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I find your example is extremely odd and disturbing. Facing other mindsets and cultures at a young age as a reason, or at least contributing, to depression? That's really a stretch.

Are children also at risk when meeting with other kids of different religions? It could shake their own faith too, by the same logic.

> Facing other mindsets and cultures at a young age as a reason, or at least contributing, to depression? That's really a stretch.

I can see it contributing. Humans are tribal animals and teenagers are the extreme of this with all sorts of cliques and clubs that form in high schools. Imagine being a teenager and discovering that your in the wrong tribe, then imagine that the tribe you like is "at war" with your tribe. Even with modern communications it would be easy to feel isolated without that face to face interaction.

Facing other mindsets and cultures is wholly different in real life versus solely online.

Why do you think racism / anti-Semitism / anti-Muslim sentiment is so prominent online and so much less prominent in real life? Why does so much research show that actual, in-person interactions with people of other backgrounds reduces the strength of racist stereotypes in people's minds?

> Why do you think racism / anti-Semitism / anti-Muslim sentiment is so prominent online and so much less prominent in real life?

Mainly because speech isn't regulated online, and there's little to no repercussions when going beyond what's acceptable in "real life". Online discourse has become a way to show what's behind the facade that many feel forced to adopt when talking face to face. Basically there's less hypocrisy online, at least for a vocal minority, for good or bad.

> Why does so much research show that actual, in-person interactions with people of other backgrounds reduces the strength of racist stereotypes in people's minds?

That's the Intergroup Contact Theory. But I still don't see why it's useful to explain an increase in depression in young people. The primary "tribe" of a kid is close family, anyone else beyond is an outsider: they have different values and perspectives; even your neighbour may be of a different religion, another race, another economical class, etc... Meeting this otherness is simply life and unavoidable. Online social life just displays this otherness in a harsher light, the extremes are more apparent.

Or are you proposing that we should lock up kids in their house for fear of their minds not being able to cope with what's outside? I'd argue that this overprotective mindset might actually be one of the reasons kids are more prone to depression these days, similar to how allergies are more prominent because we are less exposed to normal pathogens in early childhood. Kids falling back on online activities may be merely a side-effect of this, not the real cause of their anxiety/depression.

> having discovered atheism at such a tender age, they are left hopeless and desolate. (emphasis mine)

What??

As if atheists were monsters.

As an atheist (more agnostic actually - I cannot be sure no gods exist), your answer feels interesting but also surprising, very saddening and actually chocking.

Let's not make atheists look like evil people who make children depressed. This is not OK.

I never needed to have any "faith" to be happy. Solving my problems actually seems to be the solution to my happiness, not to believe or have faith in anything. On the other side, a big part of many religions seems to involve thinking about death and guilt. This can seem depressing and desolating from the point of view of an atheist. Can you imagine an atheist child being exposed to such a desolating way of seeing life? What happens when this child learns that there have been wars about such things as religions when the claim is that they are about tolerence? The child have rights to feel outright disoriented (guess what: I have been such a child).

Fortunately, one people I know is very positive in their life (the most by far) and also happens to be a believer, and most people (including believers) I know are fine people and against wars, so I understand that believers do not have to approach religions like this.

Anyway, though your example is insightful and enlightening, you could have made your point with a way better example. Or your point was the wrong one.

Perhaps the original post was not saying atheists are monsters but to encounter a massive challenge to their world view at a young age, may disrupt the comfort of children? Children are wrapped in the bubble of comfort by the boundaries they're raised in. When you mature you question those boundaries and find your own way in the world. But during your early years you may lack the maturity to challenge the foundation of your world view. Being exposed to other ways of thinking may lead to anxiety. It's only a recent thing that people have been so easily exposed to ideas from outside of the creed they were raised in.

But I don't really know, just playing the devils advocate.

I think you're taking it the wrong way. Perhaps they feel hopeless and desolate because they are stuck in the religious group after learning about other things.

(edit: I read your answer again. It made me smile. Original text:)

Maybe you are right, and xupybd too. This is why I still think my parent had an interesting and insightful answer. I actually wanted to understand that this way, but was put off by the "at such a tender age". This does not look neutral to me. "at this stage of life" or "at this young age" would not have triggered this in me.

Unfortunately, written text is not sufficiently precise for this kind of things.

I'm biased though. I happen to have met (independently) two people last year who were sorry for me and wanted to make me believe in God (which is okay. When you have convictions, you may want to make people adopt your convictions - but they didn't seem to understand my point of view). I also went to the US and met people there who were seeing atheists as extremists and intolerent people (I was ok for them though, because I am agnostic - so for them, I consider the existence of God).

Just to add some potential insight. One of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity is that all people are in trouble/broken/sinners/in need of saving. So when you say they feel sorry for you that is actually part of the belief system. Even if you think you're okay they do not. It's not a matter of you being successful or not, but your moral standing before God.

So regardless of your point of view they're always going to act like you need fixing/saving.

That said they may well have not understood your point of view.

Thank you for your definitely insightful answer. Yes, now that you say it, they both tried to save me for these reasons. This makes sense. I guess there is no way such a person and I can really agree on this.

Though this is positive for me: they tried to save me because they liked me. I guess.

Unfortunately, it seems like I'm doomed. I cannot imagine that God (if exists) made us broken by default, defective by design. Why would Him, since he is good?

This is kind of depressing when you think about it and this is the opposite of what I think about humanity: I think most people are fine by default (even though I've already been assaulted).

I think you've identified one of the hardest intellectual problems for believers the problem of evil. If a perfect God exist that created everything how is there evil? It's one of the more difficult ideas to wrestle with. Far deeper than most of the arguments most people make against the existence of God. I'm a Christian myself but I've not come up with a satisfactory answer for me.

I think there is some merit in this argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga%27s_free_will_...

But as I say I've not come up with a satisfactory answer for myself.

It is a very interesting problem to think about it. Can a perfect God create a cosmos where evil exists.

>Let's not make atheists look like evil people who make children depressed. This is not OK.

That's not what he's doing at all.

But it is also true that religion is largely the underpinning of morality for most people in the world and early exposure to the idea that morality is relative and malleable and that actually the only real motivator is self-preservation is probably unhealthy for adolescents.

>Solving my problems actually seems to be the solution to my happiness, not to believe or have faith in anything. On the other side, a big part of many religions seems to involve thinking about death and guilt

A big part of religions is also charity work and the idea that you aren't just doing things for yourself or solving your own problems but solving the problems of others because they are your equals (at least in Abrahamic traditions, I am familiar with these).

I don't see where you can pull that out of atheism.

>What happens when this child learns that there have been wars about such things as religions when the claim is that they are about tolerence?

What a silly thing to say. Religions would not need to preach tolerance if mankind were inherently tolerant, no? If mankind is not inherently tolerant, why will a child be shaken to understand that that inherent intolerance causes wars over nearly everything (from religion to culture to language to land).

> the idea that you aren't just doing things for yourself or solving your own problems but solving the problems of others because they are your equals

Equality really really does not describe views of hardcore christians I personally know nor the content of sermons I personally heard not christian journals articles I read.

Nor does tolerance, no matter how you define tolerance.

I am not a Christian but I grew up around very faithful Christians and my experiences are not the same as yours. Just to put that out there. Many of the devout Christians I knew took actions to rectify the wrongs around them that people would be awed by.

Parts of my problems are others problems, that is not mutually exclusive.

Actually, one could argue that at the end of the day, any action is egoist at some level, even charity (my experience is that this argument leads to interesting discussions were people try to define things).

Also, I know that religion is linked to charity, but I don't see why would one need religion to help other people. I'm doing it pretty often actually, at my level.

Why should I need faith in anything to help someone? How an atheist would be unable to help anybody?

So,

> I don't see where you can pull that out of atheism.

I would say that beliefs (atheism is a form of belief, for some definition of atheism) and helping people are orthogonal notions. As an agnostic, linking those things feel absurd (in the mathematical definition of absurd, not in the definition of "stupid").

P.S.: I don't feel I said anything stupid. Let's use real arguments. If you think I said something wrong, feel free to argue about it. I'll be glad to recognize that I was wrong or to further argue.

Edit: I would say that one acts according to what drives their life. This can be faith. Or something else. Or a mix of things.

>As an agnostic, linking those things feel absurd (in the mathematical definition of absurd, not in the definition of "stupid").

It's hard for me to reply to this because I just have a hard time understanding what you are talking about. What is the mathematical definition of absurd? What is an "egoist" action.

All I was able to really understand was that you don't see why you need religion to help people. You don't. But every religious person can be reprimainded for not helping people because it is a religious tenet of nearly every major faith to help others as they are your equals under God. Every atheist cannot be taught to help others in this way.

In essence, an atheist can be good if they choose to be. A religious person is specifically being told to be good.

> Is it really just the existence of social media that caused this, or is it maybe a change of culture that emerged with the spread of the Internet and social media?

I don't see how the difference would matter. You can never think technological progress without the societal changes it entails, even if software developers etc. like to do so to ignore the responsibility.