So my neighbor stops by our house after shopping on Sunday for some needed groceries and his wife talks to my wife about primary stuff. I told him he needed to see this video which I think is hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmGp3rThIzA

Well, he thought it was funny but said his EQ is not like the Relief Society part of this video. He did say that not many people participate in Sunday EQ meeting outside of two men.

I know both of these men. One tried to Home Teach me back to the church with Cleon Skousen type birds and bees are intelligences nonsense. Like I would have to come back because bees are smart and that proves The Gospel is true. Really?

Well, the other man my neighbor mentioned, I know for a variety of reasons but once many years ago he and a Stake Presidency Counselor dropped by and were wondering why I didn't go to church anymore. I told him I didn't know if I even believed there was a God so why would I go and act like I did?

The man proceeded to tell me about how he converted to Mormonism from being raised an atheist. So I knew he had been one.

Well, the other dude that speaks up in EQ I knew was a convert as well. What I didn't know was that he had been raised atheist too. So know my neighbor and I know the two men in EQ that comment the most were once avowed atheists.

Strange but true.

I have my doubts about that.

And what is an "avowed" atheist ?

He's a person who raises his right arm to the square and swears to God that he's an atheist.

I think EssexExMo is on the right track with these two men. They claim to have been "avowed" (take offense if you want) non-believers but I suspect that their parents and their rearing was done without a deity looming over them.

Whatever they were, they claim to not have believed in God and know do and the one who came to my house with the Stake guy says that Mormon Jesusism makes the most sense because it is a personal God with a body.

This is why it is important to actively teach your kids to use reason and logic, when dealing with religion. Far too many atheist parents, over far too many generations have relied too much on, "my kids will figure it out on their own." It's like teaching them about drugs, or sex, you either teach them the truth, and responsibility, or so nutjob who is too extreme, rather they are for or against drugs and sex, will fill their heads full of nonsense.

In my experience, many people who say they were 'raised atheist', were actually raised ignorant of religion.

the trouble with that, is that we are all continually drip-fed religion in our media and cultural references.

It's like an allergen. some people will shrug it off.... but some people will have a minor reaction the first few times they are exposed, until, eventually even a small exposure will produce a life changing reaction.

having good Information is like having an inoculation. Informed atheists generally do not 'find god(s)'


I have no problem with 'theistically ignorant' people calling themselves atheists.... but it gets a bit annoying when they suddenly 'find god(s)' and suddenly it's trumpeted like Christopher Hitchens has just been baptized



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2013 03:50PM by EssexExMo.

Well, obviously like people who believe Big Foot "could" exist, they went looking.

But they seem to be the more vocal Mormons in the bunch at the EQ I am not going to today.

Well said! It's what I was thinking about what had happened.

I've talked to a few who were atheists who now believe to assess what kind of evidence they used for being an atheist in the first place and what kind of evidence they used to suddenly believe.

Usually it was based on environment, personal experience, social need or emotions (since if there actually were evidence, there would not be a need for religions to require faith).

Like Francis Collins, who has never refuted the reasoning he gave to support atheism, they just decide to believe based on issues like complexity (of the universe or biology, etc.) which are not proof for a god except to a believer. They do not present any evidence to support their conversion which is fine, but it's not like that is convincing to a studied atheist.

Like any believer, an atheist can "just believe" a certain view. There are many atheists with sloppy standards for evidence of course. Maybe the person values anecdotal evidence, 2nd hand experience, authority figures, preconceived conclusions and wishful thinking over not having evidence at all. Believing in a god answers a lot of questions, except for the problem of explaining how a complex god can just exist out of nowhere. Honestly, the inconsistency of their arguments makes them lose credibility, IMO.

Yeah, I'm always a little skeptical of religious folks who have claimed to be "atheist" before converting. I've never personally known anyone who was a true atheist to find out later they converted to deism.

I have a suspicion that most of these people were not "really" atheists but more likely simply apathetic towards religion, either having not participated in a church before or had been turned off by a specific church they had been raised in. They may not have "bothered" with God or religion until some religious types come along and shake them out of their apathy.

My sister, who quit Mormonism the same time I did, is now "Muslim" after she married a Muslim. I was the one who took Mormonism very seriously. I was the one who was always reading the scriptures, took seminary voluntarily, followed the rules, went on a mission, etc. I took it so seriously I eventually (unintentionally) studied my way out of it. She went basically because Mom made her and she had friends there.

I've studied the Bible and other religions fairly extensively. I know more about Islam than she does, but here I am the atheist, and she, a "convert" to Islam. I remember speaking to her before her "conversion" to Islam, she appeared to have very little opinion on religion at all. There were things she didn't like about Mormonism, but it was all on a very superficial level. She was in religious "no man's land" after she stopped attending the LDS church. I'm sure she gave very little thought to religion until her husband swept her off her feet and now all of a sudden she "found religion." I wouldn't doubt if she described herself as "atheist" before her conversion to Islam.

How about converted to theism.

Good catch. I meant theist...

Sorry, but you sound an awful lot like the Christians who claim that former-Christians-turned-atheists were all never "really" Christian.

That's true.

I know. I don't get the over sensitivity in either camp of the God Is/God Isn't debate.

These two men seem over the top religious after having claimed no religion.

I'm sure many people can claim I was never really Mormon. I probably wasn't. As a child I whole-heartedly believed until I was 8. Then when I realized people were saying God has a body I checked out. I never have believed that so I must never have been a Mormon.

Atheism is a big tent - it is simply the absence of a god-figure in ones world view.

That can cover skeptical atheists who adopt atheism after reasoning about God, and also include people who were raised with no religion. Rational atheism vs default atheism.

Raising your kids with no religion, but not also teaching them critical thinking skills is a bad idea IMHO. My mother's family were raised by an apatheist with no religion at all. He may have consciously not believed in God, but the kids were simply raised in a vacuum. They are all now ether JWs or Mormons. They were vulnerable to the first cult that came along when they were at a low point in life. That is quite likely the situation of the men mentioned by the OP.

I was born an atheist.

So were you.

And that is what was meant by default atheism.