The odds should say that I’m not an atheist. I’m a regular poster at the conservative website freerepublic.com. I’m of African decent. A black atheist is about as rare as a black conservative. You found both right here. I don’t know what it is with blacks worldwide and this bile called “Abrahamic religion”. I think our previous masters used it as a tool to enslave us.
Also, there’s my religious background. I grew up knocking on people’s doors giving people pamphlets about Jesus and how god was going to let only 144,000 people in heaven, letting the rest of us either die or stay on Earth as asexual vegetarians.
But yet, I am an atheist.
It mostly has to do with the third reason. A bit of reason’s 2 and 3 also.
As a child, I had those beliefs pounded into me. I was in an intellectual echo chamber.
The answer to all questions, simple and complex was “Jehovah”
“Who made the rain?” ‘Jehovah”. “Who made the earth?” “Jehovah.” Who invented electricity? Jehovah.
“Who created Jehovah?” That’s when circular reasoning and his fallacious friends the No True Scotsman fallacy & Illicit Minor came over for a visit.
“The Bible says Jehovah is made out of energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed, ergo Jehovah has always existed, because Genesis says he’s made out of dynamic energy. No true Witness would ever even ask that question. ”
I was fed that shit for years. I didn’t know whether it’s of the bovine or equine variety, but it was shit..
I shut my mouth and smiled. I was afraid that if I doubted, I wouldn’t be able to achieve salvation. I knew it was shit but I didn’t want to admit that I was going to die one day. I wanted to play with lions in a paradise, filled with only adherents of the JW faith and those who didn’t hear of the religion yet. Talk about your wishful thinking.
In the end, what got me thinking whether this was factual or not was when I went on a discussion board. I was feeling kind of bitter one day and I needed to vent. I wasn’t hired for a job because my boss was a gay liberal and I was a fundamentalist Christian.
I wasn’t allowed to go on any discussion boards that were JW specific, because the religion’s hierarchy discouraged them from existing. They were afraid of former members infiltrating those boards and de-converting people.
So I went to a conservative message board. I knew they would listen to me. I told them my story. Of course, I couldn’t tell them what religious influence I was of. I didn’t want anybody knowing I was from that church. I knew if I talked to people outside of the church about my church, I would be debated with. J.W.’s are allergic to religious debate.
They sympathized with me. Some were stonewalled from jobs because of their religious beliefs too.
I engagingly read the message board and I found a new world view. One that wasn’t shown to me by my parents, who despite the church’s forbidding of political views, was very much right-socialist. To this day, I’m a libertarian-conservative.
As you would expect on a conservative message board, you found Christians. I saw Christianity, not constrained by an authoritarian organization, but from Christians speaking their own minds on theology, a free form of Christianity.
That stroked my curiosity. But then they came to the subject of cults. I was afraid to debate, because it all seemed so true about my then-faith.
Cults, as described by the people on that board were religions that constantly looked down on free thought. I said “Oh my god, they may be right” but again, I didn’t want them to be right. I would lose salvation. But they were. Here’s an excerpt from the August 1st, 2001 edition of the Watchtower, p 14, paragraph 8 to prove my point.
First, since "oneness" is to be observed, a mature Christian must be in unity and full harmony with fellow believers as far as faith and knowledge are concerned. He does not advocate or insist on personal opinions or harbor private ideas when it comes to Bible understanding. Rather, he has complete confidence in the truth as it is revealed by Jehovah God through his Son, Jesus Christ, and "[Jehovah’s Witness Organization]." By regularly taking in the spiritual food provided "at the proper time" — through Christian publications, meetings, assemblies, and conventions — we can be sure that we maintain "oneness" with fellow Christians in faith and knowledge. — Matthew 24:45.
Around the time I first started posting, I read that article, I knew it was a cult. But just like any others, I had an attack of cognitive dissonance.
It wasn’t until 2003, when there was a media report of child molestation going on in the church in Annandale, I left. People were stonewalling the molestation case as “Ex member propaganda”. That’s when I knew it was time to leave; it sickened me that they dismissed it as “ex member propaganda” than screaming “We’ll get to the bottom of this”.
After my exodus from the religion, I started using the logic that made me leave the JW’s to religion itself.
Abrahamic faiths say their version of god exists. How do we know their version of god exists? Because scripture says he exists? That’s circular reasoning.
How do we know any kind of god exists? Is it because our bodies are orderly? Well our bodies should be orderly. We’re just the result of previous orderly bodies surviving over disorderly bodies. If your parents had a fatal pre-natal congenital disorder, you wouldn’t exist, hence why you’re not born with any fatal pre-natal congenital disorders.
How do we know we’re going to heaven, paradise, hell, nirvana, or Valhalla? If we do what the religion’s tenants say? That’s more circular reasoning.
Now that I’ve stopped believing in the great invisible friend in the sky, I’ve become more tolerant. I have friends of all sorts of religious beliefs and sexual identities.
What about that person that didn’t hire me? Did I forgive him? No. He has the intolerance I left in my old church, only his god was his faux anti-Christian utopia.