It's painfully apparent to many of you that I do not hide my lack of
belief in the supernatural, god(s), and outright deny BibleGod.
Actually, on these boards I am quite strident about my lack of belief
and in my ridicule of other specious beliefs like big foot, visiting
extraterrestrials, 911 conspiracies, compassionate conservatism, creationism and other woo. Yes,
that's correct - belief in God is in the same category as these other
crank beliefs.
For
this - as you would expect, I get some attention for blogging in a
community that is largely conservative Christian and historically
Republican. This attention is usually from the soul-winner, busy-body
Christian that assumes that I would want to spend an eternity with them. I am not complaining though. We non-believers and religious freethinkers, up until recently, have been a silent minority. To paraphrase PZ Meyers, it's about time we push our arms out and made room for ourselves in this society.
Invariably, the
soul-winner fails to have a convincing counter-argument against the
incoherence of their beliefs. Instead, the tactic
they resort to is to prey on me. I mean, pray for me. Where no evidence
or sound reasoning is offered, emotional blackmail is substituted. As insulting as this is, I am still open to the
possibility that BibleGod will intervene and answer the Christian's
prayer.
Awhile back, I was informed by different Christians on this board that
they would pray for me. I challenged them to do so.
Here's an email conversation
between myself and a Christian from June. I'll pick up the discussion where the
attempt to convince me by prayer begins. I've annotated some of the responses for brevity
and clarity sake and will keep the identity of the emailer anonymous. The busy-body is in bold. I'm in regular.
(NOTE
TO READERS: I read the Bible literally like a Christian fundamentalist and take the view that the Bible is inerrant because it is God's word. In this respect, I am a
fundamentalist. By doing so, I lay waste to the argument that I am interpreting, which liberals and moderates are so guilty of doing. IMO, fundamentalist Christian are the only true Christians - which makes them hostile to a free, civil society.)
Off to pray. And
yes, I do pray for nonbelievers like you. You may have a serious
problem if God and Jesus do in fact exist. Can't wait until the end, it
will be too late for all.
Good luck with your prayers!
Hey, instead of praying for all apostates like myself, just pray for me
to come to God. When it fails, could you tell me why God has not
intervene to reveal himself to me like Paul on his way to Damascus?
Yes, I will end up in hell. But your going to Muslim Hell anyway as you
believe that Jesus is divine. Whereas you reject Islam's threat of
Hell, I go one step further and reject both. And don't throw free-will
in the mix, as I will answer that if I don't not have full knowledge of
God's existence, then how can I truly be making an informed choice?
I did pray for you again today. But God has come to you. You just won't accept it or admit it. I will go to no ones hell. I know I have a place with God in heaven.
Prayer. I guess your not a true Christian. Shucks...
How would you know Matt?
Well, for the Bible tells me so. "I tell you therefore: everything you ask and pray for, believe that you have it already, and it will be yours.
..(Mark 11:20-25). I have to ask you, where is your faith in Jesus?
Only by having a true faith, will Jesus words as reported by Mark come
true. We know that God never lies and that everything in the Bible is
the inspired word of God. "All
scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16) Otherwise, all of the Bible is unreliable. Christians can not pick and choose what of the Bible is allegory.
But you already know of this. I'm sure you read your Bible and not just have it didactically feed back to you at Sunday only.
Since I have not come to your faith and threats and allusions of eternity in Hell "You may have a serious problem if God and Jesus do in fact exist." and after apologizing for calling me a liar, you go on to say in the course of this discussion "You just won't accept it or admit it."
You're way off base with this one.
I'm off base? I based my answer in the Bible and from what other
apologists tell me. I was a Christian once. If you reject my answer as
to why you are not a true Christian, then please take it up with God -
he wrote the Bible.
My answer speaks volumes and speaks for itself.
I see. Well, it speaks to you, but to you only. Too bad that you can
not write volumes based upon that "speaking" as well. I was looking
forward to a good Biblical debate. :(
Well, keep praying.
My reason is
the one you never thought of: you don't want to learn about God and I'm
not the type to shove it down your throat. But even more important is
the fact that I know very few atheists and have had few, if any,
conversation like this. I could see shortly on that you have no
intention of believing in God. And it's not my job to go further to
convince you. The nonbelievers I have met were all through our church.
And they converted due to what I said has already happened to you: A
sign from God.
I would love to learn about God. But first you must present
your best evidence in order to convince me. You sitting on the other
side of the internets stating that I've already received this
revelation is silly. Did God communicate to you what this revelation
was? If so please tell me.
You also assume that I have not tried to learn about God. My wife
thinks I am obsessed with god, but really I'm obsessed with religion.
It's a variety of human expression and experience and
its been nearly the only way to speculate on the supernatural. Well,
until science came along and we were able to determine more about the
universe we live in.
Also, it makes me quite angry that you keep stating that I am lying in
some way.
Turning from this, if you would like to present your best evidence or
argument for God, please do. Feel free to cite the Bible or any other
exegesis you like. If you would like to present your personal
experiences, you may do so as well. However, what would be the point if you
presented your personal experience only after I came to god? Is your
evidence from personal experience not convincing enough? Apparently it
must not be, and you seem to realize this anyway. Functionally, you
make an appeal to blind faith. I am asking you to justify that faith on
reason.
I really appreciate you taking the time to reply
to me. If the courage of your
convictions can not weather my objections, then perhaps you should a)
refrain from implying that I am lying b) threatening my soul with hell,
and c) give me your best argument.
I never called you a lair in these recent emails or suggested it.
You are quite unreasonable and I've been more than patient with you.
These are examples where you imply that I am a liar:
01. "Hi Matt...I did pray for you again today. But God has come to you. You just won't accept it or admit it."
02. "I could see shortly on that you have no intention of believing in God..."
03. "And they converted due to what I said has already happened to you: A sign from God."
You keep asserting that some proof has come to me and that I am denying it. So am I a liar or not?
And in this quote you try to extort me with the threat of Hell:
"You may have a serious problem if God and Jesus do in fact exist."
There is nothing that I said about Christian belief that is not in concordance with what Christians largely believe.
The reasoning of the busy-body is transparently hollow. When this
emotional blackmail fails - the busy-body believer is left alienating
the person he hopes to convince and possibly convert.
In
nearly all facets of life we demand evidence.
Existence of big foot?
Sure, possible - but a carcass of the animal would be conclusive proof.
On the scale of unbelievable claims, big foot is on the lower end.
Immaterial beings with no testable or identifiable characteristics that
exist outside the normal universe and not beholden to its physical laws is on the
extreme upper end. Off the scale, actually.
Yet,
when the non-believer requests evidence for the existence of God, we are told by the
believer to expect none and that faith without evidence is sufficient
enough. It is this type of faith which is further reinforced as a virtue. In fact, all that is being reinforced is ignorance.
It was this pursuit of evidence that I had requested nicely of this busy-body what this "sign from God" was. Perhaps he did receive a revelation. That would be
exciting! I would have evidence. And the more explicit this believer
could be, the more likely that a god could exist.***
Instead, I was insulted and my non-existent afterlife threatened for a very reasonable request.
Any they wonder
why they fail?
***There are caveats to this however. Failed explanation of one thing does not necessarily make another explanation more plausible. When this plead is made, we formally have an argument from ignorance. More on that later.