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I, too, was raised in a religion-free environment. The longer I live, the more I am convinced in the extraordinary nature of our minds to define reality. At t

• foobiekr 5y ago
  No, I'm still an atheist. There's no reason to believe in god nor any evidence that we define reality through our beliefs and experiences (and a lot of evidence that this has zero impact at all, a la the entire pool of continuously disappointed "The Secret" devotees). I'm just saying that I think there is a sort of need in most people, probably an accident of evolution, even one that has some positive fitness value due to second order effects, to have something religion shaped. Atheists like me basically helped create the mess we were in by helping to destroy the more mainstream religions thereby creating an opportunity for straight up crazypants stuff to emerge with properties that are harder to deal with (nothing is written down, nothing is consistent - Q) by pointing out the flaws and obvious falseness. We acted as a selection function for an even more terrible set of ideas. In a lot of ways the current situation is very similar to the second great awakening in the early 19th century which spawned a number of cult-like sects of Christianity.