TheFlyingBastard
New Member
So, I found this League of Reason forum. Good stuff here. I've posted this whole story on the RatSkep forums as well, but for some reason I find this forum much more attractive. Damndest thing... Anyway, my story.
I was born 25 years ago in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses. I heard they're absolutely insane over in the US, but they're a fun bunch here in The Netherlands; pretty liberal. For obvious reasons, this religion has gotten a bad name. Those who are found in the Church of Bed every Sunday morning will undoubtedly have been woken up by Witnesses, so mild annoyance was always expected. Christians always hate Witnesses because they're radically different from other Christians - they don't accept Trinity, they believe Jesus died on a stake based on the Greek word stauros, and don't celebrate many "Christian" holidays. Yes, there was joy wherever we went.
Our family was pretty faithful. My dad is a staunch Witness, quite conservative. My mom is liberal, and secretly deviates from certain teachings. She doesn't believe in the power of prayer, for example, with the exception of its placebo-effect. She also refuses to just take anything the organization behind Jehovah's Witnesses spoonfeed them. Believe you me, that's unheard of among Witnesses. Still, we went to the meetings (services in local Witness church) twice a week, and to the group bible study once a week. I got fed plenty of Witness doctrine. It was mostly pretty dull. Many of the doctrines were familiar territory and a mere reminder of what we believed. But on an academic level it caught my interest. I even got myself a Greek-English interlinear translation so I could dabble in the ancient languages. Never got far, unfortunately.
So as you might be able to tell, my religion was a large part of my life. I also went door-to-door once every two or three weeks. Mostly in the afternoons because I didn't want to disturb the people who were still in bed. I sucked at it. I would rarely get in a serious conversation at the door, and whenever I did, my partner - usually an older person with more experience - would hijack the conversation. Annoyed the hell out of me sometimes. Other Jehovah's Witnesses would often speak of feeling blessed that they were in the religion that was so clearly directed by God's holy spirit. I never did. It somehow never made me feel happy and I had always wondered if it was me doing something wrong. Why couldn't I spread the good news to people?
So I figured I could spread the good news on the internet. I subscribed to forums such as CARM (the ultimate repository of Christian insanity; you should see it, they've got a secular concentration camp with stickies that say homosexuals are spreading disease. It's amazing.) as well as some other forums in order to spread my faith and defend it from people who spread misinformation about it. Despite the warnings given by the elders (congregational leaders) not to go to these sites, I started participating in discussions. After all, how can I make an informed decision if I don't know what the opposition says? And how can I argue them if I don't know their points, right? Know thine enemy and all that.
Time and time again I ran into Christians hurling abuse at me, calling me a cultist. And then there were the atheists. Usually respectful people, who brought up evidence against the bible, and refuted arguments theists would bring up. I found the contrast quaint. On the one hand we have the close minded, militant believers, and on the other hand the intelligent, intellectual and thoughtful atheists. Slightly confusing to me.
But I marched on despite this. I was going to enter the debate with respect for my opposition. I was going to be the voice of reason among the insane theists. I dug out my CD-ROM with Jehovah's Witness publications, and entered the debate. I would read the answer from the CD, put it in my own words so I would understand what I was saying and not blindly copypasting shit, and I would wait for the answer. And answers I got. This wasn't how I imagined it. I thought atheists would tell me I had a good point. I thought they would tell me it made sense. I thought I could triumphantly declare myself the winner of a discussion about the existence of God. Instead, they poked many, many holes in my arguments. I got scared. I prayed.
"Please, God. I want to fight for you. Please, give me strength. Please, give me the wisdom to defend you and glorify your name. I need something to work with, help me!"
Nothing ever came of it.
I retreated.
Months later I returned. The threads I participated in dropped off the first page, and new ones had popped up. I decided to do dust myself off and try again. And what do you know, the same thing happened. I prayed. I failed. I left. Months later, same thing. And once more, months later, the same thing. This continued until about a year ago.
For years I had been struggling with my homosexual feelings. I was always taught that God doesn't so much mind homosexuals, but what they do. I could love, but not act upon these feelings.
I was 23 years old. I never had someone to love, to hold. I was lonely. Sex wasn't so much the issue, but when you're 23 and you've never had someone to call your own, you become a bit desperate. I had this romantic yearning. I needed to be with someone and sex would invariably be the result of that.
So I went to an elder in my congregation and told him about the problem I had. He was a really nice guy, don't get me wrong. Remember the Obama-vibe from the beginning of his term? He has that. He also has the same way of fixing issues: "Give the man a beer and let's talk about it." He was gentle about it, but in the end the message was to just buck up and accept it. This was not acceptable to me. I could explain most strange biblical rules. The mixed clothing prohibition, for example, was because mixed clothing was worn only by priests - it was a uniform. Certain animal meat was pretty unhealthy and there were quarantine regulations. But homosexuality? Why couldn't I express my love for someone?
I never got the answer. I asked: "What if we're wrong? What if I find something fundamentally wrong with the teachings? What would happen?" He told me God would set it straight on his own terms, on his own time. A small flame started burning in the back of my head. I didn't know the term yet, but I knew this was circular reasoning. "We're right because God says so. We know God says so because we're right."
I walked off, stumped. Everything up until now had been so clear, and suddenly there wasn't an answer anywhere in sight. I went back home, and went online, checking the aforementioned forums. Atheists defeating my points at every corner. The flame now burned brighter. I turned the computer off and fell on my bed, thinking. What to do? I needed to get perspective, so I stopped going to the religious meetings. I needed time for myself. I went online again and lurked, reading discussion after discussion.
Of course I didn't want to lose any debates because of my lack of knowledge. I needed to know why this was happening. I do have the truth, after all, I thought. Was my intellect failing me? Over the course of weeks I saw my belief system crumble. I rationalized it every step of the way, and it became increasingly more difficult to reconcile what I read and learned with what I honestly believed. Then, one day, I could not take it anymore. The flame had become an ocean of fire. Not being able to hold on to the doublethink any longer, I burst out in tears. I cried. I cried some more. Then I prayed. It would be the last time.
The fire stopped. Suddenly it was doused. An opaque window shattered. It was as if the world had finally revealed itself to me. It looked the same, but somehow it was different. I came to a realization:
I could be wrong.
Gods, I could be wrong!
Shortly after I found the videos of QualiaSoup, which helped me make sense of everything. It helped me make sense of this new world through logic. Common misconceptions I had always believed in were solved. He taught me how simple it all was.
I was delighted. What have I been so afraid of all this time? Reality is so beautiful! The world is not a scary place. We have the power to shape our own destiny. There is no devil, there are no demons chasing us from round every corner!
And, to my great relief, my intellect had never failed me. I just got fed incorrect data all my life!
Evolution wasn't pure chance. It wasn't about the origins of life.
The bible wasn't perfect or historically accurate. It wasn't the word of God.
In fact, God has never been proven. Miracles were anecdotal at best, if not just scribblings of believers. It wasn't objective, let alone evidence.
How much had I missed about the world? I read up on logical fallacies. I learned about straw men, circular logic, and refutations to arguments often used by theists.
I grabbed a The Watchtower, the primary magazine published by Jehovah's Witnesses. I read it, and what I saw was difficult to describe. Everything was the same, but it was as if I could see right through the words and their meaning. The words looked empty, hollow. I could look at it and see the blatant assumptions, the bad logic and the pure fearmongering. I was amazed. I grabbed a pencil and wide-eyed, I scribbled notes in the margins, pointing out flaws to myself.
Physics got a whole new meaning to me. The earth didn't come about because God controlled every aspect. It was because of natural laws creating order within a chaotic universe.
Two years ago, when I was a Christian, a colleague had told me to go read The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. I remembered this. I had always been bit hesitant about it (perhaps even fearful). But now... what did I have to lose? I bought it, and got swept off of my feet by how simple it all was. Using real examples, historical figures and biology, he made clear and concise points - some points I did not agree on and still do not necessarily do, but they were good points nonetheless. It wasn't at all what I had expected. The material I had always read on these subjects had always had biblical sources with very little science to back it up. This was beautiful. This was "atheism for dummies".
And now, here I am. I no longer believe in a god, simply because I have no evidence and no reason to postulate one. I'm in a relationship with an brilliant guy with a university degree. After all these years, I found intellectual freedom. I gained a passion for the natural world around us. I am going back to school very soon to pursue a career in microbiology, starting at a course for Lab Analyst. I want to spend my life, my time and energy not worshiping a god I do not know, but I want to give it to science, for the betterment of mankind as a whole.
There's no more fear.
There's rationality.
There's freedom.
There's atheism.
I was born 25 years ago in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses. I heard they're absolutely insane over in the US, but they're a fun bunch here in The Netherlands; pretty liberal. For obvious reasons, this religion has gotten a bad name. Those who are found in the Church of Bed every Sunday morning will undoubtedly have been woken up by Witnesses, so mild annoyance was always expected. Christians always hate Witnesses because they're radically different from other Christians - they don't accept Trinity, they believe Jesus died on a stake based on the Greek word stauros, and don't celebrate many "Christian" holidays. Yes, there was joy wherever we went.
Our family was pretty faithful. My dad is a staunch Witness, quite conservative. My mom is liberal, and secretly deviates from certain teachings. She doesn't believe in the power of prayer, for example, with the exception of its placebo-effect. She also refuses to just take anything the organization behind Jehovah's Witnesses spoonfeed them. Believe you me, that's unheard of among Witnesses. Still, we went to the meetings (services in local Witness church) twice a week, and to the group bible study once a week. I got fed plenty of Witness doctrine. It was mostly pretty dull. Many of the doctrines were familiar territory and a mere reminder of what we believed. But on an academic level it caught my interest. I even got myself a Greek-English interlinear translation so I could dabble in the ancient languages. Never got far, unfortunately.
So as you might be able to tell, my religion was a large part of my life. I also went door-to-door once every two or three weeks. Mostly in the afternoons because I didn't want to disturb the people who were still in bed. I sucked at it. I would rarely get in a serious conversation at the door, and whenever I did, my partner - usually an older person with more experience - would hijack the conversation. Annoyed the hell out of me sometimes. Other Jehovah's Witnesses would often speak of feeling blessed that they were in the religion that was so clearly directed by God's holy spirit. I never did. It somehow never made me feel happy and I had always wondered if it was me doing something wrong. Why couldn't I spread the good news to people?
So I figured I could spread the good news on the internet. I subscribed to forums such as CARM (the ultimate repository of Christian insanity; you should see it, they've got a secular concentration camp with stickies that say homosexuals are spreading disease. It's amazing.) as well as some other forums in order to spread my faith and defend it from people who spread misinformation about it. Despite the warnings given by the elders (congregational leaders) not to go to these sites, I started participating in discussions. After all, how can I make an informed decision if I don't know what the opposition says? And how can I argue them if I don't know their points, right? Know thine enemy and all that.
Time and time again I ran into Christians hurling abuse at me, calling me a cultist. And then there were the atheists. Usually respectful people, who brought up evidence against the bible, and refuted arguments theists would bring up. I found the contrast quaint. On the one hand we have the close minded, militant believers, and on the other hand the intelligent, intellectual and thoughtful atheists. Slightly confusing to me.
But I marched on despite this. I was going to enter the debate with respect for my opposition. I was going to be the voice of reason among the insane theists. I dug out my CD-ROM with Jehovah's Witness publications, and entered the debate. I would read the answer from the CD, put it in my own words so I would understand what I was saying and not blindly copypasting shit, and I would wait for the answer. And answers I got. This wasn't how I imagined it. I thought atheists would tell me I had a good point. I thought they would tell me it made sense. I thought I could triumphantly declare myself the winner of a discussion about the existence of God. Instead, they poked many, many holes in my arguments. I got scared. I prayed.
"Please, God. I want to fight for you. Please, give me strength. Please, give me the wisdom to defend you and glorify your name. I need something to work with, help me!"
Nothing ever came of it.
I retreated.
Months later I returned. The threads I participated in dropped off the first page, and new ones had popped up. I decided to do dust myself off and try again. And what do you know, the same thing happened. I prayed. I failed. I left. Months later, same thing. And once more, months later, the same thing. This continued until about a year ago.
For years I had been struggling with my homosexual feelings. I was always taught that God doesn't so much mind homosexuals, but what they do. I could love, but not act upon these feelings.
I was 23 years old. I never had someone to love, to hold. I was lonely. Sex wasn't so much the issue, but when you're 23 and you've never had someone to call your own, you become a bit desperate. I had this romantic yearning. I needed to be with someone and sex would invariably be the result of that.
So I went to an elder in my congregation and told him about the problem I had. He was a really nice guy, don't get me wrong. Remember the Obama-vibe from the beginning of his term? He has that. He also has the same way of fixing issues: "Give the man a beer and let's talk about it." He was gentle about it, but in the end the message was to just buck up and accept it. This was not acceptable to me. I could explain most strange biblical rules. The mixed clothing prohibition, for example, was because mixed clothing was worn only by priests - it was a uniform. Certain animal meat was pretty unhealthy and there were quarantine regulations. But homosexuality? Why couldn't I express my love for someone?
I never got the answer. I asked: "What if we're wrong? What if I find something fundamentally wrong with the teachings? What would happen?" He told me God would set it straight on his own terms, on his own time. A small flame started burning in the back of my head. I didn't know the term yet, but I knew this was circular reasoning. "We're right because God says so. We know God says so because we're right."
I walked off, stumped. Everything up until now had been so clear, and suddenly there wasn't an answer anywhere in sight. I went back home, and went online, checking the aforementioned forums. Atheists defeating my points at every corner. The flame now burned brighter. I turned the computer off and fell on my bed, thinking. What to do? I needed to get perspective, so I stopped going to the religious meetings. I needed time for myself. I went online again and lurked, reading discussion after discussion.
Of course I didn't want to lose any debates because of my lack of knowledge. I needed to know why this was happening. I do have the truth, after all, I thought. Was my intellect failing me? Over the course of weeks I saw my belief system crumble. I rationalized it every step of the way, and it became increasingly more difficult to reconcile what I read and learned with what I honestly believed. Then, one day, I could not take it anymore. The flame had become an ocean of fire. Not being able to hold on to the doublethink any longer, I burst out in tears. I cried. I cried some more. Then I prayed. It would be the last time.
The fire stopped. Suddenly it was doused. An opaque window shattered. It was as if the world had finally revealed itself to me. It looked the same, but somehow it was different. I came to a realization:
I could be wrong.
Gods, I could be wrong!
Shortly after I found the videos of QualiaSoup, which helped me make sense of everything. It helped me make sense of this new world through logic. Common misconceptions I had always believed in were solved. He taught me how simple it all was.
I was delighted. What have I been so afraid of all this time? Reality is so beautiful! The world is not a scary place. We have the power to shape our own destiny. There is no devil, there are no demons chasing us from round every corner!
And, to my great relief, my intellect had never failed me. I just got fed incorrect data all my life!
Evolution wasn't pure chance. It wasn't about the origins of life.
The bible wasn't perfect or historically accurate. It wasn't the word of God.
In fact, God has never been proven. Miracles were anecdotal at best, if not just scribblings of believers. It wasn't objective, let alone evidence.
How much had I missed about the world? I read up on logical fallacies. I learned about straw men, circular logic, and refutations to arguments often used by theists.
I grabbed a The Watchtower, the primary magazine published by Jehovah's Witnesses. I read it, and what I saw was difficult to describe. Everything was the same, but it was as if I could see right through the words and their meaning. The words looked empty, hollow. I could look at it and see the blatant assumptions, the bad logic and the pure fearmongering. I was amazed. I grabbed a pencil and wide-eyed, I scribbled notes in the margins, pointing out flaws to myself.
Physics got a whole new meaning to me. The earth didn't come about because God controlled every aspect. It was because of natural laws creating order within a chaotic universe.
Two years ago, when I was a Christian, a colleague had told me to go read The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. I remembered this. I had always been bit hesitant about it (perhaps even fearful). But now... what did I have to lose? I bought it, and got swept off of my feet by how simple it all was. Using real examples, historical figures and biology, he made clear and concise points - some points I did not agree on and still do not necessarily do, but they were good points nonetheless. It wasn't at all what I had expected. The material I had always read on these subjects had always had biblical sources with very little science to back it up. This was beautiful. This was "atheism for dummies".
And now, here I am. I no longer believe in a god, simply because I have no evidence and no reason to postulate one. I'm in a relationship with an brilliant guy with a university degree. After all these years, I found intellectual freedom. I gained a passion for the natural world around us. I am going back to school very soon to pursue a career in microbiology, starting at a course for Lab Analyst. I want to spend my life, my time and energy not worshiping a god I do not know, but I want to give it to science, for the betterment of mankind as a whole.
There's no more fear.
There's rationality.
There's freedom.
There's atheism.
