We are social animals. Like birds, we flock together for comfort and safety. We simultaneously try to be individualists. The funny thing about that is we try to display individualism that is acceptable to the majority. If we see a boy with his ballcap turned backward and he is wearing tony hawk sneakers and baggy pants we recognize that boy as a "skater boy'. Now I'm sure that boy wants people to think or know that he is a "skater boy" but he also wants people to think of him as an individual, fresh, original.
We AS individuals find it hard to live our lives AS individualists outside the accepted norm. Sometimes "weird" is an accepted norm and is recognized as original, but it emerges often enough as a tactic to fit the rare title of original individualist that is acceptable to society as a whole that statistically is not odd at all but a reoccurring norm.
That brings me to the point of this thread. And yes, I am going to talk about people on this forum,....2 to be exact.
There are people that proclaim both individuality and complete conformity to the audience with which they speak. On this forum, it comes in the form of proclaiming to be "atheist" or "agnostic" or some type of one of those ideals and simultaneously supporting strict theist idealism.
The two individuals that practice that behavior are
1) Harry Truman
and
2) Simply Agnostic
Why do they do it? Well, they are GRASPING for acceptance. I used to believe that they were just confused, but now I see it more clearly. Now I am not adverse at personally granting either one or both acceptance by me because who the fuck am I, I am no judge ( I judge all the time). But both of these individuals have claimed a revelation and proclaimed a conversion, that is unrealistic, and to my mind, untrue. Maybe they have haunting questions in the back of their minds and just don't know how to deal with it, I don't really know. I do know that one day you don't praise the fuck out of GEEEEEZUUUUUS and the next start calling god a lying motherfucker.
My guess is that both WANT to convert and the reason is that they want to join the flock. Of course, as Truett can well tell you that conversion isn't as simple as that and probably not as easy either. Personally, I have always been an atheist even when I was an obedient christian so I don't know what converting really is. Since I never accepted christianity in my own mind I couldn't be considered a convert to atheism. But in that sense, I am somewhat akin to both Harry Truman and simply agnostic because there was a time I wanted to be a believing christian but just couldn't do it. I talked the talk, but never really made that walk.
I guess I have said enough. I could go on forever about individualism and the irony of it, but this post already qualifies as one that is TLDR.