Fluffy
A fool
My Theism
For the majority of my life, I have believed in God. Currently (February 2008), I am an atheist and some would say I am a "hardcore" or "new" atheist. I feel that my philosophical views are best described as "transhumanist".
I have never had a religious experience or a personal relationship with God even during my time as a theist. I mentioned this to some members of the CU (Christian Union) at my university and they pointed out the difference between the theist who has had such an experience and the theist who has not. I feel that there is some merit to what they are saying in that the world view of the theist who has experienced God will be significantly different to the world view of the theist who has not. I am unsure whether the former group should have exclusive rights to the word “theist” but when describing what I consider to be my “theism” I felt that it was important to point out this distinction.
Regardless, what I mean by "theism" is a person who believes in the existence of God and, in my case, I was a theist who lacked a personal relationship with God.
Becoming a Theist
I cannot remember why I first began to believe in the existence of God. If I had a reasoned argument for my belief then it is not something that I can recall. I suspect that I never had such an argument because I had not formulated the concept of the source of our beliefs. Whilst I was concious of the fact that I had beliefs, I was completely unaware of the processes that determined which beliefs I chose and which I didn't. To me beliefs were just things that I had.
I know that I didn't consider myself to have faith. I did not know and still do not fully understand exactly what faith is. Since I lacked the concept of the source of my beliefs, what caused or justified my beliefs was simply not something that passed through my head. The beliefs I had were simply there.
I think I was very open to the idea of God since I was very young. I remember having a conversation with my friends in the school playground where I staunchly defended the existence of Santa. Whilst I know that belief in God and belief in Santa are very different, to my infant mind, the two seemed quite similar although, of course, as my mind developed I was able to grasp more and more the difference between them.
My parents are both atheists. My mum perhaps being more of an anti-theist. So it seems like my upbringing should have predisposed me towards atheism. However, they are both quite superstitious so perhaps they made me open to the idea of believing in things unquestioningly. Like most English schools, we had prayer every day and our teacher read to us from the Children's Bible during religious lessons. They still called it “Religious Education” then as opposed to how it is viewed now as “Religious Studies”. I think that I accepted the existence of God, coming from my teacher who, as a child, I viewed as an authority, just as I accepted the existence of Santa coming from the authority of my parents.
Being a Theist
At three points over my childhood, my theism went through significant changes. Also, whilst I switched between quite a few religions (Christianity and various forms of paganism) the nature of my theism was not itself affected (only its content) by these transitions. These three significant changes do not refer to a change in the content of my theism but in its nature.
For the life of me, I cannot remember why the first occurred. I feel that it must have been a very sudden event since I can remember a point beforehand where this was just not an issue at all for me and a point afterwards where it became the focus of my life. I know that it occurred in 1999 when I was 11 or 12 and whatever it was, it caused me to become almost obsessed with the conflict between religions. I felt a strong sense of horror over the injustice and intolerance of these kinds of events.
When I was 13, I came across a site called ReligiousTolerance.org and began to realise that the problem of which I had only a vague idea of before was in fact only the tip of a gigantic iceberg. I began to post on the message board of this site which had, I remember, about 10-15 regular members. Whilst there, I encountered a diverse array of people for the first time. Keep in mind that before this, I had barely spoken to people outside of Reading, my home town for 13 years of which I had not left for any period longer than a week.
There were two I remember in particular, both theists, who I will call Patrick and Megan. Megan was one of the nicest people who I'd ever had the pleasure of meeting. She was not merely kind to those she spoke to but took genuine interest in their lives and was always ready with words of support for those who were feeling down. Patrick was what I would now view as bigoted. Although I didn't like him for his views which I considered (and continue to consider) intolerant (homosexuality is a sin, other religions are evil, forcing his views upon those who didn't wish to listen etc.), what really put me off the man was the rude, insensitive and inconsiderate way with which he would speak to others. Patrick and Megan were both regulars on the message board and so would often interact. As you probably expect, no matter how rude Patrick was to Megan and how much he insulted her beliefs and values, Megan would never respond in kind but insist on treating him just as she treated everyone else: as a valued human being worthy of respect and kindness. Other members of the message board, including myself, would either ignore Patrick or get angry and rude right back at him.
Eventually, Patrick left the board and never came back. It was an unmoderated board so I never found out why he left. He was the same up until he left and never changed his opinion nor his attitude. Neither Megan's approach nor our approach had any affect upon. We had all wanted to further the cause of tolerance but none of us had succeeded. However, what struck me (I must have been 14 by this point) and has stayed with me since, is that we had not only failed to spread tolerance, we had also broken it in half. Megan, on the other hand, had lived according to the values that she held. She had not been a hypocrite like the rest of us. She had succeeded in living her life according to her values and furthered cause of tolerance.
Perhaps it is difficult to see how this could have impacted on the nature of my theism. Beforehand, I had not viewed theism as an important factor of my life. It was something I believed not something that I was. However, I now realised that by following Megan's example, I could, as a theist, live by the value of tolerance and hope that others followed her and me. This caused theism, or more specifically tolerant theism, to become central to me and my life. It was something that I desired to become.
The second change occurred in 2002 when I was 15. I had become disillusioned due to the excessive intolerance I saw all around me especially only a few months after 9/11. Additionally, at this time I became convinced by hard determinism (the view that free will does not exist because every event is causally determined by a preceding set of events including human action, emotion and will) which I had also encountered on ReligiousTolerance.org. I began to question, for the first time, whether life had any meaning.
It is difficult to convey exactly how a philosophy could have affected me so powerfully since the popular view of the subject is as an airy pursuit with little impact or consequence on reality. However, nihilism forced itself upon me so convincingly, quickly and completely that my mood was immediately destroyed. I felt empty and numb and lost all motivation. I couldn't explain how I felt to anybody else and could not reason my way out of what felt like a trap.
In the end (after a few months), I fell back on my theism again and decided that God gave life purpose. I now needed my theism as a reason for getting out of bed in the morning. It was quite literally keeping me alive. At first, my theism had changed from being on the periphery of my world view to becoming my justification, inspiration and motivation for living a moral life. Now it had taken on the additional role of being the thing that I depended on to protect me from a possible reality with which my brief encounter had left me upset and disturbed.
For the majority of my life, I have believed in God. Currently (February 2008), I am an atheist and some would say I am a "hardcore" or "new" atheist. I feel that my philosophical views are best described as "transhumanist".
I have never had a religious experience or a personal relationship with God even during my time as a theist. I mentioned this to some members of the CU (Christian Union) at my university and they pointed out the difference between the theist who has had such an experience and the theist who has not. I feel that there is some merit to what they are saying in that the world view of the theist who has experienced God will be significantly different to the world view of the theist who has not. I am unsure whether the former group should have exclusive rights to the word “theist” but when describing what I consider to be my “theism” I felt that it was important to point out this distinction.
Regardless, what I mean by "theism" is a person who believes in the existence of God and, in my case, I was a theist who lacked a personal relationship with God.
Becoming a Theist
I cannot remember why I first began to believe in the existence of God. If I had a reasoned argument for my belief then it is not something that I can recall. I suspect that I never had such an argument because I had not formulated the concept of the source of our beliefs. Whilst I was concious of the fact that I had beliefs, I was completely unaware of the processes that determined which beliefs I chose and which I didn't. To me beliefs were just things that I had.
I know that I didn't consider myself to have faith. I did not know and still do not fully understand exactly what faith is. Since I lacked the concept of the source of my beliefs, what caused or justified my beliefs was simply not something that passed through my head. The beliefs I had were simply there.
I think I was very open to the idea of God since I was very young. I remember having a conversation with my friends in the school playground where I staunchly defended the existence of Santa. Whilst I know that belief in God and belief in Santa are very different, to my infant mind, the two seemed quite similar although, of course, as my mind developed I was able to grasp more and more the difference between them.
My parents are both atheists. My mum perhaps being more of an anti-theist. So it seems like my upbringing should have predisposed me towards atheism. However, they are both quite superstitious so perhaps they made me open to the idea of believing in things unquestioningly. Like most English schools, we had prayer every day and our teacher read to us from the Children's Bible during religious lessons. They still called it “Religious Education” then as opposed to how it is viewed now as “Religious Studies”. I think that I accepted the existence of God, coming from my teacher who, as a child, I viewed as an authority, just as I accepted the existence of Santa coming from the authority of my parents.
Being a Theist
At three points over my childhood, my theism went through significant changes. Also, whilst I switched between quite a few religions (Christianity and various forms of paganism) the nature of my theism was not itself affected (only its content) by these transitions. These three significant changes do not refer to a change in the content of my theism but in its nature.
For the life of me, I cannot remember why the first occurred. I feel that it must have been a very sudden event since I can remember a point beforehand where this was just not an issue at all for me and a point afterwards where it became the focus of my life. I know that it occurred in 1999 when I was 11 or 12 and whatever it was, it caused me to become almost obsessed with the conflict between religions. I felt a strong sense of horror over the injustice and intolerance of these kinds of events.
When I was 13, I came across a site called ReligiousTolerance.org and began to realise that the problem of which I had only a vague idea of before was in fact only the tip of a gigantic iceberg. I began to post on the message board of this site which had, I remember, about 10-15 regular members. Whilst there, I encountered a diverse array of people for the first time. Keep in mind that before this, I had barely spoken to people outside of Reading, my home town for 13 years of which I had not left for any period longer than a week.
There were two I remember in particular, both theists, who I will call Patrick and Megan. Megan was one of the nicest people who I'd ever had the pleasure of meeting. She was not merely kind to those she spoke to but took genuine interest in their lives and was always ready with words of support for those who were feeling down. Patrick was what I would now view as bigoted. Although I didn't like him for his views which I considered (and continue to consider) intolerant (homosexuality is a sin, other religions are evil, forcing his views upon those who didn't wish to listen etc.), what really put me off the man was the rude, insensitive and inconsiderate way with which he would speak to others. Patrick and Megan were both regulars on the message board and so would often interact. As you probably expect, no matter how rude Patrick was to Megan and how much he insulted her beliefs and values, Megan would never respond in kind but insist on treating him just as she treated everyone else: as a valued human being worthy of respect and kindness. Other members of the message board, including myself, would either ignore Patrick or get angry and rude right back at him.
Eventually, Patrick left the board and never came back. It was an unmoderated board so I never found out why he left. He was the same up until he left and never changed his opinion nor his attitude. Neither Megan's approach nor our approach had any affect upon. We had all wanted to further the cause of tolerance but none of us had succeeded. However, what struck me (I must have been 14 by this point) and has stayed with me since, is that we had not only failed to spread tolerance, we had also broken it in half. Megan, on the other hand, had lived according to the values that she held. She had not been a hypocrite like the rest of us. She had succeeded in living her life according to her values and furthered cause of tolerance.
Perhaps it is difficult to see how this could have impacted on the nature of my theism. Beforehand, I had not viewed theism as an important factor of my life. It was something I believed not something that I was. However, I now realised that by following Megan's example, I could, as a theist, live by the value of tolerance and hope that others followed her and me. This caused theism, or more specifically tolerant theism, to become central to me and my life. It was something that I desired to become.
The second change occurred in 2002 when I was 15. I had become disillusioned due to the excessive intolerance I saw all around me especially only a few months after 9/11. Additionally, at this time I became convinced by hard determinism (the view that free will does not exist because every event is causally determined by a preceding set of events including human action, emotion and will) which I had also encountered on ReligiousTolerance.org. I began to question, for the first time, whether life had any meaning.
It is difficult to convey exactly how a philosophy could have affected me so powerfully since the popular view of the subject is as an airy pursuit with little impact or consequence on reality. However, nihilism forced itself upon me so convincingly, quickly and completely that my mood was immediately destroyed. I felt empty and numb and lost all motivation. I couldn't explain how I felt to anybody else and could not reason my way out of what felt like a trap.
In the end (after a few months), I fell back on my theism again and decided that God gave life purpose. I now needed my theism as a reason for getting out of bed in the morning. It was quite literally keeping me alive. At first, my theism had changed from being on the periphery of my world view to becoming my justification, inspiration and motivation for living a moral life. Now it had taken on the additional role of being the thing that I depended on to protect me from a possible reality with which my brief encounter had left me upset and disturbed.
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