Akheia Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 You know, you don't have to do this. If you do finish his reading list and still aren't convinced, he'll just have more for you to read--or else he'll say your "heart was hardened against their wisdom" or something. You've already done the research. You have my complete permission to tell him to take a flying leap. Or to ask him to read one atheist book for each Christian one he wants you to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 3, 2012 Author Share Posted August 3, 2012 Actually.. I said something like that to my wife. I said, "I'll give these books a fair shot, but I think it's only right that you read the books that defend my point of view". Of course, this was directed at her because the only reason I now deal with the pastor is for her comfort. She agreed to do so. Though, I worry about the role confirmation bias will play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 3, 2012 Author Share Posted August 3, 2012 To be clear, I am not a confrontational person, in general. I'm happy to live a quiet life, unbothered by those who disagree with me. As, such, I take no pleasure in debate. I don't like to argue, especially over personal matters. It's very tempting to just not respond and say no more, but I know that will only lead to more painful confrontation at home. I wish I could simply perform some kind of vulcan mind meld with my wife and all would be clear to her, but I cannot. Thus, I spend my time reading works of literature the put knots of disgust and anxiety in my stomach, so I can do the job I am unsuited for, of defending the position of rationality to those that have devoted their lives to the irrational. It's frustrating, because outside of religion my wife and I enjoy each other so much. But merely saying "I don't want to practice religion anymore, but you're welcome to do so" can cause so much divide. She's not even hardcore, not a fundie. We only went to church on Sundays and she doesn't even enjoy it that much, but now she thinks I'm some kind of freak. All I feel I can do is show that my mind is open, and rational, and that it's not for a lack of information that I leave. My wife doesn't even pray at home, only at church, or at dinner with her mother... yet now she can't understand me, as if I'm some new person. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 The way christians seem to think about that bible is "it's simple, just have faith.... but if you MUST think about it, then it's very complex and difficult. Thinking can be especially complex and difficult if one is not used to doing it. :-) Regarding prayer: "Yes, feel free to pray for me. I'll set my calendar to go off in 1 year and we'll see if your god brings me back to the fold." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 I don't want to get into a long debate with her, but I felt this needed a reply. So this is what I sent: I think you're missing the point of my letter. I do understand the concept of God's absolute power, and him giving us free will to break his laws. The main point, rather, is that there are too many things in the Bible directly ordered by God (according to the authors) which doesn't make sense for who we say God is. Would a god of love order the massacre of women and children? Or it it more likely a man ordered this and then attributed it to God? Would God be so concerned with Hygiene that he dedicated books to it in his holy scriptures, or is it more likely a priest decided it was good to make laws about this and then attribute it to God? When one looks at the Bible as the word of God it doesn't hold water. But if one looks at the Bible as the words of an ancient people who were trying their best to explain their world without the aid of today's science, and impose what they considered moral rules to govern their populace it makes perfect sense. If God exists, I don't believe the majority of the Bible would please him. If we entirely base our worship on the Bible then it can't be valid either. I believe God would be happier with the pursuit of truth in a rational manner, not blindly accepting tradition without proof. Good letter. The pastor may even secretly agree but it would be professional suicide to admit that. :-) So whether he believes his own apologetics or not he still has to make a public pretense that he's right and you're not. He's loyal to the team that pays his mortgage...the congregation. It would be interesting if there were a way to poll churches to get the number of congregation members and the pastor's rating of public vs private belief in Jesus, and various points of xian doctrine. It would be easy to poll congregation members anonymously by church but getting the pastors to acknowledge private disbelief would be nearly impossible. Unless pastors were just lumped into a generic 'church leadership' category. I'd like to be able to see a range of stats though no church names would be known to see what percent of church members and their pastors dont believe this bullshit yet continue to attend. Ok, this was tl/dr. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 To be clear, I am not a confrontational person, in general. I'm happy to live a quiet life, unbothered by those who disagree with me. As, such, I take no pleasure in debate. I don't like to argue, especially over personal matters. It's very tempting to just not respond and say no more, but I know that will only lead to more painful confrontation at home. I wish I could simply perform some kind of vulcan mind meld with my wife and all would be clear to her, but I cannot. Thus, I spend my time reading works of literature the put knots of disgust and anxiety in my stomach, so I can do the job I am unsuited for, of defending the position of rationality to those that have devoted their lives to the irrational. It's frustrating, because outside of religion my wife and I enjoy each other so much. But merely saying "I don't want to practice religion anymore, but you're welcome to do so" can cause so much divide. She's not even hardcore, not a fundie. We only went to church on Sundays and she doesn't even enjoy it that much, but now she thinks I'm some kind of freak. All I feel I can do is show that my mind is open, and rational, and that it's not for a lack of information that I leave. My wife doesn't even pray at home, only at church, or at dinner with her mother... yet now she can't understand me, as if I'm some new person. Unfortunately it is American culture. In America you can live your life and socialize with a group of people who never talk about god, never go to church and live 'secular' lives but as soon as you say something like "I don't believe in god" those same people who are for all intents and purposes 'godless' will tell you how very wrong you are for not believing. Though they of course haven't attended church for years and say 'goddammit' frequently. But YOU are going hell. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcdaddy Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 Yeah, deep down I think she's less bothered by me going Agnostic than she is by me choosing to do it after we've been in the same church for 3 years and now she has to go without me. This is the very reason I still go to church. My family has always operated as a unit and i dont want to be the outcast. "Hey, why havent I seen your husband". "Oh hes at home he's an atheist now". Its very empty though. My hearts not in it. Its more of a side show. I'm a few days behind on this thread. But yeah this is me too. I don't mind it that much, we haven't been to SS in a long time so it's only been one service, free coffee, say hi to a few people, don't mind the music too much, but putting up with the pastors fucktarded sermons for 30 min is FUCKING HELL. I want to kick that rat bastard in the knees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcdaddy Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 He's got two sons in their late teens/early 20s who are already jockeying for position to be the next douchebags uh I mean pastors. These fucking deluded kids. I seriously have this awesome fantasy of finding some way to deconvert one of em. Gawd that would be sweet revenge. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pox Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 Catching up on this thread. I haven't read most of those books, but I'm familiar with Mere Christianity, and I almost lawled when I read that. It's unbelievably weak, argument from morality stuff, maybe a little Pascal's Wager thrown in for dessert. It's written to reinforce Christian belief, not convince anyone who doesn't already believe. If that's his go-to number one tract, and the other books are of that caliber, you won't have any trouble. Any trouble refuting them, that is. It won't likely settle the real trouble of helping your wife learn to accept your new opinions. Maybe the pastor could help counsel her on how to do that. Surely, she's not the only church member in that situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pox Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 He's got two sons in their late teens/early 20s who are already jockeying for position to be the next douchebags uh I mean pastors. These fucking deluded kids. I seriously have this awesome fantasy of finding some way to deconvert one of em. Gawd that would be sweet revenge. Maybe one will turn out to be gay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 4, 2012 Author Share Posted August 4, 2012 Indeed. "Is God a Moral Monster " has been mind numbing so far. Rationalizing gods actions to be loving not cruel. But in order to do so he makes excuses that make God extremely human in nature and less divine, despite his attempts to say otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 10, 2012 Author Share Posted August 10, 2012 I ordered several "secular" books from amazon, and they arrived yesterday. My wife has agreed to read them. This should be interesting. (though, i think she's going to finish "A Dance with Dragons" first, so there will be some time before she gets into them) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akheia Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 You might want to get her a nice Bloom County book for after the Dragons thing, you know, clear her palate. Reading it sent me into a considerable funk, it sucked so bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 10, 2012 Author Share Posted August 10, 2012 Hmm. I haven't read a Dance with Dragons yet. The two of us were about the same distance in the series, and then I got sidetracked by all this religious reading, and she got ahead. So... I don't want spoilers, but you're saying you were dissatisfied with the book, or that the story took a particular depressing turn (as it often does in this series)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akheia Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 The writer has apparently kidnapped the entire family of his editor and is threatening to use a flamethrower on them unless the editor agrees not to make a single editorial change to his work. That's all I can figure. You know how Ann Rice jumped the rails toward the middle of her Vampire series and decided she was too good for editing? That's what seems like it's happened with Martin. He isn't the only writer who got convinced of his own superiority; I've seen similar trends in the writing of Piers Anthony, Terry Goodkind, Jordan, and some others. But there are so many writers who DON'T fall apart mid-series (R Silverberg, CJ Cherryh, Aldiss, Niven, Asimov, Modessit, Joan Vinge, Paula Volsky) that I know it's more than possible to keep one's edge in a long series. All I can chalk it up to is the writer demanding more editorial freedom and not realizing that editors are where they are for a good reason. I suspect that's why I've had such a steady stream of freelance work: I can't even imagine giving mine any arguments. It'd be impossible to give you any spoilers, because I'll be fucked if I can even figure out just what the hell even HAPPENED in that murky, hodgepodge shitpile of a book. I don't even remember much of it. It's depressing, it's illogical, it's difficult to follow, it's got six zillion characters all clamoring for POV, it's murky, it's shockingly sexist and unnecessarily cruel, and I just don't have time or interest enough to reread it to make any sense out of it like I had to with both of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently books. After reading it, I can safely say I have no interest whatsoever in reading anything further in the series. It'll be enough to know at the end who finally became king, and that single sentence is something I can wait a few years to find out if need be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 13, 2012 Author Share Posted August 13, 2012 Ah, I see. I'm on book 4. I liked the first 3 but four has been uninteresting to me. It focuses on almost all new characters and the old characters seemed to stagnate. As for the sexism... it always reminded me of the Bible. And I took it as a kind of "this is how it was back then and it was horrible." At least so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 Ugh, my wife was going over to her Mom's tonight to get some help with some paperwork. Just before she left she asked me about how I came to my lack of belief. I explained that I never felt very religious, but I went to church because I was always told to. When I finally looked into it, all my doubts were true to an even greater extent. She then asked how any of that could be "proven". I said that there is evidence to support the things I believe are true, and a lack of evidence to support what I didn't believe was true. We had a short debate about how to determine if things are true. My basic response was the bible isn't impartial and has no evidence to back it up. She came back with "but we can't really know what happened back then, not even dinosaurs", and that scientists couldn't have any more proof that what they said was true than the Bible did. (I was surprised by this, in the past she's always been good about accepting "fact" when pointed out to her... I think she must really not understand that there is EVIDENCE and not just baseless theories). She asked me if I really believed "we came from fish". Trying to make it sound stupid. I said that Yes, I believe in evolution, because the evidence strongly points to it being true, and that I would NEVER ask her to believe anything there wasn't EVIDENCE for. I said that even if I were to believe that god created the world, I'd still believe in evolution because it's a fact. She seemed a little confused by that, not by me saying that there was evidence, but that I was saying evolution was true, "whether or not" God was real - as if evolution could not be true if there was a God of any sort. At that point she had to leave, because she was going to be later for meeting with her mom. I ended up being slightly frustrated, but I hope something is getting through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akheia Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 I think Martin just got bored of some of the old characters and wanted to go play somewhere else. A pity. As to tonight's thing, that was a cute manipulation she tried on you, trying to push some absurdity into the simple fact of evolution. Some preacher probably said it or some apologist wrote it, and it sounded neat to her. That's how these fucktards get people to believe their lies--they make it sound silly. No, nobody thinks humans evolved from *fish.* We evolved from slightly less-human hominids. Fish and humans do have a common ancestor, but that's some distance back. And as you noted, we have proof and evidence for that claim. It's just as easy for me to say that it's way more absurd for your wife to believe that a fairy wished us all into existence and sprinkled pixie dust on the ground and it became a human. A lot of fundies seem like they're starting to equate creationism with the Bible. That if this is found false, then the Bible's on very shaky footing. I don't think that liberal Christians really cared much about that issue before, but I perceive a greatly increasing polarization of religion in the country. They want a showdown, and maybe it's time for one. A peaceful one of course, but one none the less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raoul Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 She asked me if I really believed "we came from fish". Trying to make it sound stupid. I said that Yes, I believe in evolution, because the evidence strongly points to it being true, and that I would NEVER ask her to believe anything there wasn't EVIDENCE for. If she ever asks that type of question again, you might wanna re-phrase it to 'we have the indentical DNA, at least in the embyonic stage, as a fish, chicken, and other animals'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 Well, as I left it off, she was going to her mom's. She came back home at 2 AM... I knew the paperwork they were working on wouldn't take that long, so they must have been discussing me... and they were. She came back armed with the stupid arguments of anti-evolution idiots. such as, "Where are the in-between creatures?" and "how can we REALLY know anything is as old as they say it is?", etc. Ideas planted there by her mom. Now, in the past I've noticed her heavy reliance on her mom. Which is a shame, because she's intelligent, but she doesn't trust herself to think. Anytime a situation comes up where she has to figure something out she's got the phone out to call mom. I'm of the opposite approach, I first attempt to figure something out on my own, then I'll try to look it up, and if that fails, I'll then ask someone for help. Asking for help first isn't necessarily horrible, if you know the other person is experienced in the subject. But on more than one occasion I know the advice her mother gave her was not true. And I would always point that out. They'd change their view on the matter when given evidence... but that was always on non-religious material. The religious material is made to shoot down reason.... Anyway... we discussed matters of evolution and the bible for about an hour while lying in bed. During that time she kept asking me "why didn't you talk to the minister when you had doubts?" I explained that I wasn't comfortable asking him, and that I felt better going to a source that didn't know me. And I explained that I AM reading books suggested by the minister... anyway, she kept asking that, saying that she didn't have the answers. That I MUST talk to the minister because he KNOWS these things, and she doesn't. So I finally said "Why do you think this one minister will be able to convince me?" and her response was "Because he's the only one I know right now, and it's the only hope I have of getting to see you again after we die" and she started crying. I'm a big softie, and that made me cry too. I hate to see her in pain over this. It was almost enough to make me wish I had stayed in the closet forever. It just makes religion all the more despicable... convincing an intelligent woman she doesn't know anything, and that if she doesn't convince me to follow her religion that I will leave her when I die and go to Hell. > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator TrueFreedom Posted August 14, 2012 Moderator Share Posted August 14, 2012 I've been there. Hopefully the worst will be over soon. Unless you want to be super open with everybody I would ask her and her family not to talk to anybody else about it. Once that cat's out of the bag there's no going back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 I don't care all too much what anyone else thinks, so they can tell whomever they want. My wife is the one person whose opinion matters to me... it's hard having to face her irrationatily, as I KNOW she can be extremely rational on any other topic than religion and the things that might harm her belief in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tothemorning Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 I do wish the best for you. It is not an easy thing for a woman to see her man break away from faith. A woman is often so dependent on such perceived assurances. To hear that your wife broke down crying under realizing your eternal fate just goes to show how deep the influences of such a godless and unloving concept goes. In time your wife will see that you are the same man she married and nothing has changed other than your intellectual challenges to a book and the many religious matrixes that man has created throughout history. As I claim an agnostic position I told my wife that if there is a god I don't challenge that being, I just challenge any books, belief systems and persons who claim to have such a revelation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 Yeah, that's the most difficult thing. I don't WANT to challenge her beliefs. I'd be content to let her believe, but not believe myself. However, it is, of course, not that simple. They're pretty much forcing me to "defend" my reason. And in doing so I give books that support my view... now.. she's doing everything she can to find "holes" in the evidence for my arguments... ignoring the fact (that I keep bringing up) that she doesn't even have evidence on her side of the argument for there to be holes in. I sent her a paper earlier about evolution, and in the beginning it talks about phylogenetic trees. They had some "caveats" there about how some creatures don't fit the tree we created, and she said "why should I believe ANY of this if there are caveats"... I was just dumbfounded by that argument... throwing out all scientific evidence for one or two caveats, but believing in something that has NO evidence. Then saying "it's not any better than my "evidence"".. of which there is none. I literally wanted to facepalm. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raoul Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 SK, I wish I could offer some advice but I don't know what to tell you since your wife is the one giving you the most grief about this. But it's not really her as much as it is her mother (based on your comments) and MORE importantly, and I can't stress this enough - that clergy person. None of us will ever realize what they do to people with their incessant rants and teachings on false doctrines, etc. When she tells you to talk 'with her minister' I believe you should cut this off right at the knees by saying something like 'he's only gonna give me the party line' or 'he's been TRAINED in apologetics even if that training is false' or whatever. He's pulling the strings, behind the scene, one way or another. I don't know if this helps but it's all I can offer, for now anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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