Religious people have you ever tried praying?

[jstrodel]

Nice to see you think I'm not a "serious atheist", whatever that is. By the way, I am in a university right now. I'm not socially active enough to tell you whether or not people are doing what you say they are. A couple people have gotten drunk a few times and I think one person (who I have only met once) may smoke weed. I can't think of any sex being had. I don't know how many people at my school are atheists, but...isn't that the stereotype for everyone in college? I mean, who ever said that it was only atheists who did all of that? I thought it was "oh those college students", not "oh those atheist college students".

Yes, I think that is true that it is true of most college students. You can be a serious atheist if you like.

A lot of things are condemned by Christianity, like contraception, abortion, gay marriage, the mere existance of atheists, etc.
I should note that the double ban on contraception and abortion whole thing confuses me. If they wanted there to be less abortions, then shouldn't the ability to prevent said unwanted pregnancies be made easier (i.e. promote contraception)?

I think a lot of Christians want to teach abstinence. The Catholics are more opposed to contraception than the tradition I am from, I don't remember anyone ever telling me it was a sin to use contraception.

What do you mean by this?

I think that many atheists are not atheists because they have exhaustively studied science and theology and realized that there was no God, I think it more like a mixture of people having doubts and disappointments with God and instead of looking deeper or giving God the benefit of the doubt, they make a choice simultaneously to accept the prevailing norms of drinking, secular culture and promiscuity/being sexually active and to see a greater merit in atheistic arguments then theistic. My contention is that these do not happen independently of one another, and that deconversion is not only a matter of changing beliefs about God it is a matter of accepting a much more risky and hedonistic lifestyle.

That said, I know there are some atheists who accept atheism purely on intellectual grounds independent of any carnal benefit it may give them. Perhaps you are one of these people. I don't mean to accuse anyone, but I know many of the other kind, people that slowly drift away and find ways of justifying behavior patterns that feel good to them.