Thanks for encouraging me to become an atheist
Sent in by Chris
This message goes out to all the asshole Christians who regurgitate the same nonsense bullshit on this site over and over. I can't read any more of your shit. It's repulsive to me, as a new Ex-Christian, because I didn't used to think that Christians could be so rude. This especially goes for the ones who say they are doing it in love. No you're not, you self-righteous pricks! You're doing it to earn brownie points with your bloodthirsty god, or to feel better about yourselves because you've done something productive by "saving" someone else.
Don't bother replying to this message for my sake, because I won't bother wasting any more time reading your comments. I'll come on to this site only to read the front page articles from now on. You've lost your chance to show me the respect and love that you believe Jesus taught. Prior to my de-conversion I was much more of a Christian than any of you are. You make me sick with your disrespect.
Aside from this site's new articles, I'll spend the time I had wasted reading your comments on browsing even more atheist sites and reading other atheist material. I am interested in learning all the scientific theories and facts that the church has discouraged me from reading for so long. Perhaps I'll come back here to read the comments after my mind has been filled with truth and wiped clear of the nonsense you spew.
So I'd like to say thank you to all the inconsiderate, rude, self-righteous and stupid Christians who post to this site. Thank you. You've encouraged me to stop wasting my time reading your crap and grow in my knowledge of atheism and science instead.
Your fellow man,
Chris
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This message goes out to all the asshole Christians who regurgitate the same nonsense bullshit on this site over and over. I can't read any more of your shit. It's repulsive to me, as a new Ex-Christian, because I didn't used to think that Christians could be so rude. This especially goes for the ones who say they are doing it in love. No you're not, you self-righteous pricks! You're doing it to earn brownie points with your bloodthirsty god, or to feel better about yourselves because you've done something productive by "saving" someone else.
Don't bother replying to this message for my sake, because I won't bother wasting any more time reading your comments. I'll come on to this site only to read the front page articles from now on. You've lost your chance to show me the respect and love that you believe Jesus taught. Prior to my de-conversion I was much more of a Christian than any of you are. You make me sick with your disrespect.
Aside from this site's new articles, I'll spend the time I had wasted reading your comments on browsing even more atheist sites and reading other atheist material. I am interested in learning all the scientific theories and facts that the church has discouraged me from reading for so long. Perhaps I'll come back here to read the comments after my mind has been filled with truth and wiped clear of the nonsense you spew.
So I'd like to say thank you to all the inconsiderate, rude, self-righteous and stupid Christians who post to this site. Thank you. You've encouraged me to stop wasting my time reading your crap and grow in my knowledge of atheism and science instead.
Your fellow man,
Chris
To monitor comments posted to this topic, use
.
Comments
Chris, that resonates with me. From the deconversion testimonies I have read and from my own experience, it seems that one of the common paths to disbelief is through a long and committed effort to become a true believer. Thinking that our doubts were due to a lack of understanding, many of us seem to have first tried to go the route of reading the bible more and plowing through the apologists. Critics seem to think that our deconversion was due to a lack of knowledge about their texts. The truth is quite the opposite. We disbelieve not because of our ignorance but because of our knowledge.
The xian posters here are quite a bore.
Congratulations... doesn't it feel good to get all that crap out of your system?
Somehow it feels a lot... freer, doesn't it?
A while back I was wavering, and considering atheism.
One factor, among others, that convinced me that this was not the right path was the vitriol spilled out continually about all believers, and the obvious contempt for those seen as intellecually inferior.
I don't expect anyone here to listen to me, and if there is any reponse it will probably be more disrepect...so carry on!
It's all in the context. I can find you millions of angry Christians and you can find me millions of angry atheists. But what are they angry about?
More importantly, what evidence do they have for what they believe?
People's emotional state has no bearing on the falsehood of their historical and evidential claims. Sorry.
Yes, there are people who are angry on both sides; some legitimately so. If you dismiss one side or the other on the basis of a perceived emotional response, then you will likely miss an opportunity to understand their point of view. If you would rather not discuss an issue with someone who is working through their anger (legitimate or not), then you needn't. But there are others who will happily engage you with civility. What I find is that Christian visitors here are usually given an opportunity to express themselves. If they can enter into an actual dialog without making accusation or hurling insults, the favor is usually returned. Why don't you check your weapons and give it a try.
but please dont run off, Chris.
There are some AMAZING writers here, so even if i dont have the exact words to defend myself, someone here defends me EVERY time.
Most of the shit the chirstians write here is so laugable im suprized im not charged a door fee for the entertainment
If your new here, the vicious bites of the christians still sting a little, but after awhile, learning that there are many many others here who feel JUST LIKE YOU, the Christian venom is nontoxic and rolls off me like water off a ducks ass.
The authors here teach me how to debate and discuss the issues at hand without getting emotionally charged like i do,.. did,.. only sometime now.
Stick around, Chris.. it only gets better from here
ilfate
You're probably aware of the following argument used against ex-christians:
'You probably left just because some people in the church treated you badly or something.'
There's a good chance that you've read something like that on this site. I have, plenty of times. Christians like to think that, because on its own, it really is a weak reason for leaving the fold.
But isn't it just like going back to the fold simply because you don't like what ex-christians are saying?
Shouldn't you have made you decision according to what you actually believe?
Sometimes people here do get agressive, but don't forget that very often they are also referring to their former selves.
One of the things that made it quite difficult to make much headway in my decision between remaining a Christian and leaving the faith, is that I was incredibly frustrated with the vitriol and rhetoric spewing from nearly every material I could find, on both sides of the issue. And I'm not talking about internet forums or the like, I'm talking about published materials.
It was hard to find actual, reasoned arguments on either side: and when they were there, they were so masked by the surrounding rhetoric and vitriol that it was difficult to consider them open-mindedly.
I can understand your frustration and distaste for non-believers that you've encountered who seem unable to do anything other than pose and rant; but I think if you're looking without bias, you'll also find that there is a proportional number of Christians on this site that do exactly the same (which is what Chris is railing against, here). Not all atheists are arrogant and insulting: some are kind, gracious, and consistently respectful of other people, just as some Christians are.
Ultimately, though, the graciousness or lack thereof of its adherents, is no reason to choose a belief: argument ad hominem is a fallacy. Choose based on reason and evidence. If I'd chosen my beliefs based on the sorts of people I've known who believe them, I probably would've abandoned Christianity years earlier, perhaps to become a Buddhist.
As I said before don't chase Christians away that visit this board as sooner or later they will see the light and join us. This post proves I'm right.
A few of the others have already said what I had in mind, but it never hurts to hear it a few different ways.
If there is the odd bit of emotional incontinence to be had from the ex-Xtians, then: i] why should anyone be too surprised; people have some leftover baggages with their exes all the time; and, ii] it's not a big deal; the odd static discharge here and there is not something to base the direction of your life and thoughts on.
An expression which I think I invented (but which was probably thought up by some Frenchman centuries ago...) is: Your first line of approach is your last line of retreat. In the context of abandoning a cult, even a big established one like Xtianity, most of them didn't enter Xtianity coolly and dispassionately. They may have liked the message at the time, even intellectually, but there was usually or even always an emotional component to their conversion. What metal assayers at their blast furnaces refer to as "the latent heat of fusion." During deconversion, it's almost inevitable that they will re-encounter whatever was present at the time of their earlier conversion. Except with all the life experience that they've picked up in the meantime.
Another way of looking at it is, you know those system-detox kits that you can pick up at the health food stores? Where you take these various items, during what is otherwise a fast? What can happen to some people is that while they are detoxing, the internal toxins exit the body so rapidly that they will get, for instance, zits, bad breath, muscle cramps, diarrhoea, etc. for a short while. But in the end they come out of it better than they were before the detox. Superficial nasties along the road to non-superficial harmony.
In short, accept a little bit of transient darkness as minor outbreaks arising from a more significant movement towards the light. You can't go out into the sun without casting a shadow.
You make a valid point and I admit that I personally wish the exchanges between those here and avowed Christians were less “emotional”. I try not to let “personalities” or the “method of conveyance” hide the truth or wisdom in the words. Nevertheless, in this tread alone, I think you can see evidence of considered and polite individuals. Perhaps you should address your questions and comments to these?
On the other hand, Christianity should never be rejected based on the words or behavior of any individual (or group) of Christians, even if the Christian(s) are found guilty of criminal acts.
That, I think, is a better illustration of irony.
Perhaps I will only be validating your argument against Athiests by saying the following, but I must:
First of all, it impossible to rid ourselves of all emotionality when aruging the debate between theism and nonbelief, especially when the nonbelievers are exchristians and have been so deeply effected by the other side.
ExChristians on this site come here for therapy of sorts as they are overcoming the abuses and lies of religion. It is group therapy, if you will, and we are not concerned with how we might offend those who wear proudly the banner of bigotry that we have long discarded.
Christians have far less right to be angry with nonbelievers, because they're argument is rarely based on experience as Athiests. Their anger is based on the fact that we don't believe them. Pure and simple. It is an insult for Christians to know that they can not convert us, no matter how convincing their argument may seem to them about their loving man-god who died to take away the sins of the world.
Ex-christians are exactly that. EX-CHRISTIANS. Some of us wear deep scars from our experience, and it is with much trepidation that you should approach us, because we are wounded animals. While we may consider you intellectually inferior and that is offensive to you, Athiests know that YOUR deep underlying opinion of us is that we are going to burn in Hell, simply for not believing what you've said regarding the salvation of our ficticious souls. How insulting, to know that regardless of all of the "love" talk that pass the lips of professing Christians is the core belief that we are disposable and deserving of being discarded to a place as horrific as the fictional Hell and then tortured forever. While I, as an Athiest, believe you are delusional, I would never think it okay for the leader of the Athiest movement (God) to sentence you to an eternity of torture in an oven where the "worm dieth not".
I have little sympathy for your plight. Actually, your reason for choosing to continue such a ridiculous belief only serves to validate my opinion that you are ignorant. I became an Athiest after years of finding that my former religious beliefs were eroding and despite all my efforts to hold tight my faith, all evidence pointed to the contrary. Your choice has not been based on logic and reason. If my decision had been based on appearances and the hypocracies of Christians, I would have left a long time ago, but because I live a life dedicated to truth, I could never denounce my faith based on the actions of others. I had to know for myself and so I set out to do just that.
Sorry, Diana, but you will just have to understand that as long as you support the belief that a blood-thirsty God is going to punish us forever regardless of our high moral standards simply for not believing the same way you do, will always put us on the defensive. As a Christian you already come with weapons exposed, so don't blame us for kicking your ass before you get the chance to pull the trigger.
Christian: "You're angry."
Atheist: "No, I'm not."
Christian: "I think you're angry."
Atheist: "NO, I am NOT angry."
Christian: "Well, I'll bet you are."
Atheist: "DAMMIT! I'M NOT ANGRY!"
Christian: "See? I KNEW you were angry!"
Some prophecies are self-fulfilling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y05EmK66Gsk
I love your posts. Thank you for all you contribute to this site. You hit the nail on the head in here and cracked me up with a couple of your comments. Thank you for putting a smile on my face.
All other Ex-C's - Thank you also for posting here. I appreciate all of your comments and encouragement.
Diana - I appreciate your post too, odd as it seems to be saying it. You remind me of myself while I was a Christian. I don't know if you have made comments to other articles, but from what you posted here, I certainly don't hold the same feelings toward you as I do most Christians who post here. The reason I don't is that you did not try to preach to me.
Christians who preach here - The thing that I despise most about your religion is that your most outspoken believers somehow think that freedom of speech means that you can be an ass to people who don't want to hear your message. Okay, but don't expect me not to be an ass right back at you. If you truly want to call yourselves Christians though, you'll follow Christ's example by befriending sinners instead of preaching to them. The only people that Jesus was rude to (at least intentionally) were the Jewish leaders who were clearly hypocrites and his own ignorant apostles. So if you want to be rude, simply choose the right targets, don't come in here to do it. Go bother other denominations or scold the people in your own church that act wrongly in your opinion.
....::yAwn::
The purpose of this post seems to have passed over your head. I said that I am a new Ex-Christian, and have since been repulsed by self-righteous pricks who can't respect that fact. It was not people who let me down, except that it was people who taught me bullshit. It was the bullshit itself that couldn't hold its own weight. When you wake up yourself, you'll understand.
P.S. I've gone directly to Jesus, but surprisingly he's not there. It makes a ton of sense now why NONE of my prayers were answered (aside from those I answered for myself).