(February 20, 2012 at 1:13 pm)dominic-uk Wrote: Atheists, do you remember a time in your life when you actually believed in the existence of a god? What was this like?
I remember being taught the usual bullshit as a child but my family aren't religious so it never really sunk in as important to me. I went through a rough phase at high school when I turned to christianity, but I think I was always kidding myself, in the back of my mind I always felt it was all ridiculous. I don't think I've ever truly believed in anything other than, stuff that makes sense. (Santa claus made sense to me when I was 5).
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 am very much like you. I did not grow up in a religious home and I had no pressure placed on me by my parents to believe in anything. It wasn't I was in my early twenties that I became interested. I was embarrassed about being so illiterate about the bible.
I mean there are so many biblical references that I just didn't understand, so I took a class at a community college on the New Testament as literature. It was really one of the most interesting classes that I ever had.
At this time in my life, I had a lot of tragedy in my family as well as personally. To be blunt, I was an alcoholic and my life was crazy for about five years, so when I couldn't take any more, I started going to AA.
This was the first time in my life that I associated with people who practiced a "spiritual way of life". I felt like I lacked the ability to believe in God, but over time I found myself praying and talking about a God who was personal to me. Inwardly, I felt that I was being dishonest as I really did not believe, but I saw that instead as a spiritual struggle.
Sorry, this is a long story that played out over the past 23 years. A little over six years ago, I got married and my wife is an atheist, and without pushing me, she got me thinking. I decided that I was in fact an atheist, that my struggle with faith was in fact nothing more than not being able to reconcile spirituality with reality.
I started reading Hitchens and Hawkins and other sources on the Internet, and now I realize that I never really believed, but there was a time for many years that I wanted to believe.
In my opinion, even the most devote religious practioner knows deep down that there is no god, but they continue on with the game.
