New atheist deconversion videos...

[zackabba1]

Hmm...by "coincidence" I just watched this video a few days ago.

(maybe it was God saying "look, someone is going to have a question about this video...so watch it")

Now I personally didn't see anything impressive but I didn't watch the whole video, watching whole atheist related videos kinda makes me nervous for fear that I WILL see something that will cause me to have doubts.

I understand what you mean. You're afraid that one of these times your doubts may go so deep that you may never come back out.

However, I've done this sort of thing many times (going into the "unkown") and have witnessed my faith grow even stronger every time.

For instance, right now I'm having a discussion with a Muslim, who is saying that Jesus never claimed to be God.
"You gotta be kidding me!" I thought. After looking through the NT, though, my doubts started to form. I thought "Maybe he really was just a prophet." Skip forward 2 months, and I'm happy to say I'm convinced that... (drumroll)...Jesus did indeed claim to be God.
I've gotten a better understanding of the Trinity, even if it's kinda confusing, as well.


Now, back to the video. Yep, I've seen this, the whole series. I can't remember exactly what was in each video, but I can tell you I wasn't too convinced by the guy's assertions. What's funny is that his doubt seemed to start with the "How did Judas die" difficulty. Maybe no one told him that you are supposed to REALLY look into these things, and notjust skimp by them.


But I'll go to the first video.


I like all the drama in it, first of all, with the "epic" music in the background, and his shining white face (like he's inncoent or something).

The part that really got me was when he said something like "Well, I know that there were times when Jesus wasn't so peaceful (chuckles), but I never really looked into them."

Jesus never said he came to bring peace, bu that families would be divided over him. There's one flaw to his "sincerity."


Don't let this guy make you doubt. In fact, watch the whole series of videos (if you have time. It's not worth it if you don't). Ask specific questions about it.

God Bless!

[PuraguCryostat]

Speaking of Occam's razor, take the antitheists' wager versus Pascal's wager:

Antitheist:

You should live your life and try to make the world a better place for your being in it, whether or not you believe in god. If there is no god, you have lost nothing and will be remembered fondly by those you left behind. If there is a benevolent god, he will judge you on your merits and not just on whether or not you believed in him.

Pascal:

A person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain

I just had to respond to this. Nice forum, thanks for letting me respond.

The Antitheist argument seems to be fallacious. For it begs the question, why one should live your life to make the world a better place. Secondly, what is a better place? How does one define what a better place is? It also posits a false argument - an either or, you cannot be a Christian and be good by default - yet we learn so much about goodness from Christianity - which is all about LOVE. Neutral agnosticism is not about anything really, and borrows everything it has from the sum of recorded works and culture/wisdom of the ages. Then it has an assumption which we've already covered - people who do not know God from no fault of their own - will not be damned but it adds something extra - it asserts that a benevolent god will judge you on your merits whether you believe in him or not - but why? Where does this notion come from? What defines a benevolent god? How do we know what benevolence means? Is it a push-over god? Is it a god who forgives and all welcomes every thug in? Is it a god created the world for a joke? Is it Zeus? Is it Hermes? Is it Julius Ceasar (also a benevolent man-god).

Remembered by those left behind - WHY? Why should it matter? This is egoistical and narcissistic in its own right. Do something to be remembered. Why be remembered-- ? For pride? Why does it matter?

Is Christianity not more positive in enforcing benevolence on earth than agnostic neutralism towards God? If we ignore god, do we not seek other pleasures instead? Do we not seek sex, alcohol, drugs, personality worship, money, and other infatuations?

This argument is plainly silly. I guess it can work in part on the idea of some vague deist god who's been thought up as an after thought. Pascal's Wager on the other hand makes more sense. It also presupposes the beginning of wisdom, which is fear of God. However, this is only the beginning, since those who fear are bound to notice the love of God and then the fear falls away.

Thank you

[MarcusOfLycia]

Remembered by those left behind - WHY? Why should it matter? This is egoistical and narcissistic in its own right. Do something to be remembered. Why be remembered-- ? For pride? Why does it matter?

Welcome to the forums! I'm new myself (well, fairly), but I've really enjoyed them. I wanted to add:

It isn't just pride... there's the fact that eventually, no one will be remembered. I've had atheists tell me verbatum that "no one thinks about that stuff; stop worrying about it". By 'stuff' I mean the fact that for eternity in a naturalistic/atheistic universe, there will be nothing forever, just eternal heat death. So, the big question becomes "remembered by who?". Who in the world cares if you fed all the hungry people on earth for ten billion years single-handedly? No one would be alive to know or care! Your acts have no influence on an infinite amount of time. The problem is, if your ethical system is based on 'people will remember me fondly', then you have a conundrum when you actually sit down and think through the nature of reality according to your worldview. It isn't pretty... but it is pretty much self-defeating.

[armyofjuan]

These deconversions lack any credibility. These people were never Christians to start with. This is why they spend so much time trying to convince you what good Christians they were. They were non-bellievers to start with. Plain and simple.

I'm sure you've heard of the "no true Scotsman fallacy" since you just made it.

Everyone starts off as non-believers. You have to be taught about a god since it's not self evidence (and please don't do the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy of "look around you, how do you think everything got here herp de derp!")

I use to believe in god. Doubts started to pop up in college in my humanities class when learning about the beginning of Christianity. The blatant corruption of the Catholic Church and the self serving way the bible was created. Then discovering things that people assuming the bible was saying was false (i.e. Satan tempting Eve with and apple, neither Satan nor an apple are mentioned in Genesis). Preachers inaccurately quoting things from the bible knowing 90% of the people there haven't read it.

Then I started looking for evidence for a god. EVERYTHING shown as evidence turned out to be nothing but a logical fallacy or hearsay. I look around the world and everything from a blade of grass to the Sun has a logical explanation for its existence. I didn’t see anything in the world around me that required a god for its existence.

Of course the biblical god doesn’t seem to make sense either. How could a god have emotions? How could a god get jealous? It shouldn’t be possible if it was real. A god suppose to know everything should have an emotional reaction to anything.

At the end of the day, the support for Christians is the same for Hindus, Jews, Mormons, even Scientologists. I become an atheist because it’s the only thing that makes sense and that’s where the evidence lead me. I didn’t WANT to be an atheist, but I can’t convince myself to believe a god exists when there’s nothing but stories in a book (one of many) that claim there is.

[zackabba1]

I use to believe in god. Doubts started to pop up in college in my humanities class when learning about the beginning of Christianity. The blatant corruption of the Catholic Church and the self serving way the bible was created. Then discovering things that people assuming the bible was saying was false (i.e. Satan tempting Eve with and apple, neither Satan nor an apple are mentioned in Genesis). Preachers inaccurately quoting things from the bible knowing 90% of the people there haven't read it.

Excuse me, the "self serving" way the Bible was created?

"The blatant corruption of the Catholic Church"...I'm not sure how this would make you doubt that God is real, but alright. There's no one true church. It doesn't mean you shouldn't go, but just that there's no one church that's absolutely true in everything. You could call them all corrupted, yet it doesn't disprove God.

[quoteThen I started looking for evidence for a god. EVERYTHING shown as evidence turned out to be nothing but a logical fallacy or hearsay. I look around the world and everything from a blade of grass to the Sun has a logical explanation for its existence. I didn’t see anything in the world around me that required a god for its existence.][/quote]

Okay, you started looking for evidence. Good.

But wait, EVERYTHING shown as evidence turned out to be a logical fallacy or hearsay? Do I hear you claiming an absolute truth right there?

So, I guess God isn't a logical explanation for anything by your point of view, correct? Isn't the fact that you could see a world around you and determine whether it was "logical" or not proof of His existance?

"Of course the biblical god doesn’t seem to make sense either. How could a god have emotions? How could a god get jealous? It shouldn’t be possible if it was real. A god suppose to know everything should have an emotional reaction to anything. "

...huh? How could God have emotions? I dunno, how could YOU have emotions ?(or what, bichemical reactions to external stimuli?) How do you know it shouldn't be possible if God was real? Do you have some secret knowledge of gods that we don't know about?

"At the end of the day, the support for Christians is the same for Hindus, Jews, Mormons, even Scientologists. I become an atheist because it’s the only thing that makes sense and that’s where the evidence lead me. I didn’t WANT to be an atheist, but I can’t convince myself to believe a god exists when there’s nothing but stories in a book (one of many) that claim there is. "

Ah, I'm going to have to say that that is false (?) How is the support the same? (?)

You became an atheist because it's the only thing that makes sense? Where did you get this "sense?"

Nothing but stories in a book that claims there is a God?....I have a feeling that you haven't exactly looked at all of the "evidence" out there yet.


I sincerely hope that you do find Christ.

[Maytan]

Hello, Juan. I'm not the most intelligent of the users here, but I'm going to try to address your post a bit...

Everyone starts off as non-believers. You have to be taught about a god since it's not self evidence (and please don't do the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy of "look around you, how do you think everything got here herp de derp!")

I have to inform you, that has nothing to do with the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. The argument from ignorance is when you claim something exists because there is no empirical evidence (or evidence at all) to the contrary. Such as saying, "Unicorns exists because nobody has proven they do not exist!"

On the other hand, I find that looking at the Earth puts me into a state of awe. Perhaps I'm just simple minded, but I have a hard time believing that something so beautiful wasn't created. This isn't exactly evidence for a creator, nor evidence against evolution (and the like). Well, unless you see things the same way I do.

I use to believe in god. Doubts started to pop up in college in my humanities class when learning about the beginning of Christianity.

That's understandable.

The blatant corruption of the Catholic Church

Yes, the Catholic church has been (and still is, quite frankly) rather corrupt. Catholicism being corrupt doesn't invalidate other denominations of Christianity, however. To be honest, any church being corrupt doesn't make the Bible fallible or incorrect.

and the self serving way the bible was created.

Self-serving? If the Bible were self-serving, I think it would encourage us to indulge in our flesh, rather than reject it.

Then discovering things that people assuming the bible was saying was false (i.e. Satan tempting Eve with and apple, neither Satan nor an apple are mentioned in Genesis).

Does it have to be an apple? It could be any flippin' fruit! Does it really matter?

When it comes to the Satan thing, I recently had this question answered for me from a member here called BavarianWheels. He led me to two verses, Revelation 20:2 and Revelation 12:9.

Preachers inaccurately quoting things from the bible knowing 90% of the people there haven't read it.

That doesn't have anything to do with the validity of Christianity. That's just a corrupt preacher.

Then I started looking for evidence for a god. EVERYTHING shown as evidence turned out to be nothing but a logical fallacy or hearsay.

Mind backing up this claim with some examples?

I look around the world and everything from a blade of grass to the Sun has a logical explanation for its existence. I didn’t see anything in the world around me that required a god for its existence.

Right, different items within our universe having logical reasons for their existence totally means there's no god! If anything, I would think things existing for logical reasons would be good clues towards a creator.

Though, to say they don't require God's existence to exist is... a rather large claim. How do you suspect the Universe got here? Unless you believe the Universe is eternal and has no beginning, which quite frankly is a leap of faith in itself; having no sustaining evidence.

Of course the biblical god doesn’t seem to make sense either. How could a god have emotions? How could a god get jealous? It shouldn’t be possible if it was real. A god suppose to know everything should have an emotional reaction to anything.

I think you're claiming to know the mind of God, here. Which you obviously do not and cannot.

More here: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... s_god.html

At the end of the day, the support for Christians is the same for Hindus, Jews, Mormons, even Scientologists. I become an atheist because it’s the only thing that makes sense and that’s where the evidence lead me. I didn’t WANT to be an atheist, but I can’t convince myself to believe a god exists when there’s nothing but stories in a book (one of many) that claim there is.

Well, there's multiple differences one can point out between the Bible and other holy books. For one, the Bible is the only one that can truly be scientifically sound. The Bible places God outside of time, this is necessary if one is to truly be eternal. Other holy books don't claim this of their respective 'gods'.