Sorry, I must have missed the part where you declared the results from such experiment… I still can’t see them… could you point me to them?
“significant”? LOL, no!
Born in a muslim country: 99%+ remain muslim,
Raised by practicisng christians: 90%+ remain christian
Raised by jews: 99%+ remain jew (even if they call themselves secular jews)
(Putting all christian and muslims sects in one bag for each of these major religions as I concur that some people change denomination, but not the overall underlying religion).
Raised by non-believers: can become whatever their love interests are.
That’s why parents asking for Baptism in the Catholic Church are asked if they intend to raise their children in the Catholic faith. Still happens that children wander away from the Church but it’s the parents duty to educate and keep them in the faith.
I’ve spent quite some time on another forum, where I’ve heard the stories of those who leave the faith, those who need to remain closeted because their parents wouldn’t accept it, those who I and others must warn against posting on that forum, because they live in countries where atheists are sentenced to death…
In the end, it’s not the same numbers…
I’m curious, what countries execute atheists? Are these middle eastern? I’d sincerely like to know as I’m not aware of them.
I’ve also talked to many people of my age and younger, from my country, a traditionally catholic country in southern Europe, Portugal - you may know it from Fátima - and most couldn’t care less for religion… the people who were parents in the 70’s- 80’s didn’t pay much attention to the religious upbringing of their kids, around here… this is the result, and I can’t say it’s a bad one… time will tell.
Ah the certainty of youth and conviction of the elderly!
You may have heard of a famous philosopher, Antony Flew… he too converted, from atheism to deism.
On the other hand, you may have heard of Stephen Hawking, who said recently:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”
He added: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”
He didn’t change his mind.
Many other physicists and scientists and philosophers didn’t change their minds… or rather did change them from some belief to none, as they grew in understanding and awe of the world around them.
Why should I take the example of the few who do change to become believers?
Einstein said the God does not play dice, a “clear indication of some belief in the existence of the deity”, huh?.. Or just a jest of his part, as a feeble attempt to deride quantum mechanics as they were developing and he failed to acknowledge that the world actually worked like described. Einstein is on record as claiming to be agnostic:
“an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being”.
Not only scientists, but I could even draw your attention to Bart Ehrman who started his studies of the New Testament as a strong believer and now claims to be an atheist… even as he continues working in that field, which is astonishing, to a degree.
Then you have Matt Dillahunty who was actually “Raised Southern Baptist, Dillahunty sought to become a minister. His religious studies, instead of bolstering his faith as he intended, led him to no longer believe in Christianity and, eventually, all religions.”
There are examples of people going one way and there are examples of people going the other way. I didn’t even mention all the people who convert to islam or any other religion, like Tom Cruise… -.-’
So what?
The fact that people change their minds proves nothing with regards to the actual existence of any deity… it proves that people change their minds.
The divorce rate should be enough for us to get that result!
