Another One Gives Up His Christian Faith From Reading My Book!
To All Christian Apologists: I have issued a challenge to debate all of you, one at a time. You can read my challenge directly below this post. I have recently decided to go on the offensive.
One reason is because I'm tired of some of the skeptical arguments I've seen. Another reason is because I'm getting more and more feedback almost every single day from Christian people who have read my book and say they cannot adequately deal with it. One seminary trained pastor said my book only leaves open the possibilty of some sort of religious mysticism. And today I learned that yet another well-read Christian has lost his faith from reading just one book, mine. He had read Michael Martin's book, The Case Against Christianity, and David Ramsay Steele's book, Atheism Explained (both great books), but his faith was not affected at all until he read mine. [Edit: This morning my book was ranked #1 on the blog titled Failing the Insider Test (check it out! This Blog seems to be a spin-off from my Outsider Test for Faith). He says my book is "Head and shoulders" above the rest.].
Still another reason is that many Christians hate me anyway. If you do, it's not my problem. I'm not here to win friends. I'm here to help you take back your brainwashed selves. I have Christian Blog terrorists at my feet sooner or later whenever I leave the door open for a free and respectful discussion of the ideas that separate us. And I've decided that I really don't care if other skeptics agree with how I argue. I am not writing for them! They are not my target audience. You are! Mine is an arrogance about the arguments. I have them. You don't. [Plenty of other skeptics have great arguments too, so don't get me wrong about this].
Just to be sure, there is no personal animosity toward Christians as the good people I think most of you are. I like most Christians. That's not the issue. My claim is that not a single one of you can effectively and honestly deal with every argument in my book, any one of which is fatal to your faith (and I mean conservative Christians). Call me arrogant if you will. I don't care. Bring it on. Every day you wait, another soul might be lost from reading my book.
I don't revel in knowing some Christian people will probably suffer pain as the result of agonizing over their faith along with the social repercussions from leaving it. I'm only interested in educating people about Christianity. It's a delusion. You are deluded. And I am here to help you get over it.
One reason is because I'm tired of some of the skeptical arguments I've seen. Another reason is because I'm getting more and more feedback almost every single day from Christian people who have read my book and say they cannot adequately deal with it. One seminary trained pastor said my book only leaves open the possibilty of some sort of religious mysticism. And today I learned that yet another well-read Christian has lost his faith from reading just one book, mine. He had read Michael Martin's book, The Case Against Christianity, and David Ramsay Steele's book, Atheism Explained (both great books), but his faith was not affected at all until he read mine. [Edit: This morning my book was ranked #1 on the blog titled Failing the Insider Test (check it out! This Blog seems to be a spin-off from my Outsider Test for Faith). He says my book is "Head and shoulders" above the rest.].
Still another reason is that many Christians hate me anyway. If you do, it's not my problem. I'm not here to win friends. I'm here to help you take back your brainwashed selves. I have Christian Blog terrorists at my feet sooner or later whenever I leave the door open for a free and respectful discussion of the ideas that separate us. And I've decided that I really don't care if other skeptics agree with how I argue. I am not writing for them! They are not my target audience. You are! Mine is an arrogance about the arguments. I have them. You don't. [Plenty of other skeptics have great arguments too, so don't get me wrong about this].
Just to be sure, there is no personal animosity toward Christians as the good people I think most of you are. I like most Christians. That's not the issue. My claim is that not a single one of you can effectively and honestly deal with every argument in my book, any one of which is fatal to your faith (and I mean conservative Christians). Call me arrogant if you will. I don't care. Bring it on. Every day you wait, another soul might be lost from reading my book.
I don't revel in knowing some Christian people will probably suffer pain as the result of agonizing over their faith along with the social repercussions from leaving it. I'm only interested in educating people about Christianity. It's a delusion. You are deluded. And I am here to help you get over it.
33 comments:
Hey John,
I received your book a week ago, I have begun to read it though Dan Barker's book also came in the mail and I started that first. I am looking forward to doing a review and reading your arguments in detail.
Regards, Rev. Phil.
P.S. I feel ashamed by the treatment you seem to be getting on this site from some of my so called 'brothers,' if I come across any of these people share what I think of their tactics, just pointless and stupid.
You didn't mention the name of the individual. Is that confidential? Is he well known, or is he simply a well-read intelligent person? I hope you video the debates if you have them.
The archives are gone again, and I'm sure I'm not seeing things, this time. ;-)
Are they down early each morning because of some kind of maintenance being performed?
I second Jason's motion: You must record the debates when/if they take place!
I suspect that it won't be too long until someone takes you up on the offer.
Ryan
Rev Phillip, thanks so much. I know that it does not represent the Christianity you practice, or most people for that matter. It's just one guy or more.
Let me know what you think about those two books and discuss them with me.
I edited the original post. Just today a blogger ranked my book "head and shoulders above the rest." Check it out.
Jason Long, the guy is a friend of Andrew Atkinson who told me about him. His name is Joey. That's all I know but I want to assure everyone that he's real.
ismellarat, the archives are still there, below everything on the sidebar. I didn't forget about you.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that he was fake. I only have nine or ten known deconversions, yet I couldn't give proof of a single one beyond some emails. I just didn't know if he was someone of note.
John,
Since you are confident that you have the arguments, then it would be natural for you to just present them right here, right now, for more exposure and more deconversions.
Many here are not representing christianity in particular. A lot of us are specifically interested in your arguments for the conclusion that: it's likely no God exists.
What we've seen so far, John, are allusions to atheistic arguments, but not the arguments themselves.
Also, if you are seriously interested in challenging the theists you mentioned (namely, Swinburne and Craig), why don't you simply send them an email? Do you really think that they read your blog?
Peace and respect
Charlie, other people will sned my challenge out for me if they want to see me debate. Do it if you want to. That's what I'm asking. And yes, I do post the arguments in my book here from time to time. But no, I will not post much of any chapter. The lessons I've learned from the past is that people won't read for more than just a few paragraphs of anything we write. Just ask Jason Long who posted two chapters from his upcoming great book who got no real response to it, Or John Beversluis when I psoted a couple of chapters of his books.
Stop being so lazy and so cheap. Get your butt up to the library if you're so cheap not to buy it.
I can definitely vouch for that.
BTW Charlie, what do you do for a living? Do you make anything? Why don't you just give it away for free? It shouldn't matter to you if other people were involved in making it, nor that there are salesmen, editors, and a print crew who's livelihood depends partially on what you made. After all, YOU made it, right?
John,
Yeah, I don't think you're entitled to make a living off your work either. In fact, I think you should send me a copy of your book that you pay for out of your own pocket (shipping too). Then you probably should pay me for my time to read and review your book. I'll need an advance on that.
While you are at it, I've recently taken an interest in some topics that aren't outlined in your book(s). Why don't you research those out for me and write another book, publish it, print it, and ship it to me--for free. But just to let you know in advance, what ever position you take, I will highly criticize and have hardly anything nice to say.
Oh, and even though I have been reading your site for weeks or months, conversing back and forth with you and other contributors, and have been generally interested in the discussions, I want you to know that I'm much smarter than you and everyone else and don't think you've done all that much. I'd write a book too and put up a website that would be much better than yours, but I just need to free up the hour or two in my schedule that it would take to do that. I think I'll call my site, "Debunking 'Debunking Christianity'" Shoot... I just looked that up and someone else already got it. Oh Snap!
Yours truly,
The Attention Seeking Blow-hard
P.S. I'm gonna post anonymously too so you can see that a lot of people are taking my side.
Hey John,
I was wondering if you really think it's smart (or ethical) to attempt all this "deconverting" stuff. I read an article the other day about a kid that killed himself after reading the God Delusion http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81459
(granted this is WND and there is some spin in this article)
and was wondering, what if this kind of thing ever happened because of your book?
Matt A
John, I think Charlie means for you to customize them for general deistic arguments, since her main objection is that she views you presenting Evangelical Christianity vs. Atheism as the only two alternatives.
Charlie - this *is* a blog which generally presents cases against *evangelical* Christianity, as the title of the blog states, so there is a precedent set by John against that version of the faith in general. John does present some objections to e.g. Kalam, but by his own admission, they're not as well fleshed out as, say, Quentin Smith's arguments.
One point where John and I differ (and which we discussed at length on the way to the Evangelical Conference in Providence, RI - where, by the way, John challenged his friend Dr. Craig to a debate personally) is that I call myself "nontheist" while he calls himself "atheist" - I call myself "nontheist" because I am atheist toward all definitions and presentations of Yhwh as I have seen them and of Allah as I have seen them, but since I haven't studied the Hindu faith, Mithra, deistic Buddhism, Pantheism, classical Deism, the Great Spirit, etc., I have not analyzed the validity of those particular definitions of God. Therefore, I must call myself agnostic to those until further study; thus, nontheist. ;)
Matthew A. There is a thing called irrational guilt. It's irrational to hold for instance, that because I stayed home rather than drive my wife to work that I would've been able to save her from dying in that accident.
I don't accept suich a thing. I'm a rational person. If someone did that I was be grieved just as I am when anyone does such a thing. But I am not responsible for what they choose to do.
Would YOU feel responsible for telling a wife not to divorce her husband because of the Bible and who stayed with him and was beaten to death by him?
Toby, funny. I liked it!
John, I am torn between two reactions to your conversion stories.
One is incredulity that people are so easily duped.
Second, is an understanding of how it happens.
What I cannot understand is how you can boast about your conversions. The personal tone of your post puts this question fairly in the frame!
I know this is strong sentiment so let me take some time to explain my position.
How it happens: The typical DC conversion story can be summarised as:
Target has grown up with beliefs “borrowed” from parents/family and based on Sunday School theology (some of it a bit kooky even for kids). As they grow up their beliefs don’t grow with them and remain at that level.
Along you come with your ‘enlightenment’ - look the bible is not inerrant or literal – God did not create the world in 7 days – etc (around 40 etcs is it?)
BUT you have them reach a reasonable conclusion – the Sunday school God of the literal bible is most likely not really God.
It is here that they are duped. How?
Step 1: You have these people at an emotionally vulnerable time – you recognise this when you say knowing some Christian people will probably suffer pain as the result of agonizing over their faith .
They are distressed -
At this point you have shattered their Sunday school beliefs – you have convinced them they have been deceived by those they trusted.
Step 2: You help them draw the wrong conclusion from their discovery.
If the literal Sunday school God of the bible is most likely not really God then you lead them to the false conclusion that there is no God. Smart move, quick on the feet, but not really intellectually sound.
There are two logical paths to follow from the point of their deciding the Sunday school God is not really God.
One (your path) that there is no God,
Two (and at that point equally valid) that God is not the Sunday school God, but different.
Step 3: You reinforce your false conclusion with pseudo logic (argument of evil and the like).
For those who have a mature, liberal theology you arguments are neither new nor persuasive.
We have confronted the strongest of atheist argument (and you do better than some) and we remain firm in our theist convictions.
But we are not your targets, you know your arguments hold no water with us.
You acknowledge this when you say My claim is that not a single one of you can effectively and honestly deal with every argument in my book, any one of which is fatal to your faith (and I mean conservative Christians).
Here in lies the heart of your fraud. You know that in a wider context your arguments are not persuasive let alone compelling.
Yet you present them to the vulnerable as the truth. You have dismantled their simplistic Sunday school beliefs and replaced them others that are at best as shaky as the ones they replace.
Your feeling on this - you say Call me arrogant if you will. I don't care. Bring it on. Every day you wait, another soul might be lost from reading my book. certainly pride – you have duped the weak and mislead the vulnerable! Bring it on
Sala kahle - peace
BTW: after Darrin studies these things out then he'll join with me and declare himself an atheist. ;-) It's only a matter of time.
aka, my aim is intelligent educated apologists. Why am I preying on the gullible. If they get caught in the crossfire that's not my problem. The problem is that apologists cannot answer my book sufficiently. That's my arrogant claim.
Tell us this. Have you read it? If so tell us a sentence or two in it and on what page we can find it.
>>akakiwibear
I deconverted overnight due to concluding Calvinism from the Bible. Atheism came much later (since I bounced from deism and agnosticism for a bit). I might be a different case here at DC, but my studies have concluded that there are more difficulties with Christianity than the original blocks that Calvinism vs. Arminianism put on my faith.
Hey John, thanks for answering.
I'm kind of looking at this more as a philosophical ethical question (because I'm curious what our responsibility would be in this example).
"There is a thing called irrational guilt. It's irrational to hold for instance, that because I stayed home rather than drive my wife to work that I would've been able to save her from dying in that accident."
I don't think that this would be an example of "irrational guilt". I think that in an instance such as this (wife dies in accident) you are not a causally responsible agent and there would be nothing that you could do to stop the accident. However in the case of a suicide related to your book you could have chosen not to write the book and keep your opinions to yourself. This may not really be a problem because we all choose to do things that have possible far reaching consequences and we do not feel morally responsible for the outcome. I suppose you cannot feel responsible if someone chooses to read your book, but all the same I just wondered what you thought.
"Would YOU feel responsible for telling a wife not to divorce her husband because of the Bible and who stayed with him and was beaten to death by him?"
I would never tell anyone to stay together because the "Bible said so".
Matt
I also deconverted from Christianity over the past six months or so. I converted to Christian fundamentalism and argued zealously for the inerrancy of scripture, the deity of Christ, salvation by grace through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the remission of sins. However since I wasn't raised a Christian I had no loyalty to any particular denominations or doctrines so as I learned more I began to depart from supposed orthodoxy in favor of other doctrines I deemed to be more biblically sound (the bible was my only authority for these changes)
Eventually after years of study and debate I concluded that the bible didn't teach a trinity or that Jesus was god, rather he was the human messiah (created uniquely like the first Adam) but human nonetheless. I still believed in the inerrancy of scripture, I just concluded the biblical evidence pointed in this direction. I was convinced that this Unitarian view of god and messiah was the original view held by Jesus's' disciples and only later after more gentile converts entered the fold, did these views change and a paganization of primitive Christianity began to take place (culminating in the Council of Nicea, although even that didn't settle the matter until the Council of Constantinople where the trinity was first articulated). I was eager to debate these beliefs and others and regularly did so in Christian chat rooms. It wasn't until I started looking closer at the old testament stories and laws that my faith in the bible as the word of god began to be challenged. The Christian view of a loving, just, morally good god simply was not to be found there and the Christian explanations for the "difficult" passages rang hollow in my ears. I also realized how much Christians disagree on even though they all claim to have god living in them. Church history didn't help Christianity either, did Jesus just let his church become corrupt in a couple decades and completely paganized for the next 2000 years? I saw how Christians disagreed on nearly every doctrinal matter and cries of heresy weren't so much based on the bible as they were on preserving power. I found the heretics to have a stronger biblical case on many issues than the supposedly orthodox.
It was thanks to sites like this that shine a light on the bible "difficulties" and give the more obvious explanations than the desperate ones that Christians resort to, that caused me to ultimately reject Christianity and become a deist
DeistDan
"Deist dan" is a fake account. His profile was just now created, as with his blog, and the only two posts on his blog are from today. (Please see his profile for yourself.) Conveniently, one of his first missions on blogger was to come here and post in the comment section. The sock puppet account is being used to add illusory support for entries at DC.
Brian: "Deist dan" is a fake account. His profile was just now created, as with his blog, and the only two posts on his blog are from today.
And this coming from a guy who's profile is not available for viewing. How do we know that you are not another Christian troll here to post countless meaningless comments. Besides why does John need "sock puppets" for this site? There are many here who have deconverted from Christianity. Granted, not all are from reading John's book, but so what.
>>Brian
Thanks for your comment, Brian. We here at DC wish to maintain a level of sincerity and civility (or at least I do on my own blog contributions here) so I would appreciate your refraining from making unwarranted personal attacks in the future. The evidence you presented is not enough to convince anyone here of wrongdoing at DC, and the circumstances you presented are more easily explained by a longtime lurker wishing to make a blog post to flesh out his profile, like I did on my own blog right after creating an account to comment on Ray Comfort's work.
Debating "banter" is fine, but this type of accusation goes over the line. Any further posts you (or anyone else) makes on this topic will be deleted unless you have definite proof for your claim.
Matthew A, I finally have a little time to answer your questions.
Matthew asked...However in the case of a suicide related to your book you could have chosen not to write the book and keep your opinions to yourself.
Do you realize how ignorant I think such a question is? There are irrational people out there who might kill themselves for any reason at all. No author should be told they should not write a book because this is a possibility... none. There are myriads of social and ethical issues where people's lives are at stake if that author is wrong. People will die as the result, whether it's a book about the Iraq war, poverty, abortion, homosexuality, capital punishment, as well as a book on religion or skepticism. The author has the right to speak out. He thinks he's correct. He thinks he's helping not hurting people, as I do. Do you realize that if you wrote a book against Islam and a Muslim decides to leave his faith he could be killed? How is that the author's fault?
What you seem to be saying is that no book should be written if it's possible that one irrational person might kill himself because of it. But that principle is clearly and patently false. Rational people must be forced to think about the issues of their day. To take all such books off the shelves might be to shut down all libraries and colleges, leaving only self-help books (and even then we don't know who might kill hinmself becasue of something in one of them). Such a principle is wrong for so many reasons I don't need to continue.
Beside, if that principle is true then the Bible should be banned and outlawed, because it has been the source of the deaths of many people through the crusades, capital punishment, witch hunts, slavery, and inquisitions, as well as irrational people who hear vocies from Jesus to kill others and themselves.
Don't tell me you didn't consider this...please.
John:
Beside, if that principle is true then the Bible should be banned and outlawed, because it has been the source of the deaths of many people through the crusades, capital punishment, witch hunts, slavery, and inquisitions, as well as irrational people who hear vocies from Jesus to kill others and themselves.
Quiet now. Maybe he's on to something!
Dear John.
"Another one gives up his christian faith from reading your book!"
Congratulations, chalk another one up for you. What does that make now,
3or4. Lets see now, those who were lost and then found by reading God's book is... oh I don't know maybe a billion. But keep pluggin' away Sir.
You still have time to catch up.
You know, John, I sometimes wonder whether religion in general and Christianity in particular is necessary, even if it's false.
This may sound strange, but I wonder whether Christianity offers many a sufficient reason to continue despite life's many difficulties (I'm thinking of the vague "I believe in God and Jesus and Heaven" types who don't go much further beyond that).
Also, as a practical person, I see a usefulness in having people who will defend certain things at the risk of their own lives. This sounds awful, but would we have fewer men and women in our armed forces if they believed there was nothing beyond the grave when putting their lives on the line?
Religion may truly be the "opiate of the people", but I'm not always sure that that's a bad thing.
BTW, after dealing with the likes of Manata and Hayes, I'm pretty sure they'd be insensitive a*holes whether they were Christians or not. They'd just find other reasons to be so if they were not.
John: The problem is that apologists cannot answer my book sufficiently. That's my arrogant claim.
It is arrogant, as is your claim that any one of which is fatal to your faith
so John willing to expose yourself to the test yet? Bring it on - any of your fatal to your faith points - try me
Sala kahle - peace
Good job, John!
Just a couple random responses to some of the comments here.
Charlie said: "just present them right here, right now, for more exposure and more deconversions."
I know people already responded but... You can't fit it all in a blog or two. That's why he wrote the book. And also speaking as an author, we have bills to pay like everybody else. :-) (And in terms of getting your money's worth, John's book is HUGE and at the price you're getting a lot for your money.)
Matthew said: "I read an article the other day about a kid that killed himself after reading the God Delusion "
I'm familiar with that story too, and what people fail to mention is that that boy grew up in a horribly legalistic, fundamentalist Christian family, and there were clearly MANY issues going on in that family. His father is in total denial and, as is so often the case when somebody commits suicide, wants to blame somebody. And so Dawkins, representing the antithesis of his own beliefs, was the obvious candidate.
That said, I have to wonder how many people have committed suicide as a result of fundamentalist Christian parents who convinced them they were bad, horrible people who need to grovel before some god, begging for forgiveness.
I have no qualms about deconverting people, and it's obvious John feels the same way. For me, I feel I'm helping people escape a cult. (And interestingly a lot of Christians I've met have no problem helping people leave other religions and cults.)
Various people talked about preying on the gullible. Any suggestion that John is preying on gullible is a suggestion filled with irony. Right now it's about 10:00 am on Sunday morning and there are millions of people right at this moment stuffing money into the pockets of preachers and their churches.
Darrin said: "Atheism came much later (since I bounced from deism and agnosticism for a bit)."
Join the club... Been there, done it! :-)
John
Yes your comment is arrogant but I guess we all are entitled to exercise that particular ability in our lives.
If God be God, then your asssumed ability to divert someone from the path of His salvation for that person is just a bit arrogant.
I will look forward to reading your book and assure you in advance that your comments I will find interesting but not fatal to my faith.
Call that arrogant? Fine. I call it a calm assurance that God is bigger then your comments so I need not have any fear of them.
Have a Great Day!
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