Question of the Day #5
Francois Tremblay Permalink
7 comments
Why are all “ex-atheist” testimonies (at least, all the ones I've ever read) actually testimonies from people who were mad at religion, "hated God", or otherwise accepted the existence of God ?
Give your answer in the comments.
(Here's another idea : perhaps there ARE ex-atheists, but they are not as vocal. But why would they be less vocal ?)
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7 Comments:
Because the Bible says that everyone knows that God is real at conception. They are all lying to themselves! And assuming that these atheist testimonies were real and genuine (which most probably arent) they would, after converting to Christianity, come to this conclusion about their own past and would commit a bit of Big Brother 1984ish revisionism and doublethink.
They would tell themselves "yes, I was mad at God, I must have been!"
Personally Im not mad at God. Im mad at the idiotic sheep herders who dreamt this bullshit up.
I hate to commit the "no true scotsman" fallacy, but it seems to me that those peope were never "real atheists" in the sense that they truly lost their belief in deities. Just as C.S. Lewis' supposed "atheism" and later reconversion is touted so often by christians, most of the "atheists" that I've heard of reconverting "lost" their belief due to a traumatic event like the loss of a loved one, and often regained their faith after another event. I have yet to hear of someone becoming an atheist due to careful consideration and much pondering of the evidence (and lack thereof) and then reconverting to theism based on yet more consideration and pondering.
Well... Here goes then.
I became an atheist when I started looking at what the church's doctrine actually said, and it made no sense. I became a Taoist (eventually) after discovering the Tao te Ching and deciding that it did make sense. If you equate belief in Tao with belief in God, then I am a counter-example. However, Tao has little in common with the God described by most Christians.
The point that we need to remember is that atheism as such, while it is a necessary precondition to rationality, is not a sufficient precondition to rationality. One can be an atheist and still be irrational. A major part of the problem is the tacit acceptance of metaphysical subjectivism which afflicts many atheists. Atheists are not immune to subjectivism by virtue of their atheism. That's why I think the so-called "antithesis between belief and non-belief" is completely misguided. It's also why it's fallacious for Christian apologists to say that (for instance) Stalinism is a direct consequence of adopting "the atheist worldview." The real issue is whether or not a thinker has consciously adopted the objective orientation between himself as subject and the world of objects around him. One can be an atheist and still adopt a worldview in which the subject of cognition holds metaphysical primacy over its objects. As I pointed out to Paul Manata, Christianity is only one variant of metaphysical subjectivism. The bible's own words are good against the bible's worldview: "Wide is the gate to destruction."
Charlie, your post was totally off topic, way too long, and full of shit to boot. Keep your miserable communism where it belongs: in third world countries. Over here we prefer our prosperity thank you very much.
LONG LIVE CAPITALISM! DOWN WITH COERCION!
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"I hate to commit the "no true scotsman" fallacy, but it seems to me that those peope were never 'real atheists' in the sense that they truly lost their belief in deities."
I don't know about that. Personally, I think that you're either a theist or you aren't. There's none of this "true atheist" or "true Christian" nonsense. Indeed, they were just as true in their atheism as we are.
However, I would add that they were never very good rationalists. If they were so weak in their rational thinking as to be stripped of the confidence in their cognitive faculties, then no wonder they retreated to theism.
These people, once atheists, were tragically intellectually defeated.
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