Cameron's comments remind me of a question that I have: What was the
religious upbringing or exposure of the New Atheists (Dawkins, Harris,
Dennett, Hitchens, etc.)? I recall reading in a book review (possibly in
PSCF) that Vic Stenger's background was Catholic. Does anyone on this list
know the answer to my question?
Gordon Brown (ASA member)
> Quoting Cameron Wybrow <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>:
>> If you look, on the other hand, at Catholics or Anglicans or Greek Orthodox
>> or mainstream Protestants who become atheists (with a few exceptions, such
>> as Catholics who have been badly burned by immoral priests or by the
>> hierarchy), they are rarely preoccupied with the religion in which they used
>> to believe. They just drift away from it, going to church less and less
>> often, until churchgoing stops altogether (except for weddings and
>> funerals). And they don't run to bookstores to snap up the latest tomes
>> which refute six-day literalism, and they don't join all kinds of internet
>> groups where they can denounce the teachers they used to respect, and trash
>> the beliefs they used to hold. They don't read books by Richard Dawkins or
>> Sam Harris or Daniel Dennett, either. They just live secular lives, not
>> thinking all that much about religion at all. It no longer has a hold on
>> them.
>>
>> This is actually a much healthier way to leave a religion, because it is
>> liberating. The religion is no longer present in one's life, even as
>> something which must be consciously repudiated. It's just forgotten, as
>> something outgrown, like one's teddy bear or one's first girlfriend or one's
>> first pair of sneakers. This type of non-believer carries on without a bad
>> conscience, not concerned to repeatedly justify his choice of abandoning his
>> faith, to others or to himself.
>>
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Received on Sat Nov 28 13:21:32 2009
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