What is the conversion experience?

When you became a christian or convert to another religion, you reached a point where you had a revelation that your particular God was real, and it changed your whole outlook on life.

So if that experience wasn't supernatural, then what was it, and what was it caused by?

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Permalink Reply by Dustin on April 26, 2011 at 8:29pm

social pressure to be 'in the group' , the Goorrrrgeouuussss cathedral you were in perhaps , or the beautiful choir that resonates throughout the halls of the church , or the feeling that you are lonely and miserable and God 'fills the void' so to speak.. you know ... makes you feel 'special'.

I tried to convert once. Fell to my knees , hysterical and hyperventilating and cried out for Jesus to enter my soul and guide me through my problems , but I didn't feel anything at all. Just felt embarrassed afterwards and a bit more depressed because I realized then it was all fake nonsense and I had to deal with all the problems myself. Praise be unto Jesus :P

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Permalink Reply by Oxidiz3r on April 27, 2011 at 5:37am

The last time I went to church, I approached the alter just to stand with my mom. Before I knew it my grandmother put her hands on me to pray for me and I didn't move out of pure politeness. Before I knew it I was surrounded by ten people trying to force my hands up to pray, they were telling me what to say and they were telling me what to do. All I felt was an overwhelming fear, anger, and need to get away from them. I wanted to scream and tell them to get the fuck away from me.

I was raised in the pentecostal religion. My mother believes that God is real because she was "filled with the Holy Ghost". I was supposedly gifted with that when I was very young, but I told her that I remember the experience and that I remembered feeling nothing remotely supernatural. I simply mimicked what everyone else does because I was pressured into it by being around other people. I also told her that I bet that every single kid that is supposedly filled with the holy ghost in her church was doing the same.

The psychological manipulation makes me fucking sick.

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Permalink Reply by Raven on May 1, 2011 at 10:53pm

Before I had my Bat Mitzvah I was waiting for the realization. All my friends seemed to accept and understand god. When I had my Bat Mitzvah and nothing happened, when I felt no different, I realized there is no moment like that. That god was definitely not real and I was wasting my time.

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Permalink Reply by John David Holt on May 1, 2011 at 11:06pm

And of course believers said you didn't believe enough. This is where belief gets confused with self-hypnosis. No doubt you can eventually change the brain chemistry. Moreover, you wear filters which only let in what you want and those are anything that supports your belief system.

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Permalink Reply by Raven on May 1, 2011 at 11:50pm

I felt like if it was true then I shouldn't need to try to believe in it. If was really the truth, it would come to me. And no one really said that to me. My mom just pulled the "you're to young" bullshit.

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Permalink Reply by Akshay Bist on May 2, 2011 at 1:10am

A recent Discovery Science documentary about moons --> How they are formed & their histories etc had me feeling the same thing. Nothing supernatural about it.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on May 2, 2011 at 1:44am

I never had a "conversion experience". That's what led me to question all of the things that I had been told. By the time that I was 20 years old, I tried to "give my life to Jesus" 3 or 4 times at various church services and revivals. Afterward, I never felt any different. When I asked the ministers, elders, teachers, and leaders about that they would say that I just needed to wait and "have faith".

That seemed like mental suicide to me. I finally saw that it was all a matter of delusion, denial, and self hypnosis.

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Permalink Reply by Lindsey on May 2, 2011 at 2:29am

I imagine it has something to do with an overwhelming sense of awe. Sometimes, I see a new picture of space, a nebula or a planet or something else, that brings me to tears, and I am overcome with a sense of awe about the incomprehensible vastness and beauty of the universe. No god required. The universe is amazing all on its own. I feel that the people who can get this feeling without the aid of a supernatural belief are better off in the end, because frankly, I feel that giving some deity credit for the beauty in life trivializes it. (this feeling crops up in many other things, space is merely a single example of all the things fill me with joy and wonder).