Pastor AIO:

Hello Huxley and Happy new year.


Yes my religion causes me to routinely practice certain things. I would not do these things if they did not hold with my beliefs.

But hey, isn't that a obvious thing. Everyone, religious or otherwise, has their behaviour informed to some extent by what they believe.

The man who BELIEVES that the next big industry in the world is going to be in processing Rare Earth Metals will have his behaviour informed by that belief. He might quit his job and go by to college to do a course on Rare Earth Metals.

Happy New Year, Pastor.

OK, can you tell us some of the things that you do routinely that are the direct result of your religion? And can you say whether you would not have done these things if it were not for your religion?

Does your religion, worldview or belief inspires you to perform certain acts or practices on a routine basis? Would you not have performed these acts if you did not hold your current beliefs or worldviews?

Do you know anyone who have been inspired to act in one way or another solely as a result of their religious worldview and can you state precisely which elements of their religious dogma compelled them to act in that way? Would it have been impossible for them to act in this way if it was not for their religion?

A house containing your two children and a number of other children is on fire. The children are caught in the house and cannot rescue themselves. You have the possibility of getting into the house just once and rescuing some children before the entire house and its contents crashed down into flames.

1) Would you attempt to access to house to rescue some children?

2) Which children would you attempt to rescue first? Your children or just any children? Why?

Toneyb and Mazeje,

You guys have taken all the words out of my mouth. I cannot think of anything else, but when I do, I shall make sure I post it here.


Great idea Mazaje

Hello NairaLanders,


At the start of this year, I implored you all to make the year of Atheist Activism or Rationality Activism. Now, the year is nearly over, I wonder how we did. Did you spread rationality in your community? Did you have some good debates with your friends and family?

Would be interesting to hear how the year went for you on the atheism/rationality front? So, please, tell your stories now!

JeSoul:

Huxley, please return to whatever woodwork you just crawled out from.

You have not changed one bit, still cannot exhibit any sense of decorum. This is not a topic tending to your atheistic leanings - it is for christian issues. You can scurry along to open a new thread to vent and abandon.

Hello JeSoul,

I know you guys would love nothing more than to be left to wallow in your cesspit of dissonance, contradictions and hypocrisy. Just look at the rubbish you spouted out. Did it make any sense to any one with the ability to think?

How could you have advised VeriLee to "submit to the will of the Holy Spirit" and yet not tell him how to know the "will of the Holy Spirit"? When he challenged you on this you said that the will of the Holy Spirit is to lead a godly life. Only a mind as befuddled as yours would not see the circularity in this way of thinking.

As a Christian, VeriLee has been indoctrinated into thinking that he should refer all his problems to God. Here you are advising him to rely on himself instead. What really is the truth? Should he rely on God or should he take his destiny on his own hands? Where does god come into the picture?

VeriLee:

JeSoul,

Many thanks again. What your have said sounds reasonable and rational. I shall stop relying on God and the Holy Spirit to reveal to me my plan and to guide me. My destiny is all in my hands and not in the hands of God. This all makes sense to me now.

Thanks very much.

VeriLee, VeriLee I say onto you,


Why did it take you this long to realise that your destiny is in your hands and NOT in the hands of god. Just look at the two-faced lies and bullsh*t that some Christians here have been trying to get you to believe, notably JeSoul.

On the one hand, she advises you to submit to the will of the Holy Spirit, but when you rightly question her about how to know the will of the Holy Spirit, she comes up with such garbage as this - "that the Holy Spirit's will is a life that glorifies god". But how does one translate this into everyday life principles? How such glibness help the ordinary Christian to decide important everyday questions like:

1) Who to marry amongst many equally good and Christian candidates?
2) What sort of business deals to undertake amongst several good candidates options?
3) What medical attention to pursue amongst several good options?

Supposing all the options available would glorify God - one is left with no better godly way of choosing than relying on one's self. This is gross hypocricy, because almost every Christian I know are taught to call on god to guide them in the daily plans and to reveal the plans that He has for them.

To now claim that God has not got a determined plan for anyone is to deny God's omniscience. Such is the contradictions and dissonance that fills the minds of the benighted Christians.

Hey, verily, verily I say onto you, VeriLee,

Quit relying on god. God has never and will never guide you in deciding such matters because he does not exist. Let me give you some figures - evangelical Christians have some of the highest divorce rates in America (Christians about 30%, Atheist about 20%). These are people who made their vows and dedicated it to God. Yet a great number of them still break up. Could it be that God chose the wrong partner for them?

Or could it be that they have subverted a very good plan that God had put in place for them? If this is the case, how come mere humans have the ability to change and derail God's plan?

So my advise to you is this - quit depending on God and try and investigates these lady friends of yours further. If I was you, I would take is serious with the philosophical lady as she seems the best one to reason things out unlike the other faithheads. I would also make sure we have sexual relations first before it ever gets anywhere close to marriage.

Now you know - don't say I did not warn you.

banom:

Huxley, Tudor and Deap Sight, may my God forgive you guys, i pray he opens your eyes,

Deap Sight you called the holy trinity pagan and Imaginary, may God forgive you.

Has God forgiven you?

Deep Sight:

Any person with a remote idea of what the Godhead is or what it signifies would know certainly that no man could ever see God, or approach God or directly "encounter" God in person one on one.

God is absolutely intangible and inexpressible and no living being could approach God.

So your scenario cannot happen: and if it did, clearly the entity in question parading itself as God must be a fraudulent Nigerian Con Artist.

I beg to differ my friend. According to the bible, several people have met with god and seen his face. Further, was Jesus not seen and encountered by people while he was on earth? Or is Jesus not God?

Supposing you encountered an "entity" who identified themself as God. Would you believe them off-hand? If not, why not?

What is it about the REAL God that makes him so unique as to be easily identifiable? How would you ensure that you are not being deceived by one of the impostors sent by the devil?

MrCrackles:

Huxley convert today. . .The fire burning in hell is 99% stronger than the one on earth. . .

Why should I be scared of the fire? What shall it burn?

Banom,

If it is true that you have converted back to Christianity, I put it to you that you are really not a TRUE CHRISTIAN. And as such you are in grave danger of de-converting back again to un-belief.

How can you show us that you are know a TRUE Christian?

Hello Banom,

Why Christianity, instead of say, Islam?

wirinet:

Yes i am a proud Atheist, been for about 25years and had no problems whatsoever (outside the usual problems of struggling to survive).

Atheists embrace the path of peace? which path is that, had any religion ever brought peace to the world? more people had been killed in the name of God that any other course in human history. Beside i had never known any conflict fought in the name of Atheism.

My brother Huxley,long time no see. How is London? How is your course on cosmology? I was reading a book on Allan Sandage, and he was trying to determine the fate of the universe. What do you think is the fate of the universe? The big crunch or everlasting expansion?

Hello Wirinet,

Yes, I am well. Been buzy with other things. Parts of north of England has been hit by flood (1 in 1000 years floods), fortunately, where I live, Manchester, has been spared.

I suspended the cosmology course cuz of family commitments, although I still read some of the books. Current thinking is that the universe will expand itself into oblivion. You might find the following videos interesting:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_4bMIqmV9U


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x22o8TUdOuw&feature=rec-HM-fresh+div

IDINRETE:

Huxley where have you been men!

I decided to lie low for a bit cuz I was busy with some other work. Occasionally peeped in NL but did not have the appetite to post anything.

xtristo:

@Wirinet
are u an atheist?the place of meeting will be of course a terrestrial realm and not a cyberspace.i wont kill them but

their confession or profession could lead them to death!if u are one of them or u know anyone of them,tell them to embrace the path of peace and accept the love of Jesus today.God bless u for your concerns!

Would your loving god like it for you to cause someone to die?

Tudór:

And pls confirm to the likes of davidylan and fellis that you're yet to revert to their religion of lies.

Absolutely NEVER EVER NEVER reverting to any form of superstitions. I have been away from NL for many reasons. Suffice to say, I have been thinking about new perspectives of dealing with superstitions, religions, irrationalisms. I have been doing plenty of research in a bid to find a new "voice" or new way of addressing the issues that could be more relevant to modern religionists and people interested in investigating myths/religions/superstitions. Further, I have been thinking about ways of making scientific rationalism and philosophy more accessible or amenible only Africans. To this end, I have been spending plenty of my spare time researching areas such as:

The metaphysics of Culture
Spread of Religion as a meme
Neuroscience - how the brain is materially affected by cultural behaviours such as learning, deprivation, ascetism, etc, etc
Moral philosophy
African religions

Over the last few months, I have been accummulating a respectable bibliography of books and materials on these subjects. SO most of my spare time has been taken invested in trying to give this research some shape and structure. So I shall be dipping in and out of NL and time permits.


One interesting observation - When the atheists are not on NL, the religious mice come out to play, with their hands on each others throads. Not only are there these inter-theistic fights, the overall standard of discussion takes a nose-dive. Looks like this speaks well of the demeanour of the atheists.

Huxley is back.

Many, Many, Many thanks for the nice comments.

Now, watch the video debate. Oh dear, this is a routing!




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvZz_pxZ2lw&feature=sub


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFTj9n40rNo&feature=sub

Some comments on the authorship of Matthew:

Gospel scholar have know for a long time that the Gospels do not bear the names of their true authors and today hardly and bible scholars deny this, theistic and secular scholars universally agree on this point. There are several points that converge to this conclusion;

1) The date of redaction. The date of composition of the earliest gospel is put at after 70 AD, between 70 and 100 AD. Mark is thought to be the first gospel. Matthew is thought to be written between 90 -135 AD. If these disciples were born on or around the time of Jesus's birth, they would have been between 70 - 90 when they began their writing career. This is most unlikely - it was extremely rare for people to live to this age, never mind begin to compose such works at this age.

2) The internal evidence from the text itself does not suggest an autobiography from the disciples.

viaro:

Hi huxley,

Thank you for your questions; and I shall try and be as honest as can be managed.

I don't know if any such thing could convince me. If I knew, you would not be asking me. But that you asked is a good thing; and it would mean indeed that you already knew what the main claims of Christianity are, so that you have some evidence as such to first falsify them one and all, before asking the next necessary question, viz -

The only thing that would change my mind is if I had lied to myself about the personal experience I had when I trusted Christ as my Lord and Saviour. If the person who wants to change my mind cannot undo that experience, he would not be able to change my mind.

Think about this hypothetically, not more than that. Supposing we find some bones in some old cavern in Israel and it is dated and DNA-tested (etc, etc, etc) and found to be the remains of Jesus 100%. I know this is a far-feteched hypothetical scenario, but let's assume that some day, the technology were to be available to make such a conclusion.   Would your belief in the ressurection remain intact?

viaro:

This is similar to AIO's question about the intrinsic value of God's Word to me; and my answer is yes. For one, I find it unique indeed that Christ would be the only Person who fits the Biblical prophecies about the Messiah. This does not mean that there is no derivatives about the concept of a messiah; but 'the Messiah' as in Christ's case is unique both in its prophetic evaluation and the uniqueness of His life. There are many other things that people may derive from Christ as influencing their lives, no doubt about that. But for me, the examples I gave have a tremendous impact on my daily experience.

Pardon me, but I was after a moral message or teaching of Jesus. Something a bit like "Humans MUST not enslave other Humans".  Is it conceivable that a god came and lived with humans on this earth for about 30 years and made no such profound and universal moral message?

viaro:

I don't know what I would have done. If you're asking me to hazard a guess, I probably would have voted for His freedom; or again, I might most probably had voted for His condemnation. Either way, it is impossible for me to vividly cast myself back in time to know exactly what my persuasions might have been.

I understand - if you were back there at the time, there is no knowing which side one would definitely have favoured.  But chances are good that ALL his followers at the time must have been calling for his freedom, because they believed him to be innocent of the charges levelled against him.  It makes no sense to shout for the conviction of someone you believe to be innocent.

Looking at it today, do you believe Jesus was guilty or innocent of the charges?  Do you think he should have been exonerated or convicted of the charges?

Hello Viaro,

Doing a great job here!  May  I ask a triplet of questions:

1)  Is there anything or evidence that could convince you that Christianity (or the main claims of Christinty) is false? Would you change your mind if such evidence is brought forward?


2)  Is there any message or moral teaching that was uniquely original to Christ and that continues to guide and influence people today?


3)  Had you been one of Jesus's cohorts and witness his trial, would you have voted for his freedom or for his conviction and execution?



Much obliged!

Hello Viaro,

You will remember that in the not-too-distant past, we were chatting about the explanation for why whales could be born with fully developed hindlimbs, on this thread; https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?topic=334556.msg4705593#msg4705593.

I said, this can only be explained in terms of evolution.  If evolution is false, and animals were made immutably, can you explain why an aquatic animal came to have the gene for making the legs of a terrestrial animals?

viaro:

Yes and no.

Yes - because they apply in a literal sense to those who were under that covenant, Judaism.

No - because as a Christian without a Jewish background, I am not bound by the Judaistic covenant even though the Decalogue applies to me in principle.

Which decalogue do you accept? That given in Exodus 20 or that given in Exodus 34? Remember that God himself said in Exodus 34 that re was replacing the commandments in Exodus 20 with those in Exodus 34.

Watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-slAgzJmdU&feature=related.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_9w8JougLQ

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/daniels.html

1. Purpose of this testimonial

Whenever I have shared the story of my deconversion from Christianity with Christians, I have been met with various combinations of fascination, surprise and disapproval. There is often an assumption that if I had embraced a slightly different brand of Christianity, I could have avoided coming down this path. It was because of my wrong ideas about Christianity, or because I wasn't truly a believer in the first place, or because I did not seek God earnestly enough, that I ended up abandoning the faith. Sometimes when I provide reasons for my doubts, the interrogator will summarily dismiss them and ask, "So what's the real reason you left Christianity?" Most believers want to know what it is that brought me to this point. Though they do not always express it openly, I often sense their conviction that my disbelief must stem from an inward moral flaw they would like to uncover.

The purpose of this testimonial is to open a window to my life as a Christian and my reasons for leaving the faith, allowing others to evaluate the authenticity of my former faith and the motivations for my doubts. To that end, I have liberally sprinkled my story with a healthy--some might say excessive--dose of personal prayers, correspondence and reflection. My hope is that this will help some of my family members and friends understand, if not appreciate, how I have come to where I am. Additionally, I would like to provide encouragement for those who recognize many of the problems of Christianity but who struggle to give wing to their doubts. I do not believe this will cause committed believers to leave the faith, but it is my hope that it will aid those who have already begun to question their faith.

Based on the words of a Christian friend with whom I've been meeting monthly to discuss our respective beliefs, a case can be made for the effectiveness of a testimonial-style approach versus a context-free treatise on a subject as personal as faith:

The topics we cover in our discussions sometimes make me question my faith. But what has a greater impact on it and brings deeper questions and pain to my heart is when I hear you say that you have sought God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and not found Him.[1]

A chronological recounting of my life story provides the framework for this document. I have interspersed editorial reflections of limited length at various points in the story line. For extended arguments in support of my views, please read the appendices in the companion document. For those with limited reading time who simply want to understand my journey, this testimonial will suffice, but those who wish to engage in written or oral debate with me are requested to read both documents in their entirety. Depending on how many responses I receive, I may or may not be able to engage with everyone, but I will make it a priority to answer at least family members and close friends.

There are several flavors of agnosticism, so I'll take the opportunity up front to clear up any uncertainty as to my present position. I consider myself to be an atheistic-leaning agnostic, meaning that I suspect there is no God, while leaving open the possibility that God does exist.

Though I have thought about undertaking this project for some time, the immediate inspiration for taking it up now has come from my recent reading of a quite similar story by Kendall Hobbs.[2] I highly recommend it to anyone who finds my testimony in the least interesting.

2. Life as an Evangelical Christian

2.1 Early years: Unquestioned faith

I was born in Ethiopia in 1968 to evangelical missionary parents. My mother's father was an independent fundamental Baptist pastor, whom I remember to be a very kind and warm grandfather. When she was nine, my mother vowed to devote her life to God as a missionary and to abstain from all alcohol and movies. She kept these vows until her death from cancer five years ago at the age of 63. I have never met a more selfless individual, and I will always respect the life she lived. She began her missionary career in 1960 as a single nurse in the mountains of Ethiopia, traveling by mule to treat those in need of medical care.

My father was reared in the Conservative Baptist denomination, which was somewhat less fundamentalist than my mother's church, but was very evangelical nonetheless. He built a house by himself at the age of 16, sold it and gave the profits to missionary causes. Having grown up during the Depression, he learned to be industrious, hard working and devoted to the causes he believed in. He joined the Sudan Interior Mission (now simply SIM) and traveled to Ethiopia in 1960 as a building construction engineer, overseeing projects such as Bible schools, hospitals, bridges, missionary housing and seminaries. He met my mother in 1965 and married in 1967.

One of my earliest memories is of a frightening nighttime thunderstorm when I was four while on furlough in California. I called to my mother, who came and comforted me, saying that Jesus would protect me, and inviting me to ask Jesus into my heart. Trustingly, I prayed a prayer to accept Jesus as my personal savior. I don't know how much this decision affected my life at such an early age--I couldn't claim a dramatic conversion from a profligate life, though I did understand that I was a sinner and that I needed to accept Jesus' sacrifice to take away my sins so I could be with God. I was committed to the faith I had been taught, and read the New Testament and nearly half the Old Testament when I was ten years old.

But I was a typical kid, squabbling with my younger sisters while growing up in Ethiopia, California, Arkansas, Liberia, Oregon and Nigeria. I attended a mission boarding school in Nigeria as an early teen, and one teacher in particular impressed me with his sincerity and love. He lived a disciplined life, running with his dog in the countryside for half an hour each day and spending a great deal of time with his wife. He often emphasized to his students the need for us to talk with God and to relate to him even more personally than with our closest friends.

I can remember distinctly the first time I took his advice to heart. I was lying on my bed trying to get to sleep and started pouring out my heart to God, telling him my feelings, praying for all my friends, and letting him know how much I appreciated him until two in the morning. The joy that I experienced at knowing that I was communicating with the very One who had made the entire universe was exhilarating. I continued for many years maintaining an almost daily time of prayer and reading the Bible, even though it wasn't always as remarkable as it was when I first began at the age of 14. I sought to please God in my thoughts, actions and words, and even my sisters noticed a significant turnaround in my life as I promoted peace instead of dissension in the family. However, I understood from Paul's epistles that God's acceptance of me was based entirely on his love for me, his sacrifice on my behalf, and not at all on any of my personal accomplishments or righteousness.

Partly through watching the missionary movie Peace Child during my ninth grade year, I became convinced that God wanted me to bring the gospel to those who had never heard of Jesus. I particularly sensed God's call to translate the Bible into one of over 3,000 languages in the world in which it was not available.

High school was a difficult but character-forming time of life. I have very fond memories of the tight-knit group of Christian classmates at the missionary boarding school I attended through ninth grade. My sisters did not share my enthusiasm for the rigors of the school, but my awakening to the place God had for me in his world, along with the fellowship of like-minded friends, made the strict regulations of the school and the absence of my parents more tolerable. During tenth grade I transferred to another Christian missionary school in Nigeria, this time a relatively large day school with a much greater mix of religious backgrounds among the students. I missed the cocoon of the boarding school, but I continued to grow in my knowledge of God and the Bible. I read a good deal on young-earth creationism and wrote a private manuscript defending creationism against evolution.

When I was sixteen our family moved to Arkansas, where I attended a public high school for my junior year. You can imagine how much like a fish out of water I felt there. I recall holing myself up in my room many evenings, listening to songs on the local Christian radio station, and weeping myself to sleep. During my whole year there I knew no one who shared my zeal for God. I did have some friends, but I longed to have someone with whom I could open up and share the experiences of my faith.

Our next move was to East Texas, where my father became involved in a US-based technical support mission organization. For my senior year I attended a public high school again, but my experience this time was considerably more positive. Having already adjusted somewhat to American culture, I was able to make more friends and was known as one of the most devout believers in my class. Following my parents' example, I refrained from attending movie theaters, though I did break with them in listening to Christian rock 'n roll. As another example of my rigidity, I still recall with pain the evening I invited a committed but less-legalistic Christian girl to the annual coronation, which included a dance. I was convinced that dancing was not appropriate for serious Christians (I refused to listen to secular music because of its immoral messages, let alone dance to it), so I sat at the dinner table while my date danced with others. A teacher in attendance asked me why I wasn't dancing, and when I explained my reasons, she said she could see the logic in abstaining from dubious activities like drinking, but not dancing.

One of my best friends that year was a Mormon, so I read extensively on Mormonism from an evangelical perspective, finding numerous faults in the Latter Day Saints' scriptures and discussing them with my friend into the wee hours of the morning. After pointing out a number of historical and theological flaws in Mormonism, he confided in me, "Religion is a bitch." I responded that no, it was clear the universe was created by a Personal Being, and so it was a no-brainer that we needed to give Him our allegiance. I never did convince him to leave his faith, but I became more confident in the moorings of my own faith. I did agree to read an apologetic book he gave me entitled A Marvelous Work and a Wonder and was able to find enough faults in its reasoning to be able to dismiss it quite readily. It did not occur to me to be so critical of Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict, a popular evangelical apologetic work I read during that same year.

Though we were not Southern Baptists, our family attended a local Southern Baptist church during our time in East Texas. I invited to the church at least one high school student who subsequently accepted Jesus as his savior. The summer after high school graduation, I went with a couple of friends to share our faith with people in parks and door-to-door, inviting them to believe in Jesus and attend church. In doing so, I felt that we were in the center of God's will and experienced a sense of euphoria as a result. I carried out this kind of direct evangelism a few other times, but I was never a regular at it.

Although our family was wary of charismatic and Pentecostal experiences, I did seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit in a tent during a Christian music festival put on by the organization founded by the late singer-songwriter Keith Green. I experienced a flood of emotion, but never was aware that I was supernaturally speaking in tongues. Afterward, I remained open to the charismatic branch of the evangelical faith, but never considered myself to be part of that camp. Theologically, I became inclined to call myself an "evangelical ecumenist," focusing on what united the evangelical faith and not taking strong stands on points of disagreement. I continued to distrust non-Protestant and liberal faiths, but I did consider myself to be a little more ecumenical than my parents.

I chose to attend LeTourneau University, a technology-focused nondenominational Christian college in Longview, Texas. I was still interested in Bible translation, but having written to Wycliffe Bible Translators (the organization I was to join later) concerning my dual interest in computer science and biblical studies, they recommended I pursue a degree in computer science, as these skills could be useful not only in Bible translation but in a number of other endeavors. So I studied computer science and engineering, while taking at least one Bible course per semester. I enjoyed my experience there, though my social skills were probably stunted by my obsession with good grades and by the paucity of females on campus.

During spring break of my sophomore year, I sensed a dryness in my relationship with God and found it difficult to keep focused on God while praying. I decided to begin typing my prayers daily on the computer, enabling me to gather my thoughts and avoid daydreaming. My relationship with God was revitalized as a result, and I kept up this practice off and on until I left the faith.

2.2 Crisis #1

It was during my junior year of college that I began paying attention to difficult passages in the Old Testament in my personal readings, some that troubled me for ethical reasons, and others that seemed to be internally contradictory. For a while I disregarded them, thinking there must be a good explanation, and who was I anyway to question God (or was it really God)? But enough of these difficulties built up in my mind that I decided to face up to them, so I began in Genesis, listening to the Bible on cassette and reading the text, writing down any passage that troubled me or appeared contradictory. Appendix C contains a partial list of these verses. During spring break, however, after I had reached the book of Jeremiah (over half-way through the Bible), I met an attractive young lady at a Bible college I was visiting. We struck up a long-distance relationship, which, looking back now, helped take my mind off my doubts and likely provided a good incentive to dismiss them. Whatever the explanation, I was able to regain what I considered to be a full-fledged, robust biblical faith, at least for a time. Though we dated for ten months, I never did kiss her, wanting to reserve that honor for my wife!

During my college years I had been introduced to the evangelical news and opinion magazine Christianity Today and became an avid reader. I felt it helped broaden my perspective and provided a global context for my personal faith. In contrast to my earlier beliefs, the magazine staff accepted the earth's great antiquity while rejecting evolution, which helped temper my strict young-earth creationism. In my senior year, I wrote a paper on the age of the earth for my Pentateuch Bible class, advocating a day-age theory to square the Genesis account with an old earth. It was a book by Christian geologist and old-earth creationist Davis Young that convinced me I had been wrong about the age of the earth and that my reasons for believing in a young earth had been merely illusory. However, I never entertained the thought that evolution as an overarching concept could be true, considering it to be simply preposterous, not to mention unbiblical. I now feel that this transition to old-earth creationism was significant in that it moved me toward a tendency to rely on physical and historical evidence to interpret the Bible rather than the other way around.

Out of a desire to serve God and to break out of my social shell, I chose to become the director of student ministries for the college student body during my senior year. It was a stretching experience as I helped organize teams to restore run-down houses in town, plan student mission trips to Mexico, conduct worship meetings, and so forth. Despite the pace of my activities, I remained consistent in praying, seeking God and reading the Bible on a daily basis.


Continued here: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/daniels.html

Why I Am No Longer a Christian (2003)
Ruminations on a spiritual journey out of and into the material world
Kendall Hobbs


http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/hobbs.html

I have found it a rare occurrence to come across a Christian evangelist (living in the United States, evangelists are almost always Christian) who does not have serious misunderstandings of my beliefs and the reasons for them. Typically, they approach me thinking that if only I would read the Bible with an open mind, or be open to God, or experience God the way they have, I would certainly understand. Or, when they hear that I'm a former Christian, they typically conclude that I must not have been a real Christian, that I was not taught the true understanding of God, or that there must have been some sort of tragedy to make me angry at God. Or perhaps I am just an evil person and I have chosen to serve evil. Or they believe that no one can really be an atheist, that deep down I must know God exists, and rather than actually not believing that God exists I must be actively rejecting God and all He stands for. But in doing so, they fail to address me. They are not talking to me, but to their misunderstanding of me. So my hope is that this essay will give Christians, and theists in general, a better understanding of how at least one former theist came to be a former theist.

This is also for anyone who has had, or especially for anyone who is currently going through, a deconversion process, to have a story of someone else who has gone through it. Having gone through it myself, I know it can be an emotionally and psychologically painful process, but I can say that, for me at least, the rewards of my journey have been more than worth it.
My Life as a Christian

I suppose you can call this my "extimony," a term which I should explain for those who may be unfamiliar with the brand of evangelical Christianity in which I was involved. Among the evangelical crowd, having a "born-again" experience of admitting to God that you are a sinner, asking for his forgiveness which he offers through the sacrificial death of Jesus, and inviting God into your life to "create you anew" is crucial: if you have not had such an experience, if you have not so invited Jesus into your heart, you have not truly been "saved," i.e., you are not a real Christian. As the label "evangelical" implies, evangelical Christians also take evangelism very seriously (as in the "Great Commission" at the end of Matthew instructing Jesus's followers to go to all the world and preach the gospel). To evangelize involves "witnessing" to others, i.e., telling them the gospel message, the story (as they understand and interpret it, anyway) of God, Jesus, Heaven and Hell, salvation, etc. One's "testimony," i.e., one's own personal story of one's born-again experience and subsequent relationship with Jesus and of what God has done in one's life, features prominently in witnessing. Thus, as one who used to give my testimony when witnessing to others about how I became a Christian, I call the story of how I became an ex-Christian "my extimony."

So, by "no longer a Christian," I mean specifically no longer a born-again, Bible-believing, evangelical, Protestant Christian. But if you are a Catholic, Anglican, Mormon, or some other form of Christian--or even a Muslim, Hindu, or whatever else--before you conclude too quickly that I was just involved in the wrong religion and that your own "One True Religion" (tm) is safe from my critique, think carefully about how some of my general critiques of evangelical Christianity may likely apply to your religion, e.g., the question of the existence of a theistic god in the first place. Also think about how some of my specific critiques of evangelical Christianity can be easily modified to apply to your religious views, e.g., problems with interpreting and defending your "Holy Book(s)" and your interpretations of them.

And before I relate how I became an ex-Christian, I should say how I became a Christian in the first place. In brief, I grew up with it. My parents took me to church, and I believed and accepted what I was taught. But, really, it wasn't so simple as that. My born-again experience occurred when I was eight years old. I can still recall the conversation I had with my mother when she laid out the Gospel for me. The story made sense to me, I accepted it, and, as the next step was explained to me, I invited Jesus into my heart and pledged to serve him with my life, to follow his lead. Even now I recall the special feeling I had then, a feeling of everything falling into place and making sense, a feeling of inner strength and happiness and enthusiasm, a feeling of belonging, of having a place, of knowing who and why I was. It was a feeling, as was explained to me, of the presence of God. I felt God in me.

Sure, I was just eight years old, and I was accepting what my mother was telling me. But I really did accept it for myself. Just accepting whatever my parents (or anyone) said just on their say-so was not the way I typically operated. For as long as I remember, I've always wanted, and looked for, reasons for a claim, an expectation, a command. I've always been one to think about the whys behind the way things are. It should have been expected that I would eventually study philosophy in college and graduate school.

Also, though I was just eight and the emotions I felt at the time were quite immature relative to what adolescents and adults experience, what I felt was a big deal for me at that age. After all, when you feel the presence of God, that's a pretty big feeling at any age. I experienced it to the depth and extent my limited emotional capabilities allowed. In fact, the experience itself significantly enhanced and shaped my emotional capabilities. Before my born-again experience, I was without an overarching theme for my life, a general understanding that could encompass my life and experiences and make sense of it as a whole. I was just living. But Christianity gave me a reason for it all, a way to understand it all, not just something specific in life but the whole thing.

To some extent, I later sort of regretted having become a Christian so young, at least in one respect. As a teenager, I was very impressed by the powerful testimonies of adults who found God at a later age, after having experienced the misery and depths of a sinful, selfish life of rebellion against God and then having been redeemed from those depths by a loving God who recreated them into his joyful children to lead powerful, meaningful, fulfilled lives in service to him. I guess I had a touch of "testimony envy," finding myself wishing a bit that I had that sort of deeply-moving testimony that so obviously demonstrated God's love and power to those who did not yet know him. But I was even more grateful that God had spared me from having to experience those sorts of depths before he redeemed me.

And I did have what I believed to be powerful evidence of God's working in my life. Not having to have gone through such negative experiences was one. As I was taught, we as Christians should live our lives such that others could see the power of Christ in us. Having, as a Christian, been able to avoid those miserable depths should be evidence to others that there was another way available to them, that life can be better, it can have meaning and purpose and fulfillment.

Another among many convincers for me was what happened as a result of my father getting transferred when I was thirteen. Junior high school is not a good age to be uprooted from one location and planted somewhere else where the friendships and cliques had already been established, especially for an introverted person who already felt out of step with his peers in the first place. Added to that, I was a Southern boy from Georgia moving to a rather preppy and exclusive part of Connecticut. Further, I had been all set to transfer to a private Christian school the next year. I could not understand what God was doing.

But when we got where we were going, I began to understand. It took a while to realize it, but things were working out for me much better than I was fearing they might. The church we left, the one I had known my whole life, was decent enough for me, but there were not a lot of kids my age and I did not really fit in with them, and they were not all that serious about their faith. Our new church, however, had a lot of kids my age, and in fact many more around my age than any other age. Those of us around my age were sort of a "pig in a python" growing up in that church. Also, I fit in well with the group, at least by my standards of "fitting in." And, plenty of them were serious about their faith. It was definitely a time of spiritual growth for me. Along with them, I went through the ups and downs of adolescence as well as of Christian faith, continuing to learn more about my faith and growing as a Christian, seeking what God wanted for my life. At times I felt distant from God, but he always brought me back to himself. Looking back on it, going to a public school that had high academic standards, and going there with a good group of Christian friends who were serious about their faith and who could help me as I also helped them navigate the dangers and temptations of "the world" helped me grow in ways that I didn't think would have been possible in a more sheltered environment. It seemed obvious to me that God was working in my life, and that he knew what he was doing with me, that he could be trusted to lead me.

Continue here: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/hobbs.html

Deep Sight:

Where is Huxley? Let him come and answer this case himself.

What is there for me to respond to? I cannot spend my time responding to the deluded idle assertions on a benighted religionist when such assertion are not backed by any arguments/evidence.

Where is the scientific publications about these giant Humans? How old are these supposed to be?

If "fire and brimstone" are all symbolic, then what is so bad about hell then? Give it to me any time. Anywhere else MUST be far better than heaven, particularly id that stupid Jesus is there.