Views on atheists, from when I was a theist.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Hugo Pienaar on July 1, 2009 at 4:13pm

My father is Atheist and my mother Christian - and they're still married! I went with my Mom to Methodist church and I was enrolled in a Methodist school, where I got sucked into the Student Christian Alliance (or whatever it was called.) Every day we had chapel, every Sunday went to Youth Group at the church. Now, when I think of all the hours I wasted on this cr#p, I get quite annoyed. I didn't even meet a girlfriend at church (which was a secondary motive for going.)

I used to worry and pray that my father would be thrown into the Pit of Fire ("where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth") for all eternity... he is a good man - why did he deserve to be damned, just because he didn't believe in something he couldn't see, just because his parents didn't teach him right? That disturbed me.

Now my mother is a "Happy-Clappy" Reborn Charismatic, who no doubt worries that her husband won't be with her in Heaven. That's just twisted, because he is rational and she is convinced that some guy died for her sins 20 centuries ago. Trying to discuss it with her or two of my sisters is just plain frustrating, because they insist there is an entity outside of nature that controls nature, despite the fact that nature can be demonstrated to be self-regulating (according to the laws of science). Try explaining Occam's Razor to them, and their eyes glaze over - I am speaking with a forked tongue, I am deceived, lost, blinded by reason... (?)

So am I arrogant, dismissive? I try not to be condescending, but when someone uses Un-reason to argue against reason, and won't listen to reason, where is the common ground? I don't discuss religion with my Mom, because she enjoys it, and it may be a balm for her when she dies. And I have to thank my Dad for opening the door to Reason and Clear thinking. As for the rest, they can all go to H... oh, I forgot, there's no such place.

Now I'm bringing up my children in an atmosphere of reason. Santa Claus was OK until First Grade, now they enjoy examining the world in all its beauty. My son loves Astronomy and Dinosaurs... and my daughter is a natural rebellious teenager who is nonetheless involved in community work. They both scoff at woo-woo, and listen when I point out faulty reasoning (kids seem to love to find unrelated connections - like "lucky underpants".) I recite post hoc ergo propter hoc to them, and it's slowly getting through.

Am I influencing them? Darn right - I don't want them wasting as much time as I did with Non-sense. Besides, they get the flip-side from school and their peers, so there's balance.

Perhaps I am perceived as arrogant - how can one not be, when one has the intellectual high ground? ;) ... I have practiced the art of squinting my eyes and pursing my lips and asking disingenuous questions that - I hope, anyway - makes the person start to doubt their own reasoning (or lack of). Only then can there be grounds for discussion.

Ah well... isn't life interesting?

j0n

P.S. Please excuse the rant, but I just love this thread! I suppose it's because it's about a process, a journey, rather than an absolute destination. De-converting ... Way to go!

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Permalink Reply by Little Name Atheist on July 4, 2009 at 9:07am

didn't even meet a girlfriend at church (which was a secondary motive for going.)

I knew someone who attended UU youth camps. His tales make them seem almost like Roman orgies. Maybe your experience would have been different if you'd been a UU.

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Permalink Reply by zeeman barzell on July 2, 2009 at 6:35am

Opposite:

I was raised pretty much atheist. I always thought of the preachy xtain, assholier than thou, types were the arrogant ones. They walked around like they were better than me and was looked down upon because I didn't "get it" (by that I mean, a ticket to heaven). If I didn't have Jesus riding around on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, I was a hopelessly lost soul. They either rolled their eyes and turned up their noses or they wouldn't even look at me because they thought devil fire would shoot from my eyes and cast some sort of ghastly spell on them. Seems it goes both ways.....

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Permalink Reply by Little Name Atheist on July 4, 2009 at 9:10am

If they think I should just put up and shut up, they are mistaken. I'm not angry, or hostile, but I certainly won't let them just speak their nonsense without my trespassing on their magical thinking.

Same here, Sydni.

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Permalink Reply by SBrooks on July 2, 2009 at 4:07pm

When I was younger I had some of those same experiences dealing with christians and they probably led to me being slightly bitter and arrogant from time to time. I've mostly let all the resentment go but the Holy Roller hypocrites can still get me fired up.

However, I don’t think I have ever been an asshole to someone who was dealing straight with me. "Do onto others..." is still a good lesson that I try to live by so if they got some attitude they probably deserved it.

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Permalink Reply by Goz on July 3, 2009 at 8:53am

I also thought of the preachy xtain, assholier than thou, types were the arrogant one as well...And I have kin like that on my dad's side. CPC...They always would ask us to go to church with them,we went once and never again..Still,every time we visited,they would ask us to go on Wed. night and twice on Sundays,year after year. (rolls eyes.)
They never gave up and they never will...Yhey were the very people that helped push me toeward athesim by being so pushy and in your face about their stupid religion and how bloody importnt it was.
The first people I suspect were atheist I met lived across the street...One of the kids said she felt closer to god on the river than in a church. That made total sense...But the biggest influence on me was the next doors neighbor,who gave up being a babtist for square dancing. She never used the word atheist,but she'd say things to my mum like:"I'll work on Sunday,it's just another day for me."
I decided she was right as well.
She was funny and interesting to talk to ..A good atheist.
i guess my friends were all atheist,as we never discussed religion. I never found it a topic worthy of discussion,so it never came up.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Cory on July 14, 2009 at 3:41pm

Me & my kid brother were raised "in" the Catholic church. One day in the Army at age 19 I heard a conversation among brilliant older draftee soldiers who had got shanghaied into military servitude. One said things that made a LOT of sense. He was a draftee control systems engineer who worked at a prominent aerospace company. He said that the U.S. women were working very hard at 'accusing' virtually ANY male who was not married (and or who had no kids) of being a homosexual! Apparently *that* is exactly why we have such a nasty homophobic society in the U.S. He had also stated that this policy ("trick") of suspecting virtually EVERY unmarried man of being a 'fag' was especially being done by the homelier women who tend to have trouble finding mates. So by having EVERY U.S. male become dreadfully afraid of being tagged as a supposed "gay" - all us males have tended to scramble to find some gal to wed and to sire some offspring to prove that we have copulated with a woman! That same fellow trooper in the Army who told us about that crappy homosexual ploy also said that ALL religion is TOTAL nonsense. Finally at about age 36 I belatedly realized that gentleman was absolutely correct on both topics. Info read on-line suggests that in Sweden the percentage who actually *believe* the fiction that a "God" exists is only approx. 15 percent of the population. It was said that 20 years ago the percent of people here in the U.S. who believed in Gawd numbered approx. 85 percent. It's been stated recently that this percentage has been falling & it may now be only 75 percent of U.S. citizens who believe god *really* does exist.

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Permalink Reply by FreeThinker on July 2, 2009 at 5:44pm

I never really thought about atheism as a child. I was raised as a Baptist. My parents were divorced when I was very young. My mother and I lived with my maternal grandmother. Neither of my parents attended church, but my grandmother did.

My next-door neighbor was my best friend from about age 5 until we moved when I was 14. One day, when we were about 12, I asked him if his family ever went to church and he replied that his family didn't believe in God and that his parents were atheists. Before then, I had never been one to discuss religion with others and I just kind of assumed that everyone else around me was a Christian as well. I didn't really even grasp how a person could not believe in a god. The idea was foreign to me.

I didn't dwell on it, I just let it go and we remained friends. I don't think I ever brought up religion to him again.

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Permalink Reply by Krista on July 2, 2009 at 6:14pm

I never met an atheist until my late teens and I don't think I even knew the definition of the word or cared. Atheists didn't exist in my world. The girl that I met was confident and seemed ready for a fight. She was rebellious and everyone said that she was like that so that she could do what she wanted. I felt sorry for her and felt a kind of compassion, thought she just needed help. I felt the same way about gay people. I became agnostic (I'm not atheist) shortly after knowing her.

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Permalink Reply by mthoreau on July 2, 2009 at 6:37pm

First of all, as the person who started the MENSA thread I'd like to apologize to anyone who is in MENSA or knows someone that is. I was in an indignant mood and on the computer (almost as dangerous as being drunk with a loaded gun) and hastily posted what was on my mind at the time in the Water Cooler section.

Anyways, I regarded Atheism as equally extremist as Christian fundamentalism up until my de-conversion. I didn't think of Atheists as arrogant, I considered them to be overly analytical and prone to sin. Being naturally predisposed to "sin" myself, I thought they were just intelligent people using their brains to come up with a justification for denying Gods authority.

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Permalink Reply by Little Name Atheist on July 4, 2009 at 8:55am

For de-converts: Do you remember how you saw other atheists while you believed?

First, I had to get my head around the term "de-convert", because I don't ever remember being converted to Catholicism.

I don't remember even thinking of atheists when I wasn't one. I also didn't run into too many, or the ones I did run into didn't talk about it. I remember talking with a friend once whose landowners were a Christian and atheist couple , wondering how they got along. Evidently one's vegetarianism and the other's ominvoraciousness were more contentious issues.

I do remember my grandfather blurting something out about Madalyn Murray O'Hair when I was in elementary school, and what an awful person she was for fighting prayer in schools. I just remember feeling befuddled, because I didn't know anything about her, and didn't' quite understand what this unknown woman had done to piss off my beloved grandfather.

Even though it shouldn't, the impression we make as atheists could actually push people like me from coming to terms with their beliefs.

People generally believe what they want to believe. If an adult is going to believe that one person (or a few people) fully represents a group, they should work on their critical thinking skills.

Kids are another matter.

It doesn't matter if we're right, it doesn't matter if we are being arrogant. If others see us as arrogant, we could be doing Reason a disservice.

Oh crap, do I need to build an altar to Reason? I'll get around to that, honest I will.

I'm an atheist, and honestly, I'm put off by some other atheists. Some of the "more atheist than thou" that was being slung around Atheist Nexus recently was really off-putting. That being said, I do think that some people don't know what the term "atheist" means, or has meant historically, and apply it incorrectly. Sort of like the term "druid", or "Rastafarian". As a refugee from all sorts of subcultures, I'm really tired of some people acting like their shit doesn't stink because they believe X.

The problem is that there will always be obnoxious loudmouths who some people fear will give the group a bad name. Not much anyone can do about that other than present your perspective, be an ethical person, etc...

I do snicker about people's invisible friend(s) at times, but usually in groups of like mind. Being in a minority, it's good to have "safe space" to blow off steam.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer W on July 5, 2009 at 8:22am

I always been reserved about my thoughts, opinions, and outlooks. What's frustrating about having an opinion that is not popular is when all of the other people are insensitive to your ideas and when situation is vice versa you are viewed as an asshole.

At first I thought it was better to be closeted about my ideas, but now I am out in the open, but don't yell to the cows come home about it. When someone is purposely picking a fight with me, I don't waste my time with that anymore.

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