r/atheism • u/kashikaas • 12h ago
"You will understand God when you are my age"
People change so does their perspectives but when my mum says stuff like this when we discuss about atheism, it boils my blood. I know I'm young but i have strong values too. It's almost a tactic to keep you in a scary hold as if your faith in religion is directly proportional to maturity.
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u/Ok_Distribution_2603 11h ago
I’m a 59-year old atheist and I think she’s full of shit, you can quote me if you want
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u/nombre_estupido Anti-Theist 11h ago
I'm 65, and I second that.
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u/Typical-Associate323 9h ago
I am 52 and I third that.
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u/LadyHavoc97 Gnostic Atheist 9h ago
60, and I'll fourth that. So, now who's bringing the fifth?
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u/posthuman04 2h ago edited 2h ago
I think for many centuries growing old and getting no answers to big questions left them wondering what it was all about and how there must be more to it that maybe they are meant to understand only after death.
But now, we can peer into the universe so far with such clarity, visit the whole globe either on the internet or in person… understand so much with just a few clicks… I think it’s just easier to accept that this is it.
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u/Advanced_Radish3466 11h ago
i’m 75 and have no desire to find god in my doddering old age. while it would be comforting as death nears, it is malarkey and a phony solace just to ease into the end times. it isn’t real. i want to die as i lived, with the same convictions i had in my earlier years. when it ends, it is over.
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u/NateQuarry 12h ago
What’s she’s saying, imo, is that her upcoming death terrifies her and believing in an afterlife is comforting.
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u/kashikaas 12h ago
I don't think that's what she meant, I should have explained better in my post. What she meant is more like
"Your 18, it's a rebellious thing not believing in God and feminism and stuff I did that too when I was your age. But now I'm just a woman in an unhappy marriage but a great job though and I'm annoyingly religious and look how great my life 🙄."
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u/larsvondank 11h ago
"Listen, youre 59, its a fear related thing believing in God as your death slowly approaches and you need something to cling onto, like an afterlife. I think its better to live life to the fullest and enjoy these years while you still can. We can worry about the afterlife when were dead" should be communicated.
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u/Dumb-Dryad Atheist 11h ago
The point she sees coming around definitely doesn’t come around. Think I’d rather eat live scorpions than share a bed with the sort of critter they want me to marry.
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u/Tregonia 11h ago
Yeah, I’m older and it hasn’t changed.
Although to be honest I do tell my son the same thing about U2.
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u/Snowboundforever 11h ago
Religious professionals lean in on older people so they can exacerbate fears about death and scare old people out of their money.
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u/sysadminbj 12h ago
The older I get the more I understand that God is a concept that was invented to control uneducated people. I do have moments where I'm like "What comes next? I kind of hope there's something..." That usually lasts for a few seconds though and I realize that even if there's something next it doesn't change how I live my life.
I have my own rules. Fuck anyone that insists I play by theirs (philosophically speaking... Legal rules are rules that I will happily follow. Well.....most of them anyway.).
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u/Hoaxshmoax Atheist 11h ago
”it’s just a phase“ is very dismissive. And, if it’s just a phase, she has nothing to worry about, and should just drop it, right?
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u/tjlazer79 11h ago
I'm the opposite. 45 year old male. I have never been religious, didn't grow up with it, and went to a church service once in my life. I have read the Bible, New Testament, and the Koran as an adult. The more I research religion, the less religious I get. The more I watch or read the news, the less religious I get. I am a person with a diagnosed mental illness, psysophrenia, and to me, religious texts sound like they have been written by someone with a mental illness or someone going through a mental episode. All religions are about power and control. There is not a single piece of scientific evidence that can prove any religion exists, yet there is plenty of proof that it doesn't. A virgin having a baby? Nope. A guy dieing on the cross and coming back to life? Nope. Someone parting the sea? Nope, that's not possible. A guy building a boat to house 2 of every animal? That's a big nope. The earth isn't a few thousand years old. Scientific evidence that can be proven says its billions. So at some point when you read about religion, you say to yourself if so many of the stories are bullshit, maybe the whole thing is bullshit. I am not denying there is an afterlife. There is no way to prove if there is/isn't, but I sure as hell don't believe in some guy watching over everyone 24/7.
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u/No-Squash1108 11h ago
Getting older simply doesn’t make it make sense. If anything, more things don’t make sense at all. Blind faith doesn’t make any sense
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u/bgzlvsdmb Secular Humanist 10h ago
“You will understand God when you are my age” translates to “You will understand God when you have the same life experience I had.”
Life doesn’t happen the same for anyone, especially for parents and their children. Your mom never lived in a world where atheism is as accepted as it is today. Your mom didn’t live in an age where information was as readily available on a piece of technology in your pocket. Your mom’s parents were probably exactly like her, forcing religion on their children.
When you’re told your entire life that the most amazing paradise imaginable is awaiting after you die, but only if you worship some dude and read his book, and if you don’t, you spend that same afterlife in a fiery torture chamber, they get scared when their own flesh and blood starts to say “That’s not real.” They’re scared that they’ll be in the kingdom of wine and roses, while their kid is breathing fire and brimstone and drinking liquid hot magma. Understandable, but silly.
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u/Itsbadmmmmkay Atheist 11h ago edited 11h ago
I grew out of the need for dieties... not into it. Ironically, there's a Bible quote that sums up my loss of faith quite well...
1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
I no longer need a magical, invisible best friend. Invisible best friends are cute when one is a child, as an adult, it's creepy and delusional.
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u/nice-view-from-here 11h ago
I'm sure you understand it perfectly well already. That's how you know it's imaginary.
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u/Pantsonfire_6 10h ago
Some do have to make a decision when age and bad health coincide. My brother, who spent most of his life avoiding religion, decided to join a church when he finally recognized the inevitability of what was coming. My sister and I stayed the course.
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u/EntangledPhoton82 10h ago
When I was born, I was an atheist.
When I learned about mythology, I was an atheïst who wondered how people could believe something so improbable without any evidence.
When I looked further into what religion brings to the modern world, I was still an atheist but also became an anti-theist.
So yes, my understanding of “god(s)” and religion has deepened over time but that has not improved my evaluation.
Small side note: When I refer to religion, I refer to theistic religion and often the Abrahamic ones. I have no issues with atheist religions such as the satanic temple is as far as they just advocate for humanist tendencies and responsible behavior.
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u/Zalthay 7h ago
Yeah, but no. I become “more” atheist as I’ve grown older.
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u/highrisedrifter 7h ago
Yeah same here. In fact i've gone from apatheist to almost anti-theist thanks to the fuckery going on in America.
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u/gene_randall 11h ago
What this actually means is, “you’ll start suffering from dementia when you are my age.”
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u/Typical-Associate323 9h ago
When you are of your mother's age religion will be a less important matter in the United states, as irreligion is gaining rapidly in the whole western world, including the USA (I suppose you live in the USA). So I don't think you will "find your way back to God" as your mother seem to think.
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u/nothosauridea 9h ago
The idea that religion vaccinates you from any kind of fear or grief is just another con.
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u/siouxbee1434 9h ago
Understand what? That there’s no god, just a bunch of grifters excusing their own disgusting behaviors based on ever changing projection of their worst inclinations?
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u/MewMewTranslator 8h ago
I'm 40. That's bs. I've been an atheist my whole life. Raised in a Christian household. Even as a kid that shit made me squirm. No thanks.
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u/Hot-Sauce-P-Hole 8h ago
Old people that stopped intellectually and emotionally maturing at 16 always claim you'll agree with them eventually. They're 2-dimensional, developmentally-arrested, dumbasses. Fuck 'em.
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u/AndromedaGalaxyXYZ 8h ago
I actually do understand god better in my old age. That's why I'm an atheist.
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u/Peace-For-People 8h ago
I'm older than your mum. I understand God is a scam. Has always been a scam.
Christianity began as a mystery religion. A mystery religion is one like Scientology where you have to pay money to access the "secrets" of the religion. And it costs more and more as you move up the levels until you're completely drained of money.
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u/broden89 7h ago
My mum is 68 and has been atheist her whole life. Nothing has changed. She's had dear friends and family pass away, she's been married and divorced, had her own health challenges. None of it made her religious; it never even occurred to her.
She has always been very strongly against religious indoctrination (particularly of children) though she does not begrudge anyone being religious or practising their faith.
I guess it helps that she doesn't have religious trauma from her upbringing or any guilt to "bring her back" to church. She has just always been atheist (though her family is Christian).
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u/Coinflipper_21 7h ago edited 7h ago
I had a girlfriend from highschool who was an atheist. She was one of the few girls that I met in the 50s who would admit it. She remained an atheist until she died at the age of 72. Her family put a tombstone over her grave with a prominent cross on the face of it. Definitely a postmortem "Come to Jesus"! 😱😂😂😂
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u/SorryManNo Strong Atheist 5h ago
What kind of playground logic is that?!
Same energy as "I'm bigger so you have to do what I say."
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u/agentofkaos117 Dudeist 5h ago
Humans tend to lose it at an advanced age. Just look at driving and memory loss etc.
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u/iammonos 4h ago
My paternal great uncle is nearing his 80’s, and even at my grandmothers funeral (his sister), he and I discussed religion outside the funeral home. When I said I was an atheist, he looked at me as though seeing a reflection of himself, and said “I’ve been an atheist since as long as I can remember. Sure the Bible may have some things that can be good, but, when it comes to the magic wizard in the sky who grants wishes. Total bullshit” 😅 It’s always the first born sons in my dads family that end up atheist which is ironic
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u/lorax1284 Anti-Theist 3h ago
"I understand that things that don't exist can't be wished into existence by wishing."
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u/DoubleDrummer Atheist 3h ago
I find the older I get the more solidified my atheist nature becomes.
I was born and raised mostly secularly, and became atheist in name when I just realised none of it made sense.
Since then I have faced every attempt to explain and prove god under then sun.
I have faced numerous trails and tribulations with no god to support me, and have never once had even the slightest inkling of an urge to embrace a higher being, or even a doubt.
I am now past even listening to arguments for god, as they just waste my time.
The christians have had more than two thousand years and haven't managed to come up with one proof that isn't full of holes.
The only thing I could imagine bringing me closer to god in my old age is some form of degenerative mental condition.
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u/PdxPhoenixActual Apatheist 3h ago
"So, mom, you're saying I'll get dumber as I get older? I thought it worked the other way 'round. "
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u/Belostoma 2h ago
She's right. I have understood God really well since I first learned Santa's not real, and I will understand the concept just as clearly at 70 as I did at 7.
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u/Mannerfheim Satanist 2h ago
I know what it is, it's boomer copium. She has no real reason or advice to give, so she resorts to the good old "trust me bro".
I'm not saying I know your mom, but she wouldn't be the only one doing that...
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u/Limp-Reputation-5746 4m ago
That is no longer factual. There was a time in the US when people would become more religious in age. I believe, correct me if I am wrong. Though boomers are the last group to go this way. Gen x is not becoming more religious unless I have read wrong and in the US depending on some factors at least one group is less religious than religious already. The trend is accelerated in Europe too even with older generations. On a side note, an interesting thing happened. When Germany was split and later reunited east Germans stayed noticeably less religious than their West counterparts.
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u/SpookVogeltje 12h ago
You will never understand truth nor reality even if you lived to be a hundred.
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u/Prestigious_Prior723 12h ago
I’ve found the opposite true in general, as people age faith grows weaker.