Belief and social pressure

What do you know? When the lead singer for the Christian band Hawk Nelson began to discuss privately his loss of belief in God, he found out he’s not alone.

Jonathan Steingard, singer for Christian rock band Hawk Nelson, says he no longer believes in God.

“I’ve been terrified to post this for a while – but it feels like it’s time for me to be honest,” he wrote in the caption to his multi-image post of his statement. “I hope this is not the end of the conversation, but the beginning.”

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He wrote that he started by privately processing his doubts and then sharing them in conversation with some close friends.

To his surprise, Steingard said, he found that his unbelief was shared by others who also had grown up in church, but who — like him — feared “losing everything if they’re open about it.”

Christianity has been wildly successful at linking character to belief; that is, believers are ‘good’ people, and unbelievers are ‘bad’ people. Therefore, it is only ‘bad’ people who don’t believe — and who wants to admit to that?

This claim should have perished more than 2000-years ago with the Socratic dialog Euthyphro, but some nonsense must be overcome, and some truths learned, with each generation.

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