did you ever truly believe?

[Abracadabra]

Atheists, do you remember a time in your life when you actually believed in the existence of a god? What was this like?

These are very interesting questions. However, in order to truly understand my answers you need to go far beyond the limited Medieval and Mediterranean view of "god". In fact, perhaps "god" isn't even the correct word to use. Perhaps a better word is "spiritual essence" or maybe even a term like "higher self"

Was there ever a time when I believed in 'god'. Yes, absolutely.

I've felt the presence of "god" my entire life, from extremely early childhood especially. Long before I was old enough to even understand what 'religion' was or the claims of any particular religion.

I still do, to this very day, feel the spiritual essence of reality. However, having spent an entire lifetime studying various religions as well as various philosophies, including the philosophy we call science, I've view things a bit differently today than I did as a child. I've become more open to the possibility that my deep innate feelings of spirituality may potentially be nothing more than that - feelings.

So in a spirit of honesty I find that I must confess to myself that can't truly know the answer. All I can know is that I feel a strong innate sense that I have always been and always will be (a feeling that doesn't jive with the Mediterranean mythologies anyway). It's clearly a feeling that is more harmony with spiritual philosophies that suggest reincarnation.

Today I confess that I am spirituality agnostic. At least in a logical sense. I can neither rule it in, nor rule it out using logical arguments. So in this sense, with respect to knowledge of spirituality I must be honest and say that I am without knowledge in any absolute definitive way. This doesn't mean that I have no knowledge at all. Nor does it mean that I can't give reasons for why I favor one view over the other. It simply means that I do not possess any knowledgeable proof one way or the other that is convincingly irrefutable.

Having said all of that, I personally lean toward believing in a spiritual essence of reality for many reasons, which I won't go into here.

So today when it comes to a spiritual essence of reality I would have to say that I'm an agnostic spiritualist who would place my intuitive bet on a spiritual essence to reality if I had to guess.

Are there atheists here who have actually truly believed at some point or is there a sense in all religion followers of trying to convince themselves it is true?

I was born and raised into Christianity. I was raised by Free Methodists who take a very abstract view of the bible. They focus on Jesus almost entirely and try to make sense out of the Old Testament through the eyes of Jesus. In truth, they simply try to sweep as much of the Old Testament as they can under the carpet pretending that it's basically irrelevant in the light of Jesus. This is a pretense that one of my uncles used to joke about quite often. He did not believe in the religion and used to tell people to be careful they don't trip over the lump in the carpet at the church. He was naturally implying that they have swept the Old Testament under the carpet.

Well, I naturally believed in a spiritual essence of reality and even feel the presence of 'god' in my life. (i.e. I feel the presence of something beyond normal mundane experience). So as a child when I was taught that this god wrote a book, I believed my parents and found it rather interesting that god had actually written a book. And he even had a special son? More interesting yet?

So I was naturally prepared to believe in these things via my own spiritual feelings. However, it quickly became apparent to me that this religion has humongous problems.

The first problem was blatantly obvious to me.

My childhood experience with the "god Presence" was based on extreme love emanating from this "god presence" to me. This feeling of love was truly profound and there was no reason for me to distrust this "god". But now this religion of Christianity is preaching to me that I'm at odds with this God and that I have basically rejected this God and refused to 'obey' him and that I need to repent my evil ways to get 'back' in good with God.

Well duh? That was exactly the opposite of my spiritual experiences. There was never a time when I was at odds with God, and the whole idea that I've been bad and god basically hates me until I repent my evils ways was totally counter to my spiritual experience.

So that was problematic to begin with.

However, that wasn't the end of the story. Because it became quite evident to me that the preachers of this religion weren't even in agreement with each other on what these stories are saying. There were actually preachers in our extended family, and they would often come to dinner and bring other preaches with them. After dinner they would sit around discussing the Bible, etc, and the fact that they seldom agreed on anything became blatantly apparent.

So it was natural for me to think that perhaps they got it wrong about the idea that all men are sinners and have fallen from grace, etc. This caused me to start studying the biblical stories myself to see if I could find the truth and perhaps ultimately point out to these preachers why they are wrong.

So that began my journey of studying the bible intently on my own.

I won't bore you with the details, I'll just give you the conclusion. After having studied these Hebrew fables I easily recognized that they can't possibly represent the infallible word of any God (especially not a supposedly benevolent wise God), and that they are clearly nothing more than the idiotic superstitions of a truly sick perverted society that was simply trying to use a god-concept to support their male-chauvinism, slavery, wars, and hatred toward "heathens" (i.e. anyone who refuses to worship their dogma).

So after I had made this realization I was able to easily toss the bible in a burn barrel as being completely devoid of any truth.

And yet at the same time I did not need to toss out my original childhood god experience.

Like I say, my innate spiritual feelings were more along the lines of reincarnation anyway. I've always existed and always will exist. The god presence is not just with me momentarily, but it's with me always. Always in the now. An eternal now that has no beginning and no end.

So when I trashed the Hebrew hate cult, I didn't give up on spirituality in general. Instead I started looking to see if there exist other religions and spiritual philosophies that are more in harmony with my own innate spiritual experiences. This lead me to the Eastern Mystical philosophies such as Buddhism, and Taoism.

I didn't 'turn to them' for something to believe in. I simply looked at them to see if anyone else had 'felt' the same god experiences that I innately feel. And sure enough, I found that this view of 'god' or 'spirit' had been highly recognized by the Eastern Mystics.

So today if I had to point to a spiritual philosophy that I feel has the most likelihood of representing the true nature of reality I would have to point to Eastern Mysticism. However, at the same time I would also need to warn that I can't point to any single version of concrete religious traditions or doctrine as being "the absolute truth'. All I can offer is that the Eastern Mystical view in general appears to express my original innate childhood experiences of spirit.

Those childhood spiritual experiences have indeed changed as I grew. I was much 'closer' (in tune) with god as a very young child than I am today.

But this is to be expected, especially in light of the wisdom of the Eastern Mysticism. I still feel immortal, and I have never feared death my entire life. Yes, I have the same instinctual biological reactions to avoid it when confronted with it directly, but no, I do not fear death itself, and I never have because I innately know that it's an illusion that's not real.

I still never feel alone. As the religious people say, 'Tho I walk through the valley of death I fear no evil for tho art with me'.

Although, I might rephrase that a bit, "Tho I walk through the valley of death I fear no evil for I know that I am eternal".

I have since come to believe that my 'god experience' was actually a recognition of my very own 'higher self' (not a separated entity). This is one reason why the sense of love and connection are so profound. There is nothing to fear from a higher self which is ultimately nothing more than your very own self.

Tat t'vam asi, You are God.

This I believe innately and intuitively.

I also have scientific reasons for believing it, the most obvious being the following:

Is there anything I can point to that is 'me' that is not also a part of this universe?

Clearly I can't.

Therefore I am this universe. For there is nothing else to be.

So even based on pure scientific knowledge I have no choice but to come to the same conclusion. I am this universe, and I reincarnate all the time. It's what I am.

Sorry for the long ramble, but your the one who posed these interesting questions and they deserve a detailed answer.