(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.
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).