I just recently heard something on a podcast that made me think, it really is no surprise that belief is so prevalent. The person said that when he was young he tried believing “like everyone around him did”. I must say that even I as a 2nd generation atheist in a country that is really not that religious also at some point in my life tried belief thing, not much and it certainly didn’t stick but my mind was open to it. Now any company would love the chance to get 100% of the population to try their product, by chance alone a significant portion of the population will buy (into) it, add peer pressure/power/influence/indoctrination/reward/fear and imho it’s no wonder that the majority believe in god.

Just a thought.

I’d say that one of the biggest problems is that not only are most people never trained to think in a logical manner, they are (as you imply) actively encouraged not to. There are many groups that have something to gain from people not looking too closely at facts or asking tough-to-answer questions.

Parents lie to their children and expect to be believed or react negatively when something they say is questioned. Schools spend a great deal of time giving information and very little time telling students what to do with that information, and certainly do not react well to those who ask questions, do not automatically accept the word of an authority, or reach conclusions other than the “right” conclusion. Even the news presents subjects with bias far more often than journalistic ethics should allow and expects to be simply believed. I won’t even get into advertisers.

Lack of knowledge of how to have an intelligent conversation is epidemic.

In my own experience, my questioning of religion was met by responses that did more to ask why I “hated” the church or “rejected” my parents than answer my questions. I was told that there were certain kinds of questions one shouldn’t ask, and that there were specific “correct” ways one should read religious books. I was told that the answers to my questions were within my heart, but when my heart gave me the “wrong” answers I either wasn’t trying hard enough or I was being deceived by Satan. I was warned that I shouldn’t read books that disagreed with accepted belief because “whenever [anyone] reads a book, they end up believing that what it says is true.”

It’s all very frustrating, and it makes life that much harder for those of us who encourage critical thinking. I’ve had people tell me that it won’t matter to them if their beliefs are logical or not unless I can show where the Bible says that people must be logical. I’ve seen people completely unphased when their beliefs are self contradictory. I’ve — on far too many occasions — been confronted by people who insist that their argument is correct because it reaches the conclusion they want to reach, even though they admit that the argument is fatally flawed. The average person doesn’t even draw a strong line between truth and opinion.

Depressing, isn’t it?

I would say that the evils we have seen in our society were because of a “religious mindset” created by organised religion itself. We have bastardised religion and the things it stands for – it is no longer (And hasn’t been for a very long time) the teaching of morality, happiness and tolerance. Instead, key people and leaders have, over generations, slowly twisted and turned small parts of the whole, but the constant small transformations have changed the essence of the whole.

And we have accepted it. We have accepted, encouraged, and partook in the false and twisted logic and reason which allows these people to take advantage of the various religions of the world. In doing so, we have basicly said, “I know, in my heart that this is strange and unnatural and wrong. But I can twist the teachings of my faith and make them work for me in this way that I want them to.” What happens is that then we lose faith in our own gods (Because they were not good enough to provide the strict guidence and answers we wanted), and we take their place. We become gods – us: sinful, dirty, selfish humans. And this one act, commited by thousands of peoples, has lead to a corrosion of logic and morality, all because the original religion was too weak and open to manipulation and interpretation.

So now we have come to accept false and twisted logic to justify anything. We have become unlikely to oppose someone, or to consider their arguments because we have become used to being told, “Because this is was I think god says. And therefore, it must be so”. And this mindset eventually leaked into other parts of our society, “Because this is what I think the government means, so it must be so.”; “Because this is what I think my parents mean, so it must be so.”

It was sort of a roundabout answer, but I hope you understand waht I was trying to get accross… And no, I don’t mind at all if you wish to share part or all of my responses.

That makes a lot of sense to me! I believe that there is a right way to be religious, and there are some people who practice religious in this (thoughtful, intelligent) way. But a great many people, in my experience, act more or less as you describe — they (mis)use religion as a way to justify behaving as they wish to behave or to exert control over others. It’s truly a tragic situation and, as you say, leads to corrupt thought in many areas of society.

I have just become an atheist.

I eventually realized all the gaps in Christianity, and faith in general. I feel very free now as a result of not living in fear of being punished for “thought crimes” such as not buying into things which have no logical proof. A theologist professor said “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Oh yeah? Where’s your evidence?

That my friend, is called full circle logic. A=B because I said so. aka, the bible is right because it says its right.

So, my question, how do I go about telling my devoutly christian parents, friends, and church about my new worldview?

Although I appreciate what you are saying, your theology professor was actually correct that, in a logical sense, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Or, in a nutshell, you (in general) can’t prove a negative.

For example, right now we don’t have proof that any of the variant string theories of physics is true, but that doesn’t mean that none of them are true (although that might be the case). Or, more ridiculously, if you have no evidence that your great, great, great, great maternal grandfather existed, that doesn’t imply that he didn’t exist.

Where theologists get in trouble is when they treat absence of evidence as evidence of existence. For example, a theist must argue that we don’t know what was there before the Big Bang, therefore God was there. That’s a spurious argument.

Theologists also are on shaky ground if they are using the “absence of evidence” line to argue that you can’t prove God doesn’t exist, therefore God might exist. While this is true in a logical sense, it doesn’t say anything about the likelihood that God exists. I won’t say it’s impossible that there is a Christian-type God out there, but I consider the likelihood to be incredibly small.

I’m glad you started out with a subject I’m comfortable with so that I had something constructive to say before I tackled your second question. I’ve heard that Richard Dawkins’ Out Campaign (outcampaign.org) will have resources for people in your situation, but at present these have not been made available.

How you reveal your change in philosophy to your parents is going to depend quite a bit on your parent’s feelings and your relationship with them. Many people feel that just sitting down with them and having a heart-to-heart is the way to go. I, on the other hand, feel that some parents might see what appears to be a sudden change in your attitude as a sudden change in your beliefs, as opposed to a change that has developed within you over time. They might assume that there was a single incident that lead you to reject their beliefs or that you are being influenced an anti-religious source (as someone who joined a cult might be).

I don’t know your parents so I don’t know what will work with them. I think that it’s generally better for them to see your beliefs developing than to see a “sudden” change. This could be done by talking with them about specific theological topics, expressing your doubts, and seeing how they react. Then again, if you think your parents might find out about your atheism from other sources, it might be better to break it to them now so that they don’t end up feeling you’ve been hiding a “dark secret” from them.

I suppose this hasn’t been all that helpful. What it boils down to is that every situation is unique and there is no one way to handle telling your parents you’re an atheist. There is also no way to guarantee that they will not take it badly, but I think that if you reassure them that you are still the moral, ethical, thoughtful, loving child they brought up, they will be less likely to worry that you have become an “evil atheist” (if they are prone to such thinking).

I am going to ask my blog readers who have gone through an experience like this to please share it with the rest of us. We could use some real-life examples!