Reply to How I Lost My Faith: A thread for atheist testimony

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[quote=Anonymous]I'll add my own testimony here. Count me in the "not sure I ever believed" camp. Grew up in a family that went to church on most Sundays but never talked about it otherwise. Parents went to service and said grace at Christmas and Easter meals, but never talked about any "personal" aspects of religion. By high school, I was modestly active in our church youth group, but that was mostly about hanging out with friends rather than personal devotion. I rolled my eyes at classmates who tearfully prostrated themselves at "Fellowship of Christian Athletes" meetings at school. (This was in the deep South where I grew up wrongly believing that the Supreme Court must have upheld school prayer because, well, my public schools totally did it.)

So, I went through the motions. But not sure I ever "felt" god's presence. When, in college, I was exposed to atheists who would actually admit to being atheist, it was a bit eye-opening, but I didn't think much about it. Just stopped going through the motions anymore.

As an adult, I started reading more about religion. Started with "how to fix the church" type books. If you're Episcopalian, you may know of John Shelby Spong, an Episcopal bishop who is basically considered a heretic. His works superficially appealed to me, but when I read them, I was like, "dude, you clearly don't really believe this stuff." No idea if he truly believes or not, but his vision was so radical that it just didn't align in any way with reality. Dropping belief altogether would be easier. Then I turned to the "new atheists" like Dawkins and Hitchens. A little strident for my tastes, but it resonated, even though I still felt a touch of embarrassment and shame to not really believe.

Then I studied the bible even more, from an academic viewpoint, and recognized that all of the things from the New Testament that had been taught to me as one story were actually--quite obviously--at best the completely inconsistent and contradictory recollections and imaginations of disciples at multiple decades of remove and retelling. And the Old Testament, while fascinating, revealed a god that seemed to me not worth anyone's belief. I now think of myself as someone who knows the bible as well or better than most self-professed Christians, which is part of what makes me so comfortable in my non-belief.

I'm not a prick about it. I have lots of believer family members, including in-laws who love me but actively believe I'm going to hell (and who can't believe that a non-believer is "so nice"). I'm okay with religion giving some people comfort. But my lack of belief is so crystal clear to me now that it doesn't feel like I ever felt otherwise. And I don't miss my belief at all, if I ever had it.

My ultimate bottom line is essentially what Hitchens once wrote: "We are reconciled to living only once...We speculate that it is at least possible that, once people accepted the fact of their short and struggling lives, they might behave better toward each other and not worse. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow."[/quote]

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