Quote:
Originally Posted by bunny
I wouldn't have thought that - given the societal pressure (it's even over here, a bit, in what is basically an atheist country), I would have thought a self-identifying atheist is more likely to have come to their view in spite of their upbringing. (Unless you just mean "everything is environment" or something..)
It seems to me that some people take too narrow a view of what kinds as an outside influence. For example, a common story is for someone to be raised religious, then go to college, and due to being exposed to other influences and atheists, to give up their religion. Now, doubtless the process here is more thoughtful than her initial acceptance of religion. After all, she is older now and with more experience of the diversity of the world, and is probably more cognitively sophisticated.
However, I think we (at least here in the States) associate this more with becoming an atheist rather than vice versa because atheistic parents are so comparatively rare relative to religious parents.
Second, responding to the college environment is just as much a matter of being changed by your environment as the prior family environment. So yeah, I'm not seeing much relevant difference there (obviously the norms inculculated are different, but that is not the point).
Finally, I agree with jibninjas that a fair number of people do reject the religion of their youth as a piece with rejecting their parents, or their parents culture, or so on. To me, someone who rejects religion because they are repelled by their social upbringing is just as much responding to their early environment as someone who is attracted to religion for the same reason.
However, I'll admit that I'm mostly speculating here--my concern isn't so much to say that these two are equivalent as that atheism is also often a result of our past history.