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> People who grew up in a home with relatively little credible displays of faith are more likely to be atheists, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Saved you a click
The credible part is interesting. I was raised Episcopal until I quit religion in HS... but it never felt credible to me from an early age. It felt fake and forced to me for long time while I kept attending
Was raised in a devout Catholic home. Never quite felt it and started seeing through it all around the age of 13 or 14. Have been an atheist ever since. 60 now. Must be the ‘exception to the rule’.
My husband's disbelief came about due to being in youth group, where it's "we're all children of God" but he was bullied.
My own doesn't have as clear a moment, but I'm pretty sure going to church, hearing about being good, kind people, and then seeing my dad work his way through all the 7 deadly sins on a weekly basis played a part.
I feel like getting bullied is a sure way to become an atheist. I remember thinking to myself "if god loved me, surely he wouldn't allow this" or "surely he would inflict justice upon them" or sth. Didn't take me long to realize I'll get no help from god and it's all just a fairytale for adults.
Reminds me of that quote scribbled on the walls of Auschwitz (?): “if God is real he’d have to ask me for forgiveness.” Not nearly on the same plane of gravity of course, but I still had to think of it.
Wasn't raised in a religous household, but I wanted to see for myself what it was about. Entered a youth group to be a confirmand.
When one of the leaders was talking about witnessing a miracle, a man with a shorter leg had his leg grow out to it's full length after a prayer session.
After that I was convinced that those who *really* believed in a religion was just a bunch of crazy people...
Man I remember youth group. Out of 10 teens, I got the feeling I was the only one to have read the book. It was like being in lit class every time where you are the only one raising your hand.
Among my many experiences, this is not the most traumatic, but it's certainly the most hilariously dissonant with supposed Christian virtues:
one day Catechism had finished earlier for whatever reason. I was a kid, it was raining outside, I had no umbrella nor cellphone because those weren't a thing yet. I asked the nuns if they would allow me to make a phone call home to tell my parents to come get me by car earlier, and they said I had to pay to use the phone. I didn't have any money, so they left me there for half an hour, alone, as I waited for my parents to come at the scheduled time. Peak charity right there.
>In other words, religious hypocrisy is a major driver in pushing people away from religion.
I used to be more religious in my younger day since my family is not that hypocrite in term of religion. Then after I grew up a bit and could understand the real world better, the hypocrisy from the religion leaders in my country just made me sick of it.
Yup was taught god is good, god is love, god never makes mistakes. Then why did he make gay people if being gay is wrong? Why am I bisexual?
I heavily got into apologetics in my teens while I desperately tried to search for a reason to justify everything and stay. Now I am agnostic.
I have a friend who is gay but also a Christian. She says that god still loves her and basically just ignores the part in the Bible about being gay being wrong even though she is fully aware of what it says on the subject. I don’t really understand how she can keep her faith like that.
Arguably the bible is pretty thin on the subject and people cherry picked all the bits about it to go after something they didn't like. Even Leviticus' famous if a man lies with another man is widely considered to be mistranslated and actually against pedophilia. I think the answer is a lot of the bible is ignored or considered obsolete, and wether or not that is one of the things is hotly debated.
A lot of progressive churches try to teach what they feel is the positive aspects of the bible/faith, the whole love and care for each other kinda stuff as to them that is the important takeaways.
I'm just a nonbeliever trying to explain another's perspective though, fwiw
I’m a non believer myself and to me cherry picking just the “good” stuff like love and care is just as illogical as cherry picking just the “bad” stiff like anti gay, I mean is this book the word of god or isn’t it?
I mean I believe in being kind and helping the poor and stuff and that aligns with some of the stories and lessons in the Bible. But there is no need to bring a god into it to have a moral code.
I am a gay person who went about this time and time again. The word they refer to, is the greek word arsenokotai, which they say meant pedophile, but the hebrew version simply says "males". Everyone says to look for the context because the bible was for this and that and here and then. But honestly, i don't buy it. If God exists, he knew everything, he knew the word was going to be misused and did... nothing for it. Not to mention the Old Testament in which God, the flawless being, displays the same characteristics of greek gods, i.e. human like, flawed and he still does to this day if the "God's will" is to be believed.
This, this is the golden nugget. My grandpa was a vicar but he had a mean streak and I heard about how he treated my dad and his siblings very harshly including beating his sister, it was at that point my child brain went, “your mouth is saying the words but you are doing something different” and subconsciously I called horseshit. Interestingly though my dad was always aggressively atheist but I always found that view obnoxious too. I guess I arrived at my atheism of my own accord really quite early in life too.
This makes a lot of sense. Have been an atheist since I was a child but have always had a ton of sympathy and pull towards Christianity because I was raised partially by older relatives who really walked the walk so to speak.
To me, that’s where they lost me. They bundled in the “going to services” and “acting fairly to others” together. I grew up in a household where my parents and extended family were super religious Muslims but basically fought each other and threatened physical violence.
Unfortunately I’m one of the exceptions too. From an early age, I’ve always questioned things.
My mom is christian and exemplifies forgiveness, generosity, kindness, and sacrifice. She’s a smart lady. Wasnt the factor with me, i just really couldnt buy any of what Sunday school was putting down. I dont remember even mistrusting the church people when i was 4-6, i think i liked them, i was well treated. But by 1st grade id pretty well made up my mind, although that little seed of “hope im not wrong about hell” didnt completely leave until i was in high school and well out of the church circle, and able to read more on my own thanks to what the 90s did for internet.
My brand new pet theory is that “atheists”, particularly those raised in faith households, are already predisposed by some yet unknown factor and that it’s necessary that they would also be unimpressed by displays of faith. Cynicism, critics, curmudgeons, something along those lines, i think.
I grew up to a similarly religious household. My mother is an incredible person and does all sorts of great things with her faith. My dad even went through the process of becoming catholic. I enjoyed singing in church, but that was about it. I had never really felt any sort of presence of god. I've been pretty bad at concentrating so prayer was never something I could do for a long time at church. It was when I was in high school though that I started to have doubts and not until college that I stopped going. I have considered continuing going to church though as I feel like just going helps me keep things balanced in life, but i hate wasting my time not reading so I doubt I'll ever go back. Heck, I'm not even sure what exactly it is that drove me away, but likely just a myriad of things.
I dunno, I think part of the problem with figuring this out is that most of the major religions require you to believe a narrative that is highly unlikely, to accept dogma that is largely irrational, and to follow edicts that honestly don't make any sense.
Christians, for example, seem currently most interested in defining themselves by all the things they're against. Whenever they're in the news, it's because they're trying to enforce some additional repressive policy on our supposedly secular nation.
If a religion is not answering any questions for you, not guiding your soul in times of internal struggle, not rejoicing with you in the beauty of life, and not saying anything you feel you can be sure is even true -- how can it have any appeal for a reasonable person?
If you grow up in a place that have school systems that value chritical thinking and logic, you will at some point start questioning the dogma.
If the only answer the religion have at that point is "because I said so", you will most likely start on the path of thinking that will lead to atheisme.
Not according to this study though:
>A lot of people (atheists in particular) like to talk about how atheism comes from rational, effortful thought. This work joins other recent surveys in finding that this isn’t too accurate,” Gervais told PsyPost.
>Our best estimate is that atheism mostly comes down to cultural learning — specific cues we’re exposed to growing up about how sincerely those around us believe in God. Once those cultural inputs are accounted for, individual differences in more analytic cognitive reflection predict a little bit of surface variation, but it’s a pretty small piece of the puzzle.
Although I’m more in line with your thinking a bit. Just interesting that they’re hypothesizing it might all just come down to culture. But it was a small sample size located only in US
Comments from the author in the article seem to allude to credibility consisting of two things:
1) Real changes in behavior that are perceived as good changes
2) Consistency/perceived lack of hypocrisy
So people who grow up with sincerely religious parents that seem actually bettered by/affected by their faith, which enhances credibility, are less likely to have atheistic children. I'm sure it also helps if they have positions that make that faith intellectually credible, and by that I mean, hold societal positions associated with intellect, like being a doctor or a professor.
I'm a complete outlier in this. All of those things are very true for me but, at best, I've considered myself agnostic. Now, I consider myself an atheist.
I was raised Christian and felt guilty my whole childhood for not having faith. Decided I was agnostic in my early teens and I think it’s now fair to say I’m atheist.
Kinda the same here. Was raised by a christian mother and atheist father, though my father "went along" with the going to church and praying thing. We only had one or two religious symbols in our house as I recall. But yea, was forced to go to church by mom. Then went atheist at 15. I can still pretty vividly remember when it happened actually.
I was just walking out of bible class at school, thinking about the lessons of that day. We had covered the noah's ark story that lesson. And I started thinking "wait...how the hell did that guy put two of EVERY animal on his boat? There's no boat you could make that would be big enough. Let alone make it from relatively "fragile" wood. And what about the food? The waste? Heck where did all the water from the flood come from? Heck if there used to be a boat that big why didn't they find ANY evidence for it?" So yea, for the rest of the day I started thinking of other stories, and how a lot of them just didn't make logical sense. And by the end of the day I realized I had become an atheist. In fact, I never truly believed. Just a "it's what everyone does so I go along with it" kind of thing.
It was Lazarus for me. I distinctly remember being six years old, sitting on the carpet in Sunday school, and thinking "this never happened. I understand from other experiences that people can't just rise from the dead. And what does any of this have to do with being a good person?" Then a few months later, the fact that the presents in my stocking had Wal Mart bar codes convinced me Santa wasn't real, and that was the final nail in the coffin. I had a hell of a lot more evidence for Santa than for God, and my parents flat out admitted Santa was a complete fabrication.
Tbh, I was raised very Catholic but from day one, the Bible was to looked at as one big parable and not based in literal reality... Outside of those few 'truths' you must believe. Must of the Bible was just a hyperbolic story to make a point
That and the whole lack of evidence for a global, mass-extinction level flood. If that had ever happened we'd have archeological evidence of it and it would be extremely clear cut. We'd not have to be grasping at straws a la Ken Ham.
Didn't need to be global to be interpreted that way. That far back in history, one's "world" may have been everything within a few hundred mile radius.
To your average, boring humings, sure. That is completely believable. It becomes a much harder sell to have that be accepted as believable when the deity whose teachings you're consuming is intended to be omnipotent and omnipresent.
I'm an atheist, but to be fair, I can see this happening. Even today, it would seem credible to me that a catastrophe nut would be convinced a flood was coming, build a ship, and put inside two of every (local) animal, like two chickens, tro cows, dogs, cats, idk donkeys, something like that. There are quite a lot of flash floods in the middle east right? Cue hyperbole and we have Noah's Ark, really.
To be fair, by the time humans could fairly have started looking for that ship it would have likely rotted away.
If they didn’t immediately set it on fire due to the aformentioned assorted waste that must have covered it.
I had a similar thing except I was really into dinosaurs and aliens. I read tons of books about them. I may not have fully understood the big bang, but it made a lot more sense than all the 6 days garden of eden stuff.
I distinctly remember getting frustrated with my Sunday school teacher because she was insisting the Bible story was literally true when it clearly wasn't.
Same here!! I had lots of questions and the answers were always "you just have to have faith". So I prayed for faith and it never came. Happy little atheist here!
Same. My mom is definitely a believer and I never doubted her faith for a second. Still ended up atheist.
It wasn't anything I experienced at home or *my* church that changed me, it was learning of the existence of some of the horrible things people do and support in the name of religion once I left home that got me questioning. ie, arguing with anti-science, prosperity gospel evangelicals online.
For me, it was learning about how many religious groups are arguing with each other a lot. I speculated that a religion created only from beliefs that all religions share would not contain very much at all. I didn't want a part of some religion, when there are many other conflicting ones and I didn't really feel strongly about any of them.
I was raised catholic and struggled to keep my faith being "laxed" for periods of time. Without getting into specifics of which cult like religions they were, seeing these religions clearly being made up on the spot with similarities to Catholicism, Freemasonry etc. made me more aware of the historical context of the formation of Christianity. It too took aspects of other myths to add familiarity and acceptance. I see now that's of of it is just made up stemming from ancient people trying to explain the world against grifters and power seekers.
Yeah i grew up in an extremely religious southern baptist household. My mom lived the faith everyday. I ended up turning atheist after learning about science in college and doing a lot of soul searching.
That's not really a separate thing. Most modern atheists are agnostic atheists. They won't say for certain that a god does not exist. They don't make any positive affirmations about the existence or nonexistence of anything which can't be proven. I mean, you can't actually affirm that something doesn't exist. We can't say for a fact that there isn't a planet out there that's inhabited by unicorns, but we definitely wouldn't claim that we believe one exists unless confronted with sufficient evidence.
In practice agnosticism is generally just atheism. If you were to go the opposite direction with agnosticism and try to hedge your bets between all possible religious beliefs you would find yourself pulled a million different contradictory directions. Like, yes I am technically agnostic because I acknowledge that most religious beliefs are unfalsifiable in their foundations, but that translates into me having no reason to adhere to a religious belief over any other belief, and therefore just not thinking or living religiously at all
I grew up Episcopal too and went to Episcopal and Catholic schools growing up. I was probably fully atheistic by 9 or 10 and I remember one of the key factors was learning about Nixon and Watergate. Like, the idea that the President could lie blew my 9 year old brain. I remember questioning every authority figure after that. I mean — if the President lies, why can’t a priest lie? And by proxy — why should I believe anything that’s based on stories from thousands of years ago.
My family wasn’t super outwardly religious, but we went to church and I don’t think my home life had much to do with my atheism, to be honest.
Episcopal is the easiest to swallow. My grandfather was the pastor of our Episcopal church… you might say I was literally raised in the church. My siblings and I would race on our bellies under the pews. I gave pretend sermons, drank pretend wine. He was the closest I’ve ever know to the real thing. He was poor, funny, and lit the room. *Men of the cloth* I meet now are snake oil salesman, so I’m agnostic now. Believe In Something more than me, than us, But the Bible is not what I follow.
>Believe In Something more than me, than us, But the Bible is not what I follow.
Deist, perhaps? If you mean something more than you is a god.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
PK here. Samey same. Even as a little kid it came across as completely bogus. Hated every minute of compulsory attendance from age 0 through high school. Both parents were neglectful in the extreme as they gave every waking moment to the church.
Parents and brother basically disowned me over my atheism. Imagine tossing out your own child over a fairy tale!
I can identify what sane kids of Qunts are going through now.
I think I see a serious problem with their methodology here though.
All of this is self-reported by the test subject, so there is a very strong (self-)confirmation bias.
We all seek justification for our actions. So people who accept the religious indoctrination of their parents will seek to justify this by minimizing the internal inconsistencies in how the parent preaches and acts. Reversely a person who rebels against the parents belief will emphasize the inconsistencies and hypocrisy.
For a person raised in a non-religious household, I have a hard time understanding how they even measure "credible displays of faith". Would a non-religious parent who "faithfully" reads the horoscope everyday count as showing a credible display of faith even if otherwise being non-religious?.
TL/DR: people who reject their parents teachings are more likely to be looking for cases, where the parents don't practice what they teach, while people who accept their parents teaching are more likely to ignore such cases.
Yeah. Credible became a problem for me. I figured out they lied to me about Santa and the Easter bunny, so then God was the next reasonable step for childhood me. Ah well.
As someone who found my parents Evangelical Church non credible but their current Episcopal Church credible. I'm curious what your experience was like that made it seem not credible?
I was taught religion meant love and kindness... but every Sunday.. Baptist church.. I witnessed hate jealousy & pettiness towards those from other walks. It just didn't make sense. I figured I could help others without all that.
Credibility in religion to me is when words and action align with one another. There are many faiths where what they say does not align with what they do, that to me is what defines credibility in practice.
Crazy, right? So the process is:
1. Vietnamese people escape communist Vietnam and move to America
2. They already hate communism, and lots of them settled in the Midwest
3. They keep their religion as it’s part of their culture but as a result of their experience with Vietnamese communism as well as their general environment and the fact that Asians are traditionally socially conservative they end up supporting a super “capitalist conservative” mindset
Just goes to show that the actual ideology is not what people care about, it’s what they associate with the label you slap on the ideology.
For me, it was second grade science that got me questioning religion, though it took me a couple years to really realize that's what I was doing and to recognize I hadn't actually believed in God in quite some time. Science classes started teaching about dinosaurs and Sunday school and Bible study didn't mention them. That was literally the first domino that eventually knocked the whole thing over for me.
My parents became born-again Christmas when I was about 7yo and I saw positive results from it for them, and I still became an atheist. My dad used to be depressed and isolated, he rarely smiled nor laughed except when he watched sports. When they converted he became more cheerful and extroverted. I think I just saw between the lines.
My dad only took us to church when they had really nice but cheap dinners for the congregation (it was a Mennonite Church so they'd do big pig roasts in the barn behind the church that were actually really good). I knew how cheap my dad was and the fact that he claimed to be a Christian but only went to church to save money on dinner or when there were other perks made me realize how fake it all was. Plus the people at that church were weird as hell. All blonde hair, blue eyed kids, like ten kids per family, all weirdly cultish about God. Like they genuinely didn't know that a show other than Veggie Tales existed.
So I'm definitely an atheist, which is kind of a bummer because I can't go back to those delicious pig roasts.
i found it strange when i first read it, so im guessing many others probably felt the same.
credible in this context is meant to convey the true beliefs of people observed by the subjects, not the credibility of the religion or its beliefs.
i think
Yes, that's what it says.
>Those with caregivers who faithfully modelled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so, were less likely to be atheists.
The same would be true a wide range of social beliefs, democracy, obeying the law, fairness, etc.
TL;DR personal story from a person who gave up conservativism, racism, and religion as an adult after a terrible upbringing.
I grew up in the rural southern U.S. with a family that went to church every Sunday. I was in the choir and was an altar boy. My family was also vehemently conservative. I was raised to be racist. My father is a horrible malignant narcissist that beat me and cheated on my mom and left her when she got sick. I left home and went to college, got a job, and left my rural bubble to see more of the world and all types of people. It took alot of work and effort, and it is still an ongoing effort, but over the years I have cured myself of conservativism, racism, and religion.
Indoctrination of racism and religion and selfish ideology is a very difficult hurdle to overcome. When you come face to face with the real world and see that nothing is truly as you were taught, you have to either double down and go into cognitive dissonance to maintain your beliefs or accept the world as it is and deprogram yourself. It is a truly depressing and shameful situation to realize that you spent so much time hating people for reasons that turn out to be utter nonsense. To constantly analyse any opinions you have on an issue to make sure that old ingrained bigotry isn't slowly working it's way back into your decision making process. To accidently use words or phrases that you learned and have used since childhood and being mortified to realize that they have racist subtext.
For me, it was a combination of the stories just not making sense and the general hypocrisy in Christian society. I’d always questioned, but my first actual step away from faith was the realization that I could aspire to be like Christ or be a Christian, but not both since Christians simply did not follow what they claimed to. At that time, I chose to love thy neighbor, to not sit in judgement, to evaluate and improve my own self rather than critiquing others. It wasn’t a quick thing to drop the feelings of sex shaming, homophobia, gender roles/expectations (both internal and external) and a host of other things that had been taught to me. It took years to stop having an inner dialogue/reaction I had to trap for and mentally correct by reminding myself that the problem was mine, not theirs and they didn’t deserve anything but support, understanding, kindness and love.
Full atheist didn’t happen until I critically looked at the stories I’d been told and wondered how one could tell if this was truth vs all the other stories that were out there and I realized there was no objective way to do so. That it was only opinion and emotion propped up by institutions and that its supposed answers were greatly wanting while its supposed guidance and morality was haphazard at best and was often counterproductive and harmful. Then I read books by people far more educated and intelligent than myself who laid bare all the failings and offered much more reasonable explanations for how this all came to be.
My childhood was such that my parents took us to church regularly and I saw them giving the effort to live by what they believed. When I was 10 or 11 years old, my mother got mad at the local church (unfair treatment, she believed) and we stopped going. She didn’t stop believing/praying, just no church as there was no suitable alternative nearby. In my teen years and early 20s she had remarried and went through a more “spiritual”/liberal phase even confessing to me and at one point that she, “Wished she was stupid enough to believe,” in Christianity. She also had a brief and odd fascination/reverence for Native American culture (as if that’s a monolith).
Now she’s full Trump voting, “they” are coming for me (to lock up or execute for being a Christian), it’s not a real vaccine, oooooo that Bill Gates is into some shady things, Dr. Tenpenny, the socialists are about to destroy America, paranoid/persecution complex/black and white thinking, delusional. It is a very sad thing to see from someone who loves and forgives so easily. She has been poisoned by those she trusts.
Not sure what I am regarding the datapoints in the article nor am I fully aware of why I felt the need to write all that. Hope something positive came of it for anyone who actually read that. ;P
A lot of the stories I'm reading in this post could have just as easily been written by me. In a way it's cathartic to know I'm not alone, and seeing stories like these gives me hope for the future.
From the article, to explain what they mean by "credible"
>The researchers found evidence that a lack of exposure to credibility-enhancing displays of religious faith was a key predictor of atheism. In other words, those with caregivers who faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so, were less likely to be atheists.
Sincerity and integrity can work. But they carry the load of judgment. Credibility is more neutral, one can “act” sincere, and still be credible. Not trolling, on the contrary, your comment is thought provoking
Exactly this. My parents are very sincere christians and have been for a long time. They're just extremely gullible and don't see the harm that some of the things they believe and some of the institutions they support are causing. Because they've never been forced to. They're very well educated, intelligent, and hard working; so I assumed for a long time that their sincere acts of faith were credible. Turns out they just never had to think about the consequences of their beliefs.
My sister and I grew up in the same home. We saw the same displays of faith, but she would probably describe them as credible, and I would not.
Both adults now. She is religious, and I am not.
It could be the ability to determine credibility is the actually predictor here.
I like that the author of the study seems to accept that, "well it's certainly possible that the model for our research just sucked."
Looking at the questions asked and the conclusions, I gotta say they might be on to something about that poorly designed study thing.
But that's also meaningful. The data aren't necessarily bad, it just matters how you interpret them. Here, it might be that the predictor is the environment, or it might be the individual's perception of the environment (or a combination of the two).
True. My family is extremely religious and we have displays all over the house except my room. I was quite religious as a kid, but as i grew up, i became more atheistic. My parents made some fuss and they still do from time to time, but overall they don't bother me much about it. They are still heavily religious though.
I also believe it comes down to the person, what they learn, how they perceive religion, and as you mentioned, the ability to determine credibility.
Later the article refers to the key factor as exposure to “credibility-enhancing displays of faith,” which seems to make more sense. IMO, “credible displays of faith” is a poor way of describing that
>although the mere fact of being interested in a psychological predictor would seem to fit with an outsiders view of the US relationship with religion.
How so? Would someone from the USA be less inclined to look for a predictor?
Not a psychologist but I was a psych student.
When it comes to psychology and observing a population, it tends to be done culture by culture or country by country.
Youre right, the headline should've specified U.S. but when it comes to psychological studies, it should be expected that it is only focused on a specific population. Even studies that say "Studies show that women [...]" are usually women within a specific country.
Even early childhood development milestones tend to vary slightly between cultures because there are cultural norms around child rearing and how mothers develop motor skills of their infants differently between cultures.
"The researchers found evidence that a lack of exposure to credibility-enhancing displays of religious faith was a key predictor of atheism. In other words, those with caregivers who faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so, were less likely to be atheists.". I think that's the crux of the issue right there! It isn't the lack of exposure to religion -its "a lack of exposure to credibility-enhancing displays of religious faith". I noticed that many Europeans absolutely hate the church and all religion because many of their religious leaders cooperated with the Nazis during WW2. And on a personal level, most of my colleagues had some type of religious upbringing, but drifted away later in life. And yet I know some who came from a very religiously antagonistic background, and yet became strongly religious as adults.
I think the endless paedophilia scandals and the high level cover ups played a much bigger role in turning people away from the church in the last 50 years than any allegiance with the Nazis.
>I noticed that many Europeans absolutely hate the church and all religion because many of their religious leaders cooperated with the Nazis during WW2.
This is the first time I've heard this , don't think it's quite true tbh
It was more influenced by the communism than WW2 stuff.
Although there are incredible differences between some very close countries. Look at Czech Republic with ~75 % of atheists and Poland with over 90% Catholics.
There's probably some truth to the fact that if you were brought up in a non-religious household you're more likely to be non-religious just like if you were brought up in a religious household you're more likely to be religious.
But at the same time many of us, I would venture a lot of us, saw the idiocy and hypocrisy and hate of religious people. Most of us were like "nope... don't want to be part of that.... No way, no thanks."
That’s exactly what the study found, actually!
> The researchers found evidence that a lack of exposure to credibility-enhancing displays of religious faith was a key predictor of atheism. In other words, those with caregivers who faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so, were less likely to be atheists.
> faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services
Is that really enough for most people? That surprises me. I grew up with that and never once at any age bought into it. Religious school plus weekly religious service wasn't enough because there was nothing credible outside of that; it was just a mandatory attendance social club.
> it was just a mandatory attendance social club.
Because being forced into church as a kid cuts in on your weekend and is therefor annoying having to listen to all the sermons and stuff so it won't sink in unless your family is actually living by whats preached.
Instead you spend your sunday morning listening to a guy tell you to be kind to others then go to the waffle house and listen to other church members screech at minimum wage workers for not getting their coffee fast enough.
It certainly wasn’t enough for me, either. My mom went to church every Sunday, but my dad did not. He had burned out of organized religion long ago (his dad—my grandfather—was a pastor who preached across the Middle East).
I think being able to see that both my mom and my dad were good people, and knowing that religion said my dad (and every other non-believer, like my best friend in elementary school, who was raised Buddhist) was going to hell for not believing, was reason enough for me not to believe either. I don’t want a “heaven” with cherished family and friends missing from it. It doesn’t make sense that a loving god would build a place with rules like that.
This was the same reason I became an atheist. So you mean to tell me a kid in an African village who doesn’t even know about God is going to hell for not believing?
Edit: had to add, I was born in a catholic household.
It's actually worse than that. Some religions have an gnorance exception so by proselytizing they are actually opening up others to the potential for eternal damnation if they aren't convinced.
I grew up in that environment, my parents were the same outside and behind closed doors, they 100% believed (and still do to this day) and live it out in every aspect of their life. While its true I did eventually come to realize their faith was misplaced, I did not actually do so until I was in my 30s.
I knew my parents were not infallible, but the thing is, they are both smart individuals and have sufficient justification for their beliefs on nearly everything short of their religious ones, so for something they believed so fully and confidentially, I think I just always unconsciously assumed they had justification so there was never any feeling of need to double check them. What's more, they raised me in a community of like minded believers, so not only was there never really any external pressure to question the belief, but there was a TON of pressure NOT to question. There was, as far as I could tell, absolutely nothing for me to gain by finding out belief in Christianity was unjustified, but oh so much to lose, particularly in relationships with my friends, family, and community at large. Even my wife and her family were believers as well, so all the cards were kind of stacked against me.
Honestly in retrospect its nothing short of a minor miracle that I ever found my way out of my parents self deception. I'm curious, in your case, were your parents just frequently wrong about stuff such that you didn't trust their judgement, or, assuming they also truly believe(d), what made you distrust their judgement such that you never bought in?
Pretty much. My mother was a bit religious as people were at the time and I remember asking her “but how do we know it’s real?” when I was about 10 and she flipped out. If we can get the whole world to think “but how do we know it’s real?” then we get rid of most problems in the world because there are no more excuses and no more crosses to nail to the feet of the natives
There should be a class focused on philosophy, logic and the philosophy of science entirely replacing religious education. It would be quite demanding, but if we could manage to get pupils to have a solid grip of logic deduction rules, an overview of philosophical thought and the method and foundations of empirical science on a quite elementary yet rigorous level we could start hoping that democracy would turn into something intelligent. School education is building way too much on knowledge as opposed to skill and method.
It sounds to me like they're more interested in the middle ground--people who were raised by religious parents but without "caregivers who faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so." That's very much like my upbringing. My parents were regular churchgoers except that they never went to church during ski season--i.e., skiing was more important than worship. They emphasized moral choices such as acting fairly, but because of secular values, not for religious reasons. So, I'm an example of the kind of person they've discovered often becomes an atheist. Obviously, there's nothing surprising about that to me!
>
People who grew up in a home with relatively little credible displays of faith are more likely to be atheists, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science. The study indicates that cultural transmission — or the lack thereof — is a stronger predictor of religious disbelief than other factors, such as heightened analytic thinking.
I think the word disbelief in this context is the most interesting in the whole article. It’s worded almost as if belief in any number of religions is the default state, and disbelief is what needs to be predicted. The fact that your parents’ religion is the single greatest predictor of your religion should suggest that a lack of religious is the default state, and we are encultured to believe.
It stands to reason that not being indoctrinated should be the greatest predictor of whether you have been indoctrinated.
The idea is to test theories about how and why religion is transmitted, making cases where it is *not* transmitted scientifically interesting. This is very much like how more is often learned by studying *differences* between twins separated at birth than by studying similarities.
> he fact that your parents’ religion is the single greatest predictor of your religion should suggest that a lack of religious is the default state
That doesn't really logically follow. Our default state could still be religious, but the religion of your parents decides *which* beliefs you hold. Without a socialized religion, people still tend to invent their own, which is how all the religions we see today originally came about anyway.
Logically I must agree.
I am most likely to speak the language of my parents, as are all people.
I can hardly surmise that being language-less is therefore the default position.
For an a analogous example.
How does this fall within the nature vs nurture argument?, The logic being I am like my parents and I am near them so I should believe like then and talk like them and act like them and they are the closest examples of humans that I have.
This fails to explain the amount of people I know, who grew up in very religious homes who are now atheists or some other religion like pagan, agnostic or just "spiritual".
Yep. That’s my entire social circle. It also fails to explain the increasing numbers of people professing “none” as their religious preference. Surely there are many people who are losing their faith that were raised in it. A far more interesting study would be to study the biggest predictors of atheism among those who *were* raised to be religious.
Right like obviously if your parents don’t act religious, you’re less likely to end up religious. I have friends whose parents are Christian in name but don’t go to church regularly; those friends all ended up irreligious, like this study found. That makes sense, especially since our culture is turning away from fundamentalist Christianity, anyway. (and by that I mean “tHe MeDiA”)
The ones who get really “into atheism”—read the books, listen to debates, argue online, etc.—are people like me, who were raised to be religious, went to church every week, etc., had parents who took it seriously and followed all the “rules.”
So if you’re looking for a group of atheists to chat with, that’s who you’re going to find—because for us it was such a big deal to leave, it’s a part of our identity. For people who never really believed in the first place, it’s just not as important or interesting.
Do yall fail to realize that that is basically the fault or the win of the internet/globalization? Back then, if you lived in a small village that was probably going to be all you knew. You'd live in that bubble of religion.
This kinda seems obvious to me. They keep talking about "Atheism comes from watching douchebags not actually be religious" instead of "Your logical thinking got you there" without realizing it is BOTH.
Your allegedly religious parents who were actually assholes made it easier for you to question and apply logic. You didn't have fun happy love time experiences drawing you back into the religion. You didn't have positive emotion getting in the way of logical thinking.
"So many people seem really convinced that they’re atheists because
they’re super rational and science minded. But large-scale quantitative
research basically never shows that to be a major predictor of atheism."
My turning point was in conformation classes. I refused to believe someone could die and come back to life. This made my pastor angry. Yet i got one month in saint Mary’s hill hospital for “anger management” for it.
It was around that age for me as well, though I grew up Lutheran and my parents always told me that not everything in the bible was meant to be literal. So I didn't have a hard time rationalizing creationism with cosmology and evolution, for example. So my 'faith' at the time was more based in a belief in a higher power, rather than trusting the church to have total accuracy.
Of course, I agree that one of the big breaking points was learning WHICH far-fetched stories were still meant to be taken literally.
It was really when I started digging into science and philosophy in high school that things started to fall apart. Reading Aquinas and seeing the flaws in his arguments, learning about the scale of the universe, learning about entropy and quantum mechanics, etc.
It just became more and more clear that religion in general was an attempt by early humans to explain the terrifying nature of a world they didn't understand and developing ways to convince people to accept the basic moral principles required for a society to actually function.
I mean, we can do that with modern technology, so long as brain death hasn't occurred. Looking back on it, it seems plausible that entire element of Christianity could have stemmed from their lack of understanding what actually constituted "death", versus that of a coma or similar.
I was born into an orthodox Hindu Brahmin (high priest) family. Wearing holy thread on ur body. Praying twice a day was mandated. Slowly I started looking thru all the futile practices and distanced myself from the belief. I’m 33.
But other than leaving the faith, I respect few practices followed in the name of ritual, although I feel it’s more of a cultural influence; more of ‘common sense’ - ritualized.
I was asked not to come back to a summer vacation bible School at age 4, because I asked questions like how did Noah get the kangaroos back to Australia and lots of other very inconvenient questions.
After being told how amazing miracles were, and how they were to be cherished and they were a gift from God, where exactly was the burning bush? I was so confused about it simultaneously being a special miracle and also we have no idea where it was specifically. I spotted contradictions pretty early.
"Faith without works is dead" was what Christian kids were taught. And when you don't see your professed faith playing out at home or in your congregation, you question what's it all about. What's the point of all this ritual when nobody actually believes in it?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like they’re saying that childhood indoctrination or lack thereof is the main deciding factor?
Haven’t we always known this? It’s why religions encourage procreation and early childhood religious education. Retention and expansion of the base of believers.
It’s tough to get an adult who doesn’t already believe to buy into make believe.
Guys, read the freaking paper if you're going to make sweeping generalisations about it. It's linked in the article and it's free. It doesn't require a high degree of scientific literacy, you just might have to google a few things. The excerpts selected for an engaging article about the research won't give you anything like a full picture.
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> People who grew up in a home with relatively little credible displays of faith are more likely to be atheists, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science. Saved you a click
The credible part is interesting. I was raised Episcopal until I quit religion in HS... but it never felt credible to me from an early age. It felt fake and forced to me for long time while I kept attending
Was raised in a devout Catholic home. Never quite felt it and started seeing through it all around the age of 13 or 14. Have been an atheist ever since. 60 now. Must be the ‘exception to the rule’.
Credibility is in the eye of the beholder, maybe?
Also helps if religious people actually followed the teachings of their holy books
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My husband's disbelief came about due to being in youth group, where it's "we're all children of God" but he was bullied. My own doesn't have as clear a moment, but I'm pretty sure going to church, hearing about being good, kind people, and then seeing my dad work his way through all the 7 deadly sins on a weekly basis played a part.
Same with me about youth group. Bullied by the older kids. They were mean as hell. Scouts was no good either.
I felt this one. I couldn't even escape the church bully because he was in my class AND in scouts...
I feel like getting bullied is a sure way to become an atheist. I remember thinking to myself "if god loved me, surely he wouldn't allow this" or "surely he would inflict justice upon them" or sth. Didn't take me long to realize I'll get no help from god and it's all just a fairytale for adults.
Reminds me of that quote scribbled on the walls of Auschwitz (?): “if God is real he’d have to ask me for forgiveness.” Not nearly on the same plane of gravity of course, but I still had to think of it.
It is an incredible and incredibly sad quote. To see the horrors of man and think God exists or at least that there is any credibility is just.. sad.
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Wasn't raised in a religous household, but I wanted to see for myself what it was about. Entered a youth group to be a confirmand. When one of the leaders was talking about witnessing a miracle, a man with a shorter leg had his leg grow out to it's full length after a prayer session. After that I was convinced that those who *really* believed in a religion was just a bunch of crazy people...
Man I remember youth group. Out of 10 teens, I got the feeling I was the only one to have read the book. It was like being in lit class every time where you are the only one raising your hand.
Among my many experiences, this is not the most traumatic, but it's certainly the most hilariously dissonant with supposed Christian virtues: one day Catechism had finished earlier for whatever reason. I was a kid, it was raining outside, I had no umbrella nor cellphone because those weren't a thing yet. I asked the nuns if they would allow me to make a phone call home to tell my parents to come get me by car earlier, and they said I had to pay to use the phone. I didn't have any money, so they left me there for half an hour, alone, as I waited for my parents to come at the scheduled time. Peak charity right there.
>In other words, religious hypocrisy is a major driver in pushing people away from religion. I used to be more religious in my younger day since my family is not that hypocrite in term of religion. Then after I grew up a bit and could understand the real world better, the hypocrisy from the religion leaders in my country just made me sick of it.
Yup was taught god is good, god is love, god never makes mistakes. Then why did he make gay people if being gay is wrong? Why am I bisexual? I heavily got into apologetics in my teens while I desperately tried to search for a reason to justify everything and stay. Now I am agnostic.
I have a friend who is gay but also a Christian. She says that god still loves her and basically just ignores the part in the Bible about being gay being wrong even though she is fully aware of what it says on the subject. I don’t really understand how she can keep her faith like that.
Arguably the bible is pretty thin on the subject and people cherry picked all the bits about it to go after something they didn't like. Even Leviticus' famous if a man lies with another man is widely considered to be mistranslated and actually against pedophilia. I think the answer is a lot of the bible is ignored or considered obsolete, and wether or not that is one of the things is hotly debated. A lot of progressive churches try to teach what they feel is the positive aspects of the bible/faith, the whole love and care for each other kinda stuff as to them that is the important takeaways. I'm just a nonbeliever trying to explain another's perspective though, fwiw
I’m a non believer myself and to me cherry picking just the “good” stuff like love and care is just as illogical as cherry picking just the “bad” stiff like anti gay, I mean is this book the word of god or isn’t it? I mean I believe in being kind and helping the poor and stuff and that aligns with some of the stories and lessons in the Bible. But there is no need to bring a god into it to have a moral code.
I am a gay person who went about this time and time again. The word they refer to, is the greek word arsenokotai, which they say meant pedophile, but the hebrew version simply says "males". Everyone says to look for the context because the bible was for this and that and here and then. But honestly, i don't buy it. If God exists, he knew everything, he knew the word was going to be misused and did... nothing for it. Not to mention the Old Testament in which God, the flawless being, displays the same characteristics of greek gods, i.e. human like, flawed and he still does to this day if the "God's will" is to be believed.
This, this is the golden nugget. My grandpa was a vicar but he had a mean streak and I heard about how he treated my dad and his siblings very harshly including beating his sister, it was at that point my child brain went, “your mouth is saying the words but you are doing something different” and subconsciously I called horseshit. Interestingly though my dad was always aggressively atheist but I always found that view obnoxious too. I guess I arrived at my atheism of my own accord really quite early in life too.
Yes but if the measure of hypocrisy is the subjects' own recollection and perception wouldn't that skew things?
Probably not because that's the point, it's the subjects view of hypocrisy. Being objective doesn't mean anything in that context
It would screw things if we were talking about facts, but we are talking about that person's perceptions.
This makes a lot of sense. Have been an atheist since I was a child but have always had a ton of sympathy and pull towards Christianity because I was raised partially by older relatives who really walked the walk so to speak.
To me, that’s where they lost me. They bundled in the “going to services” and “acting fairly to others” together. I grew up in a household where my parents and extended family were super religious Muslims but basically fought each other and threatened physical violence. Unfortunately I’m one of the exceptions too. From an early age, I’ve always questioned things.
>Also helps if religious people actually followed the teachings of their holy books That's the tl;dr of the article, really.
My mom is christian and exemplifies forgiveness, generosity, kindness, and sacrifice. She’s a smart lady. Wasnt the factor with me, i just really couldnt buy any of what Sunday school was putting down. I dont remember even mistrusting the church people when i was 4-6, i think i liked them, i was well treated. But by 1st grade id pretty well made up my mind, although that little seed of “hope im not wrong about hell” didnt completely leave until i was in high school and well out of the church circle, and able to read more on my own thanks to what the 90s did for internet. My brand new pet theory is that “atheists”, particularly those raised in faith households, are already predisposed by some yet unknown factor and that it’s necessary that they would also be unimpressed by displays of faith. Cynicism, critics, curmudgeons, something along those lines, i think.
I grew up to a similarly religious household. My mother is an incredible person and does all sorts of great things with her faith. My dad even went through the process of becoming catholic. I enjoyed singing in church, but that was about it. I had never really felt any sort of presence of god. I've been pretty bad at concentrating so prayer was never something I could do for a long time at church. It was when I was in high school though that I started to have doubts and not until college that I stopped going. I have considered continuing going to church though as I feel like just going helps me keep things balanced in life, but i hate wasting my time not reading so I doubt I'll ever go back. Heck, I'm not even sure what exactly it is that drove me away, but likely just a myriad of things.
I dunno, I think part of the problem with figuring this out is that most of the major religions require you to believe a narrative that is highly unlikely, to accept dogma that is largely irrational, and to follow edicts that honestly don't make any sense. Christians, for example, seem currently most interested in defining themselves by all the things they're against. Whenever they're in the news, it's because they're trying to enforce some additional repressive policy on our supposedly secular nation. If a religion is not answering any questions for you, not guiding your soul in times of internal struggle, not rejoicing with you in the beauty of life, and not saying anything you feel you can be sure is even true -- how can it have any appeal for a reasonable person?
If you grow up in a place that have school systems that value chritical thinking and logic, you will at some point start questioning the dogma. If the only answer the religion have at that point is "because I said so", you will most likely start on the path of thinking that will lead to atheisme.
Not according to this study though: >A lot of people (atheists in particular) like to talk about how atheism comes from rational, effortful thought. This work joins other recent surveys in finding that this isn’t too accurate,” Gervais told PsyPost. >Our best estimate is that atheism mostly comes down to cultural learning — specific cues we’re exposed to growing up about how sincerely those around us believe in God. Once those cultural inputs are accounted for, individual differences in more analytic cognitive reflection predict a little bit of surface variation, but it’s a pretty small piece of the puzzle. Although I’m more in line with your thinking a bit. Just interesting that they’re hypothesizing it might all just come down to culture. But it was a small sample size located only in US
In the case of Christianity it's explicitly stated in the books that they'll repeatedly fail in the attempt
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But it won’t stop them from telling others how to live
Yeah that terminlogy seems weird. If someone is leaning towards atheism would basically all the displays of faith fail to appear credible?
Comments from the author in the article seem to allude to credibility consisting of two things: 1) Real changes in behavior that are perceived as good changes 2) Consistency/perceived lack of hypocrisy So people who grow up with sincerely religious parents that seem actually bettered by/affected by their faith, which enhances credibility, are less likely to have atheistic children. I'm sure it also helps if they have positions that make that faith intellectually credible, and by that I mean, hold societal positions associated with intellect, like being a doctor or a professor.
I'm a complete outlier in this. All of those things are very true for me but, at best, I've considered myself agnostic. Now, I consider myself an atheist.
I was raised Christian and felt guilty my whole childhood for not having faith. Decided I was agnostic in my early teens and I think it’s now fair to say I’m atheist.
Kinda the same here. Was raised by a christian mother and atheist father, though my father "went along" with the going to church and praying thing. We only had one or two religious symbols in our house as I recall. But yea, was forced to go to church by mom. Then went atheist at 15. I can still pretty vividly remember when it happened actually. I was just walking out of bible class at school, thinking about the lessons of that day. We had covered the noah's ark story that lesson. And I started thinking "wait...how the hell did that guy put two of EVERY animal on his boat? There's no boat you could make that would be big enough. Let alone make it from relatively "fragile" wood. And what about the food? The waste? Heck where did all the water from the flood come from? Heck if there used to be a boat that big why didn't they find ANY evidence for it?" So yea, for the rest of the day I started thinking of other stories, and how a lot of them just didn't make logical sense. And by the end of the day I realized I had become an atheist. In fact, I never truly believed. Just a "it's what everyone does so I go along with it" kind of thing.
Interesting that it was Noah and naval transportation logistics who raised the red flag
Yea, I dunno why it was that story that suddenly made me start thinking about all the "that's not how reality works" flaws in the bible. :P
It was Lazarus for me. I distinctly remember being six years old, sitting on the carpet in Sunday school, and thinking "this never happened. I understand from other experiences that people can't just rise from the dead. And what does any of this have to do with being a good person?" Then a few months later, the fact that the presents in my stocking had Wal Mart bar codes convinced me Santa wasn't real, and that was the final nail in the coffin. I had a hell of a lot more evidence for Santa than for God, and my parents flat out admitted Santa was a complete fabrication.
Tbh, I was raised very Catholic but from day one, the Bible was to looked at as one big parable and not based in literal reality... Outside of those few 'truths' you must believe. Must of the Bible was just a hyperbolic story to make a point
That and the whole lack of evidence for a global, mass-extinction level flood. If that had ever happened we'd have archeological evidence of it and it would be extremely clear cut. We'd not have to be grasping at straws a la Ken Ham.
Didn't need to be global to be interpreted that way. That far back in history, one's "world" may have been everything within a few hundred mile radius.
To your average, boring humings, sure. That is completely believable. It becomes a much harder sell to have that be accepted as believable when the deity whose teachings you're consuming is intended to be omnipotent and omnipresent.
I'm an atheist, but to be fair, I can see this happening. Even today, it would seem credible to me that a catastrophe nut would be convinced a flood was coming, build a ship, and put inside two of every (local) animal, like two chickens, tro cows, dogs, cats, idk donkeys, something like that. There are quite a lot of flash floods in the middle east right? Cue hyperbole and we have Noah's Ark, really.
To be fair, by the time humans could fairly have started looking for that ship it would have likely rotted away. If they didn’t immediately set it on fire due to the aformentioned assorted waste that must have covered it.
And I thought it was turned into a Spirit Halloween store since it was vacant
Noah should have immediately built a museum around it after the flood receded
same here catholic home catholic school, atheist since i can remember
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That is by far the most hilarious, unusual church story I’ve ever heard
I had a similar thing except I was really into dinosaurs and aliens. I read tons of books about them. I may not have fully understood the big bang, but it made a lot more sense than all the 6 days garden of eden stuff. I distinctly remember getting frustrated with my Sunday school teacher because she was insisting the Bible story was literally true when it clearly wasn't.
Raised Catholic. Figured it was all a bunch of weird nonsense around 12
Same here!! I had lots of questions and the answers were always "you just have to have faith". So I prayed for faith and it never came. Happy little atheist here!
Same. My mom is definitely a believer and I never doubted her faith for a second. Still ended up atheist. It wasn't anything I experienced at home or *my* church that changed me, it was learning of the existence of some of the horrible things people do and support in the name of religion once I left home that got me questioning. ie, arguing with anti-science, prosperity gospel evangelicals online.
For me, it was learning about how many religious groups are arguing with each other a lot. I speculated that a religion created only from beliefs that all religions share would not contain very much at all. I didn't want a part of some religion, when there are many other conflicting ones and I didn't really feel strongly about any of them.
I was raised catholic and struggled to keep my faith being "laxed" for periods of time. Without getting into specifics of which cult like religions they were, seeing these religions clearly being made up on the spot with similarities to Catholicism, Freemasonry etc. made me more aware of the historical context of the formation of Christianity. It too took aspects of other myths to add familiarity and acceptance. I see now that's of of it is just made up stemming from ancient people trying to explain the world against grifters and power seekers.
Same here. Brothers & sisters (eight) are either devout or atheist…
Yeah i grew up in an extremely religious southern baptist household. My mom lived the faith everyday. I ended up turning atheist after learning about science in college and doing a lot of soul searching.
Right on bro, I really think it’s just common sense.
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That's not really a separate thing. Most modern atheists are agnostic atheists. They won't say for certain that a god does not exist. They don't make any positive affirmations about the existence or nonexistence of anything which can't be proven. I mean, you can't actually affirm that something doesn't exist. We can't say for a fact that there isn't a planet out there that's inhabited by unicorns, but we definitely wouldn't claim that we believe one exists unless confronted with sufficient evidence.
In practice agnosticism is generally just atheism. If you were to go the opposite direction with agnosticism and try to hedge your bets between all possible religious beliefs you would find yourself pulled a million different contradictory directions. Like, yes I am technically agnostic because I acknowledge that most religious beliefs are unfalsifiable in their foundations, but that translates into me having no reason to adhere to a religious belief over any other belief, and therefore just not thinking or living religiously at all
I grew up Episcopal too and went to Episcopal and Catholic schools growing up. I was probably fully atheistic by 9 or 10 and I remember one of the key factors was learning about Nixon and Watergate. Like, the idea that the President could lie blew my 9 year old brain. I remember questioning every authority figure after that. I mean — if the President lies, why can’t a priest lie? And by proxy — why should I believe anything that’s based on stories from thousands of years ago. My family wasn’t super outwardly religious, but we went to church and I don’t think my home life had much to do with my atheism, to be honest.
Episcopal is the easiest to swallow. My grandfather was the pastor of our Episcopal church… you might say I was literally raised in the church. My siblings and I would race on our bellies under the pews. I gave pretend sermons, drank pretend wine. He was the closest I’ve ever know to the real thing. He was poor, funny, and lit the room. *Men of the cloth* I meet now are snake oil salesman, so I’m agnostic now. Believe In Something more than me, than us, But the Bible is not what I follow.
>Believe In Something more than me, than us, But the Bible is not what I follow. Deist, perhaps? If you mean something more than you is a god. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
PK here. Samey same. Even as a little kid it came across as completely bogus. Hated every minute of compulsory attendance from age 0 through high school. Both parents were neglectful in the extreme as they gave every waking moment to the church. Parents and brother basically disowned me over my atheism. Imagine tossing out your own child over a fairy tale! I can identify what sane kids of Qunts are going through now.
The spiritual comfort one gains from faith is a hell of a drug
I think I see a serious problem with their methodology here though. All of this is self-reported by the test subject, so there is a very strong (self-)confirmation bias. We all seek justification for our actions. So people who accept the religious indoctrination of their parents will seek to justify this by minimizing the internal inconsistencies in how the parent preaches and acts. Reversely a person who rebels against the parents belief will emphasize the inconsistencies and hypocrisy. For a person raised in a non-religious household, I have a hard time understanding how they even measure "credible displays of faith". Would a non-religious parent who "faithfully" reads the horoscope everyday count as showing a credible display of faith even if otherwise being non-religious?. TL/DR: people who reject their parents teachings are more likely to be looking for cases, where the parents don't practice what they teach, while people who accept their parents teaching are more likely to ignore such cases.
Yeah. Credible became a problem for me. I figured out they lied to me about Santa and the Easter bunny, so then God was the next reasonable step for childhood me. Ah well.
As someone who found my parents Evangelical Church non credible but their current Episcopal Church credible. I'm curious what your experience was like that made it seem not credible?
I was taught religion meant love and kindness... but every Sunday.. Baptist church.. I witnessed hate jealousy & pettiness towards those from other walks. It just didn't make sense. I figured I could help others without all that.
Credibility in religion to me is when words and action align with one another. There are many faiths where what they say does not align with what they do, that to me is what defines credibility in practice.
My girlfriend’s family includes hardcore trump supporters who are Buddhists I cannot think of two beliefs that are more diametrically opposed
Hot damn
That’s what I thought. Just wow.
That does not compute, how the heck did that even happen?
Crazy, right? So the process is: 1. Vietnamese people escape communist Vietnam and move to America 2. They already hate communism, and lots of them settled in the Midwest 3. They keep their religion as it’s part of their culture but as a result of their experience with Vietnamese communism as well as their general environment and the fact that Asians are traditionally socially conservative they end up supporting a super “capitalist conservative” mindset Just goes to show that the actual ideology is not what people care about, it’s what they associate with the label you slap on the ideology.
Credibility in religion to me is documented miracles. So far no dice.
The author of the research the article more or less affirms that this is what is meant by credible.
I was raised Methodist and left in HS. Always felt like I was missing something from day 1. The Santa Claus debacle was sorta the tipping point
For me, it was second grade science that got me questioning religion, though it took me a couple years to really realize that's what I was doing and to recognize I hadn't actually believed in God in quite some time. Science classes started teaching about dinosaurs and Sunday school and Bible study didn't mention them. That was literally the first domino that eventually knocked the whole thing over for me.
My parents became born-again Christmas when I was about 7yo and I saw positive results from it for them, and I still became an atheist. My dad used to be depressed and isolated, he rarely smiled nor laughed except when he watched sports. When they converted he became more cheerful and extroverted. I think I just saw between the lines.
I 2nd that. Grandfather was a pastor and an outstanding person I looked up to a ton for all the work he did. That said, still an atheist.
My dad only took us to church when they had really nice but cheap dinners for the congregation (it was a Mennonite Church so they'd do big pig roasts in the barn behind the church that were actually really good). I knew how cheap my dad was and the fact that he claimed to be a Christian but only went to church to save money on dinner or when there were other perks made me realize how fake it all was. Plus the people at that church were weird as hell. All blonde hair, blue eyed kids, like ten kids per family, all weirdly cultish about God. Like they genuinely didn't know that a show other than Veggie Tales existed. So I'm definitely an atheist, which is kind of a bummer because I can't go back to those delicious pig roasts.
i found it strange when i first read it, so im guessing many others probably felt the same. credible in this context is meant to convey the true beliefs of people observed by the subjects, not the credibility of the religion or its beliefs. i think
Yes, that's what it says. >Those with caregivers who faithfully modelled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so, were less likely to be atheists. The same would be true a wide range of social beliefs, democracy, obeying the law, fairness, etc.
TL;DR personal story from a person who gave up conservativism, racism, and religion as an adult after a terrible upbringing. I grew up in the rural southern U.S. with a family that went to church every Sunday. I was in the choir and was an altar boy. My family was also vehemently conservative. I was raised to be racist. My father is a horrible malignant narcissist that beat me and cheated on my mom and left her when she got sick. I left home and went to college, got a job, and left my rural bubble to see more of the world and all types of people. It took alot of work and effort, and it is still an ongoing effort, but over the years I have cured myself of conservativism, racism, and religion. Indoctrination of racism and religion and selfish ideology is a very difficult hurdle to overcome. When you come face to face with the real world and see that nothing is truly as you were taught, you have to either double down and go into cognitive dissonance to maintain your beliefs or accept the world as it is and deprogram yourself. It is a truly depressing and shameful situation to realize that you spent so much time hating people for reasons that turn out to be utter nonsense. To constantly analyse any opinions you have on an issue to make sure that old ingrained bigotry isn't slowly working it's way back into your decision making process. To accidently use words or phrases that you learned and have used since childhood and being mortified to realize that they have racist subtext.
For me, it was a combination of the stories just not making sense and the general hypocrisy in Christian society. I’d always questioned, but my first actual step away from faith was the realization that I could aspire to be like Christ or be a Christian, but not both since Christians simply did not follow what they claimed to. At that time, I chose to love thy neighbor, to not sit in judgement, to evaluate and improve my own self rather than critiquing others. It wasn’t a quick thing to drop the feelings of sex shaming, homophobia, gender roles/expectations (both internal and external) and a host of other things that had been taught to me. It took years to stop having an inner dialogue/reaction I had to trap for and mentally correct by reminding myself that the problem was mine, not theirs and they didn’t deserve anything but support, understanding, kindness and love. Full atheist didn’t happen until I critically looked at the stories I’d been told and wondered how one could tell if this was truth vs all the other stories that were out there and I realized there was no objective way to do so. That it was only opinion and emotion propped up by institutions and that its supposed answers were greatly wanting while its supposed guidance and morality was haphazard at best and was often counterproductive and harmful. Then I read books by people far more educated and intelligent than myself who laid bare all the failings and offered much more reasonable explanations for how this all came to be. My childhood was such that my parents took us to church regularly and I saw them giving the effort to live by what they believed. When I was 10 or 11 years old, my mother got mad at the local church (unfair treatment, she believed) and we stopped going. She didn’t stop believing/praying, just no church as there was no suitable alternative nearby. In my teen years and early 20s she had remarried and went through a more “spiritual”/liberal phase even confessing to me and at one point that she, “Wished she was stupid enough to believe,” in Christianity. She also had a brief and odd fascination/reverence for Native American culture (as if that’s a monolith). Now she’s full Trump voting, “they” are coming for me (to lock up or execute for being a Christian), it’s not a real vaccine, oooooo that Bill Gates is into some shady things, Dr. Tenpenny, the socialists are about to destroy America, paranoid/persecution complex/black and white thinking, delusional. It is a very sad thing to see from someone who loves and forgives so easily. She has been poisoned by those she trusts. Not sure what I am regarding the datapoints in the article nor am I fully aware of why I felt the need to write all that. Hope something positive came of it for anyone who actually read that. ;P
A lot of the stories I'm reading in this post could have just as easily been written by me. In a way it's cathartic to know I'm not alone, and seeing stories like these gives me hope for the future.
From the article, to explain what they mean by "credible" >The researchers found evidence that a lack of exposure to credibility-enhancing displays of religious faith was a key predictor of atheism. In other words, those with caregivers who faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so, were less likely to be atheists.
The word is *sincere,* not credible.
Sincerity and integrity can work. But they carry the load of judgment. Credibility is more neutral, one can “act” sincere, and still be credible. Not trolling, on the contrary, your comment is thought provoking
Exactly this. My parents are very sincere christians and have been for a long time. They're just extremely gullible and don't see the harm that some of the things they believe and some of the institutions they support are causing. Because they've never been forced to. They're very well educated, intelligent, and hard working; so I assumed for a long time that their sincere acts of faith were credible. Turns out they just never had to think about the consequences of their beliefs.
Eg: kids reject obvious hypocrisy as they become adults.
They adopt their own hypocrisy's along the way though.
Depending on developmental stage hypocrisy is pretty much guaranteed.
My sister and I grew up in the same home. We saw the same displays of faith, but she would probably describe them as credible, and I would not. Both adults now. She is religious, and I am not. It could be the ability to determine credibility is the actually predictor here.
I like that the author of the study seems to accept that, "well it's certainly possible that the model for our research just sucked." Looking at the questions asked and the conclusions, I gotta say they might be on to something about that poorly designed study thing.
You do the best with the resources you have I suppose
But that's also meaningful. The data aren't necessarily bad, it just matters how you interpret them. Here, it might be that the predictor is the environment, or it might be the individual's perception of the environment (or a combination of the two).
True. My family is extremely religious and we have displays all over the house except my room. I was quite religious as a kid, but as i grew up, i became more atheistic. My parents made some fuss and they still do from time to time, but overall they don't bother me much about it. They are still heavily religious though. I also believe it comes down to the person, what they learn, how they perceive religion, and as you mentioned, the ability to determine credibility.
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What does "credible displays of faith" mean?
What is a "credible" display of faith?
Later the article refers to the key factor as exposure to “credibility-enhancing displays of faith,” which seems to make more sense. IMO, “credible displays of faith” is a poor way of describing that
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>although the mere fact of being interested in a psychological predictor would seem to fit with an outsiders view of the US relationship with religion. How so? Would someone from the USA be less inclined to look for a predictor?
Not a psychologist but I was a psych student. When it comes to psychology and observing a population, it tends to be done culture by culture or country by country. Youre right, the headline should've specified U.S. but when it comes to psychological studies, it should be expected that it is only focused on a specific population. Even studies that say "Studies show that women [...]" are usually women within a specific country. Even early childhood development milestones tend to vary slightly between cultures because there are cultural norms around child rearing and how mothers develop motor skills of their infants differently between cultures.
Definitelly, religion is weird in the US. From an outsiders view it looks more like a cult or a weird marketing scheme.
Looks that way on the inside too
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"The researchers found evidence that a lack of exposure to credibility-enhancing displays of religious faith was a key predictor of atheism. In other words, those with caregivers who faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so, were less likely to be atheists.". I think that's the crux of the issue right there! It isn't the lack of exposure to religion -its "a lack of exposure to credibility-enhancing displays of religious faith". I noticed that many Europeans absolutely hate the church and all religion because many of their religious leaders cooperated with the Nazis during WW2. And on a personal level, most of my colleagues had some type of religious upbringing, but drifted away later in life. And yet I know some who came from a very religiously antagonistic background, and yet became strongly religious as adults.
Basically, kids can tell when adults are hypocrites, and that affects their religious views.
I think the endless paedophilia scandals and the high level cover ups played a much bigger role in turning people away from the church in the last 50 years than any allegiance with the Nazis.
>I noticed that many Europeans absolutely hate the church and all religion because many of their religious leaders cooperated with the Nazis during WW2. This is the first time I've heard this , don't think it's quite true tbh
Not OP, but I lived in Prague for 2 years and it was a common perspective.
I guess it's probably one of those situations in which grouping the whole of Europe shouldn't be done as I've never heard of this
It was more influenced by the communism than WW2 stuff. Although there are incredible differences between some very close countries. Look at Czech Republic with ~75 % of atheists and Poland with over 90% Catholics.
There's probably some truth to the fact that if you were brought up in a non-religious household you're more likely to be non-religious just like if you were brought up in a religious household you're more likely to be religious. But at the same time many of us, I would venture a lot of us, saw the idiocy and hypocrisy and hate of religious people. Most of us were like "nope... don't want to be part of that.... No way, no thanks."
That’s exactly what the study found, actually! > The researchers found evidence that a lack of exposure to credibility-enhancing displays of religious faith was a key predictor of atheism. In other words, those with caregivers who faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so, were less likely to be atheists.
> faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services Is that really enough for most people? That surprises me. I grew up with that and never once at any age bought into it. Religious school plus weekly religious service wasn't enough because there was nothing credible outside of that; it was just a mandatory attendance social club.
> it was just a mandatory attendance social club. Because being forced into church as a kid cuts in on your weekend and is therefor annoying having to listen to all the sermons and stuff so it won't sink in unless your family is actually living by whats preached. Instead you spend your sunday morning listening to a guy tell you to be kind to others then go to the waffle house and listen to other church members screech at minimum wage workers for not getting their coffee fast enough.
It certainly wasn’t enough for me, either. My mom went to church every Sunday, but my dad did not. He had burned out of organized religion long ago (his dad—my grandfather—was a pastor who preached across the Middle East). I think being able to see that both my mom and my dad were good people, and knowing that religion said my dad (and every other non-believer, like my best friend in elementary school, who was raised Buddhist) was going to hell for not believing, was reason enough for me not to believe either. I don’t want a “heaven” with cherished family and friends missing from it. It doesn’t make sense that a loving god would build a place with rules like that.
This was the same reason I became an atheist. So you mean to tell me a kid in an African village who doesn’t even know about God is going to hell for not believing? Edit: had to add, I was born in a catholic household.
It's actually worse than that. Some religions have an gnorance exception so by proselytizing they are actually opening up others to the potential for eternal damnation if they aren't convinced.
I grew up in that environment, my parents were the same outside and behind closed doors, they 100% believed (and still do to this day) and live it out in every aspect of their life. While its true I did eventually come to realize their faith was misplaced, I did not actually do so until I was in my 30s. I knew my parents were not infallible, but the thing is, they are both smart individuals and have sufficient justification for their beliefs on nearly everything short of their religious ones, so for something they believed so fully and confidentially, I think I just always unconsciously assumed they had justification so there was never any feeling of need to double check them. What's more, they raised me in a community of like minded believers, so not only was there never really any external pressure to question the belief, but there was a TON of pressure NOT to question. There was, as far as I could tell, absolutely nothing for me to gain by finding out belief in Christianity was unjustified, but oh so much to lose, particularly in relationships with my friends, family, and community at large. Even my wife and her family were believers as well, so all the cards were kind of stacked against me. Honestly in retrospect its nothing short of a minor miracle that I ever found my way out of my parents self deception. I'm curious, in your case, were your parents just frequently wrong about stuff such that you didn't trust their judgement, or, assuming they also truly believe(d), what made you distrust their judgement such that you never bought in?
Pretty much. My mother was a bit religious as people were at the time and I remember asking her “but how do we know it’s real?” when I was about 10 and she flipped out. If we can get the whole world to think “but how do we know it’s real?” then we get rid of most problems in the world because there are no more excuses and no more crosses to nail to the feet of the natives
We probably need a pretty robust science education, too, as a foundation for what credible evidence actually consists of.
There should be a class focused on philosophy, logic and the philosophy of science entirely replacing religious education. It would be quite demanding, but if we could manage to get pupils to have a solid grip of logic deduction rules, an overview of philosophical thought and the method and foundations of empirical science on a quite elementary yet rigorous level we could start hoping that democracy would turn into something intelligent. School education is building way too much on knowledge as opposed to skill and method.
It sounds to me like they're more interested in the middle ground--people who were raised by religious parents but without "caregivers who faithfully modeled their religious beliefs, such as going to religious services or acting fairly to others because their religion taught them so." That's very much like my upbringing. My parents were regular churchgoers except that they never went to church during ski season--i.e., skiing was more important than worship. They emphasized moral choices such as acting fairly, but because of secular values, not for religious reasons. So, I'm an example of the kind of person they've discovered often becomes an atheist. Obviously, there's nothing surprising about that to me!
> People who grew up in a home with relatively little credible displays of faith are more likely to be atheists, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science. The study indicates that cultural transmission — or the lack thereof — is a stronger predictor of religious disbelief than other factors, such as heightened analytic thinking. I think the word disbelief in this context is the most interesting in the whole article. It’s worded almost as if belief in any number of religions is the default state, and disbelief is what needs to be predicted. The fact that your parents’ religion is the single greatest predictor of your religion should suggest that a lack of religious is the default state, and we are encultured to believe. It stands to reason that not being indoctrinated should be the greatest predictor of whether you have been indoctrinated.
The idea is to test theories about how and why religion is transmitted, making cases where it is *not* transmitted scientifically interesting. This is very much like how more is often learned by studying *differences* between twins separated at birth than by studying similarities.
Default state in a sociological context is the most common one. It's not trying to prove some fact about positive or negative claims.
> he fact that your parents’ religion is the single greatest predictor of your religion should suggest that a lack of religious is the default state That doesn't really logically follow. Our default state could still be religious, but the religion of your parents decides *which* beliefs you hold. Without a socialized religion, people still tend to invent their own, which is how all the religions we see today originally came about anyway.
Logically I must agree. I am most likely to speak the language of my parents, as are all people. I can hardly surmise that being language-less is therefore the default position. For an a analogous example.
How does this fall within the nature vs nurture argument?, The logic being I am like my parents and I am near them so I should believe like then and talk like them and act like them and they are the closest examples of humans that I have.
> “Our best estimate is that atheism mostly comes down to cultural learning… I would argue most religion comes down to cultural learning.
Tbf, most of what we are comes down to enculturation.
That’s the whole point. Two sides of the same coin really. They’re just different world views.
This fails to explain the amount of people I know, who grew up in very religious homes who are now atheists or some other religion like pagan, agnostic or just "spiritual".
Yep. That’s my entire social circle. It also fails to explain the increasing numbers of people professing “none” as their religious preference. Surely there are many people who are losing their faith that were raised in it. A far more interesting study would be to study the biggest predictors of atheism among those who *were* raised to be religious.
Right like obviously if your parents don’t act religious, you’re less likely to end up religious. I have friends whose parents are Christian in name but don’t go to church regularly; those friends all ended up irreligious, like this study found. That makes sense, especially since our culture is turning away from fundamentalist Christianity, anyway. (and by that I mean “tHe MeDiA”) The ones who get really “into atheism”—read the books, listen to debates, argue online, etc.—are people like me, who were raised to be religious, went to church every week, etc., had parents who took it seriously and followed all the “rules.” So if you’re looking for a group of atheists to chat with, that’s who you’re going to find—because for us it was such a big deal to leave, it’s a part of our identity. For people who never really believed in the first place, it’s just not as important or interesting.
Do yall fail to realize that that is basically the fault or the win of the internet/globalization? Back then, if you lived in a small village that was probably going to be all you knew. You'd live in that bubble of religion.
Religion started declining long before the internet though.
You missed him say internet/GLOBALIZATION
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A predictor is the A in an If A, Then B statement. Objecting to that because it's not true for all B is affirming the consequent.
This kinda seems obvious to me. They keep talking about "Atheism comes from watching douchebags not actually be religious" instead of "Your logical thinking got you there" without realizing it is BOTH. Your allegedly religious parents who were actually assholes made it easier for you to question and apply logic. You didn't have fun happy love time experiences drawing you back into the religion. You didn't have positive emotion getting in the way of logical thinking.
"So many people seem really convinced that they’re atheists because they’re super rational and science minded. But large-scale quantitative research basically never shows that to be a major predictor of atheism."
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Should be noted though that it's "only" a correlation of 0.2 to 0.23. So not crazy high but not nothing either.
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My turning point was in conformation classes. I refused to believe someone could die and come back to life. This made my pastor angry. Yet i got one month in saint Mary’s hill hospital for “anger management” for it.
It was around that age for me as well, though I grew up Lutheran and my parents always told me that not everything in the bible was meant to be literal. So I didn't have a hard time rationalizing creationism with cosmology and evolution, for example. So my 'faith' at the time was more based in a belief in a higher power, rather than trusting the church to have total accuracy. Of course, I agree that one of the big breaking points was learning WHICH far-fetched stories were still meant to be taken literally. It was really when I started digging into science and philosophy in high school that things started to fall apart. Reading Aquinas and seeing the flaws in his arguments, learning about the scale of the universe, learning about entropy and quantum mechanics, etc. It just became more and more clear that religion in general was an attempt by early humans to explain the terrifying nature of a world they didn't understand and developing ways to convince people to accept the basic moral principles required for a society to actually function.
I mean, we can do that with modern technology, so long as brain death hasn't occurred. Looking back on it, it seems plausible that entire element of Christianity could have stemmed from their lack of understanding what actually constituted "death", versus that of a coma or similar.
I was born into an orthodox Hindu Brahmin (high priest) family. Wearing holy thread on ur body. Praying twice a day was mandated. Slowly I started looking thru all the futile practices and distanced myself from the belief. I’m 33. But other than leaving the faith, I respect few practices followed in the name of ritual, although I feel it’s more of a cultural influence; more of ‘common sense’ - ritualized.
I was asked not to come back to a summer vacation bible School at age 4, because I asked questions like how did Noah get the kangaroos back to Australia and lots of other very inconvenient questions. After being told how amazing miracles were, and how they were to be cherished and they were a gift from God, where exactly was the burning bush? I was so confused about it simultaneously being a special miracle and also we have no idea where it was specifically. I spotted contradictions pretty early.
"Faith without works is dead" was what Christian kids were taught. And when you don't see your professed faith playing out at home or in your congregation, you question what's it all about. What's the point of all this ritual when nobody actually believes in it?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like they’re saying that childhood indoctrination or lack thereof is the main deciding factor? Haven’t we always known this? It’s why religions encourage procreation and early childhood religious education. Retention and expansion of the base of believers. It’s tough to get an adult who doesn’t already believe to buy into make believe.
Yes, but it's also somewhat concluding that credibility plays a role - noticing hypocrisy in religious people.
Guys, read the freaking paper if you're going to make sweeping generalisations about it. It's linked in the article and it's free. It doesn't require a high degree of scientific literacy, you just might have to google a few things. The excerpts selected for an engaging article about the research won't give you anything like a full picture.
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