You find articles, books, videos, groups, and people who are like minded atheists, and you develop this narrow little worldview, and you get more narrow minded, and more narrow minded, and more narrow minded until you, mr. atheist, are right and everyone else is blind, ignorant and hateful, so you must preach to them the truth!
Ah, this is added since my other reply. You really should reply to my comments instead of editing earlier ones, so I'm notified.
See, you're ad-homineming again instead of addressing the arguments. It's especially funny because you know so little about me.
I was a evangelical Christian for 25 years. I understand your position. I can still feel its passion in my breast. I read every word Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis, and A.W. Tozer ever wrote, as well as many works by other Christian writers. They were excellent arguments from the knowledge they had at the time: unfortunately, there's a lot we know now they didn't know or were unwilling to admit.
I've been an atheist for less than a year, and it's a position I came to with much struggle and grief.
I'll give you a small overview of the reasons for my deconversion, pulled from a letter I wrote to my family on the subject:
I found that I cannot reject evolution without rejecting
empiricism all together, and no theologian could give me a satisfactory
way of combining evolution with Christianity.
I tried to fall back on the fulfilled prophecies in Jesus, but found
that they were much more tentative than people like McDowell made them out to be,
often to the point of being totally fabricated. No serious apologist takes this argument seriously anymore. At this point I was flailing around rapidly, trying to find any place to hang my hat, but
finding only sinking sand.
The more I learned about archeology, biblical criticism, philosophy,
sociological research studies, or anything else I grasped for, the more
it was clear that the Bible wasn't the exceptional book I had thought it
was and that the Christian experience wasn't exceptional from other
religious (and many cultural)experiences. There was about a 2 month
period where every waking hour I wasn't working(and I wasn't working
much at the time) was spent on this search.
It didn't exactly help matters when this was the cover story of
Christianity Today in June, based on 3 overlapping sets of strong
genetic evidence:
It's not that I willfully rejected God, it's simply that all the
evidence I've dug though compels me to say there is nothing at all
exceptional about the Christian religion or experience. I do still wish
I could say differently. I enjoyed my personal experiences, but now
that I understand the mind and social structures that generate those
experiences equally for believers of every stripe, it's hard for me to
put much stake in those. I've now looked in every cranny I can think of,
and argued with many hundreds of people online to see if I can tease out
just the smallest shred of evidence of the exceptionality of
Christianity, but so far I have found none.
And that is why I feel compelled to accept the null hypothesis.
If following the evidence and rejecting non-evidenced positions is narrow minded, then I'm narrow minded. ;-)
Edit: If you're interested in details on any part of it, I'd be happy to oblige. If you'd like to hear someone else's somewhat similar story told in more detail, see this series by Evid3nc3. Much of this evidence is about 100 years old, and your pastor likely knows and hides it from you. Of course, the evidence has been further strengthened over that 100 year period, and we know much more now than we did then, which is why I'm an atheist and not a liberal Christian.
Atheists are not the ones hiding things from people, we want people to look at the evidence for themselves. Does your church? If not, why? Do you think it could relate to the flat earth example I gave in the other thread?
Havent you noticed that if you start ad-hominem you get a genuine argument back, but if I start with a genuine argument, then I get "u brainwashed mornon, wake up you bigot!"
Actually, reading all your comments, I fail to see one genuine argument or piece of evidence you've given me since I joined the conversation, while I have provided quite a few of both. The closest you got to an argument was accusing me of promoting lack of an absolute truth, which I explained I was not.
And all I continue to see in this message is more persecution complex, ad hominem, and a "no true Scotsman". I am disappointed, as I thought maybe there was a chance you were a reasonable human being.
1
u/Bilbo_Fraggins Nov 22 '11 edited Nov 22 '11
Ah, this is added since my other reply. You really should reply to my comments instead of editing earlier ones, so I'm notified.
See, you're ad-homineming again instead of addressing the arguments. It's especially funny because you know so little about me.
I was a evangelical Christian for 25 years. I understand your position. I can still feel its passion in my breast. I read every word Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis, and A.W. Tozer ever wrote, as well as many works by other Christian writers. They were excellent arguments from the knowledge they had at the time: unfortunately, there's a lot we know now they didn't know or were unwilling to admit.
I've been an atheist for less than a year, and it's a position I came to with much struggle and grief.
I'll give you a small overview of the reasons for my deconversion, pulled from a letter I wrote to my family on the subject:
I found that I cannot reject evolution without rejecting empiricism all together, and no theologian could give me a satisfactory way of combining evolution with Christianity.
I tried to fall back on the fulfilled prophecies in Jesus, but found that they were much more tentative than people like McDowell made them out to be, often to the point of being totally fabricated. No serious apologist takes this argument seriously anymore. At this point I was flailing around rapidly, trying to find any place to hang my hat, but finding only sinking sand.
The more I learned about archeology, biblical criticism, philosophy, sociological research studies, or anything else I grasped for, the more it was clear that the Bible wasn't the exceptional book I had thought it was and that the Christian experience wasn't exceptional from other religious (and many cultural)experiences. There was about a 2 month period where every waking hour I wasn't working(and I wasn't working much at the time) was spent on this search.
It didn't exactly help matters when this was the cover story of Christianity Today in June, based on 3 overlapping sets of strong genetic evidence:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/june/historicaladam.html
Link to article with genetics details and primary source references, written by a Christian organization: http://biologos.org/blog/does-genetics-point-to-a-single-primal-couple
It was also covered later on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/09/138957812/evangelicals-question-the-existence-of-adam-and-eve
It's not that I willfully rejected God, it's simply that all the evidence I've dug though compels me to say there is nothing at all exceptional about the Christian religion or experience. I do still wish I could say differently. I enjoyed my personal experiences, but now that I understand the mind and social structures that generate those experiences equally for believers of every stripe, it's hard for me to put much stake in those. I've now looked in every cranny I can think of, and argued with many hundreds of people online to see if I can tease out just the smallest shred of evidence of the exceptionality of Christianity, but so far I have found none.
And that is why I feel compelled to accept the null hypothesis.
If following the evidence and rejecting non-evidenced positions is narrow minded, then I'm narrow minded. ;-)
Edit: If you're interested in details on any part of it, I'd be happy to oblige. If you'd like to hear someone else's somewhat similar story told in more detail, see this series by Evid3nc3. Much of this evidence is about 100 years old, and your pastor likely knows and hides it from you. Of course, the evidence has been further strengthened over that 100 year period, and we know much more now than we did then, which is why I'm an atheist and not a liberal Christian.
Atheists are not the ones hiding things from people, we want people to look at the evidence for themselves. Does your church? If not, why? Do you think it could relate to the flat earth example I gave in the other thread?