(August 11, 2013 at 7:33 pm)themonkeyman Wrote: My question here is when does the penny Drop?!
That is different for each person, because our circumstances are different. There is a lot of subconscious programming that you cannot simply switch off, and even once you reach that point where you accept your rejection of god and religion and become comfortable with it, you are likely to have those moments when you wonder and worry.
Imagine a phobia- an irrational fear. A fear of something that you know is exaggerated, but which you cannot seem to help. Getting over the fear of something like, for example, dragon flies may take years of effort and you may still not be completely at ease around them. Even though you know that they are harmless, your brain insists that they are terrifying and your whole body will react when you see one, before you even realize what is happening.
The religious beliefs and behaviors that were drilled into your brain from the time you were a child are still there, and still forcing your mind to react. You'll overcome it, but it takes a while and I don't think that there is some magic moment when you know that you've crossed over. More likely is that you realize one day that you haven't been hit by those doubts and worries for a while, and you'll know that at some point in the past you finally cleared the most important hurdles. It's worth it to know that you will reach that point, and that it's a very comforting and liberating feeling.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould