I just don't get it

[robvalue]

Ah, thanks! I didn't know of any studies like that. How interesting.

I wonder how many more don't believe but were too scared to even say so in an anonymous report in case Jesus was listening?

[emjay]

I was a strong Christian until I was 18. I never questioned it I'm ashamed to say and took a lot of flak for it at school because most of the others were atheists. Nothing they could say could shake my belief and I think I just kind of dug in.

So as much as I'd like to be able to say it was critical thinking that brought me out of it, I can't. Instead it was the raging battle between that and my homosexuality. The Bible I had back then has all the passages relating to homosexuality written out in the back. I couldn't reconcile my own personal feelings and experiences with the way it was described... misrepresented... in the Bible and I couldn't understand the 'why' of it all. So again, I'm ashamed to admit, if I hadn't had to face that sort of struggle I wonder if I would have ever questioned my Christianity, because with most of the other sins in the Bible it was self-evident why they were wrong. So if I'd 'had it easy' as it were... been straight... where all of my sins would come down to real choice rather than nature, then I think I would probably have been a Christian to this day and maybe been 'batting for the other side' in a different sense on this site   

In the end, with all that cognitive dissonance, it just clicked one day when I was eighteen that "there is no god". I remember exactly where I was when that happened... it's imprinted because it was such a momentous realisation. Everything fell into place after that and made sense. And I think the mere fact of having such cognitive dissonance in the first place - the clash between two very strong belief systems - made it inevitable that it would 'click' one way or the other... that it couldn't go on like that forever just because if the brain is forced to deal with contradictory information and it can't ignore it or usurp it into an existing understanding then it will find the answer... the intuition... that brings it all together... and allows, in neural network terms, the network to 'settle' into a stable state... in this case "there is no god". I certainly couldn't ignore my homosexuality... my actual nature... and all my attempts to reconcile it were to no avail... from both sides of the fence really. From the Christian side there were the books my parents bought me when I came out to them at 15... books that tried to minimise it I suppose by saying things to the effect that 'it's not that bad, you just have to abstain just like any other unmarried person' or worse, that you could essentially force yourself to have a straight relationship of some kind and that it would be good on some platonic-ish level and that would/should, in the author's minds, be enough. And then from the other side, with the gay books I bought like Terry Sanderson's 'A Stranger In The Family' which was a book that was meant to help parents come to terms with having gay kids, and addressed among other things, their religious concerns. But the arguments it put forward never convinced my parents or me really. Anything other than taking what the Bible said at face value... things like saying it wasn't talking about loving relationships etc... just seemed like clutching at straws... which at the time I did, but it never really took hold because it had no support and didn't hold water... and just fuelled the cognitive dissonance rather than resolved it. So in the end I think it was just inevitable that the cognitive dissonance would resolve itself as it did.

And after that, as an atheist, I soaked up knowledge like a sponge, seeing the flaws in my previous belief system for what they were. Finally being able to see the Bible without emotional investment... see its contradictions and not make excuses for them or ignore them etc. And seeing all the science and psychology that led to and maintained the erroneous beliefs in the first place.

[robvalue]

Thank you for sharing your story emjay

It must have been horrible to go through that, and I'm so pleased and impressed that you fought your way out of it.

I don't feel there's any reason to be ashamed. Christianity is designed to stop you asking questions and just obey. All that matters is that you spotted it for what it was and got out, before wasting your whole life on it. I'm sure your story will be an inspiration to others in similar positions.

[Minimalist]

What kind of process that led me to become an atheist, that for some reason did not occur to them?

Perhaps they were threatened by an angry mob which threatened to throw rocks at their heads?  I can see where that would be a compelling argument in places where they have lots of rocks.

[emjay]

Thank you for sharing your story emjay

It must have been horrible to go through that, and I'm so pleased and impressed that you fought your way out of it.

I don't feel there's any reason to be ashamed. Christianity is designed to stop you asking questions and just obey. All that matters is that you spotted it for what it was and got out, before wasting your whole life on it. I'm sure your story will be an inspiration to others in similar positions.

Thanks rob   It wasn't really a case of fighting my way out - in the sense that I never had that intention and it just kind of happened spontaneously - but it was a battle in the sense of a lot of emotional turmoil at the time. But ultimately it was a formative experience that I wouldn't change for the world. I can wish that my parents had been more open-minded (or even just a little ) or that I'd had an easier time coming out, or waited or whatever, but if that had been the case I think I would have missed out on a lot of insight that has come in the years since, and would be a completely different person now. 

I was, and still am, very trusting/gullible, and tend to believe anything that anyone tells me with a straight face, especially if they're friends or people I look up to. So I think that was the main reason I believed... because my family was (and still is) very active in the church and not just on Sunday so I was always surrounded by family and family friends with very strong faith... and is also the reason I'm an easy mark for pranks to this day and have been conned a few times. I was basically a sucker for personal testimony of any kind and as a Christian that was the most compelling type of 'evidence' for me. Now, as an atheist I'm still surrounded by the same straight faces, telling me the same things, but the difference now is that I understand the psychology behind delusion and all the other tricks of the mind that religion can play. My gut reaction to their personal testimony is still the same... it's just as compelling as ever on a personal level and I believe they are sincere... but now I realise it's only the truth as they perceive it... as is everybody's truth. So I can enjoy the story and admire their passion etc but ultimately know that the mind is more than capable of creating every effect they describe without the need for any god.

[robvalue]

That's exactly right. I don't accuse people of lying about their personal experiences. I accept that they are telling me what they believe happened. It's just that people are notoriously bad at accurately describing events, and no one is qualified to identify previously unknown phenomena like "God".

The fact that "God" just happened to look exactly how they would expect God to look, when there's obviously nothing real to compare to, says a lot. Same goes for any other supernatural business.

[emjay]

That's exactly right. I don't accuse people of lying about their personal experiences. I accept that they are telling me what they believe happened. It's just that people are notoriously bad at accurately describing events, and no one is qualified to identify previously unknown phenomena like "God".

The fact that "God" just happened to look exactly how they would expect God to look, when there's obviously nothing real to compare to, says a lot. Same goes for any other supernatural business.

Yep, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable... even just how the question is asked can influence how it is perceived 'how fast was the car going when it smashed into the tree?' will influence perception and make you think 'fast'. And NDE's are another one... the testimony is unreliable unless they interview quick because of the mind's ability to fill in the gaps... to 'confabulate'. I've had some memories as well, mainly from my childhood, which turned out to be demonstrably false - impossible situations that couldn't have happened based on what I later learned from photographs etc... things like the layout of a room etc. So the mind is more than capable of making things up, modifying memories after the fact, and seeing what it wants/expects to see.

[robvalue]

Yeah, it's quite scary! I've had my memories be totally and utterly wrong, sometimes not even long after the event. I'm convinced of something, to the point where I'd put serious money on it, and it turns out I completely misremembered it. I've learnt to be more sceptical of my own memory especially, and to not rely on it too much when important decisions need to be made.

[drfuzzy]

[emjay]