It was a long road, but I think it was good and healthy. More people should grow up that way, I think. Allowed to question, seek, and make up their own minds without interference at early ages.

I am yet amazed (though I shouldn’t be) that people still believe that stuff. I wonder if a day will come when the average, educated person wouldn’t think twice about believing a religion?

I can’t quite put my finger on it enough to put it into words, but it seems to me, that those who have studied religion thoroughly and intensely- much like Bob and Dan have- are a bit different. Bob enjoys studying different religions and Dan has studied at least Xianity intensely. I haven’t met too many other atheists, except maybe Richard here, who can use the Bible and maybe other religions in a way that can make some religious people think or even debate them like Dan and Bob can and do. I’ve met many more atheists who could careless about any of it than I have those who have knowledge like those two. I think it takes a lot of talent to say, “Now wait a minute!” and then write or say something in rebuttle like Bob does or even the talent Dan has in debating Xians using their very own book.

Steven Carr said,

June 23, 2008 at 12:44 am

Personally, I think there is a big difference between atheists who have read the Bible and atheists who have not.

Atheists who have not tend to say things like ‘Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God;’

Atheists who have read the Bible tend to say things like ‘Jesus said….’

It really annoys Christians when Jesus is quoted, rather than praised and worshipped!

Yes, precisely. I see a difference too- a big difference. Personally, I don’t mind being almost as knowledgable as Bob and Dan, although sadly not as knowledgable, because I can get to some Xians and hopefully plant some seeds of doubt that way, even if it does tick them off. I also enjoy learning from people like Bob and Dan too, probably because we have a common background.

Atheists who have not tend to say things like ‘Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God;’

Atheists who have read the Bible tend to say things like ‘Jesus said….’

It really annoys Christians when Jesus is quoted, rather than praised and worshipped!

It’s a rationalization to suggest that “angry” atheists have been hurt by religion.

I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I think this is true. It’s no doubt sometimes true, but there are different kinds of anger.

I think that the biggest mistake that both sides have made is throwing everyone from the other side into the same category, when in fact, there is a huge variety of attitudes and experiences on both sides.

Many of the most damning criticism of religion comes from the British, many from secular families, taught in one of the most liberal forms of Christianity imagineable. If you read them, they’re angry at the harm religion does, and it seems to me if you’re not angry about that, you don’t give a shit about people. There points about religion being irrational nonsense are not presented in an angry way, it’s presented in a way that makes it clear they care about what’s true. Sometimes merely caring is seen as angry to the apathetic religious.

Perhaps it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what anger is, but I suspect it’s prejudice. Many people have been indoctrinated to believe in a stereotype of atheists that biases them in reading atheists in a certain light. Even some atheists are biased in this way, the ones that prefer to call themselves agnostic. They’re always talking about the “shrill” tone of books like the God Delusion. Of course it isn’t, if you’ve read books from other authors on different subjects. A lot of the parts that are meant to be humour are bizarrely mistaken for being “shrill” or “angry”.

I’ve noted that many atheists who lost faith later on in life have lost it in an irrational way, through the loss of someone, rejecting all religion because the religion they believed was wrong, and seemed to be based on what they wanted to be true.

Many atheists I know about raised in liberal christianity left faith earlier (early to mid teens, sometimes earlier) than their counterparts from fundamentalist christianity who seemed to wait for college to doubt. Fundamentalists fear college will free their children from indoctrination, they create separate colleges to keep the indoctrination flow steady. I suspect fear is the tool used to keep fundamentalists from questioning their beliefs longer than more liberal christians.

I guess I’m a second generation atheist, with non-religious parents, that are probably best described as agnostics, they don’t seem to have any views on the subject. I didn’t lose faith, I never believed in the first place, and my position didn’t change to “atheist”, I was always an atheist, I lacked that belief. I still look at it in those terms, I don’t see why I should believe in any religion, they’re all equal claims with no evidence. None of the religions I’ve read about are a great hypothesis that solves anything for me.

It seems like you’re implying that atheists from Christian fundamentalist backgrounds have been victimized/traumatized in some way that turned them away from Christianity and that, had they been from “liberal” Christian homes like you, they might still be Christians.

I’m implying nothing of the sort. Like everyone else on this thread, I only speak for myself and my own experience.

Having said that, I do agree that if you haven’t been victimised, and you haven’t ever been force-fed anything that’s intellectually dishonest or objectionable, and have been taught to think for yourself, then there’s essentially no reason to be hostile to your upbringing.

I know some atheist ex-liberal Christians. The one thing they all have in common is that none of them feel the “New Atheist” anger.

Mind you, this might have something to do with living in a fairly secular country. Americans, in a sense, have far more reason to be angry about the way that religion is manipulated in some parts of the political sphere.

Darryl:

While I was transitioning away from faith I did ponder the possibility of being a liberal Christian.

Speaking personally, I think that very few, if any, people would have much reason to “convert to” liberal Christianity. As an observation, most of those who do tend to be middle-aged people who are trying to rediscover spirituality, possibly as part of an “is this all there is?”-type mid-life crisis.

We liberal Christians don’t go seeking people out. (We do seek out the needy, like the hungry and the homeless, and try to service their needs, but that’s a different issue.)

Instead, on “spiritual” matters, we just try to be there if someone comes to us looking. I hope we can help them find what they’re looking for.

Perhaps any good story would do as a frame on which to hang all this, but, for better or worse, we have what we have.

I think there’s a lot of truth in that. Lots of stories follow the Campbellian mythological structure, and people really do seem to spend an unusual amount of time taking part in those stories. Just take a look at a Star Trek convention.

miller:

You can chalk me down as one of the deconverted “liberals”. I went to a Jesuit Catholic high school. If you didn’t know, the Jesuits have a long tradition of promoting education, and are considered to be the intellectual part of the Catholic Church. I deconverted at the end, because I guess I was disappointed at how poor apologetics are.

The Jesuits are fairly liberal, yes, though not as liberal as this Protestant.

I think their problem is precisely the problem of focussing on apologetics. To most liberals, religion isn’t something you believe in, it’s something that you do.

Anyway, I’ll bow out now and let people talk about their backgrounds and their atheism. Thanks for your contributions, everyone, I’ve found them fascinating!