Naturally The Christians Would Know Us Better Than We Know Ourselves

[R. S. Martin]

Email from Joel Somebody (I don't know him):

 

This is a invitation to our new board.

 

http://yahwehstruth.freeforums.org/index.php

 

I pray you will join us

*****************

Okay, I do him the courtesy of looking at his forum. Here's a few selected posts from this thread that show me his position:

 

truthseekers: Just a question to all atheist out their, Why do you not believe in a Creator? can I get a good answer? I think not.

 

Chris Weimer: Actually, the main reason why I don't believe in God is because there's no evidence for his existence. Asking me why I don't believe in the Creator is the same as asking me why I don't believe in the Pegasus.

 

HawleyluYah (Joel): I can see your point, and I am sure there are many who hold this view, but in those that I have most often met, it was due to let down.

 

But somethings that we come to the conclusion of, must be based on,,,,no, not faith, but reasoning. For instance no one can say that they know for a fact that Josephus lived, there is not one living eye witness to his life, but we can take the evidence of his life, and reason whether or not to believe that he lived.

 

For me there is evidence enough to reason, and conclude that there is a God, and in reasoning the scriptures, I find them to have the most convincing account of a creator. Also he has shown me openly at times of his will, and power.

 

But none the less, I see your point of view, but keep this in mind, in the span of a life time, many of our points of view will be subject to change.

 

Yahweh bless.

*************************

 

Joel, thanks for the invite. I don't know where you got my email. I looked at your forums and why you think people are atheists. Chris Weimer says it the way it is. No point in me adding line on line, precept on precept, as your Bible says. I've got better things to do. I decline the invitation.

 

RSM

 

=======================================

 

Now that I reread Joel's answer to Chris I see that he is actually quite decent. But that's because it's posted in the section where the rules say to use kid gloves. I just can't quite get past his refusal to accept that Chris might actually be right. Why does he need to insist that his own view is more correct?

 

I think it is because that view is defensible. It is defensible because you can always say, "Oh you just happened to meet up with a bad church." Or "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven," or some other such crap. The answer "I see no evidence for God's existence" cannot be counter-argued.

 

The christian can attack the atheist for being stupid, for being blind, for any number of things. The christian can try to help the atheist see the evidence, argue about the evidence that exists, etc. But the argument has to start with basics. And the onus is on the christian to find handles with which to lever the argument. This is back-breaking work! There are no pat answers or quick fixes. So of course they have to pretend to get inside our minds and tell us this REALLY is the way it is. No matter how soft the kid gloves, it still sucks. UGH!!!!!!!!!!

[GraphicsGuy]

Hey Ruby, you bring up some good points here. I've faced a little of all the arguments as well and I agree. The Xians who really DON'T know you THINK they know exactly what our REAL problem is.

 

When a Xian really does know you, they know what you used to be like as a Xian and they know what you are like now, deep down they know and will often admit that they have NO answers for you.

 

I was meeting with a friend for coffee regularly as a Xian and he watched and listened to me go through my deconversion process over the time period of a year. When it was all said and done he just looked at me across the table and said, "I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you."

 

My best friend from my teenage years...I found him on Facebook about four months ago...when I finally spilled the story to him he took three weeks to respond and when he did respond there was no religious rhetoric or anything. He admitted that it wasn't what I needed and that he didn't have any answers outside of Jesus.

 

SOME people do just get angry at whatever god they're serving, but when a de-conversion is the genuine affair there really is no argument that a Xian can offer. No help, no advice, no comfort.

 

What they don't seem to understand is that this is their religion failing them as well. Jesus is supposed to be the answer for all of life. What happens when he's not? That's a question they don't want to ask themselves.

[R. S. Martin]

It sounds like you had some real friends, people who listened, and did not assume to know what they could not possibly know. That is what I call respect.

[godlessgrrl]

This kind of insistence on defining nonbelievers' motivations, minds, and experiences is probably the single thing I find the most irritating about fundie Xians. It's arrogant, abusive, and shows a total lack of respect, not to mention an almost amusing disconnection from reality. The only thing I can think of is that it must be utterly terrifying for diehard Xians to encounter someone whose experience contradicts what their faith teaches them.

 

Remember, too, for fundies, the Bible trumps reality. If the Bible is the Word of God, and the Bible tells you The Truth™ about why nonbelievers are nonbelievers, then it doesn't actually matter what the actual reality of the nonbeliever's life is.

 

What really gets on my pecs is when a Xian with this attitude adds insult to injury by calling nonbelievers arrogant for their lack of belief. Yeah, right, asshole - you just presumed to know someone's mind better than they do, and yet they're the arrogant one??

 

I've encountered exactly one Xian who didn't presume to know my own mind better than I did. The rest have been fucktards about it.

[R. S. Martin]

Gwen, thanks for saying it. Having everybody in my life telling me one thing about reality while my own senses told me something else has been extremely confusing. On top of that, with everybody telling me I didn't really experience things the way I thought I did only messed so much the more with my mind. Got me to where I didn't trust my own perceptions. Then got ridiculed and scolded and laughed out of the house for not knowing my own mind. Please be aware that this action was led primarily by my mother. I am ever so glad that she is dead and gone. I don't know how these things work but in a way I was practically an extension of her very being. She had the ability to manipulate me across time and geography. With her dead and buried I can write off the others. They don't care as much about me. Nor do they have the controlling power. In recent months it occurred to me that mom was a lot like a few of my younger sisters. To me, she was the all-wise woman, the ruler of the universe, whose every word had to be obeyed on pain of death.

 

And when I look at my younger sisters and realize she was no brighter than they are, I realize she wasn't such a brilliant and powerful person after all. I think what happened was that when she couldn't break me, the rest of the community got onto the case and unanymously and without a vote decided to relegate me to outer darkness where no one would have to interact with me. The biggest mistake they made all along was making blanket statements about unbelievers and/or people outside our church. It was so easy to prove them wrong.

 

You say how they hate it when people contradict the reality the bible describes. I always challenged the reality described in the bible. I couldn't help it. No one ever told me this was wrong. Inner logic just told me that if a principle holds true, then it's opposite must also be true. So I guess that is why they hate me.

 

But nobody is kind enough to tell me this. Oh no! Nobody would be so kind as all that! I might be offended, you know. So they just beat around the bust and expect me to "get the message" and they think they are being tactful.

 

Reminds of me an incident many years ago. One of my little sisters (an adult by that time) discussed something with me. She didn't seem to have a firm opinion on the matter. Later I was told that she had a firm opinion but she didn't want to come across to me as though she were telling me what to do. She thought she was being tactful. I felt disgusted. She did not come across as being tactful; she came across as not knowing what she wanted!

 

These people (who apparently don't even know their own minds and feelings) know EXACTLY what is going on in my mind, why I deconverted, what that makes me out to be, what my inner mental condition is, etc. These people also know for a certain fact that if I have peace despite all these dire conditions, that it is the peace of this specific mythical being and not that one that I have in my heart of hearts. You see, their holy book gives them this insight. Or maybe it is Brother Jeff's inner spook that got into them. No, let's see, they claim it's the mind of Kryast that got into them.

[Oldjew]

I have often been told that since I became an atheist I never was saved nor a believer, as "once saved always saved" and "once a Christian always a Christian."

 

Even though I explain very carefully why I changed from "born again Christian" to non-believer, they do not seem to hear my explanation, just that I have gone from believer to non-believer and their answer is I was never a believer.

 

Now to me that seems almost as they have been hypnotized to respond to certain words and sentences only, because they are ignoring my explanation and going right to the grist of the answer; I was never a Christian nor saved.

[Thurisaz]

Now to me that seems almost as they have been hypnotized to respond to certain words and sentences only, because they are ignoring my explanation and going right to the grist of the answer; I was never a Christian nor saved.

 

Nailed it exactly. You talk about that to a christian, you aren't confronting a human, but a pre-programmed robot.

[R. S. Martin]

I have often been told that since I became an atheist I never was saved nor a believer, as "once saved always saved" and "once a Christian always a Christian."

 

Even though I explain very carefully why I changed from "born again Christian" to non-believer, they do not seem to hear my explanation, just that I have gone from believer to non-believer and their answer is I was never a believer.

 

Now to me that seems almost as they have been hypnotized to respond to certain words and sentences only, because they are ignoring my explanation and going right to the grist of the answer; I was never a Christian nor saved.

 

That's all you get after all that careful explaining. I'm asking myself what response would be appropriate for such a situation. Would it be appropriate to just say something like "Whatever" to such people? So much careful explaining seems almost like throwing your jewels to the pigs, in my estimation. Yet in the back of my mind is always the niggling doubt that maybe if I explain enough they will understand. But they never do...

[Robbobrob]

It is cute, he has a forum for Atheist....all may read, but only Atheist can post. That is so adorable. Makes me want to join and run amok....I've had that in me of late, running amok. But the board looks so lame, can't imagine posting more than a couple times before becoming bored.

[Mongo]

That's all you get after all that careful explaining. I'm asking myself what response would be appropriate for such a situation. Would it be appropriate to just say something like "Whatever" to such people? So much careful explaining seems almost like throwing your jewels to the pigs, in my estimation. Yet in the back of my mind is always the niggling doubt that maybe if I explain enough they will understand. But they never do...

 

Well here is a twist...

 

Last year my brother came into my house and spewed the traditional fundy crap about evolution and ID.

 

Now... my brother and I have a *special* relationship and have been arguing politics and everything since my first breath.

This time around though after he lobbed several Straw Man attacks, I kept saying that he didn't know what he was talking about and that he needed to read up on evolution. He hates being dismissed out of hand but I did it as politely as I could without being rude. e.g. "That's simply not factually true. You need to read up on evolution", "I'm sorry <name>, but you're ignorant and need a better education about evolution."

 

Soooo.... fast forward 1 year and he is now taking a much more rational approach to religion. He doesn't bring up evolution on this visit but actually has a drink of wine with us and even bought a bottle of red for the dinner he cooked for us on leaving. That's a bloody switch.

 

I don't know if I had any affect on him but I do believe that to point out needless ignorance is a legitemate response to such foolishness.

 

My brother is showing signs of progress and I hope he gets well. (Well being abandoning fundamentalism.)

 

Mongo

[R. S. Martin]

Mongo, I love success stories and that's one good story. However, you did not explain a thing. You pointed out the painful truth and stuck with it. Having such a good relationship probably made it possible to make the point in the first place.

 

I'm thinking a parallel from my life might be when my sisters, with whom I did not have a good relationship, insisted that I answer their questions about the origins of the universe. They kept pressuring me for answers. I kept explaining that I don't know because I don't have a scientific mind but I can find the answers. Didn't do any good. Finally I said, "I can get some titles and authors so you can read it for yourself if that is what you want." I would have come here on exC for sources.

 

I was told, "No, no I am not at all interested." And the subject was dropped.

 

Here the parallel ends.

 

In retrospect I realized that the question was meant as a trap to make me confess that the only logical answer is that God created the universe. And since that is the only logical answer for the origin of the universe, then God must exist. That being the case, then it logically follows that atheism is a stupid position.

 

Unbeknownst to her, I was not an atheist at that point. So much for the Christian who knows better what is in my mind than I know myself.

[Robbobrob]

It is tough, and tiring, to hear the same issues over and over again, sometimes from fairly smart people. Just yesterday I heard a guy on the radio talking about how morality had to come from a God, that there was no way morality would ever have shown up without God.....and if you meet an Atheist who is moral, it is because God made the Atheist that way. God hardwired us that way, to be moral.

 

I nearly crashed into the car in front of me.....

 

God made us, even the lowly Atheist, moral. BUT are we not all sinners? We are born into Immorality, yet we are also moral? I know that show talks about everyone being sinners. But the host was like, "You are so right about that." Can't win an arguement with someone willing to hold diametrically oppsing arguements as if they are both exclusively correct.

 

Makes my head hurt when I think that this is the kind of logic gymnastics that has to be overcome before a meaningful dialogue can be had with the people on the radio, teaching this stuff to the masses. Give me very little hope sometimes for the masses.

[Guest neileroberts]

I've got a funny one for you.

 

This weekend I was told that my rejection of Christianity was the same as a child who is refusing his medicine.

 

 

How lame is that?

[Mongo]

While we're on the topic...

 

I sometimes hear in the liberal xtian circles that non-believers are actually believers but they just don't know it.

 

Quelle stupide.

 

Mongo