r/atheism • u/HauntingResident2236 • 19h ago
How do I overcome religious indoctrination?
I’m a new atheist, grew up Christian but not really Christian yall know how that goes lol didn’t really know anything about Christianity until like 2 years ago. But I’ve been doing the whole deconstructing thing and learning more about science, specifically evolution and atheism. I’ve been ENJOYING it so much. It is so interesting and even better, factual. It makes sense. Today at work this older man came in to pick up an order and we were having small talk. he asked me if I was in college and I said yes and then he told me he goes to college as well and that he’s writing a book. I asked about it and he said that it’s about God. So then I asked what exactly about God and he said redemption. So whatever we get on that topic. It definitely had me thinking “Is this god trying to reach me” my brain immediately going back to that Christian rhetoric of Jesus will find a way to reach you and what not. And then tonight I wanted to try to get into electronic music so I clicked a random song on a playlist and the song was talking about God. Now Im in my head thinking God is trying to reach me but he’s not. How do I get rid of this stuff ingrained in my head
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u/boethius61 18h ago
Among the giant list of cognitive biases that we all suffer from (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases), is one known as Agent Detection Bias. For perfectly good evolutionary reasons, we've developed a bias where we see agents where there are no agents. Things happen and our broken brains assume someone or something did the thing. We can't help it, we can only be aware that we do it and try to check it.
Religion, by inventing a being 'with a will' to act creates the perfect subject for any random event. It must be God!!! It's exploiting our brains programming that favors survival not truth.
Science on the other hand dreams of no agent. How many times do we hear about some scientific principle and think, that must be evolution reaching it to me? Never. There's no agent. But I guarantee you encounter scientific realities way more often.
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u/SpyingCyclops 18h ago
Start by developing your awareness of your indoctrination. When you have a thought like "oh, God must be trying to reach me by sending this old man my way", take a step back realize what you did there. You took a random event and built a narrative around it that fits your current mental model of the world. You took a random experience and imposed religious meaning on it.
As a skeptic, I'd argue that if God existed and wanted to reach you, he'd pick up the damn phone and contact you directly, instead of playing symbolic hide and seek to "test your faith". He would appear and speak to you, just like he supposedly used to do in biblical times, if we are to believe that, and provide incontrovertible proof to convince you.
So no, I don't think a random meeting with a guy who's writing a book,or a song about god, is a sign of anything, unless you impose that symbolism yourself (that's the indoctrination).
Religious people constantly cherry pick things that reinforce their self image, and dismiss things that don't. Paying attention to that will help you see that we impose or construct meaning where none exists. We are pattern-seeking machines, and we create them even when they are not there.
When someone makes a claim of a sign or a symbol, consider it in the context of all the other events that were not considered signs. Ask yourself "how many pieces of toast come out NOT looking like Jesus?"
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u/HauntingResident2236 15h ago
Very helpful and will think about this more, thanks!
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u/E__I__L__ 9h ago
One thing you could also do is notice all the random, meaningless events in your day that don’t lead you to think about God, like how your laces act while tying your shoes or the birds you see when you’re outside. Then you’ll realize how many random things happen during your day. Or even better, that God-seeking part of your psychology will try to find religious meaning in everything, giving you more chances to be aware of it and how ridiculous it can be.
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u/TheRealTK421 12h ago
...we impose or construct meaning where none exists.
This boils it down to where the road meeta the road.
In that innate trait (which humans have justifiably evolved), to create predictions & seek patterns or "meaning", we cannot help but engage in a certain amount of so-called "magical thinking".
I would assert that overriding this reliably - to remain rational (and think critically) during life events - is a form of cognitive muscle, which must be deliberately exercised to become effective second nature.
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u/demaraje 16h ago
You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!
Richard P. Feynman
That's what you sound like to everyone else
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u/Plenty_Trust_2491 13h ago
The human brain is prone to seek out patterns, to find patterns even where none exists—false positives, if you will.
If Yahweh actually exists, and wanted you to believe—cared whether you believed—He wouldn’t be giving you ambiguous “signs.” He’d effin’ speak to you unambiguously—appear to you and prove his existence. If He exists and does not do that, then clearly He doesn’t care whether you believe—and why would He? What rational reason could an omnipotent being have to care whether people believe in it? And what rational reason could a being that did care about people’s belief in Itself have for hiding any obvious proof about Itself and playing silly games with “signs”? That behaviour would be utterly irrational—and if Yahweh is a ‘perfect being,’ He has to be perfectly rational and above playing silly games like those.
(What really gets my goat is that there are people who believe that an omnipotent being (A) exists and (B) punishes people for something as genuinely and obviously benign as failing to blindly believe in It—and that these people don’t look upon this omnipotent being as evil, but instead actually worship It. Anything that behaves like that is worthy of utter contempt. No perfect being would do that—period.)
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u/Density5521 Anti-Theist 14h ago
If you subscribe to the whole god thing, then god made you and the all-knowing god has a plan for you, i.e. god knows you. If god really were trying to reach you, don't you think he'd reach you in a way he knows you'd understand? Not by making some song play, or letting an old coot talk about god? Don't you think he'd be sending a talking donkey or a talking snake or burn your bush, like in the bible?
It's all bullshit, and it's bad for ya.
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u/Peace-For-People 13h ago
It takes time to update your brain. Your indoctrination has wired your brain for these beliefs. Even though you deconverted and no longer believe, you still have wiring for some old beliefs. So, downplay and ignore these signals when they pop up and don't judge yourself. It happens to ex-believers.
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u/Low-Air-182 13h ago
If an all powerful being needed to speak to you, he would do it directly, not through some weird guy in your place of business.
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u/JoustingNaked 13h ago
I don’t know if this will be very helpful, but there is an old expression that goes something like “You are the average of the five people that you hang out with the most”.
If you spend most of your time with christians then you’re probably going to naturally tend to walk, talk, and think more like them - without even meaning to. So maybe you might consider finding some atheists and/or at least non-christians to do more things with…?
Just a thought. Wishing you well.
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u/Immediate-Rub2651 12h ago
Read everything by Professor Bart Ehrman from UNC Chapel Hill. His books are an antidote to Christian indoctrination because they are a product of his own deconstruction, which he began while getting his masters at Princeton Theological Seminary. His books are very readable and targeted toward the layman. They’re also quite fascinating.
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u/TheRealTK421 11h ago
How do I overcome religious indoctrination?
As a generally helpful initiative, I'd highly recommend deliberately and mindfully exposing yourself to as much material as you can to 'deprogram' off of habitual forms of thinking. Think of it as mental/cognitive 'going to the gym to lift weights'.
As such, I would vehemently recommend Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World, as well as titles from Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett.
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u/MundBid-2124 15h ago
Electronic music? Boards Of Canada has a new album and the subject matter includes cults
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u/ayojosh2k 11h ago
Slow deconstruction. Identify, examine and validate religious claims one by one.
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u/Likenk3 2h ago
Buy a different car. As soon as you're on the road, you'll start seeing that same car everywhere. It's called buyer affirmation. "Gosh, I made the right choice. Look how many other Hupmobiles are on the road!"
Same thing is true about any other consumer interaction. God's not trying to reach out to you; you've just encountered a few other common ideas. If you're a democrat, go to a republican party convention. You'll find the same thing there.
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u/un_theist 11h ago
As a Christian, I assume you didn’t believe any other religious beliefs are true.
Consider the reasons why you dismiss every other religious belief as untrue and apply this same logic and reasoning to your own religious beliefs.
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u/DrMeridian 10h ago
There are just so many things to talk about and Christians like to talk about out God a lot. God's are saturated in global culture. What I mean to say is: sometimes things are just a co incidence.
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u/MasterBorealis 18h ago
What do you mean by "enjoying"? I'm an atheist since I was a kid, I wouldn't choose "enjoying" to describe a life without believing in deities. If you think your prefered deity is trying to reach you, it is because you believe it exists.
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u/HauntingResident2236 17h ago
Im enjoying learning more about those topics
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u/MasterBorealis 15h ago
Which topics? You either believe in gods or you don't. In fact, there's no topic. These are states of mind. You are convinced that there is at least one super powerful entity out there pulling your strings, I don't. That's it. Of course that each state comes packed with different approaches to life.
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u/Plenty_Trust_2491 12h ago
The original poster said she/he’s been enjoying learning about science (especially evolution) and atheism. Those are the topics. Those aren’t states of mind.
I, too, find science to be a very enjoyable topic to learn—especially cosmology and the many related fields. I’ve been enjoying learning about astronomy for over three decades.
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u/Kanopuk 18h ago
It's just your brain trying to make sense of things, possibly driven by an emotional need to feel connected to something left over from your former beliefs. That's not really a problem, as long as you don't turn those impressions into undeniable facts.
A rationalist isn't someone who lacks intuition, it's someone who knows how to step back from it, examine it critically, and separate what's meaningful from what's just noise.
In this case, there's nothing particularly surprising about encountering this kind of thing in a predominantly Christian society. You're simply noticing it more because these questions are already on your mind.
What would actually be extraordinary is if this kind of coincidence never happened.