My brother believes in God again after having his first child
\Me and my younger brother have very little in common and both of us grew up in a typical Christian American household. We went to church a lot before we started school, but it stopped before Kindergarten. However when we were younger, for his age, he was usually very rational and mature. In fact he apparently got into atheism before I did, despite growing up with my grandparents who were devout Catholics.
He was around 18 when he told me about how he didn't believe in God when I actually was only just then starting to understand and get atheism.
However about a year ago he had impregnated his long time girlfriend, which was not something he planned. But he told me he believed abortion was murder. Some months after this, we had a get together at a restaurant and my mother brought up church. My brother's response to it was how he wanted to 'get back into church'. I figured he was doing this just to make my mother content.
However I later brought this up to him and he told me that he was being honest about wanting to get into church. I asked him why, and he went on about how he 'knew there was a god/angels/miracles/jesus' after his kid was born. Perhaps that whole "Childbirth is a miracle" thing, but really enough to send him back into irrationality?
I just found it odd.
Have any of you ever felt something like that when you had your own first child? Or perhaps a dramatic (probably positive) life changing experience?
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I thought that the first birth was amazing to see. I mean, you see them on video of other people, but when you see it up close and person it can be pretty exciting. After the first one though things get less intense. It's like a drug which is great the first time then you are never at the same high as the first time.
Other than that I didn't really think "oh there must be a god because the birth was so amazing". It's just part of nature. Sperm. Egg. 9 months. Then the baby pops out.
I suspect that your brother was already borderline with his atheist views. I went through those stages where I was borderline with my belief. After decades of brainwashing by the catholic church it took me a long time to sort out the lies from my life.
How much study did you, or your brother do on theist arguments and atheists counter arguments? If all he and you did was simply stop going to church. thats not really saying how deep your education of the topic is. Simply hanging out with other atheists isn't much either.
My journey started in the early 90s, I didn't call myself an atheist until the late 90s, but I really didn't educate myself until I got online in 01. Prior to 01 I would have been easy pickings for a slick theist. But. since then I spend almost every day reading theists arguments, and have kept up with authors like Dawkins and Victer Stinger. Not to mention all the terms and arguments I have learned over the past decade. It wasn't merely passive "I don't believe". I think if that is all someone does they are unarmed and are asking for trouble.
I see his "re-conversion" strictly according to your account, as an emotional reaction to a exciting and scary event. When I say "scary" having a child is a lifetime thing and the flood of emotions at that prospect can get to some.
My point being, I have not met an "atheist" as deeply educated on what most atheists I know, know, that is likely to fall back into a belief.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
He got emotional. Babies will do that to you. The problem is that he let his emotions overwhelm his reason.
Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html
I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.
Childbirth (and death) is, IMNSHO, too much of a rationality-killer to reverse easily. Quite simply... it changes most healthy people into healthy people with a sentimental bent that can only be explained as "evolutionary leftovers".
Even with parental instinct put aside momentarily, your sibling has no doubt been preoccupied with pondering what the next 18 (or so) years will be like. How rationally he does so is a detail best left to the imagination, from where I'm sitting, because there's no reliable means to gather data on it.
With the near-death of my dad, I didn't know how to feel. I still don't. Genuine gratitude has been forthcoming... only, I don't feel predisposed to offer some sort of bullshit "holy praise" to anything imaginary. This either renders me a latent, borderline schizophrenic who treats the imaginary as reality, or who genuinely feels grateful towards the doctors and nurses (and, yes... his fellow AA members) that helped my dad take appropriate measures of recovery.
I'm also not as inclined to be as cocky and self-assured as I once was, and also inclined to be a little more forthcoming with sentimental thoughts rather than "haha sux to be them" cynical thinking towards much of my 'species', and all of 'it's' infinite faults of character.
No divine bs needed for it. Just Upper-Middle class good fortunes while living next to a "medical hub". (UAB)
Intense moments of positive fortune happen, and they don't require a spiritual or "divine" explanation. Alas, I think many atheists have to accept that "boys will be boys" and that religion/theism is mostly a choice and nothing else of merit.
When I have kids, and I (presumably) pass whatever 'skeptic genes' on to them, I will casually 'proselytize' that religion is primarily an 'artifact' of human culture, that it is exclusively a question of participation or nonparticipation, that they should NEVER participate under peer pressure, that "G(o)d2" is a "fairy tale for adults" and that if they really want a "fairy tale" that badly that should at least attempt to BE the "fairy tale" first before trying to borrow someone else's "fairy tale".
I'm guessing the skepticism it would create would be... rather profound.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
We've been atheists for a while. I was actually only pointing out we stopped going to church before school to mention we didn't go to it all that often
Is his wife religious? If so, she might think it important to raise their kid religious, and that could be pressuring him.
Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html
I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.
actually she's an atheist
Just because you believe in God does not make you a Chrisitan. Belief must be defined for Satan and the demons also believe in God.
So what is this belief you speak of? please define or ask your brother.
Try not to be a Christianophobe and just be happy for him. Isn't that the atheist thing to do? lol.
You guys are such hypocrites.
Respectfully,
Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).
A Rational Christian of Intelligence (rare)with a valid and sound justification for my epistemology and a logical refutation for those with logical fallacies and false worldviews upon their normative of thinking in retrospect to objective normative(s). This is only understood via the imago dei in which we all are.
Respectfully,
Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).
And you are a troll and a stalker.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Brian,
Since you have virtually no training in logic or argument, you constantly resort to ad hominem abuses. Every single post to me is an ad hominem among some other logical fallacies of distraction. The distraction is, well, you're an uneducated dummy. But i love you.
Your wife may be smart with 2 degrees, but she married down.
Respectfully,
Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).
A Rational Christian of Intelligence (rare)with a valid and sound justification for my epistemology and a logical refutation for those with logical fallacies and false worldviews upon their normative of thinking in retrospect to objective normative(s). This is only understood via the imago dei in which we all are.
Respectfully,
Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).
Just a minor update. He hasn't gone to church or even bothered. I brought it up with him and he doesn't even remember.
I guess his emotions got the beetter of him.... for a few weeks.
;P