8 ms·

I grew up attending church, and on the whole have nothing but good things to say about the whole experience. It gave me both spiritual and moral support when I

by dagw 6y ago

I grew up attending church, and on the whole have nothing but good things to say about the whole experience. It gave me both spiritual and moral support when I needed it the most and some of the best people I have ever known, I got to know through church. In fact in ways I mourn the loss of both my faith and my 'church'. However once I realized that, on a very fundamental level, the core of what they where claiming as true wasn't in fact true, I felt I had no choice to walk away.

bopbeepboop 6y ago
What would that be? I’ve encountered this claim more often than I’ve encountered actual fundamentalist churches I think are making any sort of strong claim about the world. So I’m curious to hear what people think is wrong.
- tenacious_tuna 6y ago
  > What would that be? not OP, but I would presume "the claim" is that (a) there is a God, (b) the church knows which one, and (c) they know what he wants. For comparison, I (atheist) normally state my position as "There is insufficient evidence to conclude there is a God," so any statement about there being any god, or about what influence they should/do have on our lives I treat as a "claim," which requires supporting evidence.
  - sanedigital 6y ago
    At the risk of being pedantic, I believe that’s more Agnostic than Atheist. Your statement allows for a God to exist, and even infers that you’re willing to believe in them given sufficient evidence. While the whole atheist-agnostic thing is more of a continuum than not, I think the line is whether you believe there is no God or whether you don’t believe there is one. It might seem pedantic but I do think it’s an important distinction.
    - tenacious_tuna 6y ago
      > I believe that’s more Agnostic than Atheist. I used to identify as agnostic for a while--the definition I quoted is one adapted from The Atheist Experience podcast. I'd personally describe someone who actively believes there is no god, i.e. possesses enough evidence to claim "There cannot be any god" an "anti-theist", in my personal lexicon. Generally this is why I bother to give the specific definition by claim--too often I've encountered religious folk who take "atheist" to mean "one who hates god", or "one who actively has evidence against a god", or similar--which may be true for other folk who use the label atheist, but doesn't match my personal definition. As you said, "the whole atheist-agnostic thing is more of a continuum than not," so I like to give the definition to clear up any mis-assumptions people may make about me for using said label :) I also agree that the difference does matter--I also think it's more intellectually honest of me to allow for the possibility that I am wrong, however unlikely--even then, there is an important distinction between acknowledging the existence of a god, and choosing to worship said god if they even existed (which is usually the follow-on question from religious folk I talk to.
- dagw 6y ago
  So I’m curious to hear what people think is wrong. We know there is a God AND the Bible is some sort of authoritative (most would claim the most authoritative) description of who/how God is and how he wants us to behave towards him. Often there is also a third correlating claim that our interpretation of the Bible is the most correct interpretation.
  - hootbootscoot 6y ago
    Tell that to all the practitioners of all the other religions... "um sorry folks, you are wrong, we are right" I have issues with 1) "God told me to tell you" (any human claiming to represent God to their fellow humans. They surely would be devoid of ulterior motives, right?) 2) This collection of hitherto uncompiled writings (including a wholesale incorporation of Judaism) that were uncontestedly written by humans, some of which we know the names of, has now become a singular "book" and it's the world of God, shut up or else, etc. I smell humans, not divinity. Oh, and YES you nailed it on the last point. Witness the smug way some Evangelicals dismissively tell a Catholic "but I am CHRISTIAN"...
- soco 6y ago
  I mentioned in a parallel comment that I had similar experiences, so I'll jump in until the other commenter does. And to keep spirits cooler, I'll mention my experiences in martial arts. I gained my black belt in Aikido in a wonderful dojo, wonderful teachers, doing many activities together otherwise. I found a few lifetime friends there and love as well, so it was definitely more than "training", it was a real community. Yet I'm not going there anymore for a dozen years already. The entire teaching is based on life energies and ki flows which... just weren't there for me. I was able to progress nicely also without them - faking them to be more honest, I could have been continued growing in the technique, but what was the point continuing something I don't believe in? What was the point in rebelling and showing them how simple sportmanship gets the same peace of mind, does the same precision, builds the same attitude towards "martial" and life in general? People are good if they choose the good, and not everybody needs the supernatural element in order to stay good. And I don't mean a fear of supernatural punishment, but in my Aikido case, a belief in supernatural and benevolent support.
  - zests 6y ago
    I read a book by Eckhart Tolle that gave me two takeaways. The first was that the book was full of nonsense. The second was that it was clear why this nonsense was so effective for people. What are the downsides to suspending scientific accuracy for the purposes of doing Aikido?
    - soco 6y ago
      I did it for years for myself but at some point when you're supposed to tell your pupil to bend more forward to not obstruct the ki flow, you just can't bring yourself to do it anymore... you can't bear the dissonance anymore.
    - klibertp 6y ago
      The same as with every other sport: injury. You don't want to risk injury by extrapolating a faulty training method from magical thinking. In my experience, the arts and systems geared more towards full-contact spars have way, way less Ki/Qi in them.
soco 6y ago
I feel and felt the same. As many other commenters mentioned, a church must be a few elements in order to be sustainable: a community, a set of beliefs, an organization... and each one of these can be more or less important for the individual, and each on of these can go awry in its own way, often without affecting in the same way the other individuals or the other elements. Thus the discussion becomes even more difficult, when individuals have different experiences on each one of those dimensions. I think calling the debate "comparing apples with oranges" is a massive understatement.
- dagw 6y ago
  Yea. In some ways I feel slightly uncomfortable speaking up for or defending the church in any general way. For as positive as all my experience have been and all the good I have seen churches do, I have also seen churches (even churches within the same general denomination as the church I attended) completely destroy the lives of people.
xtracto 6y ago
I was "in touch" with religion for 12 years (my parents sent me to a very catholic school even though both are atheists) My experience was seeing huge amounts of falsehood and hypocrisy as religious people followed and repeated all the rituals of the mass but in the day to day life they just did not care about others and pretty much ignored what their religion taught them. Thank God after those 12 years I saw everything I needed from religion to get as far away from it as I can.
- LadyCailin 6y ago
  Is this the religious equivalent of a parent making the kid smoke a carton of cigarettes at once, to turn them off smoking?
  - tracedddd 6y ago
    A carton would be challenging. As a dumb smoking teenager I competed to smoke a whole pack and even then it made me quite nauseous. Took about 5 or 6 cigarettes back to back.
  - walshemj 6y ago
    Or they want a good education I recall my mum saying that if we had stayed where I was born, they would have tried to use my Grandfathers (ex headmaster in another school ) to get me into King Edwards. That is THE King Edwards Tolkien's Alma mater and is normaly first or second ranked in the UK.
  - xtracto 6y ago
    Haha it could very well have been that! In reality what happened is that we lived in a small town (in Mexico, called Campeche. Late 80s and 90s) and the only quality schooling at that place and time was catholic schools.
  - kaptain 6y ago
    This practice is very common among immigrant/non-Western communities. Oftentimes an educational institution with a religious background offers the highest quality and most prestigious education. In addition, while they might not have the same religious views as the institution, these parents often value the conservative social values that these institutions espouse.
brundolf 6y ago
I was in the exact same place as you about 10 years ago. A key thing for me (I'm still not religious, though I'm religion-adjacent in some ways) was seeing that religion - despite what some would tell you - is at its best when it's not made to be about material truths at all. Its truths, really, are truths about the human condition and how best to live it out. In this sense, even as someone who doesn't believe in metaphysical spirits, the heart of what they're claiming (if you really dig down deep past many of the surface-level particulars) contains a lot of truth.
- lalaland1125 6y ago
  The problem is that their teachings also contain a lot of falsehoods. For example, the majority of churches in the US teach that gay sex will cause a person to be tortured for eternity in hell. That teaching is probably wrong and causes so much damage to so many people.
  - tbihl 6y ago
    I admit that I have only participated in a minority of all the churches in the US, but I have never attended any church where your statement would be consistent with doctrine on hell, sin, or homosexuality.
    - lalaland1125 6y ago
      I guess you never attended the Catholic Church? They are quite explicit that gay sex is a grave sin.
      - tbihl 6y ago
        Viewing pornography is equally as likely to be grave sin (I say equally likely because the act is a necessary but not sufficient condition for meeting the definition of mortal sin). I don't mean to downplay that pornography is a negative influence, but you misunderstand mortal sin [1]. Paragraphs 1854 -1864 are particularly relevant. Mortal/grave sins must be confessed per catholic doctrine, but to say that the mere acts were final is to misunderstand the whole concept of the new covenant. [1] https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a8.htm https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s...
goldcd 6y ago
I'll agree with you that I find their reasoning faulty (I did), but what I dislike about my atheism is that I get lumped in with people who'll tell theists that "they're wrong" To my mind, most of the planet's population have got to the 'right place' (show love and compassion to those you meet) - and how we all got to this same place is immaterial. I'm without a doubt an atheist to my core - but doesn't stop me admiring those with faith who use it to lead a good life.
- thephyber 6y ago
  > but what I dislike about my atheism is that I get lumped in with people who'll tell theists that "they're wrong" But every Christian that doesn’t reject the first Commandment implicitly believes the same thing. Some of them picket and scream terrible things at their outgroupers. Most are reasonably neutral and nice. Giving too much oxygen or mind share to the few vocal outliers only lowers your quality of life. Also, there are enough atheists/agnostics/nones that it’s basically useless to talk about them as a monolithic group. I am far more concerned about the asymmetry of media/discussion about the obnoxious few with bad ideas over the quiet plurality of pleasant people who don’t force their toxic ideas on others.
- AgentOrange1234 6y ago
  As a teenager I was that guy you don’t like. Vocal about my right to not believe, not participate, and not be coerced into religious stuff. Quick to anger by what I saw as violations of church/state separation in my public school. Quick to tell folks how wrong and stupid they were stupid for believing it. Now it makes me cringe. Like you, still Atheist to the core. But I can really appreciate many of my childhood church’s teachings: God is love, God forgives us, God accepts all of us. I can listen in awe at the sermons of Dr. King Jr. And while I cannot imagine ever believing the supernatural aspects of it all, I will always deeply appreciate and agree with the concern and caring for The Least of These, and our shared responsibility to one another.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    I was like this, while getting my PhD@MIT went to RCIA@Harvard and changed. One thing that helped was realizing that I believe in free will, which is supernatural (and why many leading atheists reject it). Since belief in free will is an act of faith, it opened my eyes and the world gained color.

by dagw 6y ago

bopbeepboop 6y ago

What would that be? I’ve encountered this claim more often than I’ve encountered actual fundamentalist churches I think are making any sort of strong claim about the world. So I’m curious to hear what people think is wrong.

tenacious_tuna 6y ago
> What would that be? not OP, but I would presume "the claim" is that (a) there is a God, (b) the church knows which one, and (c) they know what he wants. For comparison, I (atheist) normally state my position as "There is insufficient evidence to conclude there is a God," so any statement about there being any god, or about what influence they should/do have on our lives I treat as a "claim," which requires supporting evidence.
- sanedigital 6y ago
  At the risk of being pedantic, I believe that’s more Agnostic than Atheist. Your statement allows for a God to exist, and even infers that you’re willing to believe in them given sufficient evidence. While the whole atheist-agnostic thing is more of a continuum than not, I think the line is whether you believe there is no God or whether you don’t believe there is one. It might seem pedantic but I do think it’s an important distinction.
  - tenacious_tuna 6y ago
    > I believe that’s more Agnostic than Atheist. I used to identify as agnostic for a while--the definition I quoted is one adapted from The Atheist Experience podcast. I'd personally describe someone who actively believes there is no god, i.e. possesses enough evidence to claim "There cannot be any god" an "anti-theist", in my personal lexicon. Generally this is why I bother to give the specific definition by claim--too often I've encountered religious folk who take "atheist" to mean "one who hates god", or "one who actively has evidence against a god", or similar--which may be true for other folk who use the label atheist, but doesn't match my personal definition. As you said, "the whole atheist-agnostic thing is more of a continuum than not," so I like to give the definition to clear up any mis-assumptions people may make about me for using said label :) I also agree that the difference does matter--I also think it's more intellectually honest of me to allow for the possibility that I am wrong, however unlikely--even then, there is an important distinction between acknowledging the existence of a god, and choosing to worship said god if they even existed (which is usually the follow-on question from religious folk I talk to.
dagw 6y ago
So I’m curious to hear what people think is wrong. We know there is a God AND the Bible is some sort of authoritative (most would claim the most authoritative) description of who/how God is and how he wants us to behave towards him. Often there is also a third correlating claim that our interpretation of the Bible is the most correct interpretation.
- hootbootscoot 6y ago
  Tell that to all the practitioners of all the other religions... "um sorry folks, you are wrong, we are right" I have issues with 1) "God told me to tell you" (any human claiming to represent God to their fellow humans. They surely would be devoid of ulterior motives, right?) 2) This collection of hitherto uncompiled writings (including a wholesale incorporation of Judaism) that were uncontestedly written by humans, some of which we know the names of, has now become a singular "book" and it's the world of God, shut up or else, etc. I smell humans, not divinity. Oh, and YES you nailed it on the last point. Witness the smug way some Evangelicals dismissively tell a Catholic "but I am CHRISTIAN"...
soco 6y ago
I mentioned in a parallel comment that I had similar experiences, so I'll jump in until the other commenter does. And to keep spirits cooler, I'll mention my experiences in martial arts. I gained my black belt in Aikido in a wonderful dojo, wonderful teachers, doing many activities together otherwise. I found a few lifetime friends there and love as well, so it was definitely more than "training", it was a real community. Yet I'm not going there anymore for a dozen years already. The entire teaching is based on life energies and ki flows which... just weren't there for me. I was able to progress nicely also without them - faking them to be more honest, I could have been continued growing in the technique, but what was the point continuing something I don't believe in? What was the point in rebelling and showing them how simple sportmanship gets the same peace of mind, does the same precision, builds the same attitude towards "martial" and life in general? People are good if they choose the good, and not everybody needs the supernatural element in order to stay good. And I don't mean a fear of supernatural punishment, but in my Aikido case, a belief in supernatural and benevolent support.
- zests 6y ago
  I read a book by Eckhart Tolle that gave me two takeaways. The first was that the book was full of nonsense. The second was that it was clear why this nonsense was so effective for people. What are the downsides to suspending scientific accuracy for the purposes of doing Aikido?
  - soco 6y ago
    I did it for years for myself but at some point when you're supposed to tell your pupil to bend more forward to not obstruct the ki flow, you just can't bring yourself to do it anymore... you can't bear the dissonance anymore.
  - klibertp 6y ago
    The same as with every other sport: injury. You don't want to risk injury by extrapolating a faulty training method from magical thinking. In my experience, the arts and systems geared more towards full-contact spars have way, way less Ki/Qi in them.

soco 6y ago

I feel and felt the same. As many other commenters mentioned, a church must be a few elements in order to be sustainable: a community, a set of beliefs, an organization... and each one of these can be more or less important for the individual, and each on of these can go awry in its own way, often without affecting in the same way the other individuals or the other elements. Thus the discussion becomes even more difficult, when individuals have different experiences on each one of those dimensions. I think calling the debate "comparing apples with oranges" is a massive understatement.

dagw 6y ago
Yea. In some ways I feel slightly uncomfortable speaking up for or defending the church in any general way. For as positive as all my experience have been and all the good I have seen churches do, I have also seen churches (even churches within the same general denomination as the church I attended) completely destroy the lives of people.

xtracto 6y ago

I was "in touch" with religion for 12 years (my parents sent me to a very catholic school even though both are atheists) My experience was seeing huge amounts of falsehood and hypocrisy as religious people followed and repeated all the rituals of the mass but in the day to day life they just did not care about others and pretty much ignored what their religion taught them. Thank God after those 12 years I saw everything I needed from religion to get as far away from it as I can.

LadyCailin 6y ago
Is this the religious equivalent of a parent making the kid smoke a carton of cigarettes at once, to turn them off smoking?
- tracedddd 6y ago
  A carton would be challenging. As a dumb smoking teenager I competed to smoke a whole pack and even then it made me quite nauseous. Took about 5 or 6 cigarettes back to back.
- walshemj 6y ago
  Or they want a good education I recall my mum saying that if we had stayed where I was born, they would have tried to use my Grandfathers (ex headmaster in another school ) to get me into King Edwards. That is THE King Edwards Tolkien's Alma mater and is normaly first or second ranked in the UK.
- xtracto 6y ago
  Haha it could very well have been that! In reality what happened is that we lived in a small town (in Mexico, called Campeche. Late 80s and 90s) and the only quality schooling at that place and time was catholic schools.
- kaptain 6y ago
  This practice is very common among immigrant/non-Western communities. Oftentimes an educational institution with a religious background offers the highest quality and most prestigious education. In addition, while they might not have the same religious views as the institution, these parents often value the conservative social values that these institutions espouse.

brundolf 6y ago

I was in the exact same place as you about 10 years ago. A key thing for me (I'm still not religious, though I'm religion-adjacent in some ways) was seeing that religion - despite what some would tell you - is at its best when it's not made to be about material truths at all. Its truths, really, are truths about the human condition and how best to live it out. In this sense, even as someone who doesn't believe in metaphysical spirits, the heart of what they're claiming (if you really dig down deep past many of the surface-level particulars) contains a lot of truth.

lalaland1125 6y ago
The problem is that their teachings also contain a lot of falsehoods. For example, the majority of churches in the US teach that gay sex will cause a person to be tortured for eternity in hell. That teaching is probably wrong and causes so much damage to so many people.
- tbihl 6y ago
  I admit that I have only participated in a minority of all the churches in the US, but I have never attended any church where your statement would be consistent with doctrine on hell, sin, or homosexuality.
  - lalaland1125 6y ago
    I guess you never attended the Catholic Church? They are quite explicit that gay sex is a grave sin.
    - tbihl 6y ago
      Viewing pornography is equally as likely to be grave sin (I say equally likely because the act is a necessary but not sufficient condition for meeting the definition of mortal sin). I don't mean to downplay that pornography is a negative influence, but you misunderstand mortal sin [1]. Paragraphs 1854 -1864 are particularly relevant. Mortal/grave sins must be confessed per catholic doctrine, but to say that the mere acts were final is to misunderstand the whole concept of the new covenant. [1] https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a8.htm https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s...

goldcd 6y ago

I'll agree with you that I find their reasoning faulty (I did), but what I dislike about my atheism is that I get lumped in with people who'll tell theists that "they're wrong" To my mind, most of the planet's population have got to the 'right place' (show love and compassion to those you meet) - and how we all got to this same place is immaterial. I'm without a doubt an atheist to my core - but doesn't stop me admiring those with faith who use it to lead a good life.

thephyber 6y ago
> but what I dislike about my atheism is that I get lumped in with people who'll tell theists that "they're wrong" But every Christian that doesn’t reject the first Commandment implicitly believes the same thing. Some of them picket and scream terrible things at their outgroupers. Most are reasonably neutral and nice. Giving too much oxygen or mind share to the few vocal outliers only lowers your quality of life. Also, there are enough atheists/agnostics/nones that it’s basically useless to talk about them as a monolithic group. I am far more concerned about the asymmetry of media/discussion about the obnoxious few with bad ideas over the quiet plurality of pleasant people who don’t force their toxic ideas on others.
AgentOrange1234 6y ago
As a teenager I was that guy you don’t like. Vocal about my right to not believe, not participate, and not be coerced into religious stuff. Quick to anger by what I saw as violations of church/state separation in my public school. Quick to tell folks how wrong and stupid they were stupid for believing it. Now it makes me cringe. Like you, still Atheist to the core. But I can really appreciate many of my childhood church’s teachings: God is love, God forgives us, God accepts all of us. I can listen in awe at the sermons of Dr. King Jr. And while I cannot imagine ever believing the supernatural aspects of it all, I will always deeply appreciate and agree with the concern and caring for The Least of These, and our shared responsibility to one another.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  I was like this, while getting my PhD@MIT went to RCIA@Harvard and changed. One thing that helped was realizing that I believe in free will, which is supernatural (and why many leading atheists reject it). Since belief in free will is an act of faith, it opened my eyes and the world gained color.