How FRPGs helped me become an atheist

[tenuki]

I'm from a conservative, modestly affluent rural area and was raised as a Catholic. Pretty much everybody around me went to church every Sunday. We said grace before every meal. My parents would read to me from the bible at bedtime, and we'd sing a hymn before lights out. I went to confession periodically and even felt relieved sometimes afterwards (when I hadn't made up 'sins' when none came to mind in order to avoid accusations of pride). I guess I was pretty thoroughly indoctrinated.

One of my main reading interests when I was little were myths and legends. Icelandic sagas, the Argonauts, Gilgamesh, the Shahnameh, the Mahabharata, the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied ... I gobbled up everything I could get my grubby little fingers on in the library. This reading exposed me to a lot of ideas about the divine that had very little to do with a triune god, salvation from sin and all the other doctrinal trappings of my own professed faith.

I 'knew' at the time that the gods in the stories were just in the stories, while God was God. Then again, I also remember wistfully thinking that the gods in the stories did stuff that was way cooler than sending your son off to die to make up for a guy taking a bite from an apple ages ago.

My FRPG career sstarted when I was 11 or 12. There were all kinds of religions I knew somebody had made up only a few years ago for the game. Something clicked then. These religions didn't seem to make any less sense than the stuff I was told to believe in church. I realized I could make up a religion tomorrow that would be as justifiable as any of those and therefore, by implication, Christianity.

Later on I read a lot of actual philosophy in school (Greek classics, English empiricists, Kant, Feuerbach, Hegel, Marx, etc.), which did a lot to refine my position on the issue. But it was through FRPG that I first learned that all religions are equally valid -- including the ones I made up for my own entertainment.

[nockermensch]

This only leads to labels on RPG/Fantasy books saying: "WARNING: THIS PRODUCT CAN CAUSE CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT RELIGIONS."

Do you think this is too idiotic to happen? Think again.

[RobbyPants]

That's funny.

To be honest, posting here is actually a descent part of the reason I became atheist. For over half a decade, I'd been sweeping a lot of uncomfortable thoughts under the rug, refusing to give them a second thought.

The other big part was my wife getting pregnant for the first time, and I realized that if I were going to be teaching this to someone else, I'd have to know I was actually on board with it myself. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn't.

Ahhh, cognitive dissonance, you make us do such stupid things, sometimes.

[erik]

I became an atheist the same way everyone does the first time. Birth.

Religion never took despite having to go to church/sunday school every week for my first 13 years. Closest I came to being religious was testing out superstitions when I was 6 or 7, I tried wishing on a star.

[sabs]

That just means you didn't wish hard enough/wasn't worthy of God's Love

God is apparently a politician.

When things go well, it's because he blessed you.
When things go badly, it's cause you're a screw up and unworthy.

[Hicks]

I can't speak for the other major religions, or minor cults, but in Christianity and Judaism good and bad events happen to faithful and sinful people regardless of faith or any action on the human's part; one of the entire points of the boook of Job is that only actions that God allows can be done, and nothing is allowed to happen that is not approved by God. We are promised elsewere that God only allows events which will bring glorify God, and that for now we see God's plan as "through a glass, dimly", and are unaware just how everything fits together for his glory, but that is where faith comes in.

[tenuki]

Depends on your brand of Christianity. Catholicism teaches that saints may intercede with God on your behalf if you ask nicely. Other Christians also pray for all kinds of things.

All except the most fringe ones (like the crackpots who believe that 911 was God's punishment for allowing gays to serve in the U.S. military) have this caveat about the unknowability of God's plan, because faith and testable hypotheses don't go well with each other.

[Chamomile]

So what you're saying is that Jack Chick was spot on?

[tenuki]

So what you're saying is that Jack Chick was spot on?

Chick went on about satanism and the occult. If you ditch religion to get into that shit, you haven't learned anything.

[PhoneLobster]

I became an atheist the same way everyone does the first time. Birth.

Same here without the church to contend with.

I just, as a result of never believing the god thing as anything other than a myth, had this weird thing in primary school started and they wanted to send me to a scripture class.

It was like your a kid, you've known this santa claus thing was a big crock since before you can remember, and suddenly everyone is demanding to know which "santa claus is real" cult you belong to so they can assign you to santa claus worship lessons.

Freaked me the crap out.

They eventually settled on putting me in the "Anglican" lessons. Which is where they put ALL the "Atheists" and "Agnostics" and anyone who's religion (or not) started with A. Knowing all the jokes about Anglican "faith" that I do now that's funnier than it was at the time.

It was also pretty telling that in the later years of primary school we rebelled and asked some rather critical questions of our trained priests who taught the scripture lessons. And the trained priests couldn't answer us like AT all. The questioning of their faith by young children was more than they could actually respond to. But then again. These WERE "Anglican" priests, so chances were good they were actually Atheists and Agnostics too...

[ckafrica]

I've just had a child with my Vietnamese wife which is going to make religion a tad bit interesting. I'm a lapsed Athiest (doesn't subscribe to any religion but participates -- really goes through the motions -- in the occasional religious ceremony to placate loved ones) and my wife sort of follows the confucian-animist-buddhist melange that is predominant here. My concern is mostly the confucian elements which I attribute as the root much of what is wrong with this country but also the animist superstitions that are pervasive. I'm guessing regular reality chats with the boy will be in order and telling him what my daddy told me "Son, your mother has lots of crazy ideas and will want you to do a bunch of crazy shit; most of the time its just not worth the fight compared to the amount of effort required to placate her."

[Libertad]

I'm not an atheist, but an agnostic.

I felt uncomfortable with the Abrahamic religions after reading passages from the Old Testament in my high school class. The Book of Job really caused me to question God's morality, if he did exist at all. It just didn't make sense that God would be described as such a loving person when he sold his own people into slavery, instructed his followers to slaughter entire villages down to the babies and cattle, and other examples of "heavenly wrath." Something wasn't right.

Over time I realized that many religious organizations have fallen from the founders' intentions, and that the holy books are subject to translation errors when being updated to modern tongues. A lot of religious people pick and choose what rules to follow (even the fundamentalists; just don't tell them that!). I figured that I would not dedicate myself to any religion unless I 100% believed that it was true and consistent through and through, and that it's God or Gods were morally upright people. And I have yet to find such a religion.

[Starmaker]

My mom used to go to school with a girl who had some sort of horrible skin disease (cracks, blood, baldness, etc). When I developed a mild rash on my hands, she freaked out and started taking me to folk healers and witch doctors. One of the folk healers told her I was possessed by the devil and needed baptizing to drive the devil out (it didn't). I thought it was all fun and games because I didn't know Mom was paying money for this shit.

I also used a hand cream which contained (so Mom told me - it probably didn't) MALE HORMONE. She blames me not being "feminine" enough on that cream (and the "gay agenda" in the media, and bad company).

Mom sort of snapped out if it - I didn't notice when because I didn't consider her crazy then. The topic is taboo so I don't know what caused her to snap out. I stopped wearing the cross when the chain broke - Mom promised to buy me another but never did. I still keep the Saint Irina charm, though, because, unlike most Orthodox icons, it actually depicts a pretty human woman in a crown, not a lemur. (And I still have a rash, but nothing so severe that it can't be fixed with three $15 drips a year).

Only now my dad (who had always been an atheist and only put up with Mom's interest in the supernatural because we had the money and he figured out he could spare some to avoid family arguments) is born-again and reads prayers in Slavic Orthodox. Holy fuck.

[tenuki]

Only now my dad (who had always been an atheist and only put up with Mom's interest in the supernatural because we had the money and he figured out he could spare some to avoid family arguments) is born-again and reads prayers in Slavic Orthodox. Holy fuck.

Recommended reading: "The Quantity Theory of Insanity" by Will Self. The story is about a psychiatrist who tries to establish scientifically that the total amount of batshit in any closed (social) system remains constant. And succeeds. Hilarious.

[DSMatticus]

My parents weren't really practicing anythings, but they went through the motions because my grandma would have had a heart attack if her dear grandson's immortal soul were in danger. It never really internalized, though, and at some point I started actually looking at the 'religion' to which I was unemphatically subscribed and decided it needed to go the fuck away and I would not be associating with it anymore.

I really don't know how anyone can read the bible or listen to the religious and political positions held by modern religious thinkers and not instantly abandon ship. You have to turn off your brain to swallow that shit.

[Doom]

Between going to Catholic School, Baptist School, and a couple of other non-government schools, I knew too much about each of them to think any of them could be right.

[Red_Rob]

Really, Doom? So what was with all the anti-athiest shit here?

[Stahlseele]

If i were to go with any kind of belief-system, i'd chose either the roman/greek gods of old or the northern pantheon . .
Else, no religion for me, thank you very much . .
I got kicked out of more than one church when i was younger.

Sad how every religion is able to produce evidence of how other religions are wrong, but not one of them can produce evidence how they are right.

[Doom]

Really, Doom? So what was with all the anti-athiest shit here?

Certainly, there are atheists so bitterly defensive about their beliefs that they'll misremember imagined affronts and attack people for daring to say things that might be interpreted as heresy (whether such things are said or not) long after such hallucinated affronts may have occurred, but this rather reinforces the point I made there.

That said, just as there are "Jews against zionism" and members of other religions that protest or dare to acknowledge certain flaws in their religion, so too can a normal person conceive of the possibility that there may be an issue or two in atheism.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Really, Doom? So what was with all the anti-athiest shit here?

Doom is religiously Atheist rather than basing it on any sort of evidence.

[Red_Rob]

Certainly, there are atheists so bitterly defensive about their beliefs that they'll misremember imagined affronts and attack people for daring to say things that might be interpreted as heresy (whether such things are said or not) long after such hallucinated affronts may have occurred, but this rather reinforces the point I made there.

I'm sorry, in a thread about how someone became atheist you made a post stating you had been to religious schools and did not believe "any of them" could be right. I assumed you were saying you weren't religious. But in the other thread you made statements like "atheist are just hypocrites out to game the system", which made me assume you were religious. I was, and am, genuinely confused.

[Doom]

Well, read that thread again more carefully. It was K that said "The fact that they created some propaganda that passes the various legal definitions of a religion is just gaming the system, " I guess I should have emphasized that it's SOME atheists, instead of K's sweeping generalization, but besides that, I merely agreed with him. Go and be pissed off at him for saying that.

As for me, I believe you don't have to be religious to be a hypocrite.

[DSMatticus]

I was, and am, genuinely confused.

I have no fucking idea, either. Putting aside his terrible arguments for why atheism is a religion, every post he made, including the one where he claimed to be an atheist, included atheist-bashing. If you wanted to try and make heads and tails of it, I'm guessing he thinks atheism and Atheism are different things, and he's one of those 'respectable, mind-your-business atheists,' and he hates those 'dirty, in-your-face Atheists.'

In the same way that if you go to church every Sunday, you're christian with a 'c,' and if you invite your neighbors, you're Christian with a 'C.'

In the same way that if you don't eat animal products, you're a vegan with a 'v,' but if you tell people who eat animal products they're evil, you're Vegan with a 'V.'

In the same way that if you believe in utilitarianism, it's utilitarianism with a 'u,' and if you try to persuade other people to your ethical theory, it's Utiltarianism with a 'U.'

In the same way that if you understand math, you're a mathematician with an 'm,' and if you teach math, you're a Mathematician with an 'M.'

Basically, his criteria for a religion appears to be "a belief system with people who try to spread it," so everything anyone's ever talked to you about is a religion. But you can also be the thing that the religion is about without being in the religion by not talking about it to other people, and you denote the difference by proper capitalization. More comprehensible theory: Doom is a conservative atheist, so he is constantly bombarded with anti-atheist propaganda, and this is his nonsensical attempt to rationalize his self-identity with the fact that he is supposed to hate atheists whenever they do something that reminds the world they exist.

[Doom]

No, I don't hate anyone, you liar. Nor was 'every post' including atheist bashing...not even sure there was one, but I'm sure you can continue to lie and twist things around. Liar. Again.

As for the rest of your screed: more lies. Liar. Again.

In short: bad liar. Stop lying!

every post he made, including the one where he claimed to be an atheist, included atheist-bashing.

Because I don't expect anyone to look up his lies to see that they are lies, here is my post where I say I'm an atheist. See with your own eyes if I bash atheism in this (posted in response to someone complaining about being harassed by atheists of some sort):

I don't speak for all atheists, of course, but I'm an atheist, and I'm sorry if some other members of my belief system have harassed you in some way. I don't believe it's really part of Atheist doctrine to 'witness' in that way...but we're not the only religion where the proselytizers sometimes get a little too overzealous and try to cram their beliefs down other people's throats.

{quote removed here, from confused person who thought the because of my atheism I must love my government and authority in general, and that I have no ability to have abstract thought}

On the one hand, you must be talking about me here...but on other, you can't be. I can certainly imagine non-religious people, and have demonstrated the ability to be successful in a profession where abstract thought is critical. Time and again I've demonstrated lack of trust in hierarchical situations, and make most of my decisions in contravention to 'official' statements of how to think.

An atheist doesn't have to love the State at all, I promise you.

Reading Kaelik's post, I see there's confusion about Atheism and atheism....it's about the same as comparing Buddhism and monotheism, and in this sense, yes, atheism isn't a religion any more than monotheism is.

So liar, where's the bashing in that?

None, of course. And, once again, the fact that some zealots feel the need to engage in this sort of pathetic, lying, behavior demonstrates the point I made before.

[K]

That thread made me decide that Doom had adopted Atheism as perceived of by Christians and conservatives. This means he has a very low opinion of it even as he identifies with it, and he believes a lot of propaganda as fact.

Once you see it like that, it's no odder than Satanism. It's a protest religious choice and he'll convert back to Christianity at some point when he finds a good church or he has a brush with mortality.

For another example, there was that politician Christine O'Donnell, the Delaware Republican of the "I'm not a witch" fame. She honestly thinks that she tried out various religions and then went back to Christianity, but it was just protest and she grew out of it.

That being said, I'm totally on his side now. He deserves the right to believe whatever religious doctrine helps him get through the day. As an atheist, I don't find that threatening at all unless it's being used as a justification for public policy.