Should I Come Out as an Atheist to My Religious Family and Friends?

[Sorry!]

Haha... I wish Flat-earthers would confront young Earth creationists. Kind of reminds me of the "Alien vs Predator" movie(if you have seen it).

LMFAO. That was a great comparison. I should go to a church and preach outside about the flatness of our earth.

 

[rootX]

6 is a lucky number for many Asian cultures, you know.

I see you had one 6 there too.

I have 969, and lisab has 636 :)

 

[kldickson]

... I'd conjecture that as one's exposure to and training in the methods of science increases, then one's reliance on spiritual and theistic views tends to decrease.

What has a foothold is doing physical science, which tends to preclude doing spiritual and theistic religious stuff -- unless one is a hardcore religious fanatic (I'm using this term loosely) and really really smart. In which case one might invent ingenious rationalizations for one's spiritual beliefs, rather than admitting to an emotional need for some sort of elaborate invisible friend(s) structure.

Adherence to spiritual-theistic religious beliefs is very much an emotional, and something of a social, thing I think. That's why some, otherwise quite rationally oriented, scientists want to cling to beliefs that most other scientists have dismissed as unwarranted (and unnecessary).

From what I've read about various tendencies of the irrational sort in various areas, there seems to be a large amount of compartmentalization involved in the psyche of members of the scientific community who are religious but otherwise rational.

I'm an atheist because I see no proof of any sort of deity. And it's really quite illogical to compartmentalize because it denies integrating information in reality and into a framework - which is one of the basic abilities you need to be a good scientist.

 

[Hurkyl]

No, of course not. But I'd conjecture that as one's exposure to and training in the methods of science increases, then one's reliance on spiritual and theistic views tends to decrease.

People like to see the world from their own perspective. Naturally, the rational atheist likes to think that if other people think rationally, then they will be atheist too. But that doesn't make it so.

Also, blending multiple epistemological beliefs is not a simple task. It's far easier to be a rationalist than being both theistic and rationalistic -- and the strict rationalist will, a priori, deny theism as a path to knowledge.

Of course, the strict rationalist also has to deny empiricism as well, and conversely the strict empiricist denies rationalism. You can see this one crop up when people try to discuss the nature of the physical sciences, which in reality mixes both. (and is not strict)


Of course, you get the the ideologues, such as

Oh well, just be glad that creationism isn't a problem in Bulgaria anymore.

who, when faced with crackpottery done in the name of religion, try to push the idea that it's a typical example of religious belief, rather than a typical example of crackpottery.

 

[Sorry!]

People like to see the world from their own perspective. Naturally, the rational atheist likes to think that if other people think rationally, then they will be atheist too. But that doesn't make it so.

Also, blending multiple epistemological beliefs is not a simple task. It's far easier to be a rationalist than being both theistic and rationalistic -- and the strict rationalist will, a priori, deny theism as a path to knowledge.

Of course, the strict rationalist also has to deny empiricism as well, and conversely the strict empiricist denies rationalism. You can see this one crop up when people try to discuss the nature of the physical sciences, which in reality mixes both. (and is not strict)


Of course, you get the the ideologies, such as

who, when faced with crackpottery done in the name of religion, try to push the idea that it's a typical example of religious belief, rather than a typical example of crackpottery.

Religious belief is crackpottery. :) Can I say that without getting banned?

 

[kldickson]

Religious belief is crackpottery. :) Can I say that without getting banned?

It would be a pity if saying that was a bannable offense.

 

[Hurkyl]

It would be a pity if saying that was a bannable offense.

Really? What does bigotry have to do with physics? (And how does it not violate our guidelines on religious discussion?)

 

[kldickson]

Hurkyl, there's a considerable distance between saying 'HURF DURF ICKY JOOZ' and saying 'Religion is founded on rather illogical premises and has been shown to be harmful'.

 

[kldickson]

Or substitute the name of whatever religion you want to substitute in there - Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Tea-and-Crumpetism, etc.

 

[Moonbear]

Religious belief is crackpottery. :) Can I say that without getting banned?

It's only crackpottery if one tries to apply it to a scientific question. If one keeps it separate from matters of science, then it is simply religion or theology. The OP wasn't asking for a discussion of whether religion is justified or not, s/he seems to have already made up his/her mind on the matter and was only asking how to tell his/her parents/family/friends that his/her views differ quite a lot from theirs.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I concur. The OP's topic hasn't been addressed in quite some time. Thread closed.