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Love the Amazing Transformation

Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I know many atheists who were once Catholics.
And a few who grew up believing other religions.
Every one just at some point in their life simply
had the light bulb switch on.....Oh, this is bunk!
They abandoned guilt, certainty, & being locked
into a dysfunctional belief system that they
couldn't reconcile with the real world.

Tell us about your transformation.
Good?
Bad?
Still figuring it all out?

Ricky Gervais has his epiphany at 8 years old.
Short video....

ricky gervais became athesit at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.
duckduckgo.com duckduckgo.com
 
Orbit

Orbit

I'm a planet
Revoltingest said:
I know many atheists who were once Catholics.
And a few who grew up believing other religions.
Every one just at some point in their life simply
had the light bulb switch on.....Oh, this is bunk!
They abandoned guilt, certainty, & being locked
into a dysfunctional belief system that they
couldn't reconcile with the real world.

Tell us about your transformation.
Good?
Bad?
Still figuring it all out?

Ricky Gervais has his epiphany at 8 years old.
Short video....

ricky gervais became athesit at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.
duckduckgo.com duckduckgo.com
Click to expand...

I was a Presbyterian (raised in it) until I was about 50 (I'm 59 now). I started out at 50 by wanting to know the "truth" about religion. What do I mean by truth? I started investigating how different Bible translations changed the meaning of verses; I looked at how the Bible was compiled, by whom, and under what social and political conditions; I made myself aware of the many contradictions in the Bible; I researched different views on the evidence for Jesus existing as a person; and I considered all the information I had about how religions function across societies that I got from my cultural Anthropology degree; I looked into how the concept of "hell" came into being; and I looked into the research on the efficacy of prayer, and concluded it had none.

So it took some time to deconvert, and that deconversion was the result of a LOT of research and soul-searching, for lack of a better word. The process took about two years. I was always ok with scientific explanations of the origins of the universe, and the development of life (evolution), so those weren't issues I had to grapple with.

As a sociologist, one of my publications is a study of an online community for people deconverting, where I analyzed their posted stories of how, when, and why they left Christianity. It was an interesting project.
 
ChristineM

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
I was protestant (church of England) and devoted to the whole religion thing. Unfortunately i have a problem that prevented me reading... Most unfortunate because our church expected teenagers to do the reading from the bible.

Things were fine until my turn rolled around, i apologised, i cried, they insisted, i refused, they began to make fun of me, to mock my disability, and just like at school they called be all sorts of stupid.

Church was an escape from the **** i got at school and this turning of my friends, congregation and vicar hurt me badly.

I left the church.

Literally a few weeks later i was diagnosed with a rare form of dyslexia and prescribed eye glasses that filtered out the problem red. Like magic i could recognise letters.

I taught myself to read, my first book "the colour of magic" was a revelation. It took me around 9 months to read it. My second book was the King James Bible. I read it as a book, from start to finish. It taught me much about Christianity, particularly the opposition and hatred of difference.

It was my understanding of the KJV that made me atheist.
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
ChristineM said:
I was protestant (church of England) and devoted to the whole religion thing. Unfortunately i have a problem that prevented me reading... Most unfortunate because our church expected teenagers to do the reading from the bible.

Things were fine until my turn rolled around, i apologised, i cried, they insisted, i refused, they began to make fun of me, to mock my disability, and just like at school they called be all sorts of stupid.

Church was an escape from the **** i got at school and this turning of my friends, congregation and vicar hurt me badly.

I left the church.

Literally a few weeks later i was diagnosed with a rare form of dyslexia and prescribed eye glasses that filtered out the problem red. Like magic i could recognise letters.

I taught myself to read, my first book "the colour of magic" was a revelation. It took me around 9 months to read it. My second book was the King James Bible. I read it as a book, from start to finish. It taught me much about Christianity, particularly the opposition and hatred of difference.

It was my understanding of the KJV that made me atheist.
Click to expand...
I'm curious about your form of dyslexia.
As for those who preach tolerance, but don't practice it.
May those ******* ******** rot in ****** ******* ********.
(Pardon my French.)
 
Last edited:
John53

John53

I go leaps and bounds
Premium Member
I had strict religious parents, we were Church of England, went to church every Sunday, my father was a lay preacher. At about 10 is when I first remember having doubts because there was much that didn't make sense to me. I couldn't ask anyone because I learnt the hard way that asking my father would lead to a flogging. The doubts kept growing as I got older, I didn't think of myself as an atheist, probably didn't even know what an atheist was but I didn't believe the stuff I'd been taught but I'd pretend to believe to avoid trouble. When I started working and left home I dropped the pretence and that caused a rift with my father which hurt my mother which made me feel guilty. That went on for a few years until my mid 20's when in an effort to become Christian again I read the bible. It had the opposite effect to what I thought would happen, I realised the Christian God I'd been taught about didn't exist.

That's the short version.
 
Father Heathen

Father Heathen

Veteran Member
As a child and teenager I was a conservative Christian (as much as a dumb kid could be considered such). I was simply following along with what I was taught or demonstrated by those around me (grew up in a rural area in a red state). Still, I had questions. Even at a young age I took notice of the hypocrisy and double standards of other Christians. Much of the bible and belief system simply didn't make sense to me, and when it came to being introduced to the scientific method, plate tectonics, continental drift, evolution, etc. It clicked, was logical, and made too much sense to blindly reject, so I went with a symbolic, non-literal take of the bible. Still, it didn't resonate with me, and I couldn't reconcile the notion of god condoning/promoting rape, slavery, subjugation, misogyny, bigotry, etc. with being good, nor the notion of a loving god with the suffering and cruelty in the world. How could I value freedom, equality, and justice while embracing a completely antithetical belief system, so I eventually abandoned it altogether. also, I came across The Satanic Bible in a bookstore at a mall when I was a teenager. I bought for the shock value and for ****s and giggles. It was somewhat influential on my beliefs (although it was hypocritical, pretentious, derivative, narcissistic, edgelord tripe) as far as helping me think outside the box. So I've been atheist for most of my adult life, but the last few years I've drifted toward panentheistic leaning agnosticism. I can't offer anything to explain or substantiate it.
 
libre

libre

Skylark
I was raised in a atheist/agnostic household, but attended the Canadian Catholic schoolboard in my early years.
I experienced considerable verbal abuse in that institution, and it's only really freshly dawned on me how ****ed up the treatment I experienced was. I empathize with Christine's post considerably, I spent 10 years in the Catholic schoolboard and my disability was constantly trivialized and I was made to feel it was a personal failing.

When I changed to the public system my disability was accommodated and it was a great leap forward. I don't think it's a reflection of Catholics generally, but it secured my view that Religious institutions should not receive government funding or tax exemptions.
 
Last edited:
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
libre said:
I was raised in a atheist/agnostic household, but attended the Canadian Catholic schoolboard in my early years.
I experienced considerable verbal abuse in that institution, and it's only really freshly dawned on me the level to which it was really ****ed up the treatment I experienced was. I empathize with Christine's post considerably, I spent 10 years in the Catholic schoolboard and my disability was constantly trivialized and I was made to feel it was a personal failing.

When I changed to the public system my disability was accommodated and it was a great leap forward. I don't think it's a reflection of Catholics generally, but it secured my view that Religious institutions should not receive government funding or tax exemptions.
Click to expand...
I gotta ask about the disability!
 
ChristineM

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
libre said:
I find fine motor control incredibly difficult - my hand writing is almost entirely illegible. The Catholic's attitude was that I outta just suffer through it and eventually I would just figure it out. Unofficially diagnosed with dyslexia by the educational staff at that time.
Click to expand...


I couldn't write until i was 15, even now, almost 40 years later my handwriting is abysmal. Than goodness for computers and printers.
 
K

Kfox

Well-Known Member
Revoltingest said:
I know many atheists who were once Catholics.
And a few who grew up believing other religions.
Every one just at some point in their life simply
had the light bulb switch on.....Oh, this is bunk!
They abandoned guilt, certainty, & being locked
into a dysfunctional belief system that they
couldn't reconcile with the real world.

Tell us about your transformation.
Good?
Bad?
Still figuring it all out?

Ricky Gervais has his epiphany at 8 years old.
Short video....

ricky gervais became athesit at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.
duckduckgo.com duckduckgo.com
Click to expand...
As a kid, I was raised Christian, but I had a friend that was being raised Nation of Islam. We would occasionally get into theological discussions, and one time he asked me if I actually ever read the entire Bible from cover to cover, I admitted I did not. He then asked me how could I possibly know the Bible was true unless I knew and understood everything that is in it? I had no answer because I knew he was right. So I decided to read the entire bible cover to cover; a little bit everyday. Long story short, after reading the bible; and attempting to understand what it was saying, it caused me to lose my faith
 
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