Atheism and Upbringing

A response to IsraelWillStandAlone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUUqeOVwKgI

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• christianity
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• bible
• israelwillstandalone
• richard dawkins

[sarabellumm]

You can say it is a result of one's upbringing, but anyone very deeply involved in Christianity knows too many converts to easily count. The pew forum on religion did a study on this and found much more movement between religions than was anticipated. they noted that a steady 28% of the US had been catholic for a long time. But they found that a full 1/3rd as many ex-catholics that had been replaced by new Catholics. So there is more tranference than you might think. The steady 28% was deceptive

[DavidJohnWellman]

I think I'm aware of the study you mention -- as I recall, it did show a large transference, and it also showed a very large growth in the number of atheists in America due in part to this transference.

In fairness, your point does make my argument weaker than it otherwise would be. But the converts you mentioned, do you suppose it merely coincidence that most of them did not convert to Islam instead of Christianity?

[RossbartonFS]

Of course... It just shows the standard of human intelligence is so low if this has not been realized and religion demolished. We make the explanations. But you can't get through to idiots.

Anyone else seen the hint of corrupted darkness, and a kinda drugged up look in christian missionaries eyes? Fuckin weird.

[saxmanchiro]

I personally wish I had been born and raised without woo. My parents were mild theists(Catholics with hatred of priests) and allowed me to figure out and leave religion behind but I think I would have much less sensitivity to religion and it's degradation of society. I guess it's hard to figure 'what would have been' in the nonreligious setting but fun to imagine.

[porkytree161]

In the UK 2001 Cencus, over 390,000 people cited their religion as Jedi (0.8 of the population).

For the 2006 Australian cencus there was a movement for people to declare themselves Pastafarian. I think that this indicates value that religion has in some areas of the world.

Personally, I was born and raised Church of England and would previously labelled myself 'christian', even though I havn't believed in god for almost 40 years. That won't happen in future though.

[sarabellumm]

Well the ones coming into Christianity are being taught by some Christian. So the presence of more Christians here eliminates the "coincidence" and makes it a nice effort by those doing the converting. Our society has been shaped to a great extent by Christianity, just like Saudi society has by the Sunni religion. For example, we aren't used to seeing women covered head-to-toe, while a Saudi is. Christian women don't cover their faces, strict Sunnis do. So societal forces and expectations help.

[DavidJohnWellman]

Perhaps a few atheists are more dogmatic about it than they should be, but really, here's how you find out if someone is an atheist: have them write down the names (or description, or just "something out there" if that's all they've got) of all the gods that they believe exist. When they're done, look at the paper. If there's something written on the paper, that person is a theist. If it's blank, he or she is an atheist.

[DavidJohnWellman]

I agree that the study is flawed for the very reasons you state, but atheists is what they are, even if they don't know it, and a study of this type that didn't note this would be doing an even worse job. :-)

[allinsman]

In Sweden 85% is atheists and in Norway (My country) about 70% is. People in my generation (I'm 35) and older have grown up as christians and had to figure things out ourselves while todays youth in our countries are growing up with no affiliation to religion as "true atheists". Todays youth in these 2 countries don't even use the expression "atheists" as religion is completely irrelevant to them and something they don't even offer a thought,