Losing your religion - Part 1: The seeds of doubt

[SecularMotion]

Judging by the recent spate of theistic and atheistic articles, the God debate, true and proper, has arrived in South Africa. More people than ever before are openly questioning their religious convictions the world over. Renewed interest in the relevance of religion and existence of God was spurred on in recent years by the arrival of the so called Four Horsemen of New Atheism: evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, neuroscientist Sam Harris, cognitive scientist and philosopher Dan Dennett and the now deceased intellectual Christopher Hitchens. New Atheism is different from old atheism in that it isn’t simply non-religious, but anti-religious. It holds the view that religion is bad for human kind and should be actively opposed. As such, New Atheism has stirred a great deal of public debate.

I thought I’d briefly discuss my own journey from Christianity to atheism. This is by no means a detailed account and some concepts are bound to get over-simplified in the course of writing. My only hope is that religious people will read it with an open mind and attack not the ideas I present, but instead simply ask whether what I say is true or not.

We can all agree, I hope, that religion has been protected from criticism for a long time. Growing up I was told that doubting your faith is a bad thing, and that if you doubt you should pray on it until the doubt leaves you. Questioning somebody else’s religious convictions was considered taboo. I was taken to church and Sunday school and told that it was for my own good and that one day I would be grateful that I had gone. I was to accept the religion of my parents without question. But something was amiss. The things I was learning from the Bible didn’t seem to correspond with my experiences in the real world. In spite of my fiercest resistance, doubt crept into my head. Soon I was asking questions that made the dominee frown.

http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Losing-your-religion-Part-1-The-seeds-of-doubt-or-I-wont-believe-you-until-you-convince-me-20120616

[cbayer]

1. Who is he trying to convince here?

Unfortunately, I think his writing style is pretty weak and his need to provoke an age old, unresolvable debate not very compelling. I would prefer to read his own story than be challenged right up front to "prove him wrong".

[daaron]

2. I didn't read the challenge that way.

More like asking for suspension of belief - we suspend disbelief so easily reading fiction; it's much harder to suspend belief when reading nonfiction. At least, that's how I interpreted it.