GeoTheo

You can't deconvert a Christian. You might confuse them for a while but they will come back to it. Also People who attack Christianity always get some things about it wrong. Every Christian knows some really excellent Christians. People that are genuine. Atheists are good at pointing out what is wrong with Christianity but not good at explaining away what is right about it. People embrace Christianity for the goodness they have experienced through it. For example people on this thread say it is just a security blanket or a crutch. If you know within yourself that it is more than that then that arguement will not sway you. But that may work on someone for whom Christianity was just a crutch.

Dark Jedi

I agree on them going back.

A friend of mine who deconverted. I think I influenced it a bit. I was godless, but a good person. This rocked the foundations of what she had been taught.

Recently (ironically, while we were playing D&D... ), I noticed her carring around a book titled: "Christianity, a primer."

She noticed me looking at it, and simply said "I haven't found any better answers out there."

So be it. It is not my position to make sure she doesen't stray, or some such. She knows not to try and convert me, nor to attempt to debate me without a sound argument and much preperation.

orac

Sorry, I'm happily staying put.

It gets even worse (for you): the longer I'm away from the church, the less guilt and fear I feel - as this is a good thing, I'm becoming more and more unlikely to ever believe in God again.

Wait a minute, you said that never happens. After all, everyone eventually goes back, right?

Does that mean I'm a figment of someone's warped imagination? Damn, and here I thought I actually existed. What a disappointment. Hold on, if I don't exist then who's typing this now?

The parts that are right (eg: love thy neighbour as thyself) don't rely on God to be true. The bits that are wrong (eg: creationism, hatred of people who're different) are not things to encourage. The troublesome parts are also a majority of christian beliefs.

We don't have to "explain away" the fact that the bible isn't pure unadulterated evil in order to not believe that it is absolutely pure truthful goodness.

Btw, the assertion "hitler was a christian, therefore all christians support hitler" is a logical fallacy - that would not be a valid criticism of christianity. In the same way "an atheist didn't understand christianity, therefore all atheists don't understand christianity" is also false.