am I an athiest-really?

[DeterminedJuliet]

I don't begrudge them either, but I'm also suspicious of anyone who brings it up on their very first post. In my experience, it is usually a very thinly veiled "faux atheist" who likes to do this. My apologies to the OP if that's not the case, but that was my initial reaction.

[applesauce]

Yeah, there's actually a rule about not being able to post everywhere on the forums until you've posted at least 10 times on the basic parts of the website, like the Laid Back Lounge. I don't know if that made sense. I've only recently gotten to 10 posts, myself. Just relax for now! (I still need to answer your original question, but I'm too busy to type a detailed response right now).

[Asmodean]

Either the dad was an atheist who didn't want to die alone,

Or, his brain function turned abnormal, bringing him back to the time before he deconverted (If he was atheist by deconversion only)

Or, he decided to find god in his last hours

Or, he already did find god and never (completely) lost it.

The poll questions are... Weird, so I've laid out some possibilities. Never having known the man, I don't think I can narrow it down from here.

[applesauce]

Hi, Beatty - it's me again. Don't worry if you can't figure out how the forums work. I'm new here, and I can barely figure out how they work either. Everything here confuses me (not the content - just the website itself). The posts are kind of hard to read.

But now that I actually have a minute to answer your question I will say a few things...

1) I don't know that many people that have died. I can probably count on one hand how many people I knew personally that have died, and they all happened to be religious. So I don't actually have any "what a person said on their deathbed" stories.

2) People do change their opinions throughout various stages of their life. Thomas Jefferson was raised as Anglican by his family, and then later on in his life he decided to be Episcopalian. Then he became Unitarian. Then he became a Deist (someone who doesn't believe in Jesus's divinity, and doesn't believe in any one holy text or organized religion, but still believes in a God). The proof is in his writings. I can post sources later. (don't worry, I won't forget)! The word deist doesn't seem to have the same feeling or cultural meaning as the word agnostic, but I'm not an expert on these things. My religion teacher once told me that on his death bed, Jefferson decided to be Christian again - but I don't know if this is actually true. He might have thought it was true, but I don't think he actually had hard sources.

3) The truth is, people can fall anywhere on a spectrum!

Here is Richard Dawkin's belief scale (he describes himself as a 6)

1.  Strong Theist: I do not question the existence of God, I KNOW he exists.

2.  De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there.

3.  Weak Theist: I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.

4.  Pure Agnostic: God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.

5.  Weak Atheist: I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical.

6.  De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.

7.  Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God.

You can decide for yourself where you fall under! Don't take the term "weak" as something negative. Don't take the term "strong" as something necessarily positive. I think Dawkins just needed descriptive words for his scale, and the terms "weak and strong" aren't supposed to be poetic, here.

4) What a person decides to believe is a very personal journey. There's no point in keeping score or judging other people based on where they fall in the spectrum, or if they change their minds or don't change it at all. It's not like somebody "wins" if they stick to one belief the longest or whatever.

5) Why would your father's belief or lack thereof determine what you yourself believe? My mother is a strong Catholic, but I'm not. My sister is extremely Protestant, but I'm definitely not. I remained agnostic for a long time, and now I'm an atheist. I used to be unsure, but now I'm quite sure. I'm definitely not going to change my mind this time, because after thinking long and hard about it...there are certain things in the Bible and other religious texts that I simply don't agree with, and I'm not open for debate about those things. That's never gonna change for me, personally. And the Bible isn't gonna change either, so that's that. Don't feel bad if you can't decide exactly what you believe right now. Many, many people remain agnostic because that's what makes the most sense to them. You don't have to be the poster child for your beliefs, whatever they may be.

6) You asked us in the thread title if you were really an atheist. Only you can answer that question. The rest of us don't know you, or your father well enough to answer it! If it helps you at all, I will say that when I became an atheist...even I had to learn how to get over certain myths about what an atheist was. I was confused about whether or not I counted as one, because I wasn't even sure what it meant. I believed the stereotypes about atheists that just weren't true. I didn't want to call myself one because I didn't want people to think certain things about me that weren't true. I wasn't ready. I will make another post later on about how I got over the stereotypes. Mostly, I just had to keep questioning and making an effort to un-learn bad habits that I learned while I was religious. I hope that helps!

[Amicale]

Christopher Hitchens made the comment that if he made any sudden deathbed conversions in his last days alive, it would only be because his mind was no longer functioning properly. Depending on what someone's dying of, that can very well be possible in many cases. It happened with one of my grandmothers. When she died, she insisted quite all of a sudden that it was VERY important for her to believe in unseen beings - angels, ghosts, dead loved ones, etc. She claimed she now had 'proof' of their existence, because they were all around her. In the end, cancer took her, but I suspect it had spread further than we thought, including perhaps into her brain or optic nerves.

Just saying, there's no way of knowing why a lifelong atheist would suddenly ask for a priest. Others have mentioned the possibility of hedging one's bets, fear, uncertainty, etc. Some may call for a priest because someone secretly urged them to, and they're trying to make their loved ones happy. Some people may even wish to 'get back to God' solely for the reason of there being a possible chance of seeing their family again, in an afterlife. So many reasons are all possible.

I don't question the mind of someone about to die. I couldn't possibly put myself in their shoes.

[applesauce]

It's most likely because your dad was raised to be Christian. When you've been raised that way your whole life, you hold those beliefs in higher esteem than other beliefs. If someone is raised as Jewish or Muslim, and they became an atheist when they were older, they won't be asking for a Christian priest on their deathbed, obviously :p Maybe they'll ask for a Rabbi or an Imam.

[xSilverPhinx]

Beatty, you're not Egor, are you?

[Recusant]

I think that there's vanishingly little chance of that. 

[xSilverPhinx]

I hope so (had to ask ). It's just what Egor himself said about signing into forums as if he was an atheist

[ThinkAnarchy]

I suspected something fishy, but didn't want to say anything since I thought it's against the rules to accuse people of trolling. Perhaps that's another forum.

[Sandra Craft]

I hope so (had to ask ). It's just what Egor himself said about signing into forums as if he was an atheist

Have to admit it, I was wondering that too.

[Whitney]

I haven't known any atheists very well that died and haven't heard any stories of that happening to anyone my friends know.

[The Magic Pudding]

I hope so (had to ask ). It's just what Egor himself said about signing into forums as if he was an atheist

I'm 66.6% sure one of you are Egor, just trying to narrow it down... >.<

[Sandra Craft]

I hope so (had to ask ). It's just what Egor himself said about signing into forums as if he was an atheist

I'm 66.6% sure one of you are Egor, just trying to narrow it down... >.<

I'm so hoping it isn't me, I was joking about a sex change operation!

[ThinkAnarchy]

I hope so (had to ask ). It's just what Egor himself said about signing into forums as if he was an atheist

I'm 66.6% sure one of you are Egor, just trying to narrow it down... >.<

I'm so hoping it isn't me, I was joking about a sex change operation!

Has he really become that effective? Have we gotten to the point where we accuse each other of being Egor? Granted I'm certain some of you are sleeper accounts. Slowly accumulating legitimate posts to one day wake up and start posting useless drivel.

Edit: Fixed McQ, thanks for pointing that out.