Hello everyone. I heard from Beth again today and will share our further exchange with you in a minute. After I posted the first conversation with her, she and I corresponded at least once more that night. So the following exchange is actually a few emails back and forth. I hope I can keep it straight for you so that it all makes sense.
I have to say, talking to christians is no easy task. I’m sure you understand that in your own experience. It’s almost crazy-making to try to reason with someone who believes that Jesus raised the dead and walked on water. I don’t know how people who debate such things don’t lose their tempers and start smashing things. I guess I understand why some atheists are considered angry. They’re probably just frustrated, like I am.
Anyway, here we go. We’ll start with Beth. My comments will [...]
I got an email from another christian last week! We’ll call her Beth. Like the other christians who have wanted to talk to me about god, she doesn’t want to argue.
Here’s what she said in her opening email:
Upon reading your “12 Steps to Enlightenment” I saw a comment from someone much like myself who was genuinely curious as to why you believe what you believe and how you came to such conclusions. I too would like to know, if you do not mind.
I’d like to make it clear I am not here to prove to you a deity exists or that I’m right or wrong. I just want to talk in depth with someone about it without it turning into an argument.
I am not interested in proving there is a God, but rather figuring out the absolute truth behind [...]
Hey everyone. A bit ago, I posted Here We Go Again which was from a comment from a christian named Ash. I heard from him again. This is the opening of his email:
I’m not too interested in argument, since I’m sure we’ll get to a point where everything becomes circular. I’m wondering if we could share our personal experiences and philosophies and discuss their effects on our differing beliefs. For example, the church I attended until I was 13 never talked about “burning in hell,” but focused more on New Testament teachings. Fear of hell has never been a big reason for me to believe in God.
I also remember asking a lot of questions. After reading one of those Kid’s encyclopedia for science books I asked my youth pastor how God could have created man when man evolved from monkeys. He said that nobody can [...]
Forgive me if I sound less than over the moon about this. Another christian has volunteered to converse. His name is Ash. I’m just not getting my hopes up. He left a comment the other day which I’ll share with you below:
Here is Ash’s comment:
Hello, I was led to your blog from de-conversion.com and wanted to share my thoughts. I’m a Christian who grew up going to church and then stopped believing for about seven years, and was led back to Christ just in the past few months.
“it took scientists to do careful experiments, then to share those results, then have them verified and checked, and have other scientists to do the same experiments before the law of gravity was considered more or less a given.”
Sounds about right. I am an artist, but I have a pretty good understanding of the scientific [...]
The other day I got the following comment. I know we’ve covered these questions before, but since it was an invitation to a dialogue I thought a post was in order as opposed to a reply. I try to always be open to conversing about beliefs and the lack thereof. Before I tackle the questions, perhaps we should set some ground rules?
- Let’s find some common ground to begin. What can we both agree on? (How to Argue)
- No personal attacks or insults. I guess that’s a given, but it doesn’t hurt to add it here. (Ad Hominem Logical Fallacy)
- Let’s establish here that we will be respectful of each other, and argue fairly.
- If you want to end the conversation, just say so. No hard feelings.
I can’t think of anything else offhand. If anyone has anything to add to this, please let me [...]
Craig ended our conversations. I guess I offended him which I don’t really understand. I tried to be so careful. I never attacked him directly (ad hominem), I was generally exceedingly polite, and never said anything that was untrue. I simply talked about whatever he brought up. I went over all of our emails and I am pretty sure I couldn’t have been any more careful or respectful. How that is taken as offensive I just don’t understand. And he is the one who came to me to to start the dialogue in the first place.
Anyway, I’m kind of bummed out about it because I felt like I really got to explain things that I was taking for granted, which is the best way of learning: when you try to teach others what you know. Some of the stuff I talked about I had to learn or [...]
The other day I posted Conversations with Craig the christian 2 – Biblical Interpretations and a Logical Fallacy. This is a continuation of that dialogue. I wasn’t sure how to refer back to the previous post, so I just copied it here where Craig refers to what I wrote the other day.
I wrote: Regarding the bible verses and their interpretation, I think that the word of god should be infallible and shouldn’t be ruined and easily misinterpreted by man. It should be the same in every language, and should be offered to every culture in their own tongue, by god himself, if it should even be necessary at all. Why can’t god make it so that we’re born with an inherent understanding of our creator? Why did this local god play a prominent role in the lives of the Israelites, who ordered the killing and maiming, [...]
