Conversion to Atheism

Blogger Ichtus77 blogged on her personal story. Here is an excerpt:

"Before I became an atheist, I had grown up in church, a preacher’s kid who prayed to receive Christ when I was four. I never matured beyond the Sunday school understanding of avoiding the punishment of hell and gaining the reward of heaven.  There were lots of questions my parents did their best to answer, but many questions lingered after I got married and moved away from home.

When we bought a computer, I used it to witness in chat rooms and message boards, even met a few times in person with one of the people to whom I was witnessing.  In the process I discovered people have a lot of doubts about Christianity, and I added those doubts to my own.

I remember the night when the scales tipped and my doubts outweighed my faith – I had a nightmare that I rode in the passenger seat of a car speeding through a hilly stretch of road and could not make the driver slow down. I woke up terrified as the car launched off a cliff into the blackness of night.  The grounding of my faith gave way to an abyss of nothing.  It didn’t kill me, but it didn’t make me stronger, either.  The abyss provides no ground for meaningful strength." 

I like that she wrote, "The abyss provides no ground for meaningful strength." This reminded me of something Sartre wrote in Being and Nothingness: "Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose." 1 There is no ground, no objective meaning for your life; there's only an illusion you build for yourself called value. 

You can read Ichtus77's full story here: The day I converted from atheism is approaching... 

If you want, check out the post Is Life Absurd Without God? 

Source
1. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1943