About me
I was born on 21. November 1981, son of Hans Elias Joensen and Asta Vágadal.
I was the 4th kid. I have 5 siblings, who are Elinborg, Frants, Teitur, Jóhanna and Pætur.
My email address is: smileysal1981@yahoo.com and my YIM is smileysal1981 (duh!).
(03/28/04) question asked by daiseylazy) and this was my response. I think that this short recap explains to a good extent my atheistic motivations.
d: "You've never tasted faith. Could it be envy?"
I've never "tasted" faith because ten years of indoctrination failed, when I listened to reason and started questioning my "faith". All those feelings were nothing compared to the relief from the mind-poisoning faith.
"Your motivation?" You might ask. My motivation against faith (dubbed militant atheist) answer is a personal story:
As a small kid I did not accept faith, so my mother forced it on me, using threats and subjugation. Of course, under this pretense I accepted "faith" ... for ten years. When I started asking questions, I found that this "faith", which people told me was their conviction, did not hold substantiation. It was simply accepted as "proof". I asked many in Sunday school what they thought was true and what wasn't; no "answer" said much more than the typical because-God-said-so answers. One specific memory, a previous friend of mine in the Christian community admitted that he had deliberately "talked in tongues"; he explained that he had simply listened to how the other people did, and emulated that. After I became "full blood" atheist I confronted him with this, not surprisingly he denied it. I continued to go to the meetings, fearing retribution from other people and my own family. I was in agony.
Until one day, I got the balls to say: "No I don't want to.", "Why not? You shall!" "No, I do not want to go to the meeting." (my family are protestant) "If you don't go, then...". Even under threat of retribution I stood my ground. Imagine, when you're 14 year old and you stand your ground? Not an experience that I recommend. It wasn't easy, I have to this day received antagonism from both my family and my previous friends (the most from the most religious), and I have responded in fond. I don't care how they live now, only that they some day will leave their faith behind.
To this day I've convinced about 15 people to relinquish faith as a deciding factor in their life. If they become agnostic, atheist or to some extent deist, I don't mind. As long they don't use faith as reality.