For Atheists: Do you have any residual feelings?
Offline Hello everyone. I just had this question circling in my head for some time that I wanted to ask to my fellow former theists.
Do you have any residual feelings which could be traced back to the teachings/indoctrination you endured before becoming atheists?
This I ask keeping in mind my own personal residual feelings as a former catholic, or rather feeling: fear. I've been an atheist since I was about 14 years old or so, and even after 8 years of learning and discovering I find that, regardless of my conviction regarding the irrationality and the impossibility of hell, there are times in which I'm afraid of it and of going there (not too afraid, just a very occasional cold sweat or racing of my heart). I can't say I was too drilled into believing, my family hardly went to church and my parents almost never talked about religion. Rather I should say I was drilled to keep quiet.
When I was 8 years old I was send to catechism. In my first days there I asked a lot of questions that were "inappropriate", you know the kind: "where did miss Kain came from?", "Why did god had to stop the construction of the babel tower?" "why did he had to confuse us with different languages to do so?". To these questions I only got a lot of the usual "you must have more faith in order to see the light" kind of responses, and a butt-load of peer pressure and teasing from the other kids so that I would just shut up.
But the question that got me the cake, and a personal chat with the priest was regarding the tower of babel and god's way to handle that: "is god afraid of what men could do together?". Man, that raised hell over the classroom, everyone looked at me as if I was Damien or something. I was kicked out of the room and into a private room with the priest. The 20 seconds chat can be summed up to this:
Priest: Kids with no faith go to hell. Do you have faith?
Me (scared shitless): y-yes
Priest: Then stop asking questions and believe in god's way. Now sit there and think it over.
After five minutes I was send back to the classroom. In retrospect I should be thankful he only scarred me emotionaly and did not wanted me to take comfort in his rod and his staff.
Nowadays I can just shake off the fear I sometimes get when thinking of hell, but the fact remains that the fear is still there, imprinted deep within me. And I wanted to know if there were others like myself with residual feelings left by indoctrination. And I don't just mean fear, any feeling that was the product of our former religious indoctrination.
Lenore, The Cute Little Dead Girl. Twice as good as Jesus.
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I was raised catholic, but never really believed any of it. I was going through all the rituals for the sake of my grandmother, who was a big catholic. But it never struck me as anything but crazy things that people did. There are lots of crazy things that people do, so I thought the whole thing was just something that I would not have to do when I grew up, like swimming lessons.
The difference, of course, is that as an adult, I appreciate the swimming lessons.
But no residual effects, it seems, other than knowing how to answer all the "Lord be with you" stuff like a zombie. That was weird, too.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
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Growing up in a pretty non-religious family I was spared the indoctrination of religion. My twin sister and I got drug off to church a little bit and sunday school plus bible school, but as a whole we were both indifferent to religion. Our parents are the same way, I just think we were sent off to church was because my older brothers were some real hellraisers and there was a 12 year gap between us and my youngest brother. I think my parents were just looking to make some kind of change to make our teenage years easier on them.
I got "saved" at about 18 and I remember this sense of peace I felt. Looking back I wonder if this was a true experience or not. I was going through some bad shit back then and I needed to make a change otherwise I probably would be dead by now. Within 2 years I left the church because I lacked the faith it required, but I tried to go back off and on for a few years. I still think, "what if I am wrong" myself sometimes after almost 20 years without religion.
When I start to feel that way, I just pick up the bible and flip to revelations. I find the verse that says the stars will fall to Earth and I feel much better. If the stars can't fall to Earth, revelations is not inspired, then if revelations isn't inspired the bible isn't inspired. If man created the bible then bible god doesn't exist and this pretty removes any fear that I have.
"Always seek out the truth, but avoid at all costs those that claim to have found it" ANONYMOUS
I don't have the same residual feelings that you do, at least not directly from my [unsuccessful] religious indoctrination as a child. However, for a while, I still found myself subscribing to some minor superstitions, even without meaning to. I would still say "bless you" when someone sneezed and say "thank you" when they would "bless" me even though it is the dumbest thing. It was really just out of habit and it was annoying when I caught myself doing it. Those feelings most likely have all disappeared now, I think many of them came from the same type of thinking that religion promotes.
I was raised an atheist but taught the "Awe" of life and the cosmos. My parents loved science and philosophy. To me god just meant the "Awe". I was rather freaked when I looked harder into religion and what so many religious people actually believe.
My disappiontment as an atheist, is religion of course, and the disgrace it does to the Awe or "god" as I say.
Also troubling is the atheists that haven't re-claimed the god word for themselves.
Languge is obviously the real bitch. I say give the people GOD / AWE, and fuck religion back into the dark ages from which it came.
Keep the AWE, fuck the DOGMA
Saying there is no god is a bit confusing and defeating as we all feel the Awe.
SO I SAY: "I am atheist for god against religion" //// " I am a big Moses/Jesus /Buddha etc etc fan." //// "Of course I believe in God, therefore I reject religion, just like Jesus/Buddha tried to teach." --- I AM convinced this works better for opening ears. I say "yes yes yes I understand your AWE" ..... God is WOW.
I want the atheists to put more creativity and effort into "Loving the Enemy"; that is my bitch with our "saved" atheist community. Save a Xian ! Love Love Love. ZERO appeasement .... The enemy is hocus pocus shit and that god of abe , not ((( MY no B.S. 
)) G-O-D of AWE .....
Thanks RRS for what you do, you are in my god prayers !!! .....
Atheism Books.
^Wow I think that's the most understandable post I've ever read from I AM GOD AS YOU
Yes I suppose there is still some residue fear/indoctrination. I will sometimes find myself start to pray when extremly scared/in danger of harm, and occasionally I think " oh crap what if I do go to hell." Overall though, its not that bad anymore. It's actually surprising how quickly most of it faded. I think the key is to keep learning.The more you know, the easier it will be to not fear irrational childhood beliefs.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
fuck yeah , Einstein said go with the "Buddha", man them guys were smart ! YEAH buddha/ einstein .... ALL IS ONE ! .... so what is that "ALL"...... science asks, .... while religion LIES !
Atheism Books.
Yeah, I’d have to admit to having some religious demons still lurking in my mind.
I know that’s its completely irrational but I still occasionally ‘thank whatever might exist’ when something really good happens to me. I regard it more as a phobia than anything else. Like any phobia you know it’s irrational but it can still affect the way you think and act.
I have never feared hell though. Maybe it was because of my Irish Protestant upbringing but hell has always been somewhere everyone else would go - Especially those evil Catholics.
WE must save the Catholics !
I did for a while after I said to myself I didn't believe. But I think that was out of fear because my lack of knowledge of atheism and what it actually was. I have absolutely no fear whatsoever of a boogieman by any label.
I do fear what followers are capable of doing to get even with skeptics. We see it all the time in this country. Sites like this and other atheist sites get hate mail all the time, the websites get hacked. I know of people who have had their property damaged. I know of a guy who was kicked out of his apartment because the landlord found out he was an atheist.
My fear is not of a real being, but the reactions of believers when you challenge their deity belief.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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I don't have any such feelings. I wasn't raised as anything. My parents never baptised me because they wanted me to have the choice. There was a time when I wanted to get baptised when I was trying to be Christian, but I never got round to it. I have residual feelings of a non-religious sort due to early childhood experiences at school.
Atheist Books
I was brought up Catholic but it was a modern sort of Catholic. None of this medieval brimstone and hellfire threats.
The emphasis was always on Jesus and his "Love thy neighbour" style messages.
The closest I got to having a genuine fear of hell was when I was at University and read some books the local CU gave me.
(The series was called "Shock of your life" - about kids of a sixthform age who seem normal, except they eventually find themselves having to face the reality of judgement.)
I didn't believe it but kind of contemplated it... it's a bit like a scary film where you don't believe it's true but it still scares the fuck out of you and causes you to see 'figures' in the dark!
As to your story about the Catholic School, that's just plain shocking.
I went through a phase of being defensive of Catholics and more critical of evangelicals, associating Catholicism with the liberal upbring I had and all my experience/knowledge of fundamentalism was from evangelicals. Another lesson in knowing better than to read to much into labels.
Hey everyone, thanks for your responses.
And I agree on something some of you said: That knowledge really helps in dissipating the works of indoctrination. It did with me. The more I learned about buddhism, agnosticism and eventually atheism really helped me see that there was more in the world that just the catholic dogma. Also, the more I learned, the less fear I had. But that priest got me good, the old fuck.
I AM GOD AS YOU, I completely agree: Keep the awe, fuck the dogma. But seeing the state of things this days, it seems that awe is slowly being chipped away from religion, in order to make more room for more dogma. Oh well, maybe sometime soon we will find the god gene or one such, and from there, who knows?...
Lenore, The Cute Little Dead Girl. Twice as good as Jesus.
I don't personally believe that I have residual feelings but an individual I dated repeatedly told me my attitudes towards sex were remniants of 10 years of Catholic School.
I don't personally participate in casual sex although according to him everyone else does. I believe I respect myself too much for that... however he repeatedly told me I was holding on to some sort of religious brainwashing. IDK I suppose an argument could be made either way. You decide.
I like to think I have moved beyond it, but being told i was going to hell if i wasn't a good boy must have left a few deep marks on my pysche.
Morte alla tyrannus et dei
I spent about four years in Catholic school... with all the BS that goes with it. I think that little bits and pieces stick with you subconsciously. All of the dogmatic stuff has gone by the wayside. That's the easy part.
It's the little superstitious stuff that you don't even realize you're doing... All of the weird stuff like knocking on wood or worrying about walking under ladders or breaking a mirror ... it's all got to become history. Shit... I used to spit out sunflower seeds a certain way thinking it would help my team win a baseball game! Seriously! Screw superstition... all of it. When I catch myself... I kick myself.
"If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!"
Yeah NorCalHeathen , Kick me too, if ya catch me doing hocus pocus shit.
>>>> "If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!" <<<<
thanks
Atheism Books.
Not my job bro... Kick yourself when you catch your own BS. Of course (as now) I will be happy to point you towards your own foot when necessary!
"If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!"
Back up is good , when I fall .... kick me