Before You Became an Atheist, Were You Afraid of Yourself?

[ManMachine]

When I was religious, I was taught to fear myself. Like everyone, I had moments of anger or negative thoughts about others that I never acted upon but my upbringing taught me that without god, I would go crazy and act on those thoughts.

My problem was not so much that I thought god made me good(although I sort of thought he did). What terrified me was the idea that what is moral might just be our opinion. That meant that not raping someone or forcing them into slavery was wrong just because we humans said so and there wasn't a higher power that made our actions absolutely right or wrong. It also meant that if I used the bible as my authority, I had to justify a lot of evil things that the bible god did.

Luckily, there were several atheists on the forum for Catholic Answers who patiently answered similar questions repeatedly. Fear of myself was the reason that I clung to religion even when it made no sense. It is also why I tend to be gentle with religious people. I can sympathize with how strong and heavy that fear is.

Did any of you have similar feelings before you deconverted? Did any person help you overcome that fear? What did they say?

Ideas and thoughts do not just spontaneously pop into existence and cavort round the Universe looking for a home. Human behaviours and strategies are born of the natural imperatives that drive us. Base strategies are subsumed into more complex strategies, e.g. it would seem the biological imperative is to procreate with as many females as possible (a behaviour we see in some animals) but as we are toothless, clawless soggy bags of lion food we have evolved to survive in groups, tribes, social groups so you don't take advantage of individuals (males or females) within that structure otherwise you destroy trust and the tribe falls apart, putting individuals at risk.

Morality is born of who and what we are and the imperatives that drive us, there is no need to be afraid of your own humanity.


MM

[pocaracas]

It's good to be in Europe... my upbringing was very soft on the religious side...
Sure, there was the constant nagging by my grandmother about the invisible man who's everywhere and knows everything.

Then, one day, the invisible man who's everywhere stopped making sense. No guilt, no fear, no nothing... it just clicked.
There was the discomfort of thinking I as the only sane person on the planet... but that didn't bother me too much.... and soon enough, I found that some 20% of the world's population was aware of the same detail.

[Foxaèr]

When I first realized that I was gay, my religious upbringing informed me that it was wrong to have the feelings I was experiencing at the onset of puberty. I feared what I was becoming and it took me a couple of years to realize that I was perfectly fine just as I was and that religion was the problem.

[zebo-the-fat]

I have always been an atheist, I was sent to church as a child, but even then I thought it was silly

[Thumpalumpacus]

When I was a believer, the thing I really feared was that little nagging doubt that start creeping into my head around nine or ten. Also, I was goddamned afraid of being left behind. I was pretty devout for a little boy living overseas, going to what churches I could, as SoB services were generally not available.

[Chad32]

I was never afraid of myself. I didn't fear hell. I just said my prayers, went to church, tried to be a good boy, and was confident that I'd get into heaven. Few if anyone ever tried to drill fire and brimstone idea into my head. We were pretty moderate, though we did believe that religion played an important role in beong a good, moral person.

[abaris]

My religious upbringing was pretty mild. School had a larger impact though, since there were reigious teachings, mainly about hell and how easily you can go there. I was afraid for a while, probably for some years, but still as a child I decided that some god threatening eternal hell for small transgressions isn't worthy of worship. That was my first step on the ladder of reason.

[Nope]

This thread makes me realize that I need to move to Europe.

It looks like the two greatest influences on my religious life, ironically both Calvinism and Catholicism, are responsible for a lot of unnecessary guilt when I was religious. My family were nominally Baptist but whenever we went to church it was the old timey, fire and brimstone variety with a lot of emphasis on sin. A lot of the churches that I gravitated toward as a young adult were more Calvinistic. Later, I grew attached to Catholicism because it seemed more gentle then Calvinism. Ray Comfort and his good person test is a pretty good example of Calvinistic thinking. "You are doomed no matter what because you are evil so accept the fact that Jesus loves you. or burn in hell like you deserve."

---

Quick check, do you have a twin?

Maybe he is omnipresent?

[robvalue]

I realized something about the whole "God is everywhere" nonsense. Jesus is God (according to a lot of Christians). But Jesus wasn't everywhere! Another contradiction for the pile. File it under "yeah but....."

[watchamadoodle]

I didn't experience the fear that I would become amoral by leaving Christianity. I was an Episcopalian, so there was no fire and brimstone, no bible studies, etc.

I think it's interesting to read the experiences of other ex-Christians, because there is so much variety in the 40,000 denominations. People won't speak candidly about their Christian experiences while they are Christians, because the whole religion is about lying to yourself and others. Ex-Christians can give the true story of their Christian life while Christians cannot.