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Justin70-

I found the thread from which the teddy bear quote came. Kvalhion wrote it in Baloo's What Would It Take (how any theist, with god's help, can convert me on these boards) on the EoG board. It is on the second page, 2/3 down. I would make a link to it if I knew how. Sorry I can't, but hopefully you can find it with that information.

Fiach

Exactly, not only is it the height of arrogance, but shows that those extremist Christians in reality have internal doubts that they are fighting. They can't help but have doubts if their frontal lobes are at least partially workiing. Those fears make them denounce ex-Christians as having never been Christians, and make them hate Atheists for just existing. The fact that rational, generally financially successful, and articulate people doubt their belief system, instills involuntary doubt. Our very existence makes them uncomfortable. That is why they have killed us whenever they discovered us over the past 1700 years until recent times.

Fiach

openeyes

From Fiach:I've thought along this line time and time again over the past several months. We are such a threat if we don't play into the "evil atheist" stereotype. We bring their insecurities much closer to the surface of their consciousness. We cause cognitive dissonance in anyone with some rational thought capabilities.

No wonder believers would prefer we stay quiet and marginalized (unless we're doing something really nasty).

Fiach

Earlier, when I returned to this forum after a long absence, I got rather testy, and used insulting language. Jobar chastised me and implied a threat of kicking my arse off the forum. Initially offended at censorship, I later understood the wisdom of his idea.

We will convert absolutely nobody nor promote them to think if we are nasty and the Christians think, but they think of us being evil, nasty, hatefull. I now see the wisdom of trying to criticise without any personal name calling. That is difficult to do because some of my biological neurobehavioural hypotheses now theories are backed by SPECT scan evidence. But the findings may insult believers no matter how softly we state them. Those findings include studies on reasoning skills, critical analysis, and IQ itself in numerous articles and sites show a marked tilt to atheists. Similarly we demonstrated it with crime statistics in America with Atheists being vastly underrepresented in prison, while Baptists are vastly overrepresented.

I try to qualify this with the fact that all of us fit on a large bell curve with most of us, Atheists and Theists in the middle hump. The differences is that the Atheist dominate one tale of the curve while fundamentalists are dominant in the opposite tail of the curve.

Fiach

Radorth

If this thread is about some statements I made, then it is one big straw man.

As I've explained at least three times, one can have been a true Christian, and now claim they are not Christians, but they will still be saved. All I claimed is that a real Christian cannot just decide to become an atheist and have it be so. I suppose it is possible, but that it is far more likely an emotional decision was made based on false beliefs about who Jesus is and whether his love is unconditional. There are a miniscule number of churches I would ever go to,

Carrie will disagree, but based on what I've been reading she is an excellent example of someone who was really changed by Jesus, and practically admits so herself. Her posts have really touched my heart, however much I have disagreed with her. It's almost as if she is searching for reasons to prove she would have changed anyway, although she can't seem to find any other rational explanation. I don't think there is one other than she was given a "new nature" which does not simply go away because we decide it never happened.

IMO Christians can leave the church, often out of a good conscience, and just decide they never were Christians. So what? That doesn't automatically make it so.

Rad

The Gnostic

Very O/T except for happyboy. Nice location you have listed happyboy, I should have thought of that.

Jamie_L

Well, we agree on something! The converse is also true, a real atheist cannot just decide to become a believer and have it be so.

Beleifs are things we arrive at, not things we choose. One doesn't choose to stop believing or start believing in the same way one chooses to start exercising or stop eating fatty foods.

However, I detect in the rest of your post an implication that when someone who calls themselves Christian and later becomes an atheist, that they are in fact choosing to turn their back on their beliefs, rather than coming to a conclusion that those beliefs are false.

This position, whether it is yours or not, is commonly encountered elsewhere, and it is almost entirely false. People who "turn their backs on God" in this way, really are still believers - just angry believers. Every fromerly-Christian atheist I've encountered (which is hardly all of them) has been of the variety that discovered one day that they simply no longer believed their religion was true. It was not a choice. In a number of cases, in fact, they would have chosen otherwise if they could have.

Myself included.

Jamie

The Nose

I was only seven but I remember feeling something mystical. By then I had heard hundreds of sermons and Sunday School lessons. I was totally convinced that Jesus was real and that all the good people invited him into their hearts. Our services (Southern Baptist) always included an invitation at the end. The preacher "invites" everyone (especially anyone who's being compelled by the Holy Spirit) to come forward, admit that they are sinners and accept Christ as their savior. One Sunday, I decided that I believed and I wanted salvation--and since it was free, why not get some ; ) I joke now but I was completely serious then. Nothing mystical happened until a few days later. My mom took me to the preacher's office and he asked me questions. I guess he wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. It wasn't at all unusual for children seven-year-olds to "get saved" at my church. Anyway, I was a good student and I answered all his questions correctly: proving that I had been paying attention. I knew my Mom was pleased but I didn't really care whether the preacher was--to me, he was just a big round bald man who talked loud. The mystical feeling, when it came, was like an out-of-body experience. I (on the outside) could see my face break into the biggest grin I've ever grinned. That was it. I had salvation. The special feeling lasted only a moment; and, as young as I was, it may have been just my imagination. That's probably what your "Christian" friend would say about my experience. In fact, though I remember the feeling, I know memories can change over time and the feeling itself wasn't any more substantial than a vivid dream.

When I reached my mid-teens, I started to see how the world works and I called out to Jesus many times. I never once perceived an answer. I realized that the only voice in my head was my own. I eventually attneded one of those church-supported colleges that requires four semesters of Bible study. My pile of doubts became a mountain and I stopped calling myself a Christian.

Several people have already pointed out that all the "Christian" dude has to do is say people like me were never really saved (too young to fully understand; didn't try hard enough, etc.). I can't prove to anyone else that I ever had Jesus in my heart. Six years of earnest effort was enough to convince me that--if there is a Jesus--he doesn't care enough about me to return my call.

So maybe you're wasting your time on this "My god is so powerful that once he saves you, you can't be unsaved" argument. Why don't you ask something like "If Jesus had all the answers and could perform miracles whenever necessary, why wasn't he more successful? During the measly three years he preached, how many people did he save from Judaism or idolatry? Certainly less than 1% of the people who were alive at the time. The Xtian preachers always say "Silly Jews, they didn't realize the messiah was right under their noses because he came into the world as a humble carpenter instead of a conquering king". The preachers say "Ungrateful lepers--only one in ten even bothered to thank Jesus for healing them". If Jesus' aim was to save as many souls as possible, wouldn't he have arrived earlier, stayed longer, and performed miracles out the wazoo until all but the most hopelessly stubborn were convinced? The Holy Spirit, who was left to finish Jesus' work is freaking invisible! How convincing can you be if you're invisible? Of people living today, what percentage are Christians? I think I've seen a figure of 33%. Okay, so maybe the Holy Spirit is racking up more souls than Jesus, but one out of three ain't good! So maybe Jesus' goal is not to save as many souls as possible--just the ones he really wants (i.e. the Elect, pre-destination, hardening of Pharoah's heart etc). Sounds like a sick manipulative god to me.

openeyes

From Radorth:This was about Carrie. Couldn't simple maturity explain the change? Seems likely to me.

Fiach

Well, we agree on something! The converse is also true, a real atheist cannot just decide to become a believer and have it be so.

While I don't know of any atheists becoming Christians, I have heard of a few doing so. I know for certain of many Christians becoming Atheists, or Muslims, Wiccans, Buddhists. People can change religious views. I know that religion is brain based on cortical areas and interconnecting circuits but in many people those circuits are not those of hard wired sceptics on one side or those hardwired theists on the other. Many in the middle have brain structure that is borderline. The persons views may shift because of some experience such as an OBE or NDE. And people who shift from one theism to another such as the vast numbers of Chrsitians converting to Islam in the world is easy for one who has a theist brain. All we are changing there is a software programme.

Beleifs are things we arrive at, not things we choose. One doesn't choose to stop believing or start believing in the same way one chooses to start exercising or stop eating fatty foods.

That is true for firm Atheism/Agnosticism versus firm Theism. Within Theism, specific religions (Christianty, Islam, Buddhism, Wicca) can be switched as easly as changing one's clothing.

However, I detect in the rest of your post an implication that when someone who calls themselves Christian and later becomes an atheist, that they are in fact choosing to turn their back on their beliefs, rather than coming to a conclusion that those beliefs are false.

I totally agree with you. I for one know that I didn't choose to be an Atheist. In fact, I fought against the mental trend in that direction, but in the end my brain won the tug of war.

This position, whether it is yours or not, is commonly encountered elsewhere, and it is almost entirely false. People who "turn their backs on God" in this way, really are still believers - just angry believers. Every fromerly-Christian atheist I've encountered (which is hardly all of them) has been of the variety that discovered one day that they simply no longer believed their religion was true. It was not a choice. In a number of cases, in fact, they would have chosen otherwise if they could have.

I have not met an Atheist who left theism because he was assaulted by a priest, slapped by a nun, or his wife raped by the fundy pastor. At a meeting of Atheists in FFRF over in America, I attended. In the dinner, we met several couples of Atheists. They all had humours tales of the Nuns or the dancing pastor. And the event was peppered with laughter. I didn't hear one of them saying he or she abandoned faith because someone mistreated them. In fact I notice that a telly special on men who were sexually molested by priests in childhood. And to a one, they were all still religious and defended the Church. Many were altar boys. Their brains were incapable of atheism no matter what the stress.

Fiach