Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 29, 2024, 7:16 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Atheist since the age of 4!
#1
Atheist since the age of 4!
I would like to apologize for my writing style it’s not easy for me to write in English.

I think I was an atheist since the age of 4! I have just finished reading The God Delusion (in French) and it was a real pleasure from beginning to end. I’ve read the chapter on children and religion and I was wondering what the probabilities were for an atheist child?

I will try to explain my position:

I was born in Belgrade in Ex-Yugoslavia in 1980 (under Tito, so we weren’t very keen on religion but we weren’t really communists either. In my understanding living was easy with just some basic rules and a lot of fun, and not so much work and suffering). In fact the only people I knew who went to church were Charles Ingals and his family. I lived till my 8th year under the misconception that this was the case everywhere else on the planet (for me history consisted mostly of: 1.Dinosaurs, 2.Ancient Greece, 3.Middle ages, 4.WWI and II, 5.Socialism). When my father explained to me that a lot of people in Europe still went to church, it was quite a shock!
One of my first memories is my sudden understanding while lying in bed at night (I was 4 or 5, because in my memory the kitchen table is 3m high!) that I was going to age and die! I started to cry and scream and my parents woke up and took me out of bed and sat me on the kitchen table, while I was still screaming. Finally I managed to explain: “I don’t want to get old! I don’t want to die!” and my mother said very calmly: “Don’t bother yourself with that now, you are not even half of 10 years old and you are going to die in dozens and dozens of years. It’s so far away!” And it worked! I calmed down and it did seem a really good reassuring reasoning for a long time (it isn’t working so well now that I’m 29 though…).
When I was 8, a boy (13 years old) in my school committed suicide. The whole school was talking about it and the girl sitting next to me said “he did it because he believed in life after death”. I was completely thrown! While I did understand why it was easier to kill yourself if you believed that, I just couldn’t bring myself to understand how he had arrived to that conclusion: it seemed so very strange! Life after death: ????? When you die you don’t live anymore, it seemed to make perfect sense to me! (just so you know I had a real nice protected childhood and I had never seen death at that time, not even a dead animal).
I arrived, at 11, in Switzerland, and all my classmates were Christians (although not very practicing ones) but at first I was very afraid. I just wasn’t used to religion in my daily life and I think I became a bit fundamental… I was scared of churches and priests, I was certain they didn’t like me… My father used to call me “the vampire” because I flinched at every cross! But then, I got used to it…

Do you think it was possible for a 4 year old to think that or have I been brainwashed? Or is it all a constructed memory?
Reply
#2
RE: Atheist since the age of 4!
Children are the best people to see the flaws of religion; it's why they ask so many questions about it. Anyway, your writing style seemed fine for me Big Grin Welcome to the forums!
Reply
#3
RE: Atheist since the age of 4!
I think it's quite possible, in fact I'd argue that until you are exposed to the idea of religion or just decide to make it up by yourself you start off an atheist, it's the default position.


Welcome to the forums and I had no trouble understanding you at all.
http://ca.youtube.com/user/DemonAuraProductions - Check out my videos if you have spare time.
Agnostic
Atheist
I Evolved!
Reply
#4
RE: Atheist since the age of 4!
(June 26, 2009 at 12:47 pm)Demonaura Wrote: I think it's quite possible, in fact I'd argue that until you are exposed to the idea of religion or just decide to make it up by yourself you start off an atheist, it's the default position.

I like this guy.. he agrees with the bible :p Devil

A warm welcome meowmeow Wink
Reply
#5
RE: Atheist since the age of 4!
Greetings Meowmeow, welcome to the forums!

Children can be atheists in the sense of not believe in God, and doubting God, etc. Far fewer children label themselves as such, I'd say. But they'd still be atheist by definition if they didn't believe God actually existed.

Welcome and I think your writing was very well written and easy to read actually Smile

EvF
Reply
#6
RE: Atheist since the age of 4!
(June 26, 2009 at 7:33 am)meowmeow Wrote: I would like to apologize for my writing style it’s not easy for me to write in English.

I think I was an atheist since the age of 4! I have just finished reading The God Delusion (in French) and it was a real pleasure from beginning to end. I’ve read the chapter on children and religion and I was wondering what the probabilities were for an atheist child?

I will try to explain my position:

I was born in Belgrade in Ex-Yugoslavia in 1980 (under Tito, so we weren’t very keen on religion but we weren’t really communists either. In my understanding living was easy with just some basic rules and a lot of fun, and not so much work and suffering). In fact the only people I knew who went to church were Charles Ingals and his family. I lived till my 8th year under the misconception that this was the case everywhere else on the planet (for me history consisted mostly of: 1.Dinosaurs, 2.Ancient Greece, 3.Middle ages, 4.WWI and II, 5.Socialism). When my father explained to me that a lot of people in Europe still went to church, it was quite a shock!
One of my first memories is my sudden understanding while lying in bed at night (I was 4 or 5, because in my memory the kitchen table is 3m high!) that I was going to age and die! I started to cry and scream and my parents woke up and took me out of bed and sat me on the kitchen table, while I was still screaming. Finally I managed to explain: “I don’t want to get old! I don’t want to die!” and my mother said very calmly: “Don’t bother yourself with that now, you are not even half of 10 years old and you are going to die in dozens and dozens of years. It’s so far away!” And it worked! I calmed down and it did seem a really good reassuring reasoning for a long time (it isn’t working so well now that I’m 29 though…).
When I was 8, a boy (13 years old) in my school committed suicide. The whole school was talking about it and the girl sitting next to me said “he did it because he believed in life after death”. I was completely thrown! While I did understand why it was easier to kill yourself if you believed that, I just couldn’t bring myself to understand how he had arrived to that conclusion: it seemed so very strange! Life after death: ????? When you die you don’t live anymore, it seemed to make perfect sense to me! (just so you know I had a real nice protected childhood and I had never seen death at that time, not even a dead animal).
I arrived, at 11, in Switzerland, and all my classmates were Christians (although not very practicing ones) but at first I was very afraid. I just wasn’t used to religion in my daily life and I think I became a bit fundamental… I was scared of churches and priests, I was certain they didn’t like me… My father used to call me “the vampire” because I flinched at every cross! But then, I got used to it…

Do you think it was possible for a 4 year old to think that or have I been brainwashed? Or is it all a constructed memory?

I carried this memory of a train ride, or a few select mental pictures of a train ride I had when I was 2 years old. I doubt if I have that memory still intact. Most likely it is a memory of my memory. I don't trust it because I can see myself in the mental picture.
"On Earth as it is in Heaven, the Cosmic Roots of the Bible" available on the Amazon.
Reply
#7
RE: Atheist since the age of 4!
that's an interesting point of view : in this memory I see through my eyes and my parents are like giants and the furniture is gigantic. perhaps it’s real then.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Deconvertion since childhood doomed 3 1364 July 5, 2015 at 7:36 am
Last Post: doomed
  Christian to wiccan to new age to atheist k2490 12 4770 October 16, 2013 at 12:03 pm
Last Post: Fruity



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)