An Atheist and Happy

JC 2K3

I'm an 18 year old Atheist and I am happy.

This board has become a little overrun with long, rambling discussions on belief, evolution and morality and this coupled with the posts on the Christianity forum sometimes make it seem to me that atheism assumes one to be a highly thoughtful, learned, philosophical individual who craves deep discussion and argument.

In reality I don't think most of us are like this. Sure I do enjoy reading these posts from time to time. However, it can get tiresome. I haven't seen any posts like this one, so perhaps this is a unique concept. I'm making this topic to focus on the individuals who are Atheists, the positive influence of Atheism on their lives, the struggles they may have had with their (non) belief etc.

So, who out there is an Atheist who is proud and happy? Who has been strong enough not to succumb to a religion? Do you have stories of how you converted if you were previously religious? Any positive thoughts/comments to contribute? Please share your wisdom and/or experiences here.

Peace and Love,
JC(no, it doesn't stand for Jesus Christ )

Dave!

Well this is an atheism discussion board, so that probably explains why you see so much discussion and argument on it!

But yeh I get your point.

I don't really have any stories about my atheism TBH It's not usually something that comes up in conversation or plays a part in my life. The only thing that comes to mind is when I was having regular appointments with a doctor who was then moved to a different hospital (Vincent's), so I had to register there as a new patient really. They asked me for my address, phone #, age, etc., and then asked my religion! I had never been asked my religion before by, well, anyone! Certainly not as an adult. But without thinking about it, I instinctively said "none". The receptionist looked at me like I had 2 head "None?" "Yeh, none!"

I was pleased with myself after that, I guess I'm now officially an atheist -- it's on my hospital record!

Sangre

Positive atheist influence? Eh...

I guess my morality and ethics are only constrained by my own logic and compassion, rather than out-dated, incomplete doctrines that belong in the stone age.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i was shopping with my mother for a christmas turkey one year when I was around 11/12, she had some vouchers for i dunno.. a huge turkey I suppose, but they had expired the night before. So she offered to pray for the butcher at the supermarket, he replied 'ah, but I'm an atheist' then she said 'all the more reason so' (damn theists).

We eventually got the turkey anyway I think, and as we were wheeling the trolley down the milk aisle I asked her what an atheist was, she said someone who doesn't believe in god and it just made sense. It really, really made sense. So I stuck with it.

Tim Robbins

JC 2K3 wrote:

I'm an 18 year old Atheist and I am happy.

This board has become a little overrun with long, rambling discussions on belief, evolution and morality and this coupled with the posts on the Christianity forum sometimes make it seem to me that atheism assumes one to be a highly thoughtful, learned, philosophical individual who craves deep discussion and argument.

In reality I don't think most of us are like this. Sure I do enjoy reading these posts from time to time. However, it can get tiresome. I haven't seen any posts like this one, so perhaps this is a unique concept. I'm making this topic to focus on the individuals who are Atheists, the positive influence of Atheism on their lives, the struggles they may have had with their (non) belief etc.

So, who out there is an Atheist who is proud and happy? Who has been strong enough not to succumb to a religion? Do you have stories of how you converted if you were previously religious? Any positive thoughts/comments to contribute? Please share your wisdom and/or experiences here.

Peace and Love,
JC(no, it doesn't stand for Jesus Christ )

Good post, I love arguing and being pedantic and I am very passionate about logic. So aethism was more an effect of a source of some of my fundamental happiness rather than a cause towards further happiness. Although I like having the free time on Sunday to do some more meaningful things as well!

Beruthiel

It's been so long I cannot even remember how I became one. I know it happened around the age of 16.
I had no positive influence of atheism as such, back then it wasn't exactly advertised to the extent it is now, it was a conclusion I came to on my own gradually.
I was at my Grandmothers wake last year, the priest was in the house and said a few words, total fantasy and yet everyone there was believing it, I found that quite shocking not having heard a priest in 20 odd years, you tend to forget just how much bs you're feed.

PDN

Mordeth wrote:

i was shopping with my mother for a christmas turkey one year when I was around 11/12, she had some vouchers for i dunno.. a huge turkey I suppose, but they had expired the night before. So she offered to pray for the butcher at the supermarket, he replied 'ah, but I'm an atheist' then she said 'all the more reason so' (damn theists).

We eventually got the turkey anyway I think, and as we were wheeling the trolley down the milk aisle I asked her what an atheist was, she said someone who doesn't believe in god and it just made sense. It really, really made sense. So I stuck with it.

So would this support the thesis that spending time in the presence of turkeys helps you become an atheist?

PDN

In fact, the turkey connection is confirmed by the Ray D'Arcy thread. All those years of listening to Dustin just scrambled Ray's belief in God.

Dades

JC 2K3 wrote:

This board has become a little overrun with long, rambling discussions on belief, evolution and morality

In the same way a forest becomes overrun with trees.

I remember a news story I heard many years ago about a 2 yr old girl that died after being electricuted by fairy lights on Christmas Eve. That had a defining effect on my (dis)believe in the existence of a benevolent god.

Now, not a day goes by when I reach that brick wall of incomprehension as to how anyone can actually believe that an omnipotent god is reading our thoughts, or has any say in our brief existence.

Happiness and quality of life is defined by real things, like family, friends and what you have in your kitchen press.

Crucifix

I don't remember any conversion from religion so to speak. I recall that I was the only lad in my class who didn't become an alter boy, and that I debated not being confirmed, but I went with it as I didn't want to rock the boat.
I was still a good little catholic till my early teens though, when I was suddenly not so reserved about rocking the boat

Zombrex

PDN wrote:

In fact, the turkey connection is confirmed by the Ray D'Arcy thread. All those years of listening to Dustin just scrambled Ray's belief in God.

LOL ... the rise in atheism in the western world can be directly correlated with the increase in turkey consumption, particularly at Christmas

stakey

I went along with all the christian upbringing my parents went with, communion, confirmation etc etc...

But as I reached secondary school I just started questioning some of the strange things being thought in 'religion' classes. In doing so I had myself suspended from the classes, asked not to attend and sometimes even had one or two teachers agree with me... great experience tbh.

Overall I guess religion never meant anything to me and as I grew older it just became an oddity to me. The logical direction was that there was no God and that was it... enjoy your time here and be the best human you can be...

Zombrex

I became an atheists when I realised that just because I want something to be true or to happen doesn't mean it will. This wasn't in relation to God, it was just in general, but then I saw how religions were set up in exactly this way, promising people something that they wanted to be true, and I released it was all a scam, a product of the wishful thinking of humanity.

Not really a happy story, but there you go

I think its often important that atheists don't get too drawn into the religious game of having to justify what atheism will do for someone. Atheism might make you happy, but it might not. It might be wonderful eye opener for you, or it might make you miserable. There is certainly aspects of being an atheists that I do not enjoy, such as anxiety towards death. But again, going back to the reason I became an atheists in the first place, just because I have anxiety to death doesn't mean that a less anxiety inducing outlook is actually true.

The over all point is that God doesn't exist.

Whether one is happy with that fact or not is rather irrelevant to it being true. At the end of day the truth is the truth.

robindch

Beruthiel wrote:

I was at my Grandmothers wake last year, the priest was in the house and said a few words, total fantasy and yet everyone there was believing it, I found that quite shocking not having heard a priest in 20 odd years, you tend to forget just how much bs you're feed.

Seconded.

Turning up at one or two masses last year after a gap of a few years, I'd forgotten how strange so many of the things you're expected to believe. Not to mention how weird it is to see hundreds of people, with exquisite and very public piety, play "Simon Says" for forty-five minutes.

Three years back, I was at a mass given by the bishop of Cork. A very, very solemn guy indeed and very taken indeed with just how solemn he could be in Mitchelstown, around two-thirds of the way through his annual confirmation tour of the county. His pious air was punctured slightly when, while he was walking from one side of the wide church to the other to deliver his sermon, the theme for "The Muppet Show" rang out for maybe thirty seconds on the loudest mobile phone I've ever heard. A moment straight out of Father Ted -- divine!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

PDN wrote:

So would this support the thesis that spending time in the presence of turkeys helps you become an atheist?

it's quite possible.. when I was younger and dustin ran for uh.. something goverment-ee I stuck posters of him up all over town.

dustin is the antichrist now?

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

LOL ... the rise in atheism in the western world can be directly correlated with the increase in turkey consumption, particularly at Christmas

What about Thanksgiving? Are Americans simply immune to the Turkey Effect?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Rather oddly, I became an atheist through a combination of realising that local priests (well, ministers) could not interpret dreams, or even understand them, and realising that I was going to die. I was (perhaps a little precociously) about 8.

That may not seem to make sense, but what it meant to me is that they didn't have a privileged communication channel to God. What use is a priest that can't talk to God? And if they can't talk to God, why not? If they can't talk to God, what on earth are they doing claiming to speak for God? If they can't talk to God, what use are their claims about the "afterlife"? Finally, in the face of the rather serious realisation that death is real, and really applies to you personally, what use was all this stuff they were spouting?

So, I became suspicious...

cordially,
Scofflaw

Rev Hellfire

It’s nice to see so many happy committed atheists:)
I myself would put myself outside both the atheist and theist camps in that I honestly don’t believe that the existence or non-existence of a god (or god matters).
As such I can’t say I’ve had a road to damascus epiphany, rather just a slow realisation that to be able to lead a life in a clear (but not too clear) conscious is all anyone needs do, the rest will take care of itself.

Tar.Aldarion

I was eight, I laughed out loud at the thought of the christian god existing in front of a priest, during some pentecost thing in school, and asked him did he believe in santa too. I was the first person to be put in the schools 'black book'. I wrote a lot of essays as I couldn't stop laughing for some reason. I tried to hide it with a cough hich just made it way louder. Quite an impetuous child.


I got confirmed because of being forced by my parents(and all the dosh), does it could if I just said 'lalala' throughout the ceremony?

finlma

It was a kind of gradual thing for me but my old man never went to mass when I was a youngster. I often remember relations and neighbours giving out about this but I and lots of my friends have total respect for him now for not believing when that wasn't much of an option in Ireland.

It just make sense to me. When I hear Christians laughing at other religions or talking about cults I have a little giggle to myself.
In a way it angers me that so many people believe and can't open their eyes.

Tim Robbins

finlma wrote:

It was a kind of gradual thing for me but my old man never went to mass when I was a youngster. I often remember relations and neighbours giving out about this but I and lots of my friends have total respect for him now for not believing when that wasn't much of an option in Ireland.

It just make sense to me. When I hear Christians laughing at other religions or talking about cults I have a little giggle to myself.
In a way it angers me that so many people believe and can't open their eyes.

How it happened for me?
I believed in God when I was young up to about 11. I thought some of the Bible sounded very strange, and our teacher would just say, you can ask all those questions when you meet God in Heaven!.
In secondry school, the Chaplain told us when we were about 12-13 that there are many Religions in the world and they all believe in something different, and he admitted that they can't all be right and no religion has any good argument that their's is more right they just think that they are right. Our Religion teacher admitted the Gospels were unreliable and then it began to fall apart.
I also used to think, if God does exist and he really is a nice guy, why should I have to go to boring mass, would it not be better if I used my time to do something more beneficial for me or for someone else.
I have to say the situation up the North certainly didn't strengthen the case for organised religion either. It just seemed faith divided people just as much if not more than it brough people good.
It fell apart for me, before I even knew that much about evolution theory etc.

Fallen Seraph

I was quite the pious little chap up until about 13 or so, at which point I just sorta stopped thinking about the whole thing. When I was about 15 or so I just realised that if I hadn't been brought up in the christian faith, that I wouldn't believe any of it, and as such couldn't exactly continue being an honest christian. Around then I became an atheist and went through a wee bit of an evangelical atheist phase, which I'm rather glad to have grown out of. Now I don't particularly consider myself an atheist anymore as such. I don't believe in god or magic and whatnot, but atheist isn't exactly an appropriate label for anyone in my opinion, I mean if you asked someone on the street what their religion was and they replied "theist" you'd not really be enlightened at all as to what they believed: monotheist or polytheist and all of the myriad of subcategories that can go with either of those. Nor do I think myself particulaly a secular humanist; "still browsing" might be the most apt.

Atheism hasn't exactly contributed much to my life other than letting me consider alternative philosophies; which I suppose indirectly makes happier by being able to persue paths to happiness that might actually work for me.
Also the theological debates that were had with my fat, bigoted lummox of a religion teacher in secondary school were a good perk

PDN

Note: This is intended as a friendly post and in no way to hijack the thread. If the mods think it is out of line please delete. PDN

Reading these stories, I was struck by the similarity to many stories that I hear from Christians as to how they came to believe. It seems like we all tend to make decisions either on quite subjective grounds (gut feelings, something just 'felt right' or 'made sense') or when we are still very young and not really that well-informed as to the logic or implications of our decisions. Then, as we get older, we build a logical framework for our belief/unbelief that makes sense to us and is coherent and consistent, but is initially founded on a hunch, the influence of another person, or a step of faith (or even a step of unbelief).

Maybe we are more like each other than we care to admit? That is a friendly observation, not a criticism.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote:

Note: This is intended as a friendly post and in no way to hijack the thread. If the mods think it is out of line please delete. PDN

Reading these stories, I was struck by the similarity to many stories that I hear from Christians as to how they came to believe. It seems like we all tend to make decisions either on quite subjective grounds (gut feelings, something just 'felt right' or 'made sense') or when we are still very young and not really that well-informed as to the logic or implications of our decisions. Then, as we get older, we build a logical framework for our belief/unbelief that makes sense to us and is coherent and consistent, but is initially founded on a hunch, the influence of another person, or a step of faith (or even a step of unbelief).

Maybe we are more like each other than we care to admit? That is a friendly observation, not a criticism.

Yeah good post. I'd agree with that we are all humans at the end of the day. That's the inescapable fact. I think fear is the root of all pyschology.

PS
I am barred from the Christianity forum for questioning the use of the word pathetic in the context of "pathetic argument". PDNs, Hopefully we can continue discussions in the atheist forum.
To Mods of this forum, is it ok to use that word here? If not I rather know now than waste time engaging in debate where an argument cannot be called pathetic.

Scofflaw

PDN wrote:

Note: This is intended as a friendly post and in no way to hijack the thread. If the mods think it is out of line please delete. PDN

Reading these stories, I was struck by the similarity to many stories that I hear from Christians as to how they came to believe. It seems like we all tend to make decisions either on quite subjective grounds (gut feelings, something just 'felt right' or 'made sense') or when we are still very young and not really that well-informed as to the logic or implications of our decisions. Then, as we get older, we build a logical framework for our belief/unbelief that makes sense to us and is coherent and consistent, but is initially founded on a hunch, the influence of another person, or a step of faith (or even a step of unbelief).

Maybe we are more like each other than we care to admit? That is a friendly observation, not a criticism.

There but for the lack of the grace of God go I....

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Tim Robbins wrote:

Yeah good post. I'd agree with that we are all humans at the end of the day. That's the inescapable fact. I think fear is the root of all pyschology.

?

Tim Robbins wrote:

PS
I am barred from the Christianity forum for questioning the use of the word pathetic in the context of "pathetic argument". PDNs, Hopefully we can continue discussions in the atheist forum.
To Mods of this forum, is it ok to use that word here? If not I rather know now than waste time engaging in debate where an argument cannot be called pathetic.

Are you wedded to use of the word 'pathetic', for some reason? Is there simply no way whatsoever that you can't use the term?

perplexed,
Scofflaw

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote:

To Mods of this forum, is it OK to use that word here? If not I rather know now than waste time engaging in debate where an argument cannot be called pathetic.

I am always happy to engage in constructive or reasoned debate. If the idea of someone's argument being pathetic is so vital then, as a freethinker, could you not think an argument is pathetic while actually posting something a bit less subjective?

After all, we all operate under such constraints. For example, I notice that it is OK on this forum to call somebody a "knob-end" if you disagree with them. Now, as a Christian and a gentleman I am far too polite to actually use that term. So, even if I were to think you were being a bit of a "knob-end" I would seek to find a more constructive way of responding to your posts.

But I think we are in danger of hijacking this interesting thread.

Yours Pathetically

PDN

JC 2K3

I myself decided I didn't believe over the course of a year or so when I was 16/17. Did a fair bit of Bible reading, reading of atheist ideas, talking to friends and reading internet discussions and made my mind up.

PDN wrote:

Reading these stories, I was struck by the similarity to many stories that I hear from Christians as to how they came to believe.

Well one of the reasons I made this thread is that I've heard many, many stories of people converting to Christianity or them having strong beliefs in it, whereas with Atheism you don't hear the personal side that often. I understand that since Atheism isn't an organised belief system it's there's not going to be the sense of unity of a organised religion like Christianity or Islam, but I do think it's nice to hear the stories and the personal side of similar minded people and hearing how they came to their conclusions.

While I acknowledge your observation and would tend to agree with it, I'd prefer if such a discussion was left out of this thread.

Sangre

PDN wrote:

It seems like we all tend to make decisions either on quite subjective grounds (gut feelings, something just 'felt right' or 'made sense') or when we are still very young and not really that well-informed as to the logic or implications of our decisions.

Although I can't speak for other people I would think the phrases 'didn't feel right' and 'didn't make sense' would be more applicable to an atheist convert

Asiaprod

I muddled along with Catholicism till quite late in life. As a head alter boy I really enjoyed the pomp and ceremony, but there was never a connection to God. To be honest, I was really against the concept of confession as I could not understand how one could go out and do something bad, then just say a couple of prayers and it was erased. Where was the recompense for the victim. Also the issue of a bunch of men making all these rules to be applied to issues that they had absolutely no experience of (married life, kids, contraception). Then I came to Japan and encountered Buddhism and it just felt like I had finally found something that counted in my life. It was natural, its precepts made complete sense to me. Especially the Buddhist approach to recompense.
As a Buddhists I don't worship god(s), I do have a spiritual component to my life, but I am definitely a very happy Independent, Atheistic Buddhist.

Tim Robbins

Scofflaw wrote:

?

All Humans driven by fear and that is inescapable part of the human condition.

Theists:
Cause: Fear of uncertainty and death.
Effect: Adopt a supernatural belief and do anything to strenghen e.g. accept ancient literature as reliable history or join up with organisations who promote a particular supernatural deity in attempt to make more believable.

Atheists:
Cause: Fear of believing something that has no empiracle data, ogical reasoning, etc.
Effect: Adopt atheism.

I think this could be going off the OP a bit, maybe you want to reply we could take it in a separate thread?