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I also loved the Greek, Roman, Norse, American Native, African myths. I read as many as I could find. And Joseph Cambell's The Power of Myth is a great book.
Have you read The Hero With A Thousand Faces? I'm sitting about ten yards away from several copies of that book as I type this. I've long had some interest in reading it
Theists make much about "choosing to believe" but the only chosen beliefs are those that are baseless or at least inherently unsubstantiatable. That is tantamount to make-believe. If you truly base your beliefs on evidence and logic, then you don't choose your beliefs; they choose you.
I believed those doctrines because it's what I taught, it's all I knew, and I assumed the adults in my life knew what they were on about. It wasn't until I was old enough to reason and became more informed about the world that belief was necessarily replaced by doubt. For many years I assumed I'd eventually get it sorted, but when I realized that reality didn't at all work like I was taught to "believe" it to work ... it all came unglued.
So I could post hoc wonder if I ever believed at all, as you suggest ... I don't tend to see it that way, I wasn't faking it or trying to "fake it until I made it" ... it was unforced at first because I was a child and my credulousness was encouraged by everyone in my environment. In this one limited sense I never truly believed: I never based my belief on anything but hearsay from the holy book and its teachers. But that seems like a pointless distinction because by that logic, none of our evangelical posters here "truly believe" either; they were just way more successful than I at compartmentalizing away any line of reasoning contrary to the party line, in spite of there being no solid basis to do so.
Also if your life is sufficiently lucky and your ability to rationalize is great enough, you may be sufficiently comfortable and see no reason to "disturb the force".
Big fan of the last sentence of your first paragraph. Extremely well put.
I was a very trusting, gullible kid. Precocious academically, but not at all wise to the 'ways of the world'. As such, I think I may have been the last kid in my class to stop believing in Santa Claus. So I was never a prime candidate to shed the supreme fairy tale at an especially early age. I questioned doctrinal aspects, but I don't know if I even thought to question the actual existence of God until I got to college and was exposed to secular, oft-atheistic philosophy. In high school, I recall having an hourslong debate about the existence of God with my atheist-best friend, but at that point I was too convinced to be at all shaken by his arguments. And the next time I saw my friend, we just resumed making jokes and talking about our mundane high school lives, so that conversation about religion was an anomaly. I just trusted my family, my teachers, the priests, all of it. And I took it very seriously, more seriously than most of my peers (or so it seemed to me anyway).
So taking all of that into consideration, it's no wonder that I experienced the loss of my faith as a true crisis. Legitimately took me years to recover from it
No. I was a child and had questions that caused the adults to label me a "blasphemer" or blow me off with "it is god's will" or "don't question god". I did pray and believed there was a god, but not Faith alone or with god. The cognitive dissonance with the religion I was raised with was just too much and I gave up on religion. That was after reading a lot of the bible and finding it contraditory at best. As I got older and explored a lot of other religions and "paths to spirituality" I determined that there was no god in any of the beliefs, god was used to excuse and/or justify bad behavior.
I would like to know why you ask the question? Are you religious, wanting to understand atheists (you won't be able to because we are not all the same), or are you an atheist looking for compatriots that think like you do?
Glad you asked. I almost posted why I was asking after a handful of posts but decided to wait to get more responses.
Most who know me here know I'm Catholic. And as a Catholic, we obviously have some different opinions/different doctrines than that of our non-Catholic Christian brethren. One of those differences is that Catholics are not Sola Scriptura...or of the "Faith ALONE" camp. And yet I see (online) many who were of those camps who eventually...'defected'.
I'm just wondering if some atheists had switched doctrines instead of ditching Christianity all together, if it would have made a difference in their decision.
An atheist on this forum once asked me (I'm paraphrasing), "Yo, MINK! Did you even consider other religions before deciding to go with Catholicism?" My answer was, "Yes, I did." But I can pose a similar question back to that atheist: Did *you* ever consider other religions before deciding to ditch Christianity?"
I see a number of atheists/used-to-be-Christians here who have spoken about some of the beliefs they grew up with, while Christian. Having "Faith ALONE" seemed to be a biggie. And I can see that if they had Faith Alone, and NOTHING CAME OF THAT, they could absolutely become disillusioned.
Glad you asked. I almost posted why I was asking after a handful of posts but decided to wait to get more responses.
Most who know me here know I'm Catholic. And as a Catholic, we obviously have some different opinions/different doctrines than that of our non-Catholic Christian brethren. One of those differences is that Catholics are not Sola Scriptura...or of the "Faith ALONE" camp. And yet I see (online) many who were of those camps who eventually...'defected'.
I'm just wondering if some atheists had switched doctrines instead of ditching Christianity all together, if it would have made a difference in their decision.
An atheist on this forum once asked me (I'm paraphrasing), "Yo, MINK! Did you even consider other religions before deciding to go with Catholicism?" My answer was, "Yes, I did." But I can pose a similar question back to that atheist: Did *you* ever consider other religions before deciding to ditch Christianity?"
I see a number of atheists/used-to-be-Christians here who have spoken about some of the beliefs they grew up with, while Christian. Having "Faith ALONE" seemed to be a biggie. And I can see that if they had Faith Alone, and NOTHING CAME OF THAT, they could absolutely become disillusioned.
I typed a relatively long response to this, and due to what was clearly an act of God, I lost the post. I'll do my best to recapture my oft-fleeting thoughts....
There are plenty of preexisting threads in this subforum where people have shared the circumstances for and reasoning behind their deconversions. It's not like this terrain hasn't been covered extensively before. All you have to do is search. Thrillobyte makes the point upthread that there are as many religions as there are religious people, even when considering only those who are nominally of the same sect. That is a point with which I'd agree. And the same can be said about formerly religious atheists--no two atheists will have had an identical set of circumstances that triggered their own personal deconversion. This fact is what makes such stories interesting to read and hear, in my view.
That said, there is considerable overlap in regards to certain factors that may have played a role. One such factor is the view that religion (any religion, not just the religion of one's upbringing, which is your concern in this thread) is incompatible with a rationally sound worldview. Once you arrive at that position, then it is very unlikely you'll have any interest in shopping for alternate religions, no? There are plenty of lapsed Catholics who have become disillusioned with the faith due to the prevalence of predatory priests, among other reasons. When I last regularly attended Mass, in 2003 or thereabouts, the pastor would regularly call out a popular local Democratic politician who frequently attended for his support of abortion. That's a good way to alienate a sizable segment of your 'flock'. That confrontational priest was eventually outed as a sex offender, for what it's worth. But dissatisfaction with a given sect doesn't get one all that far on the path to atheism. Questioning and eventually disbelieving in the existence of the Christian God, of any god(s), runs far deeper than quibbling with a particular aspect of doctrine or disapproving of the actions of people in positions of power in your particular faith.
I typed a relatively long response to this, and due to what was clearly an act of God, I lost the post. I'll do my best to recapture my oft-fleeting thoughts....
There are plenty of preexisting threads in this subforum where people have shared the circumstances for and reasoning behind their deconversions. It's not like this terrain hasn't been covered extensively before. All you have to do is search. Thrillobyte makes the point upthread that there are as many religions as there are religious people, even when considering only those who are nominally of the same sect. That is a point with which I'd agree. And the same can be said about formerly religious atheists--no two atheists will have had an identical set of circumstances that triggered their own personal deconversion. This fact is what makes such stories interesting to read and hear, in my view.
Yes, I agree, especially with what's bolded.
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That said, there is considerable overlap in regards to certain factors that may have played a role. One such factor is the view that religion (any religion, not just the religion of one's upbringing, which is your concern in this thread) is incompatible with a rationally sound worldview. Once you arrive at that position, then it is very unlikely you'll have any interest in shopping for alternate religions, no?
Not necessarily...But I'm still with you on your thoughts...
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There are plenty of lapsed Catholics who have become disillusioned with the faith due to the prevalence of predatory priests, among other reasons. When I last regularly attended Mass, in 2003 or thereabouts, the pastor would regularly call out a popular local Democratic politician who frequently attended for his support of abortion. That's a good way to alienate a sizable segment of your 'flock'. That confrontational priest was eventually outed as a sex offender, for what it's worth.
Ugh...But lemme ask you...did YOU call out the pastor on his prejudicial stance?
Quote:
But dissatisfaction with a given sect doesn't get one all that far on the path to atheism. Questioning and eventually disbelieving in the existence of the Christian God, of any god(s), runs far deeper than quibbling with a particular aspect of doctrine or disapproving of the actions of people in positions of power in your particular faith.
I was pretty much asking if the doctrines of Sola Scriptura and/or Faith ALONE had anything to do with their/your departure.
Not here to proselytize Matt, just trying to learn...and understand.
Did *you* ever consider other religions before deciding to ditch Christianity?"
You are one of those extremely rare theists with an actual desire to understand the likes of me, so your question deserves a thoughtful response IMO.
I actually DID do a survey of other sects and religions before making my final decision, but you must understand that I did not leave because of some malfunction over the doctrines you mention. My realization was that religious faith (belief without a requirement of substantiating evidence) is a failed epistemology. And when I looked at alternative religions, I saw that they all had the same exact meta-problem.
If in some alternate universe I had been born to a less authoritarian denomination, my expectations might have been more realistic and I would not have been as turned off. But I was from a young age (less than 6 when I converted) fed this triumphalist notion of the "victorious Christian life" that was supposed to be always joyful and an invariably coherent explanation of my lived experience. It was supposed to be a vital, living faith that provided solace and strength and all that kind of thing. I found it anything but. God did not seem to answer even the most carefully crafted and selfless prayer, for those things I desperately needed his intervention concerning. Various tragedies helped me along in that thinking ... so another characteristic of an alternate universe where Mordant is still a theist might just involve more dumb good luck. All of these things would have provided me with a less leaky abstraction and less reason to scrutinize my assumptions.
Another thing might be connected to the level of social support some religions provide. Judaism has always been impressive to me in this regard. There's a young observant Jewish couple across the street from me and they both strike me as some of the most honest, kind, and real people I've encountered, and their rich traditions and shared rituals provide a sense of community for them that I simply do not have any experience of -- one time during the pandemic they hosted a Seder on their front porch and it was really cool to see all these young people in N95 masks doing the traditional toasts and such. By contrast, the churches I grew up in were inherently full of posers, fakers and hypocrites ... because you could not really emphasize god's righteous indignation at our depraved selves without having to affect a level of piousness you don't really possess, to make yourself look more right-eous than others, generally at their expense.
So if I had something that actually nurtured me, provided a real sense of refuge, had lower / more realistic expectations, and fellow-travelers who really cared about me and that I could care about, as well as an ethos of humility and respect for others ... and if I were not obligated to take the whole thing with an arrogant seriousness that I had all the answers ... I might still for all I know be religious -- for some given value of religious. I might have salvaged some sort of god concept from it that I could reconcile with at least my personal lived experience -- though I think events of the past couple of decades would find me still struggling to see my faith as an antidote to all the cruelty and unforced errors in human society generally.
To summarize then, Sola Scripture and salvation by faith alone really didn't have any bearing on my apostasy. In fact it's fair to say I have no problem with them to this day, if hypothetically I still believed any of it. I think there are even some advantages to those doctrines. But no, my malfunction was that my faith did not provide me coherence and understanding, nor anything like the utter clarity it professed to convey ... and I found that letting go of the legends and belief in some form of immortality to be a small price to pay for a way to reset my expectations, to not see things that happened to me as somehow personal and directed, as either a reward for good behavior or some sort of sadistic punishment for personal failings ... I don't have to work overtime to rationalize with my burnt-out little "rationalizer" that doesn't work very well any more, as in, hardly at all.
So the crazy wife, the dead wife, the dead son, the dead brother ... these were just things that happened that I didn't like. They didn't MEAN anything ... as in some kind of message or "test" from the gods, somehow personal and directed toward me.
Theists often wonder how atheists live without meaning ... well we don't actually but in this specific sense that we don't assign meaning and purpose and agency where they don't actually apply, is liberating rather than a source of dismay. I have grieved as a Christian and I have grieved as an Atheist and I'm here to tell you, it was no picnic either way but as an unbeliever I was spared all the "why" questions -- why me, why him, why now, where did I fail, where did they fail, if only this or that; how can god still be loving and all powerful and all knowing and allow this, etc. And that kind of nonsense makes grief and sorrow exponentially worse, not better. I am WAY better off without it. "Why" questions might as well be "why not" questions. I now understand life's speed bumps and pot holes as the human condition, not some orchestrated play with me as the central character.
And apart from the vicissitudes of life -- in just ordinary everyday living I am a far more calm, equanimous, centered person than I ever as as a god-botherer. YMMV.
Ugh...But lemme ask you...did YOU call out the pastor on his prejudicial stance?
No, for a few reasons. I was always under the impression that the official stance of Catholicism on the subject of abortion was pro-life, so at the time I felt the pastor was somewhat courageously 'taking a stand' on an important ethical issue. And back then, I actually would have agreed with him on the subject. I was only recently reminded of this by my mother, but I was quite strongly pro-life during my 18 years as a Catholic, both because of respect for the Church's opinion on that and any other subject, but also because I was repulsed by the thought of an abortion being performed. I'm still repulsed by the thought, actually, even though I've now been pro-choice for almost 20 years. And, finally, I was age 17-18 at that time and not really inclined to drawing attention to myself, at least in the church setting. So even if I had disagreed with the pastor, I likely wouldn't have said anything. Bystander Effect, I guess (well, sort of).
For what it's worth, the politician I referenced in the previous post is just about to quit Congress after many years of holding office, citing both the toxic atmosphere of the House and also his enthusiasm for taking on a leadership role at a storied local theater. Brian Higgins, you'll be missed.
Last edited by Matt Marcinkiewicz; 11-28-2023 at 07:45 AM..
I was fairly young when I had one of those tingly moments where you just "see" something. I think I was about twelve at the time and riding my bike the four-mile trip into the nearest Podunk town. Usually, I rode with my brother so I must have been on some errand for my mother. It was glorious warm summer day and as I stood to get weight on my downward peddle and gain speed for an upcoming hill my mind went "boom! it's all make believe." Of course, I had to suppress that but that is just how my mind works. I wasn't thinking of anything particular at the time as I liked to daydream while doing physical activity if I am alone. I never really explored that until I got older. I honestly didn't give any of this much thought until I developed a compulsive drinking problem that started in my 30s and had reached the point, I needed an escape route ten years later. Recovery is where you have to unearth your authentic self to survive. I didn't know that at the time but was guided by healed addicts on a website set up like this. I learned to challenge every assumption I had ever had.
I actually DID do a survey of other sects and religions before making my final decision, but you must understand that I did not leave because of some malfunction over the doctrines you mention. My realization was that religious faith (belief without a requirement of substantiating evidence) is a failed epistemology. And when I looked at alternative religions, I saw that they all had the same exact meta-problem.
This is what I was getting at in my second-last post. Once you reach this conclusion, that's when you're forced to realize, 'Well, I guess I'm an atheist', which for me was a thought I never could've imagined myself having in the first 18 years of my life. This critique of faith in general transcends the comparatively minor disagreements one could have with a specific belief system.
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catholicism
