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Originally Posted by SecretMethod70
I think what abaya is saying is that people who are more well-off have the luxery of reading more and learning more things beyond what they are taught in school and taught by their family/religion.
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Yeah, Smeth had it right here. Sorry, hadn't checked in on this thread in a while. But yeah, I am not saying that by some law, poor = religious and rich = atheist, not at all (agreeing with Baraka_Guru on that point... obviously, there are very clear exceptions to the rule, particularly in mainstream America).
However, I do think Marx had a point with his "religion is the opiate of the masses" line... and since much of my theoretical foundation in my studies comes from cultural materialism (traced back to Marx, in part), I am biased towards thinking that many (not all) people who have less material resources have far less time and money to sit back and chew their spiritual cud... at least, as opposed to those of us who can afford to go to university and sit around shooting the spiritual shit over a joint with our deep-thinking buddies. This is especially true in developing and/or traditional societies, I think, where tribe and family are much more intertwined with faith and confessional identity (and thus much more rigid) than they are in the West. That is, when one lacks financial and human capital, one finds it in social capital... and where else to find social capital more regularly than at your local church, mosque, temple, what have you?
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Originally Posted by ShaniFaye
atheism is a "harder route" how does that work? I would think it would be far easier for a person to say....blah blah blah..doesnt exist....I wont believe in anything thats not tangible...Im not accountable for anything when I die because there is nothing after death..etc
how is that "hard"? I dont see where that requires "strength" at all.
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Well Shani, I'm not even a full-on atheist, but I have to say that for me it's been extremely difficult to give up my belief in God. I was a full-on evangelical up until about 7 years ago, and every step of the way I wished that God would give me belief back again. But everything was leading me away from it, and it was a mental and social struggle on a regular basis for me. The church and my belief in God had been pillars for me through a very difficult time in my life, and they had become part of my identity. When I gave that up, I had to basically start over from scratch in terms of figuring out who I was... God had been so central to my life, I didn't know where to start again.
So, I guess for me, losing faith was actually MUCH more difficult than gaining it, the latter which came almost naturally to me... having faith was not hard for me, a long time ago. I lost a lot of friends by walking away from the church, and a big part of who I was. It was not easy for me, and still isn't. I wish I could run back to church and sing my favorite songs and shake everyone's hand again... but I just can't.