Scary title right?
In this blog post, I want to discuss the downsides of leaving a religious faith by becoming an atheist. While many atheists talk about how great becoming an atheist is (mind-expanding, liberating, etc.), the difficulties are often not discussed (or the general process). For me, becoming an atheist took a few years. The source of my atheism was the nagging skepticism; I would often think the following things..
"Is all of this real?"
"How can I know my religion is the right religion?"
"What if there is no God?"
"If God can read my mind when I pray, doesn't He already know what I want?"
"There can't be a God, otherwise my life would be better"
"How can God allow that to happen?" (whenever I would hear something horrible on the news, etc.)
"Am I wasting my time praying?"
"Why is believing important?"
"Why aren't we judged only by our actions?"
"What if I'm wrong?"
As far as I can remember back, I was always skeptical about my Christian faith. I always wondered if it was real (especially in the repressed part of the back of my mind). I suppose what really brought my skepticism out was the internet. I would surf around, looking for information about religion and atheism. This may sound all well and good, but at the time, it was terrifying. This was because during this moment, my world-view was being flipped on its head - source of existence, meaning of life, sense of purpose, security, source of morality - all of which were severely disrupted.
For me, becoming an atheist was a scary process...but, it was needed due to my paranoia of believing false information. I'm the sort of person that finds it very difficult to trust people, and I believe part of that is due to the awareness of having been fed false information for the greater part of my life (up until the age of 16-17, I considered myself to be a Christian...more specifically, Methodist).
Becoming an atheist for me made a lot of sense, due to my skeptical nature...but at the same time, it was far from an easy process. The way an atheist views the world is much different than a believer does. If a person becomes a full-blown atheist relatively rapidly (over a few days/months), it can be very disturbing psychologically. I suppose one of the biggest issues I faced was the fear of death - I was led to believe that I would live forever, it was very depressing thinking about the permanence of death (no more heaven). The concept of mortality wasn't thought about much for me because I always would fall back on heaven. In other words, someone going from Christianity to atheism can be susceptible (or at least I was) to things like depression, stress, and anxiety.
Am I glad that I became an atheist? I suppose I have to be, there is no going back at this point. However, I do recognize the consoling aspects of Christianity. The nice thing about becoming an atheist is that it makes a person scramble (or it did for me) to understand the universe (believing God did it all took the mystery out of life). I believe becoming an atheist should be done very slowly, and a person should legitimately think about the issue (some people blindly go to atheism merely because they view it as the intellectually superior position and/or peer pressure). Newly converted atheists should immediately try to replace their shattered world-views with ones that don't conflict with atheism (with meaning of life, morality, purpose, etc.) - doing so helps rebalance a person to emotional equilibrium much faster.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post (for the sake of irony). Thanks very much for stopping by :)
In this blog post, I want to discuss the downsides of leaving a religious faith by becoming an atheist. While many atheists talk about how great becoming an atheist is (mind-expanding, liberating, etc.), the difficulties are often not discussed (or the general process). For me, becoming an atheist took a few years. The source of my atheism was the nagging skepticism; I would often think the following things..
"Is all of this real?"
"How can I know my religion is the right religion?"
"What if there is no God?"
"If God can read my mind when I pray, doesn't He already know what I want?"
"There can't be a God, otherwise my life would be better"
"How can God allow that to happen?" (whenever I would hear something horrible on the news, etc.)
"Am I wasting my time praying?"
"Why is believing important?"
"Why aren't we judged only by our actions?"
"What if I'm wrong?"
As far as I can remember back, I was always skeptical about my Christian faith. I always wondered if it was real (especially in the repressed part of the back of my mind). I suppose what really brought my skepticism out was the internet. I would surf around, looking for information about religion and atheism. This may sound all well and good, but at the time, it was terrifying. This was because during this moment, my world-view was being flipped on its head - source of existence, meaning of life, sense of purpose, security, source of morality - all of which were severely disrupted.
For me, becoming an atheist was a scary process...but, it was needed due to my paranoia of believing false information. I'm the sort of person that finds it very difficult to trust people, and I believe part of that is due to the awareness of having been fed false information for the greater part of my life (up until the age of 16-17, I considered myself to be a Christian...more specifically, Methodist).
Becoming an atheist for me made a lot of sense, due to my skeptical nature...but at the same time, it was far from an easy process. The way an atheist views the world is much different than a believer does. If a person becomes a full-blown atheist relatively rapidly (over a few days/months), it can be very disturbing psychologically. I suppose one of the biggest issues I faced was the fear of death - I was led to believe that I would live forever, it was very depressing thinking about the permanence of death (no more heaven). The concept of mortality wasn't thought about much for me because I always would fall back on heaven. In other words, someone going from Christianity to atheism can be susceptible (or at least I was) to things like depression, stress, and anxiety.
Am I glad that I became an atheist? I suppose I have to be, there is no going back at this point. However, I do recognize the consoling aspects of Christianity. The nice thing about becoming an atheist is that it makes a person scramble (or it did for me) to understand the universe (believing God did it all took the mystery out of life). I believe becoming an atheist should be done very slowly, and a person should legitimately think about the issue (some people blindly go to atheism merely because they view it as the intellectually superior position and/or peer pressure). Newly converted atheists should immediately try to replace their shattered world-views with ones that don't conflict with atheism (with meaning of life, morality, purpose, etc.) - doing so helps rebalance a person to emotional equilibrium much faster.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post (for the sake of irony). Thanks very much for stopping by :)
Great post. Luckily I never experienced the dissonance and fear that you describe. I was pretty young when i decided that i no longer believed in God. Did you go through this process with other people supportive of your beliefs and questioning?
ReplyDeleteThanks :)
ReplyDeleteMy family seemed supportive of it. Actually my mother and sisters ended up becoming atheists as well. I would say people were generally supportive of it.