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I'm so curious, what stages did you all go through to get to where you are at? I'd love to see concise samples to determine how similar or different people's paths have been.

A lot of things were happening during all of these times...but that's a post for another day! haha. So here is my time line of belief/unbelief:

Unquestioning Christian 3yrs old to about 7yrs old.

Questioning my own Christianity, but not God 8yrs old to 14yrs old.

Questioning the reality of an all powerful God and then feeling guilty about it (trying not to think about whether God was real or not) 15yrs old to 17yrs old.

Having serious doubts about God and not believing half the time (stopped loving God, but still Christian) 18 yrs old.

Sad atheist 19yrs old.

Longing for something more atheist 20 yrs old.

Happy atheist 21- present.

PiperMckenna 6 July 6
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5 to 20 -- unquestioning Christian (BS detector was fried early and well).
21 to 35 -- resisting cognitive dissonance
35 -- the dam breaks
36 -- 38 looking for alternatives and not finding them
39 -- 42 admitting to myself that I didn't believe, and figuring out what I DID believe
43 -- 48 closeted atheist
49 -- 62 (present) self-labeled atheist and happy with it

Very interesting timeline. Thank you!

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  • < 5: born and reared into a conservative Catholic family
  • 5–10: attended Catholic parochial school, nuns and all, questioned articles of faith, was told "mysterious ways," accepted "one true religion," felt special
  • 8–17: altar server (and the answer is "no" )
  • 11–17: attended public Jr.-Sr. high school, felt morally superior to everyone else
  • 18: started studies at strict Catholic college, still convinced of Catholic tenets, arrogant prick
  • 18–20: learned church history, theology, etc., discovered that the religious "truths" were often majority rule by committee, disagreed with Catholic ethical reasoning, started questioning Catholicism and Christianity, started paying more attention to philosophy and other views
  • 21: college closed, attended another college (more secular), more interested in philosophy, took course in the problems of philosophy, heavy focus on religious concepts, e.g., God and the soul and immortality and the logical problems these concepts face, still believed in some nebulous form of God
  • 22–23: went through agnostic phase, emerged a negative atheist, not open with most people
  • 24–26: felt betrayed by family, clergy, and community for lies and indoctrination, certain they should have known better, still attended church to appease family
  • 27+: started to realize that even highly intelligent people have blind spots and are often themselves subject to the effects of indoctrination and the hope in things that faith promises, let go of my anger and hurt, stopped attending church, open and honest about my views but don't go out of my way to discuss religion unless asked

I love these little glimpses into how minds grow and handle things. From what I'm seeing, new atheists go through a phase of lashing out because they are hurt. I wonder if some of the phases that are gone through correlate with the stages of grief. It kinda felt like a bad breakup. I don't really know what I'm talking about. I just like thinking about these things.

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Glad you climbed out of that cult one rung of the ladder you describe each per Piaget observation

Yes! It was a difficult climb, but so worth it

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I never really bought into religion (I hated having to get dressed up to go to church), I noticed the difference in the behaviors of my classmates in church, and at school (elementary age).
I married a catholic and was married in the Catholic Church, but never joined. We were in a folk music group in one church. I enjoyed some of the messages of love and caring for your neighbors, but still never accepted any of the Christian dogma.
I never really considered if I were an atheist or not, I just couldn’t rationally accept the majority of the Bible.

That's interesting! I loved getting dressed up for church actually! Haha. But I understand not being able to rationally accept the bible. It's strange looking back and knowing I believed in all those things once.

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From altar boy to altered veiw. Hypocrites in high places preaching one thing and living another played a big part.

"Altered"..funny!

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Belief in Bible as illustrative myth: Raised in Disciples of Christ church. No literalism. Jesus as a love message. Fairly sheltered faith with almost zero ugliness. Golden Rule christianity. I generally believed in a non participative but benevolent god. Never believed in a devil if god was omnipotent. Baptized into my childhood church at age 12, along with an entire class of other 12 YO. (ages 5-18)

The big turn off, "Real church/christianity": From college years forward, witnessed "christians" as haters, bullies, bigots - agst gays, atheists, other christians, everyone. Understanding religion to be a human construct, seeing it weaponized to justify any hateful/selfish belief, turned me off to church. Considered this a human failing. Still loosely held on to a personal god concept, though questioned how such a deity could allow such abuses. Took our kids to a few churches to teach them about religion, not indoctrinating them. Husband and daughter got baptized. Husband died of cancer in 2006. Attended unprogrammed (no sermons or dictated belief) Quaker meeting for three years. (ages 18-44)

Books grant me permission to question ALL of it: My dad, who was very well read in world religions and secularism, gifted me with books by John Spong and Neal Walsh. ("A New Christianity for a New World" and "A Friendship with God" ). These books seemed to grant me permission to critically evaluate religion, including mine, and to consider discarding religion altogether. Ultimately brought me to where I am now: non-religious, nontheistic. I don't believe in a god being, figuring "god" is how many humans explain what they do not know. (ages 44-46)

My "fuck religion" phase: early in my no-longer-believing years, I read and discussed a lot, shooting as many holes in religion, and especially christianity as I could. I was pretty angry at the many wrongs religion has dished out and felt a need to rail about it. I shudder to think how anger-constipated I might have been had I actually experienced a more authoritative/abusive brand of christianity personally. (ages 47-52)

Present: I tired of being angry and of rehashing the same anti-religious arguments over and over. I understand the need to vent such sentiment, especially for the newly disbelieving. I personally want to move past that and enjoy a more peaceful and satisfying life as a humanist, with reverence for all life and the environment.

Zster Level 8 July 6, 2019

This was so interesting to read. It seems like you're in a really good place now. Would you say you regret being brought up in a religious environment? I'm so happy to be a humanist now as well. Thank you for replying!

@PiperMckenna Not really. The version of religion that I was raised in was loving. It’s too bad that such is not our general reality (loving one’s neighbor, etc). The fire and brimstone/fire insurance version is rather horrid. I do not understand its popularity, except from the point of view of power hungry humans. Glad you enjoyed the read, fellow humanist!

@Zster I can understand that. The church my family goes to now is loving for the most part and I don't really have too much of a problem with it. The one I was raised in was horrible though. I think maybe it's because of the leaders of the church. I think some of the harsh teaching made them feel special. I don't know. I'm just glad to be out and loving people because they're people, not souls to be saved.

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I read and reread the Bible starting from when I was eight years old, so was aware that the Hebrew god was misogynistic, cruel, revengeful, arbitrary. But my dad was the same way, yet was considered a "wonderful Christian missionary," so I accepted our deity being equally messed up.

I thought anything that happened that was "supernatural" was "god"answering my prayers, but eventually I realized that I got EVERYTHING I wanted, or decided to have - good or bad- so things that happened had nothing to do with "god" and religion. I was the only one making things happen, so was in fact "god."

Also I read the Sumerian texts, carved in stone 2000 years before the Bible was written, so I knew the Bible god behavior and personalrity was based on "Anu," the blood-drinking Sumerian alien god.

But the racist, bigoted, misogynistic memes and behavior of the white evangelicals during the 2016 election is what pushed me to toss everything to do with religion.

So glad you have found (and are finding) yourself! <3

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Pretty similar timeline for me, if just a few years behind. I thought 5 years old was pretty early/advanced (in a backwards ass way) to be able to claim you understand and accept Christianity. I was probably pretty devout and unquestioning from 5-12* (inwardly a few questions would always pop up but none that met the light).

Questioning others’ Christianity, and Christianity’s claims about gods nature but not god from 12-17

Studying the hippie movement, war atrocities, eastern cosmologies and comparative religion from 15-21 led me to form my own philosophies.

Being “spiritual but not religious,” sort of aimless and dabbling in high functioning alcoholism and existential dread from 21-27

Admitting that I’m an atheist and antitheist and taking more control and responsibility for my own problems 28-present

Yeah, that does sound pretty similar. Mom would always say I was the weirdest child because I thought way too much about deep things. I think it helped later on in developing a sense of constant questioning. I was never really spiritual but not religious. If course, I'm not 100% sure what that means. Thank you for answering!

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Hard to say have questioned things a long time

bobwjr Level 10 July 6, 2019
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