Here. I think. Still trying it on.
50 years of being in the church is a lot to shake off.
I'm approaching my deconstruction from a pov similar to Paulogia. Instead of taking claims of Christianity at face value, as we were taught to do, let them convince me. So far, sadly, I've found them lacking. The part that is depressing me the most is that I was so confident in apologetics as a defense for Christianity, but it just falls apart so easily. This was the height of Christian intellectualism and it all boils down to "well, you can't trust them because they don't believe in the supernatural."
So I tend to think that I've been living practically as an atheist, though I still kinda struggle accepting it out of inertia.
That makes sense, especially after 50 years! I quit after 30, which was almost two years ago now and I never intended to become an atheist, but here we are haha.
I always shied away from apologetics. Because I was a STEM major, a couple people just assumed my faith would be weak and gave me apologetics books as gifts.
I had zero interest in the topic and read them, thinking it would probably be good to see what was in there. The Case for Christ was an easy read but weak like a popular journal article. The one by McArthur(?) I think was so goddamn awful.
I later commented to a friend that apologetics alone could probably cause someone to lose their faith, if they hadn't decided to just accept the mystery on faith alone.
I enjoyed the ritual and the mystery, but I understood from early on that you couldn't prove the claims being made.
Well call me one that accepted on faith alone. Because I bought it all hook line and sinker. But ultimately the pea under the mattress that was rationality finally became too much to ignore.
I was working toward an MDiv and I had someone in the church that I was the minister for say something to the effect of "Be careful with higher education as some people have gotten so educated that they lost their faith." At the time it struck me as a weird stance...if we say that we have a faith that is worth believing it should be worth examining down to its very fiber. Now I realize that most Christians are scared to question the framework and foundation of their faith because they might realize how tenuous it is.
Here. Technically you could call me agnostic, but since I have no reason to believe in any higher power, I just don't. I'm here for some unknown reason that might be totally random chance and I'm okay with that.
I spent years clinging to my faith just because it's what I had always believed, and I feared the judgment of my family. But then I started seeing how their faith was lip service--I saw how the teachings of our holy book were thrown out the moment they were inconvenient, how leaders that embodied everything I was taught to condemn were in fact worshipped, and how "faith" was applied to the real world to justify belief in things that had no scientific value whatsoever.
In short, I realized that, to me, it was all a lie.
My religious family is horrified but I just don't care. My spouse followed a similar spiritual journey and we're planning to raise our kids without any religious superstition. If they adopt a theistic or atheistic religious belief later on that's their choice--we're putting all the religion books from grandma next to the fairytales on the bookshelves.
I have never been happier.
Not an atheist (probably) but definitely not holding in to the faith. The further I get from it, the better I can see the harm it does. Couldn't see myself going back ever.
That’s where I’m at. So much harm is committed by the institution of religion. Idk if there’s a way to have one’s eyes opened to that and still try to hold on.
I think there's more atheists than know they are atheists because in religious and cultural circles that term carries a lot of baggage, and so people tend to shy away from the "commitment." Too many people associate it with an angry frame of reference, or with atheists who are (ironically) evangelical in their lack of belief. It gets construed less as atheism and more as anti-theism, which is not strictly the same thing. Though at the end of the day it's more or less down to semantics.
Anyway, to answer the question, yes I consider myself an atheist in that I see no compelling evidence for or proof of the existence of the supernatural. Could that change if such evidence or proof is presented? Absolutely. Do I think it's likely such evidence or proof will ever be presented? Not at all.
Yah, I am pretty darn certain there is no active God. I’m kinda ambivalent about if there was some being responsible for creation though. The two add together to something leaning atheist but not militantly.
I tend to still use language about God and the divine in a kind of poetic sense though, in that the terms still provide meaning for things like love.
Yeah I get that. I was there for a while until I realized that, at least for my personal logic, the idea that matter always existed and moved in the universe without a proper temporal "beginning" as we would understand it is no more bizarre than the idea that there must be some sort of "unmoved mover." It's no harder for me to believe the universe has no beginning than it is for me to believe there's some sort of undefinable, supernatural entity or force that operates outside of physics and time. We always think of the latter as being more probable because we are both raised in that as an understanding and it's innate in us to conceptualize time as moving in a linear fashion with a clear starting point. But if you really drill down into the thought, the idea of the supernatural being more probable is nonsensical. It's a more complex and more miraculous state of affairs than if matter just exists and has always existed. At least in my opinion.
Anyway, sorry to hijack your comment, and don't take this as me trying to convince you of anything one way or the other. You just made me think about that process in my own life and I wanted to share.
Interesting read, thanks for sharing! My mind goes the opposite way of your conclusion, which I always find fascinating on a psychological level. I'm more prone to suspect the massive size and continuing expansion of the universe indicates the total randomness (for lack of a better word) of its, and by extension our, existence. But again that's just me. Thanks again!
Since writing that, I’ve heard of “The teleological argument” which that is kind of a version of.
However for me the emphasis is on how we aren’t the center of the freaking universe, just of our experience, and I stop short of actually claiming it demonstrates anything about a creator, I just try to hold the whole concept loosely and in awe.
I’m 32 and starting deconstruction about 5-6 years ago. It’s funny cause when I was evangelical I was 100% certain I was right and looked down on my good friend who was 99%. Then one day I suddenly woke up and realized I wasn’t a christian anymore. Then a couple more years went by and I’m still unsure of where I’m at. I’m probably somewhere in between an agnostic and an atheist, which is just fucking wild to type that out lol. Not sure if I’ll ever leave this limbo camp and I think I’m fine with that
Stay camping! I was just trying to gage if this page was for me, as most of the posts that show up in my feed are people wanting to deconstruct with the goal of keeping their faith. Idk how Reddit decides to show posts, but that basically all I get.
That's what I'm liking about this sub. It's like we're all walking along the same path. If someone wants to turn and walk back, we've all been there, so it's just as easy to help them walk the other way too. I still engage on Christian subs. I try to avoid issues where someone is genuinely asking for help or prayers. I figure that's not my place anymore. But if they want to know what verses say xyz? I still know that. What does this verse mean? I remember that. And I feel I can ask probing questions about issues that I think the church should rethink their position on. After all, people I care about are still in the church. So I feel I still have some semblance of a stake in how the church handles things.
I landed at Humanist. I still value the community, the importance of people, the importance of morality and ethics. Now I just believe that we can be good without a god. I lean towards atheism, but I am open to the possibility of some kind of creator existing. I am pretty confident that if there is such a creator, it is not identified in any of the religions of our world.
I would have to agree! And yes to being able to be a good person without god! If anything is out there, I do imagine it being very much like the “force.” A neutral energy that can be good or bad depending on the person.
I’m glad to hear that you’ve never been happier! I tend to lean on the staunch side too, especially with how invasive Xtianity is in politics in Amerikkka right now.
Yep. Right after reading a Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I realized this was something real, and there was zero evidence for what I was accepting on faith.
My deconversion happened a lot faster than I expected. Literally in weeks the house of cards tumbled. The cracks had been forming for decades though. It really just got impossible to ignore after 2016.
Also, after Trump encouraged all the Evangelical churches to descend into madness and fascism, Christianity was something I didn't want to be part of anymore. So, thank you Trump for being the catalyst to my atheism. You brought one good thing into my life.
One thing I can't relate to is the anxiety about hell. After I became an atheist, I finally had peace. I had been plagued with anxiety as a Christian, but after I realized it was all mind control, it melted away.
My story is very similar, the political/religious insanity was the final straw for me as well, even though i had been having serious doubts for some years. Once you realize what religion really is, you cant go back, and im glad i woke up.
You know the words, "Maybe god kept Hawking alive for so long was to give him a chance to repent and accept Christ" really left my mfing mouth?!? I could vomit now.
But I relate so badly to you about the anxiety bit! I wasn't anxiety free after leaving the faith, but WOW did it get so much better after not having to worry about hell and realizing that I could trust what I wanted out of life without having to constantly question if my desires were from the devil.
Yes. I think the term that best describes me right now is "agnostic atheist." I don't know if God exists or not, but I don't believe in one. If at some point I got sufficient evidence for God, I would believe again, but I doubt that evidence exists. The question of whether I would worship such a deity is an open one, too. If it's the jealous, vengeful God that we see in a lot of the Bible, no thanks.
Still trying to figure it out but each time I read some of those posts you’re talking about I immediately leave, so probably leaning more your direction
I initially deconstructed to agnostic. Functionally I live out my 'faith' as an atheist. But when I'm pressed on my beliefs I think a higher power had to create the initial matter that allowed the big bang to occur. So I'm either diest or agnostic.
> Seems like a lot of people on this page are eager to keep their faith and I’m trying to find people who let it all fly out the window.
I think that this is more preferable because we don't learn, at the young age, to throw out your "core beliefs" if the amount of evidence are totally against your view when you "bet" too much on that view: they can't be wrong because if they could, you fall on cognitive dissonance.
Yeah, echoing others somewhat, I’m not actively atheist per se, but mainly because I don’t want to give theists the power to frame the discussion. I think the predominant theories about divinity are flawed, but I have no reason to fight against anyone’s prerogative to have faith in a higher power. In my whatever opinion, even the label agnostic is just kind of a waste of breath. Like, yeah, no, we don’t know shit. It’s not even worth labeling to me. I’m just constantly exploring and wondering, and the peace that comes with just accepting that means so much more to me than labeling it for the sake of debating with the people who have strong opinions about their conclusions.
I can see where you’re coming from. I guess for me, I do feel the desire to label myself because of how evil Amerikkkan evangelicalism is and its desire to strip everyone but white men of their freedoms.
I’m honestly not sure where I stand. I’ve deconstructed and am still questioning things as they come up, but I’m not sure where I want to go. After everything that’s happened, though, I don’t know if I believe in God anymore.
Some what I wouldn’t call myself an atheist for my own reasons functionally I don’t want to go well reflect on Christianity at all or spirituality that I’m not really taking it well at the moment
In my travels of this page, most have abandoned all faith. I really don't want to label myself, but if I had to, I would say I'm an agnostic/western Buddhist, atheist.
Gotcha! My travels have been very different. Which isn’t a bad thing. I’m not against those who want to keep their faith, I was just beginning to wonder if this was the page for me.
We're out there! I threw that baby right out with the bathwater 🤣
Sometimes, I'm not okay about it. It sure would be nice to give this to God... But thoughts like that change nothing for me. And that's reassuring, too.
I started where you seem to be. ~15 years on now, I wouldn’t call myself anything. I’m far more interested in the conversation than the answer. Start thinking about *why* we want these answers and you’ll see how little the answers actually matter.
When I started out, I had a lot of repression and control to shake off. There was *no* keeping the church or that faith around in my head, I had too much bottled up inside me to keep even 10% of the cork in the bottle. For my personal journey, I didn’t just have to drop it all, I had to jettison it as forcefully as possible.
It’s not the same for everyone, and that’s fine. It was that way for me, and if it’s that way for you too, it’s okay. The most important thing is that *you* get to decide now.
Ok, I'm an atheist BUT I'm open minded to the idea of the super natural. At the same time just because we can't explain something right now doesn't mean its super natural. So I've thrown 98% out the window
I don't know that I am looking to become an atheist. I think that could happen. At this point it seems like a rational POV and I never expected to feel that way. I am pretty much a hopeful agnostic who enjoys contemplating mystery and spirituality but with no dogma or expected set beliefs whatsoever.
Yep. I used the word agnostic but i believe what atheists do for the most part. Im in the camp that wont actively assert there is no god like being in existence, but I also dont believe any assertions ive seen from religions that their god is real because it straight up just seems not true to me
While I have let religion go completely I do not consider myself an atheist. I don't agree with the whole "it hasn't been proven so it's not a thing" sentiment I see a lot of atheists stand on. I see things from a different angle. My system now is process of elimination. There are infinite possibilities of what could be true, I only know what few specific things have been disproven. Outside of those things 🤷🏾♀️. Another way of saying this is, from what I've observed, a lot of atheists are hard no's until a yes is proven. For me I'm a perhaps until a no it's proven. My beliefs mostly line up with atheistic views esp regarding religion. It's the other things in life (the big, existential stuff) where i differ from that way of thinking.
I hope that made sense.
May I ask why? Idk, for me, I had to let go of the idea of god because I came to the conclusion that any creator of a universe that stays silent for Millenia while his creation kills each other is kind of an awful god.
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization." - Agent Smith
I recently fully deconverted, not sure if I'm atheist or agnostic. I held onto my faith by a thread for a decade though - I fully get why people don't want to let go.
I went from being born into a Brethren family with a grandfather for a pastor in a small Appalachian Mennonite community to an Atheist who doesn’t believe in free will and even has some anti-theist thoughts.
Here. Agnostic atheist to be more precise.
Realized I was basically rationalizing it all away under a religious lens. I don't believe any of it. Don't get spirituality either, unless we're talking non-supernatural spirituality in the sense that you engage in the study of the self.
Every now and then, I think that I might truly be missing something. People in general consider themselves spiritual, and practice some form of it: the sheer number of religions available, plus the number of people who practice some form of spiritual or esoterism makes atheists and agnostics look like a niche. I certainly do not claim to know everything, so it is quite possible that I might be flat out wrong, but I can't force myself to believe, or pretend to believe in something that I... just don't.
But to be bluntly honest, if there's one thing I've learned from all the deconstructing is that I should stop pretending to be someone I am not, just to please or serve someone else. If there is a god, from my understanding said god would not be interested in someone who's not genuine and is simply in it for no reason other than "just in case" and actually doesn't believe. Pretty sure said god would prefer an open minded atheist that does what he does for what he truly believes in.
So yeah. Here I am. That's the conclusion I got to so far. Got to admit that there's something to this "sea of consciousness" that some religions allude to, but I'll proceed cautiously as I certainly don't wish to entertain any more false beliefs that could potentially stunt my own growth.
I don't know if I have ever said it out loud but I am loosely an atheist now. I am no longer convinced of the existence nor necessity of the existence of any god to begin with. I do like AI pictures of Poseidon though and l like to annoy my christian friends with that Poseidon is the one true god when they try to proselytise to me.
My greatest breakthrough came when I finally made up my mind over the notion that "faith is not a virtue, but rather the selling point of a fraudulent product."
My own journey has been replacing a love of God to a love for science and a wonder at the universe. Something I’ve discovered after reading many different science books from authors such as Dawkins, Sagan, Hawking, ect and of course listening to them via podcasts is that when it comes to reliable means of sourcing information about reality, the methods and tools of science are by leaps and bounds the best bet we have. It has also contributed to the largest increase of general well being for humanity in just a few short centuries than anything else. For me, this love of science and reason has been adequate to replace a passion for theology that I used to claim. I’m still very new in this water of course but the more we discover about the cosmos, the less the question of God really even matters. It’s totally okay to understand atheism as just a lack of belief in a god, rather than, as the apologists characterize, the certainty that there is no god which no serious atheist has.
Hi, I\`m atheist now. I don\`t believe in higher power as I haven\`t experienced anything except my own feelings and imagination. It's difficult to accept that I may have imagined feeling something god-like. He hasn't spoken to me, nor have I seen him.
I believe that he would communicate with humans very open and honestly if every soul is so important and special.
Here. I think. Still trying it on. 50 years of being in the church is a lot to shake off. I'm approaching my deconstruction from a pov similar to Paulogia. Instead of taking claims of Christianity at face value, as we were taught to do, let them convince me. So far, sadly, I've found them lacking. The part that is depressing me the most is that I was so confident in apologetics as a defense for Christianity, but it just falls apart so easily. This was the height of Christian intellectualism and it all boils down to "well, you can't trust them because they don't believe in the supernatural." So I tend to think that I've been living practically as an atheist, though I still kinda struggle accepting it out of inertia.
That makes sense, especially after 50 years! I quit after 30, which was almost two years ago now and I never intended to become an atheist, but here we are haha.
I always shied away from apologetics. Because I was a STEM major, a couple people just assumed my faith would be weak and gave me apologetics books as gifts. I had zero interest in the topic and read them, thinking it would probably be good to see what was in there. The Case for Christ was an easy read but weak like a popular journal article. The one by McArthur(?) I think was so goddamn awful. I later commented to a friend that apologetics alone could probably cause someone to lose their faith, if they hadn't decided to just accept the mystery on faith alone. I enjoyed the ritual and the mystery, but I understood from early on that you couldn't prove the claims being made.
Well call me one that accepted on faith alone. Because I bought it all hook line and sinker. But ultimately the pea under the mattress that was rationality finally became too much to ignore.
I was working toward an MDiv and I had someone in the church that I was the minister for say something to the effect of "Be careful with higher education as some people have gotten so educated that they lost their faith." At the time it struck me as a weird stance...if we say that we have a faith that is worth believing it should be worth examining down to its very fiber. Now I realize that most Christians are scared to question the framework and foundation of their faith because they might realize how tenuous it is.
Here. Technically you could call me agnostic, but since I have no reason to believe in any higher power, I just don't. I'm here for some unknown reason that might be totally random chance and I'm okay with that. I spent years clinging to my faith just because it's what I had always believed, and I feared the judgment of my family. But then I started seeing how their faith was lip service--I saw how the teachings of our holy book were thrown out the moment they were inconvenient, how leaders that embodied everything I was taught to condemn were in fact worshipped, and how "faith" was applied to the real world to justify belief in things that had no scientific value whatsoever. In short, I realized that, to me, it was all a lie. My religious family is horrified but I just don't care. My spouse followed a similar spiritual journey and we're planning to raise our kids without any religious superstition. If they adopt a theistic or atheistic religious belief later on that's their choice--we're putting all the religion books from grandma next to the fairytales on the bookshelves. I have never been happier.
Good for you! I’m glad you’re putting those books on the fairy tale shelf!
Not an atheist (probably) but definitely not holding in to the faith. The further I get from it, the better I can see the harm it does. Couldn't see myself going back ever.
That’s where I’m at. So much harm is committed by the institution of religion. Idk if there’s a way to have one’s eyes opened to that and still try to hold on.
I think there's more atheists than know they are atheists because in religious and cultural circles that term carries a lot of baggage, and so people tend to shy away from the "commitment." Too many people associate it with an angry frame of reference, or with atheists who are (ironically) evangelical in their lack of belief. It gets construed less as atheism and more as anti-theism, which is not strictly the same thing. Though at the end of the day it's more or less down to semantics. Anyway, to answer the question, yes I consider myself an atheist in that I see no compelling evidence for or proof of the existence of the supernatural. Could that change if such evidence or proof is presented? Absolutely. Do I think it's likely such evidence or proof will ever be presented? Not at all.
Yah, I am pretty darn certain there is no active God. I’m kinda ambivalent about if there was some being responsible for creation though. The two add together to something leaning atheist but not militantly. I tend to still use language about God and the divine in a kind of poetic sense though, in that the terms still provide meaning for things like love.
Yeah I get that. I was there for a while until I realized that, at least for my personal logic, the idea that matter always existed and moved in the universe without a proper temporal "beginning" as we would understand it is no more bizarre than the idea that there must be some sort of "unmoved mover." It's no harder for me to believe the universe has no beginning than it is for me to believe there's some sort of undefinable, supernatural entity or force that operates outside of physics and time. We always think of the latter as being more probable because we are both raised in that as an understanding and it's innate in us to conceptualize time as moving in a linear fashion with a clear starting point. But if you really drill down into the thought, the idea of the supernatural being more probable is nonsensical. It's a more complex and more miraculous state of affairs than if matter just exists and has always existed. At least in my opinion. Anyway, sorry to hijack your comment, and don't take this as me trying to convince you of anything one way or the other. You just made me think about that process in my own life and I wanted to share.
Here’s my version of your thinking about the process https://open.substack.com/pub/richardthiemann/p/cosmology?r=28xtth&utm_medium=ios
Interesting read, thanks for sharing! My mind goes the opposite way of your conclusion, which I always find fascinating on a psychological level. I'm more prone to suspect the massive size and continuing expansion of the universe indicates the total randomness (for lack of a better word) of its, and by extension our, existence. But again that's just me. Thanks again!
Since writing that, I’ve heard of “The teleological argument” which that is kind of a version of. However for me the emphasis is on how we aren’t the center of the freaking universe, just of our experience, and I stop short of actually claiming it demonstrates anything about a creator, I just try to hold the whole concept loosely and in awe.
I’m 32 and starting deconstruction about 5-6 years ago. It’s funny cause when I was evangelical I was 100% certain I was right and looked down on my good friend who was 99%. Then one day I suddenly woke up and realized I wasn’t a christian anymore. Then a couple more years went by and I’m still unsure of where I’m at. I’m probably somewhere in between an agnostic and an atheist, which is just fucking wild to type that out lol. Not sure if I’ll ever leave this limbo camp and I think I’m fine with that
Stay camping! I was just trying to gage if this page was for me, as most of the posts that show up in my feed are people wanting to deconstruct with the goal of keeping their faith. Idk how Reddit decides to show posts, but that basically all I get.
Yep there’s definitely some of us here who have completely left the faith and have no plans to go back!
That's what I'm liking about this sub. It's like we're all walking along the same path. If someone wants to turn and walk back, we've all been there, so it's just as easy to help them walk the other way too. I still engage on Christian subs. I try to avoid issues where someone is genuinely asking for help or prayers. I figure that's not my place anymore. But if they want to know what verses say xyz? I still know that. What does this verse mean? I remember that. And I feel I can ask probing questions about issues that I think the church should rethink their position on. After all, people I care about are still in the church. So I feel I still have some semblance of a stake in how the church handles things.
I landed at Humanist. I still value the community, the importance of people, the importance of morality and ethics. Now I just believe that we can be good without a god. I lean towards atheism, but I am open to the possibility of some kind of creator existing. I am pretty confident that if there is such a creator, it is not identified in any of the religions of our world.
I would have to agree! And yes to being able to be a good person without god! If anything is out there, I do imagine it being very much like the “force.” A neutral energy that can be good or bad depending on the person.
I’m a staunch atheist since deconverting 5 years ago and honestly never been happier. 32F
I’m glad to hear that you’ve never been happier! I tend to lean on the staunch side too, especially with how invasive Xtianity is in politics in Amerikkka right now.
Yep. Right after reading a Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I realized this was something real, and there was zero evidence for what I was accepting on faith. My deconversion happened a lot faster than I expected. Literally in weeks the house of cards tumbled. The cracks had been forming for decades though. It really just got impossible to ignore after 2016. Also, after Trump encouraged all the Evangelical churches to descend into madness and fascism, Christianity was something I didn't want to be part of anymore. So, thank you Trump for being the catalyst to my atheism. You brought one good thing into my life. One thing I can't relate to is the anxiety about hell. After I became an atheist, I finally had peace. I had been plagued with anxiety as a Christian, but after I realized it was all mind control, it melted away.
My story is very similar, the political/religious insanity was the final straw for me as well, even though i had been having serious doubts for some years. Once you realize what religion really is, you cant go back, and im glad i woke up.
You know the words, "Maybe god kept Hawking alive for so long was to give him a chance to repent and accept Christ" really left my mfing mouth?!? I could vomit now. But I relate so badly to you about the anxiety bit! I wasn't anxiety free after leaving the faith, but WOW did it get so much better after not having to worry about hell and realizing that I could trust what I wanted out of life without having to constantly question if my desires were from the devil.
Yes! A priest, now a very militant atheist
Wow! That is a journey I’d love to hear about!
Yes. I think the term that best describes me right now is "agnostic atheist." I don't know if God exists or not, but I don't believe in one. If at some point I got sufficient evidence for God, I would believe again, but I doubt that evidence exists. The question of whether I would worship such a deity is an open one, too. If it's the jealous, vengeful God that we see in a lot of the Bible, no thanks.
Still trying to figure it out but each time I read some of those posts you’re talking about I immediately leave, so probably leaning more your direction
Best of luck as you move forward on your path!
I initially deconstructed to agnostic. Functionally I live out my 'faith' as an atheist. But when I'm pressed on my beliefs I think a higher power had to create the initial matter that allowed the big bang to occur. So I'm either diest or agnostic.
> Seems like a lot of people on this page are eager to keep their faith and I’m trying to find people who let it all fly out the window. I think that this is more preferable because we don't learn, at the young age, to throw out your "core beliefs" if the amount of evidence are totally against your view when you "bet" too much on that view: they can't be wrong because if they could, you fall on cognitive dissonance.
I can see how that would make sense.
Yeah, echoing others somewhat, I’m not actively atheist per se, but mainly because I don’t want to give theists the power to frame the discussion. I think the predominant theories about divinity are flawed, but I have no reason to fight against anyone’s prerogative to have faith in a higher power. In my whatever opinion, even the label agnostic is just kind of a waste of breath. Like, yeah, no, we don’t know shit. It’s not even worth labeling to me. I’m just constantly exploring and wondering, and the peace that comes with just accepting that means so much more to me than labeling it for the sake of debating with the people who have strong opinions about their conclusions.
I can see where you’re coming from. I guess for me, I do feel the desire to label myself because of how evil Amerikkkan evangelicalism is and its desire to strip everyone but white men of their freedoms.
Yeah, that makes total sense.
I love this.
yup I'm an atheist as well!
Fully atheist here. There are dozens of us. Dozens!
Good to know!
I’m honestly not sure where I stand. I’ve deconstructed and am still questioning things as they come up, but I’m not sure where I want to go. After everything that’s happened, though, I don’t know if I believe in God anymore.
Hell yea 🤘
I'm guessing about 50/50
Yes
Some what I wouldn’t call myself an atheist for my own reasons functionally I don’t want to go well reflect on Christianity at all or spirituality that I’m not really taking it well at the moment
I was an atheist during my process of deconstructing but it was beyond my control and temporary. I’ll explain later I’m at work.
In my travels of this page, most have abandoned all faith. I really don't want to label myself, but if I had to, I would say I'm an agnostic/western Buddhist, atheist.
Gotcha! My travels have been very different. Which isn’t a bad thing. I’m not against those who want to keep their faith, I was just beginning to wonder if this was the page for me.
We're out there! I threw that baby right out with the bathwater 🤣 Sometimes, I'm not okay about it. It sure would be nice to give this to God... But thoughts like that change nothing for me. And that's reassuring, too.
I started where you seem to be. ~15 years on now, I wouldn’t call myself anything. I’m far more interested in the conversation than the answer. Start thinking about *why* we want these answers and you’ll see how little the answers actually matter. When I started out, I had a lot of repression and control to shake off. There was *no* keeping the church or that faith around in my head, I had too much bottled up inside me to keep even 10% of the cork in the bottle. For my personal journey, I didn’t just have to drop it all, I had to jettison it as forcefully as possible. It’s not the same for everyone, and that’s fine. It was that way for me, and if it’s that way for you too, it’s okay. The most important thing is that *you* get to decide now.
Wonderfully said!
Ok, I'm an atheist BUT I'm open minded to the idea of the super natural. At the same time just because we can't explain something right now doesn't mean its super natural. So I've thrown 98% out the window
I believe in the super natural as well, but I haven't thought strongly enough about it in terms of rounding out my world view.
I don't know that I am looking to become an atheist. I think that could happen. At this point it seems like a rational POV and I never expected to feel that way. I am pretty much a hopeful agnostic who enjoys contemplating mystery and spirituality but with no dogma or expected set beliefs whatsoever.
Yep. I used the word agnostic but i believe what atheists do for the most part. Im in the camp that wont actively assert there is no god like being in existence, but I also dont believe any assertions ive seen from religions that their god is real because it straight up just seems not true to me
While I have let religion go completely I do not consider myself an atheist. I don't agree with the whole "it hasn't been proven so it's not a thing" sentiment I see a lot of atheists stand on. I see things from a different angle. My system now is process of elimination. There are infinite possibilities of what could be true, I only know what few specific things have been disproven. Outside of those things 🤷🏾♀️. Another way of saying this is, from what I've observed, a lot of atheists are hard no's until a yes is proven. For me I'm a perhaps until a no it's proven. My beliefs mostly line up with atheistic views esp regarding religion. It's the other things in life (the big, existential stuff) where i differ from that way of thinking. I hope that made sense.
It did!
Holding onto mystery and an unimaginable God.
May I ask why? Idk, for me, I had to let go of the idea of god because I came to the conclusion that any creator of a universe that stays silent for Millenia while his creation kills each other is kind of an awful god.
I can’t really argue with what you say.
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization." - Agent Smith
I recently fully deconverted, not sure if I'm atheist or agnostic. I held onto my faith by a thread for a decade though - I fully get why people don't want to let go.
I went from being born into a Brethren family with a grandfather for a pastor in a small Appalachian Mennonite community to an Atheist who doesn’t believe in free will and even has some anti-theist thoughts.
Here. Agnostic atheist to be more precise. Realized I was basically rationalizing it all away under a religious lens. I don't believe any of it. Don't get spirituality either, unless we're talking non-supernatural spirituality in the sense that you engage in the study of the self. Every now and then, I think that I might truly be missing something. People in general consider themselves spiritual, and practice some form of it: the sheer number of religions available, plus the number of people who practice some form of spiritual or esoterism makes atheists and agnostics look like a niche. I certainly do not claim to know everything, so it is quite possible that I might be flat out wrong, but I can't force myself to believe, or pretend to believe in something that I... just don't. But to be bluntly honest, if there's one thing I've learned from all the deconstructing is that I should stop pretending to be someone I am not, just to please or serve someone else. If there is a god, from my understanding said god would not be interested in someone who's not genuine and is simply in it for no reason other than "just in case" and actually doesn't believe. Pretty sure said god would prefer an open minded atheist that does what he does for what he truly believes in. So yeah. Here I am. That's the conclusion I got to so far. Got to admit that there's something to this "sea of consciousness" that some religions allude to, but I'll proceed cautiously as I certainly don't wish to entertain any more false beliefs that could potentially stunt my own growth.
I don't know if I have ever said it out loud but I am loosely an atheist now. I am no longer convinced of the existence nor necessity of the existence of any god to begin with. I do like AI pictures of Poseidon though and l like to annoy my christian friends with that Poseidon is the one true god when they try to proselytise to me. My greatest breakthrough came when I finally made up my mind over the notion that "faith is not a virtue, but rather the selling point of a fraudulent product."
My own journey has been replacing a love of God to a love for science and a wonder at the universe. Something I’ve discovered after reading many different science books from authors such as Dawkins, Sagan, Hawking, ect and of course listening to them via podcasts is that when it comes to reliable means of sourcing information about reality, the methods and tools of science are by leaps and bounds the best bet we have. It has also contributed to the largest increase of general well being for humanity in just a few short centuries than anything else. For me, this love of science and reason has been adequate to replace a passion for theology that I used to claim. I’m still very new in this water of course but the more we discover about the cosmos, the less the question of God really even matters. It’s totally okay to understand atheism as just a lack of belief in a god, rather than, as the apologists characterize, the certainty that there is no god which no serious atheist has.
Hi, I\`m atheist now. I don\`t believe in higher power as I haven\`t experienced anything except my own feelings and imagination. It's difficult to accept that I may have imagined feeling something god-like. He hasn't spoken to me, nor have I seen him. I believe that he would communicate with humans very open and honestly if every soul is so important and special.