves to have been, that that particular atheist narrative has been created after the fact, but there may be a core of truth that they once were an atheist of some sort. It also occurs to me that unhappy and stressed people, atheist or no, are likely more susceptible to religious conversion; perhaps you're seeing a selection effect wherein most atheist to theist conversions occur in people who are in some sense unwell to begin with, and thus these "atheist conversions" are skewed toward a specific atheist experience because the probability of conversion is skewed towards those types. (I notice Mister Agenda has a point along the lines that perhaps they were never True Atheists[tm]. I'm going to skip that and the second half of your post this am. Maybe later.)

(ETA: It also occurs to me that there is an additional assumption here that the former atheist is sincerely attempting to recount their experience. Not to get off on the question of why theists frequently seem to be consciously lying when in fact they may not be intentionally doing so, but it's entirely possible that for some converts, the lie is not so much in them claiming to have been an atheist — that part may very well be true — but rather in their claim that their retelling and narrative are an honest and authentic account of their experience; they may be intentionally or unintentionally distorting things for reasons of (theistic) self interest [if not outright lying about the content of their experience].)