I never understood a personal God except understanding that I must say that I do know a personal god and a "god of the church." I guess they are separate? Growing up I was quite sure there was a God only because the contrary idea was never introduced but I never had this conviction that others had around me. Like they all seemed so adamantly sincere on their belief, but why not myself? 

So I guessed I was quite good at tricking myself before I went to college. You know, relying on fallacy of causation with literally EVERYTHING and allowing the concept of "group think" in my religious community to fill me up with all the right EMOTIONS to help me recommit every Sunday. 

But eventually, all of the emotion manipulation did not satisfy and everyone's absolute religious convictions started to become nauseating as I started to learn more about the mormon church so I took what I consider the last step to heresy for reasonable religious men: apologetics. I tried arguing others in a representative form of arguing with myself for belief. But that trick ended after about a year.

Then, embarrassingly, I turned on my agnostic inclinations to try to regain family trust and got back to the "perfect" mormon world since I hadn't come to peace with losing an entire community and tried to trick myself again because it think that is what a lot of other people do. They just fake it till they make it...but I can't do that. I rather be homeless or 6 feet deep. But luckily, my immediate family has been quite understanding since they have seen that I have tried and ended up down a road of living a lie. So I am quite grateful.

So can anyone out there identify with this? Feeling like you are being tricked, and then you know you were tricked you try to trick yourself, but you can't no matter how hard you try? Or it works for a period, like a bandaid on a shot gun wound but then the band-aid would just fall off?

My mother used to traipse me around her church as a young lad (Mainly as an escape from her old-man for a few hours). In "Sunday School" I was always forced to listen to how other the kids had personal conversations with god and wondered why the aloof bastard wouldn't talk to me. For a few years I wondered what was wrong with me and tried (was pressured) to trick myself into believing in Him. Though, as I grew older I realized that I wasn't the problem within this scenario.

Everyone except for you had the same imaginary friend, lol.  There's something sinister, as an adult.....thinking about that...because there had to be a grownup around, listening to all these kids make shit up...building the narrative, presiding over it, as it were.

(July 18, 2016 at 3:41 pm)quip Wrote: My mother used to traipse me around her church as a young lad (Mainly as an escape from her old-man for a few hours). In "Sunday School" I was always forced to listen to how other the kids had personal conversations with god and wondered why the aloof bastard wouldn't talk to me. For a few years I wondered what was wrong with me and tried (was pressured) to trick myself into believing in Him. Though, as I grew older I realized that I wasn't the problem within this scenario.

Clearly, you had nothing in common.

I'm sure he tried to talk to you.

Probably when he was drunk and it was late.

He knew it was a bad idea, so he'd just poke you a bit.

Maybe sent you the odd pic of him looking happy.

He can be happy without you, you know?

He's so over you.

(July 18, 2016 at 5:07 pm)The Viking Wrote:

(July 18, 2016 at 3:41 pm)quip Wrote: My mother used to traipse me around her church as a young lad (Mainly as an escape from her old-man for a few hours). In "Sunday School" I was always forced to listen to how other the kids had personal conversations with god and wondered why the aloof bastard wouldn't talk to me. For a few years I wondered what was wrong with me and tried (was pressured) to trick myself into believing in Him. Though, as I grew older I realized that I wasn't the problem within this scenario.

Clearly, you had nothing in common.

I'm sure he tried to talk to you.

Probably when he was drunk and it was late.

He knew it was a bad idea, so he'd just poke you a bit.

Maybe sent you the odd pic of him looking happy.

He can be happy without you, you know?

He's so over you.

You talking about my dad....or god?  

Susceptibility is the key.

Some people are temporarily susceptible to the con.

Others are forever susceptible; deluded.

Once you understand their crushing need to feel "special" all becomes clear.

Quote:There is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: the creator of the universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell.


Sam Harris - Letter to a Christian Nation

I don't think I ever tricked myself into believing. I do however think there was a time where I wasn't willing to admit that I didn't believe. Looking back, I stopped going to church many years before identifying as an atheist and being able to say "no, I don't believe in god." I quit praying, too. I think I misunderstood atheism, and what it would mean for there to be no god. Before I could say that, I started thinking of prayer as absolutely useless. Either I wasn't able to take the next logical step (there's a reason prayer doesn't work!) or I did and wasn't able to realize what it really meant.

There are a lot of make-believe ideas that are installed into our brains during our youth that are so ingrained that the idea of questioning might never occur.

I'm still sorting through the nonsense.

I don't know if 'tricked' is the right word, but it was that inaccurate view of the nature of our existence that kept me believing in God for as long as I did. Brainwashed, or biologically inclinations, not sure which I'd attribute it too. Maybe both.

I'll throw this out;

it might have been possible for Joseph Smith to have believed his crap, either from the start (and it being due to a mental condition, tumor or wiring fault or head trauma) or perhaps at a later time when after a period of charlatanism and then being surrounded by (seemingly) sincere believers he started to believe his own lies in consequence.

So in the latter angle, old horny Joe did essentially 'trick' himself into belief, in spite of himself.

Now as to the probability Joe was ever sincere, Idunno. It seems PROFOUNDLY unlikely he ever believed any of the mountains of crap he produced for a simple reason:

if he was ENTIRELY convinced God Almighty Himself had dictated the TRUTH to him and employed him as a vessel for re-establishing His True Church, would Joe have dared change even a jot or tittle of anything God said ?

I didn't think so.


Joe, by changing EVERYTHING God (supposedly) dictated, falsified his own religion. He was crooked to the bone, and crooked from start to finish, Still, funny to speculate if Joe ever managed to suck himself into his own perfidy.