A Random Wondering

I have just started reading “Why I Became An Atheist” by John W. Loftus and came across this in the forward by Edward T. Babinski.

“Again, speaking as someone who has himself spent years of his former Bible-believing life trying to hold on to every word of the Bible “without error,” I wonder today just what conservative Christians do believe, or even if they themselves really know.  There are probably a lot more unspoken doubts going on in the Christian world than anyone cares to personally relate.  For instance, do conservative Christians imagine a literal talking serpent was “the shrewdest beast of the field God created,” but then God cursed it to “go on its belly”?…Do they all believe in the story of the forbidden edible fruit and that all the natural causes of suffering on earth and throughout the cosmos – including volcanoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, as well as diseases, poisonous microbes, and insects – were all simply the result of one human couple’s dis-obedient hungering for a piece of fruit?  Do they believe a woman named Eve was cloned directly from Adam’s rib?  Do Christian apologists really doubt none of those old mythological tales out of Israel’s primeval history in Genesis?  Do they plead that Lot’s wife must have indeed turned into a literal pillar of salt……Do they accept the true scientific age of the earth, regardless of what the “ages of the Patriarchs” adds up to, and regardless of the fact that Genesis states that the first light of the entire cosmos was created simply to accommodate “days/nights, evenings/mornings” as measured on one tiny planet, the earth?” 

Reading that passage brought to mind the following quote from Saint Aquinas:

“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”

The conjunction of these two quotes got me wondering – are the Christians who become atheists more likely to be of the literalist type or of the more liberal persuasion?

You could argue that the combination of holding a literalist belief in the Bible and believing that if the entire Bible is not literally true then it is worthless makes that person’s beliefs more brittle and thus more likely to shatter if faced with evidence that the Bible can be and is wrong on several subjects. 

Conversely, you could argue that those who hold a more liberal view – say a person who believes the Bible to be inspired by God but written by men with all of their individual biases as well as the limitations of their specific culture and society – has already taken a few steps towards the atheist position and so does not have so far to travel to finish the journey.  Further, they have shown themselves more open to evidence and reason than their literalist brethren and so, possibly, display a willingness to follow said evidence and reason no matter where it leads them. 

Personally I had a mixed background.  My church as I was growing up, United Methodists, leaned towards the more liberal inspired by God position in regards to the Bible.  My parents tended more towards the literalist position but were not dogmatic about it.  I took my parents position at first. 

However I soon gave up a literalist view of the bible as being against reason and evidence and, more importantly to me at the time, demeaning to God.   I remained a liberal Christian for several years before finally following the evidence and reason to my current position of atheism. 

This would seem to indicate that perhaps liberal Christians are more likely to become atheists than literalists.  Of course, there is the fact that both my parents beliefs have changed over the years so that both now believe in the inspired model of the Bible instead of the literalist one.  Despite this though they both remain committed and devout Christians and do not doubt either God or Jesus. 

Also, many former Christians writing about how they became an atheist, such as John W. Loftus and Dan Barker, started out as literalists. 

I know of no good research into this question.  Which, of course, leaves me pondering in vain the question of which type of Christian is most likely to become an atheist, a literalist or an inspirationist?  Or is it a wash?  

 

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