Calling All Atheists/Agnotics
Update
Tales of Deconversion - Part I
Most atheist blogs have some sort of deconversion narrative. The vast majority of us started off in a theistic household and through some sequence of events became an atheist/agnostic.
I'd like to compile all those narratives into one post. It will be a kind of one-time Carnival of Deconversion...or maybe Tales of Deconversion...something like that.
If interested, please leave a link to your deconversion narrative in the comments or send me an email with the link at my gmail account: frankyj009. Spread the word. I'll most likely be emailing lots of other bloggers to solicit posts.
Tags: atheism
62 comments:
I don't know if my story's any good, but here it is.
Great idea!! I've been meaning to get mine up. Now I have a reason to. :-)
Good idea. Here is the first part of mine. I guess I better keep going on the series.
Verily I say unto you, here is my deconversion story.
I don't know if you've seen it, but there is a sticky thread at Internet Infidels with literally hundreds of deconversion stories.
The thread is here, and my own story on the thread is here.
here ya go :)
linky
Wrote this recently
I guess I'm a member of the minority within the minority. I was raised athiest.
I'm I the only one without a blog or myspace and forced to actually post it on this blog? =)
Anyways..I grew up in a household that participated in religious revivals. I clearly remember going to them, especially since I accidentally broke a class door with my hands (running too fast). However after getting taste of young rebellion (understanding it's ok to question dogma!) I did take a skeptical look at the history of the religion and it's teaching, and came to the conclusion that all it's positive values can be reached with a secular mind. I was able to resist the habitual "god-talk", probably because I wasn't very habitual. I think this kept me from the fear that getting an atheistic outlook on life would mean losing something. Which I think is why so many other people, young and old, are afraid to question their dogma.
Short and sweet, I read Issac Asimov's "Guide to the Bible" whwn I was about 28 years old. I found out for the first time that in Hebrew,the same word means young girl and virgin, but it doesn't mean that a young girl is necessarily a virgin. Also he book explains that Moses in the original text parts the Sea of Reeds, not the Red Sea. I began to wonder why churches still teach these "miracles" to heir congregations knowing full well that their own book doesn't back up the story. That book made me start examine what is known for sure about the bible stories and well, it's pretty much nothing. If you want an entertaining conversation ask a priest why they teach people that Moses parted the Red Sea and watch him squirm.
Hey Frank,
I mailed you the story, but I just posted it on my site and the link is right...wait for it....wait...
Here - http://mikesweeklyskepticrant.blogspot.com/2006/09/deconversion-story.html
Great idea, by the way.
You know what, the hyperlink is easier and isn't six miles long. The post is here.
Thanks again.
I was raised mainstream, went Jesus-freak in the early '70's, studied for the Ministry, but only later realized I was whistling in the dark.
Cold and broken alleluia
Interesting to see if any Godders can read through all the links you are collecting.
In the same spirit as what PZ Myers did when the Washington Post asked for people's personal spiritual stories, here's my "deconversion narrative":
The man I am and the man I used to be
Enjoy! (Though, just like PZ, I doubt you'll accept it, much less let this post stay unmolested.)
Not mine, but I have a big collection of links:
http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?showforum=5
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72552
http://www.curiouslittlemonkey.com/faith.shtml
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=35947
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/be/list.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/index.shtml
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pmurray/exchristian/
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ (on the last link, scroll down for the decon stories)
I was raised very Catholic, but started reading science fiction when I was 12. After a few months, I looked around the church one Sunday and realized that religious beliefs were even more improbable than the tales of space aliens and alternate universes I'd been devouring.
Apparent beta blogger and blogger don't like each other yet...
giv'r
I know that you saw my link, but I just wanted to add it to the list. :-P
Here it is,
Well, my parent were early diciples of BF Skinner and naturally I was raised in a Skinner box. Of course I thought this all normal, but for me my deconversion was later in a high school biology class, and because of my reinforced skills in all areas of science, my teacher, Mr. Burrhus Frederic gave me many extra credit projects that allowed me to spend all my free after school time in the lab, this pleased me to no end, that is until that day, it was late one Friday evening when all the other students were attending the football game, I was in the lab cleaning up after some of Mr. Frederic's research experiments, so I was alone, and in my zeal I began testing the flash points of various chemicals that I had gathered from the store room. It was all so exciting, but what I didn't understand was fire point, so even though I devised a makeshift Pensky-Martens Closed Cup flash tester, it was the ethoxyethane that prompted my deconversion. Since that night I abandon my Skinner box and moved in with a roving band of hippies, who like me, would never step into a Lab again.
I was also raised Catholic and I was always the problem child. Questioning everything they told me, asking how the hell Jesus could be male without a male parent, how could he raise from the dead, why didn't God just forgive us of our sins, etc, etc. Eventually, science became more important to me than faith and I just stopped worrying about beliefs, since I couldn't make myself believe the absurdities.bb
Raised Catholic,rather devoutly, I may add; Was most influenced by arts and literature; music: todd rundgren's "Healing", and "Fascist Christ", various XTC, including "Dear God"; The Tom Robbins book "Another Roadside Attraction". Then I became a surgical resident (I am now a general surgeon) at a catholic hospital. I saw incredible amounts of death and suffering. I'd have to say the experience of surgical residency was the last nail in the coffin, so to speak.
Raised agnostic.
Stayed that way.
Met and married fabulous atheist.
Got brave enough to say "I am an atheist" out loud after realizing I was one but was hung up on thinking it was just a little too rude to say so.
Marrying boy from Jersey turns out to be a good cure for being overly polite. :)
Nance
I was raised atheist/nontheist, didn't rebel during my high school years, fell head over heals for a Fundie (I know, I know...) my first semester of college, spent a crappy year as a confused Christian (much to my mother's dismay), then actually read the bible and saw for myself -- even as a believer -- what a crock it was, and that was the end of that. It was a great learning experience, in that I got to see the inside of the Fundie mindset, but like all learning experiences, it was pretty excruciating at the time.
I wrote mine way back in 2003, but if you're still interested in it you'll find it here.
Simple answer: 12 years of Catholic schooling made me an agnostic.
"The vast majority of us [atheists] started off in a theistic household"
Are there stats on this? Most of the atheists I know grew up in atheistic (or apatheistic) households.
(Sorry, no conversion story here; I'm a natural-born atheist.)
Hey Franky,
Thanks for the invitation to post a deconversion. I never did write my own deconversion story on this blog, that is true.
The reason for that is because my deconversion was rather anti-climatic and very gradual. It didnt involve any traumatic life experiences or anything like that. It was akin to the frog slowly being boiled on the hotplate, and doesnt make for much of an interesting story I suppose, especially compared to some of the other deconversions stories that Ive read.
But Ill definitely consider it. I guess it depends on whether or not I think I can write it in such a way as to at least make it intersting without embellishing the story beyond what actually happened.
I think I became agnostic in high school. It was all the talk that if you chose any other religion you would burn in fiery torment for all eternity. I couldn't make that make any sense in my mind other than as a wonderful guilt and fear trip to make you do what they wanted (which is exactly how my stepmother motivated her familiy members and it always made me bitter towards her too). I bounced around other religions after rejecting christianity, and then decided that none of them could offer any proof that they were true, and the benefits you get out of them can be gotten just as easily secularly. Since then it has only been a steady slide towards athiesm. I still acknowledge the possibility of some kind of higher power... but it doesn't seem likely (more likely I think maybe humans have some sort of need or cognative ability to create a diety to deal with the unknowable).
When I finally read the Bible for myself, instead of just hearing the few "good bits" from the local shaman, I became an atheist.
Not much to say. I was raised Catholic. At about 15 I realized the entire belief system was ridiculous. It took me far longer to rid myself of the guilt/indoctrination. Deciding I didn't believe in Santa was much easier.
Christianity is a terrible thing to inflict on a child.
Great idea!
See mine here, and a shorter version here.
I posted mine some years ago, here:
Missionary Kid Finally Grows Up
Great Idea!
No conversion story here. All 4 parents (divorced/remarried) raised me to believe in whatever I wanted to. One summer, my stepmom sent us to a summer bible school. We were kicked out. Something about not paying attention in class, or fighting or something. Don't really remember. But now, I have to say I'm a happy atheist.
No conversion here, I was exposed to mild indoctrination but it
never took. I think innate good logic protected me.
One time, around the age of eight,
I actually tried to pray while in
bed late at night. I embarrassed
myself and felt totaly foolish,
never tried it again.
Here ya go. Glad you reminded me of this: I'd never blogged it until you inspired me.
My first doubt in a god came rather early(age 8?) due to reading Reader's Digest and not understanding how so many bad things could happen in the world (if god really loved all the little children in the world, why were so many sick, hurt in wars, or starving?) Age 11 found me having long walks and talks with my dad about the universe and the existence of a god or gods (dad still believes). All the while attending a southern baptist church with my family and then on my own. All the while having the usual doubts (how can my church be the only right one? how can god condemn so many people to hell because they never met a baptist missionary? is the rest of my family going to hell because they don't go to church as much as I do?) Even as I gave my heart to jesus and was baptized. Trying so hard to believe and feel jesus in my heart. When I began to understand (age 13-14) that churches are full of faults, and that people are often assholes regardless of what they believe, I began to accept what I had always felt. Once I accepted it, and began to explore my sexuality free of the guilt my churched-up fellow teens felt (age 15), I felt so free and clear. Everything I have learned since has only confirmed my decision.
My story is here.
Heretics! Your stories make the Invisible Pink Unicorn, bless her holy hooves, CRY!
Nothing spectatular here either. I just went through the usual adolescent questioning phase and didn't like the answers I had been told. My family was Catholic but my father was a scientist, so scepticism was as natural as belief. The Catholic censure on masturbation helped I think. I guess that is why there are so many ex-Catholics.
lifetime nonbeliever here, this is a great idea for a thread and i'm adding it to our blog. can't wait to see the 'best of' post.
I was raised by a devout Catholic mom, and a pretty much 'whatever' father. I can't remember a time in which I wasn't an atheist; I distinctly remember at one point in childhood at about age four or five believing in Santa Claus (since there was ample evidence of his existence) and not believing in God (since there was zero evidence of his existence).
There may be a relationship to a horrific dream I remember having at about age 3 (the only thing I remember from that age, other than the Beatles on Ed Sullivan), when I dreamed Jesus was crucified on our clothesline pole in the backyard, gouting blood and muttering threats at me. I was terrorized and disgusted at the same time. Catholic iconography having an undesired effect? Probably.
---Aaaargh
I was raised in a very strict religious household. My father was a pastor and he didn’t tolerate any questioning of the church or the bible. I can pinpoint the time of my conversion to atheism when I read “The Allegory of the Cave” from, Plato’s Republic. Basically, you are living a reality that “enlightened” people want you to live and you must question things to become free from a false reality. If you have not read it here is some more information about the story.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/plato.html
My story is in the second section here -- http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/autobio1.htm
Here's mine. Have fun.
I posted mine, or at least most of it. You've inspired me.
http://momsquared.blogspot.com/2006/09/deconversion-part-1.html
My family wasn't religious, really, but I had a great-aunt that was a nun, so we were generally respectful and labelled ourselves Catholics.
I went to university and dismissed most religious beliefs, but not the belief in god. I don't know why I held on to it, I think mainly I just didn't bother to examine it.
When I entered grad school in physics, and realized I couldn't be any kind of honest scientist without at least admitting to being agnostic.
I read Sam Harris (The End of Faith) and some Richard Dawkins at the prompting of a friend about a year and a half ago. Harris plainly laid out a lot of what had been going through my head. I've been a proud atheist ever since.
My family is from rural Alabama, and whem my parents were young, my grandparents (both sets) were heavily into a fundie Christian cult.
Soon after my parents married there was a big scandal involving their slimeball cult preacher. My Mom's family broke away from the cult and my Dad's family stayed loyal.
All the uproar and being torn between their two families seemed to turn my parents off of religion altogether. Although they took me to church twice a month, it was obvious that thought of it as a chore. They made no effort to indoctrinate me beyond that. Without them weighing in, my brothers and I kind of got to pick what we believed, and Christianity never seemed that appealing to me.
- Sagra
I'm the atheist son of an atheist who was the son of an atheist who was the son of an atheist, who, as far as we know, was the son of an atheist. It's my birthright, and we have always been proud of it.
http://heypaulsblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/as-promised.htmldvl
Mine was quite simple. As an elementary school kid, our teacher was telling us about how one of civilization's greatest advances was the changes from a pantheistic worldview to a monotheistic worldview.
I asked her why having one god was better than many, and she couldn't give me a meaningful answer. Since my skepticism was reinforced at such an early age, it was difficult to brainwash me from that point forward.
Yeah, that's pretty much like me too. I never really believed it, from the beginning pretty much. I was sent to catechism, then later on my mother got into the televangelist bs, but even as a kid I knew I was just going through the motions.
But, if there must be a deconversion story it was when I was a teenager. I went from saying that there definitely is no god to admitting I didn't know one way or the other. I guess I "converted" from atheist to agnostic, which is what any intellectually honest person should be.
I became an atheist because of Vietnam and because I was horny.
The urge to have sex is overpowering and sexual release is just about the most pleasant thing there is.
Yet we were told that if we wanted to have sex for its own sake and didn't feel shame we would all burn in Hell because God loves us so very much.
I figured there's no way a loving God would do a thing like that and also noticed that a lot of people who were virulently against sex also tended to make jokes about blacks based on some rather passé stereotypes. They also seemed strangely unconcerned that we were killing hundreds of thousands of Asians who hadn't actually done anything to us and seemed incensed that younger people might want to risk their lives doing this sort of thing for them.
There's lots of other stuff, of course but having a quasi-permanent erection and Vietnam to deal with, was, for me, an immensely clarifying experience.
There's sentence in there that SHOULD have read
"...incensed that younger people might NOT want to risk their lives doing this sort of thing for them."
Sorry.
I probably realized that God and Santa were made up stories at the age of five when I ditched my invisible friend. I figure that by the time you are a teenager you know that dead people don't get a second chance, that a mother can never be a virgin, there is no parallel universe where you can live for ever. You'd have to be crazy to believe all that stuff.
Even though I knew it was an impossibility I always longed for the super-natural to exist. After a few nights spent in my sleeping bag in the stone coffin in our 10th century parish church as a teenager, with not a whiff of a ghost, I pretty much figured it out.
Its too complicated a story to explain why I became a hospital chaplain and an ordained priest even though I am an atheist. Following ordination, I carried out a survey of the leadership group in an affluent church where I served as Assistant priest. I was pleasantly surprised to discover 80 % had similar beliefs to me. Most church people like the idea of belonging to a believing group but still manage to survive in the real world of making a living.
In my case, take a celtic appreciation of form and paradox, a love of baroque and slavonic music, and a left handed view of life, allowing me to indulge my pleasure in words, liturgy, and story telling, and you have a perfect match.
In answer to my fellow atheist who think priests might be embarrassed to talk about events in scripture which never existed. Not at all. Here's a quick up-date. Jesus never existed. He's a figure amalgamated from several sources acting as a bridge between East and West The point is not whether he existed but what did he say.
The parting of the Red Sea, on the other hand, is one of those stories told around a campfire under the milky way which bind a community together. Did it ever happen? Who knows, probably not. None of my own stories ever really happened either, because I've embellished with a thousand tellings. After a while its the truth behind the story that counts, not the details.
The story is about the path of transformation. In all change there is a dying of the old self, represented by drowning or being cleansed in the Sea of Redes, and a putting on of the new by ascending on the other side. Descending into death and emerging into new life. Its like quitting smoking by killing off the old smoker so the non-smoker can emerge.
If you are an atheists then you don't have to worry about this stuff unless you are interested. Things usually work themselves out whether or not we understand or whatever the dynamics.
When I was finally old enough to have communion in Catholic mass and I realized it was just a cracker, and stayed that way. All the adults said it would become Christ's body, the lying bastards!
Seriously, as a child, I thought that was actual "magic" in our real world. When I learned it was a fake, I saw everyone who believed that tripe as nuts.
In my early forties, looking for something to read, I picked up the bible and thought, having never done this I would read it start to finish. Chapter one. "In the beginning..." Not sure how many pages it took before I was appalled. Just couldn't believe the atrocities that were committed in my god's name. Little children dashed to pieces? This is insane. No loving god would even think of such a thing. Hamstringing horses? What in the hell was the purpose behind that? For a short time I thought this book was so evil that it had to be the work of satan trying to ridicule god. Maybe put a few niceties in to make it sound credible. Other than that it had to be the work of the devil.
Next was, now I believe in god but not the one everyone else does. Can you hear the last gasp? Took me a year or two more to hear it. Eventually it came down to these questions and answers. What is your god based on? The bible. Do I believe in the bible? No. What is the basis for your belief then?....
Don't miss god and never looked back. Even now, (at fifty) I am reading up on the basics of physics and biology. Wanting to learn about the world around me which is much more interesting than superstition. I came into this world ignorant. Be damned if I'll go out that way.
In the beginning God BECAME the heavans and the earth... with a very Big Bang.
I was raised in a Methodist household. I went to church and Sundy School every week. I and my parents were active in church activities. Every meal begain with grace. My parents were certainly believers, but not in an overt way. But they also insisted that I be independent and self reliant.
I and my father were very active in scouts all the way from cub scouts to boy scouts. But as I advanced through the boy scouts, the badges became much more religious in nature. The work on those badges made me realize that faith did not play a role in my life. Yes, I went to church, but my values were/are based upon personal convictions, not fear or love of any god. I'm certain that excelling in science and reading a lot of science fiction also contributed, but it was the scouts that forced me to examine my religious beliefs and ultimately reject religion. Certainly not what they intended.
I posted mine to my blog recently (raised Mormon):
part 1: background
part 2: the evidence
part 3: the tipping point
Plus the supplement: "If the church weren't true, I'd be an atheist" and other things I learned in seminary....
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