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HaloNoble6

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I am curious as to when and how you guys first began to explicitly think that God didn't exist. Personally, I actually can't remember ever believing in the existence of God, but I do remember for a short time thinking that His existence was possible. Here's what changed that.

I was about five, with a terrible stomach ache, and this was the one and only time I had ever considered "praying to God" (and I only thought of it because this pain was so unbearable that I'd give absolutely anything a try). So, I prayed for God to relieve me of this pain. When, of course, it didn't go away, I knew (with as much certainty as a child of five could muster) that God didn't exist.

From this age onward my thoughts on God were spent fleshing out the reasons why God couldn't exist. This process concluded when I thoroughly understood "Existence is Identity," a full fifteen years after my fight with a stomach ache. What are your stories?

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I am curious as to when and how you guys first began to explicitly think that God didn't exist.  Personally, I actually can't remember ever believing in the existence of God, but I do remember for a short time thinking that His existence was possible.  Here's what changed that. 

(snip)

I went through an intensely painful psychological period in my life in my late teens and early 20s. I was constantly depressed and thinking about killing myself. Why? I was gay and God hated homosexuals. When I started asking questions to my fellow Christians, they kept feeding me bs which amounted to, "trust God and he'll take away your pain and your homosexuality over time." I could not understand why, if God was as powerful as he claimed to be and as benevolent as he said he was and as all knowing as he said he was, God could look at me, feel my pain, and make me prolong my suffering if he could take it away instantly just to teach me something. (That was their answer when I questioned why an all powerul God couldn't take away something instantly.)

Then they would feed me the line that "God doesn't give us a greater burden to bear than he knows we can handle." Well, I knew this was bs. If it were true, nobody would kill themselves. God sure was sounding like a manevolent bastard at this point.

I was confused and didn't know what to believe. I was ready to try and reconcile my beliefs with the fact that I was homosexual. I did a search on Yahoo! for a church that accepted homosexuals and accidentally came across the web page of an agnostic. Her arguements challenged my beliefs for the first time in my life. After that, I started reading everything I could read, starting with Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not A Christian. Within a short amount of time, I was finally understanding things. The fact that all of the Christians I was talking to were giving me bs answers for the arguments I was reading didn't help much.("Trust in God. We may not understand but He doees.")

So, in July of 2000, I renounced Christianity and began seeking my path elsewhere. At first I considered myself agnostic but quickly realized how illogical that stance was.

Edited by redfarmer
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I'm currently shedding my last skins of deism.

Basically, I'm baptised as a Catholic and have spent most of my life desperately trying to understand Christian faith. I've never let up trying to defend faith with reason based on many of the writings of people like Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, and C.S. Lewis (whom was an atheist but became a devout Christian).

Finally I gave in to the contradiction that I was holding, that is: "defending faith with reason." Such a profound contradiction cannot exist, no matter what anyone says (especially C.S. Lewis whom I still somewhat admire). You finally have to make the choice: Faith or Reason. It's one or the other. You choose to uphold faith, or you choose never to subordinate reason to faith. I chose the latter, and it's having a very positive psychological effect on me.

I recently watched the PBS documentary: "The Question of God: Sigmund Freud vs. C.S. Lewis." My recent watching of this was the final nail in the coffin of my former theism. Basically, I came to the realization that a belief in God is ultimately a form of subjectivism. Everyone in the documentary who believed in God placed ultimate authority on their "feelings." As much as I disagree with Freud on many things, I think he was correct in saying that "religion as the universal neurosis of mankind" is a product of "wishful thinking."

I also recently read an article by Dr. Hurd called a "secular view of death" in which he echoes a similar sentiment in that a belief in heaven is a product of "wishful thinking" and reflects the human desire to "want something for nothing.' This means that we want to die and live in eternity without having to endure the effort that existence requires.

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I am curious as to when and how you guys first began to explicitly think that God didn't exist.  Personally, I actually can't remember ever believing in the existence of God, but I do remember for a short time thinking that His existence was possible.  Here's what changed that. 

Hm...I began to become incrediulous of God's existence in the first grade. I remember sitting in my Catholic School classroom listening to the nun explain to us that God was always watching us and had a plan for all of our lives. She then opened up her lecture to class questions. All of the other kids said things like "God wants me to be a good Christain," or "God wants me to be a doctor," etc. However, I made a statement that sounded something like "I think our lives are just books and we are writing our own endings and God has our stories stacked up in his library..."

When the nun reacted adversely to this statement (she pulled me, literally, out of my seat and made me do pennance...then she called my mom and told her she had raised a junior heretic!!!! :lol: ) This was my last day, ever, in Catholic School...Later in my life, I would reflect upon this experience when questioning the validity, first of organized religion and eventually, the validity of an omniscient "God." Eventually, I came to the conclusion that man is the only person responsible for his well-being and destiny and for one to place blame on a higher being is a great sign of weakness...

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I, too, am shedding the last of my "agnostic" views. Through, conversations on various sites, I see more and more evidence against a "God." I don't know that I've ever believed in God. Certainly not the christian one. The few times I've been to church, I had just seen brainwashing and this weird push. Churches had always disturbed me in many ways, so it was natural for me to push it away. I tried many spiritual paths, Wiccan/pagan, but I just think I kept falling farther and farther from "God" and I enjoyed it. I found that doing something myself was much more gratifying than asking some "higher" being to do it for me. I've always been pretty open to the idea of a god, moreso the possibility of the supernatural, but until the point of knowledge, I've no reason to accept that there is one.

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Woah.

I still find it hard to believe that people need a "path" to atheism. I can't believe that people today in modern societies are still raised in this fashion - basically brainwashed from a very young age to accept God.

Personally I was never religious. One could say I ranged from Agnosticism to Atheism all my life. Mostly the latter.

I remember a disgusting scene I saw in Israel about two years ago. I sat on the train, on a lovely summer day. A happy looking religious family sat across the isle. A young couple with a child.

The child, a girl of about 3-4, was beautiful and very curious. She constantly asked questions, and looked out the window.

We were passing Haifa's Carmel beach, a beautiful landscape of sand, grass, flowers, and a vast view of the ocean, shining under the sun.

The girl was awe struck. Standing in her seat to better grasp the full grandeur of what she was seeing. Her eyes were wide open. She probably came from Jerusalem and had never seen the sea before.

Her father saw this, and seized the opportunity. He came closer to her and asked her in a low voice: "Who made the sea?"

The girl just wanted to silently watch the view, but they didn't leave her along until she told them who made the sea.

It makes me shiver everytime I think about it.

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Yeah...I see that all the time too. It's sad. I'm much the same way. I've never been religous, just somewhat agnostic. Finally, I don't believe, and I just don't care anymore. Reality is reality, and I just take things as they come.

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I think it takes a pretty healthy childhood and a life surrounded by rational people to be shocked at the fact that, unfortunately, epistemological corruption in children is commonplace, modern society or not. As most in this forum know, modern society is built upon the discipline of science and the echoes of the enlightenment. And while, for the most part, science is very clean and logical, the science of ethics, on the other hand, is thought of as arbitrary, if thought of at all. Indeed, in the past two-hundred years, while philosophy has been crippled at its root, science has sped ahead at 200MPH.

While it is an ugly and disheartening reality, the fact that even today many people have to dislodge themselves from a wreckage of contradictions and false premises in order to become atheist is certainly not shocking. I find it heartening to discover that, inspite of these great personal odds, people have managed to heroically discover Objectivism.

[edit] grammar [/edit]

Edited by Felipe
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Well, you are all quite forunate in this respect. I was raised in a very religous pentacostal family. My father would read me apologetics - Francis Schaeffer, CS Lewis, Mortimer Adler from a very young age (I think it started when I was like 8 or so). Due to the high end nature of it it wasn't untill I was 16 I started having intense doubts, why with science and all.

Down side - I was a very religous person myself and was psychologically crushed. I remember it vividly, I was in the hallway going to drama class and my brain just kept repeating "If space has no edge because that would mean more space was outside it, then time needs no edges, there need be no beginning." Over and over and over till some configuration of braincells just snapped and I lost any sense of purpose.

I have since been an agnostic, I guess mainly to sheid myself from some of the impact.

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I was raised as an atheist by an atheist family, and engaged in a very bitter, quiet war with theism from an early age.

Now my mother attends a Unitarian church. I'm not sure what I think about that. My parents are both environmentalists.

I'm starting to feel a bit betrayed, here.

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For me, theism was the last major irrationalistic concept that I rejected before becoming an Objectivist. The first book I read by Ayn Rand was ITOE, and before I even got to the arguments against theism, I saw where she was going and started seriously "chewing" on her arguments.

What slowed me down was the immense, profound package dealing that was my concept of "God." I hadn't adequately defined a concept of "nature", or of morality, epistemology, metaphysics, etc, so there was an overwhelming sensation of fear married to any movement I made in the direction of atheism- because bits and pieces of all of those vital concepts were grotesquely heaped together into my "God" concept (along with all the mythology and dogma and pre-set emotions I accepted).. and how could I live without them?

But I remember the night of my "conversion" vividly. Atlas Shrugged did it for me. I began Galt's Speech a (neurotic) theist, and finished it an atheist. Specifically when I read Ayn Rand's critique of the Garden of Eden, in context with her indictment of Original Sin and the rest of the speech and the novel, the remnants of my religious sentiments were destroyed.

But what took me completely off guard was the psychological phenomenon that occured next. To my complete surprise (since I hadn't fully acknowledged it was there), all the fear and shame and everything else that was wrapped up in my anti-concept of God- vanished as I began to fully grasp and integrate the fact that now I was an atheist... Like the Burden of Sin lifted from my shoulders-- but it was the Burden of God!

After that I experienced a sensation of clarity-- and direct connection to *my* experience.. *my* life, choices, and beliefs.. divorced from all superstition and pain and fear and guilt-- unlike anything I'd known before. I would say, in a certain sense, becoming an atheist was the most "religious experience" I ever had.

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Hm...I began to become incrediulous of God's existence in the first grade.  I remember sitting in my Catholic School classroom listening to the nun explain to us that God was always watching us and had a plan for all of our lives.  She then opened up her lecture to class questions.  All of the other kids said things like "God wants me to be a good Christain," or "God wants me to be a doctor," etc.  However, I made a statement that sounded something like "I think our lives are just books and we are writing our own endings and God has our stories stacked up in his library..."

When the nun reacted adversely to this statement (she pulled me, literally, out of my seat and made me do pennance...then she called my mom and told her she had raised a junior heretic!!!!  :lol: )  This was my last day, ever, in Catholic School...Later in my life, I would reflect upon this experience when questioning the validity, first of organized religion and eventually, the validity of an omniscient "God."  Eventually, I came to the conclusion that man is the only person responsible for his well-being and destiny and for one to place blame on a higher being is a great sign of weakness...

This is a wonderful story. I would have loved to see the looks on the faces of everyone in that classroom :).

Now my mother attends a Unitarian church. I'm not sure what I think about that.

The only good thing I can say (or even know) about the Unitarians is that I like the achitecture of their churches.

I myself have always been an atheist. I just never bothered to realize it until my mid-teens. There are times when I was younger that I wished there was a god so he could do favors for me, but I'm much more comfortable knowing there isn't one.

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I think it takes a pretty healthy childhood and a life surrounded by rational people to be shocked at the fact that, unfortunately, epistemological corruption in children is commonplace, modern society or not. 

I wish! I was never surrounded by rational people. But I was very far from religion: my family and whole hometown were explicitly secular thoughout most of my childhood.

Besides, the child itself is was not corrupt. It was the PARENTS who were trying to corrupt her. And THAT'S what was so shocking.

I guess it shouldn't have been shocked, but I was very much disgusted.

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Hmmm... B)

This is my first post on the ObjOnline Forum, and I have always considered myself

thoroughly objectivist, even before finding out about "objectivism", due to my

seeming inability to accept that reality (that which is) wouldn't be reconcilable in

my mind in a sensible (sense-able) way,.. if only the proper way of observing it

could be found.

That being said, I do believe in god (and gods, and various other

nonsensical "helpers") as explicitly invented entities that serve a purpose, much

like the "equal sign" is an invention that serves a purpose.

In my experience, nonsense not only exists, but has a reason to do so. The

reason is usually to provide contrast for and act as a pointer toward "real reality",

which is the reality that should be dealt with, as opposed to "fake reality", which is

the reality that is used to "escape from" the real reality.

I understand the idea of people, after some traumatic incident, discovering that

the magic dude in the sky doesn't seem to want to help them, states in rather

backlash-to-authority fashion, that "He didn't help me therefore he doesn't exist!",

but find that particular rationale to be (to be kind) juvenile.

And it usually IS in fact juvenile, as those are the people that this sort of incident

happen to,.. Juveniles.

The idea that "god = corruption" is amusing (and a bit tragic) to me. I can

definitely see how one could come to that conclusion. If the "collective" used the

concept of god as a club for enforcing/implementng the evils of collectivism, then

seeing that club as a corrupting tool is perfectly rational.

But,.. not all people are so inculcated. I, for example, was raised entirely secular.

To the point of abject naivete as to any concept of anything but physical reality

and my own (overly) introverted thought processes.

This was mostly due to simple parental/societal isolation than anything else, and

not in a particularly bad way. It is just the fact of my early existence.

So,.. There I was,.. no "spirituality",.. no "community",.. not much other than

happily playing with things and considering things from a very scientific point of

view.

But I did very much appreciate jokes,.. and puzzles,.. and the concept of "things

going asymptotic".

And the thing that all these things had in common for me was that

their "nonsensicalness" pointed me, invariably, to some part of reality that would

be interesting and enlightening/inspirational to me.

And that's is what "god" and it's "minions" does for me.

I don't ask god for anything that god can't deliver, because that would

be "irrational" on the face of it, and because god's only function, for me, is as a

touchstone, a reminder, that I don't know all the facts yet (not that I COULDN'T,

just that I don't) and that being calm in the face of "anxiety producing uncertainty"

is always the best way to deal with reality.

God, for me, is a reminder of the biggest "it is" there is, and as such is completely

incapable of DOING anything, as there's nothing, no contrasting thing, no non-

it'ness, that would allow it to do anything at all.

God is the jump of the asymptote. The absolute singular neccesary "contradiction

that isn't a contradiction". It's absolute, because only by being absolute can it

be "singular". It's singular, because there can only be one absolute, and it's

necessary because "an absolute singular contradiction that isn't a contradiction" is

the neccesary balance for reality,.. which is it's absolute opposite.

I don't get upset at contradictions, or their biggest example, god(s). I see them

for what they are,.. laugh and point,.. and ask questions and state my views

about "reality as I see it", trusting that the humor and ultimate goodwill (that

reality is vastly more helpful than harmful to me) of the big "it is" will help me out

if I do my job and not panic into irrationality.

And god, to me, is the smiling face of reality that ALWAYS has another joke for

me to think about,.. and eventually use. :lol:

-Iakeo

(( Edited a "to" in the first sentence to read "due TO my.." :lol: ))

Edited by Iakeo
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Hmmm...  B)

This is my first post on the ObjOnline Forum, and I have always considered myself

thoroughly objectivist, even before finding out about "objectivism", due to my

seeming inability to accept that reality (that which is) wouldn't be reconcilable in

my mind in a sensible (sense-able) way,.. if only the proper way of observing it

could be found.

I observe reality with my eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and nervous system. It works extraordinarily well for me.

God is the jump of the asymptote.

This is a beautiful metaphor for god, although I think it was inadvertent on your part. What exists at an asymptote? Nothing. It is a portion of a function where a value cannot exist. If you graph a function with an asymptote on a graphing calculator, it will draw a nearly vertical line that connects two points on either side of the asymptote because a graphing calculator can't graph non-linear functions. But your mind can process non-linear functions; by using reason, you can understand that the vertical line at the asymptote (god) isn't really there.

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I was raised in a nominally Christian household. My mother got us up to go to church and Sunday school as often as she could manage. My father is, as my mother once described him, a "closet-case atheist." We usually said grace at the dinner table. Religion was part of our lives, but not a way of life. More lip service than practice, really. I was never made to sit and memorize Bible verses. Nor was I exposed to the afore-mentioned epistemological corruption of things like, "Who made the sea?"

I remember thinking, when I was about 10 or 12 years old, that faith was a pretty flimsy basis on which to accept the existence of God. (I may have held that view earlier, but this is the earliest time I remember identifying the thought explicitly.) This thought was followed hard upon by the thought that I must be morally defective if I couldn’t believe in God on faith alone. I spent the next 15 years, give or take, swinging wildly back and forth between belief, and non-belief. I accepted the notion that God was necessary to have any moral values at all, and a total lack of values was not something I was prepared to accept. So being unable and unwilling to accept God on the basis of faith alone, I searched for a reason to believe. I tried, as drewfactor put it, to defend faith with reason. I won’t go into the details of that search, except to say that it was long, frequently without clear direction, and of course, ultimately fruitless. When I believed most strongly, it never lasted very long; when I didn’t believe, I had that lingering sense of moral inadequacy.

Then in the summer of 2003, I discovered Objectivism. I had heard of Objectivism in college, but never bothered to check into what it was all about. I had decided that Ayn Rand’s novels would be a good reading project for a while and had just finished We the Living and Anthem and was about to begin The Fountainhead. My real exposure to the philosophy as such was the introductory lecture by Gary Hull through the ARI website. Of course it took me a few months to really begin integrating the information, during which time I also finished The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

I remember very distinctly finally get my mind around the Objectivist argument for atheism (or rather the epistemological principles which lead to atheism, since an "argument for atheism" is really superfluous) and the foundations of ethics, independent of any form of mysticism or need for faith. It was as if a huge burden had been lifted. I didn’t have to believe, or pretend to believe as more often was the case, and I didn’t have to feel guilty about it.

I now find that period of my life mostly just embarrassing. The ideas I held, and the arguments I engaged in, now seem absurd. I can’t say I don’t understand how anyone can hold those ideas; most people rarely examine their own beliefs and premises in a critical manner, but I expect better of myself.

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I was born into a traditional Catholic family. I went to Catholic school for part of my education. I had to attend weekly Mass & other assorted functions.

I thought it was all very strange & pointless, because I was born an atheist & never "grew out of it". LOL. The closest I ever got to any form of theism would have been disinterested agnosticism. But that was before I explicitly thought about it & consciously decided I should be an atheist around the age of 14.

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I observe reality with my eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and nervous system.  It works extraordinarily well for me.

And what other possibility is there..? B) We have only our sensory apparatus for

that function. What of what I said would make you think I would think any

differently that yourself..?

This is a beautiful metaphor for god, although I think it was inadvertent on your part. What exists at an asymptote? Nothing. It is a portion of a function where a value cannot exist. If you graph a function with an asymptote on a graphing calculator, it will draw a nearly vertical line that connects two points on either side of the asymptote because a graphing calculator can't graph non-linear functions. But your mind can process non-linear functions; by using reason, you can understand that the vertical line at the asymptote (god) isn't really there.

Actually, that's precisely what I meant. Nothing does "exist" at the asymptote, but

the "portion of the function where a value cannot exist" exists.

If you frame a "problem" such that an asymptote forms, you've created an

apparent "contradiction", as seen by an entity that takes "reality" to mean "all

values should be findable on this sheet of paper, if only the paper were big

enough",.. when in reality, you can't WISH reality into conforming to your naive

conceptions. Reality laughs, and so should we, at such attempts.

In other words, the asymptote is the "joke", the illusion of contradiction/nonsense

in this thing we call reality. It's a signal to the naive that they really should look a

bit closer at this "problem", and it's a wink at the "knowing" that "I've got lots of

these little puzzles and jokes, that you enjoyed so much the first time YOU found

one, for you if you keep looking for greater understanding of the big 'it is' in your

pursuit of happiness..!"

-Iakeo

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And what other possibility is there..? B)  We have only our sensory apparatus for

that function. What of what I said would make you think I would think any

differently that yourself..?

In your initial post you said,

due to my  seeming inability to accept that reality (that which is) wouldn't be reconcilable in my mind in a sensible (sense-able) way,..if only the proper way of observing it could be found.

which led me to believe that our senses were an "improper" way to observe reality.

If you frame a "problem" such that an asymptote forms, you've created an

apparent "contradiction", as seen by an entity that takes "reality" to mean "all

values should be findable on this sheet of paper, if only the paper were big

enough",.. when in reality, you can't WISH reality into conforming to your naive

conceptions. Reality laughs, and so should we, at such attempts.

In other words, the asymptote is the "joke", the illusion of contradiction/nonsense

in this thing we call reality. It's a signal to the naive that they really should look a

bit closer at this "problem", and it's a wink at the "knowing" that "I've got lots of

these little puzzles and jokes, that you enjoyed so much the first time YOU found

one, for you if you keep looking for greater understanding of the big 'it is' in your

pursuit of happiness..!"

-Iakeo

I find your personification (if that's all it is) of reality puzzling.

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In your initial post you said,

which led me to believe that our senses were an "improper" way to observe reality.

We can only use our senses to percieve reality. There's no other way. But

observing it, to me (sorry about my quirky way of using the word), is not only

percieving it, but investigating it, which means that the information acquired has to

be integrated into a "world view" (what's the objectivist term for this!?).

It's the act (choice and volition) of how to organize the data of perception into

a "world view" that is subject to being "proper" (helpful/useful) or "improper"

(delusional/destructive).

Many of the ways "of my people" for organizing this data from reality seemed to

work (being an American), but there were glaring holes, especially in the areas

pertaining to interpersonal things (now recognised by me as the various "evils of

collectivist mentality" which seemed to actually make it more difficult to obey [and

prosper from] the "laws of nature/reality" by purposefully de-clarifying certain

aspects of reality to appease someone's/somegroup's "discomfort").

I find your personification (if that's all it is) of reality puzzling.

That's fine. B)

Is it the fact that I choose to "speak for reality" with an actual voice? That's just a

conversational device.

Just as Rand used a literary means to diseminate her ideas, I like to use a

conversational approach to communicating my thinking. Which is approprate for a

conversational medium such as this. At least to me. :lol:

What actually puzzles you in the content of what I said..?

-Iakeo

Edited by Iakeo
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Until a couple years ago, I wasn't an atheist persay, though my transition from *Christian* to atheist was far from difficult. I never really believed in God, but I thought that people were *supposed* to believe in him. So I played the little prayer games and sang the stupid songs. I was sort of waiting for one of those *revelation* moments like they tell you about in Church. I figured that there was something I wasn't understanding about *faith.* So I went to those ridiculous confirmation classes. I went there to learn about religion and get some things straight. No one else took it seriously and yet they believed in God and I still *didn't.* So, I quit confirmation class and decided religion was pointless. I haven't tried to believe in God since. And I really had tried... I couldn't do it. I still don't understand how anyone can get themselves to believe in God. Is there some sort of magic believing box? :) People in Church acted like there was some sort of switch, and all you had to do was flip it and voila. I ask: How do you know God exists? They say: Don't question, just have faith. I ask: How? *silence* Like I need that... So like I said, the transition was never a hard one for me, I just gave up on a semi-quest to be a Christian, but I guess I was a heathen all along, since you are not supposed to take communion if you don't *truly* believe. ;)

BTW~ I love the assymptote metaphor for God!

edited to change "this happened" to "God exists" for clarity

Edited by non-contradictor
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...I ask: How do you know God exists? They say: Don't question, just have faith. I ask: How? *silence* Like I need that... 

BTW~ I love the assymptote metaphor for God!

edited to change "this happened" to "God exists" for clarity

Thanks chief..! :(

It's funny, but my own path is rather the reverse of most people, it seems. The

more "rational" I get, the more in touch with "god" (which to me is simply the

universe qua universe [to use a favored device of objectivists]) I get.

But, given the definitions that I use for both "rational" and "universe", which

amount to "observing and understanding the universe as a UNI-VERSE" and "all

that exists", I don't really have much of a choice, do I.

(( OK,.. I could choose "irrationality", but I CHOOSE not to. ))

Any "god" short of "the biggest 'it is'", to me, is not god,.. it's some "subset" of

god. And as god is either god or not-god, this subset "thingy" being called a "god"

is dangerous, as it's only purpose, as a counterfeit, is to "defraud".

Fraud is bad. :P (Fraud equates to initiating force to take others stuff.)

But that doesn't invalidate the "utility", to me, of my concept of god, which is

absolutely nothing more than "absolutely everything", which, due to it's absolutely

singular absoluteness, is absolutely incapable of "doing" anything, as there is

absolutely nothing outside it, which makes it not only harmless, but "comforting",

to me, as it "tells" me (informs me) that "everything is in me if only you look for

it."

"Comforting", as I use it here, means "assists me in NOT PANICKING."

Not panicking is good, because panicking stops one from doing things that are

useful to them.

-Iakeo

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FELIPE wrote: “I am curious as to when and how you guys first began to explicitly think that God didn't exist. Personally, I actually can't remember ever believing in the existence of God, but I do remember for a short time thinking that His existence was possible.”

My post may be longer and maybe even broader but still on topic:

This thread has a special relevance to me because I publicly renounced Christianity on Feb. 24 and began openly living as an Objectivist (metaphorically, I describe it as Coming Out of the Mystic Closet).

Raised in a moderately religious home in East Tennessee, I had always (unfortunately) accepted whatever philosophy was presented within my comfort zone (i.e. family, girlfriend, friends). My philosophy could be pitifully described as "Go with the Flow." I always believed that God existed because — in my immaturity — I didn’t want to accept that eternal life wasn’t possible otherwise.

After marrying at the ridiculously young age of 19, I embraced my wife's belief in fundamentalist Christianity via the Southern Baptist Convention.

(Sidebar: One regret I have from my college days is my refusal to read "Atlas Shrugged." A fellow student suggested it. I spurned it because I "didn't have time." I've often wondered how much better my life would have been had I read it and concretized it.

Even as I "grew" in my faith, I always harbored unconscious and conscious rational doubts about Christianity but actively repressed those doubts because they threatened what I believed to be my sense of security and well-being. After all, who wants to go to "hell" if they are convinced such a place exists? I believe many "Bible-believing" Christians are trapped in this same spiritual conundrum. Plus, I was so co-dependent on my wife for my self-esteem; I automatized the belief that questioning Christianity would end the marriage (talk about a second-hander!)

Around 1995, I began to serve as a part-time minister, partly because I liked the adulation and acceptance such a position brings in a community but also as a perverse way to deal with my doubts (which were growing). My rationale then was: "If I delve deeper into Christianity through the ministry, maybe I'll lose my doubts."

Instead, I found myself surrounded by other ministers who were, quite frankly, as ignorant bout these matters as I was, inwardly neurotic yet spiritually "together" to the outside world.

Fortunately, in 2001, I found two beautifully bound books by Ayn Rand in a small library in Sweetwater, Tenn.— "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." I remembered hearing of "Atlas" in college and decided to read both. As you can imagine, I renewed the books several times.

Finally, I had found a moral basis for all my repressed beliefs that would have been labeled "sinful" by my brethren. Here — in my hand — was a plan presented through fiction of a truly integrated, rational philosophy. Several personal (psycho-epistemological) factors prevented me from fully embracing the philosophy immediately — largely fear of change.

However, my thirst for knowledge led to my eventually buying my own copies of "Atlas" and "Fountainhead." Within the last few years, I have read almost all of Miss Rand's fiction and non-fiction works including "Anthem," "We the Living," "The Virtue of Selfishness," Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal," et. al. Other books by Objectivists, like Peikoff's "OPAR" and Craig Biddle's "Loving Life," helped me eventually piece together the philosophy into an integrated whole.

In fact, it was while reading OPAR that I finally admitted openly in my mind that I did not believe in god. It took longer to develop the courage and integrity to make this public.

During this intellectual investigation, I told my wife nothing because I was still unsure of my intentions and I still feared the full implications of my blossoming beliefs.

Metaphorically, I was Hank Rearden still clinging to incorrect premises while secretly seeing my Dagny (Objectivist studies) but not willing to part with my Lillian (religious dogma) for reasons I would not investigate.

Eventually, my wife began to notice my lack of interest in religion. We both knew a heart-to-heart conversation was imminent.

On Feb. 24, that conversation took place. I fully articulated what I knew to be true (Objectivism). I knew I could no longer fake reality and live as a Peter Keating. I shared my thoughts completely with my wife on all philosophical issues and, after several displays of real emotional pain, we agreed to continue to stay married for now while she sorts these things out.

Since then, we have been talking about divorce and I know that's a different thread for the forum.

While I'm not sure we can ever be reconciled unless she also rejects mysticism, we are committed to providing our two children with a tranquil, loving home until we decide the marriage's future. I think that she is has the potential of embracing a full commitment to reality and Objectivism because she does display some semblance of rationality at times. For example, she works diligently as a college math instructor, which forms some basis for a universe governed by reason.

Now, I've defined my central purpose as: to live a rational, joyous life without contradictions, based on reason, self-esteem, pride and dedicated to pursuing the virtues/goals that flow from this purpose as well as pursuing productive work as a writer, teacher/speaker and therapist within this context. Towards that end, I'm thinking of leaving journalism, becoming a freelance writer/teacher and writing a book about the process of "deconversion" as it relates from fundamentalist Christianity into Objectivism (obviously drawing on my personal observations and anecdotal stories).

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