…and this is a 
What kind of atheist are you?
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: April 10, 2007 11:00 AM, by PZ Myers
I'm not really fond of the idea of categorizing atheists (you either are or aren't, and the game of labeling is often a short step away from ranking, and then you're on the slippery slope to the No True Atheist fallacy), but Hank Fox has an interesting comment that categorizes reasons for being an atheist. It's relevant to that video of a mother reacting to her son's 'coming out', though — one category is the "Rebel Atheist" who adopts the idea to piss off his mother.
Now let's all aspire to be Awakened Atheists.
Comments
Yep, I'm an Awakened Atheist. Worked through the questions I had, realized none of it made sense, started looking for evidence of a god(s), couldn't find any.
Posted by: terry | April 10, 2007 11:13 AM
Why am i an atheist?
Simple. It makes the most sense to me. I always had trouble believing that a super-powerful being existed.
(It doesn't hurt that i grew up in Massachusetts, where religion isn't forced down your throat like in, say, Texas, and had a very hands-off set of parents when it came to religion.)
Posted by: Neito | April 10, 2007 11:14 AM
Awakened Atheist here. I like to talk about atheism with my friends, virtually all who are non-believers, but sometimes I'm not sure how much a couple of them know about religion and its insanities; thus, the danger exists that they could get suckered in. Probably not, though, but still.
Posted by: Will E. | April 10, 2007 11:16 AM
If I had to choose, I'd be a cross between an inherited atheist and an awakened atheist. Inherited because I was never indoctrinated as a youth, but awakened because I have examined the concept of religion and found it pretty hard to swallow. My father was an awakened atheist and that's what I inherited from him.
Posted by: tsg | April 10, 2007 11:17 AM
To quote Hank: But an Awakened Atheist? I don't think there's any way such a person could ever let religion back into his/her life. After you get religion out of your head, after you start to think your own thoughts and begin to see what sort of damage had been done to you - after you see the LIES for what they are - I just can't imagine going back to it.
It's not only that, it's not even comprehending how you were so snookered to begin with. Now that I think about it, it's kind of similar to thinking of some ex-boyfriend/girlfriends - you look at the person and think "What on earth did I ever see in you?" along with some kicking yourself to have ever fallen for them in the first place. There's no going back.
Posted by: Carlie | April 10, 2007 11:18 AM
Another Awakened here. I clearly remember the day, when I was 12 years old, that I sudenly realized Catholic dogma was no more and no less than a body of mythology, one among many. That was it for me, and quite painlessly.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 10, 2007 11:21 AM
Where's the catagory for Inherited Atheist who examined religion carefully and just laughed harder?
Posted by: Graculus | April 10, 2007 11:22 AM
Awakened atheist for me. A typical Irish Roman Catholic upbringing (not so much hellfire and damnation but a lot of incomprehensible rules you weren't encouraged to think about).
My abilities, growing up, were in science and history - not a good combination, faith-wise, when later on applied to religion.
Do you really need to have come from a 'religious' family to be an awakened atheist ?
Posted by: MartinC | April 10, 2007 11:23 AM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 10, 2007 11:25 AM
Awakened Atheist. The funny thing is that the confirmation classes I took at my Catholic church, started my quick slide to disbelief. They actually make sure you're aware of what the teachings and dogma are before you get confirmed.
It sounded like alot of craziness.
But I just went ahead and got confirmed to make my parents happy. but I don't think they really cared all that much. One I was out of the house and in college, they went to church alot less frequently.
Posted by: Steve_C | April 10, 2007 11:26 AM
Awakened Atheist, former Episcopalian. After I stopped believing, I kept going to church anyway to keep up with the friends I had there. I finally lapsed altogether when I moved.
Posted by: Efogoto | April 10, 2007 12:01 PM
Where's the catagory for Inherited Atheist who examined religion carefully and just laughed harder?
Seconded. Awakened Atheist might have a very firm, personal reason to stay out of any and all cults and / or religions (for those who differentiate), but an Inherited Atheist with a moderate level of personal interest and curiosity about this social phenomenon named "religion" could easily have a similar level of resistance.
Myself, somewhere between Awakened and Inherited. My parents are apparently theists, but I attended church perhaps half-a-dozen times between birth and moving out on my own at the age of 18, and discussions of belief and religion were pretty rare. So I don't have a "de-conversion" story, I just pretty much ignored the whole issue until teh intarweb came along and sucked my productivity away, distracting me with online discussions of such topics. It seems I have some level of personal curiosity about certain social phenomena, though I'm pretty sure I lack this thing called "spirituality".
Now let's all aspire to be Awakened Atheists.
But aspire for our offspring to qualify as Inherited, right? What about those of us who are a generation ahead of the curve, here?
Posted by: TheBrummell | April 10, 2007 12:01 PM
If I choose one of Hank's categories, I'll have to go for the Awakened Atheist label. Religion never got a grip on me, however, so it's not a perfect description. No doubt plenty others here'll find other categories of atheist.
I'll go for Natural Atheist.
Posted by: Richard Harris, FCD | April 10, 2007 12:06 PM
I like to say I am a born Atheist. This is not to say that I was raised atheist -- I wasn't. I was raised Lutheran, babtised and confirmed.
I remember my very first reaction to church when I was a wee child. What I saw was grown-ups "playing pretend". I was religious from around age 8 to 12. Then I remember standing on the platform for my church confirmation class photos and thinking to myself how I knew I was a non-believer and I wondered how many others standing there with me felt the same way. I never talked about these thoughts with anyone else -- I just kept them to myself.
I say born Atheist because I had no mentor or guidance to become one -- I just plain didn't believe. I know it has something to do with the kind of brain I was born with. I was oriented toward science, music, art, and logic. Also, growing up in a good public school system with great science education made it possible for me to develop my critical thinking skills.
Posted by: Sonja | April 10, 2007 12:12 PM
I don't know, Neito. I think an upbringing that is mildly religiously oppressive (nothing like abuse, but simply being forced to attend church from an early age and suffering some negative consequences, even just explicit disapproval, for skepticism) is actually very conducive to becoming an "awakened" atheist. If you're not in some way subject to a power structure that somehow irritates you (even at the stage where you believe uncritically), then there's just no motivation to think too hard about religious questions, at all.
Posted by: Dennis | April 10, 2007 12:12 PM
Perhaps there could be a category of "Considered Atheist" or some such for people who were inherited atheists but then studied it and actively embraced it.
Posted by: Carlie | April 10, 2007 12:14 PM
I feel like I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Atheist. I was raised Roman Catholic until I was about 13, went to church every Sunday, went to CCD...the whole bit. My parents are definitely believers but not zealots. I realized around 13 that I didn't actually believe anything I was listening to...CCD especially, it was basically religious school...and I always liked school. Blessedly my parents were totally supportive. The Deacon of my church less so...he kept trying to get me to go back. That was what really cinched it for me...why would you want someone who's said they don't believe? The obvious answer to me was they think they can 'change your mind'. But since I'd never actually felt I'd *believed* in the first place...that REALLY made me uncomfortable and even more sure about my decision. I tried a turn as a Pagan in college...but really I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Atheist. And a cranky, vocal one at that.
Posted by: Stacey C. | April 10, 2007 12:18 PM
"Awakened" fits well, but I prefer Born-Again Atheist.
Posted by: Rmlind | April 10, 2007 12:20 PM
Awakened, just as described. I disagree with the post, though: I don't think that being an awakened atheist means that you will never become religious again. People choose to be religious for a whole slew of reasons, and many of them don't have much to do with your considered opinions. Having decided that there is no evidence to support a particular religion, one may still go to church for the community, or to avoid hurting loved ones, or...
I expect such a person would feel like a hypocrite, and justifiably so, but I can understand why they'd do that.
Posted by: Beren | April 10, 2007 12:20 PM
Great entry and great article. I'm an awakened atheist, all the way, and I'd like to offer this:
A lot of religious goofs like to argue that atheism is a religious faith, right? And we take great pains to explain/demonstrate why that isn't the case.
One thing I like about being a dastardly secularist is that it's no big deal. When I first dumped religion back in high school, I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, this is like living life, but without all that weird religious stuff."
Posted by: Bob Peterson | April 10, 2007 12:26 PM
I dunno what kind of atheist I am...
Atheist, because I reject every religious argument I've seen (doesn't help that the devout strike me as particularly goofy).
Agnostic, because, well, *something* caused the universe to exist. My gut tells me it was all an experiment gone wrong.
Posted by: maditude | April 10, 2007 12:27 PM
Wait a second, what about the Fundamentalist Atheist category ? I'm always hearing about that lot but I've never actually met one.
Posted by: MartinC | April 10, 2007 12:27 PM
A moment of awakening: when they decided to switch from the KJV to the New English Bible.
Then I gradually realized I didn't care much for the language of the bible - the elevated tones of the KJV had attracted me. The simpler NE Bible annoyed the hell out of me.
I used to stare at the minister in his pulpit and wonder how he could preach everyday and believe what he was saying. What did he do if the words he was forced to speak stopped making sense? Would he quit? Or would he just continue on?
How could he devote himseld to a lifetime of talking about things - a God, a heaven - that were so very doubtful?
Eventually, religion began to look like a huge edifice built on sand. It seemed funny and sad. It angered the anti-authoritarian me. It annoyed the truth-seeking me.
I can't point to a moment in time. I read a lot of stuff that dealt with religion - from Pagels to Tolstoy - always trying to accept religion on the religionists terms, but the arguments they made could not ever shake the sense I had that religion is a purely human construct that should not be believed by anyone who strives to be honest with him/herself.
Posted by: CalGeorge | April 10, 2007 12:29 PM
I never questioned the existence of God until a teacher in my Catholic high school said he could prove it. That was the first time I ever looked at the question "does God exist" the same way I'd look at the question "does Superman exist." Oh boy, I was going to see actual proof.
Didn't work out that way. The proof offered was so unpersuasive that, after mulling over a few alternative ideas, I decided that the likelihood was God didn't exist. A view I'd probably never have come to if someone, thinking he had evidence, made it a question of evidence. That was his mistake.
Posted by: CJColucci | April 10, 2007 12:32 PM
Thank God I am an Inherited Atheist! ;-)
Never had to deal with a long painful process of freeing my mind from shackles.
That is, perhaps, why I am not as aggressive against religion: I only encountered it upon arrival in the USA and see it only as a politically negative influence, while the silliness of personal beliefs or the question of the actual existence of God bore me.
Posted by: coturnix | April 10, 2007 12:34 PM
I honestly think I started as an angry rebellious atheist, mostly angry at the apparent intolerance and injustice of the world's organized religions, and thought "I will never be a part of that." Over the years as I considered non-organized religious belief (like deism, wicca, other new age stuff and general religious philosophy) I sort of realized none of it made any sense, and the only thing that fit with the world we live in is atheism (well, secualr humanism I guess is the closest philosophy).
Posted by: Robert | April 10, 2007 12:34 PM
It began coming apart for me when I was 12. I asked my parents a question about religion and was told to read the bible.
I obeyed. I did not cheat, skipped nothing -- even in the begats I was looking for some kind of sense but found none -- and found the bible to be a horrorshow. Their almighty god was the worst sinner in the bible.
I reread it in college, and it was as bad as I remembered it. I also noticed that although what I read the second time was supposed to be the same bible, there had been parts missing. I went back to an earlier issue of the 'same edition' and found the parts edited out. Nothing can be unerring forever if it gets modifed in my lifetime.
The more I looked into it, the worse it got. Anything that fails faster under increasing scrutiny is wholly pretense and nothing but.
Posted by: Roy | April 10, 2007 12:35 PM
I prefer to think of religion as a disease, and I just never happened to get infected.
I didn't find out until I was in my late teens that my dad is an atheist, and didn't find out until my late 20s that my mother is NOT an atheist. So I didn't inherit anything from either of them because I'd formed my opinion long before I ever found out what their was.
They had apparently agreed simply never to discuss the subject either way... but I don't see that as meaning I inherited my atheism an more than I feel that I have inherited my HIV-negative status.
I just never got infected.
Posted by: craig | April 10, 2007 12:38 PM
An awakened atheist, most definitely. I was raised Lutheran in a small town in northern Minnesota and for a time when I was in my late teens/early twenties I wanted to become a pastor. Back then I held that if Christianity was true, it should be able to answer and defeat any challenge posed to it. Well, it didn't. The truth won out.
Posted by: Mosasaurus rex | April 10, 2007 12:39 PM
Second generation inherited atheist here, although I'd like to think that I've spent enough time studying mythology to consider myself an awakened atheist.
Maybe I should share the family story of how my grandfather decided to reject religion.
When my grandfather was about 10, his brother was born. My great-grandfather, of Jewish descent, named him Abraham. My great-grandmother, of some protestant sect, changed his brother's name to Arthur shortly after his birth. The reason my great-grandmother did so was explicitly given as to avoid giving my great-uncle the stigma of a Jewish name (in Detroit, Michagan).
Names are a powerful thing to a 10-year-old, and it made my grandfather think deeply about the nature of society where a name alone can invoke dislike, even hatred. As this particular prejudice was based on organized religion, my grandfather ended up contemplating, and rejecting, organized religion. He also never called his younger brother by his given name, preferring to call him as 'The Duke'.
For that reason my mother was never raised in an organized religion, and fits the description of inherited atheist well.
Obviously, that's only one side of the family. On the other side we've got some Baptist's two generations back, but my father became an awakened atheist in his collage years.
Posted by: Flex | April 10, 2007 12:41 PM
I think it should be stated that these shouldn't be fixed categories. That is to say that one can easily start out as any of the first three categories (I think I was a Rebellion Atheist at age 13, even though I never told my parents about it, so it wasn't a hugely active rebellion), and become "awakened" later.
Normally, I'd chafe at such terminology (Bright atheism!), but I think Hank's term is really what enlightened (to throw in another term) atheism is: dropping the scales from one's eyes and awakening from the dream.
Posted by: Rey Fox | April 10, 2007 12:51 PM
I began as, I think, more of a rebel atheist. I was 13 when I openly admitted my view. Over time, I became more and more "militant" as I began to see the world and the people in it for what they really were. Scared little children afraid to face life without the great big sky daddy. I am fully awakened and proud of it.
Posted by: Chaoswes | April 10, 2007 12:52 PM
Okay, okay. I'm an awakened atheist. Now can I pleeeeease go back to bed?
Posted by: David Livesay | April 10, 2007 12:52 PM
People come to atheism for a variety of reasons. I myself grew up without much supervision. My neighborhood was at once very diverse and also very homogeneous. It was ethnically very diverse, all first or second generation immigrants; Germans, Italians, Poles but also almost entirely catholic. I developed my own worldview without much pressure to see things in a particular way. Church was typically for weddings and funerals. I got a degree in math and as my worldview came into focus I could clearly state that I was an agnostic. Much later, as life's events began to weigh on me, I started taking some things personally and eventually realized that I didn't make a very good agnostic. I realized that thoughts like "what did I do to piss you off this time" were occurring to me far too often. I needed to give more thought to my worldview and realized that for my own mental health I had to move one way or the other. Having a belief in the supernatural really wasn't an option, and I realized that atheism requires a discipline of thought that helps me keep life's ups and downs in perspective. I do have to admit however, that the scene in "Forest Gump" where lieutenant Dan is on top of the mast shaking his fist at the sky and yells "you call this a storm" is still my favorite. It is difficult NOT to anthropomorphize fate when it seems to single you out. Rationality and discipline are the only solution.
So I don't think I fall into any of the categories. Perhaps I'm a born-again atheist. :)
Posted by: Henry Culver | April 10, 2007 12:53 PM
It's strange how many terms and concepts don't make it across the theist/non-theist boundary. Any heathen, whether unchurched or caught up with the wrong church who converts or is born again into the right congregation is lauded for his insight and considered a permanent fixture in the new surroundings. A convert from wrong church is regarded as an unfortunate loss by his homies but generally not seen to be recoverable. However, it is generally accepted that a converrt away from theism (awakened) will "eventually see the error of his ways" and return.
Posted by: Woodwose | April 10, 2007 12:58 PM
Another awakened atheist here, also once deeply involved in church crap. I have a theory that devout religiousity is often a stage on the trail to freedom. An inherently atheistic person is aware of the cracks in the facade and tries extra hard to cover them up before he gives up once and for all.
Posted by: aiabx | April 10, 2007 1:02 PM
I think it's pretty unlikely those categories are going to be entirely discrete. A so-called 'awakened' atheist who wakes up mid-adolescence, still stuck in a household where he's likely to get dumped on any number of ways for speaking his mind is gonna probably build up a healthy dose of rebelliousness as well. Conversely, it might more be the ones who've got other reasons for rebelling who are gonna bother to get confrontational about it at that stage. So: atheist because he had the sense to spot the poor quality of the apologiae upon which he was raised thus far, vocal because Mommy pissed him off in some other way entirely. Or atheist for the former reason again, rebellious because he finds his parents'/guardians' excuses for believing hopelessly, suspiciously poor, wonders if they even believe in any deep sense themselves or are just doing the socially easiest thing. Remember, bullshit can piss a person off, all on its own.
Either way, he could be a lot of both, and I'd hardly denigrate that rebellious streak in the latter case, as it's a perfectly reasonable reaction (and in the former case, as it could have come from anywhere, I can't comment on it at all).
And y'know, for all those reasons, I really wouldn't beat up the kid for posting that video, or assume we can know this is just about rebellion. I know it's startling thing to do, seems kinda mean, too... And yes, I say that knowing full well that (if it's not just acted from a script, and really is genuine) it would have almost had to have been a setup in one sense at least, camera waiting there for Mom to go off, as he must have known she would...
But if what's behind it is a family and/or religious community in which the standard bag of tricks is used to try to keep you in the fold--yeah, asking questions is okay sweety, really, but decide in the end you believe or you don't belong, decide in the end you believe or you're not one of us--if that's the scene, and the kid is realizing saying he believes something he just can't believe tastes like poision in his mouth, of course he's angry... And you don't even need a 16-year old's testosterone levels to get that angry...
I mean, I get a bit angry, thinking about the hypocritical cruelty that kinda of control mechanism represents, and I'm well past 16.
Posted by: AJ Milne | April 10, 2007 1:03 PM
From reading all the comments here, it seems that the majority of people who were raised with a degree of religion started doubting religious beliefs somewhere between their early teen years and early twenties. (That includes me, also.) Is there anybody here who has stories about people who became atheists later in life? Or is it an unfortunate reality that anyone who is religious well into their thirties or beyond is always going to be religious?
Posted by: abeja | April 10, 2007 1:05 PM
"Agnostic, because, well, *something* caused the universe to exist."
Why do you think that? Causation is a flow of information within the universe. There is no reason to apply this concept to the universe as a whole.
Posted by: Don Cox | April 10, 2007 1:06 PM
What kind of Atheist am I?
Simple.....
I am the kind that pays his bills and pays his taxes.
Posted by: Tony Popple | April 10, 2007 1:10 PM
tsg: "I'd be a cross between an inherited atheist and an awakened atheist." Me too. Except I was raised with a vaguely spiritual agnosticism and we went to a Unitarian Universalist Church. But there really wasn't far to go on the road to pure atheism. Other family members hold on to notions about spirit, grace, altie etc., but not me.
It's interesting that Hank Fox uses the freed slave analogy, just like Einstein did (quoted in the latest Time) but Einstein uses the comparison to criticize hardline atheists.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1607298,00.html
I suspect that those who were raised in a rigid fear-based faith tradition and then arduously climbed their way to atheism through intellectual and emotional will tend to be those who are most on fire about it, the most righteously indignant, and the most scornful of all religions, especially the one in which they were raised. (That's why Ibn Warraq and Wafa Sultan go on about Islam, Dawkins tends to direct his ire on Christianity and so on.)
Because I never believed in an interventionist sky god and Hell, such beliefs are not associated with personal trauma and betrayal. I'm not passionately animated about notions of deity and creation so much as I am about certain behaviors and mandates concerning those behaviors. By those criteria, I don't have a problem with many believers, nor do I accept the agendas of many non-believers.
Here's a potential problem: Let's say that Fox is right that Awakened Atheists are the least likely to become religious. In that case atheists raising their kids in the tradition of atheists, producing a generation milquetoast, low-commitment Inherited Atheists - the ones most vulnerable to converting to some faith. The struggle that Awakened Atheists (even the mild struggle of going from bland spirituality to true atheism) - their baptism by fire, if you will - experience cannot really be replicated in an atheist home. In fact, they may create the conditions to create Rebel Theists or even Revenge Theists ("Screw you, vast, indifferent cosmos, I will believe in God just to spite you!")
Posted by: Colugo | April 10, 2007 1:11 PM
Notice that the vast majority of responses are from Awakened Atheists? That's because almost all of us were brought up with religion, at least here in the USA.
That's why I laugh when these evangelical types want to cozy up and tell me about Jesus. Do they really think there is anything new they could tell me? Jesus loves you! Jesus died for your sins! Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus!
Like I'm going to say "Huh? Never heard of him."
Posted by: xebecs | April 10, 2007 1:12 PM
I'm an inherited apathist and awakened atheist. My dad despite being an inherited atheist from a well-educated family felt he should give us a minimal lip-service exposure to religion (a different church for a different Christmas or Easter service a total of about three times). So I'd say that his contribution was more of as an "apathist" than a true atheist. My mom, on the other hand, was a scared-the-beejesus-out-of awakened atheist who had gotten quite enough holy-rolling primitive Baptist brimstone, thank you very much. I guess that contrast reinforces the idea that a religious background can be better at inspiring a move towards atheism than a neutral secular one.
Posted by: Diego | April 10, 2007 1:25 PM
Awakened Atheist - but let me serve as a data point that shows the breadth of experience this term encompasses. It took me the better part of twenty years to complete the transition from devout Christian teenager to adult atheist. At the end of the process, I wasn't angry. I don't consider my religious upbringing to be lies and I don't think of religions in general as scams.
People have many quite complicated reasons for their religious beliefs, and while I don't accept any of them, I try not to let myself think I'm smarter or better than the believers. Doesn't always work.
Posted by: jackd | April 10, 2007 2:03 PM
"Awakened Atheist," that's me. Wow, that's the only way I can claim to be an early riser!
;-)
Posted by: Kristine | April 10, 2007 2:05 PM
abeja, I became an awakened atheist at 45. Although I never quire bought into the Catholic doctrine (or never really bothered to understand what it was asking of me), I didn't declare myself atheist until one of my co-workers (born-again) started giving me all of the reasons that faith (well, his anyway) is important. This was before I bothered searching the web for anything related to faith or religion. And he gave me all of it: Pascal's wager, 2nd law of thermodynamics, evolution cannot have happened because there are no transitional fossils, etc. It was only after hearing these arguments that I started searching for the answers.
Then, on July 25, 2003, I read Randi's weekly Swift, this week's offering consisting of an entire column devoted to his denial of religion. Seeing someone speak up so forcefully and logically about it started me on the path to non-belief. After about a year of convincing myself, I realized that atheism just makes the most sense. I chose not to believe, and nothing struck me dead!
It is ironic that a theist's bad arguments actually convinced me of atheism.
Posted by: TimO | April 10, 2007 2:06 PM
I like "Natural Atheist" instead of Inherited Atheist. Natural reflects the notion that everyone is really born an atheist and has to be indoctrinated into religion. Inherited makes it sound like atheism is a special case that some people are born with (while most people are born religious).
Natural atheist here. Never had a religious bone in my body.
Posted by: Bruce | April 10, 2007 2:17 PM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 10, 2007 2:26 PM
I'm going to have to go with the "Natural Atheist" term, too. My parents are definitely religious. I'm not, and I never have been. I started thinking about religion when I was about five years old, and even back then it didn't make much sense to me.
I really liked the language in my parents' King James, but I wasn't quite sure where dinosaurs (of which I was a big fan at the time) came in, and I thought something was awfully strange when I started looking up terms in the glossary in the back and found "Naked: In the sinful state of nature." Well, I'd been naked a lot, and didn't see anything particularly "bad" about it.
Religion really never made any sense to me, and it still doesn't. I suppose you could say I went through an inadvertent "Rebellious Atheist" phase in my mid- to late teens, when my parents decided for me that they were going to cure me of my "weird ideas" by dragging me to church on Sundays, but I flat-out refused to go: "No, I'm not going. How many times do I have to keep telling you? I don't believe in gods; religion is crap. Leave me alone." If they hadn't done that, it probably wouldn't have been an issue.
Posted by: Interrobang | April 10, 2007 2:35 PM
This was my experience too. Neither Inherited nor Awakened is appropriate for me. I was raised in a UCC church, and as a child I read lots of the Bible for fun, but it wasn't until I was about 12 that I figured out other people weren't in on the "pretend". It was a very disturbing discovery, and has only gotten more disturbing since then - growing up in New England, even the people that actually believed were super mellow and liberal about it. As an adult I've discovered people who really, really believe, and that was just about mind-blowing.
Posted by: nicole | April 10, 2007 2:37 PM
I would say that almost everyone starts off as an Inherited WhateverYourParentsWere. It's a fairly common pattern that, sometime between puberty and college, you start encountering different ideas, thinking for yourself a bit, examining your inherited whatever-ism, and wind up either adopting it as your own considered position, or rejecting it in favour of something else (which may be well-considered, or may be just rebellion).
By that model, Inherited Atheists certainly can grow into Awakened ones.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | April 10, 2007 2:42 PM
I'm definitely awakened. I was occassionaly rebellious (esp around age 13). Unfortunately never inherited.
But if I were to define a category, I would be an Intrinsic Athiest (just to piss off those folks who think it means the same as inherent)
Posted by: tony | April 10, 2007 2:42 PM
I guess this guy is a Category 2:
Posted by: quork | April 10, 2007 2:43 PM
it should be quite possible in principle to eliminate religion from a society
...it's been tried. France, China, Russia - specifics vary and the "no true try" cry will appear. But the point is that so far the data aren't too encouraging. The persistence of 'underground' beliefs throughout generations in the existence of the USSR seems especially pertinent.
On a separate note, the taxonomic label 'atheist' has always struck me as precisely analogous to 'invertebrate'. Both labels simply say what they aren't, and say nothing whatsoever about what they are, or about any commonality within the labeled group.
I'm a 5'8" atheist.
Posted by: thwaite | April 10, 2007 2:44 PM
Colugo: Here's a potential problem: Let's say that Fox is right that Awakened Atheists are the least likely to become religious. In that case atheists raising their kids in the tradition of atheists, producing a generation milquetoast, low-commitment Inherited Atheists - the ones most vulnerable to converting to some faith. The struggle that Awakened Atheists (even the mild struggle of going from bland spirituality to true atheism) - their baptism by fire, if you will - experience cannot really be replicated in an atheist home. In fact, they may create the conditions to create Rebel Theists or even Revenge Theists ("Screw you, vast, indifferent cosmos, I will believe in God just to spite you!")
I disagree. I am the product of "Awakened Atheist" upbringing, which is why I say I straddle between that and inherited. My parents, however, did not simply neglect to teach me any religion, but rather instilled in me the thought processes (critical thinking and skepticism) that allowed me to reject it for myself. I can't imagine any circumstances that would lead me to embrace religion[1] despite not having a religious upbringing to be awakened from. Hopefully I can teach my children the same skills and let them come to their own conclusions.
[1] short of actual proof of god, but then it's not religion anymore, is it?
Posted by: tsg | April 10, 2007 2:45 PM
It's not surprising that you wouldn't like the idea of categorizing atheists, given your tendency to lump members of other diverse groups together, but the fact is, there are a bunch of different kinds of atheists, and lumping them all together doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense. In fact, one of the great things about atheism is that because it isn't associated with one doctrine or set of doctrines, there are a whole hell of a lot of different kinds of atheists. I, personally, like the atheism of suspicion vs. atheism of skepticism distinction, because it captures differences that I think are important for practical and philosophical reasons, but there are many other types and sub-types. It won't even do to argue that by referring to someone as an atheist, all we're doing is highlighting the fact that the person doesn't believe in any supernatural agents (that's rarely all that people, including the folks around here, are doing when they refer to someone as an atheist, but for argument's sake...), because disbelief or lack of belief comes in many different flavors. Some atheists disbelieve because they feel like they have rational or scientific arguments against the existence of supernatural agents; some because they feel that belief without evidence is irrational or otherwise bad; some because they've arrived at disbelief through ethical considerations; some for some combination of these; and some for different reasons altogether (it'll piss mommy off; it's a way for white, middle-class, ex-Protestants to develop a group identity and an accompanying persecution complex; or whatever). In the end, "atheist" is a family-resemblanc concept that is used to describe a fairly large portion of the space that defines the set of all possible religious beliefs, and without modification -- skeptical atheists, positivist atheists, free-thought atheists, Dawkinsian atheists, Marxist atheists, rebel atheists, fundamentalist atheists, militant atheists, accommodating atheists, I-hate-God atheists, pomo atheists, etc., etc., etc. -- the term "atheists" really doesn't say much.
A good rule of thumb: if an individual thinks doing something that religious fundamentalists do, like say lumping all atheists together thereby allowing them to use silly or absurd behaviors by one or two atheists to criticize all atheists, is a good idea, you can pretty much assume that individual is wrong and isn't thinking very clearly.
Posted by: Chris | April 10, 2007 2:45 PM
Quoting myself (shamelessly): the taxonomic label 'atheist' has always struck me as precisely analogous to 'invertebrate'. -- coincidence? I think not!
Posted by: thwaite | April 10, 2007 2:53 PM
Steve LaBonne (comment 47) sees a useful parallel in drug addiction.
I see bipolar disoder as a nice parallel to religion and the purported value of religious experiences.
The bipolar sufferer has organic defects in the operation of social emotions, the ones that reward you when you do social good and punish you when you do social ill. Joy, shame, pride, and guilt are among the most familiar such emotions.
Now, consider what happens when the sufferer's emotional mechanism goes awry. She starts feeling bad for no good reason, which drives her to keep trying to correct her own behavior in hopes of stopping those bad feelings. All of her efforts are in vain, of course, since her bad feelings are independent of her actions.
Later the bad feelings pass on their own.
Later still, good feelings arrive. She strives to keep the good feelings going by doing whatever seems to bring on better feelings, and soon enough she is fully manic.
By the time the good feelings go away, she may be addicted to heroin, pregnant, HIV positive, in jail, and badly battered.
Her disorder drives her behavior to both extremes, neither of which is the least bit adaptive. Her emotions are misinforming her. Believing her feelings are real is a serious mistake.
Now look at religions and the good and bad feelings they can bring people. These are as purely maladaptive and destructive as manic-depression.
Posted by: Roy | April 10, 2007 2:53 PM
In contrast to Hank strict categories I think anyone who has thought seriously about the matter is an Aware Atheist, regardless of background.
IAAAAA - I am an Ardent Aware Atheist.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | April 10, 2007 2:56 PM
Another parallel to religion is gambling. Some people take to it, some don't. I found out when I was seventeen and overseas in a casino. I was losing money on a slot machine, but then came out ahead (about a US nickel ahead) and knew I had no taste for gambling. These many years later, still no taste for it.
Some people who try it get hooked.
But no one who has never tried it gets hooked. An important point.
Posted by: Roy, again | April 10, 2007 2:57 PM
catholic upbringing, awakened at age 12, public at 14.
it is interesting that we are using the terminology of "becoming" an atheist. it is more a "leaving" of theism. atheism isn't pursued, theism is fled. in the same way that i did not become a-santa, or a-monsters or a-magic when i discovered that they were not real.
if there was no theism virus, then we would all be natural atheists and be unaware of it.
Posted by: eewolf | April 10, 2007 3:01 PM
Definitely natural atheist (© Bruce) even though I regard myself as agnostic - see Russell's "Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?" for further details.
Being born in France probably made my choice easier...
Posted by: Quentin S. | April 10, 2007 3:02 PM
thwaite- I didn't mean to imply that it would be easy, or even necessarily a practical possibility (any more than eliminating drug addiction)- religious memes are notoriously virulent and self-reinforcing. I should have made it clearer that I was conducting a thought experiment to counter claims that some kind of built-in biological predisposition is the reason for the difficulty in eliminating religion. That doesn't follow even if such a predisposition exists.
However, we do know that societies can become much more secular than the US ca. 2007, and that many have (though as you note they have fallen well short of complete secularization). A similar development in the US would represent important progress.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 10, 2007 3:02 PM
Is there anybody here who has stories about people who became atheists later in life? Or is it an unfortunate reality that anyone who is religious well into their thirties or beyond is always going to be religious?
I will provide a counter example, as a 48-year-old recent atheist: In my teens I rebelled against the religion of my upbringing (secular liberal Jewish) by becoming a fundamentalist Christian. Unfortunately for my "salvation", I continued to think critically about Life, the Universe and Everything, resulting in a gradual slide through Christian liberalism to my eventual landing as an atheist (with agnostic leanings) a couple of years ago.
Posted by: Theo Bromine | April 10, 2007 3:16 PM
Which category would it be if you have never been religious? I would have to have been "asleep" to be awakened.
Posted by: Boosterz | April 10, 2007 3:34 PM
Inherited or Natural Atheist.
Posted by: Steve_C | April 10, 2007 3:37 PM
Labeling isn't so bad.
I mean, we all do it internally anyway.
The bad part is when you mistakenly share your internal labeling.
I guess not being able to modify your labeling, too. That's bad.
Who hasn't had a "Why, I guess so-and-so isn't an uptight right wing bastard after all" kind of thought?
That's an example of labeling, and changing it. No?
Posted by: Will Von Wizzlepig | April 10, 2007 3:45 PM
I would say that I'm a Natural Atheist. My parents are rather blasé about religion, it's not clear just what they believe, but were not fans of organized religion as we grew up. That didn't stop us from going to church every Sunday until I was eight or nine. We did it because my grandparents wanted us to, and would take us out to eat after church if we went. My parents were poor and struggling and this was usually the only time we'd ever get to eat out, so they took the bait.
Even with this background (and I never knew the bribery part of our going to church until later in life), the hook never set. I never remember, even after a year of Lutheran kindergarten, thinking this whole Jesus thing made any sense. I never bought it, at all. As I got older and went through adolescence, I had my periods of wondering if any of the stuff was true including tarot cards, astrology, Buddhism (a lot of atheists seem to have a Buddhist period), ghosts, etc... Every single time, it just never made sense and so I couldn't buy into any of it, even if I wanted to.
For a long time was a Religious-Moderate Atheist. I bought into the idea that what people believed was their business, and we should be tolerant of others' beliefs. I have since left that behind and more closely (though not completely) agree with Harris and Dawkins (among others) about the inherent dangers of religion, any religion. In this respect I am an Awakened Atheist, but I awakened not to my atheism, but more to my awareness of the dangers of religious thinking in general.
So, count me as a Natural Atheist, with a touch of Awakened Atheist as well.
ANF
Posted by: AbsolutelyNoFaith | April 10, 2007 3:45 PM
I tend to separate people into 2 categories. Those who have constructed their own worldview and those who haven't. I have known people both religious and non-religious who have spent a lot of time thinking about what they personally believe to be the truth of existence and to a single person they have all been thoughtful and interesting people. I have also known several people who have accepted a framework on which to hang their beliefs from someone else whether that is another family member or a church or a talk show host. These people, almost always tend to be belligerent and closed minded and a chore to talk with. This latter group does not exclude atheists. When having a discussion of my beliefs I like to tell the fable of the 3 people who found themselves at the gates of heaven in front of St. Peter. One, an atheist, another a priest and the third a fundie. The atheist is pleasantly surprised that he was wrong, the priest is somewhat smug and the fundie is p*ssed that the other two are there. ;)
Posted by: Henry Culver | April 10, 2007 3:57 PM
I guess it's not surprising that you wouldn't understand my reluctance, or would invent a completely wrong rationale for me, since I only plainly stated my reasoning in the very first sentence. I appreciate the diversity of origin that Hank mentioned, and I know that there is a diversity of strategies employed. My only problem is the one you fall victim to: that tendency to rank one kind of atheist as "better" than another (we all know how much you dislike certain kinds, you know), and eventually to use that to decide that so-and-so is No True Atheist. It does not mean that I think atheists or theists are each some kind of clone army.
Posted by: PZ Myers | April 10, 2007 3:59 PM
I just saw a documentary about Jonestown on PBS. Moving.
Posted by: Chi | April 10, 2007 4:03 PM
Is there anybody here who has stories about people who became atheists later in life?
Also here, slightly after 30. Partly from being a slow learner, partly because the indoctrination was so deep. It's difficult to describe the hold an idea can have on you, no matter how ridiculous, when it's been drummed in since birth by people you trust and respect.
Posted by: Carlie | April 10, 2007 4:05 PM
Did Chris from Muddling Memory just do a drive-by over here? Maybe he'll post about the thrills he got taking a thwack at PZed's manly phallic traffic.
Or something.
Posted by: stogoe | April 10, 2007 4:13 PM
Steve L: I concede that greater secularism is certainly more feasible than complete secularism. The way we'll get there is probably as an incidental side-effect of some other dynamic, somewhat as I vaguely understand near-universal literacy arose from urbanization. (An alternative scenario, I suppose, is that the war in the middle east goes horribly wrong (more wrong) in ways which highlight religious apocalyptic visions, and that the political backlash against its Christian/Republican supporters here gets very intolerant...but I digress.)
The addiction analogy is suggestive. It's possible to envisage total prohibitions on addictive drug exposure which wouldn't unduly limit freedom of life experiences, although mandarins such as Freud and Adous Huxley might object. Wouldn't exposure to religion as part of religious studies in a challenging curriculum have to be prohibited as part of eliminating religion? Such religious studies will find a subset of predisposed students in which the religion takes root, I'd wager. But prohibiting such studies seems a large price in intellectual freedom. Dunno - way too hypothetical.
Posted by: thwaite | April 10, 2007 4:23 PM
Hmm. Cross between inherited (parents never really bothered with church or talked much about it), awakened (I eventually realized that some of the fantasy worlds I read about where a whole hell of a lot more interesting than one in which any human invented God, especially the Christian one, would ever be) and sort of revenge as well (if someone showed up, apparently miracles or not, and convincingly claimed to be the Christian God, I would spit in his face, because its damn hard to imagine how **we** could have screwed up his supposed wisdom and dogma so badly through the centuries unless we either actually got it right and he is a sadistic lunatic, or he is so fracking incompetent that he makes ID advocates look skilled and rational by comparison).
And to this comment:
Sorry, but the reason the "no true try" cry appears is that unlike those people that have tried that sort of thing in the past we recognize that, "Just say no to religion!", stickers a