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What made you convert?
- Thread starter xir
- Start date
I grew up Christian and became a Baha'i in my 20s. I discovered a light in other faiths such as Hinduism and Buddhism. The Baha'i Faith acknowledged the Divine origins of these religions while maintaining some core aspects of Christianity I grew up with. The main sources of prejudice have been from faith adherents that tend to be more exclusive, particularly Christians, Muslims and Hindus.
Edit: So what made you change your faith?
I could get behind them.
Dharma, and a measure of respect towards diversity of religious vocations and reason.
The main one is that being an atheist would somehow disqualify me.
A close second is that I am somehow supposed to think of the world in Abrahamic terms despite a complete lack of interest in so doing.
Altfish
Veteran Member
I converted to atheism when I was about 13; purely because of a lack of evidence and a greater understanding of science.
No prejudices in UK in general life but Religious Schools and the like do annoy. You are given preferential treatment on admissions if you are baptised in the faith- wrong when it is state funded
No prejudices in UK in general life but Religious Schools and the like do annoy. You are given preferential treatment on admissions if you are baptised in the faith- wrong when it is state funded
xir
New Member
Would you elaborate? I'd be really curious to hear more!
I was raised christian, at age 14 those good christians had driven me from the church. Investigation showed intolerance of difference is a prominent factor in the bible, particularly the OT. While doing my research i began to realise the bible just didnt hold water. I became an atheist.
Prejudices? My children have been threatened with eternal torture because i would not bow down to a god.
There are several bad events happened in my life that can be squarely placed at the feet of christians but i dont think they can be counted as prejudice, just plain, simple christianity and their view that they must be right because god is on their side.
I wasn't looking for religion, just being a kid, exploring the world, late 60s, early 70s. I saw a Nataraja statue and it beckoned to me, so I bought it. A couple years later I met my Guru. His first words to me were, "Where have you been. I've been waiting for two years."
That was it. I was caught. It isn't much, but it was my first real encounter with any faith. A guy has to do what a guy has to do, eh?
I think perhaps for me the question is why did I choose the paths I did? I wrote this rather lengthy explanation in another thread a month back. It's lengthy because it covers several changes of where I shifted my focus and why. So it does go to address your question:
I didn't begin in religion. I began as some kid in an average middle-class American home where religion was really more peripheral, culture things like Christmas, Easter, and stuff. Just plain jane white bread cultural "Lutheran". No teachings about God in any "believe this" kind of way. Didn't really understand much of any of all what I had been exposed to around me culturally anyway. It seemed "suspect" to me, kind of foreign ideas as such. Probably why it wasn't taught in the home. My father was very much a rational person, business man, important roles, and such. He was cynical towards religion, my mother less so. Yet he was a quitely spiritual man, who saw life as full of beauty.
Fast forward, at 18 I had an Awakening experience, as I would later come to understand them. It was an Enlightenment experience which shattered reality open to me, as a young confused man facing an existential crisis of being. This came in two parts over the span of a week's time. It forever changed my life.
This left me in search of understanding this immediately after the experienced had gone. That search pointed me towards religion, which in my youthful naivety, eagerly took what I could find which offered anything remotely close to what that was. That got me thrown into religion for the first time. Did the whole thing, soaked it all up like dry sponge. Until that sponge got too full. That's when I left them.
I was too rational for that stuff I was being taught about God, this Ultimate Reality I had experienced. It not only did not match this "God" that I experienced, throwing people into a hell I knew in my own experience was impossible to even exist as what I experienced is Absolute Love. It also didn't stand up to reason. It was all a house of cards fumbled together to stand in a certain order by them and then deemed "the truth".
So, given that I had already quickly outgrown the constricted clothing of the Divine they offered for me to wear as part of their church, it didn't take too much examination of them with the eye of reason to give me the justification to make my exit from their ranks, on search of a new horizon of truth to explore, sans them. That took me into a wasteland. Other churches had even less to offer.
This wasteland period found me giving up on religion and going it alone, without finding anything that could offer any meaning to my experience, or possible direction to follow. Then one day, I had a new "awakening" experience of sorts that led me to take that "idea" of God the church I was in and kick it off the throne. It was an intellectual "ah hah" type moment. Evolution doesn't require that kind of anthropomorphic God to exist, as they had tried to tell me what God was. (It caused a lot of conflict for me).
So with that gone, I now was free from the Old Testament deity they had programmed into my brain through their doctrines, which I had tried my best and failed to overlay on my experience. But now that was gone, on with dissecting the rest. The whole thing about religion, and the Bible, it's history, all the critical analysis, all the modern scholars, understanding science, anthropology, ethnology, linguists, semiotics, philosophy and so forth.
I proudly debunked all the literalism I had be handed during those days. My rational mind which saved me from truly becoming them, now made me a sharp edge against which I could slice through their authoritarian assertions quite deftly, surgically. For ten years I moderated at an atheist cite and was a champion to the cause for many breaking free from such prerational systems with my rational mind and knowledge.
But, yet, in all of this, there was that spiritual side that could not be denied for too long. That was very real, and in fact is the very core of who I have been ever since that experience at 18. As a gust of wind would come up to me and I felt my soul move out into the universe, this seemed a rather hypocritical thing for an atheist to admit publicly. It was the experience of God, and yet I didn't believe in that God anymore.
Fast forward again, keeping reading, keeping searching, postmodernism, and into post-postmodernism. Enter in meditation practice.
Then I began where I began at 18, decades now later. It immediately opened me to what I had experienced at 18 again, picking up right there, before the onset of religion and it's resultant atheism. What had started as an atheist for me to find the search for the Holy Grail, a way to bring faith and reason together, to bring spiritual experience and the rational mind together, had in fact began opening to me. It was in transcending them both, as they are really the same thing. Just different eyes on the same Face. Each eye informs the other without needing to lie. Each grows from each other.
So atheism is something that is very much a part of me, as it denies the mythical which seeks to deny the rational. But it fails to be rational enough, to the point it sees its own inherent irrationality. If fails to offer an understanding of the spiritual that registers both spiritually and rationally. When it doesn't outright dismiss the spiritual as "woo", it intellectualizes it away as "just the brain" or something. That's not satisfying to me on any level, rationally or spiritually. So my body outgrew those constricted clothes as well.
That's where my search took me to, the limits of the rational to be able speak adequately to the Whole which embraces the rational and the spiritual as inseparable. It's going beyond the rational, going beyond theism and it's offshoot atheism. It denies nothing, and embraces everything.
Salvador
RF's Swedenborgian
Deja vu! A Matrix Glitch? Haven't I seen another thread just like this one before? Oh wait, I did, Salix recently posted "Are You a Convert?* Since I responded to Salix's thread " Are You a Convert?", then the OP's question of this thread ought to be easy for me to respond as well. ...
I'm a former Christian, who is now a follower of Matrixism. The movie the Matrix, along with indicators we are living in a simulated reality has convinced me Matrixism is a true religion.
A "machine" is any causal physical system, hence we are machines; thus, machines can be conscious. The question is: What type of machines could be conscious? Odds are robots passing the Turing Test Turing test - Wikipedia would be indistinguishable from us in their behavioral capacities --and could be conscious (i.e. feel), but we can never be certain. There's no way for any "conscious" being to know whether or not he is actually experiencing a virtual reality produced by an interface between his brain and a computer .
However, there are some possible indications we are living in a computer simulation....
1. A particle passing through a double-slit behaves as a wave causing an interference pattern when unobserved, but this same particle doesn't create an interference pattern when its path of travel can be determined by an observer. This collapse of the wave-function could be happening in order to save computational resources necessary for our simulated reality.
2. There is indeed a mark of intelligence left in our genetic code as evident by how the numeric and semantic message of 037 appears in our genetic code. Each codon relates to 3 other particular codons having the same particular type of initial nucleobase and sequential nucleobase subsequently then followed by a different ending nucleobase. Half of these 4 set of codon groups ( whole family codons ) each code for the same particular amino acid. The other half of those 4 set of codon groups ( split codons ) don't code for the same amino acid. So then, in the case of whole family codons, there are 37 amino acid peptide chain nucleons for each relevant nucleobase determinant of how a particular amino acid gets coded. Start codons express 0 at the beginning of 37 Hence, the meaningful numeric and semantic message of 037 gets unambiguously and factually conveyed to us descendants of our cosmic ancestor(s) with our genetic code invented by a superior intelligence beyond that of anybody presently bound to Earth.
Reference: The "Wow! signal" of the terrestrial genetic code. Vladimir l. shCherbak and Maxim A. Makukov. Icarus, May 2013,Redirectinghttps://www.scribd.com/document/35302916...netic-Code
This mark of intelligence left in our genetic coding is indicative of an intelligent designer, who may be responsible for the simulation of our reality.
3. Theoretical physicist Dr. S. James Gates Jr. has revealved that a certain string theory, super-symmetrical equations describing the nature and reality of our universe, contains embedded computer codes; these codes have digital data in the form of 0's and 1's identical to what makes web browsers function, and they're error-correct codes.
At least one of the following statements is very likely to be true:
1. The human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a post-human stage.
2. Any post-human civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history.
3. We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.
"Bostrom's argument rests on the premise that given sufficiently advanced technology, it is possible to represent the populated surface of the Earth without recourse to digital physics; that the qualia experienced by a simulated consciousness are comparable or equivalent to those of a naturally occurring human consciousness, and that one or more levels of simulation within simulations would be feasible given only a modest expenditure of computational resources in the real world."
ARE YOU LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION? BY NICK BOSTROM
Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University
Published in Philosophical Quarterly (2003) Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.
Are You Living in a Simulation
I took the red pill knowing there is no turning back. I didn't take the blue pill, because I didn't want the story to end, then waking up in bed and simply believing whatever I want to believe. I took the red pill for staying in Wonderland and getting shown how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
After taking the red pill, I watched the below video about possible evidence of us living in a simulated reality.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
I don't know if I can say converted. I disagree we can change our beliefs unless they weren't real and fact. I discovered a few things during conversion. I wasnt raised religious. So, I'm an atheist.
I had joined Catholicism because of the mystism and emphasis on community and prayer devotion. They have great resources for improving faith. Good programs as well. I left because I dont believe in a god/deity, I don't believe jesus is god, "human" sacrifice, LSHS, and I don't need to be saved. I didn't get it until couple years later.
Edit. I had practiced Buddhism. I cant change beliefs but I choice not to practice.
I'm learning about universal unitarinism. So far, unlike Catholism, it's politics (charity for example) are the cornerstone of the organization not a result of it from a set belief system.
In Catholicism, I don't like the "love the sinner hate the sin" its like don't ask dont tell. A person shouldnt need to get rid a part of himself to follow Christ. UU is politically accepting of people of all walks in life. We have a christian foundation via our founders but since the 70sish, its been more inclusive to minorities and a help in activist groups during WW2.
Prejudices in UU? I havent met any. It's uncomfortable being the only african American in the congregation. I notice in the online stream sermons across states, the small ones, there are virtually no AFA. The bigger churches I notice more, of course. Probably a historical thing via racism. That and UU is an shoot off protestant religions. Many AFA are more apt to disagree with UU since UU denies the trinity and eternal damnation in which I heard taughg by both Methodis and Catholics. Any form of indoctrination I disagree with.
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VoidCat
Pronouns: he/him/they/them
I was raised Christian and still identify as such(but I don't line up with typical Christianity and I know some wouldn't consider me as such). I am however now a Quaker which I was not raised as. I joined because it called to me and I agreed with the beliefs. I see a lot in Quakerism but one thing I do not see in other religions that I do in Quakerism is how accepting they are of differences in beliefs within the religion itself yet still consider each other Quaker. Yeah there are some divisions in it but most do not care if you are a non-Christian Pagan Quaker or an Orthodox Christian Quaker you are still consider a Quaker by most Friends. I also don't know of too many religions that worship God like Quakers do in Unprogrammed worship. I don't know of any religion that has called to me so strongly to join it and it was mostly the values Quakers hold that called me. I have not seen any prejudices but I have seen some ignorance. Most people where I live don't know anything about Quakers and I've heard a lot of people say Oats? after telling them I'm a Quaker. So then I educate them on it.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
My theology is so liberal that I decided late this last summer to convert back to Catholicism because it's close by and my wife has been a very devout Catholic all her life. Also, which is very important to me, the Church is very good at working with the poor, so I've been heavily involved with that even a year before I decided to convert back. To me, doing is more important than political correctness.
GoodbyeDave
Well-Known Member
This question seems to be in the air — it's the third time it's come up this month!
I left Christianity because I couldn't make sense of it, despite a lot of study. I became a polytheist because that's what the evidence pointed to. I chose the Greek gods on a hunch and they have accepted me.
I left Christianity because I couldn't make sense of it, despite a lot of study. I became a polytheist because that's what the evidence pointed to. I chose the Greek gods on a hunch and they have accepted me.
At the age of 12, I had a born-again experience. I wanted to preach the word...but every time I tried, Jesus basically told me to sit down, shut up, and listen and watch...and then THINK.
Result: even though I did try for many years to remain Christian, my experiences pointed again and again to follow a different path than the organized religions...a path as a more or less solitary practitioner.
I see in my path what I have experienced, rather than someone else telling me what I can and can't experience, and what it all means.
I'm not too open publicly about my beliefs and practices, because people make lots of assumptions and project a lot of fear and anger toward me because I don't follow what they believe. Not everyone, but many do.
Result: even though I did try for many years to remain Christian, my experiences pointed again and again to follow a different path than the organized religions...a path as a more or less solitary practitioner.
I see in my path what I have experienced, rather than someone else telling me what I can and can't experience, and what it all means.
I'm not too open publicly about my beliefs and practices, because people make lots of assumptions and project a lot of fear and anger toward me because I don't follow what they believe. Not everyone, but many do.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Was reading about it. Sounds like a beautiful faith. Do you attend programmed services or non programmed?
VoidCat
Pronouns: he/him/they/them
Unfortunately neither. I'm a minor I can't chose where I can worship. I go with my foster parent to her sister's church(her sister is a pastor). It's a Pentecostal church. I don't like it. I do however do silent worship by myself.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
I do some silent worship. Well, more reflection. I dont know the differences between that and meditation. Once you get of age, I hope your parents let you go to other worship houses. My family wasn't religious, so it was a bit more confusing since each faith has their own exotic flair.
To make a complicated story simple, I am on this path because it was the only destination I could have arrived at given my life experiences and nature. However, for a long time I was pretty ignorant about religion and theology. I rejected the models I was taught at a young age and snarled at all religion and theism until I hit college. Then, being the nerdy researcher I often am, I ended up looking up a word I realized I didn't really comprehend and that led me down some unexpected rabbit trails. I discovered religions existed that did actually make sense and appeal to me, and it was pretty much what I'd been doing since I rejected that other stuff years ago. It was more of a "oh, so this is what I'm called" rather than a conversion.
I've never had any issues with prejudice. I mean, aside from the inevitable annoyances of being a cultural minority. It has its upsides too, because my religion falls outside what my culture understands religion to look like.
I've never had any issues with prejudice. I mean, aside from the inevitable annoyances of being a cultural minority. It has its upsides too, because my religion falls outside what my culture understands religion to look like.