A Possible New Way of Classifying Atheists/Agnostics

[David Sklansky]

I hate it when I come up with an idea that I hope may be original and it turns out not to be. Such was the case with my idea that God can't see the future. Turns out some guy named Boyd develeped a similar theory and its called Neotheism. So I'm done with that subject.

This next idea, I fear, has also probably been discussed before. But in case it hasn't, we'll name it after me.

I have often been perplexed by the degree of certainty Not Ready and others have about the motives of non believers. They can't seem to accept that many of them simply gradually came to not believe based on things they have learned. And how it doesn't fit in with a personal God. One who cares about humans and sometimes intervenes in our life and answers prayers. In my case my non belief stems from factors including my knowledge of gambling, magic, physics, astronomy, logic, and probability. How they all tie in I have not yet fully explained. Maybe someday.

But religious people seem to think that all non believers have a hidden reason. They want to be God. They don't want some being with authority over them. They want to be more sexually promiscuous. They want to fit into the academic community. etc. etc. Those reasons may be conscious or subconscious. But I am quite sure those things don't apply to me because I can remember specifically each time I became more skeptical. It always occurred when I was reading or thinking about something. And that something was NEVER in regards to religion. Only later on did I realize that the knowledge I gained was another "nail in the coffin" Surely many other people came to that non belief in a similar fashion.

Anyway in pondering recently how I became more and more skeptical, it occurred to me that my skepticism was not accompanied by psychological anguish (except one time at a funeral). And I realized why. It is because I was born Jewish.

The fact is that children of Jewish families have to traverse less psychological roadblocks to come to the conclusion that the Judeo Christian God probably does not exist. There are two obvious reasons. The first is that they don't have the guilt and anguish associated with giving up a belief in Jesus. They have been taught all their life that he was just a man and that to believe otherwise is not only blasphemous (or is it heretical?) but just plain stupid. Thus it is not as lengthy a journey from belief to non belief to someone who is brought up Jewish as it would be to someone brought up Christian.

Secondly, is the perhaps even more important point that Jews do not believe that non believers are doomed, as long as they are righteous people. Which obviously again makes it that much easier to accept non belief if your brain points you in that direction.

The bottom line is that there is less reason to suspect an agnostic of Jewish descent to have psychological issues in his decision to not believe. There is not nearly as great an implication for that person in that decison. And it is more reasonable to assume his non belief comes strictly from scientific type thought than from emotion (eg. "there can't be God because he allows tsunamis").

Christians on the other hand have a more tortuous road on their way to non belief. There are more terrible implications to such thoughts than there is to one raised Jewish. But I'm not sure what this means. On one hand it helps lend credence to Not Ready's theories since moving from Christian to atheist is so much of a bigger deal that we can suspect some sort of psychological pathology is at work to propel someone that far from his origins. On the other hand, those Christians who can show there wasn't a psycholgical component to their conversion to non belief, but rather merely an intellectual and scientific component, should perhaps be taken even more seriously than their Jewish counterparts. They reached their conclusions in spite of what they were taught were bigger risks. Far bigger risks.

This post does not have any final conclusion. I just thought it might be useful to classify nonbelievers into the camps of ex Jews and ex Christians (obviously there are other categories as well) and to get a thread going about the subject. The Sklansky Atheist Phylum.

[einbert]

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I hate it when I come up with an idea that I hope may be original and it turns out not to be. Such was the case with my idea that God can't see the future. Turns out some guy named Boyd develeped a similar theory and its called Neotheism. So I'm done with that subject.

This next idea, I fear, has also probably been discussed before. But in case it hasn't, we'll name it after me.

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In many ways, we think very similarly! I hope you don't take that as an insult [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img].

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But religious people seem to think that all non believers have a hidden reason. They want to be God.

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Don't you think your sample size is extremely tilted towards the more vocal (and maybe even the right word is more militant) "religious people"? I think your stereotype is just as bad as theirs--and the fact exists that some people are in fact SO narcissistic that they can't bear the thought of a higher power than them. But while this is true for some nonbelievers, it is obviously not true for all of them (to me at least). And I happen to believe in God, although the term "religious person" probably wouldn't exactly apply to me.

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On the other hand, those Christians who can show there wasn't a psycholgical component to their conversion to non belief, but rather merely an intellectual and scientific component, should perhaps be taken even more seriously than their Jewish counterparts.

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How on earth can there be no psychological component to someone's conversion from anything to anything else? Every thought we have, every choice we make, every belief and value we hold is influenced by our psyche. There is nothing we can do that is "not influenced by psychological factors." Absolutely nothing. I guess you could say that they are one of the gods that I worship.

David Sklansky has feelings about death, for example. He understands that it exists. Those feelings, emotions, knowledges must influence his thinking in many areas! How can they not? For some people, death is a motivator towards religion and a happy afterlife. For others, it is a motivator away from a religion that believes most of humanity is condemned to suffer eternally. It motivates other areas of his life, such as his desire to accomplish certain things, perhaps his desire to procreate, perhaps his desire to love and be loved, or his desire to leave his mark on history. Those things in his life wouldn't be the same if David Sklansky was unaware of the certainty of his own death. They might be there, but they would be different. So how can you say that there were no psychological factors at all throughout your spiritual journey towards whatever it is exactly you believe now?

I was brought up in a Christian home. Not just a Christian home, but a fairly fundamentalist Southern Baptist home. Of course at a very young age I accepted my parents' religious ideals, but eventually I came to a point where I had no choice but to question those ideas. And I came to an understanding that they were overly simplistic, and in many ways most likely downright wrong. Why did I question them at a certain time? A huge factor is psychological changes that occur in the brain at the time of adolescence. So psychological factors influenced my own conversion to agnosticism at that time. Including my fear of hell, which caused me to cling to the denial of my nonbelief long after it had been established.

Anyway maybe my point is entirely semantical, but I tend to think it isn't. I hope I haven't wasted anyone's time. Maybe some good discussion will generate from something I've said.

[siegfriedandroy]

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I hate it when I come up with an idea that I hope may be original and it turns out not to be. Such was the case with my idea that God can't see the future. Turns out some guy named Boyd develeped a similar theory and its called Neotheism. So I'm done with that subject.


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David, I found this hilarious! You are not the first, so you must move on and find something truly original. Damn, you are an arrogant, glamour seeking mo-fo! well, on to your new idea...(havent read it yet)

[siegfriedandroy]

Was his name Gregory Boyd? Was he a oneness pentecostal?

[BluffTHIS!]

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I just thought it might be useful to classify nonbelievers into the camps of ex Jews and ex Christians (obviously there are other categories as well) and to get a thread going about the subject. The Sklansky Atheist Phylum.

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This can only be helpful if it is first stipulated that those persons in either categories were first observant Jews or practicing Christians in their early adult years and then came to a state of unbelief. Only if they really believed in and practiced their faith of their own volition and not just because of being brought up in that faith and made to attend services by their parents can a subsequent state of unbelief be much different than someone who was raised in a home with atheist/agnostic parents. einbert would seem to meet this stipulation.

[David Sklansky]

"How on earth can there be no psychological component to someone's conversion from anything to anything else?"

Change "no" to very "little" if you must. The point is that there are those who think that OJ is innocent partially because they want it to be true and those who think he is innocent without any preference or even perhaps preferrinng the opposite. The first case is what I mean by a psychological component.

[siegfriedandroy]

haha. it's too bad im fairly certain that theism trumps atheism. otherwise, i'd kill to be a humble member of the Sklansky Atheist Phylum.

[einbert]

Okay, but I still don't see how you rationally came to the conclusion that there is "very little" psychological component behind your conversion from Judaism to atheism. How can you measure that? The psychological component to your own ability to judge your own psychological component is huge in my opinion. And you say it is "very little", but compared to what? What compels you to not believe in a God? What compels you to believe that truth is worth seeking diligently for (something it appears to me you most likely believe strongly)? Aren't those all primarily influenced by psychological components of yourself?

Anyway, I guess maybe you are talking about a psychological pathology. But if there is no God, how is believing that oneself is God psychopathic? Some people are so engulfed in their narcissism (small children are a good place to look, since they all are) that they still believe this as adults. Isn't that simply an aspect of culture?

Meh, I keep getting so sidetracked. But I hope we either are getting somewhere or will be getting somewhere. I apologize for my own slowness, and I thank you for your reply.

[David Sklansky]

Think bookies making football lines.

[siegfriedandroy]

einbert u kick asS