[JKCalhoun]

I was born atheist as I think we all are. But I rejected the kind of indoctrination that follows pretty early on. More or less when I found out Santa Clause was a social construct that everyone agreed to lie about I started to question everything really. But also asking myself, "If this is bullshit, why would people lie about it?" I was satisfied in my atheism.

Weirdly though, my mom took my sister and I to a Quaker meeting when we were 10, 11 years old and I thought it was kind of cool. Still didn't believe in a god or whatever but I liked the people and the kind of lack of hierarchy of Quakerism (no priest, just people sitting in silence facing one another, etc.).

I was surprised to find myself seeking out a Quaker meeting again recently — here now 50 or so years since. Perhaps memories of that time came back when reflecting on the past after my mother's death a couple years ago. Perhaps the times we are living in caused me to look for "community".

And I have enjoyed finding the small group of Friends I could in Omaha. When I told one of the regulars that I was atheist, he was cool with it. "Atheism is a necessary step on the way to enlightenment," he told me.

Still puzzling over that.

[throwanem]

Oh, he just means you need the experience of doubt before you can approach the experience of acceptance, because otherwise how'd you know the difference between what's true and what you'd like to believe?

Quakers like as much as anyone else to be taken as having had some special revelation, especially if they can get that to happen without having to show so bold as to overtly seek to claim it. Don't go thinking they're really so ahierarchical as all that, or that the names they call themselves are any truer by default than anyone else's.

[BrandoElFollito]

Or he likes these kind of meetings.

[throwanem]

¿Á que punto dije no está los dos?

[BrandoElFollito]

see my sibling comment

[throwanem]

I did, but I don't understand what you're objecting to with mine.

[throwanem]

Really, all I'm saying, and I reply to my own comment deep in a thread here to do so clearly, is that when someone starts speaking gnomically to you about "enlightenment," you are most wise to keep one hand on your wallet and the other over your drink, and your knees tightly together at all times, until he goes away and bothers someone else...then toss the drink anyway, just in case.

[istjohn]

If you want to raise an atheist, go all in on Santa Clause. It's a great inocculation against superstition.

[BrandoElFollito]

Maybe you like these kind of meetings (why not) - what does religion has to do with that?

[JKCalhoun]

"Meeting" is what the Quakers call "church".

[BrandoElFollito]

Yes, I understand that but if what is needed is a group of people that have a certain set of behaviours (silence, or dancing, or talking about science), a religion is not needed. Joining a religion just because the way people meet is a bit too much, no? You also need to take in the whole set of religious stuff.

I completely understand that some places bring the kind of inner peace someone needs. I like to sit in churches to think because they are nice, cool and silent. I aml also an "active" atheist and these things do not clash. It is just that churches in my country (France) are great places for this kind of meditation, but it could also be a Buddhist temple or anything else not related to religion.

[darkmarmot]

Santa Clause was also my complete religious breaking point as a child!