Are atheists different, based on his/her family's faith?

I think I understand what Foofie is getting at. I was raised in a household open to all religious thought, but I'm saturated with Jewish DNA. I'm definitely not a practicing Jew. I neither deny nor acknowledge a god. I just don't know if one is out there. However, I do consider myself Jewish. My family (the religious and non-religious) have certain traits that almost make us stereotypical Jews. It's not just Eastern European - it's Jewish. There is a strong ethnic heritage in being Jewish, and you can't throw that baby out with the bath water. I think if a person turns their back on Christianity they are still their ethnic heritage (French, Ethiopian, Norwegian etc). They are rejecting the gospels, not their DNA. Their ethnic history probably had religions other than Christianity, if they go back far enough. It's not that simple when you are Jewish. Jewish heritage is more than just studying Torah or becoming an accountant - it's a way of seeing and reacting to the world, and it cannot be dismissed by rejecting God.

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I've been reading along, and I do get what foofie is saying, and why he's asking it.

Ok, going out on a limb here...

It does seems to me that people who were raised in a Christian household, were Christian at one time, or who were around Christians are different than athists who had the experience with Jews.

The ones who'd been around Christians are MUCH angrier.

This makes sense to me because Christians are expected to spread the Good News and Jews don't care about conversion.

You tell a Jew you're an athists and they'll ask you "so why are you telling me?"

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Sorry I was so rude to start with. A symptom of frustration/lack of control. Wraps fingers with fishing line...

What about Catholics? At least in my microclimate of catholicism, indeed a microclimate of religiosity supremo, there was missionary life (don't get me going), not to mention the pagan baby thing..... but most of the time people didn't go around proselytizing in daily life.

It's almost thread fitting that my first lover and first loved was a jewish atheist...

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Chai wrote:

I've been reading along, and I do get what foofie is saying, and why he's asking it.

Ok, going out on a limb here...

It does seems to me that people who were raised in a Christian household, were Christian at one time, or who were around Christians are different than athists who had the experience with Jews.

The ones who'd been around Christians are MUCH angrier.

This makes sense to me because Christians are expected to spread the Good News and Jews don't care about conversion.

You tell a Jew you're an athists and they'll ask you "so why are you telling me?"

I dunno about that. I was raised Anglican & Unitarian, but didn't go to church after age 10 or 11. Nobody I knew "spread the word" and weren't expected to, as far as I remember. Also, religion doesn't make me angry. I just disbelieve. Well, more than that. I feel categorically that there is no God, and that the Bible is simply an early Machievellian plot/device to control the masses.

Very Happy

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I have little doubt that atheists differ according to their religious origins because a-theism is predicated on theism. Contrary to popular parlance, it involves a negative relationship to a "God concept" (which was part of a particular socially transmitted package), rather than a "disbelief in a generalized God". When the particular "God bit" goes, the rest of the package lingers on.

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Coolwhip wrote:

Ok then. It's the socialist paradise on earth; Norway. Pop 4.7 million and maybe a few hundred jews in total I think.

O.K., that makes sense why you never met anyone who is Jewish. But, digressing, you really have a command of the English language. Do all Norwegians have such a command of the English language?

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As a few of us have argued for years here, some of us are simply without - void of - theism. I'm not very interested in others' takes on positioning my view, much less popular parlance, however eruditely expressed, or however impressed I am with their religious/spiritual/philosophic understandings.

This has little to do with me, except for some superficial sentimental stuff, a near half century later. --

"Contrary to popular parlance, it involves a negative relationship to a "God concept" (which was part of a particular socially transmitted package), rather than a "disbelief in a generalized God". When the particular "God bit" goes, the rest of the package lingers on."

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fresco wrote:

I have little doubt that atheists differ according to their religious origins because a-theism is predicated on theism. Contrary to popular parlance, it involves a negative relationship to a "God concept" (which was part of a particular socially transmitted package), rather than a "disbelief in a generalized God". When the particular "God bit" goes, the rest of the package lingers on.

A. What rest of what package lingers on?

B. Atheism obviously means something different to each of us, regardless of any popular parlance or definition you may have.

According to several on-line dictionaries, atheism means: noun

1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God [ant: theism]
2. a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods

I fit both one and two, therefore I am an atheist.

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Mame...I'm sorry, I should qualify what I said...I didn't mean every single atheist.

I meant more atheists who hung around christians seem to have more anger.

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Mame,

My point is that as an atheist I "know" a concept of "God" which I reject. That concept has come from somewhere...mostly my childhood. When somebody mentions "God" I don't simply say "I don't know what you are talking about". I still find myself going to weddings and funerals etc listening to the "incantations of word magic" "out of "respect" for the hosts and it is that "respect" and other social ties which "linger on".

I argue elsewhere that "existence" is about relationship between "concepts" not "things". My concept of "self the atheist" has a negative relationship with "God as a viable entity". I cannot deny the "God concept" has "existence" because it still affects "my life" via my relationships with "believers".

(The philosophical position that there are only concepts is beyond the remit of this thread)

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Chai wrote:

Mame...I'm sorry, I should qualify what I said...I didn't mean every single atheist.

I meant more atheists who hung around christians seem to have more anger.

Fair enough, Chai.

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Fresco, you're making way more of this than you have to.

God and the Bible and all that is a Fairy Tale to us atheists. Never mind what lingers or doesn't linger... the fact is, we ALL go to weddings and funerals and such for the PEOPLE involved. Doesn't change anything for you, does it? It's still a fairy tale, or myth, or saga, or whatever. I go out of respect. I don't bow my head or pray, but if I'm with a believer (like my aged MIL), I will kneel at the appropriate time(s) for HER. It's just a sign of respect to do that, isn't it? But do I "believe"? No! And she knows it, but it's never discussed.

And I have no doubts or lingering questions or anything. As I'm sure you don't. It'd be like going to Norway and being asked to pray to the Norse God of War or something. Very Happy

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I have to read fresco's post in the morning. At this point, Mame is speaking for me, though of course that is not her intent.

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Mame,

We are social animals with a unique capacity to organize our "world" through a locally acquired set of social spectacles called "language". We cannot completely divorce ourselves from our socialization process in which a "self image" is forged relative to the image of "others". The "God concept" is only one example of socially acquired structuring of the world.... We don't "believe" in Santa Claus but it is an integral part of our culture in December..... We don't "believe" in unicorns but we can all recognize a picture of one. These, like all concepts are "nodes of social intercourse" which pre-exist us, like the inseparable parts of a slowly evolving organism. Historically, they are consensual reference points for human interaction which we can circumnavigate but only with conscious effort.

Okay, so all this is a bit OTT with respect to different flavours of "atheist" but the observation of such differences underscores the dictum that we don't have beliefs we are those beliefs (or disbeliefs) as a result of particular socialization process.

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Foofie wrote:

O.K., that makes sense why you never met anyone who is Jewish. But, digressing, you really have a command of the English language. Do all Norwegians have such a command of the English language?

As a tourist in Norway you'd manage just fine speaking only english. However, I think it's safe to say that far from every norwegian speak as well as I do.

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fresco wrote:

Mame,

We are social animals with a unique capacity to organize our "world" through a locally acquired set of social spectacles called "language". We cannot completely divorce ourselves from our socialization process in which a "self image" is forged relative to the image of "others". The "God concept" is only one example of socially acquired structuring of the world.... We don't "believe" in Santa Claus but it is an integral part of our culture in December..... We don't "believe" in unicorns but we can all recognize a picture of one. These, like all concepts are "nodes of social intercourse" which pre-exist us, like the inseparable parts of a slowly evolving organism. Historically, they are consensual reference points for human interaction which we can circumnavigate but only with conscious effort.

Okay, so all this is a bit OTT with respect to different flavours of "atheist" but the observation of such differences underscores the dictum that we don't have beliefs we are those beliefs (or disbeliefs) as a result of particular socialization process.

You speak with Mame, but I'll add my view -

That the beliefs I was supposed to have had were a dot in a continuum of beliefs held by my ancestors or any others' ancestors, I'll just say, sure.

My void re belief is larger than about the beliefs of my own particular ancestors, whatever whoever's conscious efforts.

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ossobucco

Of course we rationalize our atheism with the observation of the pernicious squabbling amongst so many varieties of religionsts. The question you might ask yourself as an atheist is whether you feel in any way different attending a ceremony or entering a church/temple etc associated with your childhood compared with your feelings attending or visiting that of some other group. I suggest the answer might be "yes".

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I'm prone to like architecture of the western world, cheerfully admit to proclivity toward that.

Am busy learning about the history of the wider world, and the building history of the wider world.

I'm a near half century from religious belief. When I first left the catholic church, I had a variety of hostile thoughts to the buildings. Cringed and didn't go in Guadalupe...

Now it's a continuum of what people believe, and how the builders built on that - if they did. I've no idea what the people hoisting the stones had in mind except making it through the day. .. and how the financiers built on that.

So, fresco, forty years ago I entered catholic churches with some hostility bridling my shoulders.

Now I get a pulse from the energy going on if I happen to walk into Santa Maria della Sopra Minerva with a high mass going on. I'd likely get a similar pulse from other "temples". But all those people are in my way of seeing the side chapels... for the art.

I know that sounds cold, but I see your points as being connected to your own emotions, not mine - with respect, fresco.

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The thing is, fresco, I'm not more hostile to catholics than I am to other religionists (a new word for me) now.

I let people and their beliefs alone for the most part. I speak up on a2k a few times in a blue moon to clarify the views of some of us, which tend to get swiped out in the general diatribe flinging.

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Quote:

I know that sounds cold, but I see your points as being connected to your own emotions, not mine - with respect, fresco.

Fair comment! Smile

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Are atheists different, based on his/her family's faith?

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