Hi All
Offline Hi Everbody,
I am a former fundamentalist evangelical protestant. I was used to carring around quite a load of cognitive dissonance, being that I worked in a science field. I suspended my disbelief for about 15 years.
The events which finally made the difference was when cancer cam eto my family. My huband contracted brain and spinal cancer. Through the horrifying couple of years that ensued, I started to see through the assurances. I gradually started stripping away my credulity, my assurance, and my faith in god and the church I was basically born into. I was surprised to find that after I took away all the beliefs about god that weren't helpful or were doing more harm than good, I had no 'faith' left.
Everyone thought I was angry at god. But once I allowed myself to think that there might not be a god and contemplate the implications of that, it just all made to much sense. It was like putting glasses on after fumbling though life with things out of focus. The clarity was amazing. I devoured all kinds of secular books about faith and belief in gods. I read about the history of christianity from a modern secular view point.
In the end I lost both my husband and my faith in god. But I gained an understanding and felt relieved to not have to try to defend an indefensible faith. I didn't have to be angry with god. I'm an atheist.
"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right." Martin Luther King
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Welcome and congratulations.
I'm sorry about your husband.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Hello fortitude!
Welcome, hope you stick around and share your experiences with all of us!
Sorry you had to go through the heartache of dealing with the cancer of a loved one and that loss. Isn't it amazing what we learn even through the toughest most painful experiences?
Slowly building a blog at ~
http://obsidianwords.wordpress.com/
I'm a former fundamentalist protestant, too. As I got older my doubts just got bigger and the more I thought about it the less I believed.
It sounds like you've arrived by a far more difficult path. I'm sorry to hear about all that pain but very pleased to see you've arrived at the oasis.
Hey - remember how we were told christianity was the narrow winding road to truth when we were kids? It was the other way around, wasn't it?
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
All these analogies and I can't use them anymore. Same for a lot of songs, which I learned and could sing so movingly. I wasn't so sure about the words then. Now they jsut seem dangerously absurd at best, generally.
"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right." Martin Luther King
Welcome to the dark side. We have dark chocolate, dark roast coffee and dark rum all for your general enjoyment.
I am sorry to hear about your husband. I have lost several close relative to cancer and younger or older, faster or slower, it a terrible way to go. The only things that you can do are to solve each crisis as it comes. Basically, cancer sucks.
As far as my pedigree, I am a former ultraconservative Anglican myself. There is really nothing in that world view that even attempts to provide any comfort when the worst happens.
Having joined our side, the mental clarity is great, isn't it? As a theist, I could mess up in whatever way that I did and I could tell someone that I was sorry. Then it was on them to forgive me. If they could not do that much, it was not my problem.
Today, it is on me to try to not mess up in the first place. I still do from time to time but even so, it is my problem to deal with and when I do, I learn from my mistakes. Then I try not to do the same things over again.
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Whenever someone tried to tell me that I hate god or that I am angry at him I always respond.
I hate your god just as much as you hate its creator.
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
Considering what you've gone through, that's a great username. Love the camel, too. OMG, camel! lol
Welcome!
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Personally, I don't hate god. However, I do hate Furger-Argorocks
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My fiance snapped a picture of it on his way to work in the sahara. The wander across the road in Tunisia like deer do where I live.
"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right." Martin Luther King
Welcome to the forum, fortitude!
Awww, well, music is music. If you still enjoy some of those Christian tunes, you shouldn't hesitate to burst into song.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Welcome!
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.