Justtristo
24th June 2010, 08:21 AM
I don’t know about a lot of you people's backgrounds. However as I said earlier I was raised in a non-religious, freethinking background. That means I never had to rebel against say devoutly Christian parents. I do suspect given my mindset, I might have rebelled in my teens if my parents were evangelical Christians.
I was raised by my avowedly atheist mother from age 4-13, then I moved with my dad and his then wife who subscribed to various new age stuff (including belief in Aliens visiting Earth). That experience affected me to the extent, I was always looking at Christianity from the position of an outsider and also I developed a solidly rationalistic, skeptical mindset.
Being open-minded and freethinking made me open in hearing about the ideas the Christians were preaching about. For a long time my main contact with Christians were with that of the liberal variety, I generally found them an all right lot and not terribly dogmatic. Since I have been at university for the last couple of years or so, I got to meet evangelical Christians. Being open-minded I started hearing about the gospel and reading the bible.
Compared to the Quran and Orthodox Islam, I did not find the evangelical Christians and their ideas all that threatening to my lifestyle. I guess the turning point for me lately has been, reading the bible more in-depth and in a way I did not before. Also reading works by ‘new atheist’ authors such as Dawkins, Harris, Onfray and Hitchens. Also my contact with Evangelical Christians has changed my views as well, I tend to see those people in having often a ‘correct’ interpretation of the bible, which my readings has confirmed. I am starting to evaluate seriously my neutral to slightly positive view of Christianity. I am also realizing the better Christians are the ones who don’t interpret the bible literally.
As the title of my post says, I have been through an 'atheist revival' akin to what happens to some Christians. My general apathy to Christianity and other religions are disappearing and I am becoming more critical of it, more in line with my view of Islam. Also far from seeing Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens as 'loonies', I am to them and agree with their core message. Right now I am only revealing this change in myself to select people, a fair slice of my social network would think very different of me, I were to reveal this at this stage.
I was raised by my avowedly atheist mother from age 4-13, then I moved with my dad and his then wife who subscribed to various new age stuff (including belief in Aliens visiting Earth). That experience affected me to the extent, I was always looking at Christianity from the position of an outsider and also I developed a solidly rationalistic, skeptical mindset.
Being open-minded and freethinking made me open in hearing about the ideas the Christians were preaching about. For a long time my main contact with Christians were with that of the liberal variety, I generally found them an all right lot and not terribly dogmatic. Since I have been at university for the last couple of years or so, I got to meet evangelical Christians. Being open-minded I started hearing about the gospel and reading the bible.
Compared to the Quran and Orthodox Islam, I did not find the evangelical Christians and their ideas all that threatening to my lifestyle. I guess the turning point for me lately has been, reading the bible more in-depth and in a way I did not before. Also reading works by ‘new atheist’ authors such as Dawkins, Harris, Onfray and Hitchens. Also my contact with Evangelical Christians has changed my views as well, I tend to see those people in having often a ‘correct’ interpretation of the bible, which my readings has confirmed. I am starting to evaluate seriously my neutral to slightly positive view of Christianity. I am also realizing the better Christians are the ones who don’t interpret the bible literally.
As the title of my post says, I have been through an 'atheist revival' akin to what happens to some Christians. My general apathy to Christianity and other religions are disappearing and I am becoming more critical of it, more in line with my view of Islam. Also far from seeing Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens as 'loonies', I am to them and agree with their core message. Right now I am only revealing this change in myself to select people, a fair slice of my social network would think very different of me, I were to reveal this at this stage.