An Accidental Atheist

Accidental Atheist. likes. Ex-Pastor who accidentally became an Agnostic/ Atheist, purposely became a Humanist, and gratefully became a member of the.
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Item s unavailable for purchase. Please review your cart. You can remove the unavailable item s now or we'll automatically remove it at Checkout. Continue shopping Checkout Continue shopping. An Accidental Atheist by John Kelly. Free eBook Add to My Books. Spirituality or transcendence is an oxytocin mediated experience, quite simply. The feeling of rapture or bonding is a recently discovered emotion called elevation I would call it elation described in New Scientist. As such it is readily available to atheists in the form of nature worship or even the worship of guitar gods.

Also, it is frustrating to hear people say that religion makes them feel humble and unimportant. On the contrary, to believe that you will have an afterlife and live forever is egotistical, the ultimate conceit. Presented by Miyuki Jokiranta. The Accidental Atheist Download audio Broadcast: Thursday 15 October Facebook Twitter Delicious Reddit Digg what are these? Illing teaches political theory at Louisiana State University and is a contributor to Salon. Further Information Sean Illing: Comments 4 Add your comment peter le ray: Peter Reply Alert moderator Lucas Vidler: Reply Alert moderator Darrell: I woke up every single day on my mission at 6: I believed in following the letter of the law, and then going beyond the letter in following the spirit of the law.

I was crushed by guilt during the decade surrounding my mission. As a teenager, I found myself unable to avoid masturbating. This made me feel more guilt. On my mission, I strove to make my eye single to the glory of God. Every day, every minute, every thought I would check to see if what I was doing or thinking was helping to lead others to come closer to Christ.

I knew that God was perfect and that he would not abandon me if I held up my side of the bargain. I felt deep guilt at my incompetence, weakness, and unworthiness. I wanted to kill myself but I knew that that would only make me more unworthy in the afterlife, so I hated myself instead.

Guilt is probably the best word to summarize my adolescent and adult experience in the LDS Church. I stopped believing in God before I stopped believing in Mormonism yes, that was a bit of cognitive dissonance to deal with , and it basically boiled down to 1 acknowledging that there was no way to source my spiritual experiences outside of my own head and 2 the world making more sense without an anthropomorphic god. I used hypothetical reasoning yes I just made that term up to get my mind out of Mormonism, and I feel like it is probably a good tool to break through other delusions I have.

When I use it, I come to some really hard conclusions. I have a hard time coming to peace with the world.

Often I think of this world as extremely hellish. This existential rant is the dark side of my thoughts. The bright side of my thoughts is built on hope through humanity. War and disease are diminishing. This is part of a series on shame and unworthiness. When I was in my early teens I decided it was time for me to gain my own testimony.

I buckled down and started reading my scriptures daily, praying fervently, and making an effort to be more kind, reverent, patient, meek, etc. Not a single thing. Over the next decade or so I fell into a cycle. After months of reading my scriptures for hours a day and praying long into the night, I would come away with that big pile of nothing.

“How do you explain?”

Between the ages of I attempted suicide three times because I felt so absolutely worthless that I thought if I could just die and go to the Telestial Kingdom then at least the self-loathing and guilt would go away. I never even got so far as a french kiss with a boy.

I always dressed modestly. I paid my tithing. I went years at a time without missing a single day reading my scriptures. I was president of all of my YW groups, president of my seminary class, and on the Institute council.


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I went to church every week, and to all my activities. They told me that if I just put a little more effort in to Choosing The Right then I would feel the comfort of the Savior. Are you saying your prayers?

The Accidental Atheist – from devout Mormon missionary to no religion at all

However hard I thought I was working, I should be working harder. Finally one Sunday afternoon, in my mids, I was sitting on my bed looking over all the notes I had taken in Sacrament meeting and Sunday School that day as I did every week , writing into my journal yet another idea about how I could finally gain a testimony this time. A thought popped into my head. It was just a simple idea — four tiny words — that changed my life forever.

I had never, EVER thought that about myself before. I was suddenly flooded with warmth.

My breath caught in my throat. I let myself think it again. If God is who the Mormon church says he is, I want nothing to do with him. I immediately grabbed my Bible. I decided right then and there that I was going to shift the direction of my spiritual studies. I was going to learn all about God — who he was, what he wanted from me, how I could know him — and I wanted to start at the beginning. I opened up Genesis, Chapter 1, and started reading. After more than 10 years of torturing myself trying to be better, better, better, all the time, it took less than two minutes for me to abandon religion completely.

To basically not be a dick to people — and especially not to be a dick to myself. To love myself, warts and all, and know that my desire to be kind to others is worth more than any empty promise a God could give me. I was enjoying every moment. I had been worried about posting the article, worried about how others would respond, worried because of some of my past experiences with writing online, thinking that my inner thoughts would be ridiculed or criticized. Instead, I was welcomed into the hidden world of the Unworthy and told I belonged, I was asked if others belonged there too, and I felt accepted with all the parts of me I had been afraid of expressing.

Others sent me their stories in response to mine, and they were potent. Today, I bring two stories — one from Judy and one from Tony. I kept thinking of different ways people would be able to poke at me through my words to show how my decisions were based on a weakness or misunderstanding or something else, and I had to fight consistently to not include preemptive defenses to things people might say. I wanted to stay honest, and just express myself, and that was difficult.

The Moral Argument

Doing so seems to have resonated with a lot of people, which makes me so sincerely happy. I had done it again, and somehow she knew.

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There was only one thing I could do so I answered and she came in and sat next to me and told me she had felt she should come talk to me. From the second floor to the basement, where she rarely came, she had come out of concern for me, not knowing why. All I knew is that I felt as dark and low as I ever had before and she was here because she felt like she should be. Maybe God had sent her to help me through this. For all the darkest things of this world, guilt is there to add fuel to the fire of our own self-destruction.

Look around the earth for potential dogmas to give to the child—there are so many to choose from. When those ideas give him that familiar warm feeling of righteous pride, tell him God is speaking to him, confirming the truth of what he heard. Have an elder in his society give him a special blessing, and tell the boy that the words the man says come directly from God. Use this moment of trust and openness to tell our boy that he will be a leader, that he will represent God in everything he does, that he will bring many people to baptism and that those people will be grateful forever for what he did, that he will personally participate in the second coming of Jesus Christ and that he must prepare for that event by walking uprightly before the Lord every day of his life.

Teach this boy he can be forgiven when he messes up. Tell him he can become perfect, but not in this life. Also tell him his spiritual power depends on his good choices. Tell him that miracles are possible, that he can move mountains, baptize many, heal the sick, and whatever else God wills, and that the main thing that holds him back is a lack of faith, righteousness, and from not following the promptings of the spirit. Give this child people he loves who he especially needs to save — his father, sister, and a few friends will do nicely.