Bear in mind that I was very young at the time, so my reasoning process was not very sound, and was simply based on common sense (and even completely disregarded for instance that there is not only one conceivable notion of god - but at the time I only knew of one). Today I know very well why it is nonsense of think a god exists or even worse to act like one does. So here It goes, a piece of text with the full story of my deconversion... So this was how it went:
I was so long ago. I was about 7 years old... My father was never religious and never uttered a word to me about god. He never interfered, but in the case of my baptism. He insisted I was not baptised at birth, but latter, when I was able to choose it. My mother was always moderately religious, and believed that god had helped me come safely into this world, when the ultrasound was ambiguous as to my health. My grandma helped raise me and she was more religious than my parents.
With her, I would pray to the little baby Jesus, every night without fail, before going to sleep.Even though I only prayed every single night with my grandma, I'd still pray some nights on my own, and sometimes I'd pray if I wanted something really badly.
I was also used to giving my old clothes (the ones that stopped fitting) to the "poor kids" (charity). And around the time when kids start to question Santa Claus, I started thinking about the poor children in Africa, remembering the shocking pictures that I often saw in news and in awareness campaigns (the extremely skinny children with big belies...) and I started questioning how could it be that god would allow this to happen. How would god allow kids to suffer like that? And soon after, how was it possible that so many bad things happened in the world, so many good people suffering so much even in our own christian cities, even within our church groups? The god I was taught about was simply not compatible with the world I lived in, with the real world we all live in.
I started to be quite sure that it didn't not make sense and that it was not possible for there to be a god. One day, shortly after I told it to an elementary school friend of mine. Perhaps because me and my classmates were arguing about the existence of Santa? I can remember for sure. I remember saying that I believed in Santa, that he had been in my front yard and that I had seen him and that I counted the people in my house that Christmas to make sure that no one could be tricking me (turns out my pregnant aunt was not in the bathroom and had sneaked out.... in a Santa costume... but I had what seemed to me like infallible evidence!).
So Santa was real, and god was not. Hahaha.
I don't know If it was my idea (or if it was another kid's idea and I went along to prove my point), but I looked up, stretched my arms and gave 2 middle fingers towards the sky. I was quite sure that there was no god, but I was just a little kid and I was still frightened that something would happen to me in case I was wrong. Of course nothing happened and as time passed I grew ever more convinced that there is indeed no god.
In that day and in the next couple days, I thought: "how about the devil?, such a being would still be possible even if god is not". And I went along and prayed to the devil, for me to get everything I ever wanted or would want, in exchange for anything he would want from me (probably my soul?). But, again, nothing happened. and I closed that chapter, and didn't wonder much more about it.
Until much latter.
I was 15 when in a conversation it came up that my grandfather (from my fathers side) had been a spiritist/kardecist (he was long dead before I was born). He seemed to be an intelligent man, looking at his life achievements, so he must of not been a gullible man, that would believe in just about anything. He had been arrested for political crimes (conspiracy against the dictator). He was imprisoned and tortured and what got him through was, somehow, spirits (I don't know any details).
I thought, if he believed it probably was true. Gods might not be real, but the supernatural seems to be, so many stories were told - and there had been a group of classmates in 5th grade that tried the ouija board and ran off scared as hell because the glass was moving (lol probably a prank on the rest of us)...
And so one day I brought home a book from the library that had countless stories of even people that could materialize ghosts! I found it to be fascinating and even wanted to pursuit a career that would allow me to look for and to prove and analyze these plasmas and all. But I soon found out that those stories had all been debunked as outright fraud or simply misinterpretation (like pharaoh's curses! actually the mysterious curse was in fact a disease from bacteria that thrived in those tombs). I all amounted to nothing but a book that only told part of the story in a very biased way.
I guess that's all it ever amounts to: biased, ignorant, superstitious story telling.
Looking back now, I think that without an active indoctrination process most children will have a real chance at actually choosing their own (ir)religious path.
Some of the things I have learned in a spiritual path within atheism:
-By not believing in god the existing complexity does not diminish, it is just allocated to real objects and to real processes that can eventually be understood, but are not any less wondrous.
-we are one with the universe, not in any mystical sense, but physically, just like the atoms of a rock are part of the rock and one with it. We can consider ourselves just our brain, or just what we control - the parts of our body that we can move and feel - or even our teeth and nails and our hair, but we can consider ourselves also that does not move according to our will, all that is separate from us is also a part of us, our human family, all earthly life, all that exists on earth, the earth itself, the solar system, the universe. Everything is one, even if we don't feel those parts of our gigantic body. Individuality is nothing but a concept in our minds, a perceptual boundary. We are the universe.
-Atheists can have even more spiritually profound experiences than theists, because we can achieve a deeper and more correct understanding and cultivate our spirituality, based on more correct and effective "paths", making use of the scientific concepts applied to your awareness and conscious experience.
-Being alive is meaningless. We are like any other chemical reaction (not that our lives themselves are meaningless). Just like nothing but a concept makes us feel individuals separated from the universe, nothing much a concept separates what is alive from what is not alive. Some things even objectively blur the line between the two (like viruses and ideas).
-We must be mindful of our path, take action to make true what we want to be true, and not just childishly wonder around "knowing" that everything will work out in the end.
I hope I properly conveyed these ideas in an intelligible way. Thanks for reading.
I was so long ago. I was about 7 years old... My father was never religious and never uttered a word to me about god. He never interfered, but in the case of my baptism. He insisted I was not baptised at birth, but latter, when I was able to choose it. My mother was always moderately religious, and believed that god had helped me come safely into this world, when the ultrasound was ambiguous as to my health. My grandma helped raise me and she was more religious than my parents.
With her, I would pray to the little baby Jesus, every night without fail, before going to sleep.Even though I only prayed every single night with my grandma, I'd still pray some nights on my own, and sometimes I'd pray if I wanted something really badly.
I was also used to giving my old clothes (the ones that stopped fitting) to the "poor kids" (charity). And around the time when kids start to question Santa Claus, I started thinking about the poor children in Africa, remembering the shocking pictures that I often saw in news and in awareness campaigns (the extremely skinny children with big belies...) and I started questioning how could it be that god would allow this to happen. How would god allow kids to suffer like that? And soon after, how was it possible that so many bad things happened in the world, so many good people suffering so much even in our own christian cities, even within our church groups? The god I was taught about was simply not compatible with the world I lived in, with the real world we all live in.
I started to be quite sure that it didn't not make sense and that it was not possible for there to be a god. One day, shortly after I told it to an elementary school friend of mine. Perhaps because me and my classmates were arguing about the existence of Santa? I can remember for sure. I remember saying that I believed in Santa, that he had been in my front yard and that I had seen him and that I counted the people in my house that Christmas to make sure that no one could be tricking me (turns out my pregnant aunt was not in the bathroom and had sneaked out.... in a Santa costume... but I had what seemed to me like infallible evidence!).
So Santa was real, and god was not. Hahaha.
I don't know If it was my idea (or if it was another kid's idea and I went along to prove my point), but I looked up, stretched my arms and gave 2 middle fingers towards the sky. I was quite sure that there was no god, but I was just a little kid and I was still frightened that something would happen to me in case I was wrong. Of course nothing happened and as time passed I grew ever more convinced that there is indeed no god.
In that day and in the next couple days, I thought: "how about the devil?, such a being would still be possible even if god is not". And I went along and prayed to the devil, for me to get everything I ever wanted or would want, in exchange for anything he would want from me (probably my soul?). But, again, nothing happened. and I closed that chapter, and didn't wonder much more about it.
Until much latter.
I was 15 when in a conversation it came up that my grandfather (from my fathers side) had been a spiritist/kardecist (he was long dead before I was born). He seemed to be an intelligent man, looking at his life achievements, so he must of not been a gullible man, that would believe in just about anything. He had been arrested for political crimes (conspiracy against the dictator). He was imprisoned and tortured and what got him through was, somehow, spirits (I don't know any details).
I thought, if he believed it probably was true. Gods might not be real, but the supernatural seems to be, so many stories were told - and there had been a group of classmates in 5th grade that tried the ouija board and ran off scared as hell because the glass was moving (lol probably a prank on the rest of us)...
And so one day I brought home a book from the library that had countless stories of even people that could materialize ghosts! I found it to be fascinating and even wanted to pursuit a career that would allow me to look for and to prove and analyze these plasmas and all. But I soon found out that those stories had all been debunked as outright fraud or simply misinterpretation (like pharaoh's curses! actually the mysterious curse was in fact a disease from bacteria that thrived in those tombs). I all amounted to nothing but a book that only told part of the story in a very biased way.
I guess that's all it ever amounts to: biased, ignorant, superstitious story telling.
Looking back now, I think that without an active indoctrination process most children will have a real chance at actually choosing their own (ir)religious path.
Some of the things I have learned in a spiritual path within atheism:
-By not believing in god the existing complexity does not diminish, it is just allocated to real objects and to real processes that can eventually be understood, but are not any less wondrous.
-we are one with the universe, not in any mystical sense, but physically, just like the atoms of a rock are part of the rock and one with it. We can consider ourselves just our brain, or just what we control - the parts of our body that we can move and feel - or even our teeth and nails and our hair, but we can consider ourselves also that does not move according to our will, all that is separate from us is also a part of us, our human family, all earthly life, all that exists on earth, the earth itself, the solar system, the universe. Everything is one, even if we don't feel those parts of our gigantic body. Individuality is nothing but a concept in our minds, a perceptual boundary. We are the universe.
-Atheists can have even more spiritually profound experiences than theists, because we can achieve a deeper and more correct understanding and cultivate our spirituality, based on more correct and effective "paths", making use of the scientific concepts applied to your awareness and conscious experience.
-Being alive is meaningless. We are like any other chemical reaction (not that our lives themselves are meaningless). Just like nothing but a concept makes us feel individuals separated from the universe, nothing much a concept separates what is alive from what is not alive. Some things even objectively blur the line between the two (like viruses and ideas).
-We must be mindful of our path, take action to make true what we want to be true, and not just childishly wonder around "knowing" that everything will work out in the end.
I hope I properly conveyed these ideas in an intelligible way. Thanks for reading.
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