An atheist's confession
By Bob P
I talked to God.
I waited… and waited… and waited...
No answer.
God must be busy, I concluded. Adults told me that God always answers prayer. That's OK, I'm still young, I thought.
So I talked to God again…
and waited…
and waited...
Perhaps God doesn't listen to young people?
Then I began to wonder, who does God talk to? Who was the last person to whom God saw fit to communicate? Back then, I was a boy scout who had earned my God and Country Award and was a member of the Methodist Church. The church had youth activities and I rather enjoyed that. At about the same time, I received my Eagle Scout badge.
At age 16 I was able to talk my folks into buying me a car. It was an old 1931 junker that took constant maintenance; I became quite proficient at keeping it running on a small budget. It had a rumble seat, and that was kind of cool in 1950. By 1951, I had overhauled the engine, rewired it completely, and had it running quite reliably. Because of my Boy Scout background, I was able to get a Saturday job delivering flowers in a 1950 panel truck. In 1951, along with two friends, I was able to get my amateur radio operators license (which I have to this day). Life was getting better, and God had nothing to do with it.
I discovered that my two friends with whom I had earned my amateur radio license were atheists. The gears begin to grind: Did I really ever believe in a god, or was that just fulfilling what adults thought I should believe? I thought I believed in God, but I never had the sense I was being constantly watched, nor did I ever feel any guilt for doubting. Perhaps I was really a doubter all along. It all became blatantly obvious: man creates the gods for power and control, and god is just the mechanism used to perpetuate it. It's all a SCAM! It provides a comfortable living for a bunch of holy men too lazy to be plumbers or too dumb to be lawyers! What's more, it’s not only a scam, it’s the PERFECT scam. It can promise anything, it delivers nothing, it begs instead of working for its money, it's not taxed, and it's perfectly legal! At the same time, the 'sheep' of the flock are happy with the situation! How do you say, "Thank yew Jayesus?"
I would have considered taking up the ministry, but I could never have contained the laughter.
So here I am, some 55 years later at 73 years of age.
Was I ever sorry I gave up religion? Not in the least! For the last 20 years, I have become an open and outspoken atheist. I'm not sure how many people I have acquainted to the process of reason, logic and science over blind faith, but I believe it's more than a few.
Someone once told me I wear my atheism on my sleeve, I had to correct them by explaining I PROUDLY wear my atheism both on my sleeve AND on my cap.
I talked to God.
I waited… and waited… and waited...
No answer.
God must be busy, I concluded. Adults told me that God always answers prayer. That's OK, I'm still young, I thought.
So I talked to God again…
and waited…
and waited...
Perhaps God doesn't listen to young people?
Then I began to wonder, who does God talk to? Who was the last person to whom God saw fit to communicate? Back then, I was a boy scout who had earned my God and Country Award and was a member of the Methodist Church. The church had youth activities and I rather enjoyed that. At about the same time, I received my Eagle Scout badge.
At age 16 I was able to talk my folks into buying me a car. It was an old 1931 junker that took constant maintenance; I became quite proficient at keeping it running on a small budget. It had a rumble seat, and that was kind of cool in 1950. By 1951, I had overhauled the engine, rewired it completely, and had it running quite reliably. Because of my Boy Scout background, I was able to get a Saturday job delivering flowers in a 1950 panel truck. In 1951, along with two friends, I was able to get my amateur radio operators license (which I have to this day). Life was getting better, and God had nothing to do with it.
I discovered that my two friends with whom I had earned my amateur radio license were atheists. The gears begin to grind: Did I really ever believe in a god, or was that just fulfilling what adults thought I should believe? I thought I believed in God, but I never had the sense I was being constantly watched, nor did I ever feel any guilt for doubting. Perhaps I was really a doubter all along. It all became blatantly obvious: man creates the gods for power and control, and god is just the mechanism used to perpetuate it. It's all a SCAM! It provides a comfortable living for a bunch of holy men too lazy to be plumbers or too dumb to be lawyers! What's more, it’s not only a scam, it’s the PERFECT scam. It can promise anything, it delivers nothing, it begs instead of working for its money, it's not taxed, and it's perfectly legal! At the same time, the 'sheep' of the flock are happy with the situation! How do you say, "Thank yew Jayesus?"
I would have considered taking up the ministry, but I could never have contained the laughter.
So here I am, some 55 years later at 73 years of age.
Was I ever sorry I gave up religion? Not in the least! For the last 20 years, I have become an open and outspoken atheist. I'm not sure how many people I have acquainted to the process of reason, logic and science over blind faith, but I believe it's more than a few.
Someone once told me I wear my atheism on my sleeve, I had to correct them by explaining I PROUDLY wear my atheism both on my sleeve AND on my cap.
Comments
I want that level of gumption. Firmly, politely, DEFINITELY atheist without all the militant tendencies.
Good for you.
You rock!!
I should give it a listen again
John, WB9OFG
Fanatics come in all varieties.
Let's look at jeremy's key words and phrases he uses to sway us to his side of gawd believer
jeremy wrote:
>God has spoken to me many times,
How many times have we heard that god spoke to a person, but that person was the only one around who heard 'said god' speak.
> the problem with people nowadays is that we want immideate responses.
Versus what,? Waiting 2000+ years for an answer?
>,there are somethings we dont understand about God (Jesus Christ).
Someone please add this to the list of EXCUSES I want to make up that xtians use all the time.
> The day I became a christian and confessed my sins I began to cry, I felt horrible about the things I did, and the way that I was acting towards God.
Notice the all too common strong EMOTIONS, but nothing from intellect going on here.
> Then, all of a sudden I just wanted to preach the word of God, and to me this sounded weird, just a couple minutes ago I hated going to church.
So your emotional experience changed your priorities.
Doesn't the emotion of lust also make us change our priorities from time to time.
Oh yeah I forgot, lust comes from god and is also holy...silly me.
> So I got baptized, two months later, and ofcourse through this period of time I thought I just had an emotional experience and not one with God...
If you would have stopped right here, you might not be deluded today.
> so I got baptized, it was a wonderful experience
Experience in this case means, emotional experience....from your own MIND and nowhere else.
> Now, some of you can say, this is pure coincidence, but to me it was not,
The key phrase here is...."TO ME IT WAS NOT".
It was his personal experience, one of his own creation and has no external proof to back it up.
Sometimes Jeremy, coincidences happen by chance, other times we lend a hand into making them happen, but don't allow ourselves to see we did just that.
>And showed me that He really does love, and care for us
Was this a vision where he showed you he loves us all or did he perhaps give you a new book that proclaims this?
It couldn't possibly be that your own mind generated these love thoughts, right Jeremy.
>Why me?? I had no intention of being part of the church....I'd love to tell you guys about more experiences that I had, but I'm not going to ramble on about things you don't want to hear, but if you do, please tell me I'd love top tell you.
Jeremy, can you grasp how MANY such stories like yours we've all heard before.
Each and every one cites evidence of one's emotions and thoughts of one's own mind.
There is never anything of a verifiable supernatural nature to offer a skeptical thinker.
In fact, the UFO folks have far more evidence going for them than xtians like you do with your personal experiences of your own mind's creation.
Think about this Jeremy.......If god was truly real and wanted all humankind to know he really is around, he wouldn't do meager tricks with arrowheads and having one read a bible verse that just happens to fit some agenda of the day.
He would perform some true miracle that most of the world could never doubt.
In fact, it's pretty darn ridiculous that such a wonderful loving god refuses to perform any miracles, as he did throughout the OT and NT for humans.
Were those humans back in those days somehow more deserving of god's big miracles than we are today?
What are we, chopped liver here?
How many converts would god get if he were to move just ONE mountain for humanity.
Oh gosh, that of course would be cheating the game he plays with us......a CHILD's game that is.
I know Jeremy that your personal experience FEELS so real to you, just as many xtians make the same claim for their own personal saving experiences.
However, the claims made are no different than the woo-woo folks have for their special supernatural claims they wish for us to swallow.
It's all subjective and personal and never a shared experience with tangible positive proof.
So yeah, go right ahead and live in your personal delusion you made for yourself.
Like happened to so many here that were at one time just as sure as you are now, you might wake up one day and realize you've been totally DUPED by your own emotions and the folks who wish to suck you into their way of thinking.....not to mention, get your money in the process.
ATF
Jeremy, by the way......where I live, the farmland is littered with arrowheads. Most farmers have shoe boxes, quart jars, and paper sacks full of arrowheads. And you think that finding an arrowhead is god's special dealing with you? Darling, grow the fucking hell up.
And now I will tell you about my own experiences. I do not hear voices. I do not experience miracles. I do not see signs in the heavens. This is what I do experience: I experience self-respect. I experience the love of my friends. I do not experience guilt and shame. But then, I am telling you what YOU don't want to hear.
Ta Ta, mon cheri
What has likely happened, is that you may have gone through a rough period in life(like every human being does, sooner or later) and in an attempt to feel that someone greater than yourself is "listening"; that someone greater than yourself actually "cares" about lil' ol' you, you interpret "signs", and/or chance circumstances, as "God speaking" to you. I'm sorry, this is not the case. Most of us have been in your shoes, yet, we now know that we were deluding ourselves, mainly, because we wanted to believe it---the same as you are doing now.
If you'd've found your "arrowhead" in, say, Manhattan, it would be a little more impressive. Yet, you found it where?...on a FARM near a LAKE? Hello? That's really not so unheard of, is it? Notwithstanding, ask yourself---why would the alleged Creator of the Universe have to mickey-mouse around by showing human beings vague and ambiguous signs to convince them of it's existence? Would you stop and objectively ponder the absurdity of that notion for a minute?
Furthermore, if, 2000 yrs ago, a "God" allegedly morphed into a smoldering shrub, a snake, and domestic ass, and further, it spoke perfect Hebrew to human beings, then why can't that same "God" morph into shrubs, animals, or anything else it chooses, and actually "speak" to us now? Is it really because we "can't understand God's ways"? Or is that a cop-out, and chances are, biblegod doesn't exist? I say the latter.
Bob, W0EWR
Thank you - I'm 43 and still deeply TRAPPED in the Christian culture and working my way out - Hopefully, in a few years (I deconverted in April) I'll be like you and open, out front. I really want to bring my wife and kids along for the ride - It's gonna be a long journey. Thanks for the inspiration.
I really want to bring my wife and kids along for the ride - It's gonna be a long journey
--
Liniasmax.
I don't recall how old your kids are, but I have a feeling it'll be far easier to bring them along for the ride than your xtian wife. Kids just adapt easier to such changes, than most adults can. I would think the longer one is on that xtian ride, the harder it is to coax that person off it......Assuming here that no major event woke that long term xtian up from religion.
Also, it was your intellect that made you see the flaw of religion, just like it was for myself.
If your wife's attraction to religion is one of emotion and/or the social aspects of it all, rather than her thinking she has made that choice via her own intellect, then you'll have a tough time reaching her with your new logical way of seeing the world.
You also need to ask yourself how she would fare if you took away her sacred beliefs via debate and logic. The journey you yourself are already on is not an easy one, as you've indicated. How would your wife handle that same journey?
That is a question I've asked myself about my own xtian wife, as you know.
I think if a person is naturally self-assured they will fare far better than a person who relies upon their imaginary god and it's holy words, to give them strength and guidance to get them thru each day.
Just some food for thought is all.
I sure do wish you the best in whatever you decide !!
ATF
I guess your experience is real...to you.
I have a story too. I am a F1 fan. In 1994 in May, one of the best drivers of F1 Ayrton Senna died in the San Marino Grand Prix. I was a (or an?) Alain Prost at that time, but the news was devastating anyway. Ayrton was only 34 years 2 months old.
That same year when I was 34 years 2 months old (it was November 1994) my brother and I had a major accident in Medford, Oregon. My car did a 360 and flipped. All the windows got smashed. One of the roof supports bent big time. Luckily my brother and I survived. And...I got to thank the nice people in Medford who without hesitance helped us (the state police and the fire people supported us...the fire people asked us to sign a waiver...I asked what is it for? They said it's so we cannot sue them. I said the accident is entirely my fault so there's no way I am going to sue them. I should sue myself. he he he!) Anyway this is the funny thing. I was Christian back then (I am deist now.) so I told my brother a guardian angel saved us. Now?...I don't believe that anymore. Why? I just used logic. A week before our accident a minister's 17 year old daughter died on a bridge very near our accident site. Now if a guardian angel really saved us, why didn't the guardian angel of that girl save her? Was the guardian angel sleeping? He he he! You figure it out! There was no guardian angel...we survived by luck...she died because of bad luck...that's all!
Peace!
Danny
I like your style. It has humor and it makes sense, IMHO. Keep it up.
One of my favorites lived in the 1800’s Robert Ingersoll, and he was my first exposure to a real man stepping into the ring with Hebrew-God. I stumbled across one his books quite by accident over 20 years ago. If you remember how invincible Mike Tyson used to be in boxing ring, well I thought that Robert Ingersoll was going to get whooped the same way by the God of Moses. As I flipped through the book, it started to turn out like the Tyson’s Buster Douglas fight, Ingersol was just bitch slappin’ Bible God around the ring and I couldn’t believe it. A mere man wasn’t supposed to win. I couldn’t believe how skillfully Ingersoll was beating The God of Moses, Noah, David, Joshua; all the bible tough guys. I only read about 20-30 pages of the book because I was starting to become afraid, I thought it was better for me to forget what I saw, I was no way near in shape to take on Bible God, even though I just saw an old man do it. Ingersoll fearlessly exposed the brutality of the Old Testament desert god.
I was unable to confront that for myself again until about 20 years later, just last year, 2006 with the help of godisimaginary.com. and jesusneverexisted.com. and the good folks at ex-christian.net.
Also, around 20 yrs ago I met the AMAZING JAMES RANDI ( www.randi.org ) who is best known for exposing psychic frauds. Cool guy, dry humor , and he and his skeptic friends and authors would take on all comers , they were mere mortals stepping into the ring with gods( yeah plural!) . I was always afraid that this genuinely likable bright atheist would also get Bible God pissed off and therefore kicked off the planet. That was around 20 years ago and Randi didn’t get struck with lighting back then and recently survived what I understand was serious surgery.
So you see, there was a friggin 20 year gap before it all started to come together for me. That is the controlling power of fear. Religious tyrants have used and manipulated us for years with fear and demands of sacrifice. It is the brave and too few who speak out against these ridiculous belief systems that helped to free myself and others.
The key things that mattered in the wisdom of these old guys is that they approached their topic of discussion without shrieking or political correctness, they basically said “here is what I observed , see if you see it for yourself too”.
Thanks to all the older and wiser men and women that dare to see what you see and say out loud. It may take a few years for the person you are trying to help actually “get it”.
I suspect I, too, will be an old man ( Gee I hope to be an old man one day) and someone will think of how one or two things I shared helped to free them from the hell of the Holy Buy Bull.
First of all, a big congratulations to you on finally winning back your mind. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been. 20 years is a long time, but you did it.
Your comments support my hope/suspicion that some of the die-hard Christian visitors here may actually leave with something useful; something that could later blossom into critical thinking. It takes time to assimilate new ways of thinking (or a new world view), and it can be very disorienting. As I've said here before, it's like scrapping one scaffold for another; if the new one isn't strong enough yet, one tends to cling to the old one until it is. If a purely natural world seems to scary or incomprehensible, one will stick with the (perceived) comfort of the supernatural.
I too am a fan of Robert Ingersoll and James Randi. Have you read anything by Carl Sagan? I highly recommend "The Demon Haunted World".
All the best to you. And welcome to the "real" world! (From one of the junior-geezers here.)
Seriously now, mon petite cher, we cannot talk to you as one would talk to a responsible adult. You are just sulking and petulant because we laughed at your cute pretensions. You really need to get over yourself. You remind me of a child playing dress-up.
And jeremy, you poor deluded darling, no matter what you had found, you'd find some way of thinking that it was from god. If you had found a coin, or a spent shell casing, or a handful of pig shit, you'd find divine significance in them.
Oh, I'm sure it was. He was confirming his identiy by showing you artefacts of a people (heathen savages!) exterminated by His followers, the Europeans (in His name of course, Manifest Destiny and all). Proof he's that same ol' war-mongering, genocidal maniac the Isrealites followed.
You should be proud of listening to the voices in your head (how'd that work out for David Berkowitz by the way?), and following WarGod.
Jeremy, I have a question for you. Is it okay for someone to disagree with you? Honestly. Think about it. Would it be okay with you if I hold a few opinions that are different from yours? How about the others here? Is it maybe okay for them too? Please? Can we please have your kind permission to not believe every single thing you do? (We even have some good reasons, but apparently you have no interest in those.)
I know what I say won't make any difference to you. It wouldn't have made any difference to me several years ago. You see, I was just like you. I cried when I repented of my sins, I cried when I heard emotional sermons from the pulpit, and I cried when I read stories of children dying tragic deaths. But you see, I was different then. I only saw what the church wanted me to see.
These days I've been healed of that bs. I know now that I was living a lie and my hope is that you will see the light soon. All it takes is using your logic and reason and putting your faith to the test. You have nothing to lose but your delusions, and you don't need them at all, do you??
What didn't he just use my native tongue?
Thanks for the recommendation of CarlSagan’s book. I couldn’t read it when he was alive, because … well… he was going to hell. Yeah that was the word on Bible street, For some reason James Randi was probably forgivable because he wasn’t so much anti-Christian as he was anti-dishonesty, and I figure even Jesus had to enjoy reading his exposes on con artists. I figured I’d put in a good word for him with the bouncer at that gates of Heaven and just say something like “Ok Randi I’m gonna get you in but don’t be startin’ no #&%* cause it will make me look bad too.” “ I’ll tell Jesus you just hate dishonesty and I’m sure he’ll respect that so just be cool ok?
Interestingly enough I met other Christians that appreciate James Randi but when they were around skeptics they felt they had to be silent about their Christian beliefs. They tended to be more the peace loving and forgiving kind rather than the hellfire and damnation type. Damnation Christians don’t really like ANYbody.
Now if this sound pretty unbelievable to you well, I gotta tell you how dumb I feel right now too and only the truly sincere kind honest ex- Bible believer can know the feeling of how dumb I can feel for having bought into this.
Now as to why it took so many years. Many good decent Christians are dealing with day to day issues of survival , they don’t have time for research. People that have good paying 8 hour a day jobs haven’t really got an understanding of how little time there is for research when you are working 2 or 3 jobs , raising children , dealing with medical issues , rent /mortgage issues, home and car repair etc. The internet is the one thing that has allowed me to follow up quickly on a thread of eye opening thought that I really wouldn’t have time for. I was trying to detox from my Catholic upbringing in 2006 when I came across jesusneverexisted.com. I was only trying to disprove the sovereignty of the Holy Church, not disprove Jesus. But once I started pulling on one thread it lead to another and within a few weeks I was reintroduced to the writings of Robert Ingersoll and James Randi and Thomas Jefferson along with other founding fathers and well so many great thinkers that I just couldn’t have learned from without the speed and ease of the internet.
It was one man’s off hand joking remark on one of these sites , probably exchristian .net where he posted what I thought was a joke. He posted something jokingly like “well which 10th commandment do you want to use , how about the one about not boiling a baby goat in its mothers milk?”
I couldn’t stand the thought of not being in on the joke so I went to biblegateway.com and looked for whatever the heck he could possibly be joking about. Sure enough that IS the 10th commandment. I was able to check multiple versions of the Bible in minutes and it was still the 10th commandment that Moses had in writing. I couldn’t believe that in ove forty years I had never heard that mentioned. I never read the barbaric repulsive genocidal behavior of that religious con artist / crime lord Moses either. Then I read around that passage and realized I was one of many Christians that avoided the Old Testament because it was so repulsive and barbaric and genocidal. I pretty much only studied the gospel. Pulling on that thread further I came across godisimaginary.com and it’s video “Proving the bible is repulsive”. That pretty much did it for me.
In only a couple of nights on the internet, based on someone’s throw away joke , my believe in any cedibility in the Holy Buy Bull, came to a crashing end.
I did not loose a spiritual or moral core, I just reject the absurdity of the Bible. Yes it took me a long time but the ease of research on the internet and one man’s obscure sounding joke has made a huge difference in freeing me from the bondage of the Holy Buy Bull . So you never know, a simple post can change someone’s life for the better.
Once while I was riding in my car during an extrememly depressive moment in my life when I really wished a semi would take me out, I pulled up next to this S-10 pickup that was covered in about 500 religious bumper stickers. I actually saw this as a sign from God that every thing was going to be OK. I really believed it. Now I look back and laugh my ass off at the thought of some fucking idiot defacing his vehicle with a bunch of Jesus bumper stickers was a sign from God. I managed to work through the tough times in my life all by my lonesome and like someone else mentioned above, I felt the most incredible sense of relief when I tossed God belief out the window.
Bob P.
What a great story. I know all to well what it's like to talk to God and get no answer. I had a failed attempt at being born again when my life hit rock bottom, yet I tried really really hard to believe. You are the same age as my father and I really think dear old dad also is an atheist yet he hides behind the "agnostic" label. You are an inspiration to us all my friend. We hope to see you around here often.
xrayman
Those of us in Africa who have suffer from witchcraft attacks and I`ve saved over & over again by Jesus know that he is alive. Indeed blessed is the poor in spirit!
I`ll pray for you.
Witchcraft attacks? The one witch that I know personally has been rather nice to me and mine. So perhaps only evil witches live in africa?
"You guys are "blind & deaf" and decieved by Satan through materialism & pride."
You don't even know us, how do you know?
"I`ll pray for you."
Well, thanks for nothing.
"Come to Africa and taste the supernatural...You guys are "blind & deaf" and decieved by Satan through materialism"
I`ll pray for you"
--
Hey John,
Rather than pray for me, could you please send some of that materialistic CASH...Thanks for being such a sport.
ATF
We should get on the air and have some "fellowship" & such. Find a frequency on 75m evenings Friday or Saturday.
Nils W8IJN
http://themandatorysentence.blogspot.com
Ross, W8TZ