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Quote by: Isherwood  I don't think of it as a "point of attack", but I suggest we all know people who are Christian simply because they were raised that way. They have never made a positive determination to be Christian, it's more a default belief.
I've heard other Christians call these people "wishy-washy" Christians, or not "true" Christians, but to those of us on the outside, they're not all that different from those who decided for themselves to become Christian.
A lot of the other atheists I know or socialize with were once Christians. Some of us were Christian by choice (like me) or were raised as Christians (like those mentioned above).
Those raised Christian can become atheists just by realizing that their faith isn't their own choice, that when they honestly think about it they don't really believe.
Those of us who chose to become Christian may leave it behind in our continuing quest to understand the "spiritual" side of our nature. It was that quest that led us to religion in the first place, and when religion didn't supply sufficient answers, we moved on.
People who are raised with a certain mindset and never feel encouraged to or have any reason to question it are often not very zealous in their beliefs. |
But Mama tried.
It is sometimes difficult to seperate a person's belief system from the actural person. For example: If someone really did have a strong bond to their mother or father, and if their mom and pop also were very religious, it would be hard to mentally seperate the those two aspects, and therefore very difficult to reject the belief system without rejecting also the mother or father. Because what we think or remember about them is templated by how religious they were.
We can see that being played out in the now famous Obama-Wright sistuation, it is hard for Obama to distance his self from Wright's belief system (religion) and to move on. Attempting to keep Wright but reject some of this belefs, and yet not to become a total atheist in the process. Obama has become like the wayward son who ended up with the pigs of politics. Right smack dap in all that mud. Catch 22.
Obama is forced to have faith in Rev. Wright as many would have faith in the Bible, cherry picking the parts of the Bible they really find agreeable and rejecting those parts of the Bible that might cause contravercy.
To be raised Christian without being seen as a raisen flake. Breakfast anyone?