This seems like a silly equivalence. A large number of atheists became atheists despite being raised in very much ostensibly christian environments, and came to believe in atheism based on their own consideration.

I heard an interview on the atheist experience a while back about a woman who is a member of the clergy project, spent much of her life as a devout christian, fervently believing it and became a pastor. When she was younger her pastor father had always told her not to think critically about religion for this was sinning against god, and she embraced this happily and joyfully for the first 30 years of her life. However, later on a mentor informed her she SHOULD think critically about religion, the better to understand it. So she embraced that...the problem was that in thinking about it she came to realize how ridiculous it was. Despite sounding entirely reasonable, soft spoken, and empathetic on the program, her family, her friends and her work all entirely abandoned her and she had to give up anything. Indeed this is an example of someone being an atheists DESPITE their environment which is overwhelmingly christian. This is but one example, of course, and an extreme one at that and certainly similar examples exist for the other side. But to say it is "just as much" environmental causes as for christians seem to be ignoring the asymmetry to atheists coming to their views very often despite significantly pro christian influences. Unless you mean it in the most generic views like "all views are nurture not nature" or something.

edit: slow pony

Mightyboosh may phrase things poorly, but there is plenty of room to observe the considerable conditioning of environmental factors in making people religious while still not implying EVERY person and EVERY situation applies to this.

btw I find "I am not religious, but I believe in god" to be an obnoxious statement.

tl;dr but

we could add the word insecure in there.

god doesn't prevent things such as rape from happening because he wants us to find him and his will. trololol.

I think that it would be a mistake to assume that when someone "becomes" an atheist after living in a religious environment that it was in spite of their environment. I would say that it is very likely (only based on personal experience and knowledge of people) that many of those people became atheists as a reaction/rebellion to their environment.

I have not met a single atheist IRL that grew up in a religious environment that had a rational/reasonable reason for becoming an atheist. Now that is obviously only a small sample size and I am not claiming that to be the only reason.

montecarlo you are a pretty good poster. Just thought id put that out there since LEMONZEST gets all the fanfare as a newish poster.

+1

For some reason this made me laugh. Curious as to why this bothers you.

Yeah me too. Who can get mad at a deist.

Because the first definition of "religious" is "believes in a deity". For example from mirriam webster: So if you believe in a god you are religious by definition and saying "i am not religious but I believe in god" is a contradiction in terms.

Don't take this too seriously, I know what they mean, they don't believe in a specific theistic deity, but are instead a deist. They are probably taking the connotation that implies some sense of organized religion. But the phrasing irks me. It also, depending on my mood, amuses me. Because it demonstrates the success that is occurring in denigrating organized religion so that deists feel the need to make these sharp distinctions that they are not "religious".

Sorry, really couldn't be bothered to read past this bit, you seem to have reverted to being bolshy and extremely personal.

Would it be ironic if I only took the time to say it again because I've come to respect you? The respect of other posters on this forum is not relevant to me. I'm more interested in the debate than how the debate is being conducted or the other parties opinion of me. I really wish people wouldn't be so personal on this forum.

Frankly this whole post is one I'd rather not have made.

Maybe you class yourself as the same kind of intellect as posters like OrP and Asdf, and a few of the other more erudite posters. THAT amuses me Even little ole me can see that you're no where close.

I'd put well over half your comments to me to be personal and off topic. I hate that I find myself responding in kind, it makes us both look bad.

"Be careful when arguing with an idiot in case people listening can't tell the difference"

ok. The problem is context. Being "religious" often comes with a stigma of fanaticism or something. I am not a deist but often qualify after telling someone that I believe in God that I am not religious as mainstream religion disgusts me and I don't want to be associated with it in any way shape or form.

I'm brilliant. It's a demonstrable fact.
You asked a question, I answered it. Then you made it clear you didn't understand it, so I explained it.

The posts I make which are constructive you ignore. If you don't want to talk to me, don't. It's your loss.
I think people listening can. It's the idiot who can't tell the difference.

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.

I agree with the last two paragraphs (and with jibninjas). I dispute that this:
Is a mere "association". I think it's a numerical fact - because of the preponderance of Christian parents (and the public endorsement of religion which nearly everyone is exposed to, irrespective of parental views) I think there are more atheists-who-became-so-through-considered-thought than theists with a similar genesis.

The third paragraph seems to be implying "everything is cultural" which is something of a side issue, I think. (I mean if its true then obviously both groups are identical - but only in a trivial way). I don't think it's terribly important.

Okay? And many people change religions or become religion as well. Religious conversion is a real and common phenomenon (I suspect it is more common than people becoming atheists--at least in the U.S.). Anyway, I can't really support any kind of equivalence with evidence, and that isn't really central to what I meant to say, so feel free to just think I'm wrong about that.

Also, since we're telling stories: My father grew up as a liberal Jew, then became a Buddhist atheist, then became a hardcore Christian. I grew up as a hardcore Christian, but then became an atheist. I am not, in my view, less affected by environmental causes than he is in his very strong religious belief.

Since everyone is getting a little too serious, I find the following anecdote to be an antidote:

When my youngest was first starting preschool at a local church (very common in smaller towns in the US for the only preschools available to be in the halls of churches) that my ex-wife worked at, we had to go to an orientation. They held it in the sanctuary.

Upon noting the ginormous cross on the wall behind the alter, he said, while pointing and in a very loud voice, "look daddy!!! an airplane!"

One thing that I think many of us were taught is that a sign of intelligence is the ability to change in light of evidence against a particular belief.

Many/most people mistake this for believing that having made some particular change is a sign of correctness.

I know many people who have become atheists for what non-intellectual/non-rational reasons. I've known many who converted purely to satisfy a skilled lover.

Since I find that I am often misunderstood, I am agreeing with you. People change. Perhaps not easily, but certainly often, and there are many causes of such change. It would be hard to take your conversion more seriously than your father's as a proof of correctness of thought.

Believing in god is pretty obviously different from "manifesting faithful devotion" to a god, so I don't think your definition shows anything. Also, I'm surprised that you think this. History is full of people who believed in a god, but in a similiar way to how we believe in Jupiter or the Big Bang--as something that is real but not as something to be worshiped.

There are a couple of problems with this. I'll only address what you currently want, which (I am nearly positive) is to convince them.

You imagine "them" as a "homogeneous them." They are not all of one mind. They differ from one another.

I've tried that. It doesn't work, simply because it is not convincing.

What is the cause of your belief system? Does knowing it cause you to change it?

I think that you will eventually calm down and just accept that it isn't your job.

Either that, or you will find a better method of getting what you want. I've found that making them pine for physical contact with me turns them to my side. The problem is that this is very inefficient. I tire easily.

Seriously, though, you are making the mistake of preaching to the choir (and doing that awkwardly). If you want to change people, you've got to come at it from their point of view and be very very (very very very) gentle and kind and nice and not too worried about changing them.

Or you can keep tilting at windmills.

The fun kind of proselytising.

It would be funny if it were all about skill in the sack.

The funny thing is, I'm nearly certain that it is funny.

I know.

This doesn't mean that I couldn't make it 'work'.

In the context of worship, I think it matters greatly. Even as an Atheist, and that's not a belief system, it's a lack of beliefs, if you could show me that I hadn't arrived at my position independently, that in fact I'd been urged toward it then yes, it would have a significant impact on me and cause me to doubt what I believed, and by that I don't mean mouthing the words 'I could be wrong' but not actually believing it.

It's why I never tell my children 'there is no god'. If I did, I would be urging my own way of thinking on them. Instead, I try to give them as much information as I can in the hope that they will make their own decisions when they're old enough to be capable of that. Inadvertent parental influence not withstanding. I'm not trying to make them Atheist.

I expect the same from the church but that's simply not how religions work. They have to say 'this is the truth' or it would be patently ridiculous to believe in some invisible old man in the sky.



Help me by disproving my theories, I don't need personal advice thanks.

I consider this a mild form of child abuse. The abuse being in the form of a gross breach of the trust that child has in in adults to protect them from having a belief system urged on them.

'What shall we tell the children?' is a superb polemic on how religions abuse the minds of children

I'm not exempting myself from skepticism.

I said:

Perhaps, rereading it, it would have been more appropriate to use the word 'question' rather than 'doubt'.

I replied in the wrong thread, but we can continue here. If you can't cognitively accept the possibility of being wrong, you are exempting yourself from skepticism. Nobody could "show that you are wrong" (paraphrased) if you do not concede the possibility. By your admission you find such concessions to be dishonest (implicit in your mocking of people who make such concessions).

Can you show where I've 'mocked' people? I wasn't aware that I was being mocking, I'm mortified.

Apparently, accepting that I could be wrong doesn't really mean anything anyway. It would seem that I can say that I could be wrong and still be certain that I'm right. Or is there something else I'm not understanding?