Yes You Have… March 7, 2008

Yes You Have…

By Guest Contributor
March 7, 2008

Ray Comfort said it. Not me.

… an atheist… once wrote me a stinging email, saying that if I really believed in Hell and that I had found everlasting life, I would be running around the streets pleading with people. I wrote back and told him that that is exactly what I do. I have been doing that for more than 30 years. I have stood on a box around 5,000 times and looked like a fool as I pleaded with this dying world…



[tags]atheist, atheism, ignorance, Christian[/tags]

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  • i am enjoying the comments on his post more than anything.

  • Hey, crazy atheists–
    I’ve converted, but I’m going to be praying for you.

    For those of you who share my new faith, and I know there are some of you on this blog, I’d like to ask a question. Sadly, the forums over at FSM are difficult to navigate and don’t seem to be searchable… anyway, it is hard to find catechism classes where I live.

    I was wondering if there is a pastafarian holiday that I can take part in. Since the day of the revelation is noted only as “May,” I wonder if we could pick a date to celebrate? With gift exchanges and mistletoe, or may beer and strippers… I guess, however you like.

    Thanks for helping me walk the path with you! I am nothing alone, but with Him I am perfect.

  • slut

    Hey Drew, you got to celebrate “Talk Like a Pirate Day”: September 19!

  • Adrian

    I’m not sure Ray gets it.

    Imagine if, instead of being tortured forever, they were just tortured for three years, and if instead of being in some dreamy after-life, it was down the block. Every time you walked back from work or out to buy groceries, you would hear the screams of people inside. You could stop and look inside but it was so horrific, few would do so. And you knew that anyone who converted to a different religion or broke one of God’s rules would get sent to this torture chamber.

    If you saw your nine year old daughter talking to an atheist and you thought there was the slightest chance that she would deconvert and get sent to to the torture house, what would you do?

    Make it even milder and closer to home. Let’s say you were in Central Africa after a theocratic dictatorship gained power and closed the borders. The penalty for blasphemy or breaking any of the Ten Commandments isn’t torture or death but to have your hands burned off. It is Sunday and an atheist friend of your daughter wants her to go to the mall, breaking one of the Commandments (penalty: burned off hands) and risking apostasy (penalty: death). Your daughter’s friend has convinced her that she will be safe, but you know she won’t. What do you do?

    Would you make a YouTube video about bananas, or would you restrain your daughter while threatening to beat her friend with a baseball bat if he ever came around again?

    You only make idiotic videos and ridiculous religious speeches when you know that what you say is a lie, an empty threat, something children take seriously but no thinking adult does. If you really believed it and you could do anything to save your children, you would do it, even if it meant breaking laws, even if it meant hurting people, you would do it. What parent wouldn’t?

  • cipher

    Adrian, here’s the deal – they aren’t really in it to convince us. They’re trying to convince themselves.

  • GentlePath

    I really don’t mind being prayed for. I mind being TOLD I’m being prayed for. Be honest. When you tell an atheist you’re praying for them it’s Christian Code for a nasty phrase that starts with f and ends with you.

  • Doesn’t talk like a pirate day predate FSM?

    I guess I never thought about it. And anyway, I guess there’s nothing wrong with religion usurping a pagan holiday as their own, eh?

    Still, I’m thinking something a little more festive– something with traditions that will make other religions jealous. Not that talk like a pirate day doesn’t, I guess.

  • Mercurious

    LOL GentlePath: I love that quote. Mind if I use it from time to time?

    I’ve given up on Ray. I can only take so many doses of stupid. He will never ever live down the banana. Unfortunately I don’t think he’ll ever truly understand why the rest of the world laughs at him.

    rAmen

  • GentlePath said,
    Be honest. When you tell an atheist you’re praying for them it’s Christian Code for a nasty phrase that starts with f and ends with you.

    I personally know devout Christians who have told me that they pray for God to dispense wrath on those they don’t like and send them to Hell. Prayer isn’t always used for good. It is mainly used to validate and amplify people’s own predispositions and to alleviate fears.

  • Jen

    Talk Like a Pirate day was started by Dave Barry, who is awesome, back when I was in high school, which was before I ever heard of the FSM.

  • GentlePath

    Mercurious — you’re welcome to use that phrase anytime — hehe.

    Jeff — I totally agree. Long, long ago in a town far, far away I was 16 and tagging along with my Philosophy professor and 5 or 6 other adults at what had to be the world’s smallest demonstration on the sidewalk in front of a church where Jerry Faldwell was having a breakfast.

    We were careful not to step one foot off the public sidewalk onto the church’s grass. We were also quiet, no yelling at all. We walked in a little oval along the walk and did not interfere with anyone entering the building.

    I had my back to the road when an angry Christian tromped on the gas and swerved his car to run me over. Missed my hip by about 6 inches and scared me half to death. After I’d jumped out of the way – he rolled down his window and spit at me.

    I could really feel the love.

  • I could really feel the love.

    That’s what I’ve dubbed a “love=hate relationship.”