How did you become a theist?

Not a long story: I was always a spiritual being - educated from Catholics - so I'm a Catholic. I'm not able to think that this world is senseless - never was - even not when I was a very little child - so I guess I would be under all thinkable circumstances an a-atheist. Oh - by the way: best greetings to your grandma. Tell her you got a new job in the PC-business called "atheist". That's a lie - ¿but who cares? - you are an atheist. I hope she will smile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q29YR5-t3gg

 

i got lucky; atheist parents.

 

As I said: I grew up in a family that was quite diverse in its theological views and so was my childhood parish. We had a conservative Lutheran Pastor and a liberal reformed one, and some within these Pastors’ flock were bible-believing evangelicals. On top of that the parish is located in an area of Germany that’s mostly Catholic. I went to a Catholic Primary school and took part in the Catholic lessons on religion there. If need be, I could probably still recite the rosary. When I was a teenager and developed some form of political awareness I got into socialism and anarchism and hung around with loads of atheists and agnostics (still do). I’d agree with Marx that religion can be abused as an opiate for the people, but also having read about Thomas Müntzer and Tolstoy, religion’s liberating potential was also clear to me. I guess I just soon learned to form my own opinions from the various opinions I was exposed to.

Yes, some people are positively shocked when they find out that I’m a Christian and the discussion that follows is usually pretty much the same. It’s getting a bit boring at times, to explain that many Christians neither support the Pope’s views on contraception nor the fundamentalist Evangelicals views on the Bible. But I guess I’ll have to live with the consequences of the sad fact that in the public sphere “the name of God has been hijacked by a gang of psychopaths and bullies and homophobes (and that) Religion’s gotten a really bad name.” ( http://www.salon.com/2004/11/18/cave_4/ ) All I can do is to put this picture into perspective here and there.

 

does that mean you never read about religions or got confronted with their content either in your youth?

 

Oh no, not at all.

A lot of it was direct exposure to Buddhism, which my mom likes to do some of the ceremonial things, its cultural tradition. She never acted as if there is anything supernatural about it tho and would be quite offended if someone suggested she did think so.

You cant get away from Christianity in a place that was a British colony for many decades.
Christmas stuff is fun, and i was told bout or read about Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, LDS,
etc. its human culture, and its good to know about it.

I think it is very hard for people who were inoculated with "god" at an early age to ever really overcome it.


I wasnt, and all religions are the same to me, as far as whether Id believe them.

 

The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Karma, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am a theist....

 

Have you not seen the violence inherent in the system?......You are being Oppressed.

 

Not that, I understand.
However, I suspect that The Lady would not be adverse to also being Jewish...
Just sayin',,,

 

Bloody peasant....