Is reason compelling cause to leave Christianity?

[Totallyatpeace]

If you were completely honest with yourself, you would know which part of your comment up there is true, and which part is not. 

 

Of course, you do know, you just won't say. 

 

Remember, we're talking honesty here. It's not something that's taught in a church or a book that's for sure.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That is not an honesty issue at all. It's a faith issue.

 

Fruit and vegetables, Fwee. Not even apples and oranges in this case.

[white_raven23]

That is not an honesty issue at all. It's a faith issue.

 

No kidding.

 

Fwee specifically detailed the use of honesty and only honesty applied to the walking on water thing.

 

Honesty is not faith.

 

So given that he made it clear to us that only honesty was to be used when pondering the walking on water......

 

That made it a good time to make faith declarations? Why? That's not what was asked for. That's not what was needed. Faith is not the issue. Honesty is.

 

So you made a faith declaration for who? Fwee doesn't need it, it's not what he asked for. The rest of us don't need it because we all understand faith as a specifically individual experience that has no bearing on how another person experiences it.

 

So who was that for?

 

The only one left is yourself.....and the deity you are shmoozing up to.

 

A supreme being hardly requires a pack of sychophant toadies following through infinity. So you really aren't impressing god or any god spies around monitoring your level of "witnessing". That kind of ego is a human thing. A supreme being need never stoop so low.

 

So that only leaves....yourself. That kind of reassurance is necessary when you are as insecure as religion can make you.

 

So.....was it good for you?

 

Answer honestly.

 

 

edited: For Fwee (my bad!)

[Vigile]

Is there anyone here that actually was compelled to de-convert based only on rational reasons, and no emotions?

 

No emotions? Of course deconversion is an emotional experience, but I would argue that I left for rational reasons. I embarked on a journey to discover what was truth and to find true wisdom. In the beginning I even did so prayerfully. I lost faith in steps as my knowledge and education grew. During the process I was in the university, traveling around the world and learning about other cultures, and learning and reading philosophy, studying what other religions believed, and researching ancient myths. I didn't have a bad experience at church or with god - of course looking back on it these two issues caused psychological damage, but I wasn't cognizant of that at the time. In the end, I came to my conclusions out of a love for truth.

[NimbusBirdMgp]

By the way! I don't know what 'Evictus' means. What does it mean?

 

I think I've been as rational as I could at the time for which I could only know little to go on. But to me. Emotion has to have some rationalness to it also. So if something isn't working right emotionally, than that too would need some rational explaination for it. So anything compelling to me is the balance between such two. Not having intimacy with provisions to such claims as there being a God. To deprive from the emotions and to allow them to be wonder without proofs. Then Logically something isn't there or exist. Or is not up to any good at all. There is a point in which emotion has to find what does exist, to be in harmony with what is.

[white_raven23]

By the way!  I don't know what 'Evictus' means.  What does it mean?

 

 

Chef is mocking Invictus. A twit you've probably seen plenty of in these debate threads.

[Cerise]

Fwee doesn't need it, it's not what she asked for.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I hate to break it to ya but Fwee is definitely a male.

 

 

Unless he's been keeping secrets...

 

[white_raven23]

I hate to break it to ya but Fwee is definitely a male.

Unless he's been keeping secrets...

 

 

 

 

Really?

 

Oh jeez......where is the emoticon of a smiley eating a foot?

 

Fwee babe, I'm really sorry!

 

I figure it's too late to fix that......

 

HOW did I end up figuring you were a chica?

[white_raven23]

Really?

 

Oh jeez......where is the emoticon of a smiley eating a foot?

 

Fwee babe, I'm really sorry!

 

I figure it's too late to fix that......

 

HOW did I end up figuring you were a chica?

 

 

I WAS able to fix it.

 

I'm going to have to keep notes on everyone.

[Caretaker]

I WAS able to fix it.

 

I'm going to have to keep notes on everyone.

Pssssst...... Keep this in your notes.....

 

Khan is da man!

[Guest Joseph]

HanSolo:

Is there anyone here that actually was compelled to de-convert based only on rational reasons, and no emotions?

 

This is a good question.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

About 2 years ago I was working for a armored transport company when my partner attempted to kidnap then kill me in order to take over my company's truck that was loaded down with a fairly large sum of liability. I will not say how much but since people die every day for a few bucks needless to say it was a substantial amount.

 

There were exactly two men on that truck and when all was said and done the company buried the story and I left out of disgust. It was easier on them because there was no media, there was "no threat," and since there was only one person's report the entire thing....vanished.

 

After this I entered into a type of PTSD. I am not certain if anyone knows what that is but it is "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." Many times people who are going through this are mis-classified as being Bi-Polar and this is what happened to me. My mind wouldn't go out of "Alert" function and all my training stayed with me in the "on" position. I couldn't go to crowded places, my emotions were on overload, and...well, I wasn't myself. This ended in me getting into trouble because I was seeing my x-partner (the guy that tried to kill me) everywhere and of course believed that he wanted me dead. In all honesty more than likely he is a moron who attempted a hold-up and since the entire event was covered up he walked away from the job with questions in the air of why a 2 year manager who had never lost a dime(myself) had accused him of trying to kill him. Needless to say I am certain from that point forward he was watched like a hawk even if it did do the company well to cover the whole mess up.

 

Well, I say all of this to get to when my deconversion point started. PTSD makes all your emotions very violent in nature and on the edge. Over time this decreases and you return to a normal state but you feel numb...and also find that emotions do not come easy for you. Instead of being the rational and loving person you once were you become withdrawn and distant, harsh, tempered....totally changes you. I have gone along this road and it is not a fun journey and in fact I am certain that thousands of young men in the current wars are going through similiar things right now. My event does not even come close to what many of these men went through in being injured but being locked in the back of a truck being driven "who-knows-where" and then almost dying by a shotgun to the face is not a good memory, especially when it was hours of driving being locked up in the back of the truck not knowing what would come.

 

I say all that to give you an idea of the mindset I was in when I began to rebuild my life. My emotional state was blank. In fact, I would say that they were so raw they weren't functioning. I was almost like a robot. My rational mind kicked in and I begane to write. I wrote pages and pages of "stream of conciousness" type of writing. I wrote about the "messiah" idea in mankind and how it is within various cultures. I found it exceptionally funny that I was the son of a carpenter name Joseph (myself named Joseph) born near a town named Davidson. All this led to a point inwhich I began to question everything I had be taught about God. I no longer want to accept that (had I died) that I would face the reality that billions of lives had been lost to hell simply because they were not born into the proper culture and heard of the Jesus of Christianity. I did a historical search. I did a step by step process of the theological claims of Christanity vs Judaism. I did an indepth investigation into the claims of Judaism vs Christanity and at all turns the only reasoned and informed conclusion is that Christianity is a patchworked lie built upon centuries of misinformation, murder, and control.

 

Far from the "truth" that they claim their religion brings it brings nothing more than people who give up a part of themselves (their ability to question) in order to follow the doctrines of one of the more evil institutions to ever exist (Rome's Church).

 

So, when I say that emotions played a very low role in my deconversion process I hope you understand that I am not saying that they did not play a part. I am saying that it was through exceptionally deep investigation into the claims of Christanity, the historicalness of the Christian mangod, and the comparison and contrasting of the various sectations of Christianity which brought me to where I am today. And I would assume that this is as much a REASONED version of decoversion as one could have, any less emotional involvement would make one have to be a robot. I did not leave due to pressure, dislike, other people, "Christian church," ritual dislike, bickering, hypocrits in the church...I wasn't forced out...no one talked bad about me. In fact I do believe that my very "southern Christian parents" are hoping this is just a phase of life.

 

It isn't. Unless I can find someone to answer the enormous amount of conflicting dogmas, doctrines, and theological problems which come about when trying to mesh what Hebrew scripture says against what the NT text proclaims, then I will never again follow what most people would call "christianity." Because the Entity that Has Always Existed (call Him/It "I will be what I will be") can't be nearly as evil as what the christians try to make him/it out to be. I even dislike the word/term "God" because this term has really gotten a bad rap and is one of the reasons that millions have died because men thought their idea of this term was better than another. They gave up their love of their fellow man and loved their idea of their particular god enough to kill their fellow man for it.

 

I wonder if that answered any questions, LOL.

 

Oh, you might wonder how I got away from my partner when he tried to kill me with the shotgun. At the last second I grabbed the weapon, flipped the weapon around on him, (like freak'n Steven Segal, heh) and took it away from him. From memory the trigger's safety was off and the weapon was loaded...I took a major chance of his finger not hitting the trigger when I acted...but I honestly felt it was then or never. I have never seen the end of a weapon look so big as when he lowered it to my face. I am about 1/4 or less of an inch of luck (trigger pull distance) away from being dead in a corn field some where in Minn. for a large sum of paper that mankind labels valueable. Ironic really.

 

I left that job and haven't wanted to go back. I still have the dreams and my emotions are still on edge at times but I'd like to think that given enough time I will once again be "normal." But what is normal really? Heh.

 

I haven't told that story in a few months and I can honestly say this is perhaps the first time I have written or told it without it being hard on me. I guess time does heal wounds....but my deconversion process is truly linked to a time in my life when emotions had been burned out.

[Christopher Carrion]

My consdiered non-adherence to Christianity or any faith I have come across thus far in my existence is certainly a product of what would probably be considered "rational" analysis or "reason". Unlike those culturally inculcated into the faith, I approached Christianity from the outside as a kind of academic exercise, reading the bible several times over in a variety of different modes. After discovering that the claims it makes are contradictory, historically redundant and philosophically obscene, the faith became nothing more for me than a source of intellectual interest and profound political/socio-cultural worry.

[DanInPA]

My "reason" would not allow me to continue to believe something

that I discovered wasn't true.

 

If one can read the overwhelming evidence against xianity's truth and

still believe, emotion must be in control.

 

Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

[Totallyatpeace]

No kidding.

 

Fwee specifically detailed the use of honesty and only honesty applied to the walking on water thing.

 

How so?

 

Honesty is not faith. This I know.

 

So given that he made it clear to us that only honesty was to be used when pondering the walking on water......

 

That made it a good time to make faith declarations? Why? Because it's not about honesty.

 

That's not what was asked for. That's not what was needed. Faith is not the issue. Honesty is. I disagree. And I also feel this is way off the original poster's opening statement. Reason vs Emotion.

 

So you made a faith declaration for who? Fwee doesn't need it, it's not what he asked for.

 

White Raven, you are getting the Christian perspective from me. Faith will always be a part of that but it doesn't mean I'm dishonest, it means I have faith. Faith is part of any religious belief.

 

The rest of us don't need it because we all understand faith as a specifically individual experience that has no bearing on how another person experiences it.

 

So who was that for? It was a simple answer to the question.

 

The only one left is yourself.....and the deity you are shmoozing up to. I don't schmooz, but thanks for putting your impression out there.

 

A supreme being hardly requires a pack of sychophant toadies following through infinity. So you really aren't impressing god or any god spies around monitoring your level of "witnessing". That kind of ego is a human thing. A supreme being need never stoop so low.

 

So that only leaves....yourself. That kind of reassurance is necessary when you are as insecure as religion can make you.

 

So.....was it good for you? It's been good, it's been a struggle and continues to be so. That's what faith is......and that's an honest answer.

 

Thanks for the reply, White Raven.

 

This does however, seem off topic from Chef's post.

 

Answer honestly.

edited: For Fwee (my bad!)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Clearview]

Hmm... When Fwee asked for an honest answer, TAP claimed the answer was not about being honest and gave an answer of faith instead.

 

 

Methinks faith is preventing her from being honest.

[crazy-tiger]

Is there anyone here that actually was compelled to de-convert based only on rational reasons, and no emotions?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes...

 

 

Me.

[Ouroboros]

(snip)

 

Well, I say all of this to get to when my deconversion point started.  PTSD makes all your emotions very violent in nature and on the edge.  Over time this decreases and you return to a normal state but you feel numb...and also find that emotions do not come easy for you.  Instead of being the rational and loving person you once were you become withdrawn and distant, harsh, tempered....totally changes you.  I have gone along this road and it is not a fun journey and in fact I am certain that thousands of young men in the current wars are going through similiar things right now.  My event does not even come close to what many of these men went through in being injured but being locked in the back of a truck being driven "who-knows-where" and then almost dying by a shotgun to the face is not a good memory, especially when it was hours of driving being locked up in the back of the truck not knowing what would come.

 

I say all that to give you an idea of the mindset I was in when I began to rebuild my life.  My emotional state was blank.  In fact, I would say that they were so raw they weren't functioning.  I was almost like a robot.  My rational mind kicked in and I begane to write.  I wrote pages and pages of "stream of conciousness" type of writing.  I wrote about the "messiah" idea in mankind and how it is within various cultures.  I found it exceptionally funny that I was the son of a carpenter name Joseph (myself named Joseph) born near a town named Davidson.  All this led to a point inwhich I began to question everything I had be taught about God.  I no longer want to accept that (had I died) that I would face the reality that billions of lives had been lost to hell simply because they were not born into the proper culture and heard of the Jesus of Christianity.  I did a historical search.  I did a step by step process of the theological claims of Christanity vs Judaism.  I did an indepth investigation into the claims of Judaism vs Christanity and at all turns the only reasoned and informed conclusion is that Christianity is a patchworked lie built upon centuries of misinformation, murder, and control.

 

Wow! That was an amazing story.

 

Basically you could say the emotional turmoil did start it, and then logic and reason took over.

 

That's at least how I think I see it now, that religion is very emotional, and only an emotional event (especially the kind that "kills" all emotions you have, and make you numb) will break the spell. And after that only rational reasons make sense, because you can't trust your emotional instincts anymore.

 

Or in other words:

 

It's easy to believe anything when your emotional status quo is in equilibrium (balance).

 

When the balance is turned upside-down, you lose the status quo.

 

Then only rational thought is preserved, and you start building your trust and opinions on logical reasons instead of emotional.

 

I haven't told that story in a few months and I can honestly say this is perhaps the first time I have written or told it without it being hard on me.  I guess time does heal wounds....but my deconversion process is truly linked to a time in my life when emotions had been burned out.

 

It does help to talk about it, and I have learned more about myself the last weeks by being on this site debating issues.

[chefranden]

My "reason" would not allow me to continue to believe something

that I discovered wasn't true.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If one can read the overwhelming evidence against xianity's truth and

still believe, emotion must be in control.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

 

This would raise the question: is reason your tool or your master?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As it says in the Bible it may be good for a while, but it aint necessarily so.

 

Antonio Damasio discovered in his studies of brain damaged people that people that have their emotional centers wrecked cannot make a decision or cannot make a good decision even when they can still reason logically.

 

The tone of your statement suggests that having "emotion in control" is bad. Is that what you meant?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you will discover from the first link, people are quite able to be content with cognitive dissonance -- for reasons having to do with survival.

[chefranden]

Hmm...  When Fwee asked for an honest answer, TAP claimed the answer was not about being honest and gave an answer of faith instead.

Methinks faith is preventing her from being honest.

 

I don't think so. TAP is being quite open and honest about her faith.

 

The curious thing about statements like this (I make them too) is that we are treating or speaking of faith as if it were a demon separate from the whole package of TAP. As if we are saying, "I discern that TAP is possessed by the demon of faith."

[Reality Amplifier]

"Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are labouring to dethrone. If they argue without reason, which they must do, in order to be consistent with themselves, they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument." - Ethan Allen

[Mr. Neil]

Is there anyone here that actually was compelled to de-convert based only on rational reasons, and no emotions?

Yes...

 

Me.

I abandoned theism via reason, although I was never a full fledged member of the flock. But I think that played a key difference in how I walked away from theism, because I never had the emotional attachment. Once I discovered that there was no good reason to believe in God, I didn't go out of my way to keep the concept alive.

 

I think that plays a key role; the emotional investment. People just fall in love with an idea and refuse to let go.

 

I see that one of my statements was quoted in the opening post. I don't expect people like Invictus to listen to reason. I have never intended to deconvert anyone with whom I argue. What I hope to show for the other Christians, however, is how unreasonable Invictus' arguments really are. The quote that was used was in reference to a resource that Invictus simply refuses to read and discuss intelligently, and I think any reasonably intelligent Christian willing to read a secular publication can easily see that Invictus has not bothered yet to be honest.

 

Second-hand deconversions from my posts seem to be moderately common, so I must be doing something right.

[chefranden]

"Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are labouring to dethrone. If they argue without reason, which they must do, in order to be consistent with themselves, they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument." - Ethan Allen

 

This is a compelling argument against the proposition, reason does not exist.

 

No one is making that argument, are they?

[Reality Amplifier]

(I'm not saying that reason, logic, or the scientific method are not valid, only that they are not compelling.)

 

This is a compelling argument against the proposition, reason does not exist.

 

No one is making that argument, are they?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Then it seems there are times when reason can be compelling...

[Ouroboros]

Isn't the sentence "emotional reason" valid? So reason is just the word how we argue, and the argument can be rational or emotional, or both.

[Totallyatpeace]

I don't think so.  TAP is being quite open and honest about her faith.

 

The curious thing about statements like this (I make them too) is that we are treating or speaking of faith as if it were a demon separate from the whole package of TAP.  As if we are saying, "I discern that TAP is possessed by the demon of faith."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Somebody that understands.

 

Thank you.

[Outsider2]

This is an interesting topic andI have to admit that my deconversion was a mix between reason and emotion. I feel you cannot separate the two for both of them together is what makes us human.

 

It gets on my nerves when someone says I left Christianity out of some emotional breakdown and did not think things through. They always have some example of someone in their church who left bitter and angry. Of course, it is the bitter persons fault and only if they were given the right teaching they would have had a good reason to stay.

 

I think in the debate section us Ex-Cs have to show that Reason is what compelled us to leave. For once we show one tiny hint that emotion was involved, we hear "Ah Ha! I knew you left for irrational and emotional reasons! Therefore, my faith remains true!".

 

I have no problem admitting that emotion played part in my deconversion and it is not something to be ashamed about. Reason is not what compelled me to deconvert, but it is why I deconverted. Emotion showed me the nastiness of Christianity and Reason showed me why. Reason is not a strong motivator, but balanced with our emotions can bring about life changes.