PSYCHOLOGY: RELIGION AND ATHEISM

PSYCHOLOGY: RELIGION AND ATHEISM

Good day, dears! Today I would like to focus on a question I came across on Quora, written by a person seeking answers regarding one of the biggest dilemmas of humanity: religion. The question is "Is becoming an atheist difficult for people like us born Christian?". First of all, I would like to say that nobody is born a Christian. We are not genetically predisposed to religion, but it's handed down to children through the, what I call, agglomeration of the society's traditions we are raised in. The original post described the religion state at birth as a default condition of the human being, but I would describe birth itself as a default condition and not religion. It's like newborns start painting themselves on a white canvas using their natural instincts, their genetic predisposition, and the influences coming from the family setting, the group of friends, school context and society laws, regulations, uses and costumes. As far as the issues coming from the period of time necessary to convert from Christian to atheist and the effort spent during the process, it all depends on the morals pushing us down this road. From experience, everything happened quickly and easily for a couple of reasons: the first one finds its explanation in the studies I conducted on the history of humanity and religions since the beginning of ancient civilizations, and the second one reflects my lifestyle, my being and what religion means to me. Being a person who likes to be brutally honest and in constant search for truth, I always believed that I couldn't rely on a religion based on half truths. It is known, for example, that the iconography of Jesus and Mother Mary have been largely monopolized by the members of the Western civilizations' aristocracy, who used to request to be portrayed by the most famous painters in the guise of Christ and his mother. An elementary knowledge of history can easily discredit the conventional look of the Christian iconography since it's known that Jesus was born in today's Middle East. Just a simple thorough reading of the Bible and the Gospels can highlight all the discrepancies in the apostoles' books. I also would like to add that the decision taken by the Church to choose and formalize only certain books, keeping others away from the believers, is certainly questionable and shady. There's proof of the Nazarene's existence, but there's also proof that the tales about his life have been overblown by his followers, and that during his times people would verbally pass down stories. The first written testimony about Christ is dated decades after his death and by the hand of unknown people. How is the Church justifying this lack of indisputability? By preaching the power of faith. I believe faith is more of a mass suggestion and some psychological conditioning than reality. Human beings have limits and, since the beginning of civilization, we try to fill the gaps of what's inexplicable through the divine intervention of God. We obviously don't believe in Poseidon punishing humans with hurricanes anymore, because we acquired the necessary technology to explain atmospheric phenomena and natural disasters, but we still want to surround certain aspects of life with mysticism. I believe that it's easier to move away from that sense of addiction to God once we realize that as humans we hog our lives, our inclinations, our bad and good intentions and we are the result of our choices and, unfortunately sometimes, others'. I am far from trying to convert believers into atheists with this blog entry, but I would like to share my personal experience growing up in a family and society set on Catholicism myself. I thank you all for reading and I wish you a great day. Martina.