Losing your religion

[...] I didn't so much lose my religion(if I ever had any) but it was shattered by a red necked red faced southern baptist charlatan who claimed to have faith, but had none.

If particular instances of exploitation of a system fallaciously cascaded into cynical distrust or suspicion of it in general... Then I would probably have a range of wavering to little confidence in most secular human operations, too. Especially those parading about and germinating in the socioeconomic-cultural slash altruistic and humanitarian signaling category complex for circa the past 160 years. Oh. Gee. Maybe that actually is the case... ;)
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Going the opposite way, I was raised as an atheist and came to religion pretty much on my own terms. Up until I was ~9ish years old I was just blithely unaware that people believed in any god, and thought the idea patently ridiculous. After I came across people that were more expressive in their beliefs, I reacted to that and became a militant atheist. The Bush Administration and its obvious Christian nationalist policies certainly inflamed my militancy. This was about the height of the New Atheist era, mid-2000s or so.

Then late in high school, I want to say maybe 16 years of age, I began to mellow out about it. By around 17, I was more amenable to pantheism in the Spinozan sense. Around this time I became more acquainted with Neopaganism and was fascinated by the idea of modern revival of pre-Christian polytheism. When I was younger, I had a brief period of finding that polytheism made sense, and had a pecular interest in Egyptian and Greek mythology. But that had kinda faded out in the face of my militant atheism.

Around 17-18, I pivoted into identifying as Pagan. I adopted a formal polytheism, but closer to Neopythagorean and Hermetic panentheism. I adopted some Pagan practices, but I slacked off on them after a couple years. I had not really had any clear experiences, and my commitment waned. I became more of a...theorist than a practitioner. I read, I debated, I talked about Pagan philosophy and theology. But I had largely stopped doing paganism.

But that changed, in fits and starts, from about 2011-ish and proceeding for the following few years. I had several vivid, intense spiritual experiences that, inasmuch as my senses could imbibe them and interpret them, evidenced polytheism as truth. I have had further experiences that have shown me a much greater complexity to that view-- and oddly enough, I've started to be more amenable to Neoplatonist and Hermetic thought. Funny how things come full circle, huh? Difference being that I am active and consistent in my hearth practice, and regularly engage in mystical communion with the gods.

The main thing I carry over from my atheistic days is that I am still a skeptic at heart. Even when I experience something, I do not automatically believe it. I seek to replicate the experience, interpret it, and observe commonalities between my experiences and those of others. And, most critically, I do not expect others to hold my views. It took several mystical experiences to convince me of polytheism. Why in the world would I think that someone would come to those conclusions purely on discourse? Even Plato said that the esoteric knowledge of the gods and the universe can only be truly understood experientially.
 
I kept the faith because I want to be a believer. My mind spoke and said two words, “I, Believe,” and I was totally fascinated with that word immediately. I believe in faith, and the devil terrifies me.
 
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I kept the faith because I want to be a believer. My mind spoke and said two words, “I, Believe,” and I was totally fascinated with that word immediately. I believe in faith, and the devil terrifies me.
You should only fear one. God.

Don't waste time on the devil.
 
When I was a kid, my parents dutifully attended a Christian church most Sundays. I did Sunday School, where I was taught bible stories about Noah and Jesus and Moses and the rest - mostly Jesus. I was a Christian for the same reason most Christians are Christians: because I had Christian parents and I was brought up that way. If I had had Muslim parents, I probably would have been a Muslim kid.

When I was 9 years old, my family moved to a different country and lived there for almost 3 years. There, Christianity was not the dominant religion. I visited the holy buildings of a number of different religions. I interacted with lots of people who followed non-Christian religions, and I learned something about some of those religions in school. At the time, I'm sure that I still thought that Christianity was the "right" religion. Some of the other religious practices and beliefs seemed strange to me and misguided, though I would never have expressed that thought out loud to any believer in some other religion. That would be impolite and disrespectful.

When my family returned to Australia, I started in a new school. It was a Christian school that had some emphasis on religion, but of a different Christian denomination to the one in which I had been brought up. As a result of that, I always felt somewhat religiously separated from many of my school friends. They participated in all the rituals of their domination, whereas my family considered that it would be inappropriate for us, who were of a different denomination, to engage in all of those things fully in the new context.

Nevertheless, I still retained my belief in God. At school I had to regularly attend religious services, which still covered the same core Christian material, though with different trappings of ritual. I was interested in learning more about the religion, to the extent that I even voluntarily attended some extra bible study classes from time to time. I had a strong inner feeling that God was a real being who took a personal interest in me (along with everybody else, because God is love etc. etc.).

I was interested in science from a very early age. I read lots of science fiction and popular science fact, along with other things, so I learned something about the way that scientists think about the world. I was strongly influenced by a number of popular science communicators who were, in fact, atheists, although at that time people mostly kept their atheism fairly quiet. In my teens, I was drawn to the writings of people in what would now be described as the Skeptical community. What they said about lots of things made a lot of sense to me. They were rational people who applied scientific methods. They debunked lots of stuff that is bunk, some of which was stuff that in my younger years I had lapped up, assuming that people on TV who presented pseudo-documentaries were probably telling the truth. Now I understood why that stuff was bunk, and I was equipped with a mental toolbox for sorting balony from truth.

After leaving school, my regular church attendance - and that of my family - stopped, mostly because our churchgoing activities had been almost exclusively school-related activities for a number of years. I still believed in God and Jesus, but I didn't feel like my relationship with them had to be mediated through an organised church.

During my undergraduate years at university, as I read more and learned more, about science and about the wider world in general, I began to describe myself as an "agnostic", if anybody asked me what I believed. I would say that I thought that God was probably real, but I couldn't be sure. My reasons for continuing to believe mostly boiled down to my gut feeling that God was out there - and inside, even though I was becoming more aware of the absence of solid evidence for the God I believed in. In terms of my beliefs about how God interacted (or failed to interact) with the physical world, my beliefs might have been described as deistic. An interventionist God seemed to be incompatible with science, history and the rest.

I remember one conversation I had with a small group of friends, including a friend of a friend who these days people might describe as something of a "militant atheist". I found myself trying to defend my belief in God against a number of counterarguments. It didn't go well for me. The best argument I had was something along the lines of "I feel in my heart that God is real". I recognised that, in terms of trying to convince anybody else that God is real, that is a weak argument.

I read stuff. I reflected. I thought about what would happen if I applied the same standards of skepticism and critical thinking to my God belief that I was now accustomed to applying to every other claim to Truth (absolute or otherwise). I stopped giving my God belief a special pass.

Some time in the 1990s - I can't say exactly when - my religious belief evaporated. There was no single Eureka moment, but I became a de facto atheist, though for quite a long time I still identified merely as "agnostic", partly because I didn't think it was necessary to come "out" to my family, and partly, I think, because I didn't really understand properly the difference between agnosticism and atheism. I was, in fact, an agnostic atheist, but I thought for quite a long time that an atheist was a person who made the positive claim that there is no God. That didn't - and doesn't - describe me. Now, however, I know that an atheist is simply somebody who is not convinced that any gods exist, and that is a position I wholeheartedly embrace.

I don't think that I was really comfortable with applying the label "atheist" to myself publically before around 2004. That's the year that the so-called Four Horsemen of the "New Atheism" published their books. I snapped them up, along with a huge swathe of other atheist texts. I got serious about learning more about atheism. What it means, who is and was an atheist, the often-hidden history (necessary because atheists have so often been actively persecuted and often killed for their non-belief), and how and why it is relevant and important in our modern era. Since I agreed with most of what I read, I was finally willing to plant the flag and proudly declare myself an atheist.

These days, I'm more informed about the enormous burdens and costs that religion of all kinds has placed (and is placing) on believers and non-believers alike. It's not black and white; things seldom are. Religion has done a lot of good, as well. But even if religion is useful - and I'm not convinced that it is a net good in today's world - that's no reason to believe in any of its central claims. So, I might describe myself as actually anti-religious, these days, in that I think it is important to take a stand against the evil things that people do in the name of various religions, and against the organised activities of religion which seek to divide people based on whichever arbitrary set of myths one believes in.

Atheism is often mistaken for - or portrayed as - an ideology. But it is not. I am an atheist. All that means is that I'm not convinced that any gods are real. Nothing else follows inevitably from that. I'm open minded. If somebody can convince me his God is real, and make a compelling argument for why I ought to worship that God, so be it. But I've heard a lot of arguments for various god beliefs - many of them many times - so it seems unlikely I'll be "deconverted" from atheism any time soon. This is not unusual for atheists. Many atheists start as believers, by default. They are brought up to believe. Getting to reasoned non-belief is a process. Once you're there, it seems like going back to belief would have to involve "unlearning" a whole lot of things. In contrast, people who start off as atheists because they simply aren't exposed to religious ideas when young (or because those ideas aren't emphasised by their parents or guardians) can more easily "convert" to a religion, because they have yet to go through the process of learning and questioning that people who have deconverted from religion have had to go through.

As well as being an atheist, I am also a Humanist (although I have some reservations about that particular label for it). That is to say, my own moral inclinations most closely align with Humanist values. Humanists tend to be atheists. The reverse is not necessarily true. Humanism, of course, shares some of the same moral philosophy as Christianity, but without the supernatural trappings and without some of the questionable baggage that certain Christian denominational beliefs carry with them. It would be fair to say that, in practice, I have been something like a Humanist for my whole life. I have just given up the mysticism and unjustified beliefs that any belief in God entails.
 
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I'm open minded. If somebody can convince me his God is real, and make a compelling argument for why I ought to worship that God, so be it. But I've heard a lot of arguments for various god beliefs - many of them many times - so it seems unlikely I'll be "deconverted" from atheism any time soon.

What I don't understand, though, is why you continue to bind yourself to a Christianist deity.
 
I don't think you understand. I'm an atheist. I'm bound to no deity.
I might be wrong, but I think they're inquiring why your concept of deity is so rooted in Christian theology. So your opposition to theism might not be relevant to all possible theisms, only to Christianity.

If that is their position, I don't agree with it. I'm just clarifying. I think your reasoning is sound; while I am a polytheist, I have no skin in the game on converting you or convincing you. I just want my own beliefs to be respected, by which I mean, taken as seriously as any other, and I don't want to be discriminated against. And those are things that Christians are far more responsible over than atheists.
 
What I don't understand, though, is why you continue to bind yourself to a Christianist deity.
How do the following two statements made by JR on this thread, imply that JR only means the "Christianist deity"?
Now, however, I know that an atheist is simply somebody who is not convinced that any gods exist, and that is a position I wholeheartedly embrace.
I am an atheist. All that means is that I'm not convinced that any gods are real.
My bold in both quotes above.
 
I might be wrong, but I think they're inquiring why your concept of deity is so rooted in Christian theology.
Tiassa is just doing what Tiassa does: telling lies about me. Somehow, this appalling and repeated behaviour makes him feel good about himself, I guess. He needs to get a life.
I think your reasoning is sound; while I am a polytheist, I have no skin in the game on converting you or convincing you. I just want my own beliefs to be respected, by which I mean, taken as seriously as any other, and I don't want to be discriminated against. And those are things that Christians are far more responsible over than atheists.
I will defend your right to believe anything you want. I will not necessarily agree with you. I might even try to talk you out of it. The only time I would actively discriminate against somebody is when their beliefs prompt them to take actions that harm or threaten other people.
 
As well as being an atheist, I am also a Humanist (although I have some reservations about that particular label for it). That is to say, my own moral inclinations most closely align with Humanist values. Humanists tend to be atheists. The reverse is not necessarily true. Humanism, of course, shares some of the same moral philosophy as Christianity, but without the supernatural trappings and without some of the questionable baggage that certain Christian denominational beliefs carry with them. It would be fair to say that, in practice, I have been something like a Humanist for my whole life. I have just given up the mysticism and unjustified beliefs that any belief in God entails.

Thanks for the details.

I am a terrible Humanist!

A member of the BHA since 2007 and I can barely tell you about key policies, very lazy and embarrassing. I have been to a few meetings but I need to do more, read more and get involved if change is going to happen.

Andrew Copson is the CEO https://andrewcopson.com/
 
I don't think you understand. I'm an atheist. I'm bound to no deity.

Perhaps it's just a question of priorities.

Like your thread about talking to God↗; you couldn't grasp any other context than a Christian pretense fashioned in your image. Or the "one thread to rule them all"↗ that required a companion thread↗ because the one thread strayed into a range that "doesn't appear to describe the God of the Abrahamic religions … very well at all", and sought comparison to that sort of framework.

Think of it this way: In thirty years of giving this stuff your consideration, and twenty years as an identifying atheist, what have you actually learned about the religions you criticize? Consider your inquiry in "Religion, State, and the New Christian Spirit"↗: "Some context: the bible commands no less than the death sentence for all kinds of innocuous or harmless infractions of God's law. For some reason, this isn't hateful?" It's like you've been doing this for thirty years and are still arguing against the God of your childhood.

I promise you, James, compared to "the enormous burdens and costs that religion of all kinds has placed (and is placing) on believers and non-believers alike", or "the point where their unsupported beliefs start having detrimental impacts on other people"↗, no, that pabulum about the death sentence being hateful is not going to be effective.

Remember, James, I'm someone who can stand in a roomful of atheists and hand out tools for criticizing religion, and it only↗ seems↗ to distress↗ them.

Here, it's like I said to someone else, about four years ago↗:

• Really, if the Salish people don't happen to have finely resolved and metaphysically determined tables describing which angel has what authority over which day of the week, and, furthermore, the daily schedules of diverse angels given which authority over what hours on any given day of the week, there might be a reason. I'm pretty certain they also never invented an invisible college, either .... If there is no Nisqually angel of three o'clock in the afternoon on Wednesday, it does not seem so much to hope the reasons why are apparent.​

Or, as I told you, all of a couple weeks later↗:

• Here is a contrast: Existential questions of life and death, purpose and meaning, to the one, and, What day is it? to the other. Most religious people's focus, James, has to do with daily life.​

See, the thing is your primary discussion about religion is as an inquisitor against some manner of Christianity you can't describe very well. It's not so much that you're bad at explaining it, but, rather, that you seem to put work into avoiding some details. I mean, it doesn't come up, much, but in all these years at Sciforums, if you ever said what denomination, I missed it: Catholic, Anglican, Seventh-Day Adventist, Kingdom Hall, Latter-Day Saints, it makes a difference.

But I have, before, mentioned the brochure↗ gloss↗, and five years later it persists¹. The story you tell in #25↑ is similar to a couple years ago↗, smoothed over with a polymer generality that, as I explained then↗, leaves your descriptions vague enough that, while we can generally grasp what you're after, there isn't much to be said for specific response because it remains unclear what some things mean.

It's kind of like why it's not surprising↗ when Christians somehow end up supporting sin; comparatively, you create a similar outcome by turning the discussion away from sin—i.e., "the enormous burdens and costs that religion of all kinds has placed (and is placing) on believers and non-believers alike"—in favor of a preferred inquisition, e.g., "Some context: the bible commands no less than the death sentence for all kinds of innocuous or harmless infractions of God's law. For some reason, this isn't hateful?"

Four years ago, I happened to raised a similar point↗ about the health hazard of defying epidemic protocol for the sake of religious glorification: Communicating with those sorts of people and congregations is difficult enough, but it remains unclear how it is you expect your preferred manner of inquisition will do anything useful toward attending the harms they might bring to self or others.

Now that such religious ideologies are not only in play politically, but promising and rising toward even greater infliction, it's one thing if, "These days, I'm more informed about the enormous burdens and costs that religion of all kinds has placed (and is placing) on believers and non-believers alike", but inasmuch as you might take issue with the religious at the point where their unsupported beliefs start having detrimental impacts on other people, two-bitting the "death sentence for all kinds of innocuous or harmless infractions of God's law" for a quick turnaround on what is hateful or not will be approximately as effective this time around as it has been over the last forty years↗, at least, of American discourse and politics.

I have, before, said this and that about letting people we know are wrong set the terms of discussion, and in the moment, what occurs to mind is whether, when bearing witness to apostasy, you might validate the apostasy in order to run it through the standard wringer, or challenge the apostasy itself. Inasmuch as this one evangelist doesn't care if it works because at the end of the day she isn't answering you, she is answering God, well, sure, and according to the Bible (Mt. 6.1), she already has her reward.

Think about it, we've known about that one for over fifteen years, and if you pass over the record we have of the Christian's proud defiance of Christ, you might miss that it's not even a question of hypocrisy, but open rebellion and usurpation. Your manner of inquisition tends to implicitly validate untenable arguments in order to indict your own, personal shoebox idol↗. More broadly, when you ask diverse people to respond, for instance, according to one errant standard—i.e., what you say—you give them a common foe, or, at least, focus. Instead of focusing on the errors of their own faith, they focus on the presumptuous rudeness of the atheist in front of them. It's one thing if they have unfortunate superstitions about atheism and atheists, but your inquisitory approach affirms and reinforces many of those expectations.

It's one thing if reactionary atheism tends to focus on familiar aspects of religion, e.g., for most in our community over the years, some manner of Christianity. Beyond that, most aren't as aware, knowledgeable, &c., about Abramism, and while that makes sense in and of itself, by the time we're talking about theists in general, the critique against religion tends toward its own articles of faith.

Comparatively, when advocate Stenzel declares, and assembled faithful cheer, that truth does not matter because she is performing for God, her solipsism is more relevant than your word games and fallacious provocation. They're faithless, and seek to usurp God's authority in this world. In a word, they are apostate.

As for handing out tools, that one's pretty basic; it's not just Mt. 6.1, but also Mt. 7.15-20. The thing is, we can't just disqualify them as Christians, even though that is essentially the point. This faithless usurpation is not new; whether forty or thirty or twenty years, consider the difference between time spent isolating and identifying this apostasy that would require widespread Christian reassessment of faith, or piling them in with all other Christians in order to keep asking them to submit to your judgment.

And that's the thing: It's not just the tendency toward familiar foundations, such as Christianity; i.e., it's not merely↑ "why your concept of deity is so rooted in Christian theology". Your inquisition is particular and proximal, nearly intimate. It's also insistent and largely unchanging. Again, what have you actually learned about the religions you criticize, because your approach doesn't change. You're pursuing a very particular idol, and while it might look like you are pursuing somebody else's god, it is in its way actually your own.

That's why I say, bound; it's like you're still arguing against the God of your childhood.
____________________

Notes:

¹ ca. 2022↗, Along the way, I described it as so generic as to read like a fourth-wall pitch to first-timers, and explained: It is not that I somehow don't recognize the range you describe, James, but that it's a gloss composite, so generalized that even a Methodist joke doesn't work.
 
Perhaps it's just a question of priorities.

Like your thread about talking to God↗; you couldn't grasp any other context than a Christian pretense fashioned in your image. Or the "one thread to rule them all"↗ that required a companion thread↗ because the one thread strayed into a range that "doesn't appear to describe the God of the Abrahamic religions … very well at all", and sought comparison to that sort of framework.
"Do you talk to God"
That thread and title was started by Sculptor not JR.
** ** ** **
Tiassa, where in those other links you provide are people stopped from talking about their views non-deity or other.
JamesR just seems to stay with WHAT COMES UP most on the threads, and that seems to be the Christian god, and so his questioning goes in that direction. You (Tiassa) seem to take that to mean JR is bound to that type of understanding of deity. Do you want to talk about non-deity views or understandings, where are you being stopped from doing so?
 
What I don't understand, though, is why you continue to bind yourself to a Christianist deity.
Atheists that began as theists reject their god first because it is easier. We know about Jesus we don't know so much about Allah.
The rejection process for me for instance, began in the 1970s and took till the 90s before I rejected it.
It took that long to learn enough about scripture, to convince myself the internal contradictions and inconsistencies were man made not god given.

It took a lot less effort to reject the claims of Mohammed. Why? Because I had not grown up in an Islamic dominated environment. A tall tale to child is convincing and it takes more and more effort to maintain it as the child grows and starts to challenge.
You read about some guy riding to heaven on a winged horse for the first time at 21 your first thought is, "I really don't think so."
 
In my everyday life I am more likely to run into evangelicals who have deep questions like, "If man came from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?" These are the people voting to redirect public tax money to church schools. I don't think subtle nuances of various religious philosophers through the centuries is going to have much impact.
 
Tiassa:

You regularly complain that I don't discuss religion the way you'd prefer me to discuss it - whatever that way might be.

But, then, you regularly complain about the way I discuss just about everything.

Why don't you do you, and I'll do me?

That's what I suggested back in January 2022. You're still stuck exactly where you were back then, as far as I can tell.

Anyway, go read this post again, because it covers all the bases of your repeat here, I think:


Here's the advice I gave to you back then, again. Maybe this time you ought to take the advice.

James R said:
I suggest that, perhaps, instead of being the guy throwing peanuts from the gallery, focussed on keeping tabs on my supposedly sub-par performance in religious discussions, you might consider being the example you claim to be. Jump in and show us all how it ought to be done!
Of course, it's been 2 and a half years since then and here you are back again with the same complaint and the same inaction as before, as if no time has passed in between. So, I don't expect this time around you'll be any different.
 
That thread and title was started by Sculptor not JR.

True, that, but James R's performance in that thread is as absurd as any of the threads he starts.

JamesR just seems to stay with WHAT COMES UP most on the threads, and that seems to be the Christian god, and so his questioning goes in that direction ....

At least make sense. That doesn't say anything about the threads he starts, for instance, or the ones he tries to troll.

.... and that seems to be the Christian god, and so his questioning goes in that direction.

I'm sure it sounds like a nice excuse, but James is also very particular about discussing the Christian God, and that's not news↗.

You (Tiassa) seem to take that to mean JR is bound to that type of understanding of deity.

No, Foghorn, as I told James R, it's because he is so focused on such a narrow argument. The example from the thread on religion and state↗, for instance, is not about going in the direction of the thread, but performing the stations of his inquisition.

Do you want to talk about non-deity views or understandings, where are you being stopped from doing so?

What does that even mean?

• • •​

Atheists that began as theists reject their god first because it is easier. We know about Jesus we don't know so much about Allah ....

.... It took a lot less effort to reject the claims of Mohammed. Why? Because I had not grown up in an Islamic dominated environment.

To reiterate:

• It's one thing if reactionary atheism tends to focus on familiar aspects of religion, e.g., for most in our community over the years, some manner of Christianity. Beyond that, most aren't as aware, knowledgeable, &c., about Abramism, and while that makes sense in and of itself, by the time we're talking about theists in general, the critique against religion tends toward its own articles of faith ....

.... And that's the thing: It's not just the tendency toward familiar foundations, such as Christianity; i.e., it's not merely "why your concept of deity is so rooted in Christian theology". [James R's] inquisition is particular and proximal, nearly intimate. It's also insistent and largely unchanging.​

Clearly, Pinball, you're not new to this. Why act like yo are? Or, have you not, in all this time since the '70s, grown beyond the basic talking points?

And while, sure, you haven't been here very long ... look, sometimes it occurs to wonder who James thinks he's talking to. The question doesn't work as well with you, but that's the thing, James and I have had twenty years together, and he still pitches the beginner's gloss like he thinks one of us is new.

And, honestly, in general, the atheistic discussion around here is pretty basic; over time, you'll find it doesn't evolve much.

• • •​

In my everyday life I am more likely to run into evangelicals who have deep questions like, "If man came from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?" These are the people voting to redirect public tax money to church schools. I don't think subtle nuances of various religious philosophers through the centuries is going to have much impact.

Must be a regional thing; around here, we have enough Christians of other sorts to actually preserve things like science, civility, and decency.

But consider, please, "the enormous burdens and costs that religion of all kinds has placed (and is placing) on believers and non-believers alike", or, "the point where their unsupported beliefs start having detrimental impacts on other people", and then a question along the lines of, "What about them?", because, well, it is ostensibly part of James R's critique against religion↗. And that relationship between the harm they do and our thresholds of objection might, at first glance, seem important to certain discussions of religion, but—and neither is it just James—compared to the actual discussions at hand, the harm religion does comes through more as a talking point along the way to halfassed justification.

And maybe you don't think subtle nuances of various religious philosophers through the centuries is going to have much impact, but maybe that's shortsighted. Again, consider the difference between time spent isolating and identifying this apostasy that would require widespread Christian reassessment of faith, or piling them in with all other Christians in order to keep asking them to submit to your judgment. Because that would be more than just you, me, or James.

One thing we know from American history is that American Christianity can be transformative, even of itself. If I make a point about forty years ago↗, it has to do with the pseudoliteralism we've all been arguing about over the period; it is, compared to Sciforums, a longer version of letting people who are wrong set the terms of discussion. The short form is, perhaps it might stand out that the whole time, literalism had already been ceded as an anti-historical relic of faith, such that the period can describe people disputing over the wrong question.

Similarly, we can also recall the Lambs' War, and its role in American history. Jack Cady told the story this way, ca. 1999:

The idea of God within each person had never seriously threatened history because history had never before produced George Fox.

Fox confused the Puritans and plenty of other religionists. Puritans were accustomed to disputation, and suddenly here was a man with a doctrine over which there was nothing to dispute. No logical argument could be thrown against it. Once the main premise was accepted, the whole business of predestination turned silly; and with it the whole basis for political and social control by theocracy. Worse, perhaps, it made no difference if believers spent their entire lives without hearing a preacher. Given the premise, each person was a minister, with complete and indisputable authority.

Of course, if the main premise was rejected, the proponents of the idea looked crazy. Some of them were. The problem the Puritans had is the problem we have with zealots to this very day. Until the smoke of battle fades into the pages of history, it is often quite difficult to tell who is plain nuts, and who is a saint.

Puritans could not believe that anyone could have no sense of sin or guilt. When Quaker guiltlessness entered Boston, the theocracy proved itself capable of hanging women.

While Quaker influence in American history is indelible, it can, quite apparently, be easily painted over. For instance, consider the basic objection to being born into sin, i.e., fundamentally unsatisfactory to the God that requires your existence. The basic sketch of Original Sin persists, not just in American Christendom but also in much atheistic reaction; see Pinball1970, above, "Atheists that began as theists reject their god first because it is easier."

And if postchristian atheists are rejecting prevailing theology, they might miss the corner of Christendom where Original Sin is not in effect.

The point being, yes, it is actually possible to take the discussion away from the Dominionist and often fundamentalist Christian nationalism that has shaped the last thirty years, at least, of American political discourse. It just requires a lot of people, enough to be a political market influence, and learning new tricks can be hard, so even the activists among American atheists aren't interested. There are days when it seems as if, for many reactionary atheists, the thought of a world in which they don't have to worry about whether their neighbor is a Christian or not gets filed under, "O! the horror!"

When our manner of dispute implicitly validates untenable arguments, we cede initiative and accept engineered fallacies a priori. The result is predictable. Compared to the danger of facilitating epidemic because one is "covered in Jesus' blood", it's true that I wouldn't know how to get through to that Christian or her congregation, but four years it remains unclear how asking her to submit to atheistic judgment per mocking, fallacious, self-satisfying criteria would do anything useful about the harm she might bring to herself or others.

Vis à vis the harm they do, the standard two-bit inquisitions don't work, and at best are only worth whatever ephemeral satisfaction an atheist can find in it. Bottom line, it's not a good return, and depending on how you measure it, can even constitute a loss.

But, like I said, maybe it's a regional thing. After all, it can't possibly be prejudice.

Because the thing is, I can think of Christians in several states who struggled alongside their nonchristian neighbors in a civil rights fight, cornering the Supreme Court so badly that the Chief Justice would make believe on the bench and one associate justice would even attack his own family in dissent. If we insist they are no different from the extremists, both they will eventually accept that judgment. I don't think the problem is that the atheists haven't figured that out. Well, unless they just can't, but that would be nearly as ridiculous as pretending all Christians are the same.
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Notes:

Cady, Jack. The American Writer: Shaping a Nation's Mind. New York: St. Martin's, 1999.
 
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