What were you before you became and atheist?

[Eriku]

Why get hung up on the pitfalls of language, unless you're doing a conversation on semantics? We all know what we mean to say, and we don't necessarily think of what langguage used to mean or is derived from. It all changes all the time and is not really a 1:1 matching of words and ideas, so nitpicking to this extent seems to me to miss the point entirely. We all know we're making do with language here.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why get hung up on the pitfalls of language, unless you're doing a conversation on semantics? We all know what we mean to say, and we don't necessarily think of what langguage used to mean or is derived from. It all changes all the time and is not really a 1:1 matching of words and ideas, so nitpicking to this extent seems to me to miss the point entirely. We all know we're making do with language here.

You've been gone a while, right? We have a dedicated group of posters now who will argue the opposite side of anything. They have no problem refuting what they post in one thread in another. It's kind of amusing watching them be impressed with themselves. Meanwhile, the veteran Ratz just keep on keeping on.

[Schneibster]

You have to like Victorian fiction.

I reread the entire Holmes canon once every five years or so.

Gothic fiction and Victorian spook stories?

I have trouble suspending disbelief. Their mcguffins are generally pretty unsophisticated. I'm not even big on Poe, though a few of his very best stick in my mind and I reread them perhaps once in a decade.

I like Lovecraft, Clive Barker, and some Stephen King if I'm gonna read horror/surrealism. Greg Bear has quietly written a couple good ones too, but I like most of his stuff of any genre so I wouldn't include him when trying to get across the essence of the kind of horror/surrealistic stuff I like.

[Eriku]

Why get hung up on the pitfalls of language, unless you're doing a conversation on semantics? We all know what we mean to say, and we don't necessarily think of what langguage used to mean or is derived from. It all changes all the time and is not really a 1:1 matching of words and ideas, so nitpicking to this extent seems to me to miss the point entirely. We all know we're making do with language here.

You've been gone a while, right? We have a dedicated group of posters now who will argue the opposite side of anything. They have no problem refuting what they post in one thread in another. It's kind of amusing watching them be impressed with themselves. Meanwhile, the veteran Ratz just keep on keeping on.

Surely these lot have been everywhere at all times? I just don't agree with that outlook and carry on like it's a foreign notion. Keeps me sane, even if I have to waste a fair bit of tappity-tap tap on the whole thing.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why get hung up on the pitfalls of language, unless you're doing a conversation on semantics? We all know what we mean to say, and we don't necessarily think of what langguage used to mean or is derived from. It all changes all the time and is not really a 1:1 matching of words and ideas, so nitpicking to this extent seems to me to miss the point entirely. We all know we're making do with language here.

You've been gone a while, right? We have a dedicated group of posters now who will argue the opposite side of anything. They have no problem refuting what they post in one thread in another. It's kind of amusing watching them be impressed with themselves. Meanwhile, the veteran Ratz just keep on keeping on.

Surely these lot have been everywhere at all times? I just don't agree with that outlook and carry on like it's a foreign notion. Keeps me sane, even if I have to waste a fair bit of tappity-tap tap on the whole thing.

I considered sanity at one point, but it didn't fit with my lifestyle.

[Eriku]

Why get hung up on the pitfalls of language, unless you're doing a conversation on semantics? We all know what we mean to say, and we don't necessarily think of what langguage used to mean or is derived from. It all changes all the time and is not really a 1:1 matching of words and ideas, so nitpicking to this extent seems to me to miss the point entirely. We all know we're making do with language here.

You've been gone a while, right? We have a dedicated group of posters now who will argue the opposite side of anything. They have no problem refuting what they post in one thread in another. It's kind of amusing watching them be impressed with themselves. Meanwhile, the veteran Ratz just keep on keeping on.

Surely these lot have been everywhere at all times? I just don't agree with that outlook and carry on like it's a foreign notion. Keeps me sane, even if I have to waste a fair bit of tappity-tap tap on the whole thing.

I considered sanity at one point, but it didn't fit with my lifestyle.

I'm getting there... but it's hard to let go of sociable notions and whatnot.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why get hung up on the pitfalls of language, unless you're doing a conversation on semantics? We all know what we mean to say, and we don't necessarily think of what langguage used to mean or is derived from. It all changes all the time and is not really a 1:1 matching of words and ideas, so nitpicking to this extent seems to me to miss the point entirely. We all know we're making do with language here.

You've been gone a while, right? We have a dedicated group of posters now who will argue the opposite side of anything. They have no problem refuting what they post in one thread in another. It's kind of amusing watching them be impressed with themselves. Meanwhile, the veteran Ratz just keep on keeping on.

Surely these lot have been everywhere at all times? I just don't agree with that outlook and carry on like it's a foreign notion. Keeps me sane, even if I have to waste a fair bit of tappity-tap tap on the whole thing.

I considered sanity at one point, but it didn't fit with my lifestyle.

I'm getting there... but it's hard to let go of sociable notions and whatnot.

Don't let society stop you from being happily insane.

[redunderthebed]

Got caught up with a bunch of xtian crazies then what they were spouting starting to kick my rational side that i had buried for awhile into gear and realised at very least what they were saying was bullshit.

Then i realised they all said similar things just that they were honest about being batshit and that the whole thing was a load of shit.

[Loki]

I was rather confused about it all as a kiddy. Then I started reading stuff like this;

Can anybody really claim to be an atheist? We are all brought up in an intensely capitalistic world whose ideology is inextricably intertwined, if not founded upon, patriarchal religion. Can we possibly throw off the mantle of indoctrination by religion, even if that indoctrination was not delivered directly by religion itself?

What were you before you became an atheist? Perhaps your question should be, what were you before you pointed your damaged being in what you thought was the direction of atheist discovery? And can such an act happen overnight anyway? Do we ever have an epiphany in such matters? Isn't a more realistic image a slow, growing feeling of impending dawn, rapidly followed by another long, dark night? It's more like the beginning of spring in the polar extremes - isn't it?

and realised it was all made up shit with no actual meaning.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

and realised it was all made up shit with no actual meaning.

That sums Exi2 up nicely.

[Loki]

and realised it was all made up shit with no actual meaning.

That sums Exi2 up nicely.

Mind you it's a pretty piss poor attempt on my part to explain what I mean. Short about three days sleep here.

What I'm trying to say is that when I started reading into apologetics and asking questions it became rapidly apparent that questions weren't being answered but obfuscated around. Simple questions which should have simple answers are avoided by the expedient of making the answers as complicated as possible so as it might appear the original query had been addressed when it had simply been avoided, or by answering with new questions which are divorced from the original enquiry. Was my introduction to intellectual dishonesty (whether intentional or not). Might go some way to explaining why I went into science and not the humanities.

[apophenia]

Christian and kichigaiko. I'm still kichigai, but I lost the Christ bit somewhere in childhood, I know not where.

[Audley Strange]

Only God is eternal. To deny something into eternity is to make an alliance with God. Therefore 'never' is a deeply, deeply religious idea. I would never use the word, personally.

I, at the very least, found that pretty funny.

[Robert_S]

I was a Christian child, then in my early teens I started to get more and more away from Christianity and got more into a vague politically correct ecumenical fluffy tolerant view. After being in contact with a few outspoken atheists, I was primed and on the edge.

Then I heard Julia Sweeney on This American Life while I was out driving one Sunday afternoon. There was nothing really new, but the way she recalled her "Letting go of God" as a personal story made me really consider that I could just give up trying to maintain something I could call belief. That I didn't have to think of myself as a believer and it would still be OK.

I knew that much intellectually, but somehow the personal story brought home that I was making excuses to hold on to a absurdly vague notion rather than looking at what was in front of me and trying to figure out the truth.

[Gallstones]

Before I "became" atheist, I was me.
Still am.