The Rogue
The rogue most likely grew up in a religious family (or came to religion at some point), conforming to the religious community and experiencing and expressing religion with sincere conviction. A combination of compelling atheist arguments and internal self-doubt led the rogue to abandon his/her religious convictions, often with a lot of hurt feelings and resentment. Rogues tend to become the most outspoken activists after having seen first-hand how much damage religion can cause.
One difference is that there arenāt a lot of hurt feelings and resentment associated with my Christian past. I mostly have fond memories of my believing days. My apostasy was intellectually driven, and the process was drawn out mostly because I wasnāt eager to leave.
For anyone whoās interested, I described my deconversion experience a while back in four comments at the Uncommon Descent blog, starting here.
Yes! I have a lot of familiarity with LCMS not only because I visited such churches at times but because I was often invited to lecture on LCMS seminary campuses (and also to their Association of LCMS Greek and Hebrew Professors conference.)
There is no end to the multiplication of fascinating threads on this forum.
I was reluctant during the transition ā after all, Christianity was all I had ever known ā but Iāve been quite happy as an atheist and I donāt long for the comforts of religion.
(I see you dubbed me as āRogue Athiestā in my icon. Could you just shorten that to āAtheistā, and correct the spelling from āieā to āeiā? Thanks.)
I like itāexcept it almost implies that a typical atheist has horns. In my experience, very few have horns. (I would tolerate a smile-emoticon here despite my hesitation to actually use an emoticon.)
I canāt help but think about the term peaceful atheist----but it has similar implications concerning unfortunate stereotypes about atheists.
[By the way, the key word in keithsā suggested term almost inspired me to make a bad joke about the current allegations concerning Lawrence Krauss. Fortunately, I successfully resisted the temptation.]
I considered that, but āatheist without horns, contrary to the stereotypeā didnāt have the same ring to it. And Joshua clearly wanted something pithier. He even shortened āatheist without hornsā to āhornless atheistā!
I suppose Iāll leave it to @keiths tell other atheists why their default status is āhorned.ā
So, what type of horns are we talking here? As in āevilā devil horns? Or āaggressiveā bull horns? If itās the later, @Patrick might let his out at times. Honestly, maybe I have once our twice too .
In the US, at least, my fellow atheists donāt need to be told. They already know. In 1958, according to a Gallup poll, only 18% of American voters were willing to vote for a qualified atheist candidate for president. That number has improved over the years, but it was still only 54% by 2012.
That put atheists at the bottom of the heap, behind gays/lesbians (68%) and Muslims (58%).
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