Conversation

Poll: Your recent religious trajectory. In the last 5 years, what best describes your trajectory of belief? For the purposes of this poll, treat agnosticism as a point on the spectrum between theism and atheism, and vote based on proximity/drift direction.
  • Consistently atheist
    51.9%
  • Consistently theist
    14.1%
  • Atheist —> Theist
    26.2%
  • Theist —> Atheist
    7.8%
1,685 votesFinal results
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I’m going to have to go full Dawkins in my old age aren’t I What is wrong with you people I mean, my people have a strong base, but the winds ain’t blowing our way
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19
For extra denial points make vague noises about nootropic stacks and jhanas or whatever. At least nobody says “I’m spiritual but not religious” anymore. Small mercies.
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This is a common conceit — that atheism is some sort of naive, sophomore teen rebellion that one reconsiders and abandons with maturity as a part of adulting. That anyone still professing atheism past 25 is to be pitied for failing to grow up 🤣
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Replying to @vgr
Or maybe people understand theism better as they get older
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This stereotype is in fact correct as a description of the median 19-year-old atheist who has recently read Blind Watchmaker or something by Dennett, but in my experience as you examine older cohorts, the contempt flows the other way, like atheists are frozen at 19.
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Replying to @vgr
I tend to perceive that the atheists are generally the intellectual types who look down on and ridicule the theist who they believe lacks logical thinking skills or is afraid of dying and caves in to fear.
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For the record, I’ve been atheist since I first thought to even reflect on the question at maybe 8, and was not the sophomore-logic-bomb type even at 19. It’s been pretty consistently a sort of Discordian, Douglas-Adamish absurdist strain. This tends to be the lifelong strain.
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The logic-bomb type is typically a fragile atheist and likely to “turn” if bitten by a theist on a full-moon because logical denialism is a kind of effort to resist a temptation to belief. The absurdists are a different breed, fundamentally lacking the underlying temptation.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be a somewhat genetic predisposition, a bit like alcoholism, especially under modern conditions, where required social performances are not a major factor.
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Anyhow, I think the biggest change I’m seeing in myself as an aging atheist is that I’m much less inclined to empathize with the religious mind. Not getting intolerant necessarily, but definitely holding the religious responsible for the consequences of religiosity.
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