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Go to bed an atheist, wake up a Christian
Apr. 24th, 2008 09:08 amSomeone over on Askville posted a question about going to bed as an atheist, and waking up a Christian. Actually, the exact wording was "I went to bed an atheist and woke up a Christian what happened?".
If you're like me, you immediately came up with a joke answer involving loud sex and waking up a Christian neighbor. But it turned out out that the questioner was serious. I've seen this a lot when dealing with Christians; inevitably some of them claim to have once been atheists, but later found Jesus.
I've heard this so often that I ended up writing a rather lengthy response on the subject. I thought it came out rather well, so maybe you'll find it of interest:
I think most Christians who claim to have once been atheists fall into a certain pattern.
First, they usually were not really atheists. Far more often, they simply grew up in a religious vacuum; raised with a typical apathetic American unawareness of religion. They never (or hardly ever) went to church, except perhaps at Christmas time.
But that's not the same as actually thinking about religion and making a conscious, aware choice to be an atheist.
Invariably such apathetic, non-religious people are nonetheless exposed to religious cultural conditioning ( Read more... )
If anyone has any suggestions for improvements, I'd love to hear them.
If you're like me, you immediately came up with a joke answer involving loud sex and waking up a Christian neighbor. But it turned out out that the questioner was serious. I've seen this a lot when dealing with Christians; inevitably some of them claim to have once been atheists, but later found Jesus.
I've heard this so often that I ended up writing a rather lengthy response on the subject. I thought it came out rather well, so maybe you'll find it of interest:
I think most Christians who claim to have once been atheists fall into a certain pattern.
First, they usually were not really atheists. Far more often, they simply grew up in a religious vacuum; raised with a typical apathetic American unawareness of religion. They never (or hardly ever) went to church, except perhaps at Christmas time.
But that's not the same as actually thinking about religion and making a conscious, aware choice to be an atheist.
Invariably such apathetic, non-religious people are nonetheless exposed to religious cultural conditioning ( Read more... )
If anyone has any suggestions for improvements, I'd love to hear them.
