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Well, I stopped believing in a god at age 13 (after being raised Catholic) and that hasn't changed, but what has changed is that I no longer feel a need to keep that fact under wraps.
As I've gotten older I've become less and less comfortable with people simply assuming I'm a believer (usually assuming I'm some type of Christian from my appearance and surname) and so in recent years I've "come out" as an atheist to several people who have known me for decades as well as newer acquaintances. I am not one of those militant atheists and have never tried to change anyone's mind about what they believe, but I have become far less comfortable with people assuming that I'm something I'm not in that regard.
I've been consciously atheist since I was maybe 10-13 years old. Previously, I had been "indoctrinated" by attending the Episcopal Church and still believe in the guidelines it provided about being a good person. I just don't believe in the cosmology part.
My attitude is that if others want to believe in a particular religion, that's fine with me as long as they are also willing to treat others as they themselves would want to be treated. Unfortunately, some people are more aggresively tribalistic about their belief system. I'm reminded of the young Christian woman in Pakistan (who was in the news today) who some people (a minority) want to be killed for arguing with neighbors over water -- but really because she's part of a minority religion there.
Back to the main topic ... I don't envision myself becoming more religious when I see death approaching. Some people do and I would not try to convince them otherwise. My attitude is that if there is a loving god, he/she/it provided me with a brain that can think logically (well, sometimes :-) and that being would be OK with why I believe what I do. And not demand sycophancy.
Last edited by madrone2k; 11-08-2018 at 10:40 PM..
I should have stopped being religious at age 9, when I prayed (and believed) for my mom to recover from cancer. She didn't. Took me a few more years, at about age 20 I quit going to church (Catholic) and since then I have thought of myself as a deist. I believe there is a higher power but I don't believe he/she/it/they answers prayers. Sure, some people pray and get good outcomes. Others pray and don't get their prayers answered.
I do practice gratitude, I can be thankful for what I have without naming names. And I do nice things for other people, because it just feels better to be a good person.
^I do pray, but nowadays mainly only for guidance, not for favored outcomes. Sort of putting the question out there, "What do I do about this?"
I'm technically Christian of the liberal, non-fundamentalist variety because I belong to such a community, but I am interested in and have taken on features of other practices, particularly as I've gotten older and wiser and more understanding of others who are not like me. I don't believe there is only one "right" valid spiritual path.
I also discovered in my later years that things I did or thought or believed but didn't talk much about since my childhood, mostly related to the natural world, are also done or thought or believed by other people who call themselves pagans. I don't really think paganism is religion per se, but rather our natural connection with the rest of everything. Sounds a bit woo-woo, I know, but that's my perspective.
As far as death goes, I lost most of my fear of death on 9/11/01 at the World Trade Center. I might have used up my lifetime supply, I don't know, but in my head (and feel free to think "she's just crazy from PTSD"), some sort of portal opened there and a lot of souls went through, and I didn't. Someday I will step through that door.
I began to notice my loss of fear of death a year or so after the attacks. For example, I was always an anxious flyer, and the first time I got on a plane after 9/11 I realized I was not only not afraid to fly, I was looking forward to it. I really think that you're gonna die when you're gonna die and la-di-da till then.
Each person's spiritual outlook, or absence of it, is their personal business and not for anyone else to decide that it should be something else.
I went to my atheist group meeting the other morning. Everyone there is (well over) 60 and I'd say almost all, some 30 people, came up in firm, if not fundy, christian religions. (Two culturally Jewish guys who never had god beliefs apparently). Everyone is firm in their atheism.
Last week, a friend's husband at 70 had a sudden illness and died after a week in ICU. Her friends were posting all the prayers and stuff. When he was progressing briefly, there was an online hoot and holler about the power of prayers. Then he died. Now the prayers are for her well being and peace. I don't think she's a praying person, in fact, I know she's not. I did wonder if she believed in F's last week. She did say that she pictured him "across the Rainbow Bridge with all the pets we've known there" and that she found peace in that picture. A lot of animal people seem to go with the Rainbow Bridge without prayers and stuff.
I went to my atheist group meeting the other morning. Everyone there is (well over) 60 and I'd say almost all, some 30 people, came up in firm, if not fundy, christian religions. (Two culturally Jewish guys who never had god beliefs apparently). Everyone is firm in their atheism.
Last week, a friend's husband at 70 had a sudden illness and died after a week in ICU. Her friends were posting all the prayers and stuff. When he was progressing briefly, there was an online hoot and holler about the power of prayers. Then he died. Now the prayers are for her well being and peace. I don't think she's a praying person, in fact, I know she's not. I did wonder if she believed in F's last week. She did say that she pictured him "across the Rainbow Bridge with all the pets we've known there" and that she found peace in that picture. A lot of animal people seem to go with the Rainbow Bridge without prayers and stuff.
That's quite a common theme on the CD R&S forum. Many of the regular atheist posters originally came from strict, exclusionary religious backgrounds.
I have been an agnostic Deist* for 45 years, since I was 20, and I had no firm beliefs in what God was from the age of nine of so and started thinking for myself. (Until the age of nine, I was very gullible and believed whatever adults told me; I believed in Santa Claus until my mom clued me in when I was nine.) I was raised Methodist, btw.
*I do believe in some kind of Divine Creator of Force, but I have no idea what that would be -- and I don't believe that we CAN at this point. I think that whatever "God" is, we humans are just not intelligent or creative enough to even imagine what the Reality actually is.
Last edited by katharsis; 11-09-2018 at 09:19 AM..
^I do pray, but nowadays mainly only for guidance, not for favored outcomes. Sort of putting the question out there, "What do I do about this?"
Each person's spiritual outlook, or absence of it, is their personal business and not for anyone else to decide that it should be something else.
I repped you for you entire post but I particularly liked what you wrote above. One thing that has always bothered me about "praying for a favored outcome" is that if God is all-knowing, then why would God be open to having His/Her/Its mind changed?
Last edited by katharsis; 11-09-2018 at 09:20 AM..
I repped you for you entire post but I particularly liked what you wrote above. One thing that has always bothered me about "praying for a favored outcome" is that if God is all-knowing, then why would God be open to have His/Her/Its mind changed?
Yes, and it can be damaging. When I was six, I had a same-age friend/cousin who died of leukemia. I'd been told to pray for her every night. In the 1960s, places like St. Jude's were in their infancy. Most kids with leukemia were terminal, but I didn't understand that she might DIE. Some nights during prayers, my sister and I would be giggling or kicking each other under the blankets, and when my friend died, I thought it must have been because I didn't pray correctly or because I had goofed off sometimes when I was supposed to be concentrating on my prayers. Obviously it was my fault that she didn't get better, and not only that, God might be looking to kill me next.
That caused me a lot of problems that lasted for many years.
I also had to pray for my aunt to be healed who had cerebral palsy and was mentally challenged. As if.
That's quite a common theme on the CD R&S forum. Many of the regular atheist posters originally came from strict, exclusionary religious backgrounds.
Yes, absolutely. I belong to another forum that is dedicated to the recovery of people who used to belong to a strict, exclusionary, close to fundamentalist religion.
I bet more than 75% of us are now atheists. A few migrated to other organized religions, mostly Catholic or Unity. If you call Unity a religion. ;-) A few believe in God but not religion. But the vast majority are atheists.
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