RE: Question to atheists
July 26, 2018 at 8:23 am
(This post was last modified: July 26, 2018 at 8:28 am by polymath257.)
I was raised in central Kansas in the 60's. Everyone was theist. I went to Sunday school, Wednesday school, and regular school. We prayed at every meal and before bed.
I remember trying desperately hard to hear a reply from God when I prayed when I was 6 or 7 years old and not getting one. I think, for me, that was the first kernel of doubt. In Sunday and Wednesday school, I understood the stories, even then, as similar to Aesop's fables: they had a moral goal but were not actually true. I remember being shocked when I realized some of the adults thought that they were actual history.
Later, I memorized catechism (Lutheran) and was able to get quite a number of stars after my name for doing so. But then I realized that, for confirmation, I was expected not just to recite (which was easy enough), but to say I actually *believed* what was said. This was somewhat of a crisis of conscience for me. I didn't want to disappoint my grandmother, but I also didn't want to publicly say I believed something I didn't. I'm not sure what I would have done if I hadn't moved away so grandma's opinion didn't matter as much. No confirmation.
Anyway, I definitely came on my atheism on my own. It took a while before I went from 'unsure' to 'definitely not', but the core doubt goes back to when I was very young. Oh, and there were no books on atheism and certainly no internet at that point.
I remember trying desperately hard to hear a reply from God when I prayed when I was 6 or 7 years old and not getting one. I think, for me, that was the first kernel of doubt. In Sunday and Wednesday school, I understood the stories, even then, as similar to Aesop's fables: they had a moral goal but were not actually true. I remember being shocked when I realized some of the adults thought that they were actual history.
Later, I memorized catechism (Lutheran) and was able to get quite a number of stars after my name for doing so. But then I realized that, for confirmation, I was expected not just to recite (which was easy enough), but to say I actually *believed* what was said. This was somewhat of a crisis of conscience for me. I didn't want to disappoint my grandmother, but I also didn't want to publicly say I believed something I didn't. I'm not sure what I would have done if I hadn't moved away so grandma's opinion didn't matter as much. No confirmation.
Anyway, I definitely came on my atheism on my own. It took a while before I went from 'unsure' to 'definitely not', but the core doubt goes back to when I was very young. Oh, and there were no books on atheism and certainly no internet at that point.
