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I think it's the hard way to go through life and something a person should arrive to on their own after huge amounts of study, thought and soul-searching.
I think it's the hard way to go through life and something a person should arrive to on their own after huge amounts of study, thought and soul-searching.
What about you?
Nope, because unless you're using religion to directly harm me (or greater society in a tangible way) it's none of my business.
I don't think being an atheist is "hard." I don't "preach the anti-gospel" to other people for the same reasons I don't want someone preaching the "actual gospel" to me.
Nope. I'm supportive of those who have recently come out, but I neither encourage nor discourage those who are on the fence or who are still believers. I can't stand it when people tell me what I should or should not believe and have no desire to do it to others.
Nope. I will support others in their questioning if they happen to ask about it, but I don't see any need to encourage those who believe strongly to change.
It has never occurred to me to encourage anyone to be an atheist. It's a place I arrived at as part of a very personal process over many years, and I have no idea how that would apply to anyone else. I was invited to a concert last night by a couple we just met who turned out to attend the local Methodist church, so they are almost surely theists. They have been married to each other and lived in the same house for 40 years. They seem to be happy, affable, good people. Whatever they are doing is working for them. I have no desire to mess up their stable state or make them uncomfortable. If theism is problematic for them in some way, they will figure it out for themselves. If they ask me about my beliefs or my personal story, I'll respond to them, but not until they ask, and even then, it will just be providing requested data which they can do with what they will.
It has never occurred to me to encourage anyone to be an atheist. It's a place I arrived at as part of a very personal process over many years, and I have no idea how that would apply to anyone else. I was invited to a concert last night by a couple we just met who turned out to attend the local Methodist church, so they are almost surely theists. They have been married to each other and lived in the same house for 40 years. They seem to be happy, affable, good people. Whatever they are doing is working for them. I have no desire to mess up their stable state or make them uncomfortable. If theism is problematic for them in some way, they will figure it out for themselves. If they ask me about my beliefs or my personal story, I'll respond to them, but not until they ask, and even then, it will just be providing requested data which they can do with what they will.
I somehow doubt you would "mess up their stable state," unless in between going to church they live under a rock where the idea of life without a higher power is both an exotic and dangerous concept. Making them uncomfortable or simply coming across as rude is infinitely more likely.
I think it's the hard way to go through life and something a person should arrive to on their own after huge amounts of study, thought and soul-searching.
What about you?
I once wrote about my atheism in my blog. I imply that it is a positive thing to get out from under the weight of religious indoctrination. I also imply that to do so requires critical thinking, which I figure is a positive trait and not a negative one. So I guess I'm sort of pushing along the notion of atheism. I will politely speak the same sentiments to any theist who happens to ask me about my religious beliefs. But I never aggressively push atheism or my atheistic views on anyone. Either the person voluntarily reads what I have written about atheism, or the other person initiates the conversation concerning religion.
I somehow doubt you would "mess up their stable state," unless in between going to church they live under a rock where the idea of life without a higher power is both an exotic and dangerous concept. Making them uncomfortable or simply coming across as rude is infinitely more likely.
I've had a lot of experience with theists who live under rocks when not going to church ;-)
For many, theism is a shorthand worldview that absolves them of the need to actually look at reality or think about it. They have many slippery-slope concerns about ideas that differ from theirs; such ideas are dangerous or crazy by definition.
No because then I'd be no better than those on the religious side that do it.
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