Category Archives: Atheism

There are some 90 million members of Chinas Communist Party, and all of them now have been banned from having religious beliefs.

According to a report in the Hindustan Times, Wang Zuoan of the repressive nations State Administration for Religious Affairs announced that CPC members mustbe atheists.

Party members should not have religious beliefs, which is a red line for all members, he wrote. Party members should be firm Marxist atheists, obey party rules and stick to the partys faith they are not allowed to seek value and belief in religion.

His comments were reported in the CPCs journal Qiushi, which deals with political theory.

According to the Christian Institute in the United Kingdom,Wang promised if there are party members with religiousfaith should be persuaded to give it up, and those who resisted would be punished.

Joseph Farahs newest book, The Restitution of All Things, expounds on what few authors dare to approach, the coming kingdom of God. Available at the WND Superstore.

Se Wei, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Chongqing Committee, responded to Wangs regulations by referring to Christianity as part of Chinas religious problem.

Christianity in China has been accused of being a national security risk, and in the past few years, hundreds of Christian pastors and activists have been arrested, the report continued.

The Christian Institute noted the international freedom watchdog Freedom House said in March that as many as 100 million people in China are facing high or very high levels of persecution under communist rule.

Christianity, however, is surging in China.

The institute said academics predict that by 2030 China will have more than 247 million Christians, which would be more than 17 percent of the population.

Wanginsisted, however, that religious groups should be guided by the state and alter their doctrine to promote socialist core values.

China officially is atheist. But the communist-controlled government recognizes five faiths: Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Protestantism and Catholicism.

Wangs comments echoed President Xi Jinping.

We must resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists, Xi said.

Wang wrote: We should guide religious groups and individuals with socialist core values and excellent traditional Chinese culture and support religious groups to dig into their doctrines to find parts that are beneficial to social harmony and development.

Joseph Farahs newest book, The Restitution of All Things, expounds on what few authors dare to approach, the coming kingdom of God. Available at the WND Superstore.

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China's communists: Atheism mandatory for members - WND.com

Jerry Coyne has responded to our criticisms (here, here, here and here) of his endorsement of euthanasia for handicapped children. Coyne seems a bit perplexed at the strong criticism he has received for his advocacy for killing babies with birth defects because they would suffer if allowed to live.

For example, he is surprised at the outrage that atheist ethicist Peter Singer has received for advocacy of infant euthanasia:

For these views Singer has been demonized by disability rights advocates, who have called for his firing and disrupted his talks (see my post about thathere). All for just raising a reasonable ethical question that should be considered and discussed!

Coynes message: Dont get all worked up about killing handicapped babies, even if youre one of the class of people he proposes to kill. Cant we discuss this dispassionately, like adults?

But Coynes equanimity has limits.

In 2013, Ball State University professor Eric Hedin taught a course on astronomy that included suggested readings on the possibility that the cosmos manifests evidence ofdesign. Coyne was fit to be tied. He threatened the president of Ball State with legal action:

Its religion taught as science in a public university, and its not only wrong but illegal. I have tried approaching the University administration, and have been rebuffed. This will now go to the lawyers.

Coyne enlisted the Freedom from Religion Foundation to issue a cease-and-desist letter to Ball State.

Coyne:

Hedins classes are not only unconstitutional, but an embarrassment to your university. Even if you disagree with the freedom-from-religion argument, Hedins courses are a discredit to BSU and he should be removed from them or forced to eliminate the religious indoctrination.

Note to others: it appears to be settled law that academic freedom cannot, in a public university, be an excuse to teach any damn thing you want.

As I mentioned earlier, I wrote to the chairman of Hedins department expressing some of the sentiments above, but he blew me off, arguing that his courses had been deemed satisfactory by University officials. Well see if they start singing a different tune now!

Coyne is enflamed not onlyby courses in public universities, but by signs in museums. Heobjected to a plaque in the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History given by a donor that credited creation to God. Coyne wrote a threatening letter to the museum director:

A friend of mine who recently visited the new Nature Lab at your Museum forwarded me the attached sign, which ascribes the existence of animals to God.

As an evolutionary biologist, I object to the invocation of God the invocation of God in a public museum could be seen as be a violation of the First Amendment.

Regardless of what the donor wanted, I think it abrogates our scientific principles to celebrate all of Gods creatures when that statement is, by scientific lights, palpably wrong. Would you have taken the money from someone who insisted that the gift celebrates all of Wotans creatures, or all the creatures created by space aliens? Those signs are just as scientifically supportable as what appears on the sign now I neednt remind you that science is done by ignoring God, and has never given the slightest bit of evidence for the intercession of God in the origin, evolution, and diversification of life.

Consider the irony. When Peter Singer endorsed killing handicapped babies in the crib, at a public lecture in front of the very people he advocated killing, Coyne defended his academic freedom and pleaded: Cant we all just get along?

When a professor raisesthe question of design in an astronomy class, or a museum puts up a donors plaque crediting God for nature, Coyne erupts in rage and calls in the lawyers.

For Coyne, killing babies is a topic for reasoned discussion. Invoking God, or considering scientificevidence of design, is an outrage.

William Fleming had it right: Atheism is a disease of the soul, before it is an error of the understanding.

Photo: Peter Singer, by Mal Vickers via Flickr.

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Euthanasia Reveals Atheism's Moral Confusion - Discovery Institute

In another thread, Dave Armstrong, Catholic blogger here at Patheos, asked this:

Will atheists admit that there is good reason to leave atheism and adopt Christianity?

I find this an interesting question, and it can be split into two areas: the psychologicalreasons for leaving any belief system and the rational reasons. I will deal with the former and then the latter.

I would say that there can be good psychologicalreasons for leaving atheism for religion of any sort. But I would attach lots of caveats. This is person and context dependent. Atheism can be a tough sell for some people, and some find leaving the comfort blanket of eternal life, heaven and ultimate purpose (in a divine sense, not a personal sense) difficult to deal with. Religion, especially if they have once experienced this in some way earlier in life (perhaps),canoffer a psychological comfort to people in need of such. Religion, after all, is functional. It has developed over evolutionary history for a reason its not that it is some weird random hangover from our past it is functional. We (naturalists) rationalise its existence.

Of course, good reason here might perhaps need more closely defining, but certainly, I can see how some or many people might be powerfully psychologically attracted to religion. This is a truism, after all, since literally billions of people believe in religious worldviews, and these are (by and large in the population at large) for psychological reasons. But, you ask, are these psychological reasonsirrational or even a-rational? This might even be part of the definition of psychological in this particular context.

However, in order to give in to psychological persuasion, one must be pretty weak on the rational side of things.

And s we come to the other side. Rationality. I am, for obvious reasons (see my books, chapters, public talks and well over a thousand blog posts), very rationally comfortable in my position of (agnostic) atheism. Indeed, if I were to be someone who went through a torrid time (losing those close to me, getting a terminal illness, etc.), even if I was psychologically tempted with religion, my rational foundations for my atheistic beliefs are so solid that I severely doubt they would crumble.

Moreover, I am very self-reflective: there is always a meta-conversation going on behind the scenes. When I feel or believe or do something, I always reflect on why. I believe that I simply would never have a good reason to leave atheism. In order for me to do so, there would have to be new data. Really very good new data. Because as it stands, for me, I cannot see there possibly being a good reason to leave atheism.

For others, as mentioned, psychologically youcouldargue there might be a good reason, or at least powerful emotional reasons. But otherwise, no. And this is obvious. If I did think, after all, that there was a good reason to be Christian, I would be Christian.

Read more:
Will atheists admit that there is good reason to leave atheism and adopt Christianity? - Patheos (blog)

Angelos Sofocleous is a friend and colleague. We write together a decent amount. I asked about an interview for an ebook, where we would discuss his background. I wanted to diversify the content of the e-book, free one, with not only the articles written with friends and colleagues but also interviews with the writers themselves. Here is Angelos.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen:To begin, we have been writing partners. In fact, youve been one of my more prolific writing buddies, activist work, for about a year coming into a year-and-a-half. It is cool because were on almost opposite sides of the globe, but we work on common initiatives relatively consistently. I wanted to diversify some of the content of this volume with some more diverse interviews with people beginning their active careers. Their lives in other words, so here we are after you agreed to be a willing interviewee (victim). What was early childhood to college life like for you? Was there an activist background? How do you find the developments within the EU throughout your lifetime?

Angelos Sofocleous: Thank you for the opportunity, Scott. You are one of the most active, intelligent, and knowledgeable people I know. It is a joy to be able to work with you on a number of projects.

To begin, I have been through many phases of metamorphoses from early childhood to college life. I can think of periods in my life with which I have very little in common with the person I am now. From a very young age though, I always remember myself going through the encyclopedias in my grandmas house, trying to figure out what interests me; from biology to politics, from astronomy to philosophy. Soon, I found out that I was interested in one thing: Knowledge.

Luckily, I was a very introverted and shy child. This gave me the opportunity to be able to spend my time wisely on what regards social interactions while I very carefully allocated my (limited) energy on things that could benefit me. Hence, I spent a lot of time with myself. And I felt totally fine with it. I never get why people consider it weird for someone to stay at home on a Saturday night, or go to the movies by themselves, or pick a book and sit on a parks bench. I was thus involved in activities through which I would spend time having discussions with myself, exploring my mind, and writing down my ideas and thoughts.

Writing, o writing. I started my anonymous personal blog when I was 14, in which I still write 9 years later, although the person who started the blog is different from the one who still writes on it. Words in my mind have no voice, no physical expressions; they can only be expressed through writing, and this is what I did for most of my life. Had it not been for writing, my mind would be a chaotic mess of unstructured and unorganized thoughts, probably expressed in non-conventional ways. And I wouldnt like that. Writing, thus, saved my mind from going crazy. A mind that cannot be expressed, either stops thinking or stops expressing itself. Both can lead to insanity.

The year when I started writing signified a turning point in my life. Growing up in a right-wing religious family, the opportunity arose through my teenage years, to revolt against what I had grown up with, and explore new ideas, while questioning my own, deeply held at that time, beliefs. I no more consider belief to provide an appropriate basis on which to base arguments What is needed is knowledge, and in case of knowledge is not possible (yet), one must suspend belief until there is appropriate and satisfactory evidence for knowledge. This is science.

Apart from some close friends, I was never able to discuss my atheistic and agnostic beliefs, as well as my opposition to religion and my endorsement of science, with my family or even at school. This is how it is growing up on a small island, with less than 1 million population, which claims to have one of the biggest percentages of religious followers in the European Union. My teenage revolution, then, was not verbal and not physical, it was mental.

That being said, my activist background was limited to sharing my ideas, trying to encourage people through my writings and influence them, while I was doing the same with other peoples writings. No action out in the streets, no discussions outside social media, limited involvement in groups. I would not say, then, that I had any activist background when it comes to my teenage life unless you want to call writing a form of activism.

In any case, I drew myself more and more into skepticism, freethinking, and humanism, and tried to educate myself on these issues, waiting for the time when I would apply this knowledge into the world.

This could not be done after high school though, as I had to spend two years doing mandatory military service. I will not waste much space here to talk about it, as its not worth it. I am ashamed of my country that treats its 18-year-olds in such a way, still having remnants of hegemonic masculinity. There is great potential for encouraging young people to develop themselves, and military service is definitely not a way to do this, at least in my country.

Things had changed, however, when I entered university. Having spent two years of physical and mental inactivity, I decided that it was time for me to become active. At the moment, Im the president of two student societies, Durham Humanists, and Cypriot Society of Durham, while Im a Sub-Editor at my universitys newspaper (Palatinate UK), a writer at ConatusNews.com, and a co-editor at Secular Nation magazine.

I have also just published my second poetry collection. I am therefore active in writing again, this time having the opportunity to meet like-minded people and be active in groups, promoting campaigns and influencing students and the general public to a greater extent. I feel that most of the chains that held me back to my teenage years have broken, and I am now able to take action on the issues that concern me.

Now, moving onto your last question regarding the developments within the EU within my lifetime, I witnessed a major shift in Europe, from conservatism to liberalism and progressivism. Mutual respect and recognition of human rights across Europe, of course, need to take place at a personal level, within societies, but also at a national, and even pan-continental level.

This is what I feel the EU has achieved, bringing European countries closer to each other without erasing any aspect of their unique identities but, in contrast, managing to protect, secure, and enrich each nations identity through mutual recognition and respect for each other nations identity.

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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.

See the rest here:
Skepticism, Humanism, Atheism, and Right Wing Upbringing - The Good Men Project (blog)

The Communist Party of China, the nations governing party, says its members must give up religious beliefs and be firm Marxist atheists.

Wang Zuoan, the director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, wrote on Saturday that religious members should give up their faith in order to preserve party unity.

Party members should not have religious beliefs, which is a red line for all members Party members should be firm Marxist atheists, obey Party rules and stick to the Partys faith they are not allowed to seek value and belief in religion.

Wang added that foreign forces use religion to infiltrate China and that extremism has threatened national security and social stability.

Religions should be sinicized We should guide religious groups and individuals with socialist core values and excellent traditional Chinese culture and support religious groups to dig into their doctrines to find parts that are beneficial to social harmony and development.

This isnt just one crazy government official banning religion and requiring Marxist atheism. Zhu Weiqun, chairman of the Ethnic and Religious Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference, said it is important to remind party members not to have religious beliefs.

Some people who claim to be scholars support religious beliefs in the Party, which has undermined the Partys values based on dialectical materialism.

Here we have the opposite of what we typically see, in the Middle East, for example, where religious governments are imposing bans on atheism and even killing non-believers based on blasphemy laws. Yet it is incredibly similar, too.

Party unity may be the official reason for mandating Marxist atheism, but one thing aboutWangs quotestuck out to me above all else. He said party members must stick to the Partys faith. Faith. This is dogmatic thinking run amok exactly the kind of thing critical thinkers ought to oppose, even when its ostensibly working in our favor. Forcing atheism upon people is no better than requiring people to worship Allah.

This ban on religion by the Chinese Communist Party is no different from what we saw in the Soviet Union. The leaders arent destroying faith; theyre replacing God with themselves and demanding loyalty.

Secular governments are no doubt better than theocracies, but banning religion and threatening punishment for believers isnt the answer. Those kinds of thought crimes have never been successful in the long term. If anything, banning religion empowers religious people, even ifthey gather in secret, and creates a justified sense of persecution among believers outside the country. What China is doing isnt just unethical, its irrational. Its dogma in the guise of atheism. And that should never be defended.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Read the rest here:
China's Government Bans Religion, Says Members Must Be Firm Marxist Atheists - Patheos (blog)

If things go as they are going, the last Swedish atheist will get decent care from Christian Chinese nurses.

The good news about global change is that atheism and the religious nones are in decline as a percentage of the global population. Humankind is becoming more brown and religious.

The future could not be brighter. Why?

In China the official atheistic regime has not been able to keep people away from the truth. In this highly educated country, Christianity is booming.

Meanwhile in the North America and Western Europe some oldsters keep reporting on trends inScotland as if the five million Scots matter in the face of 182 million Nigerians. The United States will be smaller than Nigeria in population soon. Isnt it time that our media paid more attention to sub-Saharan Africa and less attention to tiny, shrinking West European countries and their concerns? Of course, some bigots will say they are growing in the civilized world as if China, India, and Kenya were uncivilized but that kind of offensive talk will doubt out.

If the West is to be saved, it will be because new people groups decide Western ideas can be their ideas. We should care about the Indian Supreme Court as much as the US Court to find the future.

This is truly blessed news as the old evils of colonialism, the sick mistakes that tainted the good that European nations did in the world, can finally be laid to rest. Let us see power go to the global South and have those of us who are white and European in background bequiet and listen to the wisdom of most of humankind.

Here is what I hear just now from my global friends:

The world is tired ofus.Everything we do, we broadcast. Western European and secular US culture has become the nearly-senile relative who must trumpet every bowl movement to the entire family. We dont matter nearly as much as we think we do and it is time to sit down, listen, and let the rest of the world teach us what we have failed to learn.

Most of the world thinks we have become deranged on sex. If you are not sex positive, then shame on you is not a message that resonates in the parts of the world still having actual sex that produces babies. While some decadent secularists view babies as a burden, the rest of the world views children as a blessing.

Sanity will win, because sanity knows that the future belongs to those who procreate!

In the West we are presented three tired alternatives: right-wing secularism (individualism!), left-wing secularism (It takes a village!), and strongman rule. Most of the world says no. Normal humans, normals, wantsocial stability, scientific innovation, and liberty with law.

In the West, we have produced no alternative to the bureaucracy of Belgium, the EU state, which would rather regulate a jam than eat one. Normal people look on, from Africa and Asia look and say: No thanks. They come here, they see, and they snicker.

In our futuristic novels too often we have seen Utopia or dystopia in white, Western terms. We have forgotten that if things continue as they are going the last atheist Icelander will get charitable care from the dominant Asian and African monotheistic population.

As the nones fade, as atheism withers away, the important thing is to be gracious in victory, especially white theists. We did some good, but our day is done and what is done cannot ever be undone.

So take good look at the future: religious, African and Asian, and full of jollications.

I cannot wait!

Read the original:
The Last Atheist Will Get Good Care from A Chinese Christian - Patheos (blog)

WVTF

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]

***

(11-16-06)

*****

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

***

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]

***

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.

*****

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.

*****

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)