What it is like to be a non-believer.

JanisChambers

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J
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A fairly old thread I noticed recently asked "What is is like to be a non-believer" and I would just like to illuminate on the point.

Many people can remember, as a child, being afraid of the dark. It was always something just under the bed or in the closet. When the demons came for me I prayed them away, but every night they would be back to get me. It wasn't until years later that I realize there were no such thing as demons, that there was no evidence for their existence and what I should face my fears. I turned off the lights and waited, this time I didn't pray, I just waited for something more to happen. Needless to say nothing did, and I was free of my fear.

That wasn't the only problem I faced as a youth. I was even given the lie that masterbation was an evil thing. I cursed myself when I faltered and touched myself, I even tried to rationalize it into say "I was just massaging it out" and tried not to think of sexual things. I felt so free after learning just what sperm was, what people were. I at first believed that I was killing millions just by 'spilling my seed" but to learn that sperm was only half of what it took to make a child, and that while there was no evidence for a soul there was more evidence that a human life was measured better by the existance of a brain helped free me from the 'shame' of a natural act I could now finally enjoy.

To be a non-believer is to let go of the easy answers of "God did it" or "Because god said so". Once you do, you realize that those were not easy answers at all, because they simply answered nothing. It's still hard as an atheist. We have to ask ourselves huge questions like "what really is morality" or "What can this life be for" and not simply expect the answer to come out of the blue. We have to humble ourselves in knowing that we really don't have a special place in the world, that there is no special plan. Things are, frankly, very uncertain. There is no magical guardian up in the heavens, just us humans and the rest of the planet. We have to care for one another if we are going to have a good life, mostly because there is no seccond chance for as far as well can tell.

So, in my own opinion, to be a non-believer is to be a brave as hell.
 
Sometimes, for some people, it is enough to know that the universe is far more dependent on just one principle stated in a first-year science textbook than in the sum total of all the principles stated in the entire Bible.
 
When I first started applying the atheist label to myself at 18, I thought it was "cool" - the kind of thing you tell your close friends about, like your awesome score on the SAT, how your girlfriend is in bed, or how little you paid for your new car. Something privileged, something that differentiated you and somehow made you "special".

Well, that didn't last. Friends reacted to my atheism as you expect they would to any of the above situations - some thought it was cool, some were indifferent, and some were put off by it. The risk that the latter might happen with any given friend was enough to stop me from talking much more about it.

At this point, several years later, I just feel cynical about religion in general. Religion now strikes me as archaic and bewildering; my devoutly catholic roommate simply baffles me. Religion isn't a big part of my life anymore. I just don't devote time to thinking about it.

How I feel about my atheism is just like how I feel about having grown up in New Jersey. It's a piece of me and my history that some will like, some will be indifferent to, and some will be put off by. I just don't bother with it anymore.
 
A non believer in what, exactly?
I believe lots of things.
Some of them are right.
 
Not all believers take the answers to be so simple as that. Nor do all non-believers struggle with the answers. The world is never so neat.
 
I get to sleep in on Sundays. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.
 
I was never indoctrinated (at least not well). The shift to atheism, therefore, wasn't very profound.
 
The only time I've been asked that question I just replied that they knew what it was like as well me. Unless they believed in Zeus, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and honest politicians.
 
I was never a believer, if it is religion/Christianity we talk about. My mom told me this little story not long ago, about me, that I did not remember myself. When I was a small kid in the 70s, living in a small rural village, the only ones who organized any fun activities for smaller kids were the church. They had an old house here in the village called 'Betania' where they had a play- and craft evening every Thursday for all the kids in the village who wanted to come. First we had to all sit down to listen to the leaders talk about God and Jesus, then we sang religious songs and then we could play or do crafts as much as we wanted to.

After one of those evenings my mom asked me, I was 5 or 6 years old at the time, what I thought about it. My answer?

"It's really fun making all those things (I still love to do crafts)... but all that god-stuff is silly, those people are really 'goddy'" Said with all the contempt a 6 year old can muster :)

So it seems trading fun for "the message" doesn't always work.

Besides, they had one of those "missionary-style" money-boxes which was a sculpture of a kneeling negro boy, and as you put a coin in it, he bobbed his head in humble gratitude. When I got older (around 11 or 12) that money-box pissed me off for reasons that I couldn't really express as a kid, but that I understand now. I haven't been back in that house since I was a kid, but I bet they still use that money-box! :mad:

So, for me there hasn't been a transer from belief to non-belief, and therefore I haven't experienced any of the conflicts or problems that I have seen many former believers describe. Non-belief never demanded any bravery from me. It does both angers me and makes me sad, though, when I read about what some have gone through before, under and after this process.

ETA:
And it makes me happy too, of course, to read about those who lived through it all, and are today living a good life :)
 
Bob Klase said:
The only time I've been asked that question I just replied that they knew what it was like as well me. Unless they believed in Zeus, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and honest politicians.
Click to expand...
That's kind of disingenuous, though, and I'll bet their next question was along the lines of "You don't believe in ANYTHING?" Meaning, what's it like to go through life without believing your imaginary friend is always there to pull your nuts out of the fire when you really mess up.
 
What's it like to be a non-believer? Pretty much the same as it is to be a believer. I don't think that there are any profound differences between me and any of the Christians I know. They pray before eating - I don't. I read Dawkins - they don't. They go to church on Sundays - I don't. I swordfight on Saturdays - they don't.

In the end we are all people. We are all members of the human race, and we all have the same needs, desires, pleasures, dislikes and irrational petty hatreds. We all need to eat, drink and breathe clean air. We all take pleasure in our families and rejoice when things go our way. We laugh at comedians and cry at funerals, and we all sometimes need a bath.
 
So's "Oh God," and my sex life suffers a bit if I don't say it when I feel the need to say it. ;) Doesn't mean I believe in god, though. And if I did, I'm not sure calling out his name while I'm in bed with someone not God is appropriate....

My life isn't necessarily better since I gave up belief in a god or gods. I made many crappy choices, and I'm reaping the penalties for them now.

One definite improvement, however, is that when things do go badly, I no longer sit and stare at "heaven" with tears flowing, begging god to tell me what I did that made him hate me so much that he never helps me in life. That he actually seems, instead, to use me for target practice.

I still have the tears, but the being I'm looking at now is me. What did I do, or not do, that got me in this mess? What can I do, or not, that will help get me out?

I like it much better, and am much more comfortable, taking personal responsibility for my triumphs and failures. If I do well, it's not because god helped me--it's because I did well, and/or because other people helped me! I get all (or most) the credit, as I should. And if I do badly, there's no Satan causing me to stumble--I did it (and other people may have played their parts) and I damned well better learn from it, or I'll do it again and again until I do learn.

That, to me, is what's great about not believing in Invisible Sky Man. The buck stops here, in reality.
 
What's it like to be a non-believer?

Well, since I'm a non-believer in the Greco-Roman Pantheon, then I'd say that it's like knowing all those legends for being what they are -- no more than mythological morality plays -- and that anyone who believes in them probably has not yet learned his or her "Four R's" - Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmatic, and Reason.
 
It's like a long sigh of relief, not to be held captive by a whole assortment of fears, superstitions, doubts, etc. And it's mixed with a vague feeling of regret for the millions of my fellow humans who will probably wait their entire lives limited in what they allow themselves to think. And it's also a feeling of resignation that there is very little I can do about the tremendous cost civilization pays except wait for my country in particular to evolve into the secular society our constitution promised.
 
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