Does Anyone Really Get How Hard it is to go From theism to Atheism? (scientific, Christians)
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Those things certainly aren't mutually exclusive; in fact, UU strikes me as a church designed for agnostics if not atheists...my aunt and uncle attend a unitarian universalist church in the Boston area, and the only question I have about their beliefs is whether they're agnostics or atheists--I know they lack a positive belief in god. One of my best friends growing up attended the UU church here in Buffalo, and his parents, a psychologist and a psychoneuroendocrinologist (sick title, right), were a couple of the more sophisticated people I've encountered to this day...I can't imagine that they'd have claimed a belief in a god without some serious Pascal-esque hedging or something.
So that's a sample of a mere four adults, but combining that experience with the info that I'm gleaning from a quick glossing over of the UU wiki, and I wonder what the point of the "faith" is. That said, I recently read some of Alain de Botton's "Religion for Atheists", and I'm sympathetic to the need for people with either no religious belief or ambiguous belief[s] to enjoy the camaraderie and expressions of...wonder for lack of a better word that religious rituals can offer. I can only guess that UU services are somewhat along the lines of what de Botton would have in mind.
Feel free to set me straight if your experiences are markedly different from what I imagine here
Those things certainly aren't mutually exclusive; in fact, UU strikes me as a church designed for agnostics if not atheists...
UU is a spiritual home for those obliged to seek answers rather than abiding by answers dictated by ancient superstition. Generally there is a burgeoning recognition of the value of reverence within our faith. Don't get me wrong: There is and shall likely always be a spiritual home for Atheists (heck, there is a significant gathering of Buddhists in our church, because we're happy to share our spiritual home with such a compatible, albeit different, religious tradition), but (a) the faith wasn't "designed" so much as evolved over a few hundred years, and (b) Atheism is definitely not the target, even if inadvertently targeted. The target is our shared values - in short: inherent worth and dignity; justice, equity, compassion; acceptance, spiritual growth; free and responsible search; right of conscience; peace, liberty; respect for the natural world; etc.
I don't know what to tell you about agnosticism: When someone says that they recognize a value of a human spirituality, rooted firmly in reality and build on (instead of arrayed against) the knowledge and evidence of our own eyes, is that still agnosticism or is that theism? I say the latter. I find the term agnosticism used most often as a bulwark against association of a religious Unitarianism with oppressive, traditional theisms, and that's okay, but I think it misses the point to some extent, and actually grants unwarranted power over Unitarianism to those oppressive, traditional theisms. Regardless, that's an internal discussion, I suppose, better held in a UU-specific forum, and this whole tangent is getting off the topic.
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Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz
without some serious Pascal-esque hedging or something.
I think calling it "hedging" is probably offensive without meaning to be so, even though I don't subscribe to Pascal's wager.
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Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz
So that's a sample of a mere four adults
I about ready to get ready to help lead a UU service for a sample of about 150 adults.
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Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz
I wonder what the point of the "faith" is.
I'll be happy to provide you all the insight you'd like, through personal messages.
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Originally Posted by Matt Marcinkiewicz
I can only guess that UU services are somewhat along the lines of what de Botton would have in mind.
You should come join us for a few services and see for yourself.
I mean, do you really? Everyone on fb thinks I've lost my mind, and I've turned into something that needs to be feared. So I finally met someone like me in this here buy bull belt, but he was over 20 years younger and toothless. What does that mean? What does that say about me? But I swear, that's the first and only experience talking to someone who believes like I do. Other than the damn internet.
Not that I'm looking for advice or anything but you people don't have a clue what it's like to be an agnostic atheist in the bible belt. Yes it's a thing, look it up. Do you know of the ignorance, the blind faith and the ingrained **** that is what i got to deal with? So you go on talking about the science sematics of it all and all it boils down to is who can prove what. NO one can prove ****, and that's all there is to say about that.
Yeah, I found deconversion really difficult as well. I've never lived in the Bible Belt, but I did attend Catholic school K-12, and my family is pretty devout (I was given my name as the extension of a family tradition of naming sons after the four "evangelists", for example). Plus as a child I was pretty emotionally invested in the overall Gospel narrative, if not the narrative of the entire Bible--the Jesus story is compelling stuff, given true faith. If you look at it as just another myth from an early age, then that's a whole different experience, but when you're truly indoctrinated, it's, well, the foundation of your worldview, and when that foundation is destroyed you have to begin the rebuilding process in a way to which most can't relate. Even Descartes, whose epistemological "rebuilding" project was somewhat similar to that which we face and is one of the most famous stories in all of Western philosophy, did not go as far as us because he assumed god (along with self) to be an unshakeable premise.
I don't know the specifics of your current beliefs, so I can't be of much help in terms of concrete recommendations. In fact even if I did know something of your current beliefs, it would be presumptuous to actually recommend much of anything. Speaking for myself, I personally remember well when I became an atheist, the exact moment when I swore off both the beliefs of my childhood faith and belief in god in general, but I regrettably forget how long it took me to make the obvious-in-hindsight next step to moral nihilism and naturalism/materialism/reductionism. It was not overnight like it literally should've been; I know that much. (It's easier to remember the panic attacks that I had in the aftermath, which I'd partially associate with the loss of my religion and which I'd partially attribute to other factors (to the extent that these things can be separated from one another.)) But then, perhaps the delay was understandable given that I mostly slept through my high school science classes, because I had the sciences dismissed as being of lesser importance than the ethical concerns that truly interested me, and which I of course associated exclusively with the teachings of religion at that time. And the Jesuit priests at my high school (and the nuns at my elementary school before them) were mostly happy to reinforce such an association.
So lately (by lately I mean for the past several years) I read science and philosophy at a rate which I try to moderate...I could easily be overwhelmed by the implications of reductionism (and at times am), so limiting my reading/thinking is often more of a concern than resuming it.
PS: The American Atheists' 2013 convention takes place next weekend in Austin, TX...perhaps the best way to spend your newly freed-up Easter Sunday could be to knock down some drinks in Austin, if not to actually attend the speeches, heh. AC Grayling is the biggest intellectual name who will be in attendance...I recently read some of his book "Thinking For Answers", and would recommend it as a very reader-friendly work of introductory ethics
I don't know what to tell you about agnosticism: When someone says that they recognize a value of a human spirituality, rooted firmly in reality and build on (instead of arrayed against) the knowledge and evidence of our own eyes, is that still agnosticism or is that theism? I say the latter.
Depends how they're saying it; the word spirituality might be more vague than any other word in the language, and I include the word "god" here. People who acknowledge the value/existence of "spirituality" can run the gamut from theist to agnostic to atheist--Sam Harris is an atheist who somehow finds room for spiritual experience in his worldview (I think his next book is going to be on the topic...I know he spent some time investigating Eastern traditions, and I assume that the book might be driven by residual sympathy for experiences he had during his quest). For my part, I think any experience may be described materially, and any experience which people tend to describe as spiritual or mystic is akin to an experience taking dimethyltryptamine (or insert your hallucinogen of choice here). DMT exists in our pineal glands, and it would appear that the experience of "profoundly spiritual" experiences are nothing more than a manifestation of a certain [mis-]firing of the mechanisms of the brain that control the release of that endogenous DMT. So said Rick Strassman in "DMT: The Spirit Molecule", and it sure seems plausible, albeit lacking evidence to support it (thanks to a federal ban on research related to Schedule 1 substances), and it sure strikes me as a plausible theory, although I am admittedly not in a position to claim anything close to expertise here.
But, whether it's endogenous DMT or some other neurotransmitter activity that can be pinpointed, the point is that what was once known as spirituality is potentially explainable in material terms.
Due to this sort of perspective, I think it's best that I decline your invitation to attend any UU services
At the same time, I am certainly receptive to de Botton's argument (and maybe this will be more along the lines of what Harris will argue in his next book) that the void left by loss/lack of religion isn't adequately filled by other pursuits, and that we still might pursue a secular "religion" of sorts to fill these needs, even as we're fully committed to atheism. Maybe UU or some renegade branch of it will someday emerge, or evolve as you said, to fill that void.
I mean, do you really? Everyone on fb thinks I've lost my mind, and I've turned into something that needs to be feared. So I finally met someone like me in this here buy bull belt, but he was over 20 years younger and toothless. What does that mean? What does that say about me? But I swear, that's the first and only experience talking to someone who believes like I do. Other than the damn internet.
Not that I'm looking for advice or anything but you people don't have a clue what it's like to be an agnostic atheist in the bible belt. Yes it's a thing, look it up. Do you know of the ignorance, the blind faith and the ingrained **** that is what i got to deal with? So you go on talking about the science sematics of it all and all it boils down to is who can prove what. NO one can prove ****, and that's all there is to say about that.
A great deal of these people get it and they are former Christians.
OP, it would be harder for me to go from atheism to theism!
You're right no one can prove ****. But it's the religious person who thinks he knows the answer to everything, but in reality he knows nothing.
Since I live like an atheist(i.e. I don't anticipate an afterlife), I identify with atheism. But, any 'good' atheist though should actually be an agnostic. Saying that god definitely does not exist requires as much of a leap of faith as the cork-sniffing believer who thinks there is a deity intervening in human daily affairs. Of course invisible deities and non-existant deities look the same....
Rejoice in the unknown. Such is life in the cosmos.
Sam Harris has been a source of readings during our worship services and the spiritual enrichment courses at our church.
Which source(s), specifically? I've read all of his books (excluding the "Lying" e-book), so I'd be curious to know. The Moral Landscape was obviously a failed project in that science cannot determine ethics. Still, he's probably my favorite writer. He thinks well and writes better.
After I posted I read his blog post that started to clarify how he was going to use the word "spirituality" in his as-yet-unreleased book. I'm still extremely skeptical. If that book fails with me like I assume it will, I'll still forever be indebted to him for "The End of Faith" and to a lesser extent for "A Letter To A Christian Nation" and "Free Will". I reiterate that I respect him regardless of how predisposed I am to dismiss his forthcoming work.
I don't know the specifics of your current beliefs, so I can't be of much help in terms of concrete recommendations. In fact even if I did know something of your current beliefs, it would be presumptuous to actually recommend much of anything. Speaking for myself, I personally remember well when I became an atheist, the exact moment when I swore off both the beliefs of my childhood faith and belief in god in general, but I regrettably forget how long it took me to make the obvious-in-hindsight next step to moral nihilism and naturalism/materialism/reductionism. It was not overnight like it literally should've been; I know that much. (It's easier to remember the panic attacks that I had in the aftermath, which I'd partially associate with the loss of my religion and which I'd partially attribute to other factors (to the extent that these things can be separated from one another.)) But then, perhaps the delay was understandable given that I mostly slept through my high school science classes, because I had the sciences dismissed as being of lesser importance than the ethical concerns that truly interested me, and which I of course associated exclusively with the teachings of religion at that time. And the Jesuit priests at my high school (and the nuns at my elementary school before them) were mostly happy to reinforce such an association.
I was brought up in a religious Russian Orthodox household, complete with the obligatory Bible classes. I know the transition to atheism was a gradual one for me. Eventually, the sum total of everything I learned just did not support theism...it wasn't a choice. I DID, however, have trouble admitting it, even to myself. The indoctrination was so complete and pervasive that the transition scared me....I felt I was going through life without a "safety net", if that makes any sense. It took a while before I realised that I didn't need one. The realisation was liberating and exhilarating.
Think you all have problems? Try being black in the south and NOT being a god believer. See how well that goes over with grandma. In my case, trying being an atheist anything in the Caribbean where I am from? Heck, my mother gave me a tongue wagging some time last year after word got to her that I am on Facebook mocking god. I could not a word in edge wise. All she heard was "but InsaneInDaMembrane was such a sweet boy in the church. Whatever happened to him?" My mother claims she was highly embarrassed that I, of all people, a young man that rose to heights in the church, was actually daring to proclaim to the world he does not believe in the god who wakes him up each morning.
On one pre-Facebook social network site, I was told by a Jamaican that it would have been better I was gay than an atheist. That should tell you something. I also had a cousin tell me that "only white people believe in evolution." Yeah, you get the picture. As a result and in push back fashion, groups like these are emerging in the black community but it is NOT easy.
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