Comment

Comment by SteveInCO on February 19, 2013 at 7:48am

Indeed the favorite hunting ground of evangelicals is people who got the brainwashing, who therefore "deep down know its true" but don't practice it; their goal is simply to prod them into "realizing" they are in "peril" without forming a relationship with doG.  Since these folks bought into the premise in childhood, it's fairly easy.

It's a little harder to "get" someone who was never taught it in the first place but it can be sometimes be done IF you can hit them with better-sounding arguments for doG than they've ever heard against doG.  (Warning to atheist parents--you probably should arm your kids with such arguments--definitely don't just assert to them that there is no doG or that there is no evidence for doG--or they could be easy prey in later life.)

It's harder to "convert" a total non-theist but it has been done, and some people specialize in it.

Comment by Loren Miller on February 19, 2013 at 6:39am

Postscript:

I've seen this kind of crap on discussion boards with semi-frequency.  It's pretty obviously an appeal both to emotion and to old programming, the kind the speaker is reasonably sure (justifiably) that his or her audience has been exposed to.  The goal is to reboot that old programming, refresh it and the fear that accompanied it almost without exception.  That person wants their audience to abandon reason and logic and come back to unsubstantiated warm fuzzies and the welcoming, suffocating arms of the church.

Maybe it's not very generous or kind or whatever of me, but my own knee-jerk reaction is a hard-nosed bitch-slap of a response, reminding the speaker that their school of thought and mine have no intersection set, something like the "prove it" comment I made earlier.  There are plenty of options, though from where I sit, they should be kept terse and short.

People like that are a drain we can do well without.

Comment by Dennis Michael Pennington on February 19, 2013 at 6:35am

Yes, God is real. He gave you your life so cower in fear because he can take it away. Is that what they call "god fearing," like in "he is a god fearing man?" I call it superstition. Only god can hear you. If you are inside your mind praying to god, then it's YOU who hears you. Now let's bow our heads and all start talking to ourselves. There's nobody there. When I was very young I used to think Casper the friendly ghost was there. Later, they told me it was the Holy Ghost. Oh, my! What confusion. Sins against the Holy Ghost will not be forgiven. How can you "sin" against something you know nothing, or very little about? (I will chose Casper.) When you get the dogma and brainwashing out of your mind, what is it that you are praying for forgiveness for? Even when they indoctrinated me and taught me the Bible, none of this was explained in any logical way. FAITH was just believing and excepting without any proof. In other words - they made it all up!

Comment by Loren Miller on February 19, 2013 at 5:33am

Yet one more in a series of assertions without justification or substantiation.  The person posting that comment likely knows nothing about cosmogony, abiogenesis or evolution and doesn't want to know it.  He or she was probably taught to sing, "Jebus loves me" from the time they were old enough to talk, and the indoctrination is fully and properly welded to their brains.

I would pity such people if I were into pity, but I'm not.  I might tell such a person, simply, "Prove it ... and leave your bible at home when you do," but the level of ignorance represented by such people dissuades me even from engaging in conversation with them.  I have better things to do with my time ... and so do you.

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