According to the new Pew Survey, 44% of us change religious beliefs from that in which we were raised.
The reasons people give for changing their religion – or leaving religion altogether – differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert. The group that has grown the most in recent years due to religious change is the unaffiliated population. Two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated and half of former Protestants who have become unaffiliated say they left their childhood faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, and roughly four-in-ten say they became unaffiliated because they do not believe in God or the teachings of most religions.1
This is a problem for organized religion, as they press hard for parents to keep their kids in the flock (that’s how they grow and make more money). Parents are convinced that being a “good parent” includes raising the kids so they STAY in the church/synagogue/mosque etc., which only leads to grief when the kids reject the faith. This is how and why some families break up, which I find very sad.
I was raised Jewish but always knew I was an atheist. I went through the whole Hebrew School, Bar Mitzvah, and Confirmation thing mainly because my mother insisted. It wasn’t until I was an adult that my dad told me he is an atheist. But at least with me, there was no real grief.
Are you one of the 44% like me? Tell us your story.
jimmy,
Great, now I’ll have “do the Trikey” stuck in my head all day. LOL and rock on.
I find this post to be misleading; to be “unaffiliated”, or even as the article states to “espouse a religion different than their childhood faith”, does not automatically mean all 44% are atheist. I was raised Southern Baptis – I am now non-denominational. I clearly fall into the unaffiliated catagory and am not an atheist. So … 44% you do not make.
Tinker
You may want to re-read Dave’s original post.
Moderation of the comments section of a blog usually kills blogs readership.
Tinker has a point this can be a bit misleading, but it also shows what a dumb lottery religious belief has become. All these people are jumping around trying to pick the right religion so they can be saved. There are a good amount of Christians out there who don’t even think other Christian denominations aren’t going to wind up in the magical place in the sky with them.
Tinker,
As you can see, that 44 percent says nothing of conversion to atheism and no one here has stated that it does. However, many of us atheists are included in that 44 percent because we broke from the religions of our upbringing — just as you. Why would you think it was attempting to mislead you into thinking it meant 44 percent became atheists?
There’s nothing misleading at all about the subject of this thread. It sees very clear to me.
sees = seems
godless bigot posted this:
“NeoWolfe I was raised in a tyrannical fundamentalist household where religion was lived and breathed every moment of the day.
What particular brand of fundamentalism exactly?
Then two posts later said this:
“I was fortunate to have been raised by nonreligious parents and have been a life long atheist. What part of that dont you understand?
Response: He’s not only a pathetic liar and a fraud, he a manipulative little rat fishing for weaknesses. Yet he hangs around whining about social abuse and pretending to be a freethinker. He a bigot with a keyboard, and I rest my case about the difference between atheists and freethinkers. Do you think this asshole has a clue about the human condition or what we need to do to save us from ourselves? I think the terms, frog, mushroom, amoeba, or fungus might best express his level of comprehension.
NeoWolfe
I don’t think the article is misleading. It clearly states that 44% have changed from their original religious upbringing. Dave is asking who among us is among that 44%.
An email I got from the Secular Coalition of America stated this though:
Whenever I contacted the Obama presidential campaign, before the election, I included statements about nonbelievers numbering greater than the number of Jews in the country. I didn’t realize we outnumber all the above listed groups combined. Good to know. his may have been more appropriate to include on the thread about shouting from the rooftops, but I think that thread has been long derailed.
I’ve told my story before on a thread similar to this one. No need to go into it all again, I think. I’ll just say I was raised Lutheran, had it drummed into me in the accepted ways,and some unacceptable. I can identify with Dagny’s and Steve Rider’s stories. I embraced my religion in a “ga-ga for jeebus” fashion in the time surrounding my catechism and confirmation, but was a fledgling atheist by 16. When I was a believer, I greatly feared both god and the devil. I thought the devil was god’s henchman, and it was just a matter of time before he came to get me.
Neo, nobody who reads your posts on this blog will ever forget you.
Test
Not So Bright said:
“Neo, nobody who reads your posts on this blog will ever forget you.”
Response: The universe won’t remember them either.
NeoWolfe
Does the moderation have something to do with the avatars? Or was it just a coincidence that my first comment containing the avatar was held up in moderation for quite some time? This is a test, of sorts, but while I’m posting, I must say that neo’s comprehension skills are debilitating rapidly. That doesn’t bode well for his chances of finding employment and irritating people in the real world.
neowolfe… he seemed to be quoting you in the first bit about the tyrannical fundy family and speaking for himself in the other. His failure to use quote marks seemed to cause some confusion, but it was verbatim copy paste of what you had said.
From an outside perspective not really following the convo there, that part seemed like a simple misunderstanding.
Earth….come in….over
neowolfe,
I think you misread my post. I was quoting your statement that you had been raised in a fundamentalist household and then stating that I was not raised in a religious household. What part of that makes me a “liar and fraud”? Dont you recognize your own words?
what would jesus do.
Karen
Nice avatar! Ramen.
Who would jesus do?
Godless
It’s sort of like Neowolfe is participating in a blog version of Fight Club.
godless,
Let’s assume some quotation marks were missing, and it’s all a misunderstanding. The fact remains that you are a bigot, and what I have chosen to reveal is just that, and the press conference is over.
NeoWolfe
je-zeus would roam the countryside with his itinerant band of unemployed gay buddies, doing cheap parlor tricks to gain a fish or a few sheckels.
What
ROFL! Glad you like my avatar. I can’t figure yours out. It looks like a gingerbread man crying into a yellow hankie. And I thought godless’ was a dog doing something or other, till someone commented on the cycling. I wish the avatars could be enlarged by clicking on them.
Karen
“The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!”
My avatar is an image of the body of a very nice archtop guitar. Archtops are popular amongst jazz guitarists for their beautiful bell-like tone.
Karen,
Are you saying that you think Im a dog?
Its a pic of me relearning to ride a bicycle with one leg. Notice the right one is titanium and carbon fibre and not flesh and bone. —>
Karen,
Yeah, Avatars are too damn small to communicate anything.
Godless
Whoa. Take it easy there. Down boy.
I noticed the prosthesis in your avatar. Does it work well on the bike?
——————————————————————————
Dave
Could you make the avatars 3/2 their current size? Please.
godless
I looked at your avatar with my reading glasses on, and can now see the man on the bike. But that’s because you explained it! If I didn’t already know what it was, I’d have thought it might be a guy steadying a jackhammer!
I can’t really make out your prosthesis, even knowing it’s there. These avatars are for folks w/o bifocal needs.
So, how’s the biking going? It’s pretty hilly in Chapel Thrill. My son bikes around there occasionally.
Whutthole said:
“My avatar is an image of the body of a very nice archtop guitar. Archtops are popular amongst jazz guitarists for their beautiful bell-like tone.”
Response: When you open your mouth, you cannot unring the bell-like tone. That’s not a spear at you, I have had more than one occasion of swallowing what I said, and believe it or not thats what I came here for. But the shape of that guitar is as old as guitars, quality, and trash.
Ovation and Martin have some sweet sounding accoustic guitars in that shape, but the unadjustable distance between the high frets and the strings put blisters and callouses on your fingers, especially trying to do bar chords. Why go through those trials when a good amp and a Les Paul will make it sound like the cleanest accoustic ever built? And the strings lay down on the frets like you were touching a lover.
NeoWolfe
Thank goodness I found the No God Blog again. For a while I thought it was gone. — I am an atheist, but I was raised in the Southern Presbyterian church. My father was a minister, and my mother was a Home Missionary. (In this day and age she would be a minister too, but they didn’t ordain women in the ’20 and ’30s.) I had Christianity day and night and three times on Sundays. But not the fundamentalist kind. Very logical and rather intellectual, and lots of sermons based on history. My father should have been a college history professor. But I had doubts as early as 8 years old, when I got my first history textbook and fell in love with the Greeks and the Romans. If THEY weren’t going to heaven, I didn’t want to go their either. Besides, my mother had already told me that “he who calls his brother a fool shall be cast into hell fire” (look it up. It’s in the New Testament.) I had called my brother a lot worse things than a fool, so I knew my fate was sealed, and I didn’t worry about it. Besides a love of ancient history, I discovered Isaac Asimov, and his guide to the bible, and then Bertrand Russell, and that was that. My children were not baptized. I stopped taking them to church, and I haven’t been to a religious service except for weddings and funerals in over 40 years. It feels so good! Now I am an irritant to all my friends because I can’t help pointing out the silliness of religion. but in spite of my belief and non-belief, I’m still a Presbyterian. It’s a culture thing, like a secular Jew. I miss singing hymns, and listening to an organ, and church parties and circle meetings. My experiences with atheist socializing have been difficult, because everybody wants to be in charge. I like this blog, and the people who respond. (The spelling is better here than on most blogs.)
Dorky Mommy, glad you found the blog again. Welcome back