Post-Deconversion Feelings (Religion/Communism)

I’ve seen a pretty wide range of examples of people who have left a fundamentalist religious upbringing and become atheists still report occasional backsliding, especially with fear of hell. It seems that this is such an emotional and ingrained issue (especially since it is delivered from the cradle) that the mind is scarred for life — or at least for many years after it accepts the irrationality of the religious beliefs. Here are some relevant links from Daylight Atheism, Atheist Nexus and The Atheist Experience. However, it is probably a very common problem.

It may be one of the most despicable aspects of religion but I saw a video that got me thinking. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be a religious ideology that can cause this kind of emotional backsliding but anything that one believed strongly. Especially if it’s associated with early childhood. For instance, via BoingBoing, I recently saw a charming and amusing Soviet anti-rock-and-roll propaganda film [excerpt]. For it turns out that while in the US people were concerned about rock and roll leading to promiscuity and teenage hoodlums, the USSR was also worried. Their problem with popular music was that the youth will become a bunch of hedonistic loafers and abandon their communist ideals. Here’s the film, which is very entertaining and worth watching:

[Video link]

Of course I had a good laugh at the video too. And found it all completely ridiculous. One great example was quote up in the YouTube comments: “Как же так? Ходите по Ñ?тим реÑ?торанам… неужели вам Ñ?то не противно?” (How’s it so? You just go around all these restaurants…doesn’t it disgust you?) And yet, just like an ex-fundamentalist might occasionally get a cold sweat about hell, I experienced some post-communist euphoria. Some part of me got caught up in the Soviet sentimentality and a very small part of my brain screamed “I do! I do want to live my life in service of the Motherland; according to the principles of Grandpa Lenin! I want to avoid the evil of rock and roll.” The scream was faint but ’twas there — it seems emotional experiences from childhood die hard, no matter how many arguments against them you might gather up later in life.