prplfox Posted July 30, 2013 Author Share Posted July 30, 2013 Thank you everyone so much for the careful thoughts and wisdom you shared on this thread. Between this and the same post on my facebook wall, the responses were incredible. I printed them, sat with them, and re-read them all and made notes. I was ready to do the meeting but it didn't happen yesterday. It was going to be a dozen students who wanted to come, then it dropped to five, and then youth pastor called me last minute to cancel completely because only one student was going to come. The youth pastor said he would try to get them together before the end of the summer. I hope that it happens, though I'm worried this is a case of a religion protecting itself. But I will for sure write about it and tell you if I get the chance to meet them.In response to those of you raising concerns and confusion about motivation - I don't really know the youth pastor's motivation. Part of my reasons for wanting to be there is to dialogue with the students about their reactions to the videos. I have met with the youth pastor several times over the past few years and pushed for him to let me speak to his youth group. The idea is that if Jesus is true, then there is no reason not to have me speak there because the truth will stand for its own truthfulness. I think that his primary motivation in showing the youth group my deconversion series was his recognition that statistically, some of his student will leave the faith in their college years. He wants to prepare them so that it won't happen to them. Basically, to analyze what I did wrong so they don't deconvert. And they are praying for me. Some of you have said this might be a "set up." I'm ok with that. This isn't personal for me anymore. I don't need to justify myself to Christians, and I don't mind being personally undermined if in the process I can help someone else. I'm not going to change anyone's mind in a meeting like this, but my hope is that when some of them go through deconversions in the future, which is likely to happen, they won't have to feel so alone. I love how many of you brought up your conscience as the most important force in your break from Christianity. You are all so much more admirable than the bible, which gets it completely wrong when it says, "Gentiles are... darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. (Eph 4:18)" What it should say, if it had any idea what it was talking about, is that because we are loving beings, we aren't willing to throw our consciences under the bus to promote an immoral concept of a god. It reminded me of ex-pastor Jerry DeWitt when he said, "My conscience killed my faith." 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrGuitar Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Tell them to go to a good secular college like Stanford or Harvard and, if they are typical, they will be as deconverted as you in 4 years ...well 4/5 will anyway according to stats Getting them out of the Jesus cult is your task if you truly care about their welfare The real world, that is, the world away from indoctrination is the best antidote to the ridiculous lunacy of Christianity Too bad they chickened out on you but don't worry they can't run forever!! As Mick Jagger croaked way back in the 60 s: tiiiime is on mah side yes it is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RenaissanceWoman Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 I can think of two reasons why they all backed out... It's summer, and church attendance is always way down, especially with the youth. Or they told their parents about it, and the parents freaked. If you do it during a more church-heavy season and they still don't show up, you'll know it's reason #2. I can't wait to find out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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