Hypothesis Help?
Offline I'd like to get some feedback about a hypothesis if possible. I deny the holy spirit!
I was a Christian until I was twelve or thirteen. I don't know how, I just knew I was. Anyway, that's my point. I don't remember I deny the holy spirit! what made me decide to believe, I just did.
On the flip side, I remember that I was sitting under a tree in a farmers field in Belgium when I finally decided I didn't believe any more. Things didn't add up. The loving I deny the holy spirit! god that allows innocent children to suffer, the multitude of different religions. The god thing that has a need to be worshipped etc.
Anyway, I can remember where I was and some of what I was thinking forty years ago when I stopped believing and opened my mind but I can't I deny the holy spirit! remember starting to believe.
My hypothesis is that people that can't remember what made them believe in a god thing probably were indoctrinated as a child. I deny the holy spirit!
I've talked to another non believer it fits with her.
I deny the holy spirit!
The question may be a good litmus test to determine if a theist has really thought about things or is just a product of indoctrination. It also might be useful to demonstrate to a god I deny the holy spirit! worshipper that they believe because of childhood indoctrination rather than any rational thought.
I'd like very much to hear what I deny the holy spirit! other reasonable/atheist people have to say.
P.S. I still can't get my head around the fact that the I deny the holy spirit! majority of the people in this world believe in the supernatural in spite of all the research coming up empty. After all this time, it still boggles my mind. RSS et al. are islands in a sea of &*%&^%&^^^*&%$$@@&*R#%^%%%&^%^&^<>&*.
P.P.S. I'm new to forums and posting and you may have noticed I'm venting a teeny bit.
I don't dislike all of the religious people...just the religious part. - The ones that think they are good because they don't kill and are kind should think about the harm they do by perpetrating the idea it's OK to believe in things that lack any evidenc
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That's an interesting angle.
Welcome.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
That is actually quite a good theory.
Welcome tred!
I loved I deny the holy spirit! your post. Very I deny the holy spirit! clever.
We're glad you're here!
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Thanks Susan, I'm glad to be somewhere.
Dan
For what the anecdotal evidence is worth, I don't remember becoming a Christian. In fact, I recall once thinking it was really silly that this one youth minister kept telling me I had to get up in front of the church and "get saved." I'd always believed in Jesus, so why in the world should I have to get saved, since believing in Jesus is what saves you?
As it was explained to me, it's believing, but you also have to have a "conversion experience." I believed but I had to actively hand my life over to Jesus before I'd escape hell fire.
The memory is a little fuzzy for me, because I was quite young, but as I recall, I did the little song and dance to accept Jesus, but then I spent some time worrying because I hadn't really meant it, since I had already believed in Jesus as long as I could remember.
Odd that I genuinely believed, and still managed to find a way to be afraid because I believed. If I hadn't spent so much of my childhood living in fear and isolation because of my faith, I'd think it was damn funny in retrospect -- that is, looking at how my developing sense of logic was twisting around the "facts" of religion that didn't go together, coming up with perfectly logical conclusions that even other theists would have thought were looney if I'd told them.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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I feel for you Hambydammit. That's another way of screwing us up I hadn't heard of. It makes a lot of sense though. You try and follow what you are taught and be good and honest and it ends up biting you.
I guess the minister sort of got the idea that you can't be a true believer until you make a conscious decision to believe. The trouble is, in my view, a child is incapable of making such an important decision for the same reasons they won't go to prison if they commit a crime. In my view, to be a true believer you must be an adult non-believer first, then hopefully examine the evidence and use critical thinking to arrive at your decision. Not just carry over childhood delusions.
I, like Dawkins, and others think that childhood religion is child abuse. Your experience reinforces that. When I was a child, I was slapped up and down a hallway and shouted at with "MOVIES ARE THE DEVILS WORK!" because I went to and animated movie (The Sword in the Stone). Things like that, their hypocrisy, racism caused me to break all ties in my mid-twenties. I haven't spoke to them in about 25 years and the only thing I regret was I broke it off with everyone, including my two sisters.
A number of years ago, I came to my senses and realized my sisters weren't the problem so I contacted them and apologized, and today I am close to both of them. This has brought new problems though (for me anyway), because they and their husbands are religious and they are continuing the tradition of childhood indoctrination.
I don't dislike all of the religious people...just the religious part. - The ones that think they are good because they don't kill and are kind should think about the harm they do by perpetrating the idea it's OK to believe in things that lack any evidenc
Wasn't there a discussion a long time ago about how one could be a good xian and still be sentenced to eternity in hell?
Now that is some pretty nasty indoctination.
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It sticks with you, too. It wasn't until recently that my heart finally decided what my brain already knew: There is no hell. I used to have nightmares and wake up with a scream behind my lips. If my mother walked around a corner, I'd freak out that the rapture had happened.
No, I wasn't a little kid when I last felt this way. These feelings made it to my thirties! Thank the god that doesn't exist that I don't have these little episodes anymore.
I was so thoroughly indoctrinated that I'll probably be working on these issues for a very long time. Shame on religion and the people who engender such fear in their children!
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Ahhhhh, Hamby, I am reaching through the computer to give you a mental hug! Fear was always a big part of my belief...
Slightly different scenario: I remember looking around in church and wondering what was wrong with me. I believed and all, but still there were questions. No one else had questions, why was I plagued with them? Did I not have enough faith? Did I not love Jesus enough? The threat of hell hung over me like Damocles Sword. I figured God knew that I believed, but what if I suddenly pissed him off? Would God still love me even if I had questions? Was that ok? And why the hell wasn't he answering any of them?
In the end I did what most former theists do and rationalized God to the point of a warm fuzzy feeling to used whenever I could not make sense of things. Now I look for answers and educate myself and if there is no answer....well, there is no answer. And that is ok.
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