In my opinion, it takes a lot of courage to abandon your parents' faith as is, let alone to jeopardise your career by doing so too.
Here's an additional link to an interview of Jon Steingard by Seth Andrews:
[thethinkingatheist.com]
Wonderful news! Great to have some of that these days. Ever interested in deconversion stories as I am, as a result or your post I clicked on a youtube video about the person in question above, Jon Steingard, and discovered that 2 other high profile religious leaders had recently left the faith (Josh Harris and Marty Simpson). Hallelujah!
Amen
Saw it, I subscribe to the thinking atheist.
I enjoy listening to Seth, he's calming somehow.
I remember this story from a month or so ago. In this country, it takes courage for anybody to come out publicly as an Atheist. I am guessing that he never believed or was always a doubter. I think most people are doubters. I have no evidence of that. Just doesn't make sense that all these people really believe this. Many of them say they're Christians because society had told them they're supposed to be. If we all came out strong and stood up to all the religious bullies, they'd lose a lot of "followers"
Like I say every chance I get, I don't like the word agnostic, because it's usually only applied to non-believers when it should equally apply to believers.
@barjoe I mostly agree. But I am very sure of the non-existence of specific gods, such as the God of the Bible or Koran. But many, mostly believers who have a vested interest for reasons I stated above, like to claim that standard dictionaries and encyclopedias define atheism, not as mere lack of belief, but as a declarative claim. I have more research to do on this matter, but preliminary indications are that dictionaries and such do not set definitions, but merely report on current, popular usage. Definitions can change over time. Add to this a fact that most other words with an "a" prefix, mean "without". But then when it comes to atheism, suddenly, suspiciously, it's taken to mean more than that.