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Comment by Rob N on May 18, 2010 at 6:19pm

Wow, some really moving posts guys, Amy thanks for the considered response. Nikki, welcome to the group, I'm sorry to hear about your accident but glad you seem to have come through it stronger.

Amy, I know what you mean that you "WANT to see things as they REALLY are, not as I want them to be."

I think that's something all Atheists have in common, I agree that the best way to make people question their faith is to be a good person and an Atheist; two things which aren't supposed to go together. I find humanism gives me more of a moral direction, and also tells a person more about my life-stance; saying you're Atheist is fine, it says you don't believe in any god, but to say you're a Humanist says more, it says we don't need gods because there is majesty and beauty in humanity, we can take credit for the amazing things we've done; and keep striving to do more. We know what is right/wrong, moral/immoral, and we don't need scripture to dictate it to us, we can work it out for ourselves.

Nikki mentioned earthquakes, it always annoys me that if a child is pulled from the wreckage after two days, it is called a 'miracle', and god is thanked. Why are people thanking him for saving one when he's killed hundreds? Why not thank the rescue worker or whoever pulled the poor thing from the rubble? Whose determination when others had given up, paid off. To thank god for everything, and not ourselves is infantile.

Nikki, a Jehovah's Witness died in my city this week, he was 16 and was hit by a car, he refused a blood transfusion due to his religion; he had been canvassing at the time to spread god's word. Of course it makes no sense to us because 'The lord works in mysterious ways.'

Comment by Amy on May 18, 2010 at 4:12pm

Back to Rob's question of how to talk to an indoctrinated person without arguing.... I don't think there's any good textbook approach out there. Every situation is different, and there's no way to predict what (or who) will have an impact on a person. I have some Christian friends who I'm not even going to bother discussing anything with...there's no point. I don't think they're open to hearing about it, and I don't want to waste my energy and get frustrated (and misunderstood!) if I don't have to. On the other hand, I have a Christian co-worker who I've shared my story with (a former pastor, no less). He seemed genuinely interested, and believe me, if someone wants to hear about it... I'll tell them :)

So... I bring things up now and then, here and there...always watching to see if anyone seems open to a future conversation. I try to be sensitive to the Christian's response (including their body language), and don't push it beyond their comfort zone. Some people wouldn't "get it" if you banged them over the head with it...they're just not ready. The best way to effect those people is to be a good person, and love others. A non-believer being a good person is a walking contradiction to scripture :D

Trust the process. "When the student is ready, the teacher appears."

Comment by Nikki Chaffin on May 18, 2010 at 3:23pm

Thank you Joan, I'm as recovered as I'm ever going to be which is not fully, but it's not where I was. My neck was crushed and rebuilt with cadavor vertebrae, my face was crushed and rebuilt...amongst a slew of other things. I take it day by day.
It is interesting how once we see how the rest of the world and cultures behave and all the different religions, how simple it is to see the obvious. That was also part of my epiphany. Months on the couch laid up watching news, watching people blow themselves up on the other side of the world in the name of their god. Thinking of all the cultures and societies that have come and gone over thousands and thousands of years and how they each had a god of some kind that was "the only one". People walking in blind faith, simply because they are a product of their environment. If I'd been born in another time, another land, who knows what kind of veil I'd be living under, what kind of lie I'd be living. That for me is the hardest part of this realization, of being here now as an atheist, that so many are living this one life that they have in a complete utter lie, and then they die. And what was it all for? It's sad. It's why I'm so glad to have found this site, to know that there are people who don't live that lie, I'm not the only person who seems to know the truth, it's heartening.

Comment by Nikki Chaffin on May 18, 2010 at 3:11pm

That is interesting, the arrival at the title of Atheist. I think I only firmly arrived at it myself yesterday when I found this website. When I found myself attaching the badge to my Facebook profile. I've never called myself an atheist for I guess the same reason as your uncle, rather a non believer, free thinker, etc. But it's all the same, and I guess I realized that when I got here and read "A community of non-theists." Well, that's me, a nontheist, thus an Atheist. It seemed easy. I wondered how many people I'll lose from my friends list for having done this, but then didn't care. It's important to be true to me, not them. And since ultimately I can't have respect for the people who live in that bubble of "god", I guess it just dont matter. I need to surround myself with people I can respect or at least can enter a friendship with that part not having already been removed. :)

Comment by Joan Denoo on May 18, 2010 at 1:49pm

Nikki, I am so very sorry to learn of your tragic car accident and your profound injuries. I hope you fully recovered. My tradition was Methodist and Presbyterian, but the bindings were awful. It was while doing research in China and talking to women whose feet had been bound that I realized footbinding and mindbinding coexist. An old Chinese woman told me she had endured an assault on her physical body when she was four years old and her feet were bound. The really difficult assault was the mental binding of her mind.

Comment by Joan Denoo on May 18, 2010 at 1:44pm

Amy, your story is very much my story. Abusive, controlling husband that I could not change, a culture that encouraged me to endure and in fact, praised me for enduring. "Live your life as a sacrifice, even as Jesus gave his life." The promises of "fruits of the spirit" just were not to be for me and when I asked for help from my family and community, I was soundly admonished to submit ... god would provide the strength, I just had to submit.

Joyfully, those days are over.

Comment by Amy on May 18, 2010 at 1:17pm

I think it's futile to argue with someone in an attempt to change their thinking. When someone's beliefs are threatened, they usually respond defensively. They don't even "hear" what the opposition is telling them, they're too busy mentally defending themselves to listen.

If someone wants to engage in thoughtful discussion, however, it's a different matter. I have an uncle who made an effort to build a relationship with me, and over a period of several years we grew close. Religion was never brought up, until I asked him to be a witness for my annulment. It was only then that I learned he was agnostic. By that time, there was a level of trust between us, and I felt safe to open up to him. He gently challenged me, but never passed judgment. I knew he would love me whether I was religious, or not. This was a rarity for me....I was used to judgment (conditional love) from my christian friends and family. He validated me as a person, and by doing so, enabled me to communicate honestly. I finally had a safe place to process my thoughts.

This story has an ironic ending...fast forward to last month, and I'm now a strong atheist. My uncle and I had a discussion in which I challenged him regarding his outdated definition of "atheist". Historically, he's rejected identifying himself by the title, believing it meant one claimed absolute authority to know with certainty that there is no god. Therefore, he always identified himself as agnostic. We went round and round about it, and I respectfully stood my ground in disagreement with his understanding of the term. Well, he called me a couple of days later and told me he thought about our conversation, looked it up in the dictionary, and now calls himself an atheist. I felt a personal victory for promoting the 'cause'... and it just goes to show what's possible when people engage in respectful dialog. Arguing with him wouldn't have gotten either one of us anywhere.

Comment by Nikki Chaffin on May 18, 2010 at 11:51am

I was 36 before I had my epiphany, only 5 years ago. I came from a Roman Catholic background, Catholic school and the whole 9 yards. Wanted to be a nun even when I was a small girl. Then at 17/18 I went the complete other route - Jehovah's Witness! to my parents dismay. I'd felt that I'd been lied to by the Catholic Church and that they had it all wrong and the JW's had it all right. But that was going on the premise that god exists. I never questioned that part, at all, ever. For me it was all about who knew best how god wanted us to live and all that.....Fast forward to October 2004 and a catastrophic car wreck that left me mamed and disfigured, that I shouldn't have survived. In the immediate months afterwards, having to endure pain and suffering on a level that no human being should have to live through, is when it all began for me. I used to pray, constantly, begging and praying for god to please don't let me wake up in the morning, the suffering was so - there's no words that can describe it - it was extreme enough that I prayed, begged, pleaded with anyone who'd listen to help me to go. I first arrived at a hate for god, that anyone who could let someone who's suffering continue to suffer in that manner after all the begging and pleading, any god that could allow that is no god I want anything to do with. screw him. I was full of hate. Keep your god I want nothing more to ever do with him for allowing me to continue to suffer, is where I now was. And then it didn't take too long after that for my to suddenly have the epiphany, that it just didn't make sense. I'm sure there are many who have begged for death to escape pain, people with crushing injuries and such. I began to see Earthquakes and catastrophes around the world and my first thought is how these people will be in the same place I was, no amount of morphine to fix it. And while others are praying for their survival and saying how lucky they were to have survived...that person is not feeling any of that. None of it made any sense any more. I was hating something that clearly did not exist. Like a lightbulb moment. I'd never questioned god's existence before that and really never got to a point where I ever did. I went from believer to non believer in an instant, as quickly as you could remove a veil or turn on a light switch. And now, 5 years later, I just feel so liberated, like I'd spent so many years in the dark. A lot of wasted years. But here I am, looking for new paradigms. Just found this site yesterday and couldn't be happier to know there are likeminded people in the world. I'm very sad for people I've loved who will never disavow their god or religion. They think I'm crazy but I KNOW it's them, and to the original question, how do you change that in someone? No one could've changed my mind years ago I don't think. Certainly not with the training JW's get. They're very indoctrinated. It's very hard to undo. I dont know, I'm just glad to be living true to myself now and that's all I can really control.

Comment by Amy on May 18, 2010 at 11:21am

Rob, While I can share with you the experience that prompted my most serious questioning of Christianity, leading to my rejection of the "faith", it would be a mistake to credit that single experience for my resulting epiphany. It took years and years of my life experiences, observations, ponderings, and (eventually) personal growth, to provide the fertile ground for my awakening.

Five or so years ago, I escaped an emotionally and psychologically abusive marriage...one that looked sooo good on the outside, yet was killing me slowly. Through a LOT of soul searching and personal growth, I arrived at a point where I recognized that God was treating me exactly the same as my narcissistic ex-husband did. His love was conditional, I was never going to be good enough, everything was always my fault, and it was basically....His way or the highway! It was when I was seeking a marriage annulment from the Catholic church that I realized I was relinquishing all control of my life....willingly handing it over to the Church/God. I was giving someone else the power to approve or disapprove of me and my choices, as well as the power to tell me what and what not to do. I don't do well with people controlling me, and when I left my marriage, I promised myself I'd only be in relationship with people who respected me. Well, during the annulment procedure, I realized that God (and the Church) were disqualified from my relationship options, merely by their controlling nature. I used to say "I didn't like the way God was treating me or my children, so I broke up with Him". It became just another abusive, dysfunctional relationship, and in order for me to be healthy, I had to break it off.

This was a process....one that started a long time ago. However, when my eyes first peered open to the possibility of my relationship with God being abusive, I opened them WIDE open and began an arduous search for answers. I do have a characteristic that separates me from a lot of other people..... I WANT to see things as they REALLY are, not as I want them to be. I want the ugly, hard truth of things. Don't sugar-coat the truth, don't dress it up and pass it off as something it isn't. Just lay it on me.....I can take it. I want it. This is a direct result of living with a narcissist and being lied to for 23 years (and not even knowing it). A result of taking lies as TRUTH, and experiencing the horrible devastation that occurs when you realize that your whole world has been based on.....LIES. After my initial questioning, it was only a matter of months till I was "all done" with Christianity.

The Christian God is The Supreme Narcissist. Very charismatic, very convincing, very sly. He lures people into His evil web (courts them) with an illusion of eternal love, acceptance and forgiveness. Once they commit to Him, however, He turns on them. He invalidates everything about them, and takes the credit for any and all "good" that might be in them. Through invalidation, He kills their very soul*, which is what every true narcissist does to his victims. If you can invalidate an individual at the very core of their being, you have enslaved them. If you convince them there is NO GOOD in them, that they are BAD TO THE CORE..... you have successfully extinguished their flame. I believe Christianity (or any fundamental religion) to be nothing less than soul-rape. It's a cruel, insidious evil...luring and trapping unsuspecting victims, often holding them hostage for a lifetime. And just like a slimy narcissist, its even more perfidious because it LOOKS so damn virtuous and meritorious!!!

Comment by Aiden on May 18, 2010 at 8:10am

Rick, WTF is that all about? You posted that pic in several groups with no explanation...

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