{"id":1478,"date":"2013-05-11T02:06:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T16:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2013-05-13T19:53:15","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T09:53:15","slug":"age-of-non-belief-christian-friends-and-family-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1478","title":{"rendered":"Age of non belief, christian friends, and family religion."},"content":{"rendered":"

Jasmine asks:<\/strong>
\nAt what age did you decide that you believe there was no God? When people try to convert you, what feelings do you encounter? Do you have any Christian friends, or have you completely removed yourself from anyone with any label near to that? Were you born into a Christian family, or were you born into an Atheist family and are just believing what your folks told you? How do you argue that atheism makes more sense than Christianity?<\/p>\n

Jakes answer:<\/strong>
\nThese are questions that I often get from people who are trying to understand why I am no longer a christian. I hope that I can answer your questions satisfactorily. Let’s take them one by one.<\/p>\n

At what age did you decide that you believe there was no God?<\/strong> I lost my faith around 23. Technically, I don’t believe there is no god. I lack belief that there is a god. Now I know this might sound like the same thing at first, but it really isn’t. Let me explain it like this, let’s say that I have no active belief in a god. I am at 0 beliefs in a god or gods. You come and tell me about your god. If I accept this belief then I am at +1 beliefs in a god. If I do not accept your belief then I have not gained anything and remain at 0 beliefs in a god. For me, this was a 23 year process. So now, I am at 0 beliefs in a god. Now on the other hand, I do believe that the evidence people give for their gods are false. Since the only valid evidence for claims of existence must be objective and verifiable, and since no believer has ever produced such evidence, I believe that their evidence is invalid. Do you see the difference?
\nWhen people try to convert you, what feelings do you encounter?<\/strong> That depends on what I’m being told. My feelings can range anywhere from pity, to humor, to indignation. I pity those who believe without understanding what it is that they believe. I find it humorous when people present evidence that they wouldn’t accept themselves if the word “God” wasn’t attached to it. I feel indignation when a believer tells me that I am evil for not believing.
\nDo you have any Christian friends, or have you completely removed yourself from anyone with any label near to that?<\/strong> I have a few christian friends. I had more but people find it difficult to remain believers around me. I’ve deconverted most of my family and friends. I didn’t have to preach to them or anything like that, I just answer their questions much like I’m doing now with you. Eventually, they see the truth for themselves.
\nWere you born into a Christian family, or were you born into an Atheist family and are just believing what your folks told you?<\/strong> I was born into the LDS faith. My family were all LDS as well. I served a 2 year mission at 19 in the Dakotas and sat as a counselor in the bishopric after. I was a very strong believer. It wasn’t until I was 23 that I met a buddhist monk who taught me about objective thinking and began my journey into non belief. It took me about 2 years before I lost my belief in a god.
\nHow do you argue that atheism makes more sense than Christianity?<\/strong> The same way a person argues that not believing in Santa Claus makes more sense than believing in Santa Claus. When you grow up, you realize that the story of Santa Claus has no evidence and includes impossible things. The same thing happened with me and the idea of god. I studied it, found it lacking, and stopped believing.<\/p>\n

Well I hope that answers you’re questions. If not, feel free to ask for follow ups in the comment section below.<\/p>\n

Answer by SmartLX<\/a>:<\/strong>
\nOo, oo, I want in on this one.
\n
\nAt what age did you decide that you believe there was no God?<\/strong>
\nJake’s already nitpicked the specifics of the question, so…I honestly don’t know. There was about a 15 year gap from age 11-12 onwards when I barely thought about it, but when I did think about it at age 26 I realised I no longer believed. My faith had faded completely in the intervening years, so I had a drama-free deconversion.
\n
\nWhen people try to convert you, what feelings do you encounter?<\/strong>
\n– Nostalgia, because people talked to me like that all the time in Catholic primary school.
\n– Deja vu, because whatever arguments or appeals they use I’ve probably already received them on this site at some point.
\n– Engaged, because if I do get something new to think about it’s great fodder for the site, or at least my own research.
\nIf I get angry or upset in a situation like this, it’s not simply because I’m being proselytised but because the “witness” is going about it in an emotionally confronting or manipulative way. It still doesn’t work, but it puts a damper on my day.
\n
\nDo you have any Christian friends, or have you completely removed yourself from anyone with any label near to that?<\/strong>
\nMy wife’s Christian. About half of my family still is, and half of hers, and of course many of our friends. Australia’s far less religious than America, but that’s not saying much. We all get on, and there are plenty of non-adversarial discussions on the subject. I don’t go sword in hand 24\/7.
\n
\nWere you born into a Christian family, or were you born into an Atheist family and are just believing what your folks told you?<\/strong>
\nCatholic mother, atheist father, raised Catholic and believed what I was told until I found out Dad is an atheist (he only ever said so about twice) and therefore not everyone believes what I did. I think that started me on the road to disbelief, or at least skepticism.
\n
\nHow do you argue that atheism makes more sense than Christianity?<\/strong>
\nBy essay, usually. My best attempt to do this directly is right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jasmine asks: At what age did you decide that you believe there was no God? When people try to convert you, what feelings do you encounter? Do you have any Christian friends, or have you completely removed yourself from anyone with any label near to that? Were you born into a Christian family, or were … Continue reading “Age of non belief, christian friends, and family religion.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pB6tr-nQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1488,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions\/1488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}