Any re-converts here?

[sheratan]

Hi,

My name is Rob. I am an atheistic agnost (i.e. I don't know if a god exists but I consider it unlikely). I found this site via a link at ex-christians [TLD removed to comply with rules] where I am a recent subscriber.

While searching the web for information I got the impression that there are more people who are knowledgable of the Christian faith that left it than there are people knowledgable of the objections against Christianity and converted to it. So my question is, is there anyone here who deconverted from Christianity based on reason or someone who was an atheist or agnost based on problems with the Christian faith ans still converted to Christianity? I'd really like to read some of those testimonies. URLs are welcome too.

I think the only example I have read to date is A.S.A. Jones at the website ex-atheist[TLD removed to comply with rules] She (I understand that Jones is female) seems to know the various objections against Christianity well and devended atheism previously but still converted to Christianity. In her testimony I still miss how she copes with her former issues against Christianity like the omnicience v.s. free will issue, proportionality of everlasting punishment etc.

Any links would be greatly appreciated.

For what it's worth, I'm not looking for a discussion pro or anti Christianity, I have enough of those as it is. Also my stance on religion is stated here for completeness. If you want to read my testimony, it's at ex-christians[TLD removed to comply with rules] dated Feb.12.

TIA,
Rob

 

[dvd_holc]

I don't know how long it will take...but I have been here awhile, and I know there are those within the community who can answer your question.

 

[sheratan]

I don't know how long it will take...but I have been here awhile, and I know there are those within the community who can answer your question.

I hope so, I'm patient

 

[seebs]

Hello! I was nominally raised Lutheran, but never took it particularly seriously; I was pretty much a weak atheist by the time I was 16 or 17, and didn't consider religion plausible.

I am now a fairly firmly convinced Christian, and quite definitely a theist, although I would also say I'm still an agnostic. I have seen good arguments against many arguments for the faith, but not so much in the way of arguments that it isn't true at all.

Here's a thread with links to other threads capturing some of my thoughts on this.

http://www.christianforums.com/t1144727

(By the way, I hardly ever post here anymore, so if you want to ask questions, please email me, or look me up at inallthingslove, which is my default hangout these days.)

 

[The Midge]

De-converts and recoverts are terms I don't really understand. You can leave a faith that you are raised in and then later encounter God for yourself and then realise that you had little if any faith in your previous life (so it is hardly deconversion).

I see it more as taking a journey when you some times have to detour along way to get round an obsticle. While on detour you may actually get further away from where you want to go. Such may be the route for a "deconvert" becuase God wants them to understand the objections to faith so they can know God in reality rather than "inherit" it second hand. I speak from experience.

 

[sheratan]

De-converts and recoverts are terms I don't really understand. You can leave a faith that you are raised in and then later encounter God for yourself and then realise that you had little if any faith in your previous life (so it is hardly deconversion).

No, I really mean deconversion. What I mean (and that is the position I'm in right now) is that you study the Christian faith to the best of your abilities (including reading the Bible, which I barely started) and come to the conclusion that it doesn't make sense. If you get there, i.e. you are convinced of the falsehood of Christianity based on your investigation, is there still a way back? (An intelligently justified one at that). I know that there are people who were convinced of the truth of Christianity, based e.g. on theological studies and being a minister professionally, and still deconverted to atheism or agnostism (see e.g. the site ministerturnsatheist dot org) and I can sympathise with the arguments they set out in their testimonies, but I am sincerely interrested in the arguments from someone who made the journey in the opposite direction.

I see it more as taking a journey when you some times have to detour along way to get round an obsticle. While on detour you may actually get further away from where you want to go. Such may be the route for a "deconvert" becuase God wants them to understand the objections to faith so they can know God in reality rather than "inherit" it second hand. I speak from experience.

Did you sympathise with the various arguments that non-Christians use against Christianity, and if so, how do you feel about it now? Do you consider humanity a special species or just another ape-like species? How do you handle the issue of hell's eternity?

I am now a fairly firmly convinced Christian, and quite definitely a theist, although I would also say I'm still an agnostic. I have seen good arguments against many arguments for the faith, but not so much in the way of arguments that it isn't true at all.

Here's a thread with links to other threads capturing some of my thoughts on this.

[snipped URL due to posting rules ]

(By the way, I hardly ever post here anymore, so if you want to ask questions, please email me, or look me up at inallthingslove, which is my default hangout these days.)

Hi Peter! Nice to see you posting here. You most likely don't know me, but you're active enough on Usenet to be considered famous I used to debate quite intensely on c.o.l.a but it's been a while. I think I will repost my question on the other site as well. That site seems a lot more to my liking (especially lacking the superfluous eye-candy etc.) I'll surely read the referenced articles.

Regards,
Rob

 

[Davis]

Hi,

My name is Rob. I am an atheistic agnost (i.e. I don't know if a god exists but I consider it unlikely).

Hello Rob my name is Davis. I would like to ask you something here.

When you look at a car is there a maker?
When you look at a building is there a builder?
When you look at a painting is there a painter?
When you look at clothes is there a producer?
When you look at food is there a source?
When you look at a piece of pottery, is there a potter?

Everything has a source from which it came. Do you really think that the animals and humans were just placed here or came out of chance? I doubt it.
There has to be a beginning and a creator for everything that is created. Do you not agree?

 

[The Midge]

No, I really mean deconversion. What I mean (and that is the position I'm in right now) is that you study the Christian faith to the best of your abilities (including reading the Bible, which I barely started) and come to the conclusion that it doesn't make sense. If you get there, i.e. you are convinced of the falsehood of Christianity based on your investigation, is there still a way back? (An intelligently justified one at that). I know that there are people who were convinced of the truth of Christianity, based e.g. on theological studies and being a minister professionally, and still deconverted to atheism or agnostism (see e.g. the site ministerturnsatheist dot org) and I can sympathise with the arguments they set out in their testimonies, but I am sincerely interrested in the arguments from someone who made the journey in the opposite direction.

Did you sympathise with the various arguments that non-Christians use against Christianity, and if so, how do you feel about it now? Do you consider humanity a special species or just another ape-like species? How do you handle the issue of hell's eternity?

I don’t have any fancy arguments or the Holy Grail known as “incontrovertible proof” that some demand. I just gave up on my up bringing because it did not make sense no seem real not form a systematic search for truth.

The faith journey is should be one of encounter rather than of theory. It is not one that can be completed from the armchair of the intellect. You encounter the barrier that separates through confession, you break it down by repentance (realising that Christ is there just the other side with a sledge hammer waiting for you to turn round), you embark on the life stages of faith- the unquestioning zeal of the convert, the deserts, the trials, the discipline, the haunting of doubt. There is always more to see in encounter. Encounter should be continually experienced through prayer, worship and fellowship. And study too.

I am an amateur; not a professional minister- it is something that should have remained an oxymoron. I have seen the toll that can take. I have seen how the pressure of work squeezes out the ongoing encounter and how some have fallen because they rely on pure intellect and forgotten that we encounter God through relationship not just in theory. Infinite? What is it? How does it compare with driving across the country? All powerful? What is that? I can’t lift more that a hundred pounds or so! All knowing? What is that? I don’t even know what you look like!

So, you start by encountering God. Then starts the dialogue with others about who you encounter. We are talking about a person rather than a thing so have to be more subjective in our descriptions. That is a mistake I see so often on these boards. Critics expect a consistency that does not exist because we encounter God in different times and places and God being a person behaves differently as per the situation. God is also very big. So big that we can only ever see part of God and this varies with out view point. Call it a worldview if you like.

Then we naively expect simple answers to simple questions. Ones that are cut and dried and incontrovertible (again). They may not be available. We have possibilities to explore. The answer could be this, that or the other or a combination of all three. Your samples are good examples:
§ Ape or special: Physiologically we are an ape; theologically we have added Spirit or Soul. Both are true.
§ Should we sympathise with non-Christians? Yes, because we [Christians] we in darkness; No because some of the darkness is caused by living in denial to our true selves.
§ The eternity of hell: first we have to ask what hell is and find that the texts are very pictorial and it could be oblivion, torment, or both because we know of our destiny at judgement.

There can be many explanations, many partial answers, sketchy pictures, illustrations, analogies, allegories but no one right answer to agree upon.

What you have to do (especially if you are just starting out) is leave some of the difficult issues on the back burner and explore other avenues. The whole connect. We see another side of the equation. We see how the nasty situation came about or how much worse it could have been in the long run if God had not acted in the way that he did. A explanation may not arise for many years or even this life time. That does not mean we have to turn our back on the person who is God.

We can also detect when those who are the most bitter ‘de-converts’ have departed from encounter and relationship and then wonder why they don’t ‘feel’ God anymore.


I have not had time to follow the link. Maybe later. It is Valentines Day and I have a higher calling today. I hope what I have had time for is some help.

 

[goldenviolet]

just wondering if you browsed the forum:
http://www1.christianforums.com/f222-testimonies.html

 

[sheratan]

just wondering if you browsed the forum:
http://www1.christianforums.com/f222-testimonies.html

Thank you for the reference. I hope I find something useful there!

Regards
Rob

 

[sheratan]

Hello Rob my name is Davis. I would like to ask you something here.

When you look at a car is there a maker?
When you look at a building is there a builder?
When you look at a painting is there a painter?
When you look at clothes is there a producer?
When you look at food is there a source?
When you look at a piece of pottery, is there a potter?

Everything has a source from which it came. Do you really think that the animals and humans were just placed here or came out of chance? I doubt it.
There has to be a beginning and a creator for everything that is created. Do you not agree?

Hi Davis,
You kinda sound like Michael Behe (from the Intelligent Design fame) with his "irreducible complexity" argument. Though I don't think this is the correct topic to discuss Devine Creation v.s. natural models, I would like to leave you with a single item to think over: macroevolution (the major beef of creationists against evolution), or as biologists like to call it: speciation, has been observed in nature. The was just as much "creation" present as the growing of a plant.

Regards,
Rob

 

[Davis]

Hi Davis,
You kinda sound like Michael Behe (from the Intelligent Design fame) with his "irreducible complexity" argument. Though I don't think this is the correct topic to discuss Devine Creation v.s. natural models, I would like to leave you with a single item to think over: macroevolution (the major beef of creationists against evolution), or as biologists like to call it: speciation, has been observed in nature. The was just as much "creation" present as the growing of a plant.

Regards,
Rob

Thanks for ignoring my question. It has nothing to do with Creation or evolution. It just proves that there is a Creator. A maker if you will.

 

[sheratan]

Thanks for ignoring my question. It has nothing to do with Creation or evolution. It just proves that there is a Creator. A maker if you will.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude or anything. Let me try again.

When you look at a car is there a maker?
When you look at a building is there a builder?
When you look at a painting is there a painter?
When you look at clothes is there a producer?
When you look at food is there a source?
When you look at a piece of pottery, is there a potter?

Affirmative on all above

Everything has a source from which it came. Do you really think that the animals and humans were just placed here or came out of chance? I doubt it. There has to be a beginning and a creator for everything that is created. Do you not agree?

No I disagree. It is certainly possible that there is a creator that created everything we see, but it is certainly not necessary and IMHO not even likely. There are models for natural phenomena that we observe including animals and humans, which are created without devine intervention. I don't think we will ever be able to prove if everything was created by a devine act since such act is beyond the scope of what we can observe. Still while time passes more and more phenomena that used to have a devine explanation are being explained satisfactory by science so there is less and less need for a god. Walking along with science to explain these phenomena and leaving the rest to be explained by God's intervention is what is called the 'God of the gaps' approach. I consider that approach unlikely.

Did I do better this time?
Regards,
Rob

 

[Loner]

No I disagree. It is certainly possible that there is a creator that created everything we see, but it is certainly not necessary and IMHO not even likely. There are models for natural phenomena that we observe including animals and humans, which are created without devine intervention. I don't think we will ever be able to prove if everything was created by a devine act since such act is beyond the scope of what we can observe. Still while time passes more and more phenomena that used to have a devine explanation are being explained satisfactory by science so there is less and less need for a god. Walking along with science to explain these phenomena and leaving the rest to be explained by God's intervention is what is called the 'God of the gaps' approach. I consider that approach unlikely.

Did I do better this time?
Regards,
Rob[/quote]



Actully scinces can be use to prove god. I use to be an athist like you untill I saw a study on the powers of Prayer, what they did was they found 20 people who were sick and on there death bed, they got groupe of people to pray for the health of 10 of them. To my amazment the 10 began to heal (In case your wondering none these 10 people knew there were part of the experment) and other 10 they did not pray for got worse and three of them died. After that I began to experment with the power prayer my self and slowly things began to change. There a few things in bible that scinces shows could be possibal such as Mosis divding the Ocean so the Jews could escape form Egypt could be possibal. So as a ex-Athist to an Athist here some thing for you to think about, dont you think its possibal that god works threw scinces as well as all devine power? Evlotion and Scince do not disprove god at all. In Evlotion, could it be posibal that god created us therw evliton and that Adam and Eve are the frist humans to come from it? Flinaly here the one thing scinces I know will never figure out, what happens to us when we die? We dont know and there no Scintist out there can even give us a theroy on will happen to us. Religon is our only clue to that. I think what your problem is that your taking the bible to litraly, some times it will us medafores to get its point across, rember that. As a Ex-athist I now know there are things in this wrold that we will never figure out or understand.

 

[sheratan]

Actully scinces can be use to prove god. I use to be an athist like you untill I saw a study on the powers of Prayer, what they did was they found 20 people who were sick and on there death bed, they got groupe of people to pray for the health of 10 of them. To my amazment the 10 began to heal (In case your wondering none these 10 people knew there were part of the experment) and other 10 they did not pray for got worse and three of them died. After that I began to experment with the power prayer my self and slowly things began to change. There a few things in bible that scinces shows could be possibal such as Mosis divding the Ocean so the Jews could escape form Egypt could be possibal. So as a ex-Athist to an Athist here some thing for you to think about, dont you think its possibal that god works threw scinces as well as all devine power? Evlotion and Scince do not disprove god at all. In Evlotion, could it be posibal that god created us therw evliton and that Adam and Eve are the frist humans to come from it? Flinaly here the one thing scinces I know will never figure out, what happens to us when we die? We dont know and there no Scintist out there can even give us a theroy on will happen to us. Religon is our only clue to that. I think what your problem is that your taking the bible to litraly, some times it will us medafores to get its point across, rember that. As a Ex-athist I now know there are things in this wrold that we will never figure out or understand.

Well, the study sounds interresting. Do you have a reference? ISTR that there were some other studies that were less successful. BTW, isn't the fact that Pope JP2 died evidence against the power of prayer?
True, science and evolutions do not disprove God. But with evolution you don't have a "first man and woman", there's a group that changes little by little with each generation that look more and more like the humans we are today. So the answer to Adam and Eve is: highly unlikely.
Science cannot tell for sure if there is a soul and what happens to if after we die. I grant you that. But if I understand it correctly, the "soul" should be the driving force behind our personality and conciense. These are aspects of which science is making great inroads lately and it seems that there is a direct correlation between brain activity and both personality and conscience. If this will be an established scientific fact, that would imply that when the brain stops functioning, both your personality and your concience stop existing. What then is left for the soul to encompass?

Regards,
Rob

 

[sheratan]

The faith journey is should be one of encounter rather than of theory. It is not one that can be completed from the armchair of the intellect. You encounter the barrier that separates through confession, you break it down by repentance (realising that Christ is there just the other side with a sledge hammer waiting for you to turn round), you embark on the life stages of faith- the unquestioning zeal of the convert, the deserts, the trials, the discipline, the haunting of doubt. There is always more to see in encounter. Encounter should be continually experienced through prayer, worship and fellowship. And study too.

I've been told this before. I am discussing the faith with a Dutch christian who studied sociology and is currently persuing his Phd. He compared the scientific approach to having three colored dots on a piece of paper, a red one, a blue one and a yellow one, and looking at the paper with red glasses. That means you can only see two dots. I think he is correct. With pure reason I will never see what you see in your relationship with Jesus. I never had that relationship. But IMO the religious angle is wearing glasses too! Now if you wear blue glasses you can see the red dot, but do not claim to be seeing a blue one! Claims of a 6000 year old universe and a worldwide flood *are* claiming to see blue dots.

I am an amateur; not a professional minister- it is something that should have remained an oxymoron. I have seen the toll that can take. I have seen how the pressure of work squeezes out the ongoing encounter and how some have fallen because they rely on pure intellect and forgotten that we encounter God through relationship not just in theory. Infinite? What is it? How does it compare with driving across the country? All powerful? What is that? I cant lift more that a hundred pounds or so! All knowing? What is that? I dont even know what you look like!

So, you start by encountering God. Then starts the dialogue with others about who you encounter. We are talking about a person rather than a thing so have to be more subjective in our descriptions. That is a mistake I see so often on these boards. Critics expect a consistency that does not exist because we encounter God in different times and places and God being a person behaves differently as per the situation. God is also very big. So big that we can only ever see part of God and this varies with out view point. Call it a worldview if you like.

Then we naively expect simple answers to simple questions. Ones that are cut and dried and incontrovertible (again). They may not be available. We have possibilities to explore. The answer could be this, that or the other or a combination of all three. Your samples are good examples:
§ Ape or special: Physiologically we are an ape; theologically we have added Spirit or Soul. Both are true.
§ Should we sympathise with non-Christians? Yes, because we [Christians] we in darkness; No because some of the darkness is caused by living in denial to our true selves.
§ The eternity of hell: first we have to ask what hell is and find that the texts are very pictorial and it could be oblivion, torment, or both because we know of our destiny at judgement.

There can be many explanations, many partial answers, sketchy pictures, illustrations, analogies, allegories but no one right answer to agree upon.

What you have to do (especially if you are just starting out) is leave some of the difficult issues on the back burner and explore other avenues. The whole connect. We see another side of the equation. We see how the nasty situation came about or how much worse it could have been in the long run if God had not acted in the way that he did. A explanation may not arise for many years or even this life time. That does not mean we have to turn our back on the person who is God.

This is another part that I encountered in the discussion I mentioned earlier. One major axiom that is made here is that God does exist. I haven't reached that conclusion (maybe because of my red glasses). But everytime I keep hearing that I have to accept God in my life to 'really' find Him. That is circular reasoning. How can I accept the existence of a being if I am still trying to find out if the being exist?

We can also detect when those who are the most bitter de-converts have departed from encounter and relationship and then wonder why they dont feel God anymore.


I have not had time to follow the link. Maybe later. It is Valentines Day and I have a higher calling today. I hope what I have had time for is some help.

I'm a bit too late to wish you a happy Valentine but I hope you had a great dat with your SO. I didn't I had this server at work that died on me (I'm a Unix sysadmin). I couldn't get the original up & running so I had to do a bare-metal restore on different hardware. That means overtime. I appologized to my wife for not being able to bring her flowers, but she understood. I'm pretty lucky there
I have read many testimonies at ex-christians.net and I must say that most of the time I don't read bitterness. Sometimes I do read that and the result is often hostility towards Christians and other religious people, but most of the time I read that someone deconvers because he or she cannot cope with the inner conflicts and considers the faith to be untrue. As a matter of fact, deconverting carries a lot of social baggage, so many people (including yours truly) will stay in the closet, at least partly. Clearly that has nothing to do with bitterness.

Regards, Rob

 

[Loner]

Well, the study sounds interresting. Do you have a reference? ISTR that there were some other studies that were less successful. BTW, isn't the fact that Pope JP2 died evidence against the power of prayer?
True, science and evolutions do not disprove God. But with evolution you don't have a "first man and woman", there's a group that changes little by little with each generation that look more and more like the humans we are today. So the answer to Adam and Eve is: highly unlikely.
Science cannot tell for sure if there is a soul and what happens to if after we die. I grant you that. But if I understand it correctly, the "soul" should be the driving force behind our personality and conciense. These are aspects of which science is making great inroads lately and it seems that there is a direct correlation between brain activity and both personality and conscience. If this will be an established scientific fact, that would imply that when the brain stops functioning, both your personality and your concience stop existing. What then is left for the soul to encompass?

Regards,
Rob

Frist of all Pop Jhon Paul only proves its even more, at frist most of the people were praying that he heal and recover, during this time the pope lived longer then we expected but after a while most of the people began to pray that he would a have peacefull death, witch I think he got. Secondly, It sounds to me that you go by the "heads I win, Tails you lose" way of thinking, this means whean somthing dose not happen when you ask for it you will say "see that proves there is no god" and when somthing dose happen you will go "it would of happen anyway". Like I already said how do you know Scince and people are just one many tools use by god? I would like point out that evltion still has not bin proven, but I was saying dose it really prove there is no god? What if god created us threw evliton and Evltion still dose not tells us how life actully began. What the made frist organism and what is causeing the genic change the all organims on earth? Your idea of souls sounds more like that we are nothing but comuters made from meat and bone with no thougts of our own, if that is true then how come we can chose to belive in somthing or not? Dont you ever wonder why you seeing there your eyes and why your are here and when I say why I dont mean How you see threw your eyes I mean why are you here? When I was Athist I use to belive that all religons were wrong, just fary tails but with somany differnt religons out there that tell us what will happen to us when we die and how we got here dont you think there just at least one of theme is right or close to the "truth"?

 

[The Midge]

I've been told this before. I am discussing the faith with a Dutch christian who studied sociology and is currently persuing his Phd. He compared the scientific approach to having three colored dots on a piece of paper, a red one, a blue one and a yellow one, and looking at the paper with red glasses. That means you can only see two dots. I think he is correct. With pure reason I will never see what you see in your relationship with Jesus. I never had that relationship. But IMO the religious angle is wearing glasses too! Now if you wear blue glasses you can see the red dot, but do not claim to be seeing a blue one! Claims of a 6000 year old universe and a worldwide flood *are* claiming to see blue dots.

Of course-we all have our world view, pair or specks and little vantage point. This provides our premises for applying logic or reason. Rubbish in = rubbish out. This appies both ways- and must be considered if one is to genuinely seek after truth. I don't buy the claims of the 6000 year old universe either. Because when I investigate the Genesis text I find it to be highly pictorial and more concrened about giving God the credit rather than say how He did it. I believe evevoloution and geological processes to be the tools of the act of creation. Also, the ancients worked ont he principle of a word spoken by God is as good as done even if it takes billions of years to be fulfilled. Time is relative according to Einstien (?) or so I'm told.

(There are many other possible explanations for Genesis which may be true and still explain what science sees and still allow reason to believe that there is a Creator:

• The text is metaphorical especially concerning time a day= a phase, theistic evolution sort of thing.
• God created an aged univers
• The Gap theory or recreation after previous falls.

It helps if you can take off the 'Literalist interpretation of the Bible' glasses. God was talking to nomads not astrophyscists when the accounts were given. Explain a billion, billion years to someone who only has to count a few dozen sheep!)

This is another part that I encountered in the discussion I mentioned earlier. One major axiom that is made here is that God does exist. I haven't reached that conclusion (maybe because of my red glasses). But everytime I keep hearing that I have to accept God in my life to 'really' find Him. That is circular reasoning. How can I accept the existence of a being if I am still trying to find out if the being exist?

For me the start is repentantce. part of the reason for all the nasty bits like Aaron's son getting burned up and the plagues etc is to show us that sin and unholiness separates us from God. The people of Israel act out the cost of God being with us time and time again and all that they achieve is a tempary fix that has to be repeated over and over again. (see Hebrews). In Romans Paul also points out how the Law only serves to point out our sinfulness but cannot save.

To accpet God you have to accept that you are willfully evil. That the lies you told divide you from your fellow man and from God- never mind spitefullness to multiple homicide you may have commited. If you don't believe me write your own 10 commandments (the things you most despise about others say) and keep a diary for a few months and see how many you break.
Repentance is about change of direction- we have to keep orientating ourselves back to God otherwise we eventually vere off course again and lose sight of God. That is Christians are urged to live a godly life and continually repent.

I'm a bit too late to wish you a happy Valentine but I hope you had a great dat with your SO. I didn't I had this server at work that died on me (I'm a Unix sysadmin). I couldn't get the original up & running so I had to do a bare-metal restore on different hardware. That means overtime. I appologized to my wife for not being able to bring her flowers, but she understood. I'm pretty lucky there

Thanks- it was almost derailed by an hours crawl along the M25 so instead of going to a gig we took pot luck on the first pub we came to and we given the last table. I hope you get to take her out today! IME every day is a good day for buying flowers when I get rund to it!

I have read many testimonies at ex-christians.net and I must say that most of the time I don't read bitterness. Sometimes I do read that and the result is often hostility towards Christians and other religious people, but most of the time I read that someone deconvers because he or she cannot cope with the inner conflicts and considers the faith to be untrue. As a matter of fact, deconverting carries a lot of social baggage, so many people (including yours truly) will stay in the closet, at least partly. Clearly that has nothing to do with bitterness.

Regards, Rob

We see a lot more of the bitter twisted variety here for some reason That baggage seems to be pecularly American to me (a Brit). When I was on exchange at LSU the same brand loyalty and style of argument was applied to which brand of markers to use on our drawings. Tutors seemed more concerned with that issue than the ability to draw. There seems to be this brand loyalty in the US that makes it much harder to be intellectually open which seems to force people into a closet until it bursts out; rather than the tutors and leaders giving the space for their pupils or disciples to ask the questions, and be satisfied with not having all the answers. Sure you can switch brands- but athiesm and others faiths don't have all the answers either. Athiesm really struggles to answer the question "What is the reason for it all?". And scientific/ civilized progress is not any nearer to solving the human condition. Evil still prospers.

 

[sheratan]

Frist of all Pop Jhon Paul only proves its even more, at frist most of the people were praying that he heal and recover, during this time the pope lived longer then we expected but after a while most of the people began to pray that he would a have peacefull death, witch I think he got.

Well, this is hard to dispute. Maybe you're right, I had another impression. There have been studies to investigate the effects of prayer with varying results. A rather big study didn't seem to prove the positive result is from Dr. Krucoff of Dale University M.C. (see tinyurl dot com slash duyb5 -- I have to do it like this because I didn't post enough to be allowed URLs ).

Secondly, It sounds to me that you go by the "heads I win, Tails you lose" way of thinking, this means whean somthing dose not happen when you ask for it you will say "see that proves there is no god" and when somthing dose happen you will go "it would of happen anyway". Like I already said how do you know Scince and people are just one many tools use by god? I would like point out that evltion still has not bin proven,

I think you mean that the theory of evolution hasn't been proven. If so, you are absolutely correct, it hasn't. But neither has the theory of gravitation. Still I doubt you will walk off a tall building and say 'Gravitation is just a theory, nothing can happen to me'. Gravitation has been observed but Newton thought it was a force that two objects impose on each other. This approach could not describe the deviation in Mercury's orbit around the Sun. Einstein claimed it wasn't a force at all, it's just curvature of spacetime. This explained Mercury and predicted the changing of the path of light due to gravitation. Still the theory is far from complete. Just likewise the theory of evolution (i.e. how it works) has not been proven but evolution (the changing of allele frequencies in the gene pool and the cummulation of which that leads to speciation) has been observed in both laboratories and nature. I'd invite you to read some material at talkorigins.org

but I was saying dose it really prove there is no god? What if god created us threw evliton and Evltion still dose not tells us how life actully began.

Evolution has never dealt with the beginning of life. Evolution only deals with how life develops after it was already present. There are a few working models in abiogenesis, the theory that deals with the beginning of life, but I doubt there will ever be conclusive proof of what actually happened on Earth 4 billion years ago. Also to answer the question correctly you have to define what life is. E.g., is a virus life? It consists of only genetic material and lacks e.g. metabolism. It is completely dependant on the host cell for those functions. Still evolution works perfectly on virusses which is evident in the fact that some viruses "develop" a resistential ability against medication.

What the made frist organism and what is causeing the genic change the all organims on earth? Your idea of souls sounds more like that we are nothing but comuters made from meat and bone with no thougts of our own, if that is true then how come we can chose to belive in somthing or not? Dont you ever wonder why you seeing there your eyes and why your are here and when I say why I dont mean How you see threw your eyes I mean why are you here? When I was Athist I use to belive that all religons were wrong, just fary tails but with somany differnt religons out there that tell us what will happen to us when we die and how we got here dont you think there just at least one of theme is right or close to the "truth"?

What made the first organism is unprovable, but what causes the genetic changes is something you'll find in an elementary text on evolution. The answer is reduction mechanisms (natural and sexual selection and genetic drift) and incrementing mechanisms (mutation and recombination). W.r.t. 'souls', it is entirely possible, though not certain, that we are just a complex biochemical process. What 'thought' is is hard to define, but it is not exclusive to humans. Pavlov proved as much. I followed a CompSci class on neural networks and it is clear how the learning and recognition work and how the complete net will cope with loss of a few parts, but mathematically it is beyond the scope of provability with a small net of , say 100 nodes. Let alone a neural net of a few billion ever chaning nodes! But the processes we see in a small neural net are also visible in human brains (a big DUH in fact since neural nets are modeled after the brain). Yes, I coped with the metaphysical questions myself and I have no answer. Maybe some religion is correct, but I have no means to verify it and the world seems so much better explainable without devine influence.

Regards,
Rob

 

[sheratan]

Of course-we all have our world view, pair or specks and little vantage point. This provides our premises for applying logic or reason. Rubbish in = rubbish out. This appies both ways- and must be considered if one is to genuinely seek after truth. I don't buy the claims of the 6000 year old universe either. Because when I investigate the Genesis text I find it to be highly pictorial and more concrened about giving God the credit rather than say how He did it. I believe evevoloution and geological processes to be the tools of the act of creation. Also, the ancients worked ont he principle of a word spoken by God is as good as done even if it takes billions of years to be fulfilled. Time is relative according to Einstien (?) or so I'm told.

(There are many other possible explanations for Genesis which may be true and still explain what science sees and still allow reason to believe that there is a Creator:

• The text is metaphorical especially concerning time a day= a phase, theistic evolution sort of thing.
• God created an aged univers
• The Gap theory or recreation after previous falls.

It helps if you can take off the 'Literalist interpretation of the Bible' glasses. God was talking to nomads not astrophyscists when the accounts were given. Explain a billion, billion years to someone who only has to count a few dozen sheep!)

I can agree with a metaphorical approach to Genesis and I completely agree with the fact that Genesis was written for nomads, not for astrophysicists. But when in the NT Jesus was telling a parable, it was clearly marked as such. Genesis is refered as historical in the rest of the Bible and I don't only refer to the Creation and Adam and Eve, I also refer to Noach, Abraham, Babel etc. The 'original sin' that everyone inherits and why Jesus was necessary on the cross is an act of Adam. Now if Adam was just metaphorical, wasn't the original sin as well? About the list:

• The day=age metaphore is not enough to explain everything. You're still stuck with items like the global flood, Babel etc. But Genesis as a metaphore is perfectly acceptable.
• The creation of an old universe is a scientifically sound, but is has some major theological consequences. In Februari 1987 we could see a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The distance to this object is 52 kpc, which means that the light has taken 168000 years to reach us, or that God created a universe with the light 'en route'. This would imply that we would see a star exploding with everything it encompasses (like Cobalt-57 decay), while the event never actually happened. Thus, God deceives us. There are appoximately 100 supernovas each year that are seen happening in various galaxies at distances ranging between 600 kpc and 3 Gpc. (one parsec = 3.26 lightyears). Same argument goes here.
• The God of the Gaps keeps shrinking with the advance of science

For me the start is repentantce. part of the reason for all the nasty bits like Aaron's son getting burned up and the plagues etc is to show us that sin and unholiness separates us from God. The people of Israel act out the cost of God being with us time and time again and all that they achieve is a tempary fix that has to be repeated over and over again. (see Hebrews). In Romans Paul also points out how the Law only serves to point out our sinfulness but cannot save.

To accpet God you have to accept that you are willfully evil. That the lies you told divide you from your fellow man and from God- never mind spitefullness to multiple homicide you may have commited. If you don't believe me write your own 10 commandments (the things you most despise about others say) and keep a diary for a few months and see how many you break.
Repentance is about change of direction- we have to keep orientating ourselves back to God otherwise we eventually vere off course again and lose sight of God. That is Christians are urged to live a godly life and continually repent.

I can agree here, but I wonder if you need God or Christianity for this. Atheism does not imply immorality and being a Christian, even a God fearing and abiding Christian does not imply morality. The death sentence in the U.S. is justified mostly by right-wing Christians who claim that in Leviticus it is clearly written that he who kills a man shall surely be put to death. Who don't they defend the same punishment for children who curse their parents? (Lev. 20:9). The intolorance against homosexuals is also often biblically founded, as was slavery during many centuries. So I agree, we must repent for our inherent evilness, but I wonder if we need religion in general or Christianity specifically to do that.

Thanks- it was almost derailed by an hours crawl along the M25 so instead of going to a gig we took pot luck on the first pub we came to and we given the last table. I hope you get to take her out today! IME every day is a good day for buying flowers when I get rund to it!

So very true

We see a lot more of the bitter twisted variety here for some reason That baggage seems to be pecularly American to me (a Brit). When I was on exchange at LSU the same brand loyalty and style of argument was applied to which brand of markers to use on our drawings. Tutors seemed more concerned with that issue than the ability to draw. There seems to be this brand loyalty in the US that makes it much harder to be intellectually open which seems to force people into a closet until it bursts out; rather than the tutors and leaders giving the space for their pupils or disciples to ask the questions, and be satisfied with not having all the answers. Sure you can switch brands- but athiesm and others faiths don't have all the answers either. Athiesm really struggles to answer the question "What is the reason for it all?". And scientific/ civilized progress is not any nearer to solving the human condition. Evil still prospers.

My deconversion is pretty recent, and before that I wasn't a born-again Christian so I couldn't say if it is typically American, but I agree, there are a few bitter atheists (as there are a few bitter Christians who equate atheism with immorality, Satanism, evil etc.). It's something I think we'll have to live with. I would sincerely hope that there would be more respect on both sides of the fence.

Regards,
Rob