Three More Leave the Fold: They're Dropping Out Like Flies!
I hope my readers visit ex-christian.net every so often. Here are three deconversion stories of interest: From Master's of Nothing, the Visible Atheist, and a person named Ryan. Enjoy. You know, in sales marketing it's hard enough to get new customers, so why does God allow the loss of his customers so often nowadays?
8 comments:
If flies dropping out at this rate seems so encouraging, the pantry is surely still experiencing a fly infestation! A female fly can reproduce about 500-600 eggs during her lifetime in batches of about 100 so perhaps your reference to flies may be appropriate here --- I won't offer up a counter number of those coming into the light but sorry to disappoint that some are actually getting set free from the oppressiveness imposed by other ppl.
At any rate, I am cautious of labeling "ex-Christians" as former believers simply because in the writings here, it's as though the deconverted never really simply trusted or 'believed' what Jesus told them in the first place - they complain and rail against proclaimed acknowledegements that Jesus forewarned about, so as far as I know, they were possibly involved in idolotry to begin with.If that is the case, keep up the good work in the fight against an idolotrous image of Jesus.
3M
3M,
For someone so attuned to the whisperings of the spirit, you seem to be totally tone deaf to the spirit of humor.
Yes, you would be cautious about labeling ex-Christians as former believers, simply because it frightens you to death to think that someone as committed to loving and following Jesus as you believe yourself to be could possibly throw it all overboard. So you're compelled to denigrate the spiritual sincerity of all former Christians.
I think it's impossible for an ex-Christian to be as devastated as I find so many of those on ex-christian.net to be unless they truly did trust and believe in God.
I know that I when I de-converted, it took almost two years to recover, precisely because I had believed and trusted that much. You don't react like that if it wasn't real, and if the whole experience was only intellectual.
1 John 2:19 couldn't have been more wrong.
Hi Bronxboy --- "For someone so attuned to the whisperings of the spirit, you seem to be totally tone deaf to the spirit of humor."
You're right - I was totally serious when I made the reference to flies - let me guess - you were a literal fundamentalist, right??
Hi Anthony --- You wrote, "they truly did trust and believe in God." But why didn't you believe Him when He warned about the misuse of His name??
You also said, "I know that I when I de-converted, it took almost two years to recover," I can understand this - it took me about 5 years to finally get detoxed from the fundamentalist viewpoint --- (BTW, a fundamentalist, legalistic, literal approach is not considered a divine one) but it was necessary in order to get rid of the image of a false idol parading as God.
At any rate, the best to both of you!
3M
I had 50 people come to Christ just last week! I guess you need to pick up the pace John... :)
God bless you for helping people to see the emptiness of atheism. I am not sure what I would have done without you.
God Bless....
MMM, I thought you'd been an atheist all of your life and then converted. Now I'm having trouble figuring out where you stand. You're also a former fundy? And you converted to what? How would you label your present worldview?
Hi Ismellarat; My relationship with religion has been pretty varied. I have spent some time with prideful religious fundamentalists but the secular section is also infected with dogma and prideful fundamentalism --- destructive pride is a virus that transcends our manmade labels of one another.
I'll say this -- the time I spent as an atheist helped to get rid of some conceptions about God that I now recognize as idolotrous. For me, it served a useful purpose in helping me disconnect from some distructive relationship habits. Jesus really doesn't condemn -- ppl do that to one another unwittingly out of fear and with no perception of another way.
At any rate, if there really are Christians dropping out like flies, perhaps they are on their way toward faithfulness and challenging religious dogma as Jesus did.
ttyl,
3M
P.S. Ismellarat said, "I'm having trouble figuring out where you stand."
Yea, that happens --- that's because Jesus confounded ppl's sense of world-assigned identity. He transcends labels and identities born out of our natural inclination towards territorial-mindedness. Jesus addresses His followers according to identities that are universally and recognizably human ---eg, child, father, mother, son, friend, enemy. These are all terms that we can understand and relate to in our everyday experiences.
So, where do I stand? As a nonbeliever and idolator, I used to be a dog, but now I am a well-loved pet. As a matter of fact, I need to get going to my obedience classes - ciao!
3M
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