Another One Leaves the Fold: YOU Could Be Next.

Below are excerpts from yet another former Christian telling his family and church friends he no longer believes. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?
I dare say no one has called out more to God than I for answers, even for answers about his own existence. No one has pleaded more with God for help. No one has been on their knees more than me. But I’ve heard nothing. Not one thing but my own voice, until eventually I got the impression that my prayers were merely floating to the ceiling and falling back down like stillborn stars. So, I got off my knees and determined, like the human that I am, to find the truth.

We have, indeed, for centuries, received nothing at all but silence from the God of the Old Testament, just as we have received no recent word from Jesus or Zeus or Apollo or Allah or Osiris. Thousands of years have passed and not an utterance. Does that not strike anyone else as peculiar?

I did not set out at the start to disprove anything. I set out to find the truth. And these truths we can’t escape: Earth is billions of years old, Earth exists on a spiral arm of our galaxy, an insignificant spot, and not the center of the galaxy as many of our forebearers thought (which, by the way, gave creedance to the argument that we are the special planet, and a special species, in all of creation). The Earth will one day be uninhabited by people once again, not by a rapture, but either by a wayward asteroid or gamma ray burst or by the sun losing power. The truth is the canonical Bible contains many irreparable self-contradictions; condones slavery, mass slaughter, rape, the mutilation or altering of children’s genitalia, among other things; and cannot even get the details straight about the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection.

And at some point, all us of have to make a similar choice: Do we want to be complacent in living our lives for a faith that may or may not, in reality, be true, or can we mentally and emotionally handle another possibility: that we are an insignificant dot in a vast, vast universe.

For me, the option that we are an insignificant dot in a vast universe, takes much more wherewithall, and frankly, is a quite liberating axiom, to know that we are, at the core, connected and interconnected with the universe, not just Earth, and everything the universe is quite a beautiful thing, as astrophycisist Neil deGrasse Tyson noted.
His name is Jeremy Styron.

24 comments:

NightFlight said...

Well obviously the guy wasn't truly a Christian! See, salvation is a gift. It's like I give you a watch; you must accept it. What? The watch doesn't work you say? Well then you never truly accepted the watch! Huh? I don't care what you have on your wrist now, you never truly accepted the gift of the watch! If you had, you would have a working watch right now.

Anonymous said...

Great! We're all going to go to heaven. I should go blow my brains out and hurry things up a little so that I won't suffer anymore.

Alan Clarke said...

Below are excerpts from yet another former atheist telling his family of "believers" that he no longer believes.

A. N. Wilson Returns to Christian Faith

Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?

For centuries men have gazed at the heavens and came to the conclusion that "chance" fails miserably in explaining the magnitude of observed order. Take for example the Sun and Moon. From Earth's vantage point, both are exactly the same size. What are the mathematical odds of the two largest objects (from Earth’s reference) being the exact same size even though the Sun is 400 times the Moon’s diameter? On top of this improbability, the Moon goes through phases (crescent, half, full , etc.) which allow us to tell time as described in Genesis 1. In the night, the Moon is not some obscure light barely visible as are the minute stars, but it is easy to see. The variation provided by clouds breaks up the monotony!

Is it any wonder that former atheist Fred Hoyle gave up his atheist faith when he applied rationale to his observations?

“Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.” [source]

Alan Clarke said...

Jonathan Edwards Reincarnate: I should go blow my brains out and hurry things up a little so that I won't suffer anymore.

Can't you think of anything more original?

Evolutionist William Provine

Rob R said...

Great link Allen.

It's telling that AN WIlson is a writer, where so many of the loudest atheists are scientists. As a writer and biographer, the aesthetic and historical nature of man where his primary concern, concerns that may be explainable from a naturalistic view point, but not very well and not in a very rich manner.

As for his claim about atheist composers, he may be wright, but (I'm no classical music connaseur) I must confess that saint-saens is a very inspired composer inspite of his atheism.

Jeremy said...

I'm Jeremy, the author of the above post to which AndreLinoge and others commented. To continue the analogy, Andre, it must have indeed been either an invisible watch or a nonworking one. How much does a person have to plead with God before this "gift" finally descends? And why did God wait so long (still waiting) to give the "gift," even to the point where people begin to drop off from belief altogether. If it had come and if the truth of the Bible would have been made clear to me by the Holy Spirit, I would have accepted under my prior train of throught (I would hope he would have, in his "vast" knowledge, also told me how the heck should a thing like the Bible be defended). But this gift analogy is after all, just another elusory tool to attempt to explain why God remains silent. If it's such a freely given gift, why are there so many hoops to jump through? It's a gift, but oh wait, you have to accept it first. That's the hang of it, isn't it.

@DenCol, I don't know if I sense a hint of sarcasm there or not, but the Bible makes clear the winnowing fork is in Jesus' hand, and he's prepared to cut away the good (believers) from the bad.

The Bible says God seeks us out (Ezek 34:12), not the other way around. If I had taken that at face value, I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort, simply letting God decide whether he's going to seek me out or not. Many of us are still waiting, and I dare say, will be for a long, long time.

Scott said...

Alan Clarke,

You try to make Dr. Provine out to be some kind of hopeless, inhuman monster saying "Is this man your mentor?" on your other forum that you linked to.

Once again, you're being completely dishonest, and omitting information that paints an inaccurate and unfair picture of a "evolutionist."

William Provine also said; "...Yet our lives are filled with meaning. Proximate meaning is more important than ultimate. Even if we die, we can have deeply meaningful lives. Meaning in life is shared. We cannot have even proximate meaning except in the context of culture. This is true for religious people as for agnostics or atheists. No group can cut out the others."

THAT is more beautiful and significant that any statement made in any scripture.

Richard Martin said...

"Take for example the Sun and Moon. From Earth's vantage point, both are exactly the same size. What are the mathematical odds of the two largest objects (from Earth’s reference) being the exact same size even though the Sun is 400 times the Moon’s diameter?"

It amazes me how many Christians believe and perpetuate this ridiculous argument. The orbit of the moon is elliptical so it will appear larger and smaller depending on the location of its orbit. The earth's orbit around the sun is also elliptical so the sun will also appear to change in size at different times of the year. This is why there are annular eclipses where the moon is "too small" to totally block out the sun and total eclipses where it does. Finally it should also be noted that the moon is slowly slipping away from the earth. It is moving away at around 4 centimeters a year. The moon used to be much closer to the earth millions of years ago (unless you also believe that the earth is only 5,000 years old in which case you are beyond help).

It's as if Christians grasp on to the first argument that sounds good to them and then cover their ears and blather out "na na na na..." trying to block out anything that will burst their bubble. Please try and do a little research before you make silly arguments like this.

Anthony said...

Alan: Jonathan Edwards Reincarnate: I should go blow my brains out and hurry things up a little so that I won't suffer anymore.

Can't you think of anything more original?


Alan, what's your point against JER? If I understand him correctly he's actually on your side, his response was against DenCol's universalism.

Unknown said...

Why don't any of the comments on this man's deconversion experience show any compassion for what he has been through? Do all those who lack sympathy for him think that it is somehow his fault? Or that he is a moron who should have known better anyway?

Anyway, I offer both congratulations and sympathy. It was a long time ago but I once went through the same sort of painful transition.

Scarecrow said...

"Why don't any of the comments on this man's deconversion experience show any compassion for what he has been through?"

Me thinks if xians showed compasion to the wayward then more would bolt for the door. Ridicule is all they have right now. In days gone by they would have simply killed him.

Jeremy said...

@Charles, Thanks for the understanding words.

Anonymous said...

I took the liberty of cleaning up after DenCol, Robin and Feeno.
I deleted their comments.

Anonymous said...

Alan Clarke, you're banned. Before coming back why not read a couple of books on the issue of evolution. Read this one by Jerry Coyne, or this one by Donald R. Prothero.

If you refuse to read them then how about reading one by a evangelical Christian titled, Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution ?

Again, you're banned. Stay away.

Anonymous said...

Hey John,

I noticed that all of the people that you ban are non atheists. What a coincidence!

Anonymous said...

I'll leave your last comment up Dencol just to explain that I only ban idiots. No intelligent respectful Christian has ever been banned from here. You are an idiot.

Kingasaurus said...

John,

I keep wondering why these in-the-tank fundie types never learn anything. Apparently, the only reason Alan Clarke showed up here is that he was tired of getting intellectually destroyed over at Pharyngula.

These guys (including Alan's sycophantic toady/sockpuppet RogerS - who seems to follow Alan and agree with him wherever he goes) simply move from blog to blog repeating the same old nonsense, without ever listening to anything their critics say. It's like an indiscriminate bombing campaign, and trying to argue with them is like playing Whack-A-Mole.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

92% now believe in God. it's going up. Atheism is actually shrinking.

I have the demographics to prove it.

Richard Martin said...

"92% now believe in God. it's going up. Atheism is actually shrinking. I have the demographics to prove it."

Even if that is true so what? I'm sure almost 100% of the ancient Egyptians believed in their gods. Reality isn't determined by what we believe. Should the first Christians have abandoned their faith when they were the minority?

It doesn’t surprise me that so many people believe in their local religions. Religion has been prevalent in all cultures past and present. Religion satisfies many of our basic desires and tries to sooth our greatest fears (death, meaning of life etc...). Non-believers need to do a better job addressing these matters in a positive way. If not I think we may always be a minority. Non-believers come across too negatively in our society.

Ignerant Phool said...

J.L. Hinman, how many of those supposed 92% do you believe will go to heaven?

Jeremy said...

One more thing. John, I suppose you found that particular article because I mentioned you in thepost...? Anyways, thanks for the post here and for the nod back to my site. Take care. - J.

feeno said...

Lee,

Thank you sir, my bad.

feeno

Stephanie said...

@AndreLinoge: You are right. The guy wasn't a true Christian. Because a TRUE Christian would keep on ignoring the facts about his religion, suppress his rational brain and continue to believe in all the ridiculous dogma that Christianity was built on. :) What a gift!!!

Jeremy said...

@ Stephanie, touche!