disillusioned

My impression based on the one book of his that I read (No God but One) was that he was fairly clever. The book was all about how he saw that Islam was false, and left it for Christianity. The whole time I was reading, I was going "so close!" He was certainly sincere.

At the behest of my father, a year or two ago, I read a book by Nabeel Qureshi that makes reference to this idea. Apparently this is a fairly common notion amongst muslims. It struck me as rather silly at the time, and still does, to be honest. But when I was reading the book, it seemed to me to be a pointless distraction. Qureshi was arguing that Jesus must have died, and I was prepared to grant the point, but he kept going on and on about it. Apparently for good reason...

The fact that debate is pointless in certain cases says nothing about who is in the right. If I say "We should build a ladder to the moon!", and LF says "No, that's stupid. ", and I ask him if he's willing to change his mind and he says "no", so I storm off, I'm right that debate is pointless, but I'm wrong about the issue. In this case, debate would only be pointless because I'm being silly.

Welcome Mandy! Regarding the atheist/agnostic thing, these are just words. Call yourself whatever makes you happy. You don't believe. That's the key.

Welcome Jeffrey! Glad you found your way here.

I didn't see a lot of hostility here...

@Christforums I answered your question, now let me put one to you. It seems to me that either you think you can justify your belief in Christianity with an argument, or you take it on faith. Which is it? If it's option one, then make your argument, and I'll either show how it fails, or I'll reconvert. If it's option two, that's nice, but I don't think anyone here will find anything you have to say persuasive. So which is it? (Aside: there is no false dichotomy here. If it's an argument that involves or rests on faith claims, then it boils down to merely taking it on faith.) (Anticipated objection: I understand that all arguments rest on certain assumptions. These are different from faith claims in that they are "normal", and required by basically everyone.)

The question presupposes that God exists. I'm not willing to grant this. But say I was. It also presupposes that the God which exists is God as you understand him. I'm not willing to grant this either. But say I was. Your holy book says that if I will draw near to God, he will draw near to me. I did. He didn't. I don't mean to imply that I feel anger towards God, or that I feel he ought to have revealed himself to me. I feel fairly confident that if there is a God, he's probably not interested in me at all. But the fact is, I was a Christian my whole life, and tried desperately for years to stay one. It turns out that there is simply no reason to believe that it is true. None whatsoever.

Almost certainly not from an intelligent source. Nevertheless...

^^^^^

Excellent post. Not saying I agree that abortion is wrong per se, but still. It's very easy to get trapped in binary thinking. The question of abortion should be asked independent of religion, in my opinion.

Dafuq?

Yes, in wwI it was inscribed on the helmets of German soldiers. But if Hitler's Germany had been an explicitly atheist regime, they would have done away with the slogan. They didn't.

@Miriam I've written a lot about my personal journey away from Christianity, and about my reasons for thinking that it is false. PM me if you'd like to read some of it.