When Christians come into the atheism sub-forum do they help their cause or hurt their cause? (afterlife, doctrine)
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My own personal experience since I first began visiting this set of sub-forums about religion is that the more Christians talk the more I turn against them. I considered myself a Christian up until July, but more they put forth the case, the more flawed their beliefs seem to me to the point that some posts now leave me disgusted.
How do the rest of you atheists and agnostics feel as you read more and more posts by Christians? Are they self-defeating?
As a person who was once a Christian, I know what theism is like. And for all of the well-known reasons, I generally do not like religions. Almost no theist was a lifelong atheist and then "found God" as an adult. Those few who did, rarely found God based on a critical examination of their religion of choice. Point is: if a theist is going to approach me for purposes of converting me into a religious person, assuming I have the time, I would probably be willing to enter into a polite discussion. If that discussion should commence, I most likely have the advantage of experience: the experience of both theism, and atheism. I have found that to be a significant advantage. To paraphrase a line from a movie: it almost seems as though they are bringing a knife to a gunfight. And yes, I generally find it oddly enjoyable.
As a person who was once a Christian, I know what theism is like. And for all of the well-known reasons, I generally do not like religions. Almost no theist was a lifelong atheist and then "found God" as an adult. Those few who did, rarely found God based on a critical examination of their religion of choice. Point is: if a theist is going to approach me for purposes of converting me into a religious person, assuming I have the time, I would probably be willing to enter into a polite discussion. If that discussion should commence, I most likely have the advantage of experience: the experience of both theism, and atheism. I have found that to be a significant advantage. To paraphrase a line from a movie: it almost seems as though they are bringing a knife to a gunfight. And yes, I generally find it oddly enjoyable.
I know what you mean. I'm not proud of feeling this way - but I do.
I suspect it feels like a little bit of payback for all the "god is going to send people like you to hell" remarks that have been directed my way over the years. There's nothing I can say about what someone feels, because how you feel is how you feel. But there is a great deal I can say when someone approaches me thinking I am so ignorant that I don't know what's in the bible or what christianity teaches, and that I will fall over in astonishment and awe the first time someone explains it to me. Especially when it's clear that the person doing the explaining is in it for the celestial brownie points and doesn't give a rat's ass about me or what I think.
Another one that will stop someone cold - Earnest proselytizer - "You know, god has a plan for you." Me - "Well, then, why not just leave it to god and me to work that plan out? Who says we need your input?"
Since their entire position is completely irrational and inherently contradictory, the more they write the more they expose the fundamental flaws in their arguments. When everything you say is clearly and demonstrably false, there is nothing you can say that will "help your cause."
How do the rest of you atheists and agnostics feel as you read more and more posts by Christians? Are they self-defeating?
I realized long ago that religious views are held emotionally by the believer and no amount of discussion or argument will be persuasive. The religious often come in here with a cause they think is righteous and some angle they think will stump us - which usually only shows their thought process is shallow and their reasoning lacking. The conversation dissolves into name calling and scripture quoting and then they disappear believing they have won and we are close minded and unreasonable. It takes far more than words to reach them. Most often people who leave their religion do so because of some internal struggle where their "heart" and "head" are at odds.
I realized long ago that religious views are held emotionally by the believer and no amount of discussion or argument will be persuasive. The religious often come in here with a cause they think is righteous and some angle they think will stump us - which usually only shows their thought process is shallow and their reasoning lacking. The conversation dissolves into name calling and scripture quoting and then they disappear believing they have won and we are close minded and unreasonable. It takes far more than words to reach them. Most often people who leave their religion do so because of some internal struggle where their "heart" and "head" are at odds.
True this. Cognitive dissonance is a valuable clue that all is not well.
There was no one factor that led me away from christianity, but one of the earliest was noticing, at around 10-12 years old, that too many of the christians preaching at me were, well, not christ-like. Sure there are a few bad apples in any barrel, but when there are so many, you begin to suspect that it is not a very good barrel in the first place.
I realized long ago that religious views are held emotionally by the believer and no amount of discussion or argument will be persuasive. The religious often come in here with a cause they think is righteous and some angle they think will stump us - which usually only shows their thought process is shallow and their reasoning lacking. The conversation dissolves into name calling and scripture quoting and then they disappear believing they have won and we are close minded and unreasonable. It takes far more than words to reach them. Most often people who leave their religion do so because of some internal struggle where their "heart" and "head" are at odds.
Yes this is a good summary. That's why I left. I could not take the cognitive dissonance anymore. Even then, I tried to salvage a sympathetic view of Christian fundamentalism but once out of its "reality distortion field" I was aghast at what I had bought into / indulged for so long. I was uncomfortable at first with "new atheism" and in fact with atheism period, and felt (rightly I guess, in a way) that a careful review of other religions was in order. But I found that they all suffered from the same failed epistemology -- asserting truth, and demanding it be believed without any substantiation. And then as I started engaging with believers, I discovered their disingenuous debate tactics -- ignoring questions, gaslighting, ad hominems, telling me what I think and believe instead of asking me -- and quite a bit more. Lots of wishful thinking, confirmation bias, and agency inference. Very undisciplined and unaware thought processes -- not because of any defect in the people overall, but due to lifelong operant conditioning.
So no they haven't endeared themselves to me. Some are worse than others, but I can count on the fingers of one hand, with a couple of fingers to spare, the theists that I have engaged with over the years that are willing to admit that they buy into what they buy into because they want to and/or because of personal subjective experiences that are (and should be) impressive to no one but themselves, and that their beliefs are binding on no one but themselves. If every theist were honest and realistic like that, I'd have zero problem with them.
I've also found that liberal Christians are not nearly so obnoxious and tetchy ... I actually attend such a church once in a blue moon in support of my wife who is looking for community and friendships there, even though she, also, is an unbeliever. Not coincidentally, the only theists I have some respect for and sense of common cause with associate with such liberal traditions. And the handful that I feel are totally honest come from liberal traditions as well.
As a person who was once a Christian, I know what theism is like. And for all of the well-known reasons, I generally do not like religions. Almost no theist was a lifelong atheist and then "found God" as an adult. Those few who did, rarely found God based on a critical examination of their religion of choice. Point is: if a theist is going to approach me for purposes of converting me into a religious person, assuming I have the time, I would probably be willing to enter into a polite discussion. If that discussion should commence, I most likely have the advantage of experience: the experience of both theism, and atheism. I have found that to be a significant advantage. To paraphrase a line from a movie: it almost seems as though they are bringing a knife to a gunfight. And yes, I generally find it oddly enjoyable.
Yes. It isn't a serious problem for me to be told "You can't know - you were never a believer". I simply say I have read the stories of those who were. They were as fervent a believer as any but they came to see in the end, they'd been bamboozling themselves. Thus assurances that "If I experienced it I'd know it was true" do not impress me.
I do pay very careful attention to claims of an atheists that converted. Given that I think we are all born irreligious at least (give or take the arguable "God -instinct") everyone has to be converted to a religion or a god belief with some kind of shape about it.
The converted atheist or two that I read don't in fact seem to have much understanding of the atheist arguments or even of what atheism is, so the conversion from a standpoint they didn't understand very well is not to be wondered at, though one does wonder why, as atheists, they didn't bother to look up the counters (1). But that could have been before atheism really hit the internet. And even then, Morality and a lot of other arguments still had to be tackled. Dammit, in those days I even thought it likely that an Exodus of some kind might have been historical.
But when a long time atheist converts, I want to know why. Really, the brother of Hitchens or the son of O' Hair don't seem to have been leading lights in the atheist camp. And their reasons for converting were really not very good ones.
There was an atheist blogger who converted to Catholicism through what was evidently a partiality to that religion and a funny idea about morality was evidence of God, and an atheist speaker went back to Christianity for reasons I couldn't quite get. Some Doctor other other who made a talk of why he converted rambled on for ever about inconsequentials and I never understood why he converted.
Anthony Flew is is fact more credit to atheism than to religion. Presented with evidence for a god, he accepted it. That did not of course make him a believer in a particular god, never mind religion, despite some truly clumsy attempts by the religious apologists to make it seem that he had become so. Of course he the ID and I/C arguments that I gathered were what persuaded him (I fail to see what else could have done) turned out to be non -science. Flew had been fooled. The lesson is that we should beware of being rushed into accepting evidence for God, heaven and Jesus before the reseasrch has been peer -reviewed, and ponder the efforts to hustle us into Godfaith on the basis of taking NDE claims at faith..sorry, face value.
So there, the "High profile' converts I can count on my fingers, and not one of them seems to have converted for a sound reason.
(1) q.particulayly v Lee Strobel and his film on his supposed conversion which paraded a lot of apologists for the Bible and not a single atheist opinion or argument.
For me, they neither help nor hurt their ideological cause. Their personal 'cause' of whether or not I respect them as a person...tends not to be helped.
I have oft said that Christians themselves are their own worse enemies. The problems I have with any religion is not so much the mythology but the behavior of the adherents. When I look at Christians, I see someone to which I DO NOT want to become. I do not want to be like them
That is enough alone for me to avoid them on Sundays.
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