Answering a Pastor’s Challenge

You should check out this, and someone could give it to the pastor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN5lTgcqOFU

I think it’s very arrogant of this guy to even do this challenge when so many of his fellow colleagues are unbelievers.

Maybe he honestly believes what he says, and he really doesn’t know about this sort of thing. And maybe his church happens to be free of old atheist priests who are to old to get a real job.

Well Youtuber tenneral is not a spring chicken and is not only a recent deconvert but an outspoken one:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tenneral

His profile says he’s 65, so technically he might not count.

The terms of the challenge do seem a little unfair. There is a requirement of a lifetime of faith and then only a narrow window to lose it (it doesn’t count if you were 40, 50, 60 when you deconverted) and moreover you need to be “out” to a member of a church no less.

I don’t have any examples of someone becoming an atheist when they are over 70. I do think, though, that the general trend of becoming more religious as you grow older is sumarized up here in my most recent comic.

“The terms of the challenge do seem a little unfair. There is a requirement of a lifetime of faith and then only a narrow window to lose it (it doesn’t count if you were 40, 50, 60 when you deconverted) and moreover you need to be “out” to a member of a church no less.”

I agree. This seems (sort of) like an example of the “goalpost moving” that so many Christians engage in. We know several athiests in their 40s or 50s who deconverted after 20+ years, but apparently that’s not enough.

You have to have been in the faith for 40+ years to be a “true Christian”. You have to be over age 70, when the average life expectancy of a person born in 1940 is less than 70 years. Plus the fact that many people, especially older people, do what they’ve always done out of habit or fear.

I’m not saying it’s impossible…there may be plenty such people out there. But I think it would be pretty tough to find an older person who is open and out about their athiesm after a lifetime of faith.

I think some of you are missing a very important point. Hemant quotes Hoffman as saying “Believe me Debbie this is going to be a challenge because Jesus is faithful to those who put their trust in him.”

Note that Hoffman is testing that jesus is faithful to his followers. It seems Hoffman believes that if you put in enough years following jesus he won’t abandon you, and so you can’t lose your christian faith.

Those that have lost faith as per Hoffman’s stipulations prove that jesus abandons his followers.

@gski: You can’t be abandoned by someone that doesn’t exist.

The pastor set this challenge deliberately to be nearly unachievable. The numbers are so strict you will find very few, which he can claim are just aberrations. It’s a scam, just like all religious challenges, questions and arguments.

If he wants examples of true believers that deconverted there are millions, Matt Dillahunty is a prime example, and the paster can ask Matt himself for his reasons why. Asking for ridiculously restrictive numbers is just the typical theist moving-the-goalpost tactics.

Over 70? As in the case of Antony Flew, Christians seem eager to associate their cause with cognitive senescence.

Believe me Debbie this is going to be a challenge because Jesus is faithful to those who put their trust in him.

Believe me pastor, there are other reasons why meeting the specifics of this challenge might be difficult, even if Jesus didn’t exist or wasn’t divine. People over 70 are mostly retired, and no longer at their physical, mental and monetary peak. They are more dependent than younger folk on the support network of family and friends – which they may lose if they make their unbelief public. It would also mean admitting that a big chunk of their life was rather a waste of effort. From the small pool of candidates fitting your requirement, there may not be many with the intellectual gumption to admit they were so wrong for so long.

My Grandmother was Catholic for many, many years. She was married to someone who, isn’t genetically my Grandfather, but he filled much the same role, I’ve never actually met my real Grandfather. Anyway, the point is, he was, and still is, the God fearing sort that is full of absolute hypocrisy and all sorts of bullshit. He’d take credit for things that were entirely my Grandmother’s doing while all the time praising Jebus and crap like that. When they finally got divorced he managed to get almost everything, mostly because she just wanted him gone.
I think it was when my Grandmother was in my 60s that she started to turn to Buddhism, one of the key things she said she particularly liked about it was the fact that it asked you to question, rather than follow blindly, like Catholicism. I don’t know what her exact opinion of Jesus was, but she was an intelligent woman. As far as I can tell, even if she still believed he existed or whatever she found the whole notion of Catholicism highly unimpressive, given it could turn out total dicks like my psuedo-Grandfather. This theory is supported by the fact that there were occasionals rant about this.

Turns out she just squeaks in with the 70+ rule, she died of a brain tumour a couple of years back at the age of 71. Wonder why Jebus didn’t fix her?

To the Pastor:

“Your challenge to find people who de-converted after 40-50 years of being a Christian speaks not to how ‘right’ Christianity is but to how strongly these believers have been indoctrinated into the cult. Today, young people have access to the ideas that their parents and religious leaders once attempted to shelter them from and they are leaving ‘the faith’ in droves.”

My grandmother was a very religious Jew for most of her life, and as a result she and my atheist grandfather had a very antagonistic relationship (although it seemed they were happiest that way for some reason). Trying to remember back now, she definitely talked like a religious person, it was clear that she believed in God, and she used to go to synagogue every morning (although some of that was an excuse to see her friends, I think).

I’ve had a few conversations with her recently, though, where she’s admitted to me that she doesn’t really believe in any of it but that wishful thinking comforts her (if I had to call her anything, I’d probably call her a theistic agnostic). The interesting thing is that she’s told me she definitely doesn’t believe in an afterlife (what she “wants to believe in” is that something bigger cares about her), despite the fact that the afterlife idea would probably offer her more comfort than anything else (since the primary cause of her depression seems to have been my grandfather’s death).

I don’t think she works as an example for this pastor, even though she meets his age criteria, because she was never a Christian. Regardless, though, I still think it’s an interesting case…

* Side note: If we’re really desperate for examples, maybe we should look into Dan Barker’s parents. He mentioned them in his book… (although obviously there’s no need for examples since previous commenters have exposed the fatuity of the ‘challenge’, it might be good to provide some anyway).

Can we adopt a sliding scale for this? It would be relatively easy to find Christians of 20-30 years who are 50+ and deconverted. We could probably find a number of volunteers who could list the number of years they were a Christian and the age at which they deconverted.

Many people have already pointed out the difficulties with this challenge that have nothing to do with Jesus. People over 70 are far less likely to question lifelong beliefs. Those that do are far less likely to proclaim their unbelief publicly because the church is often the primary source of social interaction for seniors.

But, it would be great if we could spread the word. I’m sure we can find a lot of people who meet the spirit of the challenge (long time Christians who now regret it) and at least a few who meet the specific requirements.

Oh yea, well find me a christian over 100 who’s been an atheist over 90 years!

Oh crap – even if you find someone they’ll still say they don’t count since they must never have been a “real Christian.”

Well, I guess I don’t count: I was a Christian for only 28 years, ending in my 40s (and really, I was probably Hoffman’s kind of Christian for no more than half that, ending by age 30). The guy’s already set the bar ridiculously high, and if he gets an example that meets his criteria I bet he’ll just resort to the No True Scotsman move.

I say this challenge is just as phoney as Kent Hovind’s “Prove evolution” challenge.

ME!! christian for more than 50 years; now an enlightened atheist.

Too bad he didn’t include people who were religious all their lives and deconverted (practically) on their deathbeds.

My friend was in her 60’s, devout Catholic, when she survived lung cancer. A year later she developed another primary cancer in a breast. An aggressive type of cancer and all they could do for her was keep her comfortable. About 2 weeks before she died, she told me “I know the lights are just going out and my ashes will fertilize a tree. That’s enough for me”

It was not a ‘hopeless’ statement. She was serene when she made it and it didn’t frighten her in the way you’d expect it to.

What difference IF he’s right?

Religion is often a lifelong addiction.

Jesus gets the credit, Satan the blame.
The deck is stacked!

Good on ya Midwest Doc. Did you send a note to the Pastor?

I see the goalposts moving too. He’ll say they weren’t “true believers”.

I think the most difficult part of the challenge is proving the individual “trusted Jesus” or “lived through Jesus”.

(1) The decade or two (whatever age this pastor thinks is old enough to convert) before being saved/born-again/etc probably doesn’t count.

(2) The time you spent doubting religion before officially breaking contact probably won’t count.

(3) Any years you spent not following this pastor’s idea of trusting Jesus won’t count. (i.e. not going to church or volunteering, voting for the wrong political party, not praying daily for guidance, having activities/opinions you know that church doesn’t like, etc)

Given all of that, I’m not surprised the man thinks only a 70-year-old could be both an atheist and have 40-50 years of religious life.

When I worked in the nursing home, I met a few people who sort of deconverted. I don’t think they would call themselves atheists, but they were lonely and miserable enough that they no longer believed that Christianity provided the peace and comfort it promised, either, so maybe middle of the road: No longer “on fire for God” but not really atheist, either. I think the saddest people were the ones who did still believe; you could see them praying and not understanding why they were there. I made it a point not to discuss religion with them unless they brought it up, so I don’t have a concrete example, but I do know that they exist. Many of them went to the services offered just for something to do.

I don’t fit the criteria–I come closer to Dan Barker’s experience. I was a serious, committed believer for 20 years, got a degree in biblical studies from a conservative evangelical college and planned to become a pastor, but instead went into communications and did marketing and other kinds of writing for church and parachurch organizations (including a stint at Bill Graham’s organization) and have now been an atheist for going on 15 years or so. My point in writing this, though, was to question one criterion in particular: I don’t regret my decision to “follow Jesus.” Some of the best times I’ve had in my life and some of the best friends I’ve made were from that period. And I’m not sure what use regret is, anyway…except, I suppose, as a learning tool. OK, I won’t make the mistake of having an imaginary friend as a middle-aged man. But if I had to say I truly regret having been a devout, happy “follower of Jesus,” I could not do it with integrity. That requirement seems to be loading the dice somehow. In fact, the whole challenge seems freighted in unfair ways. I can easily imagine the deconversions of the aged being called some form of senile dementia by the faithful. Just as they are in so many cases unable to admit that a person who once believed is capable of reasoning her way out of a mistaken commitment to an unsupportable view.

No one has stated this explicitly, but isn’t he just looking for the parallel to a “deathbed conversion”? Wanting desperately to believe in god and an afterlife when you’re near death is not even remotely similar to regretting that you’ve spent your life trusting Jesus.

Anyone who has been a “true believer” that long either hasn’t the intelligence to question his beliefs, or has but is ashamed to admit he was a sucker for so long.

Here’s another
http://richarddawkins.net/convertsCorner,page2#850:

It was almost 46 years later, to the day, when I finally broke the spell of ‘belief’.

…

I regret only that I did not escape this mental and emotional slavery at an earlier age.

I think there’s a problem with this challenge in that it doesn’t take into account that as people get older they may become more set in their ways and find change difficult, especially change about the way they see the world. I’m not saying it’s for sure, but when I look at my own grandparents, the idea of believing anything besides Hindhuism at this age is just not thinkable. I can imagine my grandmother’s reaction to being asked to thing about religion and atheism would solicit a lot of disninterest and confusion. As it is she is what I would call a traditional religious person. A lot of her religion is mixed up with her culture and lifestyle so removing one would be like turning her world upside down at age 73. I imagine it might be like this for many older people.

“Anyone who has been a ‘true believer’ that long either hasn’t the intelligence to question his beliefs, or has but is ashamed to admit he was a sucker for so long.”

I’m not quite sure a correlation has been drawn between level of intelligence and atheism, but even so “cum hoc ergo propter hoc” remains a logical fallacy.

The challenge, as many others have said, isn’t really a valid one.

Cheers and Excelsior!

As others have pointed out this is a wasted challenge (By the same token neither Mohammed nor Krishna nor Buddha abandon their followers). Even worse, if you could list out thousands of folks, the preacher would probably come out with some excuse and then continue with business as usual.

Mother Teresa’s crisis of faith is an example. (Though even here the religious will spin it into their favor)

Dear Pastor Hoffmann,

I guess I would not quite meet the terms of your challenge. I am presently approaching my 69th birthday, and I was a committed Christian for a mere 27 years, from age 20 to 47. However, I think the intensity of my commitment should be considered. At the age of 36 I enrolled in a full 4-year seminary program to become a pastor in my conservative denomination, the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. I had a wife and two children, and I put myself through seminary using my savings, an inheritance from my parents and the money I could earn by preaching in churches with a pastoral vacancy.

It was in fact seminary and the few years following in the ministry that put me on the track to de-conversion. Although I had read the entire Bible through a couple of times, I had obviously managed to read some of the more gruesome passages in the Old Testament with glazed eye and numbed mind. When I had to study the Bible in detail, parts of it in the original languages, the barbaric genocidal passages began to leap out at me. Surely you’ve come across them, where God, nobody else, commands the Israelites to kill all of the people they are at war with, including women and children, sometimes even babies. I cite just one of dozens, Numbers 31:1-17, where in the last verse the Israelites are commanded to kill “all the boys [including infants] and every woman who has slept with a man” but are graciously permitted to “save for yourselves [i.e., keep as sex slaves] every girl who has never slept with a man. (NIV) One other problem arose starting in seminary and worsening as I worked in the ministry. My wife, to whom I had been married since age 23 and whom I still deeply loved, had been a very enthusiastic member of our church and had encouraged me to go into the ministry. However, friction developed between us in seminary and intensified once I was in the ministry. I prayed long and hard for healing in my marriage and took every practical step I could think of to bring it about, including seeking counseling from a number of people. It just got worse. We eventually separated and then divorced. Of course clergy are supposed to have perfect marriages, aren’t they? Obviously there’s a lot more to my dropping my religious beliefs, and if you are interested, you can find a fuller version of my story on the Friendly Atheist Forum at http://forum.friendlyatheist.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3041 .

I left the ministry and stopped attending church in 1988. I called myself an agnostic for about 20 years, mainly because the sense of awe I have at the beauty of the natural world predisposed me to believe that there was some “Ground of Being” though I would not use the word “God” as I had conceived an intense dislike for the shabby figure portrayed under that name in the Bible. A few years ago, I switched over to calling myself an atheist because the more I study evolution, the clearer it becomes that living organisms cannot have resulted from intelligent design. Beautiful as animals are, they, and we humans, have bodies that are often weirdly designed and inefficient, just what you would expect to be thrown up by the operation of random forces.

With respect to your two questions, do I regret my decision to “trust Jesus”? Well, I don’t regret every minute of the 27 years. I had some good times and I had some good friends in the church. However, on the whole, yes I do regret my decisions that were influenced by Christian belief. I regret wasting so much time reading the Bible and praying; I seriously regret all that money which I gave to the church and also which I spent on seminary, as I really could use it now to have a more comfortable retirement and also to give more to worthwhile charities; and finally I regret most of all the detour in my career path from which I never recovered—I ended up doing simple low-wage jobs for the last 20 years of my working life. However, I don’t hold this against Jesus since he’s dead and gone, and I don’t hold it against God since he never existed. Surely the answer to the other question (Would I tell young people not to trust Jesus?) is implicit in all that I have said so far.

Sincerely yours,

PS Some of you guys commenting are way too ageist. The mental faculties do not dry up in a person’s 60’s.

BTW, there are a couple of people who might meet Hoffmann’s criteria. As I recall, Dan Barker said his parents de-converted after he did.

Here’s the response I just sent:

Dave,

At the Friendly Atheist blog, I read about your challenge to your congregation. I would like to respond with my testimony.

I was raised by dedicated Christian parents and as I grew up, I became a serious Christian myself. When I was in college, I began to learn about and participate in the charismatic movement of the late 1960’s. I was an active member of a charismatic house church (as well as a number of other churches) from 1971 until 2002.

During those years I served my churches in a variety of roles, especially teaching classes and leading home study groups. As I read the Bible and many other Christian books, prayed, and listened to sermons, I gradually developed my own theology in an attempt to clarify what I felt God was teaching me about how to live. I wrote several pages of a document that I wanted to give to my sons as a way to share what I had learned over my lifetime. It was generally orthodox in theology, but emphasized social concerns while contradicting some common doctrines.

Like most couples, my wife and I had difficulties in our relationship, and the counselors we saw encouraged my natural introspective examination of my life. As I worked on this in the fall of 2002, I realized that in my zeal to live for God, I was trying to control (“help”) my wife and other people. I repented of that and discovered a freedom that I had never found from trusting Jesus to forgive my sins. When I realized that the core doctrine of Christianity was not important to me, I began to reconsider my theology. Over the next couple of weeks, my religious faith fell apart, and I grew increasingly convinced that there is nothing supernatural.

During the seven years since then, my relationship with my wife has been markedly better than during the many years when I was a Christian. She acknowledges that, while still grieving the loss of her Christian husband. In 2001 she received her Masters degree in Christian Counseling from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is now in private practice as a counselor. Meanwhile, I have become active in the Brights movement (www.the-brights.net), corresponding with prisoners who are not religious, and writing notes like this one to help remove some of the common misconceptions about non-religious people.

You stated to Debbie Skomer that your challenge wouldn’t be easy “because Jesus is faithful to those who put their trust in him.” I agree that it’s rare to find someone who abandons religion after many years, but it seems to me that there are other possible reasons than the one you gave. What kept me from questioning my beliefs for so many years was my immersion in an evangelical Christian culture. Not only did my churches and the books I read constantly buttress my faith, but I enjoyed the acceptance, respect and love from my Christian family and friends. I had little incentive to consider that I and all the loving people around me might be mistaken in our beliefs.

Thanks for listening. More of my story is at http://www.mountaintrail.us/Wanderer/wonderingsinbox.htm, and I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Joel Justiss