My mom, a liberal who has been having trouble in her Mormon church and my sister’s fundie baptist church, told me she might “come over to the atheism side soon.”
I know she's been angry with her bishops treating her like she's "causing a stir" by being a woman who is asking questions. I know it sickened her to visit my sister's church to have the Pastor and his flock praise Jesus for the death-bed conversion of a gay man who denied the man he loved for Jesus Christ (probably the most sick, cruel thing I've ever heard of, but nothing more than I'd expect from a True Christian).
That being said, anger and disagreement is not a reason to "come over to our side," and as much as I'd like more and more people to shed the bonds of superstitious belief, I had to tell her she can't "come to our side" yet.
I told her that questioning religion is good and it opens doors to ask questions you normally can't ask at church and that she should look into skepticism and free-thought. She still believes in God, but I think she may be wondering how to define God without a church telling her what to think. For me, this question was in the forefront of my mind when I went searching for the nature of my creator and ultimately found He wasn't there.
It was skepticism that guided me along the way. If I heard something for the existence of God, I looked up the argument against it. If I heard something that dismissed God, I read the counterpoints of theists and philosophers who believed. YouTube has an amazing group of people who make videos that ask the tough questions in simple and clear language.
Atheism isn't something I chose, it's a conclusion I came to after carefully investigating claims about gods. Skepticism was the map.
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