Hi I'm an Aussie been following the atheist debate on youtube not sure if I will be able to contribute much to the forum but my main interest is learning anyway. As follows is the story of my path to my present atheism, long and boring so maybe best to stop here.
Chris
I've never really accepted religion my parents weren't religious. My dad never showed or forced his disbelief on me and allowed us to go to church when invited, but even from a young age there was a disconnect. He purchased a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica and Children's Encyclopaedia Britannica I absolutely loved them (I apparently ate about 12mm of the pages out of the front of the index when I was 18 months old) if I asked him a question if he did not feel he could answer me he just pointed to the books. So the story of the flood, Genesis, Adam's rib (at Sunday school I was told men had one less rib and believed it for years) did not match with what I learnt from my avid reading plus at school I went to the library and read all the books on ancient civilisations which of course covered their gods and I was enthralled with the gods of Rome , Greece, Egypt and especially the Norse gods and Australian aboriginal Dreamtime creation stories which moulded my mind into placing the bible stories in with this group.
As a child science & history delighted me, but I was raised to be respectful of authority and I accepted the church as an authority. I believed that a Jesus character walked the earth, and some sort of god existed, because I was told by my elders that this was the case.
Fortunately I was chosen for the school debate team in my mid teens and I think my teacher did me a big favour as I was maybe a bit a self-centred and bigoted. In the three debates I was on the team to, defend "Religion", reject "UFO's", and defend "Immigration."
These debates taught me many things, in the UFO debate our opponents used Erik Von Danikens book "Was god an astronaut". Which as I personally knew (much to my regret) was disproved. But held sway in popular opinion by my peers. We lost badly, and while as a kid I wanted to believe in UFOS. I thought I was beaten by poor argument and evidence that the rest of the class believed with little proof I remember looking out at the rest of the room and feeling that there was a huge gulf between us.
With the immigration debate as stated my team were pro and this was after the end of the Vietnam war when we had Vietnamese refugees taking the perilous boat trip to Australia and causing quite the stir in 1970s Australia a country that probably still looked down on even the central European migrants, what our research showed me was how much we owed migrants in the building of our country ( most non indigenous Australians forget we are all descendants of immigrants) and how much a developing nation needed them and what our duties where as a participant in the world wide society ( accepting refugees)
I did the final summation, something like, " If all the bigots got their wish and all the migrants were sent back to their country of origin. We would have to bring them all back to anyway to fill our factories and fields (that itself was a racist statement but hey I was just a kid), and this included ourselves as our forebears where immigrants. We won and I was proud, I had learnt the value of research and evaluation and questioning my own beliefs.
When it came to "Is there a god" debate we where pro god which I was comfortable with as although I didn't believe in the bible story literally I believed in god and Jesus. Now the two previous debates had armed me well, especially immigration we put a ton of work into that after being beat by, one single, populist book. We spent ages in the library and hassling our social studies teachers, so when it came to defending god the same way, all we had was the bible and scant poor historical references
I was amazed after taking everything as granted all my young life there was little more to prove Christianity than the Roman and Greek and Egyptian tales I was enthralled with.
I was beginning to doubt. So it was there I started a journey that drifted to Deism, eastern and western philosophies.
Any way As I entered my 40s I really started to hunger for approval of my opinion that there was a universal collective consciousness that I was part of (I was one of the idiots that fucked up the census by stating Jedi as a religion). But I was gradually coming to the realisation that my belief in an eternal soul/consciousness was just my ego. For one last grasp I read "god without religion" by Ã…Å¡ankara Ã…Å¡aranam but gave up halfway through realising nothing substantive was being offered (and it was just repetitive). I finally purchased and read Richard Dawkins the "God Delusion" it showed me where the door was.
I then read Hitchens God is not great. That kicked me through the door, slammed it shut and switched of the light behind me.
I have little envy of any on the face of the earth but for Christopher Hitchens abilities in debating, clear thinking and ability to change courses if he thinks he is wrong.
I've taken so long to get to where I am now I can only be in awe of some of the young clear thinking minds on some of the youtube channels and other forums.
Chris
I've never really accepted religion my parents weren't religious. My dad never showed or forced his disbelief on me and allowed us to go to church when invited, but even from a young age there was a disconnect. He purchased a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica and Children's Encyclopaedia Britannica I absolutely loved them (I apparently ate about 12mm of the pages out of the front of the index when I was 18 months old) if I asked him a question if he did not feel he could answer me he just pointed to the books. So the story of the flood, Genesis, Adam's rib (at Sunday school I was told men had one less rib and believed it for years) did not match with what I learnt from my avid reading plus at school I went to the library and read all the books on ancient civilisations which of course covered their gods and I was enthralled with the gods of Rome , Greece, Egypt and especially the Norse gods and Australian aboriginal Dreamtime creation stories which moulded my mind into placing the bible stories in with this group.
As a child science & history delighted me, but I was raised to be respectful of authority and I accepted the church as an authority. I believed that a Jesus character walked the earth, and some sort of god existed, because I was told by my elders that this was the case.
Fortunately I was chosen for the school debate team in my mid teens and I think my teacher did me a big favour as I was maybe a bit a self-centred and bigoted. In the three debates I was on the team to, defend "Religion", reject "UFO's", and defend "Immigration."
These debates taught me many things, in the UFO debate our opponents used Erik Von Danikens book "Was god an astronaut". Which as I personally knew (much to my regret) was disproved. But held sway in popular opinion by my peers. We lost badly, and while as a kid I wanted to believe in UFOS. I thought I was beaten by poor argument and evidence that the rest of the class believed with little proof I remember looking out at the rest of the room and feeling that there was a huge gulf between us.
With the immigration debate as stated my team were pro and this was after the end of the Vietnam war when we had Vietnamese refugees taking the perilous boat trip to Australia and causing quite the stir in 1970s Australia a country that probably still looked down on even the central European migrants, what our research showed me was how much we owed migrants in the building of our country ( most non indigenous Australians forget we are all descendants of immigrants) and how much a developing nation needed them and what our duties where as a participant in the world wide society ( accepting refugees)
I did the final summation, something like, " If all the bigots got their wish and all the migrants were sent back to their country of origin. We would have to bring them all back to anyway to fill our factories and fields (that itself was a racist statement but hey I was just a kid), and this included ourselves as our forebears where immigrants. We won and I was proud, I had learnt the value of research and evaluation and questioning my own beliefs.
When it came to "Is there a god" debate we where pro god which I was comfortable with as although I didn't believe in the bible story literally I believed in god and Jesus. Now the two previous debates had armed me well, especially immigration we put a ton of work into that after being beat by, one single, populist book. We spent ages in the library and hassling our social studies teachers, so when it came to defending god the same way, all we had was the bible and scant poor historical references
I was amazed after taking everything as granted all my young life there was little more to prove Christianity than the Roman and Greek and Egyptian tales I was enthralled with.
I was beginning to doubt. So it was there I started a journey that drifted to Deism, eastern and western philosophies.
Any way As I entered my 40s I really started to hunger for approval of my opinion that there was a universal collective consciousness that I was part of (I was one of the idiots that fucked up the census by stating Jedi as a religion). But I was gradually coming to the realisation that my belief in an eternal soul/consciousness was just my ego. For one last grasp I read "god without religion" by Ã…Å¡ankara Ã…Å¡aranam but gave up halfway through realising nothing substantive was being offered (and it was just repetitive). I finally purchased and read Richard Dawkins the "God Delusion" it showed me where the door was.
I then read Hitchens God is not great. That kicked me through the door, slammed it shut and switched of the light behind me.
I have little envy of any on the face of the earth but for Christopher Hitchens abilities in debating, clear thinking and ability to change courses if he thinks he is wrong.
I've taken so long to get to where I am now I can only be in awe of some of the young clear thinking minds on some of the youtube channels and other forums.
