Doubting Thomas

[Exian]

I want to hear about the first time you doubted your religion? Your first ah-ha! moment, if you will.

Here's mine, it's kind of odd:

When I was little I used to play a thought game while I laid awake in bed. It's kind of hard to describe. I called it the ladder game. It involved turning my attention towards the formation of my thoughts, and then quickly turning my attention towards the commentary that was forming about the original stream of thoughts-the thoughts about my thoughts. This would then form new commentary on those thoughts and I tried to see how long I could keep it going before I lost it all and my attention collapsed to one thought stream. Kinda like those spinning plates. After doing that for a few years I got pretty good at it and I wa able to think my thoughts before they were formed into English. Which kinda freaked me out. I later learned this is actually a form of meditation.

On to the point, I realized that I wasn't born with the ability to speak English, but just speak. This lead me to research language and writing. So my first doubt, when I was younger was the idea that writing was a human invention that happened sort of late in our time on Earth. As amateur as it is, I inferred from that that the bible was man made. DOUBT!

[Fidel_Castronaut]

For me it was when I was at primary school around the age of say, 6? 7? The first time I could start to truly grasp the basics of the concepts that were being taught to me at school.

We had a 'good news' bible, you know the one with the rainbow and dove with the olive branch as a picture on the front?

I remember our headteacher/principle at the time (who was a big up member of the god squad) telling us the story of the arc and the message of hope it was supposed to bring to humanity. I'd always liked the picture so I remember being excited that we were going to listen to the story in full and talk about it some more.

And then I heard a story about genocide (I didn't know what genocide was at that age but I was able to grasp the idea of a flood drowning everyone) and it made me suddenly think that it sounded like the god of the bible was actually a bit of a dick and (when I could grasp the concepts a bit better) a murderer.

I never looked at that cover of the bible the same way again, nor indeed did I take seriously any of the other stories told to me about the bible god. Later, when I was about 10 or 11 and just before I left primary school here I remember that head teacher/principle ostracising me for asking why god wanted to kill everyone on the planet. Rather than respond to me the he told me off for asking the question, and behold his true fundamentalist character was revealed.

I also remember a teacher exodus on the year I left because they couldn't stand him and his preaching. The last I heard we was an advisor to local government on some matter of education but that was years ago.

I've never believed in a god or gods. My family aren't religious and we never discussed religion. My only interaction with it was with religious teachers at school (like my old head teacher), who made me stick to being an atheist.

[Tobie]

I got interested in christian mythology when I was younger (maybe around 12) from authors like Dan Brown, and a couple of Tess Gerritsen's books. I hadn't really read the Bible at that point, and was a christian because in primary school we were never told about any alternatives (we had to go to church for all the major services, and sang hymns in the assemblies). The books piqued my interest enough for me to bother reading the Bible and found it 1) Far fetched and 2) Tedious.

[RobbyPants]

I want to hear about the first time you doubted your religion? Your first ah-ha! moment, if you will.

My first "ah-ha!" moment wasn't so much of a moment of doubt, but more of realizing the arbitrary nature of religion. I understood that the biggest determining factor in a person's religion was where they were born. I also believed that you had to accept Jesus as your lord and savior to go to heaven (and not hell). I also understood that not everyone would have an equally easy time converting to Christianity, given various social and legal situations. That being said, I felt lucky to be born in a country that worshiped the "correct" god. It's kinda creepy looking back on it.

I would later realize that I wasn't "feeling" God as much for a while. I'm not sure how much those were "doubts", though. It troubled me, but I still felt like I largely believed, and just needed to be more active.

I didn't really truly doubt until my late 20s, which was about five years after the above two events. At some point, I realized I no longer believed in God, and felt like I had to convince myself to do so, again. I really wanted to believe in God, but I couldn't force myself to do it. The more I thought about it and the more I read my Bible, the less I believed. Even then, it took me about two years to let go of it and to feel comfortable in my disbelief.


So, for me, it wasn't just one thing. I just kinda... stopped believing.

[Exian]

Two things strike me about this R-pants.

1) I think this is the more common approach to deconversion (I have no stats on that) which is in stark contrast to how the process is viewed by theists in general. There seems to be a belief that we have an evil book that we read that changes our minds. Of course, we do, it's their Bible. Nice bit of irony there. They view us as unbelievers rather than disbelievers. I find it maddening.

2) That process of dabbling in the uncomfortable feelings of losing your religion before making the ultimate painless leap seems to also be a common thread. I wrote about that in my first ever post called The Comfortable Alien so I won't get into it here, but the main idea deals with the process of becoming more comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

[Chad32]

Maybe the first time I met someone who wasn't a christian. It was in school, and for whatever reason I casually mentioned god or the bible or something. I don't remember clearly, but the person said he didn't believe it was true. There was also a time when I found out people really used to worship old mythological gods like Zeus and Odin. They were just as real to those people as Jesus is to christians. Those old little g gods were no different than the big G god back in ancient times.

I don't think this is the easiest question to answer, because it's hard to remember when certain events happened that started shaking my faith. All I know is that it eventually crumbled until I came to believe that religion/personal relationships with deities, do more harm than help in this world.

[Brian37]

The first question that got my ball rolling was a question a construction worker asked me back in the late 80s "What if Jesus was just a man". Prior to that I merely accepted Christianity as fact even though the entire time it really didn't square with me even though I didn't know why. Everyone else was doing it so there had to be truth to it. That guy challenging social norms is what started it because it was the first time someone triggered my doubt.

It still took me from that moment from going to believing, to ok, Christianity is not true, but there has to be some sort of god with all this beauty, to the next big jarring "AH HA", moment when I went to the Smithsonian Museum in DC. They had an exhibit of the Ankor Wat Cambodian complex. At the start of that dynasty the religion was strictly Buddhist, but about half way through Hindus started to mix with them, then the statues gained Hindu features even though the dominate motif was Buddhist.

I finally called myself an atheist when a fellow college student in the mid 90s said he was. But event then I kept it to myself. It was not until shortly after 9/11, when an atheist nurse from Chicago had her opinion spread throughout the nation in an AP opinion, which made my local paper, that I decided to get online and seek out other atheists.

I admit, that day when I got on the internet, I did have a fear of "what if someone finds out" and"am I getting involved in a cult". But it took me less than a week to get over that and I have not looked back since. Every day since I have spent time on line reading and learning from others and debating and motivating others to be comfortable in their own skin.

[RobbyPants]

There seems to be a belief that we have an evil book that we read that changes our minds. Of course, we do, it's their Bible.

[Tonus]

My loss of belief was gradual. My "ah ha" moment was probably the moment when I first accepted that I was an atheist. One of the early things that started chipping away at it was questions about how Judas is treated in the NT. Other things were more specific to the Jehovah's Witnesses and what they believe, and some of it was trying to make my beliefs work in the face of any doubts or counter-arguments made by non-believers. To me, the Bible should have been able to clearly and unambiguously convince anyone of its veracity without requiring a person to be in any particular frame of mind; what good is a book from god if you have to accept god before the book makes the proper amount of sense?

I didn't realize it through all of that, but I was stepping outside of the "belief bubble" that I'd been raised in. Many of the arguments I see put forth by theists here are not much different from what I found so unsatisfying as I tried to salvage my religious belief. And some of the arguments are so bizarre that even when I was a believer I would've done a double-take.

[Exian]

I really enjoyed that Brian. Thanks for sharing. You've got yourself a really interesting story. The wisdom from a random construction worker is just amazing!