Queen of Swords

I was happy for about half a year after I went down on my knees, literally, and accepted Jesus as my lord and savior. After that time, the honeymoon period came to an end and I started thinking a little more critically. The bible crumpled like a house of cards, albeit in slow-motion.

Megatron

I've been an atheist for 10 years, but until ~2 years ago I was a very apathetic one. This site has definitely fueled my militant streak.

ex-preacher

There were times when I thought I had incidents of answered prayer. Every one of those incidents can also be explained by natural causes. If a Christian with a headache prays for relief and takes two aspirin, the headache often goes away. Is this an answered prayer? An atheist with a headache simply takes two aspirin and the headache goes away.

You should also be aware that all people in all religions in all times have the same type of "answered prayers." The ancient Egyptians, Baal worshippers, Romans, Greeks, modern Muslims, Hindus, pagans, etc all claim the same type of "answered prayers" as do Christians.

<strong> Yes, I was happy and had peace, believing that I was saved and wouldn't go to hell.

All people in all religions in all times feel peace and joy immediately after their conversions. I also felt peace and joy after I deconverted. Again I felt peace and joy when I discovered Unitarian Universalism, a religion based on inherent human dignity, individual responsibility, and a free search for truth.

<strong> Yes, I felt that after conversion and it recurred after certain events. I would get a spiritual high at retreats, gospel meetings, intense prayer sessions, etc.

Once again, I must note that all people in all religions in all times have similar feelings.

I grew up in Brazil and observed some of the goings-on of the practicioners of spiritism (known as Macumba and Candoble, similar to voodoo). They had experiences of ecstasy and giddiness that blew away anything I ever saw in a Christian church. How to explain this? I see three possible explanations:

1. They were in touch with the powerful good spirits (their explanation).

2. They were in touch with the Devil (American missionary explanation - also in Salem 1692).

3. They were experiencing a self-induced psychological state which can be explained through natural causes (my explanation).

Jamie_L

I want to re-affirm the notion that "conversion high" can be real for the de-converted. When I finally threw off my wishy-washy agnosticism and accepted that I was really a hard-core, skeptical atheist, it was just as luvluv described. I felt a sense of contentment and self-assurance wash over me. I felt "right with the world".

That was before I came here. Since coming here, I've become more willing to be open with others about my atheism (though I'm still mostly "in the closet"). I've thought more deeply about morality and politics, and have adjusted my beliefs based on posts here. An unexpected excample: my stance on abortion has altered a little since recent discussions in the morality forum.

Jamie

Hobbs

You sound like me when I was a Christian. And now I sound like ex-preacher.

I certainly interpreted a lot of events as answered prayer. I certainly felt what I interpreted to be the presence of God. Yes, I had my down times too, but I interpreted those as when I was "away from God" or God was teaching me to rely more on him or some such stuff like that. And I often felt wonderfully alive and happy, and, of course, interpreted that as a result of having God in my life.

Like ex-preacher, though, I found that to be true of at least some people in other religions, and even some people with no religion at all. One example would be my father's aunt and uncle who lived what I took to be model lives and for whom I had so much admiration that I was not able to accept that they were not religious. They didn't talk about God, and they just smiled politely when I did, but, man, the way they lived their lives, the way he faced his own impending death and the way she faced the impending death of the husband she so dearly loved, they just had to be Christians, they just couldn't possibly live, and die, like that without God in their lives. But they weren't, and they did. Yet I was never able to admit that possibility, until later when I found lots of reasons to question my previous interpretations of experiences which I had been convinced were experiences of God.

Like others have mentioned, I felt a parallel de-conversion experience, as everything fell into place in a new world-view, and I found a new way to understand and interpret and make sense of the world. But I guess I can't attribute it to any god this time. I interpret my experience of joyous happiness of both my conversion to Christianity and my conversion to atheism as a result of the relief of figuring out what seemed to be a sensible, structured, accurate way to understand and interpret the world, to make sense of it all, after going through a period of either having no structured world-view or a world-view I had found on closer inspection to be thoroughly inadequate.

Kassiana

luvluv:
But I get the feeling that most of the folks on this forum who claim to have been Christians never had a conversion experience.

Kass:
That's the problem with basing your opinions on your feelings. They're frequently wrong. I had as fervent a conversion experience as anyone; more so, in fact, since at the time I converted I was an anti-theist atheist. (I was 13, frequently abused by "Christians" at my junior high school, and attended a Unitarian Universalist church that was highly secular in orientation. Of course I hated Christians and Christianity!) I picked up a tract, intending to make fun of it, and was blindsided by the love and acceptance I felt coming from the God I found in it.

Of course, now I would say that while I found that love, the fundamentalist doctrines it was attached to were and are unnecessary and ultimately against the Divine Source which animates all Gods.

Eudaimonist

Yes, I have. I felt exactly that, although it had nothing to do with Christianity. Your words are a perfect description of how I felt when I first fell in love and endorphins were flooding my brain, creating a feeling of amazing peace and bliss. I remember, when driving alone, I would sing to myself about how much I loved this woman, and I would contemplate in a giddy haze about how perfect and good she seemed.

Thanks for describing your experience in such detail, because now I am more certain than ever that a conversion experience is no more special than some other rare states of mind.

Proxima Centauri

How many people have changed their beliefs as a result of this site? Do these debates actually convince any people to hold different political views or worldviews?

Its rare for secularists to deconvert someone the way Christians convert people/try to convert people. What we can do is work towards creating a social climate where its ok to be an unbeliever. That way more people deconvert themselves.

The Internet Infidels Website with all its discussion forums is great for that.

[ May 18, 2002: Message edited by: B.Shack ]</p>

luvluv

"Yes, I have. I felt exactly that, although it had nothing to do with Christianity. Your words are a perfect description of how I felt when I first fell in love and endorphins were flooding my brain, creating a feeling of amazing peace and bliss. I remember, when driving alone, I would sing to myself about how much I loved this woman, and I would contemplate in a giddy haze about how perfect and good she seemed.

Thanks for describing your experience in such detail, because now I am more certain than ever that a conversion experience is no more special than some other rare states of mind."

I've been in love, and it is not the same feeling. It is actually less intense, more peaceful, and more accepting. Kind of like being reunited with your long lost dad and finding out he's not a jerk, but an incredible guy.

Also, you had to fall in love with an actual person to invoke those "love" responses you had, right? Can you, through sheer mental effort, work those emotions up about an imaginary friend?

Also, I feel what a lot of you are saying about a certain "conversion experience" you get when you accept certain philosophies. I had a conversion experience apart from religion when I became involved in black nationalism while I was in college. It was similar to a "born again" experience in as much as my readings were introducing me to a whole new world of (I thought at the time) truth. I felt a certain peace and excitement, though I think I was short of giddy (except when I picked up a James Baldwin book I hadn't read or heard some incredible political fact) but I had definite attendant emotional feelings attached to my "conversion" to black nationalist politics.

Also, as I've stated, I have been in love, and I know what that feels like.

I can also see how coming out from under the constraints of Christian doctrine about obedience and hell and the like could provide a liberating experience: I imagine it would be fun to be free from traditional morality; it would be like being a kid in a candy store. Make no mistake, I would be very "giddy" if the proscriptions on my sex life and my obligations to God were suddenly lifted off, but it would be more of what Christians describe as a "fleshy" joy: a joy not necessarily in having discovered the truth, but out of getting out of my obligations and constraints.

With all due respect, I don't know if any further explanation is necessary, logically, to describe what some of you felt. You felt free from worrying about God, and I can see how that would be a good feeling if you didn't know Him. But again, I have felt those "secular" conversion experiences and it is of a distinctly different quality than my Christian conversion experience. The principle factor of my conversion experience was a feeling of intimacy, of not being alone. I was giddy because I was intimate with someone. I felt a presence, other than my own, was with me and that it accepted me as I was and loved me without condition. That was the principle part of the joy I experienced. Ex-preacher, was your feeling like that?

Hobbs

I don't know about ex-preacher, but it sounds like I had the same lessons you did on how to interpret my conversion experience. Your description of your experience sounds so much like how I thought of my conversion when I was still a Christian. Based on your description of where you believe you are, I can say with a great deal of certainty at least that I used to believe that I was where you believe you now are.

Of course, I have a much different understanding and interpretation of that experience now. I know you'll discount this, and I know I can't prove that I'm right, but, from my current perspective, I feel like I am beyond where you are, and that, in a way you wouldn't be able to know unless you can get beyond it, too, I think I understand your experiences better than you understand them yourself.

But maybe there really is such a thing as a real conversion to true Christianity. And maybe I wasn't really a true Christian who ever really had the Spirit of God in me. But I was absolutely certain that I was and that I did. And you sound just like I used to. So, I have to conclude that, even if there really is such a thing as truly being a Christian who really has experienced the presence of God, there is no reliable way for us to distinguish the actuality of that experience from the absolutely certain but false belief that we have experienced it. As I see it now, it is an interpretation we are taught to understand and make sense of (and even to shape our memories of) some of our experiences, and it's an interpretation which, after further review, I have had to conclude is an inaccurate and inadequate understanding of those experiences.

Of course, maybe I really did experience what I thought I did, and maybe now somehow I've been completely deceived about it. Maybe I really was "saved" but lost my salvation, not through rebellion or neglect, but through taking seriously the command to love God with all my mind as well as my heart and strength and soul, by believing that all truth is God's truth, and thus being unafraid to follow questions wherever they led since as long as I followed them prayerfully and carefully the answers would lead me to God, but then finding that the answers took me elsewhere.

If that's the case, luv, you need to be very careful about hanging around places like this.

On the other hand, if God would allow a sincere and fervent follower of his to become lost in the midst of and as a result of that following, then he doesn't deserve anyone's worship anyway.