> I was raised an an observant Catholic household, and I went every week from ages 5-19 and missed only a few times due to illness. But I never believed, I just don't have a spiritual bone in my body. None of what you quoted from Solomon about the impermanence of our material acquisitions sounds profound -- it seems obvious.
I had a similar upbringing. I attended Catholic schools until college. And the whole time it all just struck me as pageantry. I perceived that it was very real for many of the others, but to me it was as you imply.
Thank God the scales fell from my eyes. Interestingly it was not preaching, but my meditations on the three normative sciences that convinced me of the necessity of God. I realized that culturally Christian atheists conception of ethics is just a more or less attenuated Christian one that will continue to wither as any plant cut from its roots will. I further concluded that the same holds for the other two normative sciences. This was so unsatisfactory to me that I had an epiphany.
I had a similar upbringing. I attended Catholic schools until college. And the whole time it all just struck me as pageantry. I perceived that it was very real for many of the others, but to me it was as you imply.
Thank God the scales fell from my eyes. Interestingly it was not preaching, but my meditations on the three normative sciences that convinced me of the necessity of God. I realized that culturally Christian atheists conception of ethics is just a more or less attenuated Christian one that will continue to wither as any plant cut from its roots will. I further concluded that the same holds for the other two normative sciences. This was so unsatisfactory to me that I had an epiphany.