26-Jun-2010, 06:24 PM
Hello everyone, and greetings from Bangalore. I’m male, 36 and have been an atheist/rationalist only for the last 5 years. I just wanted to introduce myself and tell the story of my "deconversion".
My childhood wasn’t a typical Indian one, in that I wasn’t raised religious or even spiritual. My parents were of different religions (in theory), though neither of them was religious. God was never mentioned or talked about in our house. We were a liberal, progressive kind of family. My elder sister and I both became feminists early on in our teens, for example, and our heads were always screwed on straight when it came to things like ethics and justice.
I’m not sure how I became “spiritual”. It probably happened in school. Whatever the reason, from the age of 10 or so I started believing in God -- strongly. I prayed to him every single night for the next 20 years. Now I think, how could I have been that stupid? But back then it felt pretty natural. Looking back, there are some interesting things to note:
1) Even back then, I despised religion. I was the poster child for the “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual” brigade. India was (and still is) full of religious stupidity, hatred and violence, and I hated all those people. I thought I had a special connection with -- and understanding of – God. We were like buddies. I never realised that everyone thinks the exact same thing.
2) I studied science in both school and college, and did the old compartmentalisation trick without realising it. Evolution? Of course it was true. But God still existed – no problem. I never saw any contradiction -- the question didn't even arise!
3) I realise now that believing in (and praying to) God made me a weak-minded person. In the sense that, I was unwilling to take charge of my life, and take responsibility for it. I thought that as long as I was more-or-less good and I prayed to my old friend, he would take care of me and my family, and I would be happy. Such a waste.
My conversion to atheism happened four or five years ago, and is kind of funny.
It was triggered by a book, but not your Dawkins type – it was a sci-fi novel called “Evolution”, by Stephen Baxter. It’s a marvellous book, I highly recommend it to everyone. It dramatises the story of human evolution, by telling the stories of a whole line of individuals down our family tree – from our rodent-like ancestors at the KT period (aside: the chapter describing the actual KT asteroid collision is sensational) down to the present, and then onto our (possible) future evolution as well. I had never had a problem with evolution, but this book made me appreciate just how amazing and true it is – it made me think about evolution. I realised that God wasn’t needed to explain how our species came to be. So I was forced to ask myself why I believed in God. And the only answer I could find was – because I find it comforting; it was like a security blanket. What if I stop believing for a few days? How would that feel? I decided to try it. The first two nights will always stay with me – I’d be in bed, and my hands would automatically come together in prayer, and I would catch myself and say ‘stop it, no praying tonight remember?!’. So for two days I didn’t think about God, and didn’t pray. And that was that. That was how long it took for 20 years of belief to evaporate – just 2 days.
Once I became an atheist, I felt liberated. I saw the world with new eyes, and my thirst for knowledge increased – I started reading science books of all kinds. From there I also got interested in rationalism and skepticism, and realised just how much we take for granted is actually nonsense – ghosts, homeopathy, miracles. I was a new person. I feel sad that it took me 30 years to get there, but I tell myself that every life is a journey and I shouldn’t be too harsh on myself.
So that’s my story. I’ll end with a request -- If you have children, don’t assume that they’ll “decide for themselves” about god once they grow up. I’m living proof of someone who made the wrong choice all on his own. You need to take active counter-measures against theism. I.e., raise your children so that they are aware that there isn’t a God.
I'm glad to be here and am looking forward to talking to you all.
Regards,
Sunil
My childhood wasn’t a typical Indian one, in that I wasn’t raised religious or even spiritual. My parents were of different religions (in theory), though neither of them was religious. God was never mentioned or talked about in our house. We were a liberal, progressive kind of family. My elder sister and I both became feminists early on in our teens, for example, and our heads were always screwed on straight when it came to things like ethics and justice.
I’m not sure how I became “spiritual”. It probably happened in school. Whatever the reason, from the age of 10 or so I started believing in God -- strongly. I prayed to him every single night for the next 20 years. Now I think, how could I have been that stupid? But back then it felt pretty natural. Looking back, there are some interesting things to note:
1) Even back then, I despised religion. I was the poster child for the “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual” brigade. India was (and still is) full of religious stupidity, hatred and violence, and I hated all those people. I thought I had a special connection with -- and understanding of – God. We were like buddies. I never realised that everyone thinks the exact same thing.
2) I studied science in both school and college, and did the old compartmentalisation trick without realising it. Evolution? Of course it was true. But God still existed – no problem. I never saw any contradiction -- the question didn't even arise!
3) I realise now that believing in (and praying to) God made me a weak-minded person. In the sense that, I was unwilling to take charge of my life, and take responsibility for it. I thought that as long as I was more-or-less good and I prayed to my old friend, he would take care of me and my family, and I would be happy. Such a waste.
My conversion to atheism happened four or five years ago, and is kind of funny.
It was triggered by a book, but not your Dawkins type – it was a sci-fi novel called “Evolution”, by Stephen Baxter. It’s a marvellous book, I highly recommend it to everyone. It dramatises the story of human evolution, by telling the stories of a whole line of individuals down our family tree – from our rodent-like ancestors at the KT period (aside: the chapter describing the actual KT asteroid collision is sensational) down to the present, and then onto our (possible) future evolution as well. I had never had a problem with evolution, but this book made me appreciate just how amazing and true it is – it made me think about evolution. I realised that God wasn’t needed to explain how our species came to be. So I was forced to ask myself why I believed in God. And the only answer I could find was – because I find it comforting; it was like a security blanket. What if I stop believing for a few days? How would that feel? I decided to try it. The first two nights will always stay with me – I’d be in bed, and my hands would automatically come together in prayer, and I would catch myself and say ‘stop it, no praying tonight remember?!’. So for two days I didn’t think about God, and didn’t pray. And that was that. That was how long it took for 20 years of belief to evaporate – just 2 days.Once I became an atheist, I felt liberated. I saw the world with new eyes, and my thirst for knowledge increased – I started reading science books of all kinds. From there I also got interested in rationalism and skepticism, and realised just how much we take for granted is actually nonsense – ghosts, homeopathy, miracles. I was a new person. I feel sad that it took me 30 years to get there, but I tell myself that every life is a journey and I shouldn’t be too harsh on myself.
So that’s my story. I’ll end with a request -- If you have children, don’t assume that they’ll “decide for themselves” about god once they grow up. I’m living proof of someone who made the wrong choice all on his own. You need to take active counter-measures against theism. I.e., raise your children so that they are aware that there isn’t a God.
I'm glad to be here and am looking forward to talking to you all.
Regards,
Sunil
![[+]](http://nirmukta.net/images/collapse_collapsed.png.pagespeed.ce.5RZPmzb2DR.png)
1 user Likes unsorted's post
