I was raised in a pretty conservative religion that listened to right-wing radio and news. However, I recently deconstructed religion entirely and can see it for the sham it is now. Once I did that my political ideology completely changed to the opposite. I’m now pretty progressive and happier than I’ve ever been.
Severe abuse by the church made me firmly anti religion for most of my youth, and then meeting religious people of varied faiths who weren’t monsters softened my feelings as I realized it wasnt all entirely evil. Then studying some of my family’s roots brought me where I am now: vaguely pagan while still acknowledging that I’m always going to be culturally Christian. I like to just tell people I’m a “recovering Catholic” for brevity and a laugh.
As for my social and political views, it was seeing all my friends come out as queer and realizing that I could either keep the far right views my family taught me, or I could learn to get my head out of my ass to keep my found family. Once I started forming my own opinions, I realized I got fed a load of shit my whole life(and also I’d wind up coming out too lmao)
Being poor and being treated poorly was radicalized. Serving in the military reinforced my world view.
Somewhere in there, I even considered myself a libertarian. Then I realized how childish they were, learned how manipulated they were by rich, greedy people, and since gone further left than most.
^verbatim, same. Libertarian phase ended around 2016, when Trump really opened the can of Nazi worms on the Republican side, which slapped me out of the “bOtH sIdEs aRe tHe sAmE” stupor.
Haven’t missed an election since, big or small. Solid blue.
- Raised Catholic - was pretty religious when young.
- In adolescence, started questioning things that didn’t make sense to me (e.g., why would God not want people to use birth control if they couldn’t afford kids? Why would he make people have a strong urge for sex but not want them to have it except for babies, and all the more typical things).
- Struggled more and more with things that didn’t make sense to me as I i got older (if God created everything, knows what’s going to happen, etc., how does it make sense to pray for something? Should he changed his plan because I asked really nicely? Etc.).
- Finally realized that all the myriad things that didn’t make sense to me disappeared if it turns out there is no god.
- Free from that notion, everything has clicked into place for me and the world makes more sense. It’s been 40ish years since then.
I thankfully was raised in the exact region and community with the correct religion and prevailing political views. /s
In reality, humanities courses in university, living in the many different types of communities (urban, suburban, rural), and good parents who taught me not to take claims at face value.
I’ve lived in the Southeast USA, SoCal, Southeast, and SoCal again, each for many years. It amazed me how much the culture is polarized in each area. I think both areas suck hard on the propaganda sauce. I’m hard left now just because I’m for helping people, and hate zealotry
Raised devout Mormon/LDS. 9/11 reaffirmed political conservativism. Church assigned me to be a missionary (age 19-21) in Portland, Oregon where I found liberals treated me with better respect than conservative christinans.
In 2006, my house rep said something royally stupid, so I voted for his Democratic rival. And like Pringles, once you pop you can’t stop.
Today I’m a fiery but loyal moderate democrat.
Developing a bullshit detector and having basic empathy. Atheist; friendly to friendly people, hostile to hostile people; believe government should serve the people, never the other way around.
I was brought up pretty non-religious. I remember in my very young years going to a non-denominational church. There was Sunday school and stuff. We moved across the country when I was 10 years old and family never went to church again. Mom would get a bit deep in it at Christmas with some bible reading. Got to my teenage years, searching for an identity. Tried church and totally was not for me. Too much telling me what and how I’m supposed to think. I’ve been an anti-theist ever since. 35+ years now.
I wrote a lot about it earlier today.
Not even going to read the thread before making this comment.
Remember rule 1 in this one.
No one speaks about the fight club?
Religion: I was raised Christian but my parents weren’t very observant. I started to see cracks when at my primary school we were taught about god creating the world and the big bang.
When I was 13 my girlfriend died. I turned to the bible for support and after reading it realised it was just fairy tales.
Social and political: I was a punk as a teenager. More due to my love for skateboarding and depression/anger about my girlfriend. But in that culture I started to realise how fucked everything was.
Serveral homeless people would wonder by the skatepark and we’d talk to them. Many of them we’re lovely people who had some sort of awful tragedy happen. I realised how heartless society could be. If you can’t work and function then you have no value. This was reinforced by how people talked about like they were the scum of the earth.
This was the early 00s in a rural county so racism and homophobia were rampant as well. There were probably single digit people if colour I saw in my town but again some used to stop by and chat with us / cheer us on when skating.
Again this showed how horrible the majority of people were.
So my politics became pretty simple. Everyone deserves to live a good life. That view is not very well reflected in the right.
Once I hit my early 20s I had a goal for myself: to find out what the truth is, whatever it may be, even if it shatters my most cherished beliefs. I went through so many different belief systems. I explored every kind of mindset I could regarding everything I could. I would get very involved with some belief system or ideology for a time and absorb what I could from it and then move on to something else.
Over time, I saw a ton of patterns emerge and I saw that ideologies of any kind place a limited filter on how one views reality. I decided that what makes the most sense to me is to simply seek to do the most good while doing the least harm. Whether or not one believes in a god is irrelevant as life does as it will anyway. Adhering to a political party is just team sports. Social norms are basically attempts to not be uncomfortable and only pretend to be about safety and order (neither of which exist regardless of what social norms exist).
I have two questions:
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does the fact that you found patterns and filters that limit mean you decided your religious search was over?
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how long did it take for you to cool off your “search with purpose”?
My religious search ended gradually as I became atheist over time. The scientific method seemed to be the most reliable way to find out what is true. I began my search in earnest probably in my late teens and really ramped it up in my early 20s and I was atheist by age 36 or 37.
Well, I have a belief in God. I generally consider atheists “a-thor-ists” aka they do not believe that Thor God of thunder is the master of the universe (and any other definitions you found over the years). I respect the effort you put into searching and I also use the scientific method. Because you aren’t currently searching, I’m not going to advertise. Have good fortune whatever you are doing!
I appreciate that. You as well!
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Reading, talking to people, thinking, observations, etc.
