John Kesler

I believe that Christianity will continue to exist for the foreseeable future, because it offers things that people want--hope, certainty, a support network, etc. Until the atheism "movement" can offer anything substantive to replace these benefits, I don't think that large numbers of "deconversions" will occur. Churches have special activities for the old, young, married, divorced, etc., and they provide people with a sense of identity. I've heard people comment about their religious upbringing as if it is as unalterable as eye or skin color, and the Christian who takes the time to thoroughly investigate the claims of his/her religion is the exception. Frankly, there is, from the perspective of many Christians, a disincentive to do so because they are happy with their faith.

Having said all this, I submit that rather than trying to "deconvert" Christians to atheism, a better approach is to slowly change Christianity. If all Christians were of the John Spong variety, would this thread even exist? Ergo, the problem isn't Christianity per se, it is exclusivist Christianity founded on the belief that the Bible, more specifically a certain interpretation of the Bible, should be the final authority for one's life. Christianity has already changed greatly. Some churches have women and gays in leadership positions. Most denominations, out of necessity, are readily accepting of unwed mothers, divorcees, working mothers, and others that in a bygone era would be outcasts. Society changes and so does Christianity. Help nudge it along rather than pushing it off the cliff.

RUmike

Pyros, what Ingersoll means here is that if God is good, as Christians claim, than there can be no such thing as an eternity of torture in the afterlife.

RUmike

Pyros, why do you keep calling everything someone says a "replacement crutch"? If anything, your desire for there to exist a heaven causes you to believe that there is one. You have cited no good reason for why you believe there to be a heaven, other than the fact that you want one to exist, because otherwise life would have been meaningless, blah blah etc. I can't think of a better example of a crutch.

Iskander

My previous post is the returning boomerang, or perhaps the faint echo of the noise generated here.

I am withdrawing from this forum, and I will not post again.

Thank you

Joe Bloe

No, I don't take your posts as mean, and I hope you don't take mine that way. Yes, we do have different perspectives. And I thank you for participating in the discussion, I appreciate your input and your responses.

I don't see that it entails believing I am somehow better or more intelligent, less child-like, or more tolerant, certainly not overall in all parts of my life. I only think that I'm more correct in this one belief, and perhaps also approaching this one question in a more mature manner. Not necessarily about anything else, just about the claim as to whether or not there is a theistic god out there somewhere. I do honestly think it does take a more intelligent and more mature approach in general than many fundamentalist types like the one I quoted above, but I know many "moderate" religious folks who are quite intelligent and mature; I would not at all claim that I am somehow better than them because I'm an atheist, only that I'm more correct about this one question. As for rationalizing that others must be wrong, well, how can anyone make a claim about anything on which there is any disagreement or controversy without thereby claiming that some other people are wrong?

I'm certainly not going to claim that I am necessarily happier or emotionally better off. In fact, that's not what I really care about here. Not that I don't care about being happy. Of course I want to be happy. But I'm more concerned with knowing what is true. I want to know what is true, even if the truth is something horrible. Now, I'm not claiming here that I am necessarily right about this. I certainly could be wrong. But truth, not happiness, is my primary criterion in assessing religious claims.

I have said before in this thread that the temporary pain of deconversion was well worth it to me. But that's not necessarily for any happiness or hope I get out of it. Rather, I think it was worth it because I think my current beliefs are more accurate, more true, more correct, than my former beliefs. I was for the most part happy as a Christian, and I'm quite happy with my life now; I am of course glad about that, but happiness is not the top priority for me in this matter.

Even if this is true about the effect a belief has on a believer, it still wouldn't make a belief necessarily true or false.

Yes, in the long run nothing I do will matter a thousand years from now, certainly not to me. But if that's true, it's true, and our preferences and wishes won't do anything to change it.

Still, though, why should it bother me, why should it matter to me, that nothing I do here matters to the universe at the end of time. I'm not the universe at the end of time. What I do does matter to me here and now and for however long I'm still around, and it matters to others I care about who will still be around after I'm gone.

I view it more as building on a foundation of reality rather than fantasy. [Again, like you, I don't intend to sound mean, I just mean to accurately express my perspective.] I think a small hope built on reality is worth more than a seemingly large hope built on an illusion.

I can see how someone may find a lack of a theistic god as depressing and painful. But that doesn't mean it isn't true. And truth, not comfort or happiness, is what I'm ultimately interested in discovering. Sure, I hope that truth is compatible with happiness, I of course would prefer to be happy than not happy, and so far I've found that truth as I understand it (I could be wrong, and if so I want to know, I'm open to changing my mind if the evidence warrants, as I've done before) is not incompatible with happiness.

I can see, though, how one could say that valuing truth over happiness is stupid. Perhaps my values are screwed up. But it's what I value. I don't know if I can just choose my values or change their priorities. On what basis would I do that if not on the basis of my present values?

I'm happy about that, too. But even if I hadn't found peace, I'm just too damned curious about what the world is really like to pick a comfortable illusion even over a discomforting reality. Sort of a "red pill, blue pill" dilemma. Again, I'm not saying that I'm necessarily right about all this. But "right" is what I'm primarily after, as opposed to "happiness."

First I'll say that I don't think the values are necessarily arbitrary. There are things that really are valuable to us (some are objectively valuable such as nutritious food, some subjectively such as frienships or ability to trust one another). Valuing such things is relative (relative to us these are good things) but they are real and not arbitrary. Well, in the grand cosmic scale of things it is arbitrary whether, say, grass is nutritous food for us, but given the fact that it is not then it is not arbitrary whether we value attempting to subsist primarily on grass (which works fine for cattle, since grass really is nutritious for them). Relative to us, some god's values could be quite arbitrary as far as we're concerned: why, for example, the importance Yahweh put on not eating some foods which are nutritious for us?

But, back to your main point about your friends feeling sad that they can't go back: well, for me, I'd still rather know if there isn't a god because I value knowing truth over feeling happy. Maybe that's a stupid value on my part, maybe I'm valuing something that isn't really valuable, but it's what I value. And I do think it is a defensible value: as I said above, a small hope based on reality is more secure than a seemingly large hope based on an illusion.

I don't go around proselytizing atheism hither and yon to all around me. I explain and attempt to justify my beliefs in response to others proselytizing me, or seeking to impose their religious values (which I think are false values, arbitrary from the point of view of what really is in fact valuable to us) on me. But when I do find myself having to explain and defend my beliefs, I want to do it effectively. And, to try to bring this discussion back to the topic of the thread, I think the Bible can be a very effective tool in arguing against Christianity and I use it when "counterprosylitizing".

Joe Bloe

I can't remember who said it, but somewhere around here somebody said something to the effect of "if you make belief a matter of choice rather than of evidence, you have discarded a real concern with truth from the start."

Joe Bloe

If I may be so presumptuous as to respond to this question aimed at Julian:

As I see it, the difference is that the fundigelicals are voting to impose their beliefs and values and religious requirements on others, whereas those others are voting to keep any one group from using the power of government to impose their beliefs which have nothing to do with the commonly shared secular (i.e. "this world") good of maintaining a well-functioning civil society.

How, for example, would those fundigelicals feel about forced school prayer (and that is what this is about, forcing people to participate or at least listen to public group prayers) if people from a denomination of what they believe to be "false" Christianity, or even another religion altogether such as Islam or Hinduism, were the ones leading the prayers?

Joe Bloe

Speaking for myself, I didn't "choose" to "have faith" that this is what happens to us after we die. I have decided, based on the evidence I have studied of how brains produce minds and how minds are functions of brains, depending on a well-functioning brain to be produced, that when the brain dies the mind dies with it. I see plenty of evidence that leads to this conclusion, and no good, verifiable evidence against it. Again, I may not like it, and it may turn out to be wrong, but as far as I can tell this is where the evidence leads.

Loomis

Phlox Pyros says your life is meaningless.

What are your thoughts on this issue?

How do you feel?

Is your life meaningless?

You can tell us. We’re your friends!

Joe Bloe

Meaningless to whom or what? To the universe? Yes. To Vladimir Putin? Yes. To Donald Rumsfeld? Yes. To my wife, son, other family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances? No, my life is meaningful in varying degrees to them (for some in that list it doesn't mean much, for others it means a lot). To me? Yes, it means quite a lot. To God? Dunno.