Category Archives: Atheism

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In largely Muslim Pakistan, a taboo atheist subculture endures WVTF In Pakistan, posting about atheism online can have serious consequences. Under a recently passed cyber-crime law, it is now illegal to post content online even in a private forum that could be deemed blasphemous. The government took out ads in ... and more »

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In largely Muslim Pakistan, a taboo atheist subculture endures - WVTF

Madame Tussauds Abraham Lincoln (photograph by Kevin Burkett: 12-21-12) [Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 license]

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(11-16-06)

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[along with fellow so-called atheists Jefferson, Paine, Voltaire, Hume, and Franklin?]

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Atheist DagoodS wrote in one of my comboxes (note: incontext, he was speaking rhetorically, but this doesnt imply that he doesnt think Twain and Lincoln were atheists):

Imagine I told you that I hold the atheists Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain in high regard. Now THERE was a fine pair of atheists! . . . When I think of atheism it is the Lincolns and Twains, I see. Not the hordes of also-rans that fail to demonstrate true atheism.

Even thelist of notable heroic non-believersthat DagoodS directs us to, recognizes distinctions as to belief in God (it notes, for example, that Jefferson was a deist and Paine possibly one, and exercises subtlety and restraint in its very title), but DagoodS shows no such precision of category.

Abraham Lincoln was an atheist? Thats news to me. To the contrary, he is considered by many historians the most religious president ever. Who was he praying to repeatedly during the Civil War? Why is it that he developed his second inaugural address around the notion of divine providence? How can you have a guiding providence if there isnt anyone there to oversee it?

This sort of historical revisionism (even up to the denial of Jesus existence) is one of the more ludicrous elements of atheism. DagoodS an intelligent man [an attorney, in fact]. How could he actually fall for the nonsense that Lincoln was an atheist? I agree that he was by no means an orthodox Christian, nor even any sort of Christian even in a watered-down, insipid liberal Protestant sense, but that is still far different from an atheist (as theists come in many varieties). We must have sensible definition of terms. Atheist means no God at all. Even aweb page at infidel.org, devoted to the issue, states:

In regard to a Supreme Being he entertained at times Agnostic and even Atheistic opinions. During the later years of his life, however, he professed a sort of Deistic belief, but be did not accept the Christian or anthropomorphic conception of a Deity.

Exactly. This isnt Christianity, but it isnt atheism, either. DagoodS affirmed that he was anatheist. The same exact silliness is applied to Thomas Jefferson, who was neither an atheist nor a deist (strictly speaking), but rather, a Unitarian (as he referred to himself at least twice in personal letters). Jefferson talked about providence, too, just as Lincoln and also Franklin did. Lincoln is quoted onthe same web page:

If God be a just God, all will be saved or none (Manfords Magazine).

Atheist ignorance and overzealousness on these topics never ends. It is said that philosopher David Hume was an atheist. He was not (I wrotea paper about thatand even once amazed a former Christian-turned-atheist philosophy professor at the University of Michigan with this bombshell information). Hume accepted one form of the teleological (design) argument for God and never once, it is said, denied that God (of some sort: more like a deist God) existed in his personal letters.

Voltaire and Paine are regarded as atheists. They were not, either. They both believed in God in some sense, but criticized organized religion. The sameinfidel.org web pagestates:

The clergy parade Lincolns recognitions of a Supreme Being as a triumphant refutation of the claim that he was an Infidel. Yet, at the same time, they do not hesitate to denounce as Infidels, Paine and Voltaire, when they know, or ought to know, that two more profound and reverential believers in God never lived and wrote than Paine and Voltaire.

If Infidelity and Atheism were synonymous terms it would be difficult to maintain that Lincoln, during the last years of his life at least, was an Infidel. But Infidelity and Atheism are not synonymous terms. An Atheist is an Infidel, but an Infidel is not necessarily an Atheist.

Here (from aweb page documenting Lincolns theism) is a proclamation of fasting and prayer by Lincoln, from March 30, 1863. Either he is lying through his teeth or he is no atheist:

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, and to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in Holy Scripture, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch [sic] as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Was Lincoln also shamelessly lying in his second inaugural address of 4 March, 1865, about a month before he was murdered?:

The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondsmans 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another draw with the sword, as was said 3000 years ago, so still must it be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nations wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

The following is a statement Lincoln made to General Dan Sickles, who participated in the battle of Gettysburg:

Well, I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of the campaign up there (at Gettysburg) when everybody seemed panic stricken and nobody could tell what was going to happen, oppressed by the gravity of our affairs, I went to my room one day and locked the door and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this war was His war, and our cause His cause, but we could not stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville . . . And after that, I dont know how it was, and I cannot explain it, but soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul. The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into His own hands and that things would go right at Gettysburg and that is why I had no fears about you.

(July 5, 1863)

Perhaps this proves the truth of the statement, there are no atheists in foxholes? Did Lincoln cease to be an atheist the day after Gettysburg, pick it up again for nearly two years, till his second inauguration, and then promptly resume his belief in God in time for that classic speech?

He even mentioned theHoly Spirit, for heavens sake, in one of his proclamations (a most politically incorrect and non-secularistic, non-atheistic thing to do indeed):

I invite the people of the United states (on Aug 6) . . . to invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit . . . to guide the counsels of the government with wisdom adequate to so great a national emergency, and to visit with tender care and consolation throughout the length and breadth of our land all those who, through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles, and sieges have been brought to suffer in mind, body, or estate, and finally to lead the whole nation through the paths of repentance and submission to the Divine will back to the perfect enjoyment of union and internal peace.

(July 15, 1863)

And there is his proclamation of the holiday of Thanksgiving:

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they (gifts of God) should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

(October 3, 1863)

Obviously, if Lincoln were truly an atheist during his presidency, then he was an inveterate liar. Since atheists who claim him as one of their own want to make out that he was of such high character (and I fully agree), then this doesnt fit in with that picture. Therefore, we must conclude that if he was a truthful man to an extraordinary degree, this is inconsistent with a picture of him lying repeatedly about belief in God in his public speeches.

Therefore, one can only reasonably, plausibly conclude that he believed in God. He was not merely a deist but a theist (so it seems from the references to providence), albeit in a sub-Christian manner. Neither deism nor theism is compatible with atheism. So he was not an atheist, and atheists zealous for a known, respected figurehead and hero ought to revise their language to recognize this.

No. (Understand that to me, an atheist is someone who simply lacks a god-belief for whatever reason and that I go along with Charles Bradlaugh and the rest who would call an infant an atheist, sincea-theismmeans without theism). Part of the time he sure seemed like an atheist (such as the poem Contract with Mrs. T. K. Beecher) but other times he seemed like a theist or at least one who embraced the supernatural. Then again, some people change, and others waver. The subject of God and the supernatural is no easy deal, and I dont blame anyone for being unsure. I try not to categorize someone as atheist or theist unless they consistently use the term (or unless I am in direct dialogue with that person). Ingersoll called himself an agnostic and an infidel, and Ill buy that. This gives me something to work on. Paine was clearly a Deist, as was Jefferson. But Twain was Twain, and who can really explain him? I like himbecausehe merelydescribedhis opinions; I dont remember him attaching a label to himself (but I could be wrong). Ive certainly not been the same throughout my life. I first called myself an atheist in a courtroom in 1988, and the second time I called myself an atheist was shortly before I started putting together the predecessor to this magazine. I was, at one time, a Christian; at another time, I lived with the Hare Krishnas; at still another time, Id have been glad to read your Tarot. Because Ive always had a passion for religion and religious beliefs, and because Twain has had such a profound influence upon me during just about every phase of my life, Id be interested in any studies of his religious views. If you have a book or article, Id be interested in reading it. If you could dash off a few notes laying out your case or, better yet, showing both sides of Twain, Id be more than happy to print it . . . I have read the old American Atheists article that calls him two-faced when it comes to his religious views. (Its around somewhere; Ill find it and post it eventually, but am reluctant to post or reprint it because of its tone.) But I think this charge is unfair, considering that religious claims elicit such complex reactions in most people particularly complex and open-minded people such as Twain. Sure he wavered, but I cannot go so far as to describe him as being two-faced about it. Part of my goal here is to encourage compassion when confronted with others religious beliefs, and Twain, of all people, cannot be sized up in three or four pages if he can be sized up at all!

William Phipps, takes a similar perspective, but coming from a Christian standpoint, and arguing positively for some sort of Christian Mark Twain, in his semi-humorously-titled article,Mark Twain, the Calvinist(Theology Today, Vol. 51, No. 3 October 1994):

Many people think Mark Twain was among the cultured despisers of religion and that he became increasingly cynical about both God and humans as he grew older. If being a Christian includes believing in the infallibility of the Bible, the immutability of the species, holy wars, and literal hellfire, then Twain was indeed not religious, not a Christian, and not a Calvinist. But on looking further, both at his life and his writings, one can see that Twain was deeply sensitive to the sovereignty of God and the weakness of those made in the divine likeness. While Twain rejected passages of the Bible that he regarded as absurd and morally repulsive, he was ever a feisty Christian. He wrote: All that is great and good in our particular civilization came straight from the hand of Jesus Christ.

. . . Calvinism enabled Twain to discern more keenly the two sides of human nature. Everyone is a moon and has a dark side, he quipped.4The chasm between the ideal and actual provided the incongruity on which much of Twains humor was based. His religion also gave him a compulsion to ridicule the human propensity for self-righteousness. Biographer Edward Wagenknecht writes: Unchristian conduct on the part of professing Christians was always shocking to Mark Twain. . . . He thinks, he jokes in terms of Calvinism . . . (which) had sunk into the very marrow of his bones.5

During the four decades that Twain lived in Hartford he regularly attended the Asylum Hill Congregational Church, where Joseph Twichell was the pastor. It was mainly because of his close friendship with Twichell that Twain settled in Connecticuts capital and built a house near Twichell.6Twain called his church the Church of the Holy Speculators because many of its members worked for the insurance companies centered in Hartford. Calvinist Twichell found Twains creed as a mature writer acceptable: I believe in God the Almighty. . . . I think the goodness, the justice, and the mercy of God are manifested in His works.

. . . In the nineteenth century, people on both sides of the Atlantic seemed especially prone to divorce the performance of faith from the profession of faith. Twain described counterfeit worship this way:

He (God) pronounced his work good.. . . Daily we pour out freshlets of disapproval, dispraise, censure, passionate resentment, upon a considerable portion of the work-but not with our mouths. No, it is our acts that betray us, not our words. . . . For ages we have taught ourselves to believe that when we bide a disapproving fact, burying it under a mountain of complimentary lies, He is not aware of it, does not notice it, perceives only the compliments, and is deceived. But is it really so? . . . Is it not a daring affront to the Supreme Intelligence to believe such a thing? Does any of us inordinately praise a mothers whole family to her face, indiscriminately, and in that same movement slap one of her children? Would not that act turn our inflamed eulogy into nonsense?15

Twain did not regard holiness as an enemy of hilarity, and he even ranked humor as one of Gods chief attributes.16Accordingly, as one made in the divine image, Twain said, I am Gods fool.17He regarded laughter, conveyed by his fictional and non-fictional writings, as the most effective way of dealing with human foibles. While seriously trusting in God, he laughed at lesser commitments to Bible and sect-and the world laughed with him. Finding much pretense and little Christian substance in the character of his New England contemporary, Mary Baker Eddy, he devoted a book to an examination of the founder of Christian Science.

. . . Albert Paine, who lived with Twain while composing his official biography, commented: Mark Twains God was of colossal proportions-so vast, indeed, that the constellated stars were but molecules in His veins.19Witness to this belief isCaptain Stormfields Visit to Heaven, Twains rollicking treatment of the traditional provincial and literal notions of heaven. His God is too grand to be comprehended by the puny cosmic conceptions of earthlings. Twain had this to say about the authentic Creator of the real universe: Let us now consider . . . that God of unthinkable grandeur and majesty, by comparison with whom all the other gods whose myriads infest the feeble imaginations of men are as a swarm of gnats scattered and lost in the infinitudes of the empty sky.20

Two of Twains three children, as well as his wife, preceded him in death. Those personal tragedies prompted this jotting on divine suffering:

When I think of the suffering which I see around me, and how it wrings my heart; and then remember what a drop in the ocean this is, compared with the measureless Atlantics of misery which God has to see every day, my resentment is roused against those thoughtless people who are so glib to glorify God, yet never to have a word of pity for Him.21

Although never certified as a cleric, Twain fulfilled his childhood ambition. Near the end of his life, he wrote: I have always preached. . . . If the humor came of its own accord and uninvited I have allowed it a place in my sermon, but I was not writing the sermon for the sake of the humor.22

[see further documentation of citations in the article]

Likewise, David Tomlinson, in areview of a collection of writings by Twain on biblical themes, posits a pseudo-Calvinist Mark Twain:

The curious thing is Twains attitude toward Biblical literalism. As an adult, he associated with the minister Joseph Twichell and a set of people who would not have viewed Biblical literature as literal truth. They would have seen it as representing the beliefs of those who did the writing of the Biblical books. The imperfections of the God of Genesis, then, should not be attributed to God but to those who wrote about him. What the nineteenth-century sophisticates believed was never what Twain himself could take to heart, however. He had been raised in the Biblical literalism of the small Hannibal churches, and no fancy theological explanations would relieve him of the burden that the literalism he learned there imposed.

This sounds to me like no atheist at all. Rather, it sounds exactly like a troubled, irreverent (and irreverently funny) but ultimately pious theist no longer orthodox in a Protestant or Catholic sense, but profoundly, deeply influenced by Calvinism and Christianity in general. In other words, he is basically in this respect a wise, funny version of Abraham Lincoln. But neither man was an atheist.

See more here:
Were Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain Atheists? - Patheos (blog)

NIAGARA FALLS At 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, as light streamed through the church's tall, arched windows, the service began.

The topic was science.

Although that focus might be unusual for some churches, no one batted an eye at the venerable First Unitarian Universalist Church of Niagara, which prides itself on welcoming people of any religion or even no religion.

The message on the sign in front of the Main Street church says, Atheists, Buddhists and Christians belong to this church. No specific belief is expected or required. In fact, the members proudly call it "a church for atheists."

"Everyone is always welcome in this church," said longtime member Peter Diachun, who opened the service. "We're particularly putting out the welcome mat for people who are seeking an alternative church."

That welcome for those of any faith, no faith or those who just aren't sure about faith was expressed in words and images. Colorful fabric banners representing the world's major religions, from Christianity to Hinduism, lined the side walls and two Unitarian Universalist banners hung in the front.

The program on this day was one of the summer sessionsgeared toward "Free Thinkers," a term used for a person "who forms opinions on the basis of reason, independent of authority," said Diachun.

Free Thinker programs also will be held starting at 11 a.m. on July 23 and Aug. 6. On July 23, the service will includea video of author Alain de Botton's lecture "Atheism 2.0."

A free thinker, said Diachun, can be but doesn't have to be an atheist, an agnostic or a skeptic. The free thinker "does not necessarily have wild or unstable beliefs, but they simply choose to question the validity of claims that come from an authority."

The local congregation meets in an impressive church, dedicated on Jan. 15, 1922. With its four Doric stone columns, it resembles a bank building. It is faced with a striking pattern of deeply recessed, rustic cut-edge limestone slabs that were excavated from the site while it was being built. "We like that kind of thing," said Diachun.

Its appearance tells a story the congregation still enjoys sharing. "It doesn't look like a church where is the steeple?" Diachun asked.

In fact, the building was intentionally built without outward religious symbolism except for the words "Unitarian Church," with the U's carved as V's in the Latin style, over the main door. That's because the congregation wasn't entirely sure that they would be able to support such a building.

The main hall, which is filled with light from the arched clear-glass windows, was built with a working stage in the front in case it might have to be marketed as a theater. It wasn't until 1955, when the congregation was booming, that confident leaders converted the backstage area into classrooms.

Suzanne Cole of New Orleans speaks during a discussion session at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Niagara. (John Hickey/Buffalo News)

"It's a very UU thing, to be a little skeptical," said Suzanne Cole of New Orleans, one of several young people who attended the service after coming to the area for the Quaker Friends General Conference Gathering held at Stella Niagara.

There are 64 Unitarian Universalist congregations in New York, with about 8,500 members. Some 150,000 members belong to 1,016 congregations across the country. The church has 20 more congregations outside the United States.

In Niagara Falls, the fortunes of the congregation have waxed and waned over the decades, and now the active membership hovers around 40, with about 20 attending services regularly.

The congregation is no longer large enough to support a minister. Its programs which in the fall, winter and spring are often led by a visiting minister or lecturer are coordinated by the board, which is led by Elizabeth "Betsy" Diachun, Peter's wife and the longest-tenured member of the congregation.

Betsy Diachun has scheduled ministers and guest preachers, including several with Unitarian Universalist educations, to lead services starting in September.

"I think this makes it much more interesting, because we get so many different points of view, rather than hearing just one person every Sunday," she said. "Of course you get consistency if you have one person. But a lot of our members would prefer not to have a minister just for that reason."

Cole, who is affiliated with both Quakers and the Unitarian Universalists, said she seeks out one of those congregations whenever she travels. After attending a service at the Niagara Falls church, she preached there on July 2 "in honor of our loyal skeptics," she said. "I talked about how loyal skeptics propel an organization forward by helping us reconnect to a mission in a changing world."

The Free Thinkers service began with the lighting of an oil-filled chalice, flanked by two candles on a small table in the front of the room.

"A Hungarian minister began this during World War II," said Betsy Diachun. "We feel that it demarcates the time that is special to us. At the beginning of the service, we light the chalice and say that we hope to heal instead of harm, and at the end when we blow it out, we wish to stay safe until we meet again."

The congregation watched a video of a TED talk by author and neuroscientist Sam Harris titled "Science Can Answer Moral Questions." Then they passed around a hand-held microphone and shared their opinions on the topic.

Michael Miano of Middleport speaks during a "Free Thinkers Sunday" session at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Niagara in Niagara Falls. (John Hickey/Buffalo News)

Michael Miano of Middleport, a newcomer to the church, kicked off the spirited exchange by saying that he disagreed with Harris' points. Next to take the microphone was Nan Simon of Youngstown, who said of Harris, "I think what he said is absolutely correct."

"As usual, we seem to have a wide spectrum of ideas on these topics," said Peter Diachun as he handed the microphone around.

From there, people discussed the elitism of scientific work "Let's not make science so exclusive that only the rich and powerful have access to it," said Cole and whether science can ever be totally objective.

Even the first-time participants expressed their views passionately. Spotlighting the cultural impact of religion, Sky Stewart of Franklin, Ohio, asked, "Is this thing you're being asked to do by your religion making a person greater or making them less?"

Sky Stewart of Franklin, Ohio, one of several people visiting the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Niagara, expresses his opinion. Stewart is both a Quaker and a Unitarian Universalist, which is not unusual in the church. (John Hickey/Buffalo News)

After the service ended, announcements were made about coming social events, and discussions and conversation continued in the aisles.

Betsy Diachun said the congregation "would love to attract more members," but there are challenges.

A comfortable rocking chair for mothers with babies is positioned in the last row of the sanctuary, but the church has not been able to keep families with young children. "We are prepared to offer a Sunday school or baby-sitting," said Betsy Diachun. "But unless we have two or three families, they want to go someplace where their child is going to have interaction with other children."

Starting in September, services will become more traditional. They include music on the grand piano and hymn-singing, readings, a time for sharing joys and concerns, and a homily.

"They have a beautiful grand piano and they have a fabulous musician," said Cole.

"Niagara has a lot more than many small churches, they have a beautiful building and they have a position in the community, but I know that they are also challenged for members, especially families and young adults," she said.

After services during the year, members take turns bringing food for a coffee hour, said Betsy Diachun. "We are always telling people not to go overboard" with what they prepare, she said.

"That is supposed to be a big thing with Unitarians, instead of 'Holy, holy, holy,' they have a hymn that goes, 'Coffee, coffee, coffee.' There are lots of jokes about Unitarians and coffee," she said.

Having traveled and visited many congregations, Cole is optimistic about the future of the liberal religious tradition to which some Quakers and the Unitarian Universalists belong.

"We're the type of groups that people don't find until they are really desperate to find us," she said.

"People don't know to look for something that's further left than anywhere they've ever been. Folks who were raised very liberal socially often say, 'Religion doesn't meet me here. There's no faith acting here.'"

Liv Monck-Whipp of Ontario speaks during a discussion session at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Niagara. (John Hickey/Buffalo News)

However, said Cole, "To be a UU, you don't agree to believe a set of things, but to interact with the people around you in a set of ways. Most people want to be more moral, and they want to be more principled and they want to change the world. Worshiping with any of the faiths in the liberal tradition equips us and enables us to be those people that we are hoping to be out in the world, by finding solidarity when we worship."

On the Free Thinkers Sunday program she attended with her friends, Cole said, "I can tell you there were at least two atheists in the room, a Christian, two pagans. That is the composition of most UU churches. The church I worship with in New Orleans is at least 50 percent atheist."

In the Niagara Falls church, "We have people who are quite Christian, and we do have a lot of humanists and atheists," said Betsy Diachun. And, like Cole and Stewart, some members belong to another religion, too. "We've had ministers who were Sufis as well as Unitarians," she said.

Members understand that a church for atheists and everyone else might be a stretch for some to accept. But they believe that what they have to offer is valuable.

"We can't offer salvation, because most of us don't believe there is life after death," said Betsy Diachun. "What we can offer you, though, and why you should come to this church, is that it would open your mind to consider ethical and moral questions from different points of view, and that it would give you a terrific feeling of companionship of others who are walking the same path in life."

The services on Sunday morning, she said, are "a way of getting our moral compass aligned, once a week, if we've gotten astray, which is so easy with all the distractions."

email: aneville@buffnews.com

Read this article:
In Niagara Falls, a 'church for atheists' and everyone else - Buffalo News

If I were in an abusive situation, Id certainly want to break free, too. The question, however, is where to go (fractal image by PublicDomainPictures) [Pixabay / CC0 public domain]

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Introduction: Deconversion stories are accounts of an atheist or agnosticsodyssey from some form of Christianity to atheism or agnosticism. Since these are public (else I wouldnt know about them in the first place), its reasonable to assume that they are more than merely subjective / personal matters, that have no bearing on anyone else. No; it is assumed (it seems to me) that these stories are thought to offer rationales of various sorts for others to also become atheists or to be more confirmed in their own atheism. This being the case, since they are public critiques of Christianity (hence, fair game for public criticism), as a Christian (Catholic) apologist, I have a few thoughts in counter-reply.

I amnotquestioning the sincerity of these persons or the truthfulness of their self-reports, or any anguish that they went through. I accept their words at face value. Im not arguing that they are terrible, evil people (thats a childs game). My sole interest is in showing if and where certain portions of these deconversion stories contain fallacious or non-factual elements: where they fail to make a point against Christianity (what Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls defeating the defeaters), or misrepresent (usually unwittingly) Christianity as a whole, or the Bible, etc.

As always, feedback on my blog (especially from the persons critiqued) is highly encouraged, and I will contact, out of basic courtesy, everyone whose story I have critiqued. All atheists are treated with courtesy and respect on my blog. If someone doesnt do so, I reprimand them, and ban them if they persist in their insults.

When I cite the stories themselves, the words will be inblue.

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Today, I am responding to Real Deconversion Story #1 Lorna (10-25-12), hosted on Jonathan MS PearcesA Tippling Philosopherweb page at Patheos (where my blog is also hosted).

I was brought up in what I now refer to as thefundie bubble, where I was raised to be completely unaware of how the real world worked.

And of course this will have a harmful effect: being exposed to a fringe, extreme, anti-intellectual species of Christianity. This is now the third straight deconversion story I have critiqued in the last few days, where this was the case. One starts to detect a certain pattern. Most of what an atheist will say in critique of fundamentalism, the vast majority of non-fundamentalist Christians will readily agree with.

Lorna has great fun mocking the fundamentalist aversion to evil forces but, all joking aside, certainly we can all agree that there are bad (evil?) people and bad belief-systems out there (e.g., ISIS and neo-Nazis and child molesters or rapists).

Their [her parents] prime objective as Christian parents wastokeep the world outof our home.

And that makes perfect sense. All parents seek to insulate their children against harmful influences. Some may do it in dumb, extreme ways, and we may disagree on which harmful influences to exclude, but the principle itself is a general one.

Lornas struggle with masturbation simply highlights the Christian assertion that sin is addicting. Its powerful. Its enticing. Thats why we must try to avoid it at all costs. Its much easier to never begin such practices. There is a rational argument (even a secular one) that can be made against masturbation, but this is not the place to do that. Of course, the atheist and sexually liberated person simply says that because masturbation is a powerful urge, therefore, it must be perfectly natural and therefore okay. That doesnt follow at all.

Virtually every married man (to give one example) has been attracted to a woman not his wife. If that were purely and solely natural, therefore, good, then infidelity would then become good. But there is a consensus (still, even today), that cheating on your spouse is a bad thing. Therefore, this is an analogous example of an urge that society (atheist and Christian alike) stigmatizes as something that should not be done. The child molester has strong natural urges to molest children. Society (and I would say, natural law and common ethical sense) says that is wrong. We also still think its wrong for a parent and child to have sex, or for a man to rape a woman.

All of those things feel natural to those who have those urges. Christianity simply holds that a wider group of sexual practices fall under this same sort of thing. And we have plenty of reasons for believing so: that can be backed up by studies from social science, as to effects on individuals and families and marriages of certain practices.

Of course, I couldnt stopand according to what I learnedit was a spiritually dangerous addiction. Knowing this did a number on my self-esteem because I deeply and genuinely believed that God was disappointed in me all of the time and I couldnt stop no matter how hard I tried. I asked for forgiveness nightly, but it got to the point where I was even ashamed to mention the subject in prayer.

Lornas in good company. Paul the Apostle wrote about very similar struggles (that we all go through in one way or another):

Romans 7:15-24 (RSV) I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.[16] Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.[17] So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.[18] For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.[19] For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.[20] Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.[21] So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.[22] For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,[23] but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.[24] Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

His solution was given in the next chapter, where he talked about the powerful help of the Holy Spirit and grace, to overcome sin.

. . . the darker elements of the Christian mindset that were present both in my home in the church certainly latched onto personality weaknesses and perpetuated them, even more so as time went on.

That is, the fundamentalist(not general Christian) mindset . . .

The point of homeschooling, both my parents and seemingly the chosen curriculums, was not to educate and prepare me for life but rather to keep sin aka reality far out of reach. As a result, when I actually did face the real world,I did so naively and unprepared.

That has not been our own experience at all. We have homeschooled all four of our children, and they are doing wonderfully in life (now at ages 26, 24, 20, and 15: our oldest is autistic as well). All are rock-solid Catholics. So once again, the big bad boogie man is neither Christianity nor homeschooling, but rather, extreme, unrealistic versions of both. I agree with the excesses Lorna condemns in this regard (there are good and bad homeschoolers, just as with anything else), but I dont see how they constitute any reason for deconversion and adoption of atheism. Lorna seems to think they do (since they are in her deconversion story). I dont see how, meself.

As a result of her desperate need to control combined with her belief that there was only one correct path that I was straying from, I was made to quit my job, have the cellphone that I bought and paid for (on time every month to prove responsibility) taken away from me (so that I couldnt communicate with Daniel as freely), and forbidden from actuallydatinghim.

. . . which is, of course, silly and extreme, since nothing bad was known about the boyfriend. All this proves is that Lorna had a controlling, legalistic, fundamentalist mom. It proves nothing against the truthfulness of Christianity. We know that when parents are too strict, the kids rebel (duh!). And I think atheism can be tied into that phenomenon. Its going from one extreme to another.

On top of what I now consider harassment from the church, I was also dealing with angry letters from my mom about how myselfishnessandchosen lifestylewere hurting family. Never mind how I was emotionally ostracized, manipulated and black-mailed for wanting to make some of my own choices. Somehow, the blame was all on me. I even received a letter from an uncle, who rarely said a word to me prior to this, in which he explained in great detail that God could very well punish my sinful rebellionwithcancer. The fear tactics in that letter were so blatant that it was actually sickening, even for my naive mind. This combined with the new-found freedom to think outside of the bubble is what eventually led me out of religion all together. Unfortunately, I clung to the love of Jesus for as long as I could. When I finally began to let go of even Jesus, Daniel and I began to drift as well.

I see nothing here that is a reason to reject Christianity: only a reason to object to controlling behaviors and fundamentalism. She gives no reason at all for why she let go of even Jesus. I guess she started to think that He would supposedly act like her despotic mother and uncle? Or did she commit intellectual suicide and start thinking that He never existed?

. . .having both escaped the Christian mindset.

I see this tendency repeatedly in atheist deconversion stories: a conflation of the extreme, fringe Christians elements with Christianity. This is not honest (I must say). Its false advertising. The atheist is the first to vocally object if we point out that the usual raging, angry anti-theists who are rampant online represent the average, mainstream atheist. I agree that they dont (Ive written about that several times). I ask for the same courtesy from atheists to distinguish between ignorant fanatic Christians and those who are not so.

This is a big problem that I see in deconversion stories. Atheists read them and say (or so I speculate), That is Christianity, and I want no part of it; glad I left that nonsense. I read the same thing and think, That is despicable fundamentalist foolishness, that has never been part of my Christianity, or most Christians faith, and I detest it as well, but see no reason to reject Christianity itself because some people have a lousy, stupid, mindless application of Christianity in their lives.

I could go on to critique much more of this story, but it is mostly variations on the same theme, so what I have written will suffice. There is nothing whatsoever here that I see, that would compel anyone to reject all forms of Christianity. The storywould certainly, however, form a good reason to reject reality-denying fundamentalism. Since lots of Christians do that, it can hardly be an unanswerable reason to reject Christianity altogether.

Lastly, there are intelligent, sensible, non-controlling ways to teach abstinence before marriage. My children have all lived that out. One is now very happily married, another has a steady girlfriend. They are all wonderful Christian human beings, and theyre not out there condemning homeschooling and talking about how terrible my wife and I were in bringing them up. Quite the opposite. My wife and I also waited till marriage, and are fabulously happy, with almost 33 years of marriage.

So the idea that Christianity is all this garbage that Lorna went through or that there is no conceivable way to intelligently, rationally, sensibly teach abstinence before marriage is nonsense. There is a balance between extreme puritan-like legalism and prudishness and extreme sexual anything goes license. Christians can even agree with atheists on much (if not all) of that.

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In the combox, Lorna wrote: I will link you to my transition story from a blog that I no longer update, in case youre interested. [link provided]It offers a little more detail as to how I got from fundamental Christianity to agnosticism/atheism. It was by no means an angry, thoughtless jump.

Since Im interested in precisely that, Ill give a few thoughts on this additional material, too.

. . . this transition of mine consists of what I can separate into three phases: liberal Christianity, spirituality (where I believed in God, but thought that organized religion was pointless -this led to a slight interest in certain aspects of far eastern religions) and finally agnosticism (where I had concluded that no one can know anything for sure and that there is probably a bit of truth in every view).

Okay, Ill keep reading.

More recently, thanks to the experience and emotional support from my partner as well as my own interest in psychology, I have become more and more certain that god must simply be an idea to help fill in the gaps. Ive come to learn that our mind craving for something god makes perfect sense; but it doesnt justify dedicating your life to a fear-soothing fantasy. I think religion, or any idea of god, gods, or a greater power for that matter is only for emotional comfort. The unknown tends to be uncomfortable, unsettling, and even frightening to some.

This is simply an assertion of what Lorna has come to believe, and no argument; therefore, there is nothing to dispute. Its merely subjective mush. Of course, this is a variation of the usual tired atheist schtick that religion is the equivalent of belief inSanta Claus or leprechaunsor the tooth fairy and suchlike (alas, some asinine atheist slogansnever change).

My attempt at a more liberal version of Christianity after a childhood of the conservative brand lasted for a couple of years, or less. Id decided that most Christians were bad representatives, but that Jesus was perfect and that I should strive to be like him; loving, non-judgmental, understanding all the things my mother, as well as various other influential authority figures in my life were not. I wasnt ready to leave what I had known all my life behind, but I knew she and the others were going about it the wrong way.

Many Christians on the way to atheism or agnosticism stop by liberal Christianity as a halfway house because it is much closer to atheism in many ways. But the liberals didnt satisfy Lorna, either. She still hasnt explained exactly why, though. This additional post gives no rational reasons that could be critiqued. From what I can tell, Lornas main reason for conversion to agnosticism seems to be personal and sexual freedom. But she does link to a third paper:

I didnt blame Jesus or Christianity for the actions of these angry Christians.

Good. Its refreshing to see these basic distinctions made. She goes on to talk about conversations with someone she regarded asa mature, loving Christian to talk to . . . very understanding. This provides a nuance missing from the first deconversion story.

Unfortunately, this was Part 1 and just when it started to get interesting (from where I sit), there seems to have been no further writing on the topic.

Therefore, I still see no reason why anyone should leave Christianity because of Lornas testimony. All it proves it that there are some judgmental, legalistic Christians out there, which we all knew already: just as there are some judgmental, condescending atheists out there, too! Crappy examples and role models can be found in any human group whatever. Its about as revelatory as saying that there are people in Group X that like baseball, and some like fishing, and some liketo talk! Likewise, there are the folks in any given group that are embarrassing and dont properly represent the whole. Were all blessed by them.

This is basically Lornas ongoing point, and it is no reason whatever to reject Jesus or the Bible or Christianity. Thats why I wanted so much to see why and how Lorna rejected Jesus. But I guess its not to be.

See the rest here:
Atheist Deconversion Story Series #2: Lorna - Patheos (blog)

Image by Pexels [Pixabay / CC0 public domain]

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Introduction: Deconversion stories are accounts of an atheist or agnosticsodyssey from some form of Christianity to atheism or agnosticism. Since these are public (else I wouldnt know about them in the first place), its reasonable to assume that they are more than merely subjective / personal matters, that have no bearing on anyone else. No; it is assumed (it seems to me) that these stories are thought to offer rationales of various sorts for others to also become atheists or to be more confirmed in their own atheism. This being the case, since they are public critiques of Christianity (hence, fair game for public criticism), as a Christian (Catholic) apologist, I have a few thoughts in counter-reply.

I am not questioning the sincerity of these persons or the truthfulness of their self-reports, or any anguish that they went through. I accept their words at face value. Im not arguing that they are terrible, evil people (thats a childs game). My sole interest is in showing if and where certain portions of these deconversion stories contain fallacious or non-factual elements: where they fail to make a point against Christianity (what Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls defeating the defeaters), or misrepresent (usually unwittingly) Christianity as a whole, or the Bible, etc.

As always, feedback on my blog (especially from the persons critiqued) is highly encouraged, and I will contact, out of basic courtesy, everyone whose story I have critiqued. All atheists are treated with courtesy and respect on my blog. If someone doesnt do so, I reprimand them, and ban them if they persist in their insults.

When I cite the stories themselves, the words will be in blue.

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Today, I am responding to Real Deconversion Story #14 Anthony Toohey (12-5-16), hosted on Jonathan MS Pearces A Tippling Philosopher web page at Patheos (where my blog is also hosted).

With . . . Duanes promise that all of the confusing stuff Id heard about salvation and redemption in my Catholic upbringing was wrong, that it all came down to Believe and Be Saved Well that was enough for me. I did, and as far as I knew, I was.

Anthony stated that he went to after-school catechism. This created a fascination in me for the bible and for the mystical/spiritual aspects of Christianity. But we dont know how much he actually knew about Catholicism . . . seemingly not all that much, if he could forsake it merely because ofa Bible trivia game and the usual ignorant Chick Tract-like anti-Catholic sermonizing. Hence, he appears to have been like many millions of insufficiently catechized Catholics: almost to a person unfamiliar with apologetics, or the reasons why Catholics believe as they do. This is a common theme running through deconversion stories: either relative or profound ignorance of ones own Christian affiliations. If we dont know why we believe whatever have no reasons for it , then obviously we are easy targets of those who would dissuade us from our shallow, non-rational beliefs.

He talks about how the Santa Cruz Christian Church (I tried to find it on Google and was unsuccessful) gave him and his fiancee advice, causing him to call off their engagement. But this is hardly grounds to blame Christianity, because one church practiced what he rightlydescribes as spiritual abuse. As so often in these stories, one extreme sect is universalized to all of Christianity, as if it is representative of that whole. Atheists reading such gory details sit there lamenting, see what rascals and morons those damned Christians are! So glad I came to my senses and left it. Best thing I ever did . . . They never seem to realize that one extreme and twisted version of Christianity is not the whole ball of wax. Basic category errors and logical fallacies, in other words . . . These things usually arent stated outright, but I would contend that they are the underlying strongly implied assumption.

Former Christian atheists often refer back to the years of abuse (real or alleged) that they went through. Hence, Anthony writes: It was not until after I left the faith and went back to examine my Christian life in light of my new viewpoint, that the gravity of what I had allowed to be done to us hit me. In this case, it was real abuse, but only from an extremist fringe sector of Christianity, which is no disproof of Christianity per se.

I bought the first pieces of my spiritual library. He and Theresa had already bought me a study bible. That day I bought a comprehensive concordance, a bible dictionary, an exhaustive cross-reference, a bible atlas, and, finally, Gleason ArchersEncyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.

What?

I took Duane at his word, but inside, the title of that book put a cold shaft of fear inside me. How could Gods word have difficulties? What on earth was difficult about Gods revelation to mankind. I mean, hes God, right? And we have the spirit of God.

This is shallow, unreflective thinking. I can think of a number of sound, logical reasons why such a book would exist:

1. The Bible is a very lengthy, multi-faceted book by many authors, from long ago, with many literary genres, and cultural assumptions that are foreign to us.

2. The Bible purports to be revelation from an infinitely intelligent God. Thus (even though God simplifies it as much as possible), for us to think that it is an easy thing to immediately grasp and figure out, and would not have any number of difficulties for mere human beings to work through, is naive. The Bible itself teaches that authoritative teachers are necessary to properly understand it.

3. All grand theories have components (anomalies / difficulties) that need to be worked out and explained. For example, scientific theories do not purport to perfectly explain everything. They often have large mysterious areas that have to be resolved. Think of, for example, the missing links in evolution. That didnt stop people from believing in it. Folks believed in gradual Darwinian evolution even though prominent paleontologist and philosopher of science Stephen Jay Gould famously noted that gradualism was never read from the rocks. Even Einsteins theories werent totally confirmed by scientific experiment at first (later they were). That a book like the Bible would have difficulties to work through is perfectly obvious and unsurprising to me.

4. Most of the rationale of explaining Bible difficulties is not from a perspective that they are real difficulties, but rather, to show that purported difficulties really arent such. They are usually based on illogical thinking or unfamiliarity with biblical genre, etc. Many alleged biblical contradictions simply arent so, by the rules of logic.

5. The Foreword of the book by Kenneth S. Kantzer explains its rationale: [T]he faith of some troubled souls is hindered by misunderstanding the Scripture. They are confused by what seems to them to be false statements or self-contradiction. We need, therefore, to clear away such false obstacles to faith. (p. 8)

For these reasons, as an apologist and avid Bible student, Ive done quite a bit of writing on alleged Bible difficulties myself: found in the final section of my Bible & Tradition web page, and have analyzed relentlessly shoddy, illogical, fact-challenged atheist attempts to run down the Bible, in a section of my Atheism & Agnosticism page.

When I got home, I looked through some of the topics. Ill confess that, even then, it seemed very equivocating sort of a wordy hand-waving.

What is plausible and what isnt, is a very complicated matter itself. In any event, Anthony has simply talked about the book, and has not given any concrete examples that readers can judge for themselves. As such, this is simply no argument against Archers book, or against Christianity. All we know is that Anthony found it unconvincing. So what? Granted, accounts like this (or Christian conversion stories) cant argue every jot and tittle. But still, its good to point out what is actually an argument or evidence, and what isnt, lest anyone become confused over the nature of evidence pro or con.

Not being comforted by what I read, I usually ignored this book. Instead, I started reading about all the wrong religions.

We are what we eat. It looks like Anthony didnt even read Archers book all the way through. He seems to have quickly judged it, and moved on. But why should anyone think that his negative judgment and dismissal is infallible?

Anthony then talks about his struggles in the Christian life. All of this is perfectly understood and familiar to Christians. St. Paul himself talks about it in Romans 7, and then gives the solution in Romans 8. But that we all fall short and fail many times, in many ways, is not some big bombshell. Nor is it any argument against Christianity, because the latter teaches us to expect this. Faith is a lifelong struggle.

Im going to focus on the building string of doubts that led me to examine, and ultimately abandon, my faith.

Great. Lets see if they are compelling for any reader to think likewise.

. . . my wife was determined to complete her education. After getting eligible to transfer, she decided to attend San Jose State to get an accounting degree. While she was there, she took a class in the Religious History, and possibly one more focused on Western religion. The professor was also a pastor who was, to me, very liberal. He taught about the history of the development of the doctrine of hell. He taught how the prophets were used to enable rulers to motivate their soldiers to commit atrocities they would otherwise not ever consider. He taught the very human side of religion.

. . . It brought her faith deeply into question.

And so this is the oft-heard story. Christians go to college, get confronted with skeptical or atheist professors, in a very lopsided scenario, and lose their faith, if they are insufficiently equipped (i.e., lacking in apologetics knowledge: my field) to take on skeptical challenges to it. Again, we are what we eat. If she sat there and took in all this rotgut from the professor, and never read a Christian refutation of it, then why should anyone be surprised that she goes the route of the professor? One must read the best proponents of both sides of major disputes: not one side only or the best proponents of one side vs. the worst on the other (which is the usual atheist game: they love to wrangle with ignorant, uninformed Christians). This is why I love to have dialogues on my blog. I present the other persons words for my readers to see: and if not all of them, I always provide a link and urge them to read the whole article, and then see my response.

We attended a bible study. By our second or third time, she was asking more questions. I dont remember the last question she asked, but it froze the room. You could have heard a pin drop. She got a soft-shoed answer and the pastor rushed past it as quickly as he could.

Unfortunately, many pastors and priests are as undereducated in apologetics as the laypeople.

She never went to church again. She announced she was agnostic and didnt believe what I believed.

All we know about her story is that she heard some skeptical stuff, started asking hard questions that were unanswered. We dont know whether she actually took the time to read good Christian apologetics or philosophy. Consequently, there is nothing there that should persuade any other Christian to cease being so.

It is a fact that people, to an overwhelming degree, adopt the religious tradition of their culture. To them it is accepted fact.

Sociologically, that is very true. The problem with making it an exclusively anti-Christianity argument, however, is that atheists act in largely the same way. Thats why kids lose their Christian faith in college. Theyre surrounded by liberal, skeptical or atheist professors who undermine their faith and dont give both sides of the story (i.e., they are immersed in a different culture, and so unsurprisingly adopt it). The smart people seem to be against Christianity in that environment, and the few informed Christians are too scared to speak out (and today are even shut up and shouted down). No one wants to be seen as the oddball or outsider, so they lose their faith: not usually because of objective intellectual inquiry and reading the best of both worldviews, but because of sheer peer pressure and being subjected to one view (propaganda) over and over. They become politically liberal for the same reason.

Atheists like to think that they arrive at their view solely through reason, while Christians soak in theirs from their mothers milk. But atheists are just as subject to peer pressure and environmental influence as anyone else. Most worldviews (whether Christian or atheist) are arrived at far more for social (and emotional) reasons than intellectual. I cant emphasize it enough: we are what we eat.

Because of this cultural indoctrination, the only way to objectively examine your faith is to take the position of an outsider from a different culture and examine your faith with the same level of skepticism you treat other religions.

Conversely,the only way to objectively examine ones atheism is to interact withan outsider from Christianity(someone like me, willing and able to do it) and examine your axioms and premiseswith the same level of skepticism that onetreats Christianity. I am offering Anthony and any other atheist the opportunity to do that in this very paper.

There was a point during my cycle of failure and repentance that I wondered why on earth I would rush to the writings of Paul (specifically Romans 5-8) to restore my spirit rather than to Jesus. One was an apostle, but one was actually God, as I understood it. The modern salvation transaction as were taught it was never all that clear in Pauls writings, and not at all in the words attributed to Jesus.

That is, the fundamentalist Protestant version of salvation, which is out of touch with even historic Protestantism, let alone Catholicism and Orthodoxy . . . I agree that this warped version is never taught by either Jesus or St. Paul.

So I began to spend more time with the words of Jesus, thinking that if I cant find what I need from the words of my god walking upon the earth, the words of an apostle would not help me. To shorten the story, reading the words attributed to Jesus turned me into a social liberal. The Jesus in the bible is compassionate to the poor, destitute, and irredeemable, in stark contrast to the modern Christian, who, if they follow the culture, would sooner tell the poor to get a job and wave the flag of meritocratic individualism.

Pitting Paul against Jesus is plain silly. There is no essential difference in what they taught (which is perhaps why Anthony never provides any example of such alleged divergence). They simply taught in different ways. Jesus was the storyteller: more like a pastor (therefore, much better understood by the common man), whereas Paul was systematic and more abstract: like a theologian or academic: more like philosophy. But making false dichotomies is very typical of the sort of Protestant milieu that Anthony was part of.

The next issue I faced was the issue of evolution. I was a Young Earther, but the more I read, the more I realized that the science wasnt a conspiracy, but rather an accurate representation of the way the world actually worked. But it didnt lead to my faith deserting me. All truth is Gods truth. I figured, therefore, that Genesis was an allegory. My theory was that as long as Christ rose from the dead, then Christianity was true. It wouldnt matter if Genesis was an allegory or literal. Jesus = salvation. The rest is interpretation.

In the same vein, I decided the flood of Noah was also allegory, as it was scientifically impossible. Australia itself stands as a testament to the unreality of it.

This is very typical of many deconversion stories, where the person came out of fundamentalism. Anthony was a young-earther. I never was that, nor was I ever a fundamentalist or anti-science in my evangelical days (1977-1990). But the solution to these errors is not to ditch any literalism in the Bible and go to an all-allegorical position. The solution is to recognize that the Bible contains many genres of literature, and to determine which is occurring in a particular place. Thats how normal language and literature work. The problem is that fundamentalists and skeptics alike start treating the Bible as if it isnt subject to the normal rules of interpretation of literature. And so Anthony was knee-jerk and simplistic regarding the Bible. He went from one extreme error to another on the opposite side of the spectrum.

There are, of course, many old-earth evolutionist Christians. They simply believe that God had some hand in the process of evolution. The choice isnt godless, materialistic atheism vs. young-earth creationism. I denied the universality of Noahs flood over 30 years ago, as a result of reading a Christian book about science (by Baptist scholar Bernard Ramm). Why should that cause anyone to lose their Christian faith, pray tell?

So being in this strange place, with only the resurrection of Jesus Christ to keep me in the fold, I came to a full on crisis of faith. I wont go heavily into it now, . . .

He can, of course, divulge whatever he wants, but the fact remains that we are given no solid, compelling, cogent reasons why he should have forsaken Christianity, or why anyone else should do so. Because he was a fundamentalist extremist, those who never were that (like myself) should also leave Christianity: even the forms of it vastly essentially different from Anthonys anti-intellectual fundamentalism?

I searched for the best apologetics book I could find, settling on Norman GeislersI Dont Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

I commend him for at least reading one book from the Christian perspective, against atheism. Of course, different authors have different emphases, styles, and particular philosophies. So it may have simply been a case where Geisler (a fine apologist) wasnt a good fit for him.

I gave God first shot at me and read Geisler. I expected to be strengthened steeled for my encounter with the atheist, able to find a way to keep my faith and work on my anger. Instead I took 30 pages (steno pad) of notes. I could easily formulate my wifes answers to his arguments without even trying. I was disappointed and borderline devastated. I read Loftuss book. Another 20 pages of notes later I set down his book and realized that 1) I didnt know what I did believe, and 2) I was sure it wasnt the god of the bible.

So John Loftus did the trick.

I was unmoored. I tried another apologist, thinking that maybe Geisler wasnt the best to read. Loftus had referenced William Lane Craig, so I started reading one of his books. About 40% of the way through, I gave up. It was over.I sat at my desk and said to myself, Im an atheist. And here I am today.

Craig is also a fine Christian thinker and debater. But it also depends what particular place we are at in our thinking: how much we will be influenced.

I do wonder why if John Loftus atheist polemics are so compelling , he is so extremely hyper-sensitive (and I do not exaggerate at all, believe me) to any critique of them? I have examinedhis outsider test of faith argument (ten years ago), some of his irrational criticisms of the Bible, and his story, and he went ballistic. This hardly suggests a confident atheism, willing to take on all critiques:

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Loftus is very much like the preacher that is often maligned in atheist deconversion accounts: the guy who loves to hear himself talk, unopposed, who wilts at the first counter-challenge. That has always been what John Loftus does, in my experience. And he has a colorful set of epithets and insults, too, that he sent my way for having the audacity to challenge him in his infallible wisdom. If his atheist apologetic is so unvanquishable, let him stand up and defend it like a man and honest thinker. But (at least with me) he has never done so. Thus, I am utterly unimpressed by his thinking (and demeanor). I have atheist friends who are embarrassed by him, because he conducts himself like such a rude and pompous ass. Hes not exactly a good representative or figurehead for atheism.

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In conclusion, I dont see anything here in this deconversion story that would compel anyone else to forsake Christianity. At best it is an account that raises serious questions about extreme fundamentalist Christianity, which I fully agree with. But since that is merely one fringe element of Christianity, it is irrelevant as to the truthfulness of larger Christianity, let alone atheism as a supposedly superior and more rational and cogent alternative worldview.

Go here to see the original:
Atheist Deconversion Story Series #1: Anthony Toohey - Patheos (blog)

Marie Alena Castle is the communications director for Atheists for Human Rights. Raised Roman Catholic she became an atheist later in life. She has since been an important figure in the atheistmovement through her involvement with Minnesota Atheists, The Moral Atheist,National Organization for Women, andwrote Culture Wars: The Threat to Your Family and Your Freedom (2013). She has a lifetime of knowledge and activist experience, explored and crystallized in an educational series. The first part of this series can be found here Session 1and Session 2.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Even with groups such as NARAL, NOW, and Planned Parenthood, the onslaught against womens rights, reproductive rights and so on, continue to take place. The most vulnerable poor and minority women tend to be the main victims, and so their children and the associated families and so communities. In a sequence, I see attacks on womens reproductive rights as attacks on women, children, so families, and so communities, and therefore ordinary American citizens. What can be some buffers, or defenses, against these direct attacks on the new media and communications technologies, e.g. to educate and inoculate new generations?

Marie Alena Castle:

Jacobsen: Who are the unknown womens rights heroes, men and women, that people should more into to self-educate?

Castle:They are the people who work at abortion clinics. They all have stories to tell. One of my friends managed a clinic and she was constantly threatened with violence and pickets at her house. I went there a few times to help in case the picketers got violent. One August I suggested she hook up her garden hose to a bottle of sugar water and set it to spray on the picketers and attract hordes of hornets. She wouldnt do it but I would have. The leader of the picketers was the local fire department chief (with expert knowledge of how to set her house on fire). She wanted to move but dared not for fear the fire chief would send a potential buyer to case the house for fire-setting purposes. She needed some carpentry done but feared getting someone she didnt know who would have a violent anti-abortion agenda. I got an atheist carpenter friend for her who was reliably safe.

Jacobsen: Once the shoe bites, people then become active, politically and socially, typically. These people can rise and protest in an organized and constructive way. Do you think this era of yes, alternative facts, but at the same time mass accessibility of information can hasten people realizing their shoe is being bitten, even when they werent aware before?

Castle:Lotsa luck on this. Most people really do assume that, as child bearers, women really are something of a public utility and in need of regulation. Why else would there be any discussion about how Roe v. Wade should be interpreted? What we need are new court challenges to Roe v. Wade that say it should be repealed and replaced with a ruling that says abortion is a medical matter to be handled by a woman and her doctor and is not the governments business. Lets have a major public discussion about womens bodily autonomy and why their bodies need government oversight.

(While Im at it, let me note that I am also opposed to men being drafted into the military. The government does not own their bodies any more than it owns womens bodies. You get men to voluntarily agree to kill people and you get women to voluntarily agree to give birth or you do without.)

Jacobsen: For centuries, and now with mild pushback over decades, the religiously-based, often, bigotry and chauvinism against women, and ethnic and sexual minorities is more in the open, and so more possible to change. Because people know about it, and cant deny it. And when and if they do, the reasons seem paper thin and comical, at times. What expedites this process of everyone, finally, earning that coveted equality?

Castle:The mild pushback has come because more people are losing interest in religion, and religion has always been the driver of bigotry and prejudice. The loss of interest has come from Internet sources that expose the absurdities and failings of religion.

To expedite the process you change the laws. You change the laws by organizing for and electing legislators who support civil rights. Then you elect a President who will appoint judges who support those rights. Nothing changes if the laws dont change. The laws helped bring civil rights to the South because it gave pro-civil rights citizens the protection they needed to treat people with respect. We started getting civil rights by public agitation that led to legislation that led to court review and rulings that did or did not affirm those rights. One exception: We got women covered by the Civil Rights Act when sex was introduced into the language in the expectation that it would be seen as such a joke that the Act would be voted down, but it passed.

To get women out of the public utility category, we need to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. That failed the first time precisely because opponents said it would give women the right to have abortions. What isabout abortion that sets some people off so violently? None of them show any real practical interest in born babies. Why this obsession with controlling women? Something about species survival? So many men with so many zillions of sperm and frustrated by womens limited ability to accommodate all that paternal potential? Who knows?

The only thing holding up equal rights for all is the Catholic and Protestant fundamentalist religions (and maybe also misogynistic Islam but we have to see how that immigrant population votes after being exposed to the relatively civilizing effect of living here). Its always those religions that protest against womens rights, gay rights, and that so ferociously supported slavery.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Marie.

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Scott Douglas Jacobsen founded In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. He works as an Associate Editor and Contributor for Conatus News, Editor and Contributor to The Good Men Project, a Board Member, Executive International Committee (International Research and Project Management) Member, and as the Chair of Social Media for the Almas Jiwani Foundation, Executive Administrator and Writer for Trusted Clothes, and Councillor in the Athabasca University Students Union. He contributes to the Basic Income Earth Network, The Beam, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Check Your Head, Conatus News, Humanist Voices, The Voice Magazine, and Trusted Clothes. If you want to contact Scott: [emailprotected]; website: http://www.in-sightjournal.com; Twitter: https://twitter.com/InSight_Journal.

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Modern Women's Rights, Atheism, and Ideological Warfare - The Good Men Project (blog)

By 10:30 a.m., the assembly room has filled with people. Theyre four dozen strong, swirling about the long rectangular hall like in a hive, standing and laughing in small clusters, shaking hands and hugging latecomers, finishing coffee and doughnuts in the kitchen, leaning in close to hear a weeks worth of gossip whispered too low for lurking passers-by.

The congregations Sunday morning gathering is a cherished communal ritual that brings together newly joined 20-somethings, still groggy from a night on the town, with chatty retirees who have been members since the institutions founding. They come from across metro Denver to hang out and talk about whatevers on their mind: Donald Trump, National Public Radio, last nights Rockies game, the hiking trail du jour.

Inevitably, though, their conversation returns to the supernatural power that unites them: God.

This isnt church, though.

Its atheist church, jokes Ruth McLeod, who moved to Denver from Louisiana in 2012.Church doesnt have a monopoly on community.

Like most members of the Secular Hub, a nontheistic community center in Denvers Whittier neighborhood, McLeod doesnt believe in God. After abandoning her strict Christian upbringing in college, she turned to atheism, a solution to the silence of the cosmos that allowed her to jettison what she considers the contradictions of the Bible and the conservative social program of the church.

Her conversion has increasing resonance in the United States, where one in 13 adults identify as atheist or agnostic. American secularists, though, are not an organized tribe. Nontheists lack the elaborate institutional wherewithal enjoyed by the 160 million Americans who regularly attend religious services. In a country where faith is worth $1.2 trillion equivalent to the entire economy of Mexico God disbelievers have no colleagues in Congress, face pervasivecontemptand control few institutions of their own.

The Secular Hub aims to curb those realities by providing a central meeting space where the theologically marooned can stake out a home.

We think were the first secular community center in the United States, says Barb Sannwald, a professional computer programmer and founding member. Its much easier to be an atheist in Colorado than elsewhere.

The secular center hosts an assortment of compatible yet distinct deity doubters atheists, agnostics, humanists and freethinkers held together by skepticism, faith in science and a commitment to free-ranging dialogue. Numerous affiliate groups also rent out the building for weekly meetings, including the local chapters of Freedom from Religion Foundation,United Coalition of Reasonand Freethinkers in AA, a nonreligious arm of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Two hundred twenty-five core members pledge $5 a month each for official status. Hundreds more float among groups, dropping in and out of meetings and get-togethers as wanted. Leaders strive to bring together the entire congregation through regular programming, which includes book clubs, movie screenings, meet-and-greets, meal discussions, and public lectures by renowned scientists and skeptics. On Sundays, everyone comes together for Secular Hubs flagship affair, Coffee & Community, which simulates the dependability of weekly church service without ceremony or sermons.

For a few years, Sannwald and other founders attended First Universalist Church of Denver, a liberal Christian group that embraces a wide array of beliefs from Eastern and Western religious traditions. Around 2007, a community newsletter alerted Sannwald to Humanists of Colorado, which held monthly meetings at the church. She began frequenting meetings, where she met a number of like-minded locals who valued the camaraderie of First Universalist Church but demurred on its doctrine, namely the emphasis on God.

There was a small group of us looking for the type of community that a church provides, Sannwald said. Churches are great places to find friends, to find comfort during difficult times and to meet others. But none of us were religious, so we didnt want to go to a church.

So in late 2012, she and a cohort of 20 Coloradans began raising money to open a space for agnostics, atheists, secularists and humanists in metro Denver. They initially considered asking a deep-pocketed donor to underwrite the startup.

Daniel Brenner, Special to the Denver Post

But we decided we wanted this to be a group effort, Sannwald said. So we had 23 founders put up the founding money to ensure broad-based support from the secular community.

In October 2012, representatives from Denver Atheist Meetup and Humanists of Colorado officially formed a nonprofit, which they called Secular Hub. A month later, the founders signed a lease at East 31st Avenue and Downing Street, where the organization still exists today.

The Hubs origin story speaks to a spate of nontheistic organizations popping up across the country. More than a dozen similar secular ventures have opened over the past decade, estimates Nick Fish, national program director of American Atheists.

Its certainly a growing feature of the humanist and atheist community, he said. The great thing about being an atheist is that no one tells you how to do it. But that can also be a struggle, as theres not always community support groups out there. Groups like the Secular Hub provide that for people who want and need that. What theyre doing is really important and worthwhile.

In the 4 1/2 years since the grand opening of Denvers first outpost for nonbelief on Feb. 12, which isDarwin Day,of 2013 the organization has grown from a core of committed nontheists to an emerging community of engineers, artists, immigrants, families, lifelong nonbelievers and recent religious defectors.

Andrew Forlines is one such religious turncoat. The 32-year-old grew up outside Cincinnati, home-schooled by archconservative parents who instilled Christian fundamentalism in their children. Forlines rebelled early. Despite never receiving formal education, he possessed an innate curiosity and habit for self-teaching that gradually led him astray from his anti-science parents and their faith founded inbiblical inerrancy.

When he moved to Denver two years ago, he wanted a community where he could make sense of his unorthodox upbringing. Through a Google search last July, he found Recovering from Religion, an affiliated group that offers guidance for spiritual renegades who have walked away from what Forlines calls indoctrination.

I was looking for a support group for people like me who struggle with a dogmatic religious upbringing, he said. I felt welcomed and embraced. Everyone was very nice. I felt a tremendous amount of relief to have found like-minded people.

Forlines immediately took to the community, where his values and background werent isolated or isolating but shared. In March, he launched two regular events of his own: a book club on social issues, and Dinner & Documentary, which hosts monthly film screenings and open discussions over food.

The Hub is what anyone makes of it, he said, emphasizing the organizations differences from a church. Its in between a stand-alone organization in your traditional sense and a physical meeting space for subgroups to utilize. Ive found that it often brings together people who make decisions based on science and empirical evidence.

As with secularism itself, the Hubs ideological flexibility and lack of firm hierarchy allow members such as Forlines to engage as frequently, widely and deeply as desired. Leaders want to meet nonbelievers where they are, welcoming potential members who might be skeptical about joining an institution devoted to skepticism.New members must pledge to follow only three rules for admission: honoring the separation of church and state; maintaining goodwill among members and avoiding hostility; and not promoting any beliefs in gods or other supernatural entities.

Sannwald and other leaders have been encouraged by a gust of interest, particularly among parents with young children. Yet the current facility with only 1,500 square feet of meeting space has little capacity for kids and no property outside.

Were growing to a point where we might want to move, Sannwald said. Its one of our goals. But we have no concrete plans yet.

A move, though, will require sufficient funds. The Hub currently subsists on membership dues, which help pay rent, utilities and little more. The all-volunteer board and staff take no commission for their work.

Growth will also test the bonds that hold together a piecemeal community with many peripheral groups and members. Religions have core texts that serve as a central spoke around which the community can coalesce. The Secular Hub, which lacks such a common code, lets the burden of communion fall on members themselves. Its a tall task that both challenges and liberates.

In a church, theres this feeling of needing to conform to dogma thats a lie, said Kimberly Saviano, a Hub founder who lives in Denver. Secularism and atheism do not have any particular ethical code. We are responsible to come up with our own.

To secularists such as Saviano, that responsibility poses a uniquely human task, one that reflects the problem and offers hope for all social networks.

Most of us have a deep need for community, somewhere we belong and have people who understand you, she said. Were trying to be there for each other if someones in the hospital or moving or going through a tough time. Thats the organizing force of community, making sure were taking care of each other. And theres nothing religious about that. You dont need God for that.

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Denver's Secular Hub unites non-believers in what one calls an atheist church - The Denver Post

A new study from Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain shows that religious people are more tolerant of other viewpoints than atheists.

The study, called "Are Atheists Undogmatic?" surveyed 788 people in the UK, France, and Spain, and examined three aspects of mental rigidity.

Co-authored by Filip Uzarevic, Vassilis Saroglou, and Magali Clobert, the study was published on April 27 in the peer-reviewed journal "Personality and Individual Differences."

Included in the group were 302 atheists, 255 Christians, 143 agnostics, 37 Buddhists, 17 Muslims, and 3 Jews. Fifty-one participants self-identified as "other."

The findings showed that atheists and agnostics believe themselves to be more open-minded than religious people but are in fact less tolerant of differing ideas and opinions, measuring lower than the religious in "self-reported dogmatism" but higher in "subtly-measured intolerance." Religious people "seemed to better perceive and integrate diverging perspectives."

In addition, the strength of a person's belief in atheism or religion is directly correlated to their intolerance level.

Speaking to PsyPost, Uzarevic said, "The main message of the study is that closed-mindedness is not necessarily found only among the religious."

"The idea started through noticing that, in public discourse, despite both the conservative/religious groups and liberal/secular groups showing strong animosity towards the opposite ideological side, somehow it was mostly the former who were often labeled as closed-minded.

"Moreover, such view of the secular being more tolerant and open seemed to be dominant in the psychological literature. Being interested in this topic, we started to discuss whether this is necessarily and always the case: Are the religious indeed generally more closed-minded, or would it perhaps be worthy of investigating the different aspects of closed-mindedness and their relationship with (non)religion?

"In our study, the relationship between religion and closed-mindedness depended on the specific aspect of closed-mindedness. The nonreligious compared to the religious seemed to be less closed minded when it came to explicitly measured certainty in ones beliefs.

"However, and somewhat surprisingly, when it came to subtly measured inclination to integrate views that were diverging and contrary to ones own perspectives, it was the religious who showed more openness.

"In sum, closed-mindedness (or at least some aspects of it) may not be reserved only for the religious. Moreover, in some aspects, the nonreligious may even outperform the religious."

However, Uzarevic did not some limitations to the study, including whether the findings are typical only for Europe, or reflect global tendencies, the fact that the survey was conducted online, and the relatively small sample size.

"Despite these limitations," Uzarevic noted, "the study did offer relatively consistent results, and a good starting point for future research."

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Study: Religious people more tolerant than atheists - Israel National ... - Arutz Sheva

Talk-show host Stephen Colbert is probably best known for his attacks on President Trump, most-notably a foul-mouthed reference to the president that resulted in an FCC inquiry in May. That's why some are surprised to learn that he also talks a lot about faith on "The Late Show."

According to The Week,Colbert is dedicated to his Catholic faith, despite his use of off-color language and harsh criticism of many conservative points of view.

In 2007, he spoke with NPR's Terry Gross about God, theology of the afterlife and how he explains such concepts to his children.

His Comedy Central show, "The Colbert Report," regularly featured religion segments in which debated the divinity of Jesus with religious scholar, Bart Ehrman and discussed the pope with a Jesuit priest.

When he moved to CBS as host of the Late Show, he continued to talk about faith. In the first month he asked Oprah about her favorite Bible verses.

Other faith segments include his interview with Joel Osteen about the pastor's beliefs and a confrontation with atheist Bill Maher, where he tried to persuade him to accept Christ.

"The door is always open. Golden ticket, right before you," Colbert said. "All you have to do is humble yourself before the presence of the Lord and admit there are things greater than you in the universe that you do not understand. Take Pascal's wager. If you're wrong, you're an idiot. But if I'm right, you're going to hell."

When actor Andrew Garfield appeared on the show to promote the movie "Silence" about Jesuit missionaries in Japan, their talk turned to their beliefes about demons, angels, faith and doubt.

It was an exchange with comedian and atheist Ricky Gervais about the existence of God, however, that went viral, getting more than 3.5 million views on YouTube.

However, even when talking about religion Colbert can cross the line. A recent segment that demonstrates how some Catholic priests are using fidget spinners to explain the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity features a make-believe interview with God that could be interprested as blasphemous.

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Colbert Conundrum: The Liberal TV Host Tackles Atheism, the ... - CBN News

The UK is a country that celebrates fundamental freedoms including freedom of belief. We are free to put our faith in gods, tooth fairies, men in turquoise shellsuits who proclaim divinity, or the mystical powers of the occult, if we so choose. But recent evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee on hate crime paints a frightening picture for those who choose no longer to believe in Islam. The written evidence, provided by the British Pakistani Christian Association, includes testimonials from ex-Muslims, many of them anonymous. Typically those who leave Islam face a stark choice keep quiet about their decision, or face discrimination, hatred and violence, the evidence reads. While Islamophobia and anti-Semitism feature prominently on the political agenda, the persecution of Britains apostates has gone largely unnoticed.

The testimonials make for depressing reading a snapshot of the dark underbelly of liberal Britains multi-religious society. Shaheen (pseudonym), a Christian convert, describes being beaten and left for dead by family members. A local imam told him he was Satan, and made an unequivocal threat: If we were in Egypt or Syria, I would cut off your head. Seyyed (pseudonym) describes receiving death threats, verbal abuse and refusal of service in taxis and shops. Ostracism is a theme running through each narrative. Facebook is the medium through which another was intimidated. Meanwhile, a church leader and friends were referred to as kafir/infidel dogs. This, we must remember, isnt hatred on the streets of Tehran, Riyadh or Islamabad, but modern-day Britain.

While many ex-Muslims dont come out, some have made a brave stand in defiance of Islamist threats. Established a decade ago, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) receives approximately 350-400 inquiries for assistance each year. It has supported tens of thousands of people, including Christian converts, atheists, agnostics and humanists. Some who seek assistance end up volunteering for the organisation like CEMB spokesperson Sadia Hameed. British ex-Muslims are likely to face physical punishments, forced marriage or disownment, she tells me. Hameed says there is no support from the government and ex-Muslims arent taken seriously enough. For criticising beliefs and ideas we are seen as the troublemakers.

Many ex-Muslims have been shunned and shamed for their decision to leave Islam. Some, Hameed says, have committed suicide. Her story is featured in Deeyah Khans 2016 documentary Islams Non-Believers, where she recounts her painful journey to atheism. Its a raw account of the trauma this brave woman has endured. In one poignant scene, she says: I remember saying to my mum, I dont think I believe in God any more, and her saying, You cant tell anybody else because theyll kill you, we are obliged to kill ex-Muslims, and that it would put me at extreme risk if anybody else was to find out. So that conversation ended there.

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The bravery of the ex-Muslim - Spiked