Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
And yes, there are accounts of people going the other way, going from atheism to (or back to) religion. Some of those accounts seemed sincere and credible to me, but most seemed disingenuous, as though written by someone trying to make it seem as though he was once an atheist. Regardless, I take all such accounts, as well as those accounts of deconversion, with a grain of salt.
Then you'll have to take mine with the appropriate seasoning.

I was raised humanist, by parents who had quietly rejected the faith of their parents and wanted their children to make their own choices. (AFAIK, my sisters are still atheists, and treat my religion as just another of my oddities.) As a child I was briefly attracted by the bible-stories books my grandparents gave me, but my father very wisely gave me a basic guide to all the world's faiths, and let me figure out for myself that just because someone once put it in a book doesn't make it true.

In college I resolved the conflict between that and my growing sense of the spiritual by trying out Buddhism. But though I retained a love of the Zen doctrines, it felt too abstract unless you ended up treating Siharta Gautama as a god - and if you're going to deify some historical figure, why choose one from a foreign culture? (Ironic, since I ended up worshipping the Goddess of Sumer, but since she got at least as far as Scandinavia, I feel a bit closer to her than to an Indian sage!)

Paganism appealed to me as an idea, but at that time there was nobody to teach me unless I wanted to get into the pseudo-Masonic structures of Wicca, which I'm too anarchic for; so I felt around blindly till I came across the translations of the scriptures of Inanna, and felt that this was what I'd been looking for. Eventually theoretical studies and prayers into the void brought me an answer, and I believed.

But of course you have only my word for this, and I might just be a paid shill for the deist conspiracy
But I have also examined other religious organizations and I found all of them lacking in any evidence to support their beliefs and dogma. And without evidence all they have is hearsay and wishful thinking.
And invisible friends. Some of us have nice supportive invisible friends. I'm very glad mine found me.
Personally, I find such beliefs no different from the belief in lucky numbers, astrology, four leaf clovers, lucky charms and any other superstition.
You say that like it's a bad thing.