Attention Atheist, can you please do me a favor and listen to me.......

[Cal33]

369. S: Clearly you haven't progressed beyond the stage where you fancy yourself some

sort of authority on "stages", and which way through those stages constitutes "progression"
or "growth".

C: Perhaps I used the wrong word. I hope this will explain more clearly what I meant by
"stage": I was born into a religious family and had gone to parochial school all the way.
As a child I was quite religious myself. In my teens I began to have serious doubts about
some of the doctrines and dogmas that we were taught, as did quite a few of my classmates,
and we started having discussions among ourselves.

In my case, by about age 17 I had more or less become an agnostic, along with some of
my classmates. But as long as I lived at home I continued going to church. When I began
living on my own a few years later, I simply left the church. Let's call this "Stage 1." I
described the above very briefly, of course, but it took a long time before the guilt, anxiety and
fear came to rest. I've since then heard of the following: "Grab them when they're young.
When you've got them convinced, you've got them for life."

I remained an agnostic for nearly 40 years when I began to think differently again. It occurred
to me that I could have been throwing out the baby together with the bath-water. Why not
keep the baby and throw out just the water? And this was what I did. Let's call it "Stage 2."

I used the word "stage" to indicate each time that I had made a very serious change in my
life. These changes were made based on the experiences I had in my life. And each one of us,
as individuals, have had experiences that differ from person to person.

You make it sound as though I believed that we all go through the same experiences, and
consequently the same "stages" through life. I do nothing of the kind. I believe different
problems require different solutions. And even one and the same problem can usually be
resolved in more than one way only.

As for "growth" and "progression", one can grow better or worse, or not at all. The same thing
applies to progression. All of these three ways have been and are still happening with me.


Do you think I am being authoritative in what I have written here so far? If so, that's
your problem. I am merely telling you something about myself, and here and there also
giving you my opinion. You can take it or leave it.


S: I guess progress is defined, purely coincidentally of course, by the sequence you've followed

C: The sequence I have followed is particular to my life alone. The same thing applies to
everyone else's.