Religion
In reply to the discussion: Question for atheists. [View all]Heddi
(18,312 posts)I went to a Methodist church as a child...mainly because I spent the weekends at my great-grandmother's house and she went to church on Sundays, therefore, I went to church on Sundays when I was too young to stay at home by myself when she went. It was never forced, and I was, I dunno...1st, 2nd, 3rd grade...that age. Outside of church, she wasn't an outwardly religious woman and neither was anyone else in my family. I mean, there was talk of heaven after you died, and guardian angels, but no pictures of Jesus in the house or crucifixes or any outward overt religiosity growing up. No god and jesus talk. I had an aunt who was Jehovah's Witness and everyone felt bad for her being in a cult, and she'd bring me bible story books but they didn't hold any special power any more than mother goose books or little golden book books. They were just story books (although I do remember this sweet pop-up bible story book I had. I loved that book b/c of the popups.
Did the sunday school thing and then when I got older, the youth group thing. It was just a thing I did. I think when I "graduated" into 4th grade sunday school I got a bible with my name in it. No idea where that thing is now.
Like, did I believe in God? I dunno. I still believed in Santa and the easter bunny. It wasn't a big thing to me, and really was only a thing I thought about on Sunday when I was told to think about it (just like I didn't think of Santa until December and I was reminded of him).
I do remember the first time I had open doubt was in Sunday School and we were playing bible jeopardy and the question was "what book of the bible are dinosaurs mentioned" and I answered some stupid book like Exodus or something, and the teacher said "No, dinosaurs aren't mentioned in the bible, that's how we know they're not real" and I was like 'Yeah but TV's are mentioned in the bible and they're real"
that was a real WTF moment for me, and the first time I am aware of questioning my "beliefs" but I don't even know if what I had were "beliefs" or not.
It's not like at that moment I was like ah ha! I love me some Dawkins, because I was...8? maybe?
But that was the beginning of questioning the bullshit. And the older I got, the more I knew people of other religions, and the more I went from "yeah god!" to "well Hindus and muslims and pagans can't be wrong, can they?" and then I went through the "God and Shiva and Allah and Jehova and Ra are all names for the same person" phase, which was alongside the "so polytheistic deities are just praying to the same god as monothiests, instead of looking at the whole God, they're looking at parts of god" phase and then finally I was like "wait...no...this doesn't make any sense, and I don't believe any of it...and I don't think I ever did now that I think about it."
For the majority of my life, I was just someone who didn't believe in God, someone who didn't go to church. Until I was 26 I lived in the Deep South so to everyone except my husband and close friends I was "spiritual but not religious" or "i'm not a church person" but that's only so I wasn't set on fire by coworkers. I was never spiritual. I don't know what that means.
In my late 20's-early 30's I finally met other people who were Atheists and Agnostics, mainly b/c I lived in Seattle where it's not a sin to be gay or to not believe in God or to not have children, so I was much more comfortable being myself.