RE: Atheists living in very religious places, do you have moments of doubt?
October 30, 2014 at 8:53 pm
(October 30, 2014 at 6:25 pm)Alex K Wrote: When I lived in the American bible belt for a while (West Texas to be precise), I was a pretty serious atheist already. However, I was surrounded by an overwhelming majority of evangelical Christians. Everyone waxed extatic about their personal relationship with Jesus, there was church twice a week plus bible study groups, and religion permeated every aspect of life. In this situation I never quite stopped being an atheist, but I remember feeling a strange sense of unease in the face of utter conviction of all the people around me that God was among us, an uneasy feeling that maybe I was missing something here, that there was something to the whole thing that I didn't understand.
So, all you atheists living in fundigelical places etc., did you ever get some sort of doubt about atheism or just some subtle fear that you might be wrong because of the utter religious conviction of the people around you?
Living in Travis County, the religious aspect isn't so intense as it is in Dallas or points northeast, but even when I lived there, the prevalence of opinion around me didn't instill doubt.
I make it a habit to recheck my premises every so often against my experiences to makes sure I'm not just parroting my own beliefs. And I will entertain the possibilities mentioned by others insofar as I can see supporting evidence or reasoning.
But I don't feel doubt based simply on the demographic prevalence of opposing viewpoints.