Where we started at RDF.

[Thinking Aloud]

A lot of the most heartfelt posts could be found in the Welcomes and Introductions area at RDF.

I just dug through and found mine: not as dramatic as some, maybe, but saved for the record.

Thought I'd better say hello...!

by Thinking Aloud » Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:25 am

Hello.

I've been lurking for a few weeks and chipping in here and there, so I thought I'd better say hi properly.

I was baptised R.C. but fortunately never suffered from excessive Catholicism during my childhood. Yes, we studied religion, took part in "walking days", did first communion, etc. I was confirmed in my early teens (apparently one is supposed to make the decision for yourself at that stage, but when all your classmates are doing it, and you're enrolled automatically, it kind of defeats the object of coming to your own conclusions...). In any case, religion was really only a peripheral Sunday activity - just something everyone did.

Anyway, from my late teens I polarised in two directions: as a musician I was involved with a group that played happy clappy stuff in churches around the area - something I enjoyed very much, even if I wasn't really bothered about the context; as an undergraduate geologist I got to see the world in a more magnificent way than ever before. My concept of God remained as an all-seeing, all-knowing possibility up until the early 1990s; it's hard to imagine that the thing that has been watching you all your life isn't actually there, and that your private thoughts are exactly that. God slid gradually down to a kind of guy who created the universe billions of years ago and sat smiling at it, and then just became the universe itself, which wasn't in need of any anthropomorphic devotion in any case; Jesus remained a historical figure who said lots of good and nice things (I obviously hadn't read the Bible in a while) - an example to live by; but neither of them someone to worship. (That whole worshipping thing bothered me for a long time. For a start, I felt that if God was watching, he'd be embarrassed by the whole thing. Visualising a big finger pointing out of the clouds, proclaiming, "Stop that, it's silly.")

A month or so ago I read the phrase "some of us just go one god further". The boat (which was pretty much waterlogged) tipped over completely and sank without trace.

The musical side has stayed with me throughout, and I still do the honours, so to speak, on Sundays; I figured that if it makes other people's lives richer then I'm contributing something good, aren't I? However I can't help but feel that a contribution to something that's utterly anachronistic and baseless at its roots (even if the tips of the branches are green and pleasant) is still tacitly endorsing it.

And that's the dilemma. The green and pleasant branch here is just fine - a nice community of friendly people from all walks of life; friends and neighbours. Mostly harmless? Can I let that go? Do I want to?

It's never straightforward, is it?

As it happened, I did let it go.

Any more introductions or other RDF posts you want to archive here? Catch 'em now, before they're gone.

Edit: for the record, I joined RDF, Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:46 pm

[Matt H]

I could if I would.

Ever since they took out ego search, I can't find any of my posts past the first page.

[Pappa]

Here's mine:

Hi,

I've been an atheist all my life and have brought up my 6 year old son to have a good rational understanding of the world around him. He decided that Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy were bunk on his own at the age of 3 or 4.

Anyway, I have some concerns about the way he and his classmates are being taught about religion at school. When he was four he came out with the odd remark that, "God made all the butterflies and trees" (though not anything else apparently). When questioned, he said he had been taught it in school. His teacher informed me that they had only learned a little bit about Easter that year and he certainly had not been told that in the classroom. I was also told that the school sometimes accepts offers from visiting ministers to perform assemblies. Presumably, this is where he had heard the "butterflies and trees" stuff.

It is also clear that in normal school assemblies they sing the occasional religious song and have a short prayer (as I did in school). I have also been present at one of his school assemblies where a short prayer was said.

My son is in a class of about 28. One of his classmates is from a Muslim household, one Hindu and I would guess about 20 are probably from atheist (or non-practicing Christian) households. All of them were present when a prayer was said at the assembly I saw, and most of them said "Amen" at the end.

I don't worry about my son being indoctrinated as such (he's an ardent atheist, and will often claim Jesus didn't exist), but I do wonder about the other kids in his class and the ethics of indoctrinating the children in this way (which is obviously a policy of the head teacher).

What are other state infant schools in the UK like?
Is my son's school representative of other schools in the UK?
Is it worth getting myself into an argument with the head over an issue like this?

Any opinion/advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Pappa

[Lazar]

Never made an introductory post as I started out as a stealth theist. Now I am not (still stealth like just not a theist), largely due to the wealth of information I received at RDF.

[NineBerry]

Ever since they took out ego search, I can't find any of my posts past the first page.

If everything goes as planned, by Sunday, I will be able to offer (free of charge) forum members the possibility to send them a copy of all the threads they have posted in.

[Bella Fortuna]

If I recall, my first post was in word association... hardly memorable!

[Pappa]

If I recall, my first post was in word association... hardly memorable!

Misturji's was too.

[Faithfree]

Here is my first ever post at RDF:

Hello from downunder

Posted by Faithfree » Sat Jan 19, 2008 1:45 pm

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been reading this forum for a little while and thought it was time I introduced myself. I probably won’t post all that often, but still hope I can make a positive contribution. I’m from Perth in Western Australia, happily a country where it is possible to live as an open atheist without fear.

I had a very intense religious upbringing, but apparently was never cut out for a life of unquestioning belief. Even as a young child, my faith in God was never very strong, and I struggled with all the questions that weren’t being answered, or, I was told, mustn’t even be asked. Sometime in my early teens I lapsed, if that’s the word, into agnosticism, but had to keep going through the charade for the sake of family harmony. I also discovered science, which I read about voraciously, and found the universe described through honest and open inquiry to be a far, far richer and more wondrous place than any religious dogma could every deliver. Actually, my parents were quite happy that I had an interest in science, just as long as I wasn’t fooled by any of that evolution nonsense, which apparently wasn’t science at all, but a Satan-inspired atheistic belief system. Yes, atheists — the root of all evil in the world, were devil worshipers, even if they didn’t realise it.

Only when I left home at 18 to go away to university did I find the freedom to ‘come out’, so to speak, but in some ways it was still a slow and painful process, causing much grief every time I went home. Sometime around then I suspect that I became a full atheist, but would never have dared describe myself with that exact term because of the intense negativity that the word had exuded since my earliest childhood. Anyway, that was all quite a long time ago. My biggest regret in life is that my now elderly parents have never fully coped with my lack of belief, and this has in some ways denied a ‘normal’ relationship with them.

I first read Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene sometime in the 1980s, and have been greatly enjoying his books ever since. I’ve just finished The God Delusion, and found it as well written and thought provoking as ever, although in my case he’s ‘preaching’ to the long converted. I’m greatly enjoying the renaissance in atheistic writing in the last few years – hopefully it will help a few more of us ‘come out of the closet’.

[Tigger]

"Sorry, you are not permitted to use the search system."

[Faithfree]

"Sorry, you are not permitted to use the search system."

Had the same problem, but went back by using the date that I joined and looked at the Welcome thread around that date.

[Arcanyn]

I think my first post was on a thread about a brawl between rival Christian groups at the Church of the Nativity. I posted a couple of photos of how I imagined the brawlers viewed themselves.

[Valden]

Ever since they took out ego search, I can't find any of my posts past the first page.

If everything goes as planned, by Sunday, I will be able to offer (free of charge) forum members the possibility to send them a copy of all the threads they have posted in.

I'll assume those of us who's posts have been wiped off completely though wont be able to do that.

And now my own intro is fucking gone! When I first joined, I was still a Deist.

[NineBerry]

I'll assume those of us who's posts have been wiped off completely though wont be able to do that.

Yeah.

[Mazille]

I'll assume those of us who's posts have been wiped off completely though wont be able to do that.

Yeah.

[natselrox]

I'll assume those of us who's posts have been wiped off completely though wont be able to do that.

Yeah.

That's so stupid! How could anyone delete all your posts?