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Manfred comments on A Rationalist's Tale - LessWrong
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Are there also lots of "undramatic" people like me? Every one of these personal stories I see involves sadness, epiphany, that sort of thing, but is that publication bias or am I unusual?
I think it has to do with the "leaving the tribe" aspect more than anything. Those of us who became devout in one of the more serious religions (that is, religions that view everyone else as a spectrum from "good but deeply flawed" to "hellbound") had that religion encompass most of our social world, and so in order to leave it we had to face the prospect of ostracism from all the people we cared about. The evolutionary pressures to never get ostracized make for a lot of subconscious bias to fight, and a pretty dramatic tale.
If your conversion was undramatic, therefore, I conjecture that you didn't have lots of friends or family who might have abandoned you if you stopped being religious.
I've been an atheist for about a year now, but I still haven't "come out" of the atheist closet with my parents yet. They are southern baptist, and I know it will devastate them - my mom especially.
My own break with Christianity was a light switch moment (more like turning out the last light before leaving the place for good kind of light switch moment) that happened while I was watching the Discovery Channel, of all things. I'd been raised with the hard-line young earth, all-evidence-for-evolution-is-fabricated, fire and brimstone style belief. My faith had been eroding for almost a decade as I tried to rationalize the existence of God, but it didn't really click until I saw a bunch of little Japanese Mudskippers crawling around in the mud with their elongated fins, the very picture of an evolutionary transition species that I had been taught since I was kid could not exist. I just thought "Well, that's it then. I can't honestly believe Christianity any more can I?" I think I actually let out a sigh at some point, but that may just be my mind filling in details for dramatic effect.
Really, my true belief had been gone since probably some time in high school. That was just the last straw that forced me to give up my belief in belief. Sort of like finally letting go of the rope, expecting to fall to your death, and discovering you were only a few inches from solid ground after all.
I like this analogy. I think I'm going to steal it.
That isn't exactly a spectrum. There are serious and sincere believers who I have met who are forthright with the 'hellbound' prediction while also being far less judgemental than others who say 'good but deeply flawed'. "Hellbound" is a prediction about future consequences not a personal criticism.
I meant 'religions with claims to exclusivity', basically. I don't think anyone today worries that they'll lose their social world if they leave their Unitarian church.
But yes, the relationship between theology and arrogance isn't quite as simple as some might think.
Indeed, I had two close friends in high school who predicted I was definitely going to hell. One academic liberal, one fundamentalist conservative. (It didn't come up much.)
Conjecture correct.
I grew up atheist. Without a story to tell, I've got nothing to publish. I would agree with the publication bias conjecture.
"Oh. There are people who aren't sure about God? They're called agnostics? Huh, yeah, I think that's what I am."
Just publication bias, I think.
Personally I just gradually went from "believing by default because of what school and family were telling me" as a kid, to "believing mostly, but not all of religion" in junior high, to "believing very little of it must be true" in highschool, to "vaguely hoping there's some just and merciful order in the universe" in college, to being an atheist now.
There was hardly any drama at all, as far as I can recall.
Definitely. My story is much the same as Luke's but I was a whole heap more chill the whole way through. Although come to think of it if I did publish my style of writing is such that it would come out seeming dramatic anyway.
My deconversion was undramatic too.
I assume it's publication bias, based on the fact that dramatic conversions are easier to write about - not only do they make better stories, but the details of that kind of thing are easier to remember. (I'm also in the 'undramatic' category.)
Dramatic deconversion here.
I was terrified of Hell when I was younger, so it was a while before I was able to admit my doubts to myself, and my deconversion was a gradual process; but it wasn't particularly dramatic. I felt a bit sad a few times, and a bit guilty, but by the age of 17 I was an atheist and not too worried about it.
So it may be publication bias, yes, but that's only two examples. I post quite regularly on an atheism & agnosticism forum, I might put a poll asking this question.
Undramatic for me too.
If you've got a talent that keeps you very popular within a group, it's very easy to get sucked into being what those admiring people want you to be. Being bright, clear-thinking, eloquent, confident (and a musician) moves you very easily into a leadership position, and builds the feeling of responsibility for the welfare of the group.
It took me too long to commit to acknowledging my accumulated doubts and misgivings and examine them in anything other than a pro-Christian light. I had enough religious cached thoughts in an interconnected self-supporting web that doubting any one of them was discouraged by the support of the others. However, I was spending more of my time aware of the dissonance between what I knew and what I believed (or, as I later realised, what I was telling myself I believed).
I ended up deciding to spend a few months of my non-work time examining my faith in detail -- clearing the cache, and trying to understand what it was that made me hold on to what I thought I believed. During that time I gradually dropped out of church activities.
I look back on the time and see it as a process of becoming more honest with myself. Had I tried to determine what I really believed by looking at what I anticipated and how that influenced my behaviour, I'd have realised a lot earlier that my true beliefs were non-supernatural. I'd just been playing an expected role in a supportive family and social group, and I'd adjusted my thinking to blend into that role.
I was always an atheist. But I saw the drama of atheisation a generation before myself. 50 generation before that, pagan ancestors embraced Christianity.
Daria here -- I sobbed aloud the first time I read that story because of how strongly I identified with her. No family troubles to speak of once I deconverted, but I did lose a girlfriend to it.