One lunch during my senior year of high school, my friend (who we'll call John) got in a argument over the origins of life. I was on evolution's side, John was arguing for a literal interpretation of the creation story in the book of Genesis. What was confusing to me was that John never really showed that side of his religious beliefs before.
John seemed like a contradiction to me. He wanted to be a doctor and was in Anatomy/Physiology with me. He is a very liberal person in the political sphere, siding with Democrats in everything and bashing those conservatives who bring religion into their politics. I, the atheist, had taken as many science courses as possible in high school at this point, and while I wasn't as a polar politically, I definitely shared the same reasons to support liberal politicians.
I thought John was a lot like me, and I didn't think he would have such a different stance on something so core to biological studies as evolution. I was shocked to learn he believed the Earth to only be about 10,000 years old, and that dinosaurs walked side by side with humans. At the time, I was very flustered. I felt he was being ignorant or trying to get under my skin. But I could tell he truly believed that the Earth was created in seven days by God. Eventually, I asked him more about it. I wanted to learn where his beliefs originated from. It turns out, his dad has always had a literal interpretation of the Bible.
When I take a look at myself, I realize my beliefs are vastly influenced by my family. My sister and her husband are both atheist, my older brother is a skeptic, and my mother has always been extremely open minded. Even though I was raised Catholic in a Catholic school system, I never had a strong belief in the Catholic Church. When I think about John, I realize other things follow this trend. His mother is vegetarian, and he chose to become a vegetarian. His father is a musician, and he took it upon himself to learn how to play the guitar.
I realize now how influential our parents and family are in our development of belief systems. Will John's beliefs ever make sense to me? No, probably not. But I can understand where it comes from. I used to think most religious people were simply followers, and not free thinkers. But I now have to wonder, am I really a "free-thinker" myself?
I completely understand your viewpoint and where you came from, I can respect that. I also see how you could tend to think that religious people are simply followers. As a teenager I was able to attend a lecture by a former atheist who believed in evolution. Through science and the Bible, as he explained, he came to a logical conclusion in his own mind that God was real and the Bible was true. He went on to explain a theory of "creation-evolutionism" (don't quote me on that exact name) where God created the earth over the time span of 7 days, but he interpreted the "days" as "eras". These eras could be millions of years per each biblical "day". This theory allows a mingling of science and religion that I believe has always been present. Besides the theory stated above, another example is the apostle Luke who is believed to be a medical doctor. Medical doctors tend to be very logical thinkers and Luke was also a devoted follower of Jesus.
ReplyDeleteI simply must say it, you're last sentence on "free thinking" truly made me think about society and cultural influences that affect us all. I (also atheist) had always assumed I was more of a free-thinker than many religious people I know. I had always assumed they were simply followers of a certain belief system, whereas I was "enlightened." Upon reading your post however, I realize that we are truly all affected by culture as a whole and specifically the subculture of family and friends. We are all shaped by the events and people in our life and it is important to remember that. I honestly feel as though understanding that fact makes us all closer to true "enlightenment." ...That being said, we are all influenced by the classes subculture into making that "enlightened" observation.
ReplyDeleteI think that we are kind of in the same boat on this one. When I was younger I went to church and all that jazz, but a long story later I stopped believing. Now most of the explanations that I give to myself as to why I don't believe in god are from other, more famous, atheists. I may follow one side, however I know that neither side has the absolute truth yet, but no one does.
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