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Just So You Know What You're Up Against: Why Waste Time Trying To Convert Them?

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Permalink Reply by Christi C. on July 1, 2012 at 4:18pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za10G4Mz3rM&list=PLB95965490528F...

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Permalink Reply by Lillie on July 2, 2012 at 12:11am

James said, "We can only hope that its demise is not hastened by such self-fulfilling profit-sees as Dominion and the Rapture."

This is why we have to convert them.

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Permalink Reply by Lillie on July 2, 2012 at 12:33am

I have been a lifelong skeptic. When I was in high school, there was a young man a little older than I was who had been planning on becoming a minister from an early age. His family was very devout and active in the church. He was respected and admired. Unfortunately for his family, they sent him to a university which had a hundred years prior been a church supported school but was now very progressive. When he enrolled in religious classes the curriculum gave a broad overview of all beliefs and supported no particular belief. The next thing I knew, he declared himself to be an atheist and left the church. The point is his abrupt denouncement of his faith was further proof to me that the emperor wore no clothes. I think we never know when we might be planting a seed for someone to begin questioning the dogma.

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on July 2, 2012 at 6:34pm

You know the statistics showing that atheists know more about Christianity than the average Christian: his holy books and history of the religion in relation to others. But they go on mouthing complete nonsense Sunday after Sunday. This is what Abraham Maslow meant when he said that their words in church are meaningless to them, rote recitation, an example of the very worst sort of presentism: pretending that ancient events have anything relevant to say about our species today. When the Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door, I tell them God must like fathers who commit incest with their daughters because that is what Lot did when God killed all the alleged homosexuals in Sodom. "So, God lets parents grouse in the goodie with their own daughters -- that's OK, but having sex with our own kind is not?" If they have not fainted, they run. Hopefully they will go home and actually read that part of Genesis and find some inconsistencies, contradictions, physical impossibilities, and so forth.

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Permalink Reply by Kiljoy616 on July 2, 2012 at 7:36pm

The first thing to been religions is everything need to be on faith, so reading I would say is the last thing religions people do. After all if they really took time to read and follow their own holy book they would need medication to cope. Ask any christian which ten commandments they follow version one or two and they look at you with a black stare of a 3 year old.

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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on July 7, 2012 at 10:17am

And that, Lillie, is exactly why Rick Santorum - bless his little pea-pickin' heart - came out so strongly against higher education on his stump speeches! For the same reason that Mankind's "original sin" was the acquisition of knowledge.

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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on July 7, 2012 at 12:42am

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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on July 7, 2012 at 9:10am

I had nothing but House to watch that was in English during a week-long vacation in Mexico City since the hotel cable system catered to Mexicans. (Great way to save money while visiting: stay where families and businessmen stay.) I watched episodes back to back, three at a time. I already knew House was a Brother, but was let down when only the "attitude" emerges from episode to episode, and that, of course, paints us as grouches, yes, but also people who will not allow others' delusions to interfere with taking care of business. I like the show but think it is dragging a bit now. We need more rationalist chracters on TV, that is for sure. Role models and living examples of "critical thinking."

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Permalink Reply by Greg on July 7, 2012 at 3:04am

I would suggest we argue our point just by making it clear we are atheists. As a minority, we're given short shrift. At some point, as our numbers grow, we hit critical mass and our ideas will be perceived as intelligent. Kind of like my parents wising up while I was away during my early 20's.