de-conversion

What if I behaved toward Christians like they behave towards me?

I like to think of myself as an easygoing person for the most part. I like to live and let live. Although I do not ascribe to any religion, nor do I believe in any god, I do understand why some people need spirituality in their lives.

However, I have to say that I am so very tired of having other people’s religious beliefs shoved in my face. I do not behave in that manner about my agnostic view and think it arrogant for Christians to think I care about their belief system.

For example, I wonder what Christians would think if Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris got on television on a continual basis to make emotional pleas for money to finance the spread of their atheism?

As for those Christians who gather outside concerts to pass out tracts to get me saved, I wonder what they would think if I stood outside their churches and pass out literature on atheism to those leaving the building?

The other day I was driving in my car past a very crowded intersection when I noticed a group of young people with signs. Since it caught my attention, I looked closer and noticed the signs had pictures of mutilated foetuses – and me on the way to lunch…

Continue Reading 138 comments March 14, 2008

Fundamentalism: A Disease of the Mind?

Disclaimer: This article is my opinion only, based on my own literary and theoretical research (M.A. in Lit.) and is not intended as “scientific research.”

The more I interact with Christian fundamentalists, either in church or on the Internet, the more I become convinced it is a disease of the mind, or at least a self-replicating meme or “mind virus.” Having been a Christian fundamentalist myself, I can honestly say that you aren’t in your right mind when you are caught in the throes of religious fundamentalism. As a fundamentalist you close your mind to anything but what ancient texts say. You only listen to certain things and filter everything through the lens of your chosen religion. How can this be normal when we are born without filters of any kind (except pain and pleasure)? Being a fundamentalist is like confining all your thought to the works of Archimedes or to Shakespeare (that might not be a bad idea) and refusing to accept information past that point. It’s like insisting that Greek culture is the only true culture and channeling all of your efforts to seeing that it becomes our culture now.

That being said, there is a certain thrill in suddenly “waking up” and realizing you’ve been deluding yourself for many years. What I once did to become a fundamentalist, I have now done in freeing myself from it’s grasp. You slowly begin to grasp that the fundamentalist rituals you are using are designed solely to keep those delusions fresh and ever present in your mind so that you will quickly fall into line if you have doubts…

Continue Reading 183 comments February 15, 2008

A Short Blurb on Theism vs Atheism

I have come to the conclusion that there is little difference, for better or for worst, between a theist and an atheist - specifically in the way we act, talk, and generally live our lives.

Morality: It doesn’t matter whether conservative theists cannot understand where a non-believer receives their morals, the fact is we share a common thread of ethical decency. Even in cases that their are tangible radical differences, such as sexual license, et al., an unbeliever is no more likely to engage in orgies, sexual crimes, divorce, and/or promiscuity than theists. Non-theists are simply more likely to admit it (it takes less than a semester at a conservative Bible college to figure this out).

Intellectualism: Atheists are not smarter than theists. Theists, likewise, are not smarter than atheists. While I do believe that fundamentalists suffer in the realm of academic integrity, the majority of sophisticated mainstream Christian scholars are exceptional scholars. The belief or non-belief in God is an issue of whether one can accept the value of faith or not.

Happiness/Joy/Peace: There was little joy when Jesus died on the cross, or even when he, according to the Bible, resurrected - unless you want to read into something that isn’t there…

Continue Reading 141 comments February 6, 2008

God is not Omnipotent

Guest Commentary

Personally, I feel that most arguments for or against the existence of God are too rooted in normative conventions for my personal beliefs. In other words, I cannot accept arguments based on supposedly established conventions such as good, evil, right, wrong, etc., because those conventions were primarily established through man-made religions.

This is not to say that employing norms such as good and evil are not useful in arguing against the existence of a deity. Using religiously established conventions (Christian norms, in this case) of good and evil, and by understanding the hierarchy of God’s characteristics, we can show that the God that Christians imagine to exist contradicts himself, and therefore cannot exist.

The Christian tradition holds that God is many things: God is love, God is merciful, and so on. One characteristic, a seemingly unavoidable prerequisite to being a deity, is that God is omnipotent. God, according to the Christian tradition, is also good and cannot be or do evil…

Continue Reading 191 comments December 15, 2007

Don’t Ask Me to Read Your Holy Book

An A-Religious Commentary:

Continue Reading 414 comments July 3, 2007

Why Do Christians Try So Hard To Convert Others?

I found this argument on an anonymous web site when I tried to research the phrase “don’t use christians to judge christianity.” I was using it as a research side trip after having read “Blame the Individual, Not the Faith.” The web site I found in my research appears to be an email conversation between a Christian and a non-Christian discussing the merits of believing and not believing, each from his own viewpoint. The Christian offers the typical argument used by those who are trying to save our souls. The non-Christian writes:

Consider Matthew 7:16. It applies to Christianity itself. Christianity has brought forth mostly corrupt fruit even if that was not Jesus’s intent. People would be wise to avoid the church and if they are interested in Jesus’s teachings, read them for themselves. I don’t throw out Jesus’s teachings. I throw out the nonsense in the Bible that passes for the word of God. To me it is clear the Bible could not possibly be God’s word simply because it is untrue. (punctuation errors his)

The Christian responded:

Continue Reading 164 comments April 24, 2007