Deconversion story: ‘Nothing’ without Christ

Below is one of the most touching and powerful deconversion stories I’ve ever heard, and it shows the power Christianity can have, not only over a person’s social makeup and well-being, but over their view of themselves as human beings.

As this former believer attested, people, including children, are taught they are born bankrupt and into complete depravity and sin and cannot possibly live moral, fulfilling and happy lives without coming to love someone who they also must worship and fear. After realizing the Bible could not be trusted as a source for information, this person struggled mightily with how and when to break the news, and when he finally broke camp with the church, thereby losing most of his social support structure — How readily good Christian “friends” want little more to do with you once they realize you no longer believe as they do (other than shallow attempts to win you back to the fold) — he spent a great deal of time traveling the nation and trying to find his own identify, since his previous identity was completely wrapped up in the notion that he was “nothing” without Christ, as he put it:

If a belief can do this to you you will have almost no chance of being able to critically evaluate its truthfulness. Christianity alters your identity to ensure the survival of itself.

Here is his story:

Because Stone Cold said so …

Check out this [[“Stone Cold” Steve Austin]] quote from his most recent podcast providing his thoughts on churches and gay marriage:

Which one of these mother fuckers talked to God, and God said that same sex marriage was a no can do? Can you verify? Can you give me some 411 on that background?

… I’ve got some damn good friends that are gay. I’m absolutely for same sex marriage. I don’t think that there is a god that says you cannot do this, you cannot do that. If two cats can’t get married, but then a guy can go murder 14 people, molest five kids, then go to fucking prison and then accept God. He’s going to let him into heaven. After the fact that he did all that shit?!? See, that’s all horse shit to me. That don’t jive with me.

Can someone give Stone Cold a “hell yeah!”

Listen to his podcast here.

Yes, proselytizing

Philosopher Peter Boghossian, in response to some preliminary thoughts I made on his book and about evangelical atheism in general, asked me how I define “proselytize.”

I don’t understand this question at all. Unlike some scholars, I don’t need to invent my own definitions for terms in order to make them correlate with whatever argument I’m trying to convey. I simply define “proselytize” as the dictionary defines it, and we all know full well what it means. See my post: Proselytizing with the ‘Good News?’

Your tax dollars hard at work

The following video was taken in front of First Baptist Concord in Knoxville, Tenn. I counted at least five deputies with three patrol cars ensuring churchies got to and from worship safely, and that was just one of scores of large congregations in Knox County that likely required a police presence. I wonder if the sheriff’s office had any deputies left to actually fight crime? Just par for the course here in Jesusland.

Apologetic logic

I’m glad this guy readily admits that believers’ “proof” in the afterlife amounts to nothing more than “clues” and “circumstantial evidence” because he sure did whiff on the rest of his argument, issuing one fallacy after another:

If you forward to about the 40 second mark, he builds his case around our desires versus reality:

For example, Bill, human desires. C.S. Lewis said for every human desire, there’s a corresponding reality in nature. We get thirsty because there’s such a thing as water. We crave physical intimacy because there’s sex. The reason we may desire immortality is because it really exists.

In Christian apologetics, this is called the argument from desire, which essentially says that since humans have some kind of inner yearning for the transcendent, a transcendent reality (i.e. heaven) must exist. In logic, this is called an appeal to consequences and is very shoddy logic indeed. First, not every human being thinks living forever is actually desirable. Many believe, and I tend to agree, that eternal life would be woefully boring after the first couple hundred years. To assume that everybody inherently desires eternal life only leads the Christian apologist, as ever, into another fallacy. Second, we get thirsty not because water exists, but because our bodies cannot survive without it.

Third, and most importantly, we all might desire for a pot of gold to suddenly appear in our bedrooms. I doubt we would find many people who would not wish this to happen. Yet, just because millions of people might want a certain reality to unfold, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen or is even feasible.

The pastor then goes on to argue at about the 1:20 mark that the most compelling reason to believe in the afterlife is the fact that Jesus’ body has not been found in 2,000 years. While this is technically true, it’s again based on the false premises that Jesus lived and was executed by the Romans. I’ve shown several times how there is not one single contemporary source outside of the New Testament that verify the Gospels about Jesus, so I won’t belabor the point again. Second, even if we did find the bones of Jesus and could somehow confirm that he was Jesus of New Testament fame, this would only verify that he existed. This discovery would prove nothing about the virgin birth, the miracles or the resurrection. In other words, assumptions heaped on other assumptions equal nothing.

Preachers peddling prosperity, mainly for themselves

This is disgusting:

So much for:

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” — Matthew 19:23-24

And this:

20 Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. — Luke 6:20

And this:

5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” — Matthew 5:5

And especially this:

21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. — Mark 10:21

The repulsive Holy See and the U.N.’s response

I’m not sure what’s more revolting: The continued flippancy of the Catholic Church about charges of child molestation and rape or the United Nations’ slap-on-the-wrist excoriation.

According to a U.N. report, the Vatican has held a long-standing policy that allowed for the rape and sexual abuse of young children, and the U.N. Committee on the Rights of a Child admonished the Holy See to

Immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers from assignment and refer the matter to the relevant law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution purposes.

Yet, and this is the kicker, the U.N. criticized the church for submitting its last report 14 years late and then provided the Vatican three years — three years! — to clean up its house and report back. I’m not a math whiz, but by my calculation, that’s 17 years of unaccountability.

First, if the Vatican hasn’t severely punished members of the clergy and expunged pedophiles from its ranks by now after decades of alleged abuses, what makes the U.N. think its going to clean up its act by 2017? Further, the recommendations are only recommendations and are not binding. What kind of leadership is that?

The U.N. matter of factly said the Vatican was keeping and abetting child molesters under a set of policies that protected these creeps, yet the best the U.N. can do is pass along a non-binding recommendation that the church address its issues. Since when did child molestation rank on the same level as stealing from the offering plate? Everyday probably seems like a lifetime for a victim recovering from sexual abuse, yet where is the urgency from the church, which claims to have such an  interest in bettering humanity?

If the Vatican is housing “known” or suspected child abusers, why has it not been ousted from the U.N. and charged with crimes against humanity? Why has Joseph Ratzinger not been rounded up for turning a blind eye to these offenses? Doesn’t protecting known offenders make a person or organization complicit in a crime? Why should the Vatican be any different? As Christopher Hitchens said, the whole thing is just poisoned with the “stench of evil.”

Read the full U.N. report here.

Religion without God

Credit: AFP-JIJI

Credit: AFP-JIJI

I realize that people seem to have some kind of innate urge to congregate in like-minded groups — and the recent success of the so-called The Sunday Assembly shows as much — but nonbelievers holding what can only be called “church” services seems a bit over the top to me. After all, part of the criticism of religion in the first place is the zombie-like ritualism. And now, nonbelievers in Boston have also started a “church.” Like standard church services at First Baptist in Anytown, USA, these programs are replete with music, announcements, speakers and collection plates. The only difference: no God.

That’s not exactly a small omission. In any case, I think it can be beneficial for fellow nonbelievers to hold “meetups” in their communities to make friends with people who have similar experiences, since the path from faith to nonbelief is often fraught with difficulties, but I see a problematic distinction between merely hanging out with fellow skeptics and freethinkers in a public setting and forming congregations that do all the “churchy” stuff in the same way that it would be odd for a bunch of scientists to congregate and literally sing praises to the cosmos. I say this is problematic because no matter how much these atheist churches tout love, fellowship and community betterment — and kudos to them for it — adhering to rituals as a body of like-minded individuals can lead, in my view, to a kind of institutionalized, provincial mentality that is at the heart of organized religion. For proof of this, we need to look no further than the estimated 41,000 denominations just within Christianity, not to mention the local congregations that have suffered schism after schism based on an individual interpretation of laws or church practices. Of course, atheists do not have to worry about different interpretations of any holy book, and they most likely have more ideological similarities than differences, but when nonbelievers begin forming churches, it would seemingly create — again, and in reverse — a dichotomy between us, the churchgoers, versus them, the Sunday drifters.

Harmful? Certainly not. The potential for parochialism? Yes.

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