Honey, Im an Atheist: Losing My Faith and Telling My Wife About It

[rug]

May 14, 2017
By Joe Morrow

My name is Joe. I’m 49. I am an atheist and a former evangelical ordained Southern Baptist minister. I live with my wife and two teenage children in the buckle of the Bible Belt, near Nashville, Tennessee. I call myself a 2.0 atheist, meaning that I identify with those who feel strongly about being “out” and forthright about our disbelief.

I am not only a-theistic, but also anti-theistic. I reject religion and all other superstitions and supernatural claims entirely, on the basis that there is absolutely no evidence to support those ideas. And I see this position as positive and vital to the progression of humanity’s advancement. I assert that religious and superstitious belief is harmful to the individual and has a stagnating effect on society. Such beliefs and practices divide people and promote tribalism, fostering oppression, inequalities, justification for hatred, and fear of scientific progress.

Now, having said all that, I will also tell you that my Christian faith and role in professional ministry was once everything to me. In the past I lived a life devoted to bringing the “Good News of Jesus Christ” to a world that I sincerely believed needed it. Now I don’t.

- snip -

But brothers and sisters, you are not alone. Our numbers are growing. Come out with us! You are so not alone.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/excommunications/2017/05/honey-im-an-atheist-losing-my-faith/

Old habits are hard to break.

[raccoon]

1. As another who lives in the Bible belt, I second this paragraph from the article:

When you live in the southern United States, going from believer to nonbeliever hugely affects (and I am not exaggerating) nearly every aspect of your life. And just using the taboo word “atheist” to identify yourself can make it even worse. To a lot of religious people here in the Bible Belt, atheists are on the same level as rapists, devil worshipers, and pedophiles. As a result, in hopes of lessening the blows of rejection, many nonbelievers who live here choose to refer to themselves as humanists or freethinkers rather than atheists.

[rug]

3. I grew up in NYC and if anyone stopped going to church it was not much of a topic.

When I did drive through the South I was more shocked at the gas stations that sell boiled peanuts.

[guillaumeb]

2. Yes, old habits are hard to break.

Replacing one unprovable belief, theism, with another, atheism, does not indicate progress.

As to the growing number of non-theists, at this rate the world will be majority atheist shortly before the sun goes nova.

[edhopper]

4. Atheism is not a belief

you can keep throwing that canard out, we'll keep shooting it down.

[guillaumeb]

6. Keep believing that if it makes you feel better. eom

[edhopper]

7. That is also

not a belief.

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[guillaumeb]

8. How interesting.

I have the same opinion about many atheists. The idea that something that is unprovable can be described as other than a belief simply because it suits the non-theist making the argument.

[Humanist_Activist]

5. Don't misrepresent Atheism, that's a sin, and since you claim to be religious...

that should matter a great deal to you.

[guillaumeb]

9. What is sin, that you accuse me?

Is it a sin to correctly describe an unprovable statement as a belief?

If an atheist says that there is no deity, an atheist is stating that he/she does not believe that there is a deity. Unprovable, therefore a belief. Why the reluctance to embrace the belief word?

[Humanist_Activist]

10. Thou shall not bear false witness.

Atheists do NOT state there is no deity, but rather that there isn't sufficient evidence to support a belief in the existence of a deity/deities.

You are rather persistent in this misrepresentation, meaning that it cannot come from ignorance, but rather malice. You chosen deity probably frowns on such behavior.

[guillaumeb]

11. Atheists seem to be of many minds about this.

Some insist that there is no deity, some are uncertain. But no matter which camp you are in, it is a belief either way.

Why the avoidance of the word belief?

[Humanist_Activist]

12. Because the word doesn't make sense in this context...

because it implies some sort of positive mental action to maintain said belief.

This isn't required for atheism. Here, let's give a hypothetical, imagine a world where the people in it never formed a god belief, no pantheons, no monotheism, no theism of any sort. Are they atheists? Definitionally yes, but if you were to tell them that, they would view it as nonsensical, after all, there's no theism to be "a" about, so to speak.

Now imagine that a single person in this society had a vision of a being of light who lives in the clouds, that created everything, and started preaching about this being. Giving it a name, a purpose, telling stories about it. However, some of the population are skeptical of this preacher's claims, is that skepticism a belief in itself, or a mental exercise?

Part of the problem you seem to have is that you aren't aware of the cognitive process that goes into abandoning a belief or belief system entirely based on nothing more than critical thinking and skepticism. Critical thinking and skepticism are skills that have to be honed, not beliefs that you hold. You also need quite a bit of humility to admit when you are wrong and to be aware of your own biases.

The only presupposition that is really required are that the reality is largely knowable.

In addition, to you "unproven" assertion, there's no dispute of that, but again, atheism isn't making a positive existence claim. Its no more "provable" than afairism(new word!).

[Htom Sirveaux]

13. What about this scenario?

The overwhelming majority of the population believes in gods, and a few people begin rejecting them. Now is atheism a positive mental action? It seems like it would be.

The bottom line is that it would be a higher burden to move people off their default than it would be if they were coming to the debate without a position at all. Suppose you're a theist: wouldn't an atheist have to give you positive reasons to become dissatisfied with your current belief and move you toward atheism? And same thing in reverse for you as an atheist.

Of course, if you can get people to assume that atheism is the default (even if they are currently theist)...well, that's most of the battle right there, isn't' it?

[Humanist_Activist]

15. Atheism isn't a rejection of gods that exist, its a disbelief in a god's existence...

you first question is a mischaracterization of what atheism is.

You also confuse evidentiary burden versus social burden. Also, no an Atheist wouldn't have to give positive "reasons", that is, in itself, a misnomer as to how belief works. It's on the theist to provide evidence for their chosen god's existence.

[Htom Sirveaux]

18. I was trying to say the thing you said.

The whole "you believe in God you just hate him" is crass and annoying, and I wouldn't be caught dead doing it. With regard to the second issue, the perspective on what counts as evidence and it's relative level of persuasiveness changes depending on where one already stands. Hence, fundamentalist Christians touting things as evidence that nobody, not eve other Christians, finds convincing.

[guillaumeb]

14. All people believe things.

I say this because we all accept things as true that we cannot prove. An atheist can believe that there is/are no deity/deities, but without proof it is a belief. An atheist can also frame it 2 ways:

I do not believe in a deity, or
I believe that there is no deity,
but each is unavoidably an expression of belief even thought the second is expressed as a negative.

[Humanist_Activist]

16. What would proof of no deities look like?

Particularly when the definitions and traits of such beings are constantly in flux.

Not to mention this insistence that both beliefs rely on no evidence belies the fact that atheism isn't making a positive claim at all.

Here, let me try to illustrate this. You have a neighbor who tells you he has a leprechaun in his garage, and that if he feeds it every Monday, he is rewarded with good luck in money. You ask to see it, but he claims it's invisible, you ask what proof he has that it exists and rewards him, and his evidence includes being given a promotion at work soon after giving the leprechaun some food, and his wife coming into some money, an inheritance after the same. As further proof, he offers that the food is gone by Tuesday morning after his offering on Monday night.

You still don't buy it and as counterexamples, you point to the fact that he's a hard worker who was rewarded at work as was his due and that there's a hole in the side of the garage that's large enough for a racoon or other animal to get in and eat the food.

He refuses any offers of tests of his belief in the leprechaun, such as sealing the hole, or setting up a camera in the garage.

Now, the question is, as the skeptic in this situation, who doesn't believe the leprechaun exists at all, is my burden of proof for my skepticism the same as his belief?

[guillaumeb]

17. If an atheist believes that there is no deity,

and I use the word belief deliberately because there is no other way to say it, that atheist cannot prove that what he/she believes is true.

If you truly dislike the word belief, perhaps because you feel it has too much of theism in it, substitute the word asserts, but the result is the same. It is simply an assertion based on an unprovable feeling.

Neither atheism or theism is provable, but for some reason some atheists insist that atheism is not a belief.

[Humanist_Activist]

19. You can't prove a negative, period, and using the word "assertion" as you did is yet...

another mischaracterization.

The most atheists would assert is that there isn't enough evidence to sustain a belief in gods.

Not to mention the fact that you call it a feeling leads me to conclude that you simply don't understand what I'm trying to talk about.

[guillaumeb]

20. I understand, but I also understand avoidance of the obvious.

Accepting anything or any assertion that is unprovable is of necessity a belief.