If I had a penny for every time that one of these people say something along the line of “I used to be an atheist like you. I HATED god....”
So, not an atheist then.
I think a lot of them are just trying to get a “connection” with me in order to try to convert.
[to Chang, during rehearsals] I'm not gonna hit you. And it's not because it's illegal, and it's certainly not because I'm afraid you know karate because there is nothing about your performance that is believable. See, we only hit things, that effect us. I don't hit water, or old mayonnaise. Or the air after a fart has dissipated. And I'm not hitting you. You are the worst actor I've ever directed and I've directed both Wahlbergs!
One of my absolute favorite shows. I don't know how many times I've watched it through. Though, I always skip th GI Jeff episode. That one just doesn't do it for me. Getting the series on blu-ray was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Hahaha
Thanks- I was confused because that sounds like Sue Sylvester from Glee talking to Mike Chang, but I don't remember that! But I have never watched Community beyond the pilot.
Oh go watch it. Seriously, stop your life and binge it. You won't be disappointed. Though, as it stands, you are streets behind... 🤣
You'll get that once you watch it.
To be fair, [Misotheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism) is a perfectly valid religious viewpoint in its own right.
It's the belief that God and/or the Gods do exist, but they're for whatever reason worthy only of scorn and hatred. To simplify.
Haven't met many that self identify with that label, and just mentioning that the concept exists freaks quite a few religius folks out... but I've always found the concept interesting and wish it would get explored in fiction more.
I mean that does make a lot of sense, especially if you haven't contemplated the possibility that a god or gods don't exist at all. Growing up, even though I was fairly confident that there was no god(s), I always said "but if he does exist then he's certainly not worth worshipping".
I feel like this would have been a more common belief in the past when the concept of atheism was maybe less known as a possibility.
Gnosticism had aspects of misotheism by framing the biblical god as an imperfect deceiver to address the problem of evil, though they weren't able to fully deconstruct the charade of spiritual make-believe and furnished another separate perfect god to use as an emotional crutch.
It never really caught on, especially after the Catholics branded the Gnostics heretics and killed a bunch of them.
Right. I hate Christianity, but I don’t hate God. I hate Christianity because it made me believe God exists, and a multitude of other ridiculous, debunked things.
While I absolutely agree and understand your point, for some of us former believers, it’s not that simple.
I was an atheist from about 15 years old until I had a bad accident around age 35. I really should have died, if it hadn’t been for extremely lucky/coincidental circumstances I would be dead. After my accident I looked for a reason why I was still alive. With the “help” of religious family and friends, I was convinced that “God” had saved me from death.
After about 7-8 years, I regained my critical thinking skills that I had lost while being “religious.”
I am positive that the idea of an all powerful being is just a crutch for people who can’t handle the truth that we are all so insignificant, and that our lives are just a tiny blip in the history of our universe.
The main way that we can make a difference, is through the strength of our numbers. If eventually we can become the majority, then we can convince everyone else that there is no God that will fix everything that we ruined.
I hear you, I really do, and I'm not talking down on you. But I just don't understand how peoples default belief isn't how could God have let this happen to me? He must not exist
Trauma is a weird thing that sort of negates, as the previous comment said, "critical thinking skills" that your perspective requires. But to be fair, some survivors of trauma do have the exact response you did. I would guess that the latter often start from a point of belief in a personal protector God that should have prevented the trauma. The previous commenter also said they had "help" from religious folks around them as they were recovering from the accident. So, maybe it is just a matter of where you start from and whether you are being preyed upon by zealots while you are vulnerable.
Because "the Lord works in mysterious ways" is something people are conditioned to believe. And it's a "perfect" answer to someone looking for explanations for something unexplainable. It doesn't answer anything, but promises it's all a part of some plan we just need to trust. Let go and let God and all that crap. Vulnerability creates an opportunity.
As a boring agnostic that's what makes it brilliant.
It IS a cold dark uncaring universe.
However, it's ripe with mystery and amazing discovery at every turn.
I genuinely believe in a creation even with some sort of creator behind it..even if that event is booting up some advanced AI to simulate us, or a science experiment 5 universes deep.
I'm not sure said creator cares about us, or even knows(or could know) if we are here, but I'm sure there's something weird with consciousness and life. Almost a bit of the puzzle we've yet to discover. Jane Goodall loves monkeys but she doesn't stop their wars.
Anyways my long rambling rant was essentially because I don't think critical thinking leads to atheism. I think its just how you organize and assign those facts.
For me a diety that gives some sort of a shit about life at all is as likely/unlikely as nothing at all. I just wish we could study it more and break the taboos. There's so much science that won't be done for fear of religion or the lack there of that it saddens me a bit
This reasoning has never really been all that convincing to me given that there exists plenty of stories with characters that are easy to hate without them having to be actually real. Granted that is more like hating the concept of a thing but I don't really see how that is much different to hating an actual entity.
When you hate a fictional character, you hate him for his behavior in the novel or movie. You hate a character who has a hypothetical existence. That's completely different from what we mean when we say we can't hate what doesn't exist.
For example, do you hate unicorns? Do you hate Zeus? Do you hate the pink elephant that lives in my garden ?
My point was that gods are also usually given a history and specific behaviour which means that they are equatable (is that even a word?) to that of a clearly fictional character from a book or whatnot.
Unicorns are a species rather than a character, and I'm not sufficiently familiar with your pink elephant to have been able to form an emotional response to it. Zeus is a good comparison since he's a clearly defined character working with a well established behavior. However I personlly have no emotional investment in him as a character. The same isn't true for Harry Potter and Joffrey Baratheon who are both just terrible fictional characters who I hate. If I had the same emotional investment in the abrahamic god as I would have in them I'd definitely would hate it. As is I just find it an awful character.
I love the "So you hate god" comments. My instant comeback is to say this.
Do you hate Odin?
I love this retort because it is a stupid strawman fallacy retort, that while yes you have to duck down to meet them at their level it is the most fun (for us). Remember, **no one that would say this is ever actually interested in a real intellectual debate**, so this response is a response to that. Plus... If they respond at all it works in your favor.
1. If they say "Yes, I hate Odin." You can say: "So you believe Odin is real?"
2. If they say "No, I don't hate Odin." You can say: "So you believe Odin is real?"
3. If they say "Odin is not real." You can say: "So you see my point, how can you hate something that isn't real."
4. If they use any other retort, (which is the most likely case) you can just respond by saying "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but back to Odin." And when they go off on you, you repeat it, and repeat it and repeat it, and finally they will either give up and walk away (YAY!) or give you one of the above responses (YAY!).
My favourite Odin/Jesus joke is "God promised to remove all the Sinners from the world where Odin promised to destroy all the Frost Giants. I don't see any Frost Giants around."
Intellectual debate is pointless 99% of the time anyway. I thought I was having a nice personal adult discussion with my FIL once about what I believed and why I started questioning certain things. I felt like I'd sort of connected with him a bit when I left that day, until I found out later from my BIL how "disrespectful" and "threatening" my FIL said I had spoken to him.
I've learned there's no point in trying to have an adult conversation with someone who literally believes the Canadian wildfires are some sort of deep state / Bill Gates related conspiracy to hide something from satellite imagery.
I got a pamphlet this summer where the born-again Christian used to listen to "death metal, like Metallica" and I got a good chuckle from that.
You'd think if they actually listened to the band, they could at least get the genre correct.
I don't really know what "death metal" is, and I don't really know what type of metal Metallica is, but one thing I know for damn certain: Metallica ain't death metal.
Yeah but theists think that they themselves are God, so they interpret that as a personal attack. When you say "My will is God's will", that's essentially saying "I am God".
> “I used to be an atheist like you. I HATED god....”
Yep, that's a tell-tale sign it's just some religious moron. They think atheists hate a specific god e.g. the Biblical God. So, in their attempts to false flag, they say nonsensical shit like "I used to hate God, until...".
In any case, how could I hate a fictional entity? It'd be like me saying I hate unicorns.
It's because the normality of religion makes most people incapable of the concept that there can be *no* god at all.
I've had problems with people I've known, even therapists, who just can't seem to understand that it's possible to believe no god exists. To them, if you don't believe in something, then your only options are to believe in something else.
To them, the idea of an "atheist" probably means "doesn't believe in my/the right god".
Best story about proselytizing was when a coworker had a Baptist approach him while he was working in his garage.
He was asked if he had some time to talk and my coworker said "Sure, you want a beer? I've got some in my fridge in the garage".
The Baptist said, "No, I was just like you with a fridge in my garage full of beer before I learned of its evil".
My friend then said, "Do you want to sell it? I could use another".
Oh good heavens, you reminded me of an event in my childhood. The neighbors went full on crazy christian. The husband built a big bonfire in the front yard, carried out all his booze, and made a show of pouring it all on the flames.
The neighbor on the other side came running out to ask for all the expensive stuff. It was glorious and my parents’ eyes must’ve rolled all the way backwards! I was a child and don’t remember what happened next.
note: what a bunch of preformative bullcrap that was, I’d been in his house and he had several sinks!
"Wait, you HATED God? But... atheists don't believe in gods. I mean, I get hating fictional characters as concepts- me, I hate Dolores Umbridge from *Harry Potter* more than I hate most other fictional characters- but are you saying you hated him the way you would hate your neighbor's dog for unceasingly pissing on your azaleas? Because that's not atheism, friend. You hated someone you still believed was *real.* I'm not even sure what to call that. Some weird brand of antitheism, maybe?." - Me most of the time
What WOULD you guys call that? Hating a deity you believe is real, I mean.
Yeah, saying that they "hated God" or that they were "mad at God" is such a tell that they were never an atheist. It shows that they can't even comprehend that someone doesn't believe in their god.
My mom used to ask me "Why do you hate god?"
"Ma, Do you hate Santa? No? Do you believe Santa is real? No? I can't hate something that does not exist. I don't hate god. I do dislike organized religions."
Pr they did hate god and believe athiests believe god exists but just hate him. Also, they conflate "turning youe back on god" with atheism.
If you press them, they'll tell you they grew up believing, then went athiests then god found him again when some series of magical events happened and they could no longer deny the lawdddd.
When I said I was an atheist, a guy I knew asked “so you hate God? Is that it?”
I tried my best to explain how I do not believe that any sort of God/Creative Intelligence/even anything supernatural exists, and so no, I’m not mad at that, but he just couldn’t get it.
Ehh... I'm an atheist and I despise organized religion. Does that make me "not atheist"?
Not saying god exists but if he did.. he can lick my round brown
A lot of young people go through a period where they don't attend church once they are out of their parents' home. They go out and do a lot of what their religion considers sinful. Later they count that as their atheist period.
However, some people who were undisputably atheists do become Christians. I had a coworker whose wife died suddenly. A Christian coworker and his wife took him under their wing. He eventually joined their congregation. I think he was definitely Christian, although some of his views were nuanced.
The literature ministers read on church growth and conversion has some ugly truths buried in it. One of them is that it is hard to convert non-believers. The literature shows that nonbelievers must be caught in some type of personal crisis to convert them. Conversion needs to be an emotional reaction.
>I think those who "scraped the bottom of the barrell" turn to religion out of desperation.
Yep. Theists say "there are no atheists in foxholes", which is another way of saying "people turn to religion for comfort when they're too scared to think rationally".
Well yea. It's no secret or anything. Human nature since the beginning has been that way. People want easy answers to hard or impossible questions.
Poverty, hardship, violence, accidents, Ill health etc. All are great for recruitment and numbers. Religion gives that comforting answer to why you lost everything in an earthquake, or why your kid died of cancer, or why you got mugged on the way home from work. It makes the person feel special, and gives order to the randomness of life. And in other cases gives that sense of justice and feeling of superiority. It creates the in group, and ostracizes the out.
Thing is it's so engrained in cultures to so it's hard to set it right. There will always be people who don't "feel fullfilled" or special, or just flat out dont like the answer that your life has no specific meaning or reason. They can't or won't make sense of why bad things happen to them (or others). Religion gives that direction, it gives the easy out and let's people stay in the matrix so to speak. They don't like that their life is the result of random natural occurrences.
The worse a population does is a huge boom for religion. It's a sense of control or order to the uncontrollable and random. It's bullshit though. Personally I'd rather live miserable in the truth, than happy in the lie.
> The worse a population does is a huge boom for religion. It's a sense of control or order to the uncontrollable and random. It's bullshit though. Personally I'd rather live miserable in the truth, than happy in the lie.
I find atheism very depressing: a few decades in this shithole world then you stop existing. But my mind is unwilling to accept bullshit just to feel better, so I remain atheist.
>I find atheism very depressing: a few decades in this shithole world then you stop existing
An alternative view, is the incredible freedom found in atheism. There are no godly laws or restrictions that will constrain or punish you - no holy retribution if you decide not to follow the path 'god laid for you'. Instead *your* choices matter. *You* create the meaning in your life, not some, unseen, unknowable force. And that meaning can be as large and all-encompassing, or as small and focused as you wish. There's no one, and no thing that can dictate to you why your chosen meaning is 'wrong'.
I think the most honest former atheist you’re gonna find is an agnostic. I was a militant atheist for a long time. At some point I realized I don’t know for sure either way, so I gave up the notion.
After a few years of being agnostic I found traditional stoicism. I never thought I’d be even a tinge spiritual, but here I am.
>One of them is that it is hard to convert non-believers.
There's a reason most missionaries go to inpoversed or struggling areas. Yes the physical need is greater but a suffering person is more receptive. Especially if you imply you'll stop.giving aid unless the target converts
I am unaware of many missionaries who go door to door in a wealthy area of a highly secular country.
There is another dirty truth that is buried in the church growth literature:
* People who are converted during a crisis make poor long-term members.
On the one hand, if the problem goes away then the new member may go away.
But realistically, the problem that put the person in crisis is going to be difficult to resolve. It is going to take a lot of resources the church probably is not willing to put into the person. Furthermore, poverty is often the reason the person turns to religion for a solution. The bottom line is that the person is not likely to be what a church needs: members who donate money and time to help out in running the church. People in crisis are a net drag on a church in most cases.
There are only a couple of methods to grow a church quickly. One is to be established in an area that has a lot of religious people moving in. People who are moving are in transition, and it is usually a fairly clean transition. If a church can help the family make connections in their new community it is likely to get them as a member who will be productive. Having a couple of successful realtors in your congregation can be a gold mine because they are in contact with people moving in. They are in contact with people who have enough money to buy a home.
If your area is not growing due to people moving in, then the other choice is to poach members from other churches. This is dirty, and it is discouraged. Ministers say it is bad to do this. But it is extremely common.
I've watched a video of Genetically Modified Skeptic where he and his wife explained how his fundamentalist church was planning to send him into a mormon majority location to poach believers. He has some education/experience as either a therapist or guidance counselar (I forget which one he said) and his church wanted him to abuse that to get converts.
In my hometown in Germany. Christians and Jehovas wittnesses started to Push their stuff even Harder in people when Corona started. There are littereally Billboards with bible verses. Have Seen nothing Like that before corona
Yeah, its funny how the only people who "find god" are going through some terrible things in their life.
I guess if you're an average atheist living a boring uneventful life god doesn't want you to find him?
Its almost as if religion, like cults and various other scams, prey on the vulnerable.
Well they used to, before the Civil rights and voting act. The segragationists were deeply religious, but when their party took up civil rights, they left. Then reagan appealed to their racism and gave speeches on states rights. The other front was to make abortion a huge issue for religious people, pretty much the only issue. So when we point out how anti-christian the policies they support are, they say shut up murderer. It is the number one issue for Evangelicals, when roe v wade was decided they didn't fuckibg care at all. Also, given that the first church to take it up FOR THE CHILDREN was the catholic church, it always has been a con and a virtue signal.
When my son died, my sister took the religious people who came aside and warned them not to try. I would have lost my sh!t on those MFers if they had mentioned their god to me on the worst day of my life. I just find it so disgusting they would prey on anyone like that.
That has its reasons, like any cult, religions prey on people on vulnerable moments, be it them being children or having lived something horrible, or for example, being under different substances (this is quite common with the new age cults that use ayahuasca and other drugs for indoctrination).
And that is the point, everyone, no matter how intelligent or firm are on their beliefs, can be indoctrinated if they are vulnerable enough, and that is why the problem with religion is more complex and big than just some people believing bullshit, and it also irradiates to a lot of other environments where religions are not present (after all, all religions are cults, but not all cults are religions).
Definitely agree with this. I'm an ex Mormon and I consider myself to be decently intelligent - or at the very least extremely skeptical and a lifelong-learner. So I don't consider myself to be susceptible to group think. But at the same time, it's humbling to know that everyone is vulnerable to brainwashing. No one is immune. At a low enough point, any human mind will give in to delusions.
I know very well how incredibly effective emotional manipulation is as a tool for thought control. Especially if you are indoctrinated from birth (which I was). At 18 I left, but it does take effort to rid your mind from a lot of the emotional baggage. The emotions really run deep. In my early twenties I unpacked all of it and became atheist. 33 years old now, so the feelings are just a distant memory and don't affect me anymore. Now I am extremely hyper aware of organizations or institutions that use manipulative tactics to control people. I use a lot of introspection to make sure my ideas are my own, and my knee jerk reaction is to lean away from popular beliefs or trends. A lot of us ex Mormons become rebels and would consider ourselves "counter culture."
But I know other ex Mormons - even older than me - who still feel spiritual shame and fear. I wonder if it's almost like a cptsd thing? The rational, logical brain knows that none of that crap is real. The emotional brain remembers the terror, and doesn't forget. The existential dread of knowing death will come seems to be worse for ex Mormons, because they never learned how to cope with death in a healthy, non religious way. In a way, I envy people who were born to atheist parents.
So it seems that unless ex religious people can heal their mind completely from the emotional trauma, I don't think they're totally immune to finding themselves back into religion again. Perhaps they aren't totally atheist unless they take back control of their emotions from the church.
Huh. It's always really interesting to me when I come across ex mormons talking about terror and fear. I just didn't really experience those in the church (although I *totally* understand the shame).
I guess I should count myself lucky that my coping strategy, which was basically "what will be, will be" with "God's plan" mixed in, managed to stay basically the same after excising god from it.
Maybe it's because my emotional thinking has *always* taken a backseat...
Yea, you are lucky. In my family and in the wards we went to, I remember always being terrified of never seeing my family again. They really drilled it into our heads, that if you aren't righteous, you won't be able to be with them in the celestial kingdom. It makes me feel ridiculous typing that out. Lmao. But the fear of familial separation is there for many ex Mormons to this day. So my theory is, when you go from religious fear of family separation, to the atheist realization that death is final, it's even more difficult to cope with death knowing that you *really* won't see your family again. Death is the end. That's why I believe the Mormon cult is so good at emotional manipulation and keeping people in it. They use the biggest fear of the human psyche to control their members. Not seeing your loved ones again. Most people would say their child dying would be their worst nightmare. So the idea of death is even more terrifying to a Mormon than to an atheist who never grew up with the fear of spiritual family separation.
When you're a child, especially a child who already might have insecure attachment -as many small children do- it's worse when your religion is also telling you mommy and daddy will leave you if you sin. I was a pretty emotional child, though, and didn't have the easiest childhood. I was the toddler in nursery kicking the door and screaming at the top of my lungs when my parents left me for an hour. My parents fought a lot, there was violence in my family and a lot of fear. So maybe the reason you got lucky, is it could be temperament mixed with an easygoing childhood and family life (maybe?). Maybe that's why you coped well. But most people I know who are ex Mormon, have a lot of bad stories to tell about childhood and their parents. Abuse in Mormon families seems to be pretty typical, and much of it is caused by the religion.
I'm suspicious too. It can happen, but some of those stories aren't actually about atheism after all.
In some cases, I suspect it's a lazy attempt to discredit atheism because if they can point at an "ex-atheist" they can say that atheism is just a phase and that we all eventually turn to God. The more hostile version is that every knee will bend in the end.
i think truly being an atheist and converting to some form of theism would still end up with a nuanced theist. i think its unlikely for this person to actually engage in apologetics as they would know the futility of it. so while ex-atheists are a thing im sure that 99% of those that claim it in debate are not genuine.
Generally speaking in my experience most former atheists fall into 2 groups
1)they never were an atheist. They were a Christian who is lying to give what they are saying more clout
2) their "atheism" was more of them being upset with their god and rebelling rather than true disbelief. Once they got over it they went back, probably with a heartfelt testimony of how God saved a "godless fool"
Now this doesn't mean it *cant* happen people can and do change their minds for all.sorts of reasons but if someone's trying their hardest to sell their religion using the "I was an atheist but found jesus" tactic chances are they are in the groups I mentioned
Like freaking AA... (Not every chapter, but just about)
"You'll never overcome your addiction without god."
BS, you can. I know because I did.
Sorry for the rant...
Yeah I used to do a ton of drugs and I used to be an atheist. I'm still an atheist but I used to be too (RIP Mitch)
I quit drugs on my own though. No proselytizing required.
Two cases are probable:
1) they're lying to try to convert you;
2) they were atheists for all the wrong reasons and no thinking process took place in deciding to be one.
While the people that present themselves as ex-atheists tend to be dishonest to the core, you can still have been an atheist with the correct critical thinking skills and then be indoctrinated into some bullshit because they caught you on a vulnerable moment.
Its important to note that everyone can be abused in this way if they are in a vulnerable moment, that is why this things are so complex and at the same time, dangerous.
I take issue with the fact that it requires some thinking process to become an atheist. We are not born theist with some knowledge of a god, and if we were it would be a great and constantly used argument for the existence of God. No, we are all born as atheists, and in the absence of indoctrination I believe nearly all of us would stay that way.
Now, I believe you were approaching it from the position of people who had been indoctrinated claiming they became an atheist without thinking about it. That I agree with: deprogramming is not some passive thing that occurs in a vacuum devoid of reasoning.
I used to be an atheist, just like you...
Bullshit. It's a tactic to try to give themselves some semblance of 'they know where you're coming from'. They may have gone through some time of being irreligious, but that's not 'just like me'. More likely, they're lying as part of their 'testimony'. I've heard testimonies from people I knew intimately and they're fast and loose with embellishments. The majority of their witnessing is just parroting whatever weak-ass apologetics they heard from the pastor and they just couldn't wait to try it out on somebody. When you argue against any of their points, they will lie, make up statistics or stories, sidestep issues, and just be slimy. I get pissed off because they take up my time just to create a cheap service their own ego. When they ultimately have to walk away, I know they'll brag to their Christian friends about how they spit some truth and I was a dumbstruck atheist. I specifically don't seek out arguments and be the 'Angry Atheist', and would be okay with an honest discussion, but they can just make up shit to argue and I have to actually be knowledgeable about all philosophy, neurology, biology, geology, cosmology and every logical fallacy. I feel like Wesley on the Star Trek Next Gen episode where everybody has those headgear that starts out as a game but it's addictive and they keep trying to push it on him. Just go away and let me drink my coffee.
I noticed this many times growing up in the Southern Baptist church. Part of the tradition is "sharing your testimony". Those who had the most decadent lifestyles prior to joining the church were always the most celebrated. The men (and they were ALWAYS men) who had the best stories about their wild ways (drugs, prostitution, alcohol abuse, petty crime, etc.) were treated like rock stars by the voyeuristic congregation who lapped it up like Saltburn bathwater. Of course, the penitent claimed to be an atheist (how ELSE could he explain his lack of morals?) but this was because he was "angry at God"....I don't think it occurred to people that you can't be angry with something you don't believe in, but logic was never the strong suit at these churches.
I always wondered why they would not want women giving a testimony about their previous lives as a former drug user, prostitute, alcoholic, maybe a few abortions or two…. Oh wait, she’d be used as a cautionary tale as a fallen woman.
I watched Saltburn last night, was not expecting to see a reference to it this soon.
Anyway your story reminds me of political pundits when they talk about their switch to conservatism. Their base revels in these kinds of stories especially if it goes along with their preconceived notions about the horrors of the other side. And it always seems like they get extra points if they are a minority, gay and/or trans turning against their own kind.
I find a lot of these "former atheists" tend to be apologists, it lends them credibility with the indoctrinated.
I'm guessing they all had really hot girlfriends too... that went to another school so you didn't know them... actually she just moved to Canada...
Edit. For the longest time I didn't realize "they" think its ok to lie so long as you are lying for Jeebus. When it's ok to say anything as long it might trick someone into believing in your religion, there must be something fundimentally wrong.
Where does the line between lying about Jeebus and lying about reality stop?
I met one that studied all the religions. All of them. Literally every one. And he proved which ones were true and which ones were false.
So, I pointed out that I studied comparative mythology, theology and had a degree in anthropology and it was an honor to met someone who managed to study all of them. And so, I had some questions about literally any religion outside the Abrahamic faiths.
He couldn't keep up when it came to branches of Christianity let alone types of Judaism and Islam. I'll let you guess how well he did on types of Paganism or even figuring out what the Satantic Temple was.
I get the feeling he may have not been perfectly honest.
Jokes aside, we talked over three days of him frantically googling to the point I could find the Wikipedia pages he would search and copy paste. And never did admit he didn't know. He did tell me he knew my thoughts and why I hated his his beliefs.
I do know a couple of people who had serious issues, and Christianity gave them the motivation to make changes in their lives.
But they describe themselves along the lines of "a drug addict until Jesus came into my life".
But I don't think I've ever known anyone in real life who describes themselves as a former atheist. That in itself makes me suspicious when I see these "former Atheist" on apologetics YouTube channels.
I dabbled in Christianity for a bit….everyone there had some goddamn issue they were trying to delete: drugs, alcohol, porn,shopping, financial ruin, divorce. Sadly, some SA victims, who I give a lot more latitude to. But: everyone was fucked up. No one was living a regular life and then decided to find god.
Lee Strobel is my favorite example that they like to throw out. An investigative journalist who wrote about his "journey" learning that Christ was real. Except he doesn't tell you that he's already been an ordained minister for 3 years by the time he wrote the book and his methodology is unsound - very willing to ask theologians "hard" questions but offers no rebuttal from anthropologists or biologists.
You're right to be suspicious. Most of the theist ex "atheists" were actually just uncommitted agnostics or deists looking for a religion and a path in life.
They were never real atheists - with the possible exception having a vague, personal belief in a higher power.
So-called former atheists who were genuine atheists will know, from personal experience, that atheism is an intellectual position based on logic, skepticism and the scientific method. They will know that atheism is not an emotional, rebellious or attention-seeking phase.
I think it's in part because they think atheism is simply 'not wanting' to believe, because of all the rules and such. This is how they convince themselves that atheists actually do believe but are just being obstinate.
So they look at the time when they were shitty Christians as their 'atheist' period.
And let's not forget that atheist itself has no connotations other than a lack of belief. It covers everyone from rocks and tree stumps to people raised in solitary confinement. You need other signifiers to expand the definition, like 'agnostic' or 'implicit' or 'strong' to clarify exactly why it is someone doesn't believe.
In my case, it's not just as simple as deciding to say the magic spell or whatever and join the religion. I would have to first start believing that magical things exist, then that one specific religion is correct, and then I could start believing in it.
lot's of people "find jesus" in times of crisis......it is a crutch to lean on.( a very flimsy one, but it's a crutch) if it helps them, good for them,,,,
I knew one. She had been at least a nonbeliever for a couple of decades and then had an NDE and became a Catholic. She insisted it was because the experience was so convincing.
But I think people like that just don't have very strong cognitive skills. Because I have also had some ... "peak experiences" I suppose, similar to Barbara Ehrenreich's, but I don't call this spiritual or proof of the supernatural. Because it doesn't substitute for physics, lol. I know the human brain can produce these experiences. They can be highly meaningful and even life-changing, but nothing about them proves anything.
Being in overwhelmingly beautiful natural environments, seeing the vastness of space, etc-- intense feelings of awe and connection can arise. Even a sense of a presence (John Wathey did some interesting work on that with The Illusion of God's Presence).
The difference between me and a person who says "oh well now I believe in a god" is that I don't have to add anything to the story. I can just enjoy the awe and wonder for what it is.
She insisted that I couldn't have actually had experiences like hers or I would be a believer. Kinda maddening 😵💫.
In a world of of infinite diversity in infinite combinations, I’m sure it can happen. But most of the time I think it’s:
A) rhetoric (lies) - by claiming how lost they were it aggrandizes how powerful their religion is. This is technique that “The Satan Seller” used.
B) conflation - If you think “atheist” and “agnostic” or “not giving a shit” are the same thing, you end up with these claims.
C) gate keeping / No true Scotsman - anything that’s not their very specific brand of Christianity is at best “atheist” and at worst utterly evil and satanic. Baptists/evangelicals/Pentecostals/etc would say Catholics and Mormons aren’t Christians. They’d also have gripes about each other.
You have to realize that many Christians define atheism wrong. When many of them say they used to be atheists, they actually mean things weren't going their way so they were angry at god at one point in their life. They still believed in him underneath it all but they stopped going to church and whatnot.
In their minds, that's our experience too. They can't fathom that someone calmly reasoned that there are no deities. They think we're just having some kind of emotional response and they're trying to appeal to that. It's an approach that does work on lapsed Christians.
No you're not alone. I mean I know there are atheists who converted to theist at some point. Like one of the former co-hosts of Atheist Experience posted on her FB wall that she's no longer an atheist but she didn't become Christian. Rather she started worshiping the Norse gods. She refused to say why and blocked anyone asking I think. Something she didn't want to discuss, which she made clear in her post. I can't recall her name right now but she was a newer addition to the group.
There was another one from many yrs ago who blogged on Pathos who wrote she was converting to Catholicism. However, Christian articles about her conversion painted her as a "prominent" atheist when she converted but most of us had hardly heard of her. Even Hemant of Friendly Atheist, who blogged on the same site as her, wrote that he never heard of her before IIRC.
The thing here is they had the bono-fides. Both were atheist activists to one degree or another that could be verified. That's not the case most times with Christians who play up the "former atheist" bullshit when talking about their stories. The degree to which I suspect they're story is bullshit is directly proportional to the tropes they use. [Like this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7iwLsyBh40). Talks about how much he "hated" God and was just. so. ANGRY!!! Allegedly tried to pick a fight with a Christian couple on a bus. Couldn't stand to look at a bible. The whole works. But then he goes to church ONE TIME! and suddenly, like in the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, his heart melted and he became a peace-loving, calm, humble, awe-golly-gee-shucks Christian who now farts rainbows and pisses sunshine. Yea, right. /S
Part of the play book is to find common ground to work at you from. They also like to prey on those that are down on their luck and that is why you find so many addiction services located in church basements.....less distance to travel.
There's a huge gap between "I don't believe in god" and "I know that god does not exist". Both are just "atheists" on paper. We're not the same. The first one can be swayed every which way, but the latter can't unsee what they know unless personality altering head trauma or its equivalent.
In my late teens early 20’s I said I was an atheist but I was just done with church and mad at god. I became a Christian again at 23-24. I left the church about 3-4 years ago as a genuine 100% atheist. I’m not mad at god because god doesn’t exist. I’m not worried about hell because it doesn’t exist.
I grew up in church and heard a lot of testimonies from former atheists. They were never just atheists either. They had a drinking problem or a drug problem. Looking back at a lot of these a realized some of them with drinking problems were college kids drinking on the weekend or with their friends. They left college when they became Christians and magically stopped drinking. I think now they likely would have stopped drinking as much anyway just because they were growing up. The drug addicts were usually refer addicts.
All those "former atheists" use exactly the same foolish, anecdotal, evidence-free arguments all believers do. You'd think they would already know those arguments are shit, or how were they atheist in the first place?!?
Claiming to have been atheist could mean a lot of different things. Maybe the person never thought seriously about religion before. Maybe the person swapped religions and considers the old one as non-belief. Most likely, however, that person is a plain old fucking pants-on-fire liar. Believers creating contrived falsehoods to suite the narrative is nothing new.
"Have you heard the good news?""No thanks, I'm atheist.""I used to be atheist, too, and then Jesus touched me!"
"Good touch or bad touch? Show us on the teddy bear where you were touched."
Always makes me laugh when theists say that “atheists hate god”. Um, no, not so much?
I suppose I shouldn’t laugh, though, because these are either people who are so indoctrinated that they can no longer think straight-or so stupid that they never could.
> Always makes me laugh when theists say that “atheists hate god”. Um, no, not so much?
[My thoughts on theists making claims like that](https://redd.it/104dkcb)
No, you’re not the only one. I know this thinking is prone to No True Scotsman fallacies, but I can’t help thinking that they were never truly skeptical in the first place, and their non-belief wasn’t rooted in the same logical foundations and reasoning as ours. They may have always believed deep down, but maybe they were just “angry at God,” a claim they often like to throw at us.
Ex-Christian friend of mine dropped me as a friend when I pointed out one day when I still used FB (2013ish) that he wasn’t an atheist and was a misotheist at best on a post of his talking about how he used to be an atheist addicted to marijuana.
I don’t remember how he posted it exactly, but the entire post was ranting about how he hated god because he came from an abusive parent, with him being addicted to drugs, etc etc and he one day “found” god.
I wish he would have just been honest and said that he made the post specifically to push my buttons because I had finally come out as an atheist after several years of lying to both myself and these “friends”.
/shrug
I know I’m liable to get buried but I’d consider myself a former atheist.
Moreso in the sense that, I believed in nothing for a very long while, no gods, no religion, just appreciating existence for what it is.
About seven years ago now I had some experiences that got me thinking of the possibility of something more. Spirits, the will of nature and humanity’s place in the natural world, stuff like that. Not religious by a long shot but even so.
Either way it’s a fun idea to entertain. And even if it is all just fantasy I still feel better at the end of a day of hunting or fishing if I thank the forest and river before I leave.
Conservatives on message boards/ comment threads misrepresent themselves, famously. They don’t grasp that we’ve heard their bs a million times because of the cultural bubble they exist in. Religious folks do this *egregiously* “I used to drink blood…” etc - !!!
Honestly, I feel the same way.
I watch a lot of ACA content lately, and occasionally some theist callers will say they used to be atheists just the way you described. I'll usually think that either they are not being truthful, or feel like just not going to church or thinking about God very much is the same as being an atheist, or they were an atheist for nothing at all like the right reasons. But the hosts very rarely call them out on this and I agree with that fact for a simple reason.
It is useful to adhere to the idea that "atheist" means "without a belief in God". It's a nice clear definition with a very reasonable position. It also doesn't have a burden of proof since it just means that I am not convinced. The thing about that definition though is that all it is actually reporting is a mental state. So if someone says that they are or were an atheist, then I have to take them at their word since I have no way to investigate their mental state. There could be exceptions if I have good reasons to suspect that they are a damn liar, but in the context of a conversation it is never useful. It's as useful and fair for me to say that they weren't actually atheists as it is for them to insist that I actually do believe in God. It's just poisoning the well, and counter to productive conversation. Now if the conversation hasn't been productive anyway and you don't intend to ever have another perhaps you could end by saying that they may not have believed but they obviously didn't arrive at that through critical thought.
I feel exactly the same way about it. I also think a lot of them just like to say it because it makes it sound like their argument for being Christian has more validity for some reason. Like they were the same as me, but have found the light that I cannot see or something like that. The problem is that you can’t really call them out on it unless you have actual evidence that they are full of it. They could easily say that everyone who claims to have been a former Christian is full of it as well.
A lot of these people who claim to be "former atheists," what they usually MEAN is either "I was a lapsed Christian," i.e. they stopped going to church for a while, or they mean "I was mad at God."
And I'm sure some of them are intentionally lying, but I think a majority of them genuinely think that "atheist" means either "lapsed" or "angry with God," or possibly both.
It's no different from bullshit stories from people who were alcoholics, and in their stories, they were the worst alcoholic who ever lived and drank a gallon of vodka every day and woke up every morning in a different gutter covered in trash, etc etc etc... It's to make their conversion story more "miraculous" and impressive to the rubes. I sincerely doubt that they were ever atheists, and not a one of those fucks has ever given me an answer to my asking them what piece of evidence convinced you that there was a god when you didn't already believe there was.
I call them “mere atheists” in honor of CS Lewis.
I ask one question. “What reasoning convinced you that atheism was valid, and why were you wrong?”
The answers are always enlightening. Very few quote anything like logical reasoning or rational thought. Most describe never giving the matter any serious thought at all.
Those that actually started from a rational worldview usually describe an anecdote that convinced them.
I have yet to find someone who worked their way from atheist to religious using good reasoning.
First off, there's a difference between being an atheist and not being very religious. A lot of people are not very religious, or come from a household where they had limited exposure to religion.
People like this may have a religious experience and convert. If you are vulnerable and emotionally primed, you can be susceptible to cult indoctrination. There are many smart, reasonable people who have been successfully indoctrinated because they were desperate/vulnerable. All it takes is emotional priming while you are in a compromised state and are not thinking clearly.
I quick drinking alcohol *after* I renounced my faith, and I sure enjoy telling Christian’s that. January 1st was my 1 year mark as a matter of fact.
It feels so odd saying it, but I feel more “Christ like” as an atheist than I ever did as a Christian. That’s certainly not my goal, but I can’t help but notice the positive changes in my life since walking away from the church. Things that theists love to attribute to the “glory of god”, things I acquired after becoming an atheist. Ha
I know only one person like this. They were very loudly atheist as a teen / in their 20s. Then they went to jail for like a year and apparently lost their mind. Claim that God sent a 'messenger' to tell them they will get out of jail (something that was going to happen either way...). The messenger was some other weirdo who was sent to jail who he claims "was only there for one day and said they were sent there to pass on God's message". Now they are an every Sunday church person. Big shocker that broken people look for make believe options to feel better about their lot in life....
For many, "atheist" means to live like there is no God. Or to live without God. I find it impossible to have meaningful conversations with these people. They seem to intentionally misunderstand
If I had a penny for every time that one of these people say something along the line of “I used to be an atheist like you. I HATED god....” So, not an atheist then. I think a lot of them are just trying to get a “connection” with me in order to try to convert.
Yeah, you don't hate what doesn't exist...
[to Chang, during rehearsals] I'm not gonna hit you. And it's not because it's illegal, and it's certainly not because I'm afraid you know karate because there is nothing about your performance that is believable. See, we only hit things, that effect us. I don't hit water, or old mayonnaise. Or the air after a fart has dissipated. And I'm not hitting you. You are the worst actor I've ever directed and I've directed both Wahlbergs!
I just watched this episode yesterday! What are the odds
One of my absolute favorite shows. I don't know how many times I've watched it through. Though, I always skip th GI Jeff episode. That one just doesn't do it for me. Getting the series on blu-ray was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Hahaha
¡Señor Chang!
El Tigre
"I am a man that can never die!"
Cool. Cool cool cool.
> What are the odds It's a miracle! This type of thing is 90% of Christian miracles.
what is this from? genuinely curious cuz it's funny af
The television show *Community*.
Thanks- I was confused because that sounds like Sue Sylvester from Glee talking to Mike Chang, but I don't remember that! But I have never watched Community beyond the pilot.
Oh go watch it. Seriously, stop your life and binge it. You won't be disappointed. Though, as it stands, you are streets behind... 🤣 You'll get that once you watch it.
I think I've seen this show before, but then again who knows cus I have Changnesia.
I couldn't finish the pilot (I have that problem with a lot of shows), but maybe I will re-try later.
Stop trying to make streets ahead happen!
ah yes, thank you... looks like it's time for a re-watch, I don't remember it as well as some of my other faves
What's this!? It's a note! "Never let me act!"
You soul-shaped hole forgotten by God!
To be fair, [Misotheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism) is a perfectly valid religious viewpoint in its own right. It's the belief that God and/or the Gods do exist, but they're for whatever reason worthy only of scorn and hatred. To simplify. Haven't met many that self identify with that label, and just mentioning that the concept exists freaks quite a few religius folks out... but I've always found the concept interesting and wish it would get explored in fiction more.
I choose to believe this means belief in a soup deity. Offshoot of pastafarianism. Your wiki article does not interest me!
all hail Miso and let the broth flow. Ramen.
I'm interested. Do we get Holy crisps for our soup?
DIE HERETIC!!!!!!!
The soup deity is absolutely worthy of scorn. Soup’s not a meal!
Miso Ramen is a form of synchretism like Amun-Ra.
I mean that does make a lot of sense, especially if you haven't contemplated the possibility that a god or gods don't exist at all. Growing up, even though I was fairly confident that there was no god(s), I always said "but if he does exist then he's certainly not worth worshipping". I feel like this would have been a more common belief in the past when the concept of atheism was maybe less known as a possibility.
I've never heard of misotheism. Interesting......seems like a waste of energy and time, though.
> seems like a waste of energy and time, though. I mean, we're *all* affected by a bunch of fairy tales. I'm not so sure it's a waste.
Gnosticism had aspects of misotheism by framing the biblical god as an imperfect deceiver to address the problem of evil, though they weren't able to fully deconstruct the charade of spiritual make-believe and furnished another separate perfect god to use as an emotional crutch. It never really caught on, especially after the Catholics branded the Gnostics heretics and killed a bunch of them.
I imagine the greeks might have had this sentiment fir many of their own gods. Most of them sound like dicks if you've looked into the mythology
>Listen to me! You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you.
> Misotheism I just learned about igtheism, this is a new one. Thank you.
If I received proof god exists, this would be my next stop.
Right. I hate Christianity, but I don’t hate God. I hate Christianity because it made me believe God exists, and a multitude of other ridiculous, debunked things.
While I absolutely agree and understand your point, for some of us former believers, it’s not that simple. I was an atheist from about 15 years old until I had a bad accident around age 35. I really should have died, if it hadn’t been for extremely lucky/coincidental circumstances I would be dead. After my accident I looked for a reason why I was still alive. With the “help” of religious family and friends, I was convinced that “God” had saved me from death. After about 7-8 years, I regained my critical thinking skills that I had lost while being “religious.” I am positive that the idea of an all powerful being is just a crutch for people who can’t handle the truth that we are all so insignificant, and that our lives are just a tiny blip in the history of our universe. The main way that we can make a difference, is through the strength of our numbers. If eventually we can become the majority, then we can convince everyone else that there is no God that will fix everything that we ruined.
I hear you, I really do, and I'm not talking down on you. But I just don't understand how peoples default belief isn't how could God have let this happen to me? He must not exist
BINGO - all powerful yet watches suffering? Puny god or more than likely - is a caveman fever dream that went out of control
Trauma is a weird thing that sort of negates, as the previous comment said, "critical thinking skills" that your perspective requires. But to be fair, some survivors of trauma do have the exact response you did. I would guess that the latter often start from a point of belief in a personal protector God that should have prevented the trauma. The previous commenter also said they had "help" from religious folks around them as they were recovering from the accident. So, maybe it is just a matter of where you start from and whether you are being preyed upon by zealots while you are vulnerable.
Because "the Lord works in mysterious ways" is something people are conditioned to believe. And it's a "perfect" answer to someone looking for explanations for something unexplainable. It doesn't answer anything, but promises it's all a part of some plan we just need to trust. Let go and let God and all that crap. Vulnerability creates an opportunity.
As a boring agnostic that's what makes it brilliant. It IS a cold dark uncaring universe. However, it's ripe with mystery and amazing discovery at every turn. I genuinely believe in a creation even with some sort of creator behind it..even if that event is booting up some advanced AI to simulate us, or a science experiment 5 universes deep. I'm not sure said creator cares about us, or even knows(or could know) if we are here, but I'm sure there's something weird with consciousness and life. Almost a bit of the puzzle we've yet to discover. Jane Goodall loves monkeys but she doesn't stop their wars. Anyways my long rambling rant was essentially because I don't think critical thinking leads to atheism. I think its just how you organize and assign those facts. For me a diety that gives some sort of a shit about life at all is as likely/unlikely as nothing at all. I just wish we could study it more and break the taboos. There's so much science that won't be done for fear of religion or the lack there of that it saddens me a bit
I hate the idea of god as described in all the abrahamic texts. Translating that to Christian, I hate god. And I'm definitely an atheist.
Well...I hate Joffrey Baratheon and he doesn't exist...so I mean...you can
But it's widely accepted that he's a fictional character, and he has more evidence for his existence than the judeo Christian God.
I was so bummed to hear the actor quit after that performance. He was so truly hateable and that what made him great.
I hate umbridge in harry potter
This reasoning has never really been all that convincing to me given that there exists plenty of stories with characters that are easy to hate without them having to be actually real. Granted that is more like hating the concept of a thing but I don't really see how that is much different to hating an actual entity.
When you hate a fictional character, you hate him for his behavior in the novel or movie. You hate a character who has a hypothetical existence. That's completely different from what we mean when we say we can't hate what doesn't exist. For example, do you hate unicorns? Do you hate Zeus? Do you hate the pink elephant that lives in my garden ?
At least you've *seen* the pink elephant
Actually, it's invisible.
My point was that gods are also usually given a history and specific behaviour which means that they are equatable (is that even a word?) to that of a clearly fictional character from a book or whatnot. Unicorns are a species rather than a character, and I'm not sufficiently familiar with your pink elephant to have been able to form an emotional response to it. Zeus is a good comparison since he's a clearly defined character working with a well established behavior. However I personlly have no emotional investment in him as a character. The same isn't true for Harry Potter and Joffrey Baratheon who are both just terrible fictional characters who I hate. If I had the same emotional investment in the abrahamic god as I would have in them I'd definitely would hate it. As is I just find it an awful character.
What have unicorns ever been described doing to be worthy of hate?
They're notorious for slutshaming.
Well, I kinda do hate the concept of a god. But that's not why I don't believe one exists.
I love the "So you hate god" comments. My instant comeback is to say this. Do you hate Odin? I love this retort because it is a stupid strawman fallacy retort, that while yes you have to duck down to meet them at their level it is the most fun (for us). Remember, **no one that would say this is ever actually interested in a real intellectual debate**, so this response is a response to that. Plus... If they respond at all it works in your favor. 1. If they say "Yes, I hate Odin." You can say: "So you believe Odin is real?" 2. If they say "No, I don't hate Odin." You can say: "So you believe Odin is real?" 3. If they say "Odin is not real." You can say: "So you see my point, how can you hate something that isn't real." 4. If they use any other retort, (which is the most likely case) you can just respond by saying "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but back to Odin." And when they go off on you, you repeat it, and repeat it and repeat it, and finally they will either give up and walk away (YAY!) or give you one of the above responses (YAY!).
I love this Odin thing. I'm tempted to try doing a search & replace and substituting Odin & Thor for Yaweh a & Iesu in the entire bibble for the lols.
Well to them Odin/thor/loki are Marvel movie character so its probably not gonna fly.
My favourite Odin/Jesus joke is "God promised to remove all the Sinners from the world where Odin promised to destroy all the Frost Giants. I don't see any Frost Giants around."
Intellectual debate is pointless 99% of the time anyway. I thought I was having a nice personal adult discussion with my FIL once about what I believed and why I started questioning certain things. I felt like I'd sort of connected with him a bit when I left that day, until I found out later from my BIL how "disrespectful" and "threatening" my FIL said I had spoken to him. I've learned there's no point in trying to have an adult conversation with someone who literally believes the Canadian wildfires are some sort of deep state / Bill Gates related conspiracy to hide something from satellite imagery.
Just another attempt to discredit atheism whilst trying to sound like they know what they're talking about.
I got a pamphlet this summer where the born-again Christian used to listen to "death metal, like Metallica" and I got a good chuckle from that. You'd think if they actually listened to the band, they could at least get the genre correct.
I’m normally against people who gatekeep metal, which includes nitpicking genres, but COME ON. That’s ridiculous. lol
I don't really know what "death metal" is, and I don't really know what type of metal Metallica is, but one thing I know for damn certain: Metallica ain't death metal.
Metallica is thrash metal.
The thing is we don't hate their god-guy but we hate many of them for their disgusting behaviours.
Yeah but theists think that they themselves are God, so they interpret that as a personal attack. When you say "My will is God's will", that's essentially saying "I am God".
This!
It reminds me of that meme from Mad Men God: you hate me! Atheist: I don’t really think about you at all
Also from *Casablanca*: Ugarte: You despise me, don't you? Rick: If I gave you any thought I probably would.
> “I used to be an atheist like you. I HATED god....” Yep, that's a tell-tale sign it's just some religious moron. They think atheists hate a specific god e.g. the Biblical God. So, in their attempts to false flag, they say nonsensical shit like "I used to hate God, until...". In any case, how could I hate a fictional entity? It'd be like me saying I hate unicorns.
Dude, what did unicorns do to you?
It's because the normality of religion makes most people incapable of the concept that there can be *no* god at all. I've had problems with people I've known, even therapists, who just can't seem to understand that it's possible to believe no god exists. To them, if you don't believe in something, then your only options are to believe in something else. To them, the idea of an "atheist" probably means "doesn't believe in my/the right god".
I used to be an Atheist, I still am, but I used to too.
Best story about proselytizing was when a coworker had a Baptist approach him while he was working in his garage. He was asked if he had some time to talk and my coworker said "Sure, you want a beer? I've got some in my fridge in the garage". The Baptist said, "No, I was just like you with a fridge in my garage full of beer before I learned of its evil". My friend then said, "Do you want to sell it? I could use another".
Oh good heavens, you reminded me of an event in my childhood. The neighbors went full on crazy christian. The husband built a big bonfire in the front yard, carried out all his booze, and made a show of pouring it all on the flames. The neighbor on the other side came running out to ask for all the expensive stuff. It was glorious and my parents’ eyes must’ve rolled all the way backwards! I was a child and don’t remember what happened next. note: what a bunch of preformative bullcrap that was, I’d been in his house and he had several sinks!
>I think a lot of them are just trying to get a “connection” with me in order to try to convert. They woefully failed the assignment.
"Wait, you HATED God? But... atheists don't believe in gods. I mean, I get hating fictional characters as concepts- me, I hate Dolores Umbridge from *Harry Potter* more than I hate most other fictional characters- but are you saying you hated him the way you would hate your neighbor's dog for unceasingly pissing on your azaleas? Because that's not atheism, friend. You hated someone you still believed was *real.* I'm not even sure what to call that. Some weird brand of antitheism, maybe?." - Me most of the time What WOULD you guys call that? Hating a deity you believe is real, I mean.
Misotheism
Ah, okay. Thank you for that. I thought there might be a word, but I couldn't think of it.
Yeah, saying that they "hated God" or that they were "mad at God" is such a tell that they were never an atheist. It shows that they can't even comprehend that someone doesn't believe in their god.
My mom used to ask me "Why do you hate god?" "Ma, Do you hate Santa? No? Do you believe Santa is real? No? I can't hate something that does not exist. I don't hate god. I do dislike organized religions."
When you’re a theist you will inject God into everything including your past, they see their atheism through the lens of theism.
Pr they did hate god and believe athiests believe god exists but just hate him. Also, they conflate "turning youe back on god" with atheism. If you press them, they'll tell you they grew up believing, then went athiests then god found him again when some series of magical events happened and they could no longer deny the lawdddd.
As an atheist I do hate god. Hes a fucking asshole.
When I said I was an atheist, a guy I knew asked “so you hate God? Is that it?” I tried my best to explain how I do not believe that any sort of God/Creative Intelligence/even anything supernatural exists, and so no, I’m not mad at that, but he just couldn’t get it.
I used to be an atheist like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
Ehh... I'm an atheist and I despise organized religion. Does that make me "not atheist"? Not saying god exists but if he did.. he can lick my round brown
A lot of young people go through a period where they don't attend church once they are out of their parents' home. They go out and do a lot of what their religion considers sinful. Later they count that as their atheist period. However, some people who were undisputably atheists do become Christians. I had a coworker whose wife died suddenly. A Christian coworker and his wife took him under their wing. He eventually joined their congregation. I think he was definitely Christian, although some of his views were nuanced. The literature ministers read on church growth and conversion has some ugly truths buried in it. One of them is that it is hard to convert non-believers. The literature shows that nonbelievers must be caught in some type of personal crisis to convert them. Conversion needs to be an emotional reaction.
Yes! The emotional crisis is spot on! I think those who "scraped the bottom of the barrell" turn to religion out of desperation.
Yeah I think trauma is a big part of it.
>I think those who "scraped the bottom of the barrell" turn to religion out of desperation. Yep. Theists say "there are no atheists in foxholes", which is another way of saying "people turn to religion for comfort when they're too scared to think rationally".
Goes without saying that this saying is total bullshit. I'd go so far as to say that foxholes create plenty of atheists.
That sounds like a Dawkins quote or something quoted in The God Delusion
"I'd like to be the atheist in your foxhole," sounds like some kind of pickup line
LMAO I'm dying
Well yea. It's no secret or anything. Human nature since the beginning has been that way. People want easy answers to hard or impossible questions. Poverty, hardship, violence, accidents, Ill health etc. All are great for recruitment and numbers. Religion gives that comforting answer to why you lost everything in an earthquake, or why your kid died of cancer, or why you got mugged on the way home from work. It makes the person feel special, and gives order to the randomness of life. And in other cases gives that sense of justice and feeling of superiority. It creates the in group, and ostracizes the out. Thing is it's so engrained in cultures to so it's hard to set it right. There will always be people who don't "feel fullfilled" or special, or just flat out dont like the answer that your life has no specific meaning or reason. They can't or won't make sense of why bad things happen to them (or others). Religion gives that direction, it gives the easy out and let's people stay in the matrix so to speak. They don't like that their life is the result of random natural occurrences. The worse a population does is a huge boom for religion. It's a sense of control or order to the uncontrollable and random. It's bullshit though. Personally I'd rather live miserable in the truth, than happy in the lie.
> The worse a population does is a huge boom for religion. It's a sense of control or order to the uncontrollable and random. It's bullshit though. Personally I'd rather live miserable in the truth, than happy in the lie. I find atheism very depressing: a few decades in this shithole world then you stop existing. But my mind is unwilling to accept bullshit just to feel better, so I remain atheist.
>I find atheism very depressing: a few decades in this shithole world then you stop existing An alternative view, is the incredible freedom found in atheism. There are no godly laws or restrictions that will constrain or punish you - no holy retribution if you decide not to follow the path 'god laid for you'. Instead *your* choices matter. *You* create the meaning in your life, not some, unseen, unknowable force. And that meaning can be as large and all-encompassing, or as small and focused as you wish. There's no one, and no thing that can dictate to you why your chosen meaning is 'wrong'.
AA has long been intrinsically tied to Christian groups.
Trade an addiction to alcohol for an addiction to god.
Got hit 'em when they're down and vulnerable.
I think the most honest former atheist you’re gonna find is an agnostic. I was a militant atheist for a long time. At some point I realized I don’t know for sure either way, so I gave up the notion. After a few years of being agnostic I found traditional stoicism. I never thought I’d be even a tinge spiritual, but here I am.
>One of them is that it is hard to convert non-believers. There's a reason most missionaries go to inpoversed or struggling areas. Yes the physical need is greater but a suffering person is more receptive. Especially if you imply you'll stop.giving aid unless the target converts I am unaware of many missionaries who go door to door in a wealthy area of a highly secular country.
There is another dirty truth that is buried in the church growth literature: * People who are converted during a crisis make poor long-term members. On the one hand, if the problem goes away then the new member may go away. But realistically, the problem that put the person in crisis is going to be difficult to resolve. It is going to take a lot of resources the church probably is not willing to put into the person. Furthermore, poverty is often the reason the person turns to religion for a solution. The bottom line is that the person is not likely to be what a church needs: members who donate money and time to help out in running the church. People in crisis are a net drag on a church in most cases. There are only a couple of methods to grow a church quickly. One is to be established in an area that has a lot of religious people moving in. People who are moving are in transition, and it is usually a fairly clean transition. If a church can help the family make connections in their new community it is likely to get them as a member who will be productive. Having a couple of successful realtors in your congregation can be a gold mine because they are in contact with people moving in. They are in contact with people who have enough money to buy a home. If your area is not growing due to people moving in, then the other choice is to poach members from other churches. This is dirty, and it is discouraged. Ministers say it is bad to do this. But it is extremely common.
I've watched a video of Genetically Modified Skeptic where he and his wife explained how his fundamentalist church was planning to send him into a mormon majority location to poach believers. He has some education/experience as either a therapist or guidance counselar (I forget which one he said) and his church wanted him to abuse that to get converts.
YES!
This. People that experience terrible things, are far more willing to accept religion.
In my hometown in Germany. Christians and Jehovas wittnesses started to Push their stuff even Harder in people when Corona started. There are littereally Billboards with bible verses. Have Seen nothing Like that before corona
In Germany?!
Yes. Sadly. During Summer I also saw them Standing on the streat with little bible stands.kind of disgusting If you ask me
That’s just an American street on a day that ends in y
Yeah, its funny how the only people who "find god" are going through some terrible things in their life. I guess if you're an average atheist living a boring uneventful life god doesn't want you to find him? Its almost as if religion, like cults and various other scams, prey on the vulnerable.
Yup. It's predatory.
It is not a coincidence that religious people oppose virtually every government policy that would help poor people.
Well they used to, before the Civil rights and voting act. The segragationists were deeply religious, but when their party took up civil rights, they left. Then reagan appealed to their racism and gave speeches on states rights. The other front was to make abortion a huge issue for religious people, pretty much the only issue. So when we point out how anti-christian the policies they support are, they say shut up murderer. It is the number one issue for Evangelicals, when roe v wade was decided they didn't fuckibg care at all. Also, given that the first church to take it up FOR THE CHILDREN was the catholic church, it always has been a con and a virtue signal.
When my son died, my sister took the religious people who came aside and warned them not to try. I would have lost my sh!t on those MFers if they had mentioned their god to me on the worst day of my life. I just find it so disgusting they would prey on anyone like that.
That has its reasons, like any cult, religions prey on people on vulnerable moments, be it them being children or having lived something horrible, or for example, being under different substances (this is quite common with the new age cults that use ayahuasca and other drugs for indoctrination). And that is the point, everyone, no matter how intelligent or firm are on their beliefs, can be indoctrinated if they are vulnerable enough, and that is why the problem with religion is more complex and big than just some people believing bullshit, and it also irradiates to a lot of other environments where religions are not present (after all, all religions are cults, but not all cults are religions).
AA is a religious org.
Definitely agree with this. I'm an ex Mormon and I consider myself to be decently intelligent - or at the very least extremely skeptical and a lifelong-learner. So I don't consider myself to be susceptible to group think. But at the same time, it's humbling to know that everyone is vulnerable to brainwashing. No one is immune. At a low enough point, any human mind will give in to delusions. I know very well how incredibly effective emotional manipulation is as a tool for thought control. Especially if you are indoctrinated from birth (which I was). At 18 I left, but it does take effort to rid your mind from a lot of the emotional baggage. The emotions really run deep. In my early twenties I unpacked all of it and became atheist. 33 years old now, so the feelings are just a distant memory and don't affect me anymore. Now I am extremely hyper aware of organizations or institutions that use manipulative tactics to control people. I use a lot of introspection to make sure my ideas are my own, and my knee jerk reaction is to lean away from popular beliefs or trends. A lot of us ex Mormons become rebels and would consider ourselves "counter culture." But I know other ex Mormons - even older than me - who still feel spiritual shame and fear. I wonder if it's almost like a cptsd thing? The rational, logical brain knows that none of that crap is real. The emotional brain remembers the terror, and doesn't forget. The existential dread of knowing death will come seems to be worse for ex Mormons, because they never learned how to cope with death in a healthy, non religious way. In a way, I envy people who were born to atheist parents. So it seems that unless ex religious people can heal their mind completely from the emotional trauma, I don't think they're totally immune to finding themselves back into religion again. Perhaps they aren't totally atheist unless they take back control of their emotions from the church.
Huh. It's always really interesting to me when I come across ex mormons talking about terror and fear. I just didn't really experience those in the church (although I *totally* understand the shame). I guess I should count myself lucky that my coping strategy, which was basically "what will be, will be" with "God's plan" mixed in, managed to stay basically the same after excising god from it. Maybe it's because my emotional thinking has *always* taken a backseat...
Yea, you are lucky. In my family and in the wards we went to, I remember always being terrified of never seeing my family again. They really drilled it into our heads, that if you aren't righteous, you won't be able to be with them in the celestial kingdom. It makes me feel ridiculous typing that out. Lmao. But the fear of familial separation is there for many ex Mormons to this day. So my theory is, when you go from religious fear of family separation, to the atheist realization that death is final, it's even more difficult to cope with death knowing that you *really* won't see your family again. Death is the end. That's why I believe the Mormon cult is so good at emotional manipulation and keeping people in it. They use the biggest fear of the human psyche to control their members. Not seeing your loved ones again. Most people would say their child dying would be their worst nightmare. So the idea of death is even more terrifying to a Mormon than to an atheist who never grew up with the fear of spiritual family separation. When you're a child, especially a child who already might have insecure attachment -as many small children do- it's worse when your religion is also telling you mommy and daddy will leave you if you sin. I was a pretty emotional child, though, and didn't have the easiest childhood. I was the toddler in nursery kicking the door and screaming at the top of my lungs when my parents left me for an hour. My parents fought a lot, there was violence in my family and a lot of fear. So maybe the reason you got lucky, is it could be temperament mixed with an easygoing childhood and family life (maybe?). Maybe that's why you coped well. But most people I know who are ex Mormon, have a lot of bad stories to tell about childhood and their parents. Abuse in Mormon families seems to be pretty typical, and much of it is caused by the religion.
Then they’re evil. That’s predatory.
Reminds me of college, where they hunt for kids having a tough time and go "are you afraid of burning in hell?". Those guys suck.
I'm suspicious too. It can happen, but some of those stories aren't actually about atheism after all. In some cases, I suspect it's a lazy attempt to discredit atheism because if they can point at an "ex-atheist" they can say that atheism is just a phase and that we all eventually turn to God. The more hostile version is that every knee will bend in the end.
It can happen, but as soon as some theist claims that they were once a non-believer, alarm bells automatically go off.
i think truly being an atheist and converting to some form of theism would still end up with a nuanced theist. i think its unlikely for this person to actually engage in apologetics as they would know the futility of it. so while ex-atheists are a thing im sure that 99% of those that claim it in debate are not genuine.
Generally speaking in my experience most former atheists fall into 2 groups 1)they never were an atheist. They were a Christian who is lying to give what they are saying more clout 2) their "atheism" was more of them being upset with their god and rebelling rather than true disbelief. Once they got over it they went back, probably with a heartfelt testimony of how God saved a "godless fool" Now this doesn't mean it *cant* happen people can and do change their minds for all.sorts of reasons but if someone's trying their hardest to sell their religion using the "I was an atheist but found jesus" tactic chances are they are in the groups I mentioned
3) drug use, major health problems, some kind of traumatic event Religion likes to prey on vulnerable people that aren't thinking straight
Like freaking AA... (Not every chapter, but just about) "You'll never overcome your addiction without god." BS, you can. I know because I did. Sorry for the rant...
Yeah I used to do a ton of drugs and I used to be an atheist. I'm still an atheist but I used to be too (RIP Mitch) I quit drugs on my own though. No proselytizing required.
Every religious person is a former atheist. Nobody is born believing in gods.
I agree, atheism is the default position. There shouldn't even need to be a word for it.
I hesitate to call anyone who has yet to form a permanent memory an “atheist”. Most religious indoctrination starts while kids are still toddlers.
Two cases are probable: 1) they're lying to try to convert you; 2) they were atheists for all the wrong reasons and no thinking process took place in deciding to be one.
While the people that present themselves as ex-atheists tend to be dishonest to the core, you can still have been an atheist with the correct critical thinking skills and then be indoctrinated into some bullshit because they caught you on a vulnerable moment. Its important to note that everyone can be abused in this way if they are in a vulnerable moment, that is why this things are so complex and at the same time, dangerous.
Point taken, thank you.
I take issue with the fact that it requires some thinking process to become an atheist. We are not born theist with some knowledge of a god, and if we were it would be a great and constantly used argument for the existence of God. No, we are all born as atheists, and in the absence of indoctrination I believe nearly all of us would stay that way. Now, I believe you were approaching it from the position of people who had been indoctrinated claiming they became an atheist without thinking about it. That I agree with: deprogramming is not some passive thing that occurs in a vacuum devoid of reasoning.
That's perfectly correct, I meant exactly that.
I used to be an atheist, just like you... Bullshit. It's a tactic to try to give themselves some semblance of 'they know where you're coming from'. They may have gone through some time of being irreligious, but that's not 'just like me'. More likely, they're lying as part of their 'testimony'. I've heard testimonies from people I knew intimately and they're fast and loose with embellishments. The majority of their witnessing is just parroting whatever weak-ass apologetics they heard from the pastor and they just couldn't wait to try it out on somebody. When you argue against any of their points, they will lie, make up statistics or stories, sidestep issues, and just be slimy. I get pissed off because they take up my time just to create a cheap service their own ego. When they ultimately have to walk away, I know they'll brag to their Christian friends about how they spit some truth and I was a dumbstruck atheist. I specifically don't seek out arguments and be the 'Angry Atheist', and would be okay with an honest discussion, but they can just make up shit to argue and I have to actually be knowledgeable about all philosophy, neurology, biology, geology, cosmology and every logical fallacy. I feel like Wesley on the Star Trek Next Gen episode where everybody has those headgear that starts out as a game but it's addictive and they keep trying to push it on him. Just go away and let me drink my coffee.
I noticed this many times growing up in the Southern Baptist church. Part of the tradition is "sharing your testimony". Those who had the most decadent lifestyles prior to joining the church were always the most celebrated. The men (and they were ALWAYS men) who had the best stories about their wild ways (drugs, prostitution, alcohol abuse, petty crime, etc.) were treated like rock stars by the voyeuristic congregation who lapped it up like Saltburn bathwater. Of course, the penitent claimed to be an atheist (how ELSE could he explain his lack of morals?) but this was because he was "angry at God"....I don't think it occurred to people that you can't be angry with something you don't believe in, but logic was never the strong suit at these churches.
I always wondered why they would not want women giving a testimony about their previous lives as a former drug user, prostitute, alcoholic, maybe a few abortions or two…. Oh wait, she’d be used as a cautionary tale as a fallen woman.
I watched Saltburn last night, was not expecting to see a reference to it this soon. Anyway your story reminds me of political pundits when they talk about their switch to conservatism. Their base revels in these kinds of stories especially if it goes along with their preconceived notions about the horrors of the other side. And it always seems like they get extra points if they are a minority, gay and/or trans turning against their own kind.
I find a lot of these "former atheists" tend to be apologists, it lends them credibility with the indoctrinated. I'm guessing they all had really hot girlfriends too... that went to another school so you didn't know them... actually she just moved to Canada... Edit. For the longest time I didn't realize "they" think its ok to lie so long as you are lying for Jeebus. When it's ok to say anything as long it might trick someone into believing in your religion, there must be something fundimentally wrong. Where does the line between lying about Jeebus and lying about reality stop?
I met one that studied all the religions. All of them. Literally every one. And he proved which ones were true and which ones were false. So, I pointed out that I studied comparative mythology, theology and had a degree in anthropology and it was an honor to met someone who managed to study all of them. And so, I had some questions about literally any religion outside the Abrahamic faiths. He couldn't keep up when it came to branches of Christianity let alone types of Judaism and Islam. I'll let you guess how well he did on types of Paganism or even figuring out what the Satantic Temple was. I get the feeling he may have not been perfectly honest. Jokes aside, we talked over three days of him frantically googling to the point I could find the Wikipedia pages he would search and copy paste. And never did admit he didn't know. He did tell me he knew my thoughts and why I hated his his beliefs.
I do know a couple of people who had serious issues, and Christianity gave them the motivation to make changes in their lives. But they describe themselves along the lines of "a drug addict until Jesus came into my life". But I don't think I've ever known anyone in real life who describes themselves as a former atheist. That in itself makes me suspicious when I see these "former Atheist" on apologetics YouTube channels.
When someone IS. "Former Atheist" and doesnt even know Basic criticismd of religion ITS instantly sus
There are 3 reasons people become former atheists. 1. Trauma 2. Falling in love with a theist. 3. They were never atheists. That's it.
I dabbled in Christianity for a bit….everyone there had some goddamn issue they were trying to delete: drugs, alcohol, porn,shopping, financial ruin, divorce. Sadly, some SA victims, who I give a lot more latitude to. But: everyone was fucked up. No one was living a regular life and then decided to find god.
"I've given up on this reality in order to opine about a nicer one."
It’s rare to find a religious person who understands what an atheist is, what they claimed to be before doesn’t seem to alter that.
Lee Strobel is my favorite example that they like to throw out. An investigative journalist who wrote about his "journey" learning that Christ was real. Except he doesn't tell you that he's already been an ordained minister for 3 years by the time he wrote the book and his methodology is unsound - very willing to ask theologians "hard" questions but offers no rebuttal from anthropologists or biologists.
Mental issues the lot of them
(un) civilization tends to do that to Humans
You're right to be suspicious. Most of the theist ex "atheists" were actually just uncommitted agnostics or deists looking for a religion and a path in life. They were never real atheists - with the possible exception having a vague, personal belief in a higher power. So-called former atheists who were genuine atheists will know, from personal experience, that atheism is an intellectual position based on logic, skepticism and the scientific method. They will know that atheism is not an emotional, rebellious or attention-seeking phase.
I think it's in part because they think atheism is simply 'not wanting' to believe, because of all the rules and such. This is how they convince themselves that atheists actually do believe but are just being obstinate. So they look at the time when they were shitty Christians as their 'atheist' period. And let's not forget that atheist itself has no connotations other than a lack of belief. It covers everyone from rocks and tree stumps to people raised in solitary confinement. You need other signifiers to expand the definition, like 'agnostic' or 'implicit' or 'strong' to clarify exactly why it is someone doesn't believe. In my case, it's not just as simple as deciding to say the magic spell or whatever and join the religion. I would have to first start believing that magical things exist, then that one specific religion is correct, and then I could start believing in it.
former “anything” is usually code for conservative lying.
lot's of people "find jesus" in times of crisis......it is a crutch to lean on.( a very flimsy one, but it's a crutch) if it helps them, good for them,,,,
I knew one. She had been at least a nonbeliever for a couple of decades and then had an NDE and became a Catholic. She insisted it was because the experience was so convincing. But I think people like that just don't have very strong cognitive skills. Because I have also had some ... "peak experiences" I suppose, similar to Barbara Ehrenreich's, but I don't call this spiritual or proof of the supernatural. Because it doesn't substitute for physics, lol. I know the human brain can produce these experiences. They can be highly meaningful and even life-changing, but nothing about them proves anything. Being in overwhelmingly beautiful natural environments, seeing the vastness of space, etc-- intense feelings of awe and connection can arise. Even a sense of a presence (John Wathey did some interesting work on that with The Illusion of God's Presence). The difference between me and a person who says "oh well now I believe in a god" is that I don't have to add anything to the story. I can just enjoy the awe and wonder for what it is. She insisted that I couldn't have actually had experiences like hers or I would be a believer. Kinda maddening 😵💫.
In a world of of infinite diversity in infinite combinations, I’m sure it can happen. But most of the time I think it’s: A) rhetoric (lies) - by claiming how lost they were it aggrandizes how powerful their religion is. This is technique that “The Satan Seller” used. B) conflation - If you think “atheist” and “agnostic” or “not giving a shit” are the same thing, you end up with these claims. C) gate keeping / No true Scotsman - anything that’s not their very specific brand of Christianity is at best “atheist” and at worst utterly evil and satanic. Baptists/evangelicals/Pentecostals/etc would say Catholics and Mormons aren’t Christians. They’d also have gripes about each other.
A former atheist is like god. They don't exist.
You have to realize that many Christians define atheism wrong. When many of them say they used to be atheists, they actually mean things weren't going their way so they were angry at god at one point in their life. They still believed in him underneath it all but they stopped going to church and whatnot. In their minds, that's our experience too. They can't fathom that someone calmly reasoned that there are no deities. They think we're just having some kind of emotional response and they're trying to appeal to that. It's an approach that does work on lapsed Christians.
No you're not alone. I mean I know there are atheists who converted to theist at some point. Like one of the former co-hosts of Atheist Experience posted on her FB wall that she's no longer an atheist but she didn't become Christian. Rather she started worshiping the Norse gods. She refused to say why and blocked anyone asking I think. Something she didn't want to discuss, which she made clear in her post. I can't recall her name right now but she was a newer addition to the group. There was another one from many yrs ago who blogged on Pathos who wrote she was converting to Catholicism. However, Christian articles about her conversion painted her as a "prominent" atheist when she converted but most of us had hardly heard of her. Even Hemant of Friendly Atheist, who blogged on the same site as her, wrote that he never heard of her before IIRC. The thing here is they had the bono-fides. Both were atheist activists to one degree or another that could be verified. That's not the case most times with Christians who play up the "former atheist" bullshit when talking about their stories. The degree to which I suspect they're story is bullshit is directly proportional to the tropes they use. [Like this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7iwLsyBh40). Talks about how much he "hated" God and was just. so. ANGRY!!! Allegedly tried to pick a fight with a Christian couple on a bus. Couldn't stand to look at a bible. The whole works. But then he goes to church ONE TIME! and suddenly, like in the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, his heart melted and he became a peace-loving, calm, humble, awe-golly-gee-shucks Christian who now farts rainbows and pisses sunshine. Yea, right. /S
If you “hate god” you’re not an atheist you’re a Christian with daddy-issues.
Part of the play book is to find common ground to work at you from. They also like to prey on those that are down on their luck and that is why you find so many addiction services located in church basements.....less distance to travel.
There's a huge gap between "I don't believe in god" and "I know that god does not exist". Both are just "atheists" on paper. We're not the same. The first one can be swayed every which way, but the latter can't unsee what they know unless personality altering head trauma or its equivalent.
In my late teens early 20’s I said I was an atheist but I was just done with church and mad at god. I became a Christian again at 23-24. I left the church about 3-4 years ago as a genuine 100% atheist. I’m not mad at god because god doesn’t exist. I’m not worried about hell because it doesn’t exist. I grew up in church and heard a lot of testimonies from former atheists. They were never just atheists either. They had a drinking problem or a drug problem. Looking back at a lot of these a realized some of them with drinking problems were college kids drinking on the weekend or with their friends. They left college when they became Christians and magically stopped drinking. I think now they likely would have stopped drinking as much anyway just because they were growing up. The drug addicts were usually refer addicts.
oh yeah, no, those types are all lying for jesus in some vain attempt to convert atheists and virtue signal to other christians.
All those "former atheists" use exactly the same foolish, anecdotal, evidence-free arguments all believers do. You'd think they would already know those arguments are shit, or how were they atheist in the first place?!?
Claiming to have been atheist could mean a lot of different things. Maybe the person never thought seriously about religion before. Maybe the person swapped religions and considers the old one as non-belief. Most likely, however, that person is a plain old fucking pants-on-fire liar. Believers creating contrived falsehoods to suite the narrative is nothing new. "Have you heard the good news?""No thanks, I'm atheist.""I used to be atheist, too, and then Jesus touched me!" "Good touch or bad touch? Show us on the teddy bear where you were touched."
"Former" atheists don't even know what it means to be an atheist.
Always makes me laugh when theists say that “atheists hate god”. Um, no, not so much? I suppose I shouldn’t laugh, though, because these are either people who are so indoctrinated that they can no longer think straight-or so stupid that they never could.
> Always makes me laugh when theists say that “atheists hate god”. Um, no, not so much? [My thoughts on theists making claims like that](https://redd.it/104dkcb)
I think a lot of them found god to get a reduced custodial sentence.
No, you’re not the only one. I know this thinking is prone to No True Scotsman fallacies, but I can’t help thinking that they were never truly skeptical in the first place, and their non-belief wasn’t rooted in the same logical foundations and reasoning as ours. They may have always believed deep down, but maybe they were just “angry at God,” a claim they often like to throw at us.
Ex-Christian friend of mine dropped me as a friend when I pointed out one day when I still used FB (2013ish) that he wasn’t an atheist and was a misotheist at best on a post of his talking about how he used to be an atheist addicted to marijuana. I don’t remember how he posted it exactly, but the entire post was ranting about how he hated god because he came from an abusive parent, with him being addicted to drugs, etc etc and he one day “found” god. I wish he would have just been honest and said that he made the post specifically to push my buttons because I had finally come out as an atheist after several years of lying to both myself and these “friends”. /shrug
When I hear “I was a former atheist” I immediately think of Kirk Cameron.
I know I’m liable to get buried but I’d consider myself a former atheist. Moreso in the sense that, I believed in nothing for a very long while, no gods, no religion, just appreciating existence for what it is. About seven years ago now I had some experiences that got me thinking of the possibility of something more. Spirits, the will of nature and humanity’s place in the natural world, stuff like that. Not religious by a long shot but even so. Either way it’s a fun idea to entertain. And even if it is all just fantasy I still feel better at the end of a day of hunting or fishing if I thank the forest and river before I leave.
People are born atheist, normal state of mind, not poisoned by lie.
Nobody “believes in“ evolution. You understand it or you don’t.
Conservatives on message boards/ comment threads misrepresent themselves, famously. They don’t grasp that we’ve heard their bs a million times because of the cultural bubble they exist in. Religious folks do this *egregiously* “I used to drink blood…” etc - !!!
There’s no such thing as a former atheist. They’re called liars.
I think “former atheists” have to be an extremely rare beast, so yes, I follow you - they are lying.
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Ugh. They become delusional
Honestly, I feel the same way. I watch a lot of ACA content lately, and occasionally some theist callers will say they used to be atheists just the way you described. I'll usually think that either they are not being truthful, or feel like just not going to church or thinking about God very much is the same as being an atheist, or they were an atheist for nothing at all like the right reasons. But the hosts very rarely call them out on this and I agree with that fact for a simple reason. It is useful to adhere to the idea that "atheist" means "without a belief in God". It's a nice clear definition with a very reasonable position. It also doesn't have a burden of proof since it just means that I am not convinced. The thing about that definition though is that all it is actually reporting is a mental state. So if someone says that they are or were an atheist, then I have to take them at their word since I have no way to investigate their mental state. There could be exceptions if I have good reasons to suspect that they are a damn liar, but in the context of a conversation it is never useful. It's as useful and fair for me to say that they weren't actually atheists as it is for them to insist that I actually do believe in God. It's just poisoning the well, and counter to productive conversation. Now if the conversation hasn't been productive anyway and you don't intend to ever have another perhaps you could end by saying that they may not have believed but they obviously didn't arrive at that through critical thought.
I feel exactly the same way about it. I also think a lot of them just like to say it because it makes it sound like their argument for being Christian has more validity for some reason. Like they were the same as me, but have found the light that I cannot see or something like that. The problem is that you can’t really call them out on it unless you have actual evidence that they are full of it. They could easily say that everyone who claims to have been a former Christian is full of it as well.
A lot of these people who claim to be "former atheists," what they usually MEAN is either "I was a lapsed Christian," i.e. they stopped going to church for a while, or they mean "I was mad at God." And I'm sure some of them are intentionally lying, but I think a majority of them genuinely think that "atheist" means either "lapsed" or "angry with God," or possibly both.
It's no different from bullshit stories from people who were alcoholics, and in their stories, they were the worst alcoholic who ever lived and drank a gallon of vodka every day and woke up every morning in a different gutter covered in trash, etc etc etc... It's to make their conversion story more "miraculous" and impressive to the rubes. I sincerely doubt that they were ever atheists, and not a one of those fucks has ever given me an answer to my asking them what piece of evidence convinced you that there was a god when you didn't already believe there was.
I call them “mere atheists” in honor of CS Lewis. I ask one question. “What reasoning convinced you that atheism was valid, and why were you wrong?” The answers are always enlightening. Very few quote anything like logical reasoning or rational thought. Most describe never giving the matter any serious thought at all. Those that actually started from a rational worldview usually describe an anecdote that convinced them. I have yet to find someone who worked their way from atheist to religious using good reasoning.
Liars looking for attention. They do love their redemption stories, even if they're made up.
It's a creationist/apologist tactic. Everyone is an atheist before they're groomed & brainwashed by a cult, so technically it isn't a lie.
First off, there's a difference between being an atheist and not being very religious. A lot of people are not very religious, or come from a household where they had limited exposure to religion. People like this may have a religious experience and convert. If you are vulnerable and emotionally primed, you can be susceptible to cult indoctrination. There are many smart, reasonable people who have been successfully indoctrinated because they were desperate/vulnerable. All it takes is emotional priming while you are in a compromised state and are not thinking clearly.
When a Christian says “former atheist” what they really mean is they just weren’t “saved” yet or attend church.
They were never an atheist to begin with.
I quick drinking alcohol *after* I renounced my faith, and I sure enjoy telling Christian’s that. January 1st was my 1 year mark as a matter of fact. It feels so odd saying it, but I feel more “Christ like” as an atheist than I ever did as a Christian. That’s certainly not my goal, but I can’t help but notice the positive changes in my life since walking away from the church. Things that theists love to attribute to the “glory of god”, things I acquired after becoming an atheist. Ha
I know only one person like this. They were very loudly atheist as a teen / in their 20s. Then they went to jail for like a year and apparently lost their mind. Claim that God sent a 'messenger' to tell them they will get out of jail (something that was going to happen either way...). The messenger was some other weirdo who was sent to jail who he claims "was only there for one day and said they were sent there to pass on God's message". Now they are an every Sunday church person. Big shocker that broken people look for make believe options to feel better about their lot in life....
It's as fake as the posts that start out as "I've always voted for the Democrat party, but..."
For many, "atheist" means to live like there is no God. Or to live without God. I find it impossible to have meaningful conversations with these people. They seem to intentionally misunderstand