Ex-Christians Don't Exist ... Apparently

[Yrth]

@pockets - I'm glad to see you around again; hope everything's going smoothly for you and yours. I hope you're not denying that sometimes people who are really good at arguing/debate can get caught up in the mechanics of the argument and forget about the "communication" part of a discussion, as indeed the guy in the link seems to have. That he makes absolutely sure everybody knows he's a lawyer and uses that fact to try to strong-arm people's opinions doesn't help much. When I worked at call centers, the callers I hated the most were the folks who announced that they were lawyers; that always guaranteed an excruciating conversation with an entitlement-minded jackass. Think of it very much as waiters think of Christians . I'm positive that there were far more nice lawyers than douches, but they didn't tend to announce themselves! About all one can do is be the exception that tests the rule, as indeed you are.

 

With regard to the actual topic, it seems more and more like Christianity was designed from the ground up to be as manipulative as possible.

Thanks. I wouldn't deny that, no. Couldn't* even if I wanted to, heh.

wrt xtianity: absolutely.

[GodlessX]

They will come up with any excuse. You were not strong enough in your faith. You did it wrong. Went to the wrong church. Didn't really read the Bible. You did not have an open mind to begin with. You were overcome with you desire to sin. You had a bad experience. You -- you -- you.

 

Anything at all as long as it is not -- the religion is WRONG.

[mymistake]

I can't tell if you missed the point or if you're just annoyed.

"Double-speak" is just a negative way to describe presenting something in the best possible light. "Sophistry" is also a negative word. I'm objecting to your tone, not to your accuracy.

 

Uh no. Double speak and presenting something in the best possible light are very different things. Double speak is dishonesty. Honesty is not possible when using double speak. Double speak requires self contradiction. The other thing, presenting in the best light, emphasizes the good and doesn't mention the bad. It could be honest in done correctly. However it does not volunteer information. Any attempt to deceive done with "best light" will be done through omission. Deception with double speak is active.

[lunaticheathen]

...You were not strong enough in your faith. You did it wrong. Went to the wrong church. Didn't really read the Bible. You did not have an open mind to begin with. You were overcome with you desire to sin. You had a bad experience. You -- you -- you.

 

THIS. A million times this.

 

It's a fucking blame game. No desire to communicate, ever.

[Yrth]

I can't tell if you missed the point or if you're just annoyed.

"Double-speak" is just a negative way to describe presenting something in the best possible light. "Sophistry" is also a negative word. I'm objecting to your tone, not to your accuracy.

 

Uh no. Double speak and presenting something in the best possible light are very different things. Double speak is dishonesty. Honesty is not possible when using double speak. Double speak requires self contradiction. The other thing, presenting in the best light, emphasizes the good and doesn't mention the bad. It could be honest in done correctly. However it does not volunteer information. Any attempt to deceive done with "best light" will be done through omission. Deception with double speak is active.

And your source for this is what again? Your own personal understanding of a term? http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2011/04/doublespeak-and-lawyers.html?spref=fb <<supports my understanding over yours.

 

Also, wtf? You aren't even commenting on the dispute, you're just nitpicking some definition you disagree with without even giving a source. Really?

[mymistake]

I can't tell if you missed the point or if you're just annoyed.

"Double-speak" is just a negative way to describe presenting something in the best possible light. "Sophistry" is also a negative word. I'm objecting to your tone, not to your accuracy.

 

Uh no. Double speak and presenting something in the best possible light are very different things. Double speak is dishonesty. Honesty is not possible when using double speak. Double speak requires self contradiction. The other thing, presenting in the best light, emphasizes the good and doesn't mention the bad. It could be honest in done correctly. However it does not volunteer information. Any attempt to deceive done with "best light" will be done through omission. Deception with double speak is active.

And your source for this is what again? Your own personal understanding of a term? http://bytesdaily.bl...s.html?spref=fb <<supports my understanding over yours.

 

Also, wtf? You aren't even commenting on the dispute, you're just nitpicking some definition you disagree with without even giving a source. Really?

 

The improper use of definitions was the dispute I was commenting on. I didn't realize I would need to provide a source but I am happy to do so if it will help.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doublespeak

[Yrth]

I can't tell if you missed the point or if you're just annoyed.

"Double-speak" is just a negative way to describe presenting something in the best possible light. "Sophistry" is also a negative word. I'm objecting to your tone, not to your accuracy.

 

Uh no. Double speak and presenting something in the best possible light are very different things. Double speak is dishonesty. Honesty is not possible when using double speak. Double speak requires self contradiction. The other thing, presenting in the best light, emphasizes the good and doesn't mention the bad. It could be honest in done correctly. However it does not volunteer information. Any attempt to deceive done with "best light" will be done through omission. Deception with double speak is active.

And your source for this is what again? Your own personal understanding of a term? http://bytesdaily.bl...s.html?spref=fb <<supports my understanding over yours.

 

Also, wtf? You aren't even commenting on the dispute, you're just nitpicking some definition you disagree with without even giving a source. Really?

 

The improper use of definitions was the dispute I was commenting on. I didn't realize I would need to provide a source but I am happy to do so if it will help.

http://www.merriam-w...ary/doublespeak

Alright. Thanks. I didn't give a source at first either, so I shouldn't have gotten on your case about it. I became somewhat irate when you wrote as if it was so obvious that you had the right of it. ("Uh, no. *snaps fingers* Double speak...") Anyway, I think its clear that there are multiple understandings of what it means.

[Ouroboros]

I can't tell if you missed the point or if you're just annoyed.

"Double-speak" is just a negative way to describe presenting something in the best possible light. "Sophistry" is also a negative word. I'm objecting to your tone, not to your accuracy. All you're really saying is that this guy should be really good at making his case, but you've thrown in 'double-speak' and 'sophistry' in there to cast him (and lawyers generally) as untrustworthy. And as someone set to take the bar this summer, I can't say I liked reading that. : /

My intent was not to talk down or declare lawyers (in a general perspective) as untrustworthy. Sorry if I dissed your profession.

 

I've met many lawyers and judges over the years. (My son's case filled a couple of hundred boxes of medical and legal documents.) I've been in court many times (never as defendant, luckily), as plaintiff, witness, and on the jury. And in general, the more skilled you are in manipulating the language in your favor, the more successful you will be. And if you have to take on cases that you don't necessarily agree with, you will have to be able to speak as if you do, even if you don't, or you'll lose your client.

 

The most successful attorney I met, has a business that makes some half a billion a year (revenue, of course, not profit). He's a real trickster (and a sociopath). And the more human and ethical ones, they're just doing okay (compared, but a lot better than most still).

 

This has nothing to do with the honesty of the profession itself. Sorry if you took it that way, but lawyers/attorneys usually have to be skilled in doublespeak and sophistry. Not that they always need it. Not that it means they're dishonest. But they still have to have the skill, and sometimes they do use it.

 

Your link to Bytes Daily was funny. It makes my point, doesn't it?

 

BTW, to be fair, I'm going to give you the greatest trait of software developers (my profession). It's laziness. A good programmer tries to find the easiest, shortest, and fastest (to implement) solution to a problem. IOW, it can be a good trait. No judgment. It just is.

[Mike D]

BTW, to be fair, I'm going to give you the greatest trait of software developers (my profession). It's laziness. A good programmer tries to find the easiest, shortest, and fastest (to implement) solution to a problem.

 

Bravo.

 

It's funny because as an ex-techie, I was once in a job interview and I told the interviewer that my greatest strength was that I am lazy. (of course she looked utterly confused, and probably was wondering if I had lost my mind to say that in an interview). I explained that my laziness forces me to seek out the quickest, most efficient and failsafe way to implement and manage technology (i.e. databases, code, backup/recover, whatever), so I don't have to be bothered with it. This leaves me more time to do what I enjoy, like take long lunches, posting on ex-C.net, and doze off at my desk. Unfortunately I don't think she really saw the value in what I was saying and I was not offered the job . But I am glad finally to see someone else understands what I meant!

[Mike D]

Why does God need a lawyer to represent him anyway? Is God guilty of some misdemeanour?

 

My dad was a lawyer, and a judge. (And a rather smart one). And he was also a conservative Christian. We had many debates and arguments about this after I became an atheist.

 

He seemed to think that as a lawyer he had a much better understanding of the Bible then the ordinary Christian, because he read "critically".

 

I knew that was bullshit because he was ignoring rules of evidence when applying it to the Bible, that he would never dare ignore as an attorney in a trial or presiding over a case. I even mentioned to him that if all of us need to go out and get a law degree just to understand the Bible, then I think god fucked up somewhere when he wrote it. (I think he made some off-collar comment like it just took "common sense", which I then pointed out that his own son must not have any because I couldn't understand it, which he then countered that I "clearly" wasn't applying myself - more bullshit).

 

See, growing up he was the one who taught me to think critically and like a lawyer, even though I wasn't one. Maybe that thought process even aided me in realizing that Christianity was bunk.

 

Till the day he died, he never stopped believing (it was purely emotional btw, I could totally tell).

 

After a lifetime of arguing with a lawyer day after day you can't help but learn how to think like one, even if you don't want to be one

[mymistake]

I became somewhat irate when you wrote as if it was so obvious that you had the right of it. ("Uh, no. *snaps fingers* Double speak...") Anyway, I think its clear that there are multiple understandings of what it means.

 

So you are a lawyer? Yes, I dised lawyers. It's not because I have the truth. It just means I'm opinionated. What I was expressing is, in my opinion, a trend rather than a rule. There are of course lawyers who choose clients so that they wind up on the moral side of an issue. It's just that the system is set up so that every side get a defender. Some lawyer somewhere has to defend the scum of humanity. And they have to do it the best they can. If they choose to do it by not volunteering information and distracting people's attention away from an undesired issue then I consider that morally superior to intentionally mixing true words with false words. The latter is just a shade of gray away from misinforming.

[Ouroboros]

But I am glad finally to see someone else understands what I meant!

I'm glad too that someone else understood it.

 

I think it's important to know ourselves, good with the bad, and see how even the bad things can be used for good. That's why I'm not really putting any negative connotation to "doublespeak" or "sophism" when it comes to lawyers. It is what it is. They have to be good at spinning stories and mold language to server their needs. I'm sure Pockets disagree with me, but I think a successful lawyer must be very skilled in doublespeak (both interpreting and creating), and those who are not, might be ethically good people, but not very successful in doing the business of lawyering. To me, that's not a negative trait. It's just a fact of their skills. A soldier is trained in killing people... does that make them immoral? Is it a reflection of the ethical behavior of the army? No. It's a skill they have to have, and hopefully they don't have to use it too often.

[Yrth]

No judgment. It just is.

It's generally a negative word, so I hope you can understand my assumption. We're cool. :]

[blackpudd1n]

BTW, to be fair, I'm going to give you the greatest trait of software developers (my profession). It's laziness. A good programmer tries to find the easiest, shortest, and fastest (to implement) solution to a problem.

 

Bravo.

 

It's funny because as an ex-techie, I was once in a job interview and I told the interviewer that my greatest strength was that I am lazy. (of course she looked utterly confused, and probably was wondering if I had lost my mind to say that in an interview). I explained that my laziness forces me to seek out the quickest, most efficient and failsafe way to implement and manage technology (i.e. databases, code, backup/recover, whatever), so I don't have to be bothered with it. This leaves me more time to do what I enjoy, like take long lunches, posting on ex-C.net, and doze off at my desk. Unfortunately I don't think she really saw the value in what I was saying and I was not offered the job . But I am glad finally to see someone else understands what I meant!

 

Try using the word "efficient" next time. "Lazy" is just too loaded with negative connotations. I understand your point, but even so, when I think of the word "lazy", the words "dirty", "messy", "slob", and "slow" come to mind.

[jdog]

1 Timothy 4

 

¹ The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

 

Matthew 24:10

¹⁰ At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, ¹¹ and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. ¹² Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, ¹³but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

 

I have wondered what these verses means and find it all a bit confusing.

 

Does Faith = Christian?

 

No Faith = Not a Christian?

 

OR Faith = Saved?

No Faith = not saved?

 

 

If you fall away or turn away from faith, doesn't that mean at one time you were a Christian, you were saved? You can't fall away from something IF you were never part of that something in the first place.

 

So to me it seems we were Christians. We had faith and then we changed..began to think and reconsider everything....and here we are now at ex-C.

 

Are we those who have fallen away? And if we are those who have abandoned the faith, doesn't that mean we were once believers, we were Christians?

 

I spoke to someone a long while ago, it was not long after my deconversion 4 yrs ago and I think the person must have had the "once saved always saved philosophy" because I told him that I was once a Christian but I no longer believe and he said that I was still a Christian. I didn't quite get that.

 

It seems that some people think that faith is the foundation of being a Christian and being saved and if you lose that faith then you are no longer part of the club but then others think that if you were once a Christian then you still are one even though you may not think you are. LOL

 

I get a bit confused about all of this as you may be able to tell. I would like some help on this if anyone can clarify those verses I posted. Am I missing something?

[Kurari]

I've confused the hell out of people who have asked me, "Are you a Christian?" and I've said, "I don't know. It depends on who you talk to."

 

Curiously, I've used that line about 5 times now and nobody has wanted me to explain it. And two of those people were Jesus peddlers looking for gullible recruits for their churches.

[jdog]

I've confused the hell out of people who have asked me, "Are you a Christian?" and I've said, "I don't know. It depends on who you talk to."

 

Curiously, I've used that line about 5 times now and nobody has wanted me to explain it. And two of those people were Jesus peddlers looking for gullible recruits for their churches.

 

It's a genius answer! It really does some up what I was saying in my post. Whether we are a Christian or not really does depend on who we talk to.

[Spectrox]

Here's my response/summary on theologyonline.com

 

It's a bit long but you might find it interesting.

 

Unlike here I was not allowed to swear!

 

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

 

 

This is a new thread about apostacy claims made by Town Heretic (TH) on the thread entitled “I Lost my Faith a While Back.”

I have written this so that newcomers to this site who happen to be ex-Christian won’t be wrong-footed or waylaid by the assertions made. I was temporarily bogged down by the claims made by TH – it was such an obscure, leftfield argument that I now want to put it to rest because I believe it was founded in fallacy and assumption and was more to do with TH’s lawyer training (wanting to win an argument with wordplay) rather than an honest pursuit of truth. It was IMO a red herring and a smoke screen.

 

It’s a clever way of making excuses for an assumption. It could be taken the wrong way as being a brilliant way of covering up a lie. I don’t think it’s malicious on TH's part, I think it’s probably done unconsciously.

 

Here’s my story in brief: I believed that Jesus had saved me and I loved the God of the Bible. I wanted to pass on the message to others. Some months later, after having read the Bible again and again, and hearing the criticisms of others, I had doubts - that were so severe, I ended up deconverting and rejecting Christianity as the absolute truth that I once thought it was.

 

This is my understanding of the argument presented by TH in the same thread:

 

TH claims that trust and doubt is an either/or position and they cannot exist at the same time. Trust is an absolute quantity. Any doubt, however small, necessarily destroys it. This necessarily means that the trust I claimed to have was founded on doubt in the first place (irrespective of whether God exists or not) and that this is a self-contradictory position. Therefore apostacy is inherently contradictory. Therefore there is no such thing as an ex-Christian.

 

Wow.

 

I showed the thread to 2 people I know. One was a Christian. He said he found the argument “a bit weird.”

 

The other person was someone I work with who has expertise in logic and how linguistics relates to that.

 

I went some way towards dismantling TH’s claims in the thread and I would like to dismantle them further as a result of my subsequent interactions.

 

TH is making a fundamental error in his logic. He is confusing “taking a contrary position with one taken previously” with “self-contradiction.”

 

His assertion that the trust and doubt I experienced could only happen at the same time is incorrect. They did not. They were separated by time (2-3 months). I have also held other beliefs where trust and doubt were separated by time, such as the existence of Santa Claus; the Easter Bunny; the Tooth Fairy; Big Foot; Robin Hood; alien abduction; magic tricks aren’t tricks but are really magic. These were not founded on doubt. They may have been founded on insufficient evidence or an immaturity in my thinking but it is wrong to say I never believed and trusted in these things. I did.

 

TH says that there is an “error in apostacy”. So if this is true, what about a muslim who believes in the Islamic God and then rejects these beliefs (commits apostacy) and then converts to Christianity? Is this also an error? Can he never become a true Christian after believing in Allah?

 

If only Christian apostacy is an error then this violates the original assumption that apostacy is a contradiction irrespective of whether or not a God actually exists.

 

Trust is not necessarily an absolute term. Some research in Psychological Journals has indicated that trust defined as relative and dynamic is more appropriate than an absolute ideal, i.e. trust can be earned back. Maybe it’s on a continuum with doubt? I don’t know. But I don’t think it can be reasonably asserted that trust is an absolute.

 

Additionally, TH did not define any of his terms at all.

 

www.emotionalcompetency.com has this to say:

 

“Trust implies depth and assurance of feeling often based on inconclusive evidence. Confidence frequently implies stronger grounds for assurance. Rely implies complete confidence. Dependence suggests reliance on another having the greater power. Gullibility refers to a blind trust—an unfounded or misplaced trust. Betrayal and cheating describe a broken trust. Suspicion is a lack of trust. Manipulation describes behavior that takes place before establishing trust. Reputation is the history of trust behaviors accessible from past transactions. We use reputation information to help set expectations for future transactions; it eases exchange of valuables and reduces risk.”

So I don’t think this subject is as simplistic as TH’s analysis assumes.

 

If faith is defined as “belief without evidence” and trust defined as “belief with some evidence” then by TH’s simple logic, faith and trust cannot exist at the same time. That would be a contradiction. You can’t simultaneously have evidence and not have evidence for a belief. Unless faith is experienced in the left half of the brain and trust in the right and there are no connections between the hemispheres. Does this therefore mean that to have trust and faith simultaneously requires that the individual has to have a frontal lobotomy!

 

Does anyone else see how ludicrous these “playing with words” arguments are?

 

TH might say that I didn’t experience any of this “in relation” to God. What does this really mean? He has to demonstrate a God first before making this claim. And once again, the argument was an attempt to demonstrate that apostacy is in error irrespective of whether a God exists or not. Metaphysical experiential claims don’t further the debate.

 

If you want to see some clear contradictions, you need look no further than the Bible, the worst one being the 2 contradictory accounts of the death of Judas in Matthew 27 and Acts 1.

 

TH failed to give any substantive argument in defence of this. All he said was “He (Judas) died.”

 

TH’s claims are founded on 4 assumptions which aren’t necessarily correct.

 

1. He made assumptions about the meaning of the words he was using.

2. He assumed that in apostacy trust and doubt necessarily occur at the same time.

3. He assumed that trust is an absolute quantity.

4. He assumed that the slightest amount of doubt destroys all trust forever.

 

So TH got the answer he wanted. Unfortunately it’s a case of Garbage In, Garbage Out. And it’s profoundly contrived.

 

If God really has got an ultimate message for mankind, it should be self-evident. This message has been communicated through words in a book, allegedly.

 

Research in 1967 by Mehrabian and Ferris in the Journal of Psychology has shed light on what is the most effective way to communicate (create understanding in a person’s mind).

 

55% is Body Language and Facial Expression.

38% is Tone of Voice

7% is Words

 

This research has been refined in recent years but these relative quantities have broadly accepted validity.

 

So why is God choosing to communicate his extremely important message to mankind using the most inefficient method available? How accessible and inclusive is this message?

 

TH’s simplistic argument fails to address the central issue. Is Christianity true and accurate? The burdon of proof is on the theist to prove the positive claims that something exists, certain events took place and that I should take them seriously.

 

What we can perhaps infer from all the above is that there are 3 nominal types of Christian:

 

1. “The Ex-Christian” – someone who did believe Biblical claims but rejected those beliefs before death.

2. “The Struggling Christian” – someone who on the whole believes Biblical claims but struggles with some of it or engages in cherry-picking or occasional doubts but generally is a believer before they die. Most Christians I have encountered are in this category.

3. “The Gnostic Christian” – someone who believes Biblical claims with 100% certainty and 100% trust until they die. They would have to have no doubt whatsoever, no matter how small. The slightest doubt about any Biblical detail or claim and they are relegated into the Struggling Christian category. Unquestioning total obedience. The only Christian I know of who is in this category is Town Heretic.

 

If someone claims to know with 100% certainty that they will have no doubts about their beliefs in detail before they die, then they must possess the ability to see into the future. Can TH see into the future? Does he have time travel capability?

 

As stated in my previous thread, there are 2 possibilities about what happened to me:

1. Christianity is true and I made a mistake.

2. Christianity is untrue and I had a similar experience to every other Christian on the planet.

 

I think apologetics is largely driven by an anxiety that disbelief could possibly happen to the apologist.

 

The question TH should really be asking is “Why does God need a lawyer?”

[Chikirin]

What about the parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd leaving the 99 to find the one that was lost? Are people who leave the faith somehow not considered lost? Kind of a worthless parable. It used to be a favorite of mine now it seems maudlin and irrelevant.