If you were raised religious but are not now, why not?

mke said: 

Steve_Jones said:

I have no clue how you come to the conclusion this is some sort of "missionary outreach". 

You asked a question that you no doubt know the answer too (or at least your answer) and what follows is pages of fellowship.  Perhaps you truly didn't mean it but that was the only possible outcome. There can't be a debate because a debate is based on fact and religion,  like most political ideas,  is based on belief.   This is why religion threads like political threads are banded on most forums....the end is completely predictable 

Carry on.....

In reply to mke :

Please tone it down. There's 8 pages of really civil discussion here that don't need to be derailed. This is a thread on losing religion, not gaining it. You are preaching to your own choir.

I haven't contributed to this thread even though I fit perfectly with the title but as usual I am impressed with the dialogue and respect in general from 95% of the posters.  I also feel like my views have been spoken by some of them and very much value and appreciate the eloquence of some of the posters here and real vulnerability they have exposed in the interest of true dialogue.   This sort of thing is part of why this is the only forum I have been part of for 20 years, not just for the Motorsports part, but because of the interesting community. 

Javelin said:

In reply to mke :

Please tone it down. There's 8 pages of really civil discussion here that don't need to be derailed.

Again, that is the problem with religious "discussion", its only discussion when everyone talking mostly agrees 

This is the best study I could find on this particular subject.  If you were raised religious its not actually possible to leave and trying to do so causes anxiety and uncertainty and measurable unhealthy brain changes.

This is why de-religification, if that is a word, is generational.  Many aspects of a persons brain function are formed by the culture they experience particularly in early life.  Its similar to leaning a language, when you learn it young it becomes a part of you brain but it you learn after about the age of 13 you will always be translating, speaking will always require effort,  and likely have an accent as a result.

There are some conditions like schizophrenia that are highly linked to religion....one is not the other but schizophrenia is genetic and the families of schizophrenic people are almost always highly religious.

So there's the science of it, if you were raised religious it will likely always be a part of you.  That is why the discussion here is about loss of faith and intended or not appears quite christian fellowship based...I promise you non-religious people don't have deeply personally experiences to share about their non-religion...cuz thats a religion thing and this is one of the most deeply religious threads I've ever seen.

I think whether this remains civil depends on what we're trying to do:

As long as these conversations remain focused on understanding, they remain civil. For the most part, people have been sharing and asking questions. Some of those questions may be pointed, but they are generally about understanding and clarifying, not accusing.

Where these discussions go off the rails is when they turn to assumption, judgement, the attempt to change people's minds, or to prove that one side is "right" and the other is "wrong".

In reply to mke :

So you're religious and don't like people saying they're not, gotcha. 

In reply to Beer Baron :

I do not see any example of anyone here trying to change anyone's mind. There were many in the other thread, and that's why it got locked. 

Here's another semi related article related to the generational aspect in what you'd expect to be a very biased source...although the author doesn't seem to realize it.  Covid impacted older people much more severely to the point of lowering the average US life expectancy, which is then reflected in Church membership and attendance numbers accelerating the generational shift.

Graph from the article

Now, for the first time in US history, church members are a minority.  Part of what the last article I shared talked about was the stress being part of a (religious) minority causes.  This in turn leads to an acceleration of the change as more people join the majority (I mentioned exponential grow be generation) but also a sort of doubling down by the minority as evidenced by what sure looks like a culture war.

As i said, a person's religion, like language and in many ways politics,   becomes part of the anatomy of their brain.  That makes it non-negotiable in many ways and why these things always end badly.   Sadly even implying it will end badly appears to have been a self-fulfilling prophecy as the knives come out..... oil and water are what they are and they just don't mix. 

In reply to mke :

Second and final warning. The only reason this thread is "ending badly" is because of your accusatory tone. Nobody is here to negotiate or change other people's minds, we are all trying to learn from each other and seek perspective. There is a wide spectrum of belief and non-belief in this thread. If you cannot respect that, stay out of it.

Javelin said:

In reply to mke :

Second and final warning. 

Finally warning sounds an awful lot like a threat.  That is where you've decided to steer the "discussion", to threats?

As I said, it always ends badly......

In reply to mke :

No one in this thread is debating religion except you. You're steering it it end badly, why?

In reply to Steve_Jones :

In reply to Beer Baron :

Lol, that's pretty ironic. I've never been on this side of that :)

Steve_Jones said:

In reply to mke :

No one in this thread is debating religion except you. 

The thread titled "If you were raised religious but are not now, why not?" is not about religion?

hmmmmm........

The problem, it seems to me, is not so much what a person believes, but what a person wants to force others to believe. If we could all get to the point that we could simply say this is what works for me, your  mileage may vary, we could avoid a lot of conflict. 

I remember the rock opera Tommy.  At the end of it there was an attempt to re-create everything Tommy had been through and package it as some kind of a one size fits all religion, making Tommy the Messiah. What worked for Tommy didn't work for anyone else and in the end the people rebelled. What works for one person doesn't always work for another. There is no one way. There are some universal truths that cut across most religions and philosophies. Killing others or stealing from others is not a good thing. And so on. 

mke said:

Steve_Jones said:

In reply to mke :

No one in this thread is debating religion except you. 

The thread titled "If you were raised religious but are not now, why not?" is not about religion?

hmmmmm........

 

 

Actually no it's not. It's about personal experience. I'll give you one piece of advice, if people here are asking you to tone it down, and defending me, you might want to re evaluate how you're coming across.....
 

Nobody is suggesting they have not been affected by a religious upbringing.  Everyone is a combination of genetics and experience, and to dismiss childhood experience is not going to happen.

This is a discussion about how we fell away, or purposely left, and why.  I think there are voices on here who learned and chose atheism, and there are people here who reject the idea of organized religion but still think there is some higher power.

I live my life by the Judeo /Christian ethic, following six commandments, while ignoring the other ones about praising the FSM that have no relation to my life.  I could also follow the rules of civilized behavior, which pretty much boil down to don't kill people, respect authority figures, don't be jealous of other people's luck, and so on.  My upbringing brings me to the commandments, because they are there.  Doesn't mean I believe in magic.

...especially when one of those people being the most direct about it is a moderator.

This thread started about the experience of losing or moving away from religion. Along the way it picked up people sharing their experiences of never having had religion, and others who came to religion (or changed religion) later in life.

All of that is cool and adds data to everyone's outlook. No one is saying "everyone should be like me."  Lots of people are saying "here's why that doesn't work for me, and here's what does."  That's a very different outlook.

mke said:

Javelin said:

In reply to mke :

Second and final warning. 

Finally warning sounds an awful lot like a threat.  That is where you've decided to steer the "discussion", to threats?

As I said, it always ends badly......

Apparently I'm not being clear. If you had actually read this thread you would see that personally I am anti-religion, so you're barking up the wrong tree. This is not about my views, or steering the discussion, this is as a moderator. YOU are being toxic and accusatory in a thread where nobody else is. Stop or you will be in time out.

Steve_Jones said:

Actually no it's not. It's about personal experience. I'll give you one piece of advice, if people here are asking you to tone it down, and defending me, you might want to re evaluate how you're coming across.....
 

How a message comes across depends a great deal on how receptive a person is to the message.  I have very little tolerance for nonsense, sorry.

You actually want to know why its difficult to step away from religion as the opening question suggests?  Its because it ends up hardwired into you brain.  Same a language and for the most part politics.  They are all part of "tribal identity" and what allows humans to form large groups that act for the common good.  Loyalty to the tribe is high and that makes leaving any part of the tribal identity very difficult.  

Why is this a religious thread?  Tone, word choice, references.  Again all cultural items associated with the tribal norms.  A person raised in a christian community the culture will forever be apart of who you are.  A person can make choices and go about their life but that history is who you are and the close to a persons roots the conversation the more obvious the roots become.  

Why does it always end badly?  Still tribes.  People defend their tribes and sooner or later someone is going to say something....it just is what it is and why religion and politics are best left out of bounds in general society and reserved for tribal or clan meeting (other than thanksgiving).

Javelin said:

Apparently I'm not being clear. 

Perhaps I'm not being clear. I don't care what you believe or don't believe, but I will not be threatened.  You can go ahead and apologize and we can move on.

You know, I was in the process of jumping in to say that I'd read the last two pages with a special effort to give people the benefit of the doubt and wasn't sure that mke's statements were actually deliberately combative...but that last one threw me for a loop.

This forum is private property with public access.  Both grace and discretion will go a long way.  That's all I will say here.

Maybe I should start a thread titled, "If you were once a regular user of car forums but are not now, why not?"

In reply to mke :

I'm in no way asking why it's difficult to walk away from religion, as I've not found it hard. No clue how you assumed that was the question

mke said:

Javelin said:

Apparently I'm not being clear. 

Perhaps I'm not being clear. I don't care what you believe or don't believe, but I will not be threatened.  You can go ahead and apologize and we can move on.

I am not threatening you. I was warning you to play by the forum's rules. You were unwilling to do that.

Welcome back everyone else, please continue. 

As usual, the topic causes me bunch of stress and I lose a bunch of time worrying about it. OTOH, even if I never really come up with anything worth sharing, it's probably worth something to have written and re-written some of my thoughts. I should probably just have a journal specific to this topic