excreationist

GeoTheo:
I sounds like you were or are sitting on the fence... I was like that a while ago.
It seems theism is very attractive to you emotionally but perhaps not intellectually... but if the Christian God doesn't really exist and you aren't really convinced he does then you are just trying to fool yourself. So that would mean you don't value honesty very much...
Of course! Atheists don't believe in God anyway.

Maybe it fulfils an emotional need or habit - in our society, people often complain and are bitter about others - e.g. complaining about politicians or Christians who condemn immorality and Satan, etc.

If you did in fact have a very liberal upbringing (e.g. being raised by former hippies) then I don't see how you'd think those things were wrong. Perhaps your upbringing was liberal as far as non-sexual things went but your family and/or environment was very sexually conservative.


I think your sense of right and wrong comes from habits and a major one is religion. (e.g. the Christian religion involving God) I think those Christian morals are taught. Then there are some natural-type morals - e.g. we naturally would feel some pleasure seeing others smile and feel distressed when we see distress in others, etc.

Well I've been an atheist for about 4 years but I was raised in an ultra-conservative family. Even now I can't bring myself to swear - well I can a bit in private - though even in childhood many fellow Christians would swear frequently. It would mostly be from deeply ingrained habits.

So you say that "From a very early age I believed pre-marital sex, homosexuality and pornography was wrong."... do you still believe this? If so, do you think those things should be outlawed as they were in various times in history and in various parts of the world? Perhaps you feel a vague feeling that those things aren't right... perhaps it is an intuition based on years of conditioning where people you respect condemn those things. An atheist doesn't have to be as morally liberal as possible... they are allowed to have some phobias.

Albion

I'd say you were getting a perspective on agnosticism, not atheism. I assume the alternative explanations didn't actually exclude God, they simply (like natural processes for evolution) provided a coherent explanation of events in the material world.

Geo, whether you give credit to God or not, you're still responsible at some level for what you accomplish. You can't just pass it all over to God and act as if you yourself don't exist. I mean, aren't you supposed to have free will?

I've come across people who have deconverted and who are having a very hard time with that one. I don't know how they develop or if they ever reconcile themselves, but I can see it would be really difficult.

Well, think about being a US citizen and hearing George Bush announcing that you aren't a citizen or a patriot as far as he's concerned. And think about having people smugly tell you that any good things you do really aren't you at all but are God working through you whether you believe or not -and that you're a conduit of Satan's activity and hence a major cause of the problems of society. Think about how it feels to ask a practical question and receive the single reply "pray about it." Think about the overwhelming tendency to equate Christian with good. Think about being a member of a dissenting minority in that country. Perhaps you can see how bitter feelings might build up after years and years of that.

-RRH-

So what brought you back to theism? Did you find some evidence?

99Percent

Ok, seriously now. You say you knew these (homosexuality, variation of sex between a man and wife, pre-marital sex, etc) to be wrong from an early age. I am going to ask you to honestly answer to yourself the following:

1. From what early age did you really think these to wrong. How old where you when you thought these to be wrong?

2. How did you arrive at the conclusion that these were wrong - did God tell you so? Did you just feel it was wrong, or did you parents or social circumstances (despite liberal appearances) tell you so.

3. Why do you say are wrong now? Is it God? Your Christianism? Or because it feels so? Or because you have rational reasons? (doubtful).

4. Are you afraid of accepting these "immoralities" to be right after all? Maybe you have homosexual feelings? Maybe you want to experience sexual hetero variations? Maybe you have an attraction to pornography? Can you analyze these feelings objectively and dispassionately? If you do not maybe you aren't as liberal as you pretend to be Christian or not and have serious issues to deal with before you can become a "free thinker" - Christian or not!

worldling

Geo Theo:
I think this is the area where you might most profitably apply a good deal more thought.

Good luck!

Walross

Hi Geo,

Everyone else is peppering you with questions, some of which are ones I would ask, so I won't bother re-iterating them. I just wanted to say that I'm glad you're taking a good, hard look at what you believe, wherever that leads you. I think it's important for people to have these "crises" once in awhile. If you remain a christian, I think you'll be a better one because of this, not to mention a better person. If, on the other hand, this leads you elsewhere, then that's great too. In any case, it's brave of you to actually think about these things, and even braver to let us know you're doing so...if that makes any sense. Good luck on whatever path you end up taking. Regards,

Walross

Perchance

You're welcome.

Are conscience and morality the same, then, for you? The way I usually think of them is that morality is the system- usually comparable to an ethical system- that I use to help me determine intellectually if an action is wrong, and conscience is what tells me emotionally if an action is. If I do something hastily, not thinking about it or meaning for the consequences to fall out the way they did, but then feel guilty later, it is wrong by my conscience. There may be a blank spot in my morality about it.

On the other hand, I may simply have acted too hastily.

I suspect this is part of the misunderstanding between us. For me, the conscience is essentially a reactive force. I present it with an action or an option. It reacts with guilt or indifference or (rarely) approval. A lot of the things I want to do- say, reading- are neutral. Saying hurtful words to someone else gets a negative reaction from my conscience, and I feel guilty until I go and apologize.

And to whom do the things not make sense, the observer who believes in God or the person herself? Can you give me examples of these kinds of things?

My father is one. He considers homosexuality wrong, for example, and is strongly conservative and Republican. But, even though he was raised Catholic, he questioned the religion from the time he was very young, and hasn't believed in God since he was twelve or so.

I am more liberal than he is, but I think that's because I went to a much more liberal college environment than he did, and got to see up close people he's never met and can't put faces on.

Atheism doesn't say that you can't be this or you can't be that, I think, any more than your being right-handed or left-handed says you can't be this or you can't be that. It's just there.

-Perchance.

GeoTheo

About my upbringing since more than one person adressed it.
My parents divorced when I was eight years old.
I lived with my mother until I was 15 and then moved in with my father.
My mother has always been a liberal democrat and a feminist. She is now a Unitarian Universalist.
Growing up we attended an Episcopalian Church. She had always been involved in various types of New Age spirituality and had psychics come to the house and had even had readings done on my sister and I. My Father, has always been a republican. I would say that he is a moderate republican since he is pro-choice and pro-gun control. Not that he talks with me about his political views a lot. I learned most of them listening to him gripe at the television news. I would say he is conservative on military and fiscal issues mainly.
Before my parents divorced my father had some pornographic magazines in boxes the garage. When I was five or six I stole some of them and hid them under my bed. I also traded some of them secretly with some of my friends.
My mother discovered them under my bed when she was cleaning my room. She took them away from me and said that I was not old enough to understand them. I didn't get in trouble though and they waent back in the garage right where I had gotten them. I just snuck into the garage once in a while after that to read them. I actually recall having read them earlier than this now that I think about it. At a different house, which would put my age at around four, I remember my Dad having some Playboy's under the bed. I would be in there playing on Saturday mornings when my parents were still in bed. My Dad would let me read the comics they had in them. I remember wondering why all the cartoons were about people taking their clothes off.
This would have been the mid seventies. I don't really now what the rationale was behind them letting me read it as a toddler and not as a kindergartener or first grader. I do know that they did change their behavior around us as my sister and I got older, as far as them walking around the house nude. I will say, though that I have an excellent memory and remember several accounts from as early as age two.
I still don't understand what my mother was getting at by saying I was not "old enough to understand." I was drawn to looking at naked women for the same reasons then as now. It is not a very intellectual exercise.
I didn't get in trouble though and my Pastor actually found out. It came up when they had him over to the house for some drinks. He did rib me about it though for several years afterwords. He said "So you like the pretty ladies, eh?" and nudged me with his elbow. He was definately not a Baptist.
When my parents divorced the magazines got thrown out. My mother did have some art books on nude figure drawing however that I was allowed to read since I was an artist. She explained that there was nothing wrong with nudity or the human body.
To me though, I looked at them for the same reason I looked at the porno, it was all the same to me.
She even bragged to her friends about how mature I was and that I understood art. (This was a bit later than the magazine incident.)
She was very open with my sister and I about sex and would answer any questions we had. I think we really didn't talk that much though, because we were kind of embarassed. She told us about birth control and different things. I really think my sister and I were more conservative about sex than she was for some reason. She was dating and having people stay overnight occasionally and we would question her about this. She was very open and willing to talk about it.
I was very philosophical as a kid and was deep in thought a lot. I began to form differing opinions to what my mothers attitudes were on things. I became pro-life very early even though neither of my parents were and used to debate with my mother and get her very upset. I also decided I was against feminism and pre-marital sex as well as divorce. This was before highschool.
I think it may have been influenced by my mothers teaching but only because she seemed to contradict herself. She said sex was somthing people do when they are in love, but other times she sais how she had experimented with sex in college. Then she said somtimes people that are just friends have sex. She also admitted that she was at various times in a realationships with people she was really not in love with and did not plan to marry.
I also decided that drinking was wrong and would get mad at my mother at Parties when she would drink. I thought smoking was wrong also. I probably learned that at school. My Dad smoked cigarettes and my mother smoked only at parties. I later figured out she had been smoking pot and had still had rolling papers in the house. I figured this out when I was 14 and ran away from home.(I came back though) It was funny, she hardly ever smoked it and had the rolling papers in a kitchen drawer. At 9 or 10 she smoked in front of me but wouldn't at 14. I guess at 9 she figured I wouldn't figure it out. But my memory is like this tape I have in my head that I can retrieve and play back at any time. Just like conversations they had in front of me when they thought I was too young to understand. I couldn't but replayed it back when I could understand and figured it out.
So anyway, By the time I was in high school I believed that sex should be somthing only for married people and that women should stay home and raise the children. I felt drinking alcahol or taking drugs was wrong. I felt that inter-racial dating was wrong, abortion was wrong, capital punishment was right.
My mother was dumb-founded. She could not understand where she went wrong. But we were still close. So I had all these very conservative moral standards and from high school on untill I became a born again Christian at 21. I violated them all.
One of the things that actually drew me to Conservative Evangelical Christianity was that they seemed to have the same morals as I. They also had a way for me to deal with the guilt of not living up to them. Forgiveness through accepting Jesus Christ. Only after I had come to the place where I felt I had violated all of my moral standards did I accept Christ. I had encountered born agains before but thought they were weaklings and too fanatical.
I don't know if this really looong post sheds any light for anybody or not.

Bree

Let me sum up: basically, you got your moral base from what you saw happening around you, not from any dogma that was being fed to you. Then you found a dogma that fit what you already believed, and felt like you had find your niche.

If I'm putting words in your mouth let me know, I'm just trying to see from your perspective.

Walross

Hello GeoTheo, you wrote:

um, you don't still believe this do you? If so, I'd like to know what you consider to be different "races". Regards,

Walross