Open to explore possibility

[arewethereyet]

I've never lived my life with uncertainty like this before. I was conditioned to believe that there was always this someone out there, who knew everything, who was always watching me, who knew the future and had a plan for me. I was abused by a cult to hold every thought accountable because this being who knew what was best for me had access to my thoughts, to the point where 80% of the personal prayers I gave were said inside my head.

And now, suddenly, after 32 years, I'm alone. There's nothing. I have no one to go to check my decisions and information. I have to trust me. Not only that...but it has always been this way. The only thing that has actually changed is my perception. So, yes, it is scary and painful.

Because religion stole from me this connection with myself. All this time, "the spirit" I felt and confided in was me, yet I don't recognize it.

Sorry to be a downer. I'm just realizing the real emotions and thoughts behind my making this thread. It probably should have stayed as a journal.

I have to say I would be a little disturbed at the thought that there was a something, somewhere who knew my every thought.

Take a breath and realize that you were always doing it on your own.  What you lost was an imaginary safety net.  

Don't worry about sharing your move away from religion...a lot of us who have moved away from the indoctrination have benefited from saying it out loud.  That's sort of why places like this exist.

[HappySkeptic]

I've never lived my life with uncertainty like this before. I was conditioned to believe that there was always this someone out there, who knew everything, who was always watching me, who knew the future and had a plan for me. I was abused by a cult to hold every thought accountable because this being who knew what was best for me had access to my thoughts, to the point where 80% of the personal prayers I gave were said inside my head.

And now, suddenly, after 32 years, I'm alone. There's nothing. I have no one to go to check my decisions and information. I have to trust me. Not only that...but it has always been this way. The only thing that has actually changed is my perception. So, yes, it is scary and painful.

Because religion stole from me this connection with myself. All this time, "the spirit" I felt and confided in was me, yet I don't recognize it.

Sorry to be a downer. I'm just realizing the real emotions and thoughts behind my making this thread. It probably should have stayed as a journal.

I find your realization inspirational!  Don't get depressed by it at all.  Yes, when you were talking to God, you were really talking to an idealized version of yourself.  That means that idealized version of yourself is your own conscience.  It's in you.

As for a feeling of being alone -- you aren't.  The connection to something greater than yourself, that you believed you found with religion, exists all around you in nature and in your fellow humans.  Meditate on the connections from you to everything else, and realize that you are an important part of the web of being. 

You are both the most important thing in the universe, and a tiny speck compared to all that is.  That is a melancholy and beautiful dichotomy.  God belief just ruins real spirituality.

[WarrenSmith]

One thing that is still a bit scary to me as a fairy new atheist, is accepting "I don't know" and leaving myself open to new arguments, new evidence, etc. I think as a Christian, I was lazy about my religion and took a lot of things for granted. I didn't push or dig, or experiment, I just believed because that was what I was told was true. I mean, I had my own experiences and I studied the scriptures and doctrine, but lazy in the sense that I never questioned or followed my doubts. I never fully researched or tested a belief in a God.

So, for about 30 years of my life, I've been operating on this system of accepting "this is the truth about the world and existence" and moving on with my day. In some ways, I'm still trying to get there, to find something solid to accept so that I can move on with my day and not think about it. But that's not the way I want to live. I don't want to feel secure in something and ever get the rug swept out from under me ever again, simply because I was ignorant or wasn't paying close enough attention.

However, even though this is still something I've only explored for about 4 or 5 months, I do find myself occasionally consumed by the pursuit of arguments and questions. Probably 80% of my waking hours are involved with thoughts about the weight of reality and the flaws in Biblical morality, the nature of God(exploring a "if it were true" thought process), the flaws in the history or literal aspects of the Bible, etc. I can feel myself trying to hammer it all down to make sure the world makes definitive sense.

Have you guys also struggled with "I don't know"? Was it ever scary or painful to reach that place? I recognize it's still new for me and the likelihood that healing from religious trauma will eventually happen.

When I first freed myself of the religion that I inherited from my parents, I was still unable, for a time, to completely give up the idea of the "supernatural" and I considered myself to be only an agnostic rather than an atheist.  I even suspected for a for a short time that Satan was the true creator of Christianity because that appeared to make more sense than the religion itself and naturally this somewhat frightened me since it meant that there was no escape.  However, with a couple month's of contemplation, I realized that belief in the supernatural was also not supported by the evidence and so I was able to move on to declare myself an atheist.

One thing that bothers me though is the fact that many atheists are so devoted to the skepticism that freed them from religion that they are unable to consider seemingly rational ideas without them first being validated by other skeptics that share their devotion.  For example, I have found that most atheists refuse to consider the notion that a "parallel" found in Biblical text could be a deliberate allusion that provides a vital clue as to the writer's true intent.  There appears to be no reason for this rejection because allusions are recognized by scholars as a literary device in other ancient works, so why would the Bible prove to be an exception?  I have found numerous examples where this seems to be a reasonable approach, but I have as yet been unsuccessful in convincing other atheists that any of them are more than a "coincidence" that is easily dismissed.  In case you are curious as to specifically what I mean, I will offer this "parallel":

“In the name of the Graces, what an almighty wise man Protagoras must have been! He spoke these things in a parable to the common herd, like you and me, but told the truth, his Truth, in secret to his own disciples.” (Socrates in Plato's Theaetetus)

“When he (Jesus) was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He  told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside  everything is said in parables so that, "'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing  but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'"  Mark 4:10‐12

Note that the quote from the Gospel of Mark sounds rather sinister since it implies that Christ did not want outsiders to be "forgiven", but Christians are generally unconcerned about how this sounds because they think that they know exactly what Christ's parables describe, but what if they really don't?  Protagoras was a Sophist so a rational person would then ask, why would an author deliberately make a connection between Christ and a Sophist?  A seemingly reasonable answer to this question lies in Protagoras' description of his fellow Sophists in Plato's "Protagoras":

“Now the art of the Sophist is, as I believe, of great antiquity; but in ancient times those who practiced  it, fearing this odium, veiled and disguised themselves under various names, some under that of poets,  as Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides, some, of hierophants and prophets, as Orpheus and Musaeus, and  some, as I observe, even under the name of gymnastic‐masters, like Iccus of Tarentum, or the more  recently celebrated Herodicus, now of Selymbria and formerly of Megara, who is a first‐rate Sophist.  Your own Agathocles pretended to be a musician, but was really an eminent Sophist; also Pythocleides  the Cean; and there were many others; and all of them, as I was saying, adopted these arts as veils or disguises because they were afraid of the odium which they would incur.”  

If the "parallel" is actually intended as an allusion, then the obvious explanation is that it was the author's way of identifying Christ as a Sophist "veil".  This then provides insight into the "tradition" of Veronica's Veil which suggests that the "true image" (L. "vera" G. "icon") of Christ is a "veil".  (Remember also that in Matthew 16:23 Christ refers to Peter as "Satan" and tells him to get behind him, but only a few verses earlier, Peter was given the "keys of the kingdom".)  For some reason this is far too much for the typical atheist to swallow even when it is noted that the Gospel accounts were actually written during a historical period known as the Second Sophistic.  If all this can be discerned from a single allusion, imagine what the dozens of other allusions like this could reveal.  

[Fireball]

^ Yeah, not an atheist.

[Ranjr]

I am skeptical of bible thumpers claiming to be skeptical.

[Belacqua]

allusions are recognized by scholars as a literary device in other ancient works, so why would the Bible prove to be an exception?

Certainly anyone who's interested in old texts will be happy to find allusions. As you say, lots of authors used them to enrich a message or hint at greater meaning.

What we have to be careful about, though, is whether something is a direct allusion -- pointing at a specific part of another text -- or another kind of similarity. Lots of figures of speech or other tropes are common among different texts without being a specific allusion in the way you're describing. 

So for example if someone mentions being trapped between Scylla and Charybdis, this is a direct allusion that every educated person will get. It refers directly to a well-known text. But if I mention being trapped between a rock and a hard place, or getting caught in a whirlpool, these are just common figures of speech that don't count as allusions, because they are too general. 

Protagoras was a Sophist so a rational person would then ask, why would an author deliberately make a connection between Christ and a Sophist?

My concern is that you're making a big jump, to assume that the words in Mark refer specifically -- allude -- to the Theaetetus or the Protagoras. The only real similarity you've found is that in both cases there are teachers who speak in parables to the general listener and more directly to his inner circle. This is such a widespread and ancient practice that it's found pretty much everywhere. It was common in Taoism, etc. It was long assumed to be true of Plato and his students. (If you read Proclus' explication of the Timaeus, for example, he takes it for granted that everything has a literal meaning for us normal people and a deeper one for initiates.) 

So I'm going to need a lot more convincing if I'm going to agree with you that the passage in Mark is in any way intentionally or directly linked with Sophists. 

Also, remember that in Plato the Sophists are almost always the enemy. They are like the basketball team who play against the Harlem Globetrotters -- always set up to lose. Pretty much their whole purpose, in Plato, is to represent wrong opinions. Plato's dialogues are like plays, which means that the words spoken by Protagoras are not necessarily to be taken as Plato's own conclusions. What does that dialogue go on to conclude about Sophists? Do the other speakers end up agreeing with the passage you quoted? As I recall, Socrates spends the whole dialogue arguing that Protagoras isn't as smart as he thinks he is.

The reference you make to the veil of Veronica gets pretty close to free association, I think. Why would Christ be a veil? The more famous symbolism using a veil is that Christ is the one who tore the veil of the temple. 

I'm always thrilled to see references to Plato, but I'm not convinced yet that what you've found is direct allusion.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Probably 80% of my waking hours are involved with thoughts about the weight of reality and the flaws in Biblical morality, the nature of God(exploring a "if it were true" thought process), the flaws in the history or literal aspects of the Bible, etc..

Good for you man. Same thing happened to me. It gets easier. The thing is, nobody knows. Knowing isn’t what makes life interesting. The “answers” that religion offers aren’t interesting at all, and if left unquestioned, tend to stagnate in some corner of the mind until the odor is just too bad to ignore.

This inevitably led me to the next question-“How the hell did those beliefs last that long?”...and away I went! It’s better this way.

[R00tKiT]

One thing that is still a bit scary to me as a fairy new atheist, is accepting "I don't know" and leaving myself open to new arguments, new evidence, etc. 

I don't think anyone accepts that, not even those who call themselves atheists. Not knowing also entails not being biased against any religion, which is never the case, as any thread about God in this forum will reveal to you. I know that most people will disagree with me on this, but I think that, scientific questions notwithstanding, one in general lives a happier life by assuming a wrong/deluded answer than accept not knowing. If the goal is to maximize happiness, then everyone should indoctrinate themselves into an eternal afterlife, they won't know anyway if nothing happens, so, they will never be deceived. And that's just one possible variation of the well known Pascal's wager.

It's fine to die not knowing what dark matter will turn out to be, people lived and died thinking our planet is at the center of the Solar system -much worse than the former. For nonscientific matters, one in general lives a more exciting life accepting some wrong worldview, then one day waking up "to the truth", with the powerful feelings of shock and awe taking them to the next (maybe wrong) answer.

Anecdotally, many advances in natural sciences happened because we tried a lot of wrong stuff, trying already entails not accepting the inertia of not knowing.

I think as a Christian, I was lazy about my religion and took a lot of things for granted. I didn't push or dig, or experiment,

There is not much to look for when it comes to Christianity in its trinitarian form, the concept of God is logically contradictory. That's it. You cannot make 3 equal to 1. The entire "god dying then resurrecting himself to save humanity" storyline is just clumsy. If Islam didn't exist, I would consider the Jewish concept of god much more compelling,

So, for about 30 years of my life, I've been operating on this system of accepting "this is the truth about the world and existence" and moving on with my day. In some ways, I'm still trying to get there, to find something solid to accept so that I can move on with my day and not think about it. But that's not the way I want to live. I don't want to feel secure in something and ever get the rug swept out from under me ever again, simply because I was ignorant or wasn't paying close enough attention.

At the same time you cannot be insecure about everything. One must hold on to something, after all. Besides, as I explained before, it's the feeling of getting the rug swept out from under you that will push you forward.

Have you guys also struggled with "I don't know"? Was it ever scary or painful to reach that place? I recognize it's still new for me and the likelihood that healing from religious trauma will eventually happen.

John von Neumann, a mathematician and polymath, one the brightest scientists to ever live, reportedly said, shortly before his death, "So long as there is the possibility of eternal damnation for nonbelievers it is more logical to be a believer at the end". I am not trying to argue from authority, but if you encounter someone here claiming they have some argument that will break you out of the existential anguish you're describing, you really should be skeptical.

[zwanzig]

but I think that, scientific questions notwithstanding, one in general lives a happier life by assuming a wrong/deluded answer than accept not knowing.

I don't take kindly to being told what it is I am experiencing. My existential anguish is a result of my indoctrination into a religious cult that gave me the illusion of absolute certainty in exchange for my constant guilt and unflinching obedience. The thing I am suffering from right now is that my mental and emotional growth has been stunted by God-fearing men, like you, who would rather have me enslave myself to a lie than to truly know myself. My sorrow and frustration come from my victimization at the hands of those I depended on and trusted.

I don't think happiness is the ultimate goal. We'll call it fulfillment. I would rather go through this pain, teaching myself how to see, how to trust my inner guide, and struggle and stumble than plaster on a fake smile while withering under the demanding, gluttonous dominance of an invisible entity. Any being that would accept my manipulative lies as "good enough" for heaven automatically abandons the virtuous position. And the smile I would wear while adhering to a repressive religion would indeed be fake.

This is the hangover. I am sick, detoxing off of the control religion had on my life.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sticking with the language of a hangover, don't worry bud - it probably feels worse than it is.