Were the majority of atheists once religious?

[Zetesis Apistia]

I raised this question in another thread. It is my contention that a bad religious experience and not a lack of evidence is the basic cause for atheism. I also believe that the majority of atheists came from either a catholic or a protestant background. What I would like to do is add a poll to the thread so we can get an accurate count. If you desire to add anything with your vote feel free to have at it.

[Zetesis Apistia]

I raised this question in another thread. It is my contention that a bad religious experience and not a lack of evidence is the basic cause for atheism. I also believe that the majority of atheists came from either a catholic or a protestant background. What I would like to do is add a poll to the thread so we can get an accurate count. If you desire to add anything with your vote feel free to have at it.

I don't see where your poll has any validity. You ask one question (i.e. what an atheist was before they became an atheist), and then you JUMP to totally unwarranted conclusions based on that data.

I was a Protestant before I rejected the Bible. But there was nothing in my Protestant denomination that turned me against the religion. On the contrary, the particular Christian denomination that I was raised into was by-far one of the more positive and uplifting versions of Christianity. I did not have any bad experiences due to the teachings of this denomination in general.

Therefore, your conclusion that this would have been the reason for me becoming atheistic toward the Biblical picture of God is totally erroneous and without merit.

So your poll is totally fallacious and doesn't support the conclusions that you might draw from it. Even if 100% of atheists were previously Catholic or Protestant, that still wouldn't suggest that the conclusion that you are jumping to has any merit.

So I created a pole that is far more honest and meaningful here: A Meaningful Pole for Bibical Atheists

I haven't jumped to any conclusions yet. I am merely examining possibilities.

[Zetesis Apistia]

It is my contention that a bad religious experience and not a lack of evidence is the basic cause for atheism. I also believe that the majority of atheists came from either a catholic or a protestant background. .

Unevidenced over-generalisation is dubious at the best of times.
Unevidenced over-generalisation about the unspoken motivations of people you haven't met and whose ideas and attitudes you don't share is downright foolish.

Well that is the purpose for the thread. To investigate my notion. I just find it strange that almost all if not all hard line atheists come from a religious background. If they do the next question is, "does that have anything to do with their present beliefs"?

[Zetesis Apistia]

[Replying to post 8 by Philbert]

Quote:
It is my contention that a bad religious experience and not a lack of evidence is the basic cause for atheism.

I agree, if we are talking about adamant atheism, such as is typically seen on forums.

This seems less true of the casual atheist, who might more properly be called an "apathetic".

And I disagree entirely. Although I was raised Christian my atheism is derived ENTIRELY from a reasoned examination of the "evidence." THERE IS NONE! I am neither "angry at God," nor am I angry at those who raised me to be a Christian. My lack of belief is derived from the fact that the claims are simply not sustainable and and such it was necessary for me to defend that view for most of my life. My own children were not raised to be religious and as a result are apathetic to God and religion in general in exactly the same way they are apathetic to Santa Claus and Zeus. They don't generally feel the necessity of defending their lack of belief when confronted by the religious, outside of a bit of eye rolling.

So are you saying that your beliefs in no way influenced your childrens beliefs?

[help3434]

There is not even an option on this poll for coming from an non-religious background, so what are you going to compare it to? I came from a very religious family, and I did not stop believing because of a bad experience. I stopped believing because it no longer made any sense to me.

[keithprosser3]

There is not even an option on this poll for coming from an non-religious background,

Option 2.

We are missing an option for being religious from a non-religious background tho' - but I suppose there won't be many of them.

[Nickman]

I raised this question in another thread. It is my contention that a bad religious experience and not a lack of evidence is the basic cause for atheism. I also believe that the majority of atheists came from either a catholic or a protestant background. What I would like to do is add a poll to the thread so we can get an accurate count. If you desire to add anything with your vote feel free to have at it.

Why do you conclude that it has to be a bad religious experience? Could a lack of evidence be sufficient on its own? I never had a single bad religious experience. In reality, my Christian life was awesome. I loved every minute of it. I had a huge family and social structure. Everyone I loved believed exactly the same thing. There was a lot of food (Southern Baptists love food). I had my future completely planned, i.e. Christian wife, Christian kiddos, deacon, maybe pastor, heavenly dwelling after I die, life with Jesus, and a daily talk with the most intelligent being in the universe. Too bad that those intelligent talks ended up being just me going over my own thoughts about life. You would think that having the ability to talk to such an intelligent being might rub off.

[keithprosser3]

I think we have to conclude against ZA's "contention that a bad religious experience and not a lack of evidence is the basic cause for atheism." as not supported by the evidence.

But since when did that stop anyone believing what they wanted to.

[Jax Agnesson]

It is my contention that a bad religious experience and not a lack of evidence is the basic cause for atheism.

Would you call looking for a god and not finding one 'a bad religious experience' or 'a lack of evidence'?

[Danmark]

I raised this question in another thread. It is my contention that a bad religious experience and not a lack of evidence is the basic cause for atheism. I also believe that the majority of atheists came from either a catholic or a protestant background. What I would like to do is add a poll to the thread so we can get an accurate count. If you desire to add anything with your vote feel free to have at it.

This poll won't address the issue of whether a 'bad religious experience' is and what impact it has had.

My guess is that a 'bad experience' is not a frequent factor, but it may depend on how 'bad experience' is defined.

My gut tells me that among non theists who care enough about religion to participate in a forum like this, a strong majority had significant relationship with organized Christianity. They studied the Bible, went to church and gradually came to realize there was no evidence for the supernatural claims of scripture.

For me, I was raised in a devout evangelical Christian home, attended a Christian college, became a lay missionary, had a positive relationship with Jesus Christ. I still love and respect that image of Jesus I grew up with.
But as I studied the Bible more and studied the history of each book of the Bible, I found less and less foundation for seeing it as the inspired word of god. The more I read, the more the old questions and doubts seemed to be answered better by the idea that religion is wholly man made.
Other than some embarrassment now when I reflect on things I said 40 years ago as a 'true believer' I don't think of the experience as 'bad.' I think it was actually helpful in developing a liberal arts education and early on having experience in interpreting and understanding the written word.

[Danmark]

But the aggressive atheist seems to have an axe to grind and it is my contention that an unsavory religious experience is the primary reason for it. It really has nothing to do with evidence or the lack thereof. IMO

Yes to the axe to grind. It's a leap from one kind of fundamentalism to another.

I leave you now to the daunting task of understanding the aggressive fundamentalist agnostic because those people are the biggest fruitcakes of all!

And I would agree that aggressive atheism is a religion in and of itself. So is atheism the abandoning of religion or is it religion without God?

By definition atheism is not a religion. I don't know why it seems so important to the religious to claim it is one.

The closest you can come to claiming it is a religion is in the poetic sense, not the denotative. Certainly one could be an atheist and approach is non belief with 'religious fervor,' but that does not make atheism a religion.

I can even agree that a so called 'strong atheist' who actively campaigns and organizes his life around the principle that he KNOWS there is no god, would be engaging in religious like behavior, but that still does not turn the opposite of religion into one.