(October 23, 2010 at 2:10 pm)HeyItsZeus Wrote: There is something more to it. There is a deep desire for god.
I agree, but for different reasons that you probably would not like.
I have actually been studying this subject for a while now and I've found some interesting things. Often some sort of "enlightenment" is mentioned, where the person in question switches to a belief in scientific certainty. More often than not this is preceded by some experience of the church's hypocrisy: a negative experience with a legalism tradition, suffering some sort of abuse from a religious figure, the church reacting superficially to a real tragedy in a person's life, general narrow-mindedness on the part of the church, failure to connect with any of the church's teachings, or any number of ways that the church really screws things up. I've read a lot of deconversion stories and it makes me want to claw my eyes out when I see how plainly wrong the church is in what it's doing/ teaching. I myself remember the days when going to church every week was the worst/ most destructive part of my life, so anyone coming from the same church tradition I used to belong to has ample reason to walk away from faith. It also doesn't help that many people (including Christians) have a view of Christianity that is based on shallow stereotypes, traditions that were invented by people much later than the Bible, and the uncritical inclusion of the ideas of other cultures into Christianity.
There are also those who are raised in a religious vacuum and simply never find a sufficient reason to believe in God. For both of these kinds of people I mentioned the tendency seems to work towards the Modernist notion that science and things that can be proven scientifically can answer life's questions. This is probably because the concepts of Modernism have largely come to define our culture. So Modernist thought's prevalence in our culture gives something for the religiously disenfranchised to rally around as what they see as the "default" position.
That's what I've seen so far. Let me know if you guys have any thoughts on this, I'm trying to understand atheists, but being a Christian I'm kind of an outsider. I really appreciate your input.
