Why do some people assume that those who abandon the religion they were raised with are simply "rebelling"?

Question

If no one ever stopped to consider "Hmm...maybe they were wrong about this, this or this..." (about any matter, not just religion) then we would probably wouldn't have the knowledge we have today.

Answer 1

Part one.

The ones who think that way typically never think of questioning anything. Call it blind faith. Many people simply put ill-fitting labels on what they do not understand. You will find blind faith in Atheism just as much as in Christianity.

Part two.

Absolutely true. When did saying "keep things as they are" bring progress? Questioning is why I went from Southern Baptist to staunch atheistic Agnostic. Continuing to question was why I rejected that as flawed and embraced the Baha'i Faith. Took about fifteen years, though.

Part three.

It was blatant to me you were not generalizing. But people who do generalize usually are the ones with minds most closed and generally less intelligent. I found your question unbiased, interesting and intelligent and a great contrast from some of the answers.

Faith, is it self hypnosis?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Are you certain there is a God?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

What Kind of Religious Customer are You?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

For Christians open to serious debate only., Origin of god?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

(This one got me blocked by the asker) Do atheists need to remember that all religion is the enemy to which no mercy should be shown?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

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God has given man the eye of investigation by which he may see and recognize truth. He has endowed man with ears that he may hear the message of reality and conferred upon him the gift of reason by which he may discover things for himself. This is his endowment and equipment for the investigation of reality. Man is not intended to see through the eyes of another, hear through another's ears nor comprehend with another's brain. Each human creature has individual endowment, power and responsibility in the creative plan of God. Therefore depend upon your own reason and judgment and adhere to the outcome of your own investigation; otherwise you will be utterly submerged in the sea of ignorance and deprived of all the bounties of God. ... We must not be content with simply following a certain course because we find our fathers pursued that course. It is the duty of everyone to investigate reality, and investigation of reality by another will not do for us.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 76)

Time for world peace? Time for the Baha'i Faith!

The Baha'i Faith, uniting the world one heart at a time.

Answer 2

Some people did start out leaving because they were rebelling, some didnt.

Why do some atheists assume all religious people stay in their religion simply because they have been brainwashed into it and havent actually stopped and considered it for themselves????

You cant really lump all people into one set of motivations for similar actions.

Answer 3

What it says is that your parents were very bad examples. If you disagree, then you explain why they weren't able to show you the love of God.

If you say there's no love of God to show, then I rest my case.

Answer 4

I am christian ad I don't believe that people rebel when they stray from their teachings. I do believe that there are alot of idiotic people in the world. so to anwser your question, ignorrance.

Answer 5

If you do not blindly follow my blind belief then you are blind and rebellious.

Answer 6

A soul should seek their own beliefs that they feel secure with, not ones imposed on them by others. Otherwise, they would be trusting someone else with their soul. The bible clearly commands each of us to "work out your own salvation" as we see here -

Philippians 2:12

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Answer 7

Because the people who love you and reared you never give up on you.  I'm assuming they are who you are speaking of.  I don't know you.

Edit:  Okay, so you're generalizing about other people generalizing and it's not even about you?

But what is the relevance?  Any assumption like this is likely to be right at least SOME of the time, anyway.  It is certainly more valid than assuming that ALL Christians who were reared in Christian homes are brainwashed.

Answer 8

because they believe that the religion they grew up in revels the truth about God..

Answer 9

It's cuz they don't have the *secret knowledge about life* us atheists have.

Why were us atheists cursed with the blessed evolutionary mutation of having superior brainpower, why???

We know everything about life!  We 'get it'!  When is everyone else going to realize that???

I'm Atheist!

Answer 10

Most of them think we (atheists) are possessed by Satan; thus the rebelling against "God".

*

I say... ABSOLUTE RUBBISH.

Answer 11

There are two types of people who leave their church: those who know what the church is about and leave it for an informed reason, and those who don't.

You're probably right, in that if we didn't have folks like Martin Luther, we would not have the advances in theology we have today, but in general, people leave the church because they never got it in the first place.

I read the comments of folks who like to style themselves as atheists, and they sound very much like they had almost no idea what their religion was about to begin with.

People hear all the time from these fundamentalist blow-hards, and they think that's all there is. Well, it's not so. There are lots of us Christians out there who are not anything like those fundamentalists. In fact, many of us find the comments of fundamentalists profoundly embarrassing, as they often simply don't sound the way a person with a real relationship with Christ ought to sound. I often hear a lot of anger and hatred

Often when a person says they tried Christianity and found it wanting, the truth is, they never really were able to try it in the first place, because the folks they were dealing with were toxic. They picked up on that and figured it's obviously true of all Christians.

Answer 12

Because they think that they are the Truth, and just can't accept other points of view. This goes for just about any religion, by the way. They don't take into consideration the huge amount of thought, time, and internal reflecting goes into a choice like that. No choice like that can be made lightly, contrary to what they would like to think.

Answer 13

Especially with being raised in a religion, you are made to believe. You have to, because everyone else does.

For some, religion is a way of life. They believe that their religion must be lived by others and those whom are close to them. Obviously, I say some, because many just profess to have a belief and do some of the leg work involved when it is necessary.

Often this leads to disowning, breaking up of relationships with family members, etc,..

Answer 14

Well, a lot of people from my Church rebell as teenagers and repent as adults, so it's easy to see it as "just a phase".  I imagine this is incredibly condescending sounding to those people as well as those who have sincerely left the religion.  This is my best guess anyway.

Answer 15

All generalizations are bad (irony intended). But yeah, that's just another generalization. But sometimes it's true. Sometimes people are rebelling, but sometimes they're not. I was raised a secular Jew and became Christian when I was 30 and it was not out of rebellion, so I know that's not always the case. Then again, some people do it because they want to defy authority and when the authorities are their parents and a religion, they abandon it. I wonder how many atheist's children end up adopting a religion...

By the way, when I was talking about generalizations I was referring to the idea that abandoning religion is just rebelling. I wasn't saying you were making generalizations. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Answer 16

i would like to know that too.

i was raised as a presbyterian christian and when i was around 12 or 13, i just stopped believing everything they were shoving down my throat. plus the people at my church offended my culture and ethnicity (im Japanese and they told us that judo and karate were evil because they required the presence of unnatural spirits). i just stopped believing in everything they were telling us. it was like i woke up and grew a conscience.

i remember as soon as i stopped going to church, my mum had a panic attack and all sorts of people from the church came to our house trying to convince me back into christianity, which really only pushed me further from it.

im so glad that i grew a religous conscience at such a young age, i think that if i didnt leave the church when i did i would be a completely unrecognisable person.

Answer 17

Maybe they can't handle the fact they may have been wrong.