Christian Girls Who Say Sh*tuff

“I do realize how absolutely insane that sounds, but I believe it.”

Yeah, that doesn’t do it. If you’re going to claim that you ‘ask “why?” quite frequently’ then you’re really going to have to answer ‘why’ as well. You know you believe this, you know you need a reason why, so spit it out already – what is your reason?

(and I realise that with the obvious comedy name I’m possibly responding seriously to an attempted joke, but I’ll head that off by simply pointing out that it wasn’t in the least bit funny)

“God tells me to ….” is such a *monumental* cop-out, avoiding taking responsibility for your own actions that it boggles the mind.

As an adult, you’re responsible for everything you do and say, and the responsibility does not go away if you merely point out that someone else “told you to”. Because in that choice the question just morphs into “why do you obey?”, leaving you firmly *on* the hook aslong as the person wasn’t holding a gun to your head. Absent a good answer to “why do you obey”, the justification of “God told me to” is equivalent to “just because”.

We accepts, sometimes even expect, little children to do or abstain from things for absolutely no reason other than being told so. We expect more from adults. Except if they’re religious, offcourse.

Hi Mary. Thank you for responding  to Hemant’s  question for us. It is interesting to hear from a thoughtful person ‘on the inside’ discuss issues like this so frankly.

This article is excellently written and hilariously insightful. Love the pseudonym, too (I’m assuming, but — come on!? ‘Married to Jesus’? If it’s not a pun, it might as well be). More, more, more! Please, don’t let this be a one-time thing. Reading this gave me some hope for the future!

Either the author is a really sincerely believing Christian of the non-fundie type (and a fun and congenial one at that), or she is an incredibly slick and witty Poe. I honestly cannot tell. That’s how good it is! Kudos!

Since such quality of Poe’ing is unheard of, I will unfortunately have to assume for the moment that the author is a sincere Christian. In that case, I will not attempt to debate you in these comments. Instead, I will simply suggest googling one word: compartmentalization.

And also, I would offer such an excellent video by Greta Christina, which can only hope to be an appropriately excellent response to such an excellent blog post. May it ‘shake things up’ a little: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUI_ML1qkQE

 
Do some Christian girls really yearn for a Samson? That guy seemed to be into prostitutes.

One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. – Judges 16:1

Hot.   😉

Maybe you’re different, but the journey to “why” for me is more important than making a decision and closing a door. I’m on here to explore things and give you a perspective from a cynic and a Christian (and yes, the two can coexist!).

Your latter point hits the nail on the head…thanks for your insight!

Thanks. I like people from Kentucky. While I can’t assure I’m taking any leaps, I appreciate your kindness.

Don’t worry. I’m going to be sorting out a lot of junk on here. My therapist moved so I figured this could be a good resource for me…as long as people stay tactful.

It’s a whim when we want to take responsibility. It totes Jesus when we don’t. Sometimes, we just flip a coin.

Religious people often consider themselves little more than children. Notice how they call themselves either “God’s children” or a “flock” or “lambs” with God being their father or shepherd.

A whim is telling me you and Michael are soul mates and must stay together.  Since I’m clearly more in the spirit than you are, my whim is the correct whim.

Mary, I’m going to give you some advice that should have been given to that poor Mormon girl a couple of years ago. Run! The friendliest of atheists take no prisoners.

On a whim I’ll ignore your whim.

Hi Mary – my name is Mary too. I started out completely into the Bubble. I loved the Bubble! Yes, I did my Bible reading and journaling either in an IHOP or in a cool hippy coffeehouse back in the 90’s when I was a high school/college student. I think I was one of the pioneers of that sort of Christian! It gave me lots of witnessing opportunities and made me feel special and important…all that time with God and talking about God and all of that. But there was always a part of me that was like you. I was seen as a leader, but went to a Christian retreat and skipped one of the more chauvinist sessions  (Oh that stuff made me so mad!) and took a few younger girls skinny dipping instead (girls only of course, I wasn’t THAT bad! It never occurred to me that one of them might enjoy seeing the other girls naked LOL). Once I went up to a pastor with a book I got from the church library. It claimed to dispute the most popular contradictions in the Bible. That book opened my eyes to a bunch of real problems with Scripture, and the author’s “resolutions” did NOT make them okay. The pastor’s explanations didn’t either. I was really disappointed and troubled that this expert I listened to week after week couldn’t do any better and basically said that God knew all the answers and some of them were just too complicated for us to understand. But I kept believing in my beloved Jesus.

In college, a non-Christian friend I really respected and liked (and wanted to show Jesus to) asked me a brilliant question. When I got the nerve up to talk to her about faith, I told her that I was doing it because I loved her. And she asked, “Can’t you just love me because you love me? Can’t you just love me because love itself is good and not have an agenda?” That question made me think a lot about real love and what I associated with it. Why did love require me to hope that she would change and find God? Why couldn’t love just accept her for who she was, whatever her opinions or beliefs? And if I could love her like that, why didn’t God?The final straw for me was not my “disappointment with God” when I was diagnosed with cancer at 28. It was not my frustration at seeing other cancer patients praying so hard, yet the surviving and dying were completely randomized and had nothing to do with how wonderful or faithful the people were. It wasn’t seeing how faith in healing kept people from discussing very powerful and loving topics like “what to do if I die” and “what I’d like for my funeral” and “how are my loved ones doing knowing that I could die.”The final straw for me was reading the Bible one day. I was reading something in the Old Testament that just didn’t add up. I thought about it and realized that a loving God would not act that way, and I had to conclude that the Bible wasn’t perfect. At first, I could live with that…the Bible just didn’t fully depict God as He is. But then, the more I thought, the more it bothered me that my big wonderful God did not give us one book to rely on as Truth. Of course an all-powerful God could have done that, so why didn’t he? It was heartbreaking for me to realize that this “love of my life” wasn’t who I thought He was. From there, it wasn’t long until I realized that the God of the Bible didn’t work for me.  Either He was a God who claimed to be perfect but gave us an imperfect book, or He was a God we can’t know anything about for sure because the one book that supposedly came from Him was just human words. Now there is no warm fuzzy lover-of-my-soul Jesus in my life anymore. Maybe he existed, and maybe the Bible is accurate about him, but there are a lot of inconsistencies in the book and what we know about history, so believing requires more than just faith. It requires giving up logic and my love of science and history. So I figure I’ll base my life on what I do know. I know that life is short, that I better do something good with it because it may be all I get! What comes afterward, if anything, cannot be proven by anyone. So I am living and loving and enjoying life now without worrying about “me” and “what God thinks of me” all the time. It is quite freeing not to need a concept of yourself, not to need to scrutinize everything. I just do what I think is best and move on. Life is a beautiful, a short gift. Every little thing you do probably isn’t as important as a few major decisions you make and then the consistency  you have in living out those things well. Get a job that you believe in – do it well. Have a child – love her well. Find a cause – support it well. Those things will make a difference in the world. What you *think*, your opinions, even what you say…it’s a lot of words signifying very little. Just do something good with your life.

I don’t mean to talk down to you. If you want to hold onto your faith and it works for you, then you do that. But keep writing here – love your style.

You can’t forget that he killed 30 strangers for their robes and set foxes on fire.   Samson always seemed like a psychopath, and I could never figure out why he was considered a hero. 

I haven’t had coffee yet. You’re likely right.

I’m a different “Mary,” but I can chime in on these since I was in the church for so long. 🙂 1. I think many Christians are sincere when they say they love gay people but not homosexuality. I was. That type of love is drilled into their heads as the highest type of love. If you REALLY love someone, you want them to know Jesus and to live a Bible-life, because that is what will make them happiest (even if they don’t know it). Since many Christians are taught that homsexuality is wrong, then they think that the best way to love a gay person is to love them but hope they will stop doing the gay stuff so they can be closer to God. 2. I believed in hell but believed that God was loving because he provided a way out. I simply saw it as a personal choice whether you wanted to spend eternity with Him or not. I always thought it was wrong to believe that God would send people who had never heard about the Bible to hell, since they didn’t get a fair choice. 3…Annointed,courting, Holy Spirit, God led me to…oh yes, they talk like that.

You’ve made a decision – you’ve clearly decided to identify as Christian, so presumably you’ve decided that at least the basic claims of the religion are true. One assumes that as a person that asks ‘why’, you must have had a reason for having made that decision, so this should be a very simple question – you already have a reason, what was it?

If you weren’t ‘closing a door’ you’d be agnostic.

Sorry the paragraph breaks got lost in my post and made me look like  a raving lunatic. Ahh well. It felt great to write all of that. I think that’s the first time I’ve written it all out. 🙂 Didn’t mean to overwhelm!

The reasons why are deep and complex and can’t be summarzied on a comment. Maybe that will be a post one day in the future. And in regard to your agnostic claim, maybe someone can be both Christian and agnostic. Just a thought.

Hi, Mary. Cool name. Thank you so much for sharing your story on here. There are many things we agree on. 🙂 I look forward to interacting with you more.

The first two are definitely things I’ll be discussing in the future. I think I want to give them the space they need as a post and not hidden in the comments. So, I hope you regularly read this blog! 🙂

The last one…YES. Dear, heavens. I just did a search in my personal email (which I keep pretty cleaned out) and there are at least 16 emails that showed up that have that word in it. May God have mercy on our souls.

Oh, please. Let’s not get into contextual/original language debates so early on. Can’t we just talk about the weather or something first?

 He seems like a big, dumb jock to me.

I understand some women like that sort of thing — but not any woman I’d want to be.

It’s snowing where i am. When you say things like “I follow the teachings of Jesus” I think a lot of people here would be interested in knowing what you really mean by that. Many of the teachings of bible are odious at best (and since Jesus was very clear that the Hebrew Bible had to be followed in every word, you are not off the hook from the teachings in that book). Are there any teachings at all of Jesus that you do not follow I wonder? For any reason?

 “If you REALLY love someone, you want them to know Jesus and to live a
Bible-life, because that is what will make them happiest (even if they
don’t know it).”

This is an important point in any dialog.  This is a radically (from a secularist/atheist perspective) PATERNAL love that makes perfect sense for Christians.  Its bordering on insulting and offensive from an atheist perspective when applied from one adult to another and it looks a lot like child abuse when applied from an adult to a child.

Yeah, echoing and expanding on what DKeane123 said. I’m not sure you realize how condescending it sounds when someone on your side of the Christian privilege bubble talks about “tact.” It sets you up as the arbiter of what’s “tactful,” and allows you to draw the line anywhere *you* feel uncomfortable exploring new ideas or having your opinions challenged. In that way, it’s a little like “God told me so,” in that it shifts the blame and absolves you of the responsibility of carrying on a discussion on the merits of your own arguments.

Atheists on this site are generally pretty careful to remain respectful of *people* while criticizing *ideas* (an important distinction I hope you’re aware of). But when you’ve been raised in an environment that just assumes the rightness and goodness of religion, any criticism of religious ideas can feel like a personal attack. I urge you to question your initial gut reaction to such experiences, and drill down to the substance of the criticism, and only then decide whether it’s something you want to explore or discard.

Tact is not the way to truth. Tact is the way to fluffy good feelings among people who suppress their opinions for fear of offending others. Truth is approached by respectful dialogue and honest criticism of ideas.

(For reference, I [like many others on this forum] lived in “the bubble” for a good many years. I wasn’t as close to the “center” as you are, but I did serve as a band leader / worship leader at a large metropolitan mainline church for over ten years, which accounts for about a quarter of my life to this point. I know what it’s like to be totally committed to the whole theist package. I also know what it’s like to question/read/reason/discuss my way out of it.)

“A man has needs” – looks like the right response if one of those men unfortunately made the prostitute pregnant is to burn her to death. Assume that met a need as well.

“And [Judah] turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his daughter in law.) And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me?…And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt” (Genesis 38:16, 40).

Mary, mind if I ask you a question? Do you believe in evolution?

Well, you’ve set yourself up for it, Mary, and I applaud your courage.  You’ve stepped into the atheist blogsphere an identifiable Christian.  But I’m sure you’re not so naive as to think everyone’s going to welcome you with baskets of wine and cheese.  Many will be so wrapped up in being “right” all the time that they’ll take every opportunity to condemn the irrationality of faith and attack its basis.  You’ll be condemned for unsubstantiated beliefs and cloistered attitudes, and railed against purely because you disagree with an opinion, often without sufficient regard to whether the disagreement is productive.  Who knows?  Maybe that even works for some people, some of the time.

What many people who will decry the irrationalism of religious faith will fail to remember, though, is that none are immune to irrationality.  So let he without sin throw the stones. 

Here’s an example.  Many secular citizens like me have failed to realize that if we were to play our secular values against supernaturalistic norms as some sort of numbers game, we’d lose.  We need allies among the faith communities to humanise the conversation and foster the cross-pollination of important ideas, and cross-connected religious people who can help spread a respectful and accurate portrayal of secularism, as much as religious people need connections to the secular community to show that they are just conflicted, passionate, sometimes crazy but often beautiful people — just like everybody else.

You’ll take some heat, I’m sure.  But I for one welcome you and hope that you will not be so dismayed by reflexive animosity that you give up on the important work of finding common cause between all citizens, of whatever persuasion.

Welcome to the lion’s den, Mary! 😉

There’ll probably be some people who are very challenging to you, here, I’m guessing (Hemant’s the ‘Friendly Atheist’, not necessarily everyone who is at the site…), but there’ll also be people like me who’ll read your posts, and might not say all that much, yet will still find it very interesting. 

Don’t take it the wrong way, but as an atheist, seeing how theists think can be very interesting to me. I know that kind of sounds like I’m studying you in a science project  (well, maybe anthropology), but it’s just that it’s so alien to me. I really find it hard to understand how people think in that Christian Bubble you talk about. That’s not to say I wasn’t a Christian myself. I was. I was just an Anglican. (And sometimes I suspect that in America, Anglicans would be considered as being ‘godless’ from some of the stuff I read!)

So… Welcome!

I don’t think any of the comments thus far have been attacks on her character, although she will undoubtedly get some snide and snarky comments, given that this is the internet. Mostly, she is going to have A LOT of people challenging her on her irrational and unsubstantiated belief (which, from what I understand, is exactly what she wants as she’s trying to “figure it out” for herself).

“Live and let live” is often synonymous with “why can’t you [insert “annoying” minority] shut up and let us say what we want?” To some – especially believers – having these principles challenged might register as personally offensive, but minimizing confrontation won’t get us any closer to the tough questions that need to be asked.

I don’t think anyone here is wringing their hands in a smoky back room going “MUAHAHAHA…it’s only a matter of time before she’s ONE OF US!” She’s a Christian airing her issues with Christianity and Christian culture in a public atheist forum. I think she knows what she’s doing. 🙂

Mary, I appreciate your honesty and your opening up yourself here. Sounds like you’re the “Friendly Christian.”

I’m going to challenge something, and I hope you can accept this as a loving challenge and not an attack. I’ve also been in that “bubble” (but the bubble popped for me about 30 years ago), so I’m saying this as someone who feels like he’s already traveled the path you’re on.

The problem with your approach is what you’ve identified as #2 – you realize that it sounds crazy, but still accept it. You still have faith, the acceptance of something without evidence, or in spite of evidence against it. You recognize this yourself. You need to realize that “faith” is the excuse religious people give themselves for believing something they know they shouldn’t.

You’re almost there. Question yourself – why would you believe something without a reason? In any other area of your life, you would not do this. Why give religion a special pass? You need to recognize that you’ve accepted it because it was implanted in your brain at a time before you had developed the filter of critical thinking skills that would have allowed you to reject it, had you been exposed to it later. That’s the reason that religions can propagate; not because they make any sense at all, but because they’ve developed strict guidelines to indoctrinate children before the children have critical thinking skills. Any religion that didn’t do this would die out.

So while it sounds like you’re somewhat on our side, working against those crazy Christians, in a very important way we view you as still on that other side, because of that faith thing. If you accept a core principle like that without evidence, you’ve unleashed your beliefs and actions from a rational grounding. It’s nice that you are taking the nice tactic, but the core issue is what guides your beliefs and actions, and not so much which specific set of actions you have decided to go with.

Love you!

I’ll probably add this statement to my bio, but any questions asking me to defend why I believe what I do will be politely ignored. I’m not here to prove myself or be unconverted. I’m here to offer a faith perspective. If you can’t accept that, or think I’m somewhat lesser-than because of that, I’m sorry. I know that isn’t going to take care of all those comments but I thought I’d at least set that expectation.

It’s no because I

So then why are you here?  And yes, I’ve read your introduction… twice.

“I’m here to talk about real questions that go through my head. Real
criticisms I have and maybe (maybe) blow the whistle on some serious
stuff that just isn’t right within the Christian community.”

So from your introduction, and the post I’m commenting on, I’m guessing you’re saying that you are the only one that’s allowed to ask the questions?  Not being snarky, just trying to clarify. 

If I’ve understood clearly what you affirm as your beliefs, it sounds as if you are conflicted about Jesus “culture,” the reality of the Jesus “industry,” and the truths about yourself which you are uncomfortable examining in light of your beliefs.  From my atheist viewpoint, it’s truly ironic and very interesting to see this structure of Jesus-focused peer pressure to exemplify some stereotype of the biblical life that makes followers like you uncomfortable about shallowness and hypocrisy in this lifestyle.  It also highlights how insulting it is to be labelled as evil or hell-bound for failing to join or objecting openly to this culture of “superior morality”  being wedged into into politics as a means to mandate morality, an ironic paradox itself since choice would be eliminated by laws in a theocracy.

I like that you are examining these things.  I just want to ask, sincerely, why do you need god?  If it is to lead you to living a good life, are you perpetually filtering out the talking points and scripts of evangelism in order to figure out what that is, or do you trust that you can simply do so on your own with humanitarian goals?  Does god provide comfort and support (as some, not all, of us grudgingly say is an “okay” purpose for religion)?  And do you believe he needs you, perhaps to defend him from his own fawning pretenders as well as heretics?

Just food for thought, whenever you might broach these subjects.

I think it’s easier to understand this particular mindset if you consider it in parallel to something like a close friend or family member who has a problem with alcohol abuse.

Certainly this doesn’t apply to all people who claim to “hate the sin but love the sinner” (and even those to whom it does apply are completely wrong) but it’s easier to understand from that perspective. They honestly believe that non-heterosexuality is a choice or compulsion that is damaging to an otherwise good person. 

Of course there are plenty who just use it as an excuse to be mean spirited bigots. Those people can fuck right off.

I got lost in your post, but in a good way!

“I consider myself a Scientologist in the sense that I follow the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, do believe Lord Xenu existed and seeded the earth with thetans.

I do realize how absolutely insane that sounds, but I believe it.”

I know I’m just gonna get flamed for not being polite and ‘tactful’ but are we really gonna pretend we’d be taking someone seriously if they made the exact same statement about another legally recognized religion?

If I wanted to hear a Christian perspective I’d go to work, come out of the closet and be immediately fired.

In the places I’ve been, yes. They do. Which is why I have a male roommate. Who is not a Christian.

Not everyone does…that’s the whole idea behind these videos on the whole. Does everyone in Chicago like Microbrews? Or does everyone in LA love In-N-Out? (I lived in CA and I hate the darn place).

 Yeah, offering a “faith perspective” doesn’t seem that useful to me.  Any article by or about believers is already going to have a faith perspective.  Plus, most of us used to be believers and already have a decent grasp on how religious people approach the world.

What is useful, and interesting, to me, is what causes someone to choose  to believe in something that they admit “sounds insane”.

I know Hemant asked you to specifically comment on this video and I appreciate you doing so, but I don’t think this post offers much.  Perhaps in the future, we can get your faith perspective on things like atheist billboard and bus ads and what is most effective or misogyny in the skeptic movement.  You know, on a topic we wouldn’t normally be commented on by a believer.

Honestly, though, why you believe what you do is far and away the most interesting and important topic for us to discuss.

 We’ll get there. This is my first post. 🙂

 Can you give an example of one of your single questions?

 Thanks for this, Johann. We are out there. But obviously given my pseudonym, we are really afraid to come out as who we are. Which reminds me, I need to get Hemant to sign a non-disclosure and confidentiality agreement, or else I could lose my job. 🙂

 It’s pretty easy to assume you probably won’t like me very  much. So, might I save you some trouble and simply suggest don’t read my noise? 🙂

With love, not fight, Mary

 <3 That is all I gotta say. 🙂 Gracias.

Thanks for reading 🙂

I am one of those “believers” who doesn’t necessarily believe in a spontaneous moment of salvation. There are times when I have surrendered to my faith (and my God, as it is) and times I have walked away. Why? Because when I have chosen not to (which was a significant portion of my adult life), I realized I am better…me…and therefore better in giving to those around me…with my beliefs. That sounds a little obscure…but, that’s the thing about the unexplainable.

 There have been lots of teachings I haven’t followed….if you simply take the English text for what it is.

I…got a divorce.
I…got drunk.
I…have been (to quote the bible) “sexually immoral.”
I…have lied.
I…have taken God’s name in vain.
I…have been selfish.
I…have done a whole lotta crap that the Scriptures say I don’t.

But – I try…because I believe the morals and values outlined in Scripture are important for me to live by.

I also am a bit into the whole ad fontes notion: to the source…what was this scripture/passage/etc. saying to the people for whom it was originally intended? How does that translate into my own culture? Those are questions I ask.

 Exactly!

 Amen. 🙂

 Thank you. You phrased that very well and true to my intention.

I don’t know you enough to like you or dislike you 🙂

So, then I would have to ask you, what is your point?

“I’m here to offer a faith perspective.”  Ok, good so far…

“I do think I need a god. I have spent years away from religion, and have come back. “

“I do realize how absolutely insane that sounds, but I believe it.”

“I’m not a very logical person.” 

It’s like a holocaust denier giving their “2 cents” in a room full of European Jews. 

Clearly, I understand you have your opinions, but shouldn’t you come (first) with some evidence or at least be able to defend your views?

I’ll I’ve read, so far, is THENDONTREADITWINKYSMILE.

Just a humble suggestion, to help you in your future endeavors. 

 I realize you’re answering dozens of questions, but it’s better not to answer at all than answer like this. Helpful answers would be: no [followed by explanation], yes [followed by explanation if you feel necessary – this audience won’t feel it’s necessary], or… I don’t know, I don’t know anything about biology and can’t judge.

I can imagine they would be.

Hypocrisy is a funny thing. We do all make mistakes, though, so if just being wrong at some point makes somebody a hypocrite for pointing out when somebody else is wrong, the word loses all meaning. Hypocrisy has to be holding people to standards that you have no interest in keeping. I would hope that you keep the standard for yourself that if you’re wrong about something, you’re willing to change it given new information, so it’s not hypocritical to provide new information to others and let them do with it what they will.

As to being judgmental, I don’t see that as judgement. Judgement involves making a quality decision (i.e. “X is bad”). In this case, you’re not talking about right and wrong, you’re talking about true and false. You don’t have to say to people like you were describing, “Actually, X person is a hypocrite and a joke because they personally suggested to me that we do things with whipped cream that has nothing to do with ice cream sundaes.” You can simply tell them the facts: “That person talks a lot about morality, but they we caught doing blow off of their band-mate’s chest.” It’s not a judgement on the person, it is a fact, and it benefits by being a fact that doesn’t rely on scripture as support. If the person you discuss this with shrugs and decides to justify those actions or ignore them, you did nothing but provide them with facts, and they have every right to ignore them.

I also have a lot of trouble asserting myself. Blogging has helped me with that a lot. %)

“Not a pun… but a nun. ”

Punning about nunning is addictive. If you don’t stop now, it’ll turn into a bad habit.

What a whimsical contest that would be.

That flippancy is exactly what pisses us off. We want to be free to not take you seriously, but you’re serious like a bullet.

Go ahead and eat your lunch, but it’s not just about you, it’s about the millions of Christians who vote, donate, hire & fire, and make other decisions with society-shaping implications, all based on your internal struggle with a book of just-so-stories from the Iron Age. Your faction is holding us hostage to your surreal, groundless beliefs about the universe, and what’s worse is that you expect us to just laugh it off and go about our business. I don’t care whether your interpretation of Christianity causes you to feed the homeless and vote for gay marriage instead of burning black churches or killing your sick children with faith healing; the fact that ANY of your decisions can include the consideration of a magical disembodied brain’s take on the issue makes you a loose cannon, and the rest of us never know what’s going to set you off in a way that harms our civilization.

I’m not telling you this to attack you, I’m trying to give you a straight, unvarnished look at how much of* the atheist community feels when you dip your toe in our pool, claiming that it’s okay to give you a pass because you’re not like *those* Christians.  Yes, you bloody well are, and the fact that you don’t see how/why is what both angers and frightens us.

*Obviously, I’m not claiming to speak for every atheist.

Because he was Yahweh’s psychopath. It’s like that SNL skit about being attractive. How can you assure your actions are moral?

1. Belong to the right religion.

2. Don’t belong to the wrong religion.

3. Belong to the correct religion.

 Judging from the rest of these comments, obviously.*

 That’s why I’m a secret blogger. Maybe I’ll learn something.

Ha, that’s hilarious. I guess the blog software ‘finished’ by ‘sigh’ tag at the end of my post. Disregard that last ‘/sigh’.

That whole early half of Matthew 6 seems pretty consistent, both internally and with Larry’s point. What are we missing that makes those passages mean something other than “don’t use your religion as the basis for making a public display out of yourself; piety increases with privacy”?

 He was speaking to a particular demographic: The Scribes & Pharisees, who were known more for making a display for their own recognition than actually praying.

Hey Mountainguy, not to pick on you, just some questions I thought of while reading your post. Not intending to debate, just food for thought.

Re: Annihilationism.

If he’s just going to annihilate us anyway, why doesn’t he annihilate people *right before* they die experiencing pain or suffering? Would that just be too ‘obvious’ or something? What’s with all the horrible nastiness that so often accompanies death (for millions of years, I might add)?

Further, why doesn’t he annihilate everyone who is never going to accept/believe in him right now? I mean, what’s he waiting for. What purpose do we who will die as atheists serve, except to taunt religious folks and lure them away from their faiths? Does god *want* atheists to exist? Isn’t that potentially harmful to true, believing Christians who might be fooled by atheists into giving up theism?

He doesn’t even have to mess with free will on this. Today we have:
X number of people who will believe correctly, and Y number of people who won’t. God knows the numbers, both X and Y, and he also knows exactly which people fall into those two groups. He already knows this. This is the current situation today, according to most Christians I’ve met.

Okay, why not a kind of ‘reverse rapture’. Just subtract Y people from existence. In a single split-second, god could poof, simply eliminate the people who by their own free will are never going to choose him, sparing them any suffering and hardships they might experience in life (and god knows, there’s plenty of *that* in this world).

This in no way affects the free will of people in either the X group or the Y group. The people in the X group were already going to choose him anyway, of their own free will. He doesn’t interfere with that in any way if he simply annihilates the Ys. (Noticing now that I picked good letters for the Xs (Xtians) and the Ys (Y U NO ATHEIST?))

Pushing this one final step further, if god has the power to completely annihilate people
who don’t accept him, and he already knows, even before we’re
born *who* is going to accept him (Xtians), and who *isn’t* (Y?s), then why does he
bother to create the Ys at all? I mean, he could just NOT create
people who would eventually choose to remain atheists until they die, at
which point they will be annihilated *anyway*. What was the point of
their existence in the first place? Y doesn’t god only exclusively create Xs, people who would, through their own free will, choose to accept him. In other words:

Y do Ys exist? That is my question.

 “As the other Mary pointed, I see it as the consequences of freely and consciously rejecting God.”

Two friendly points of rebuttal:

1) Atheists don’t reject god, generally speaking, they reject the assertion of god’s existence. There is a very real difference there that I think many believers miss. After all, are you “rejecting” Buddha, Odin, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or do you simply not believe they exist? Is it even possible or meaningful to reject something that you do not believe is real? What if someone said you were evil because you rejected the existence of, say, The Force as shown in Star Wars? Wouldn’t you think they were off their rocker?

2) Assuming that the Biblical God and Hell are both entirely real, Hell being a consequence of disbelief doesn’t negate the fact that God created that consequence in the first place and could, being all-powerful, change the rules (or get rid of Hell altogether, or make his existence plain to everyone, etc). In other words, the buck eventually stops with god, no matter how you slice it, and it doesn’t follow that an all-loving deity would create Hell or allow people to go there if it was possible to prevent it.

Welcome, Mary! I appreciate your guts for participating in an atheist blog while believing.

But Mary, that’s what a hamburger’s all about!

Melanie Bracey, *confrontationally* addressing everyone here, like a street preacher with a megaphone: “In the meantime, folks, why can’t we take a live and let live attitude
toward Mary? She’s coming here, opening herself up, willing to start
conversations, but all it seems the majority of the commenters here want
to do is start confrontations.”

Melanie, whenever you point your finger at someone, three of your fingers are pointing back at you. Let me translate what your fingers (literally, in the case of you typing those words on your keyboard) are telling you:

Finger #1: In the meantime, Melanie, why can’t you take a live and let live attitude towards the commenters? They are coming here, being quite respectful of Mary, understanding her, engaging her, complimenting her, honestly expressing their personal opinions, but it seems the only thing you can see are attempts to ‘convert’ her. Some of your post sounds as bad as the crazy accommodationists who make dicks of themselves telling others, “Don’t be a dick.”

Finger #2: Why are you addressing this to these ‘folks’, as if your criticism applies to all, many, or even a significant number of them? Why don’t you instead reply *specifically* to those comments/commenters whose behaviour you object to, so that we can see exactly what you’re talking about, instead of using vague, blanket accusations that appear to target all the commenters indiscriminately? Do you even have one specific example that you can cite as being ‘over the line’ so to speak?

Finger #3: Who do you think you are, anyway, trying to ‘convert’ other commenters into your style of ‘non-conversionary’ … whatever it is? Do you recognize that such preaching comes across as offensively hypocritical? Why aren’t you gently sidling up to the other commenters, making ‘allies’ with them, and leading by example, instead of lecturing them like a sunday school teacher? How do you even know your accommodating approach is objectively better than a more confrontational approach? You seemed to have abandoned accommodationism in favour of confrontation in your efforts to ‘convert’ the other commenters. Do you even practice what you preach?

Me again. I have no intention of drawing this into a long back and forth bicker-fest. I just wanted to lay clearly out in the open how hypocritical and offensive I and many others see these kinds of ‘tone it down’ pleas come across as.

IMHO, no one on this thread has crossed any lines. I could see some testing, poking, and prodding, but Mary deJesus’ character shone through loud and clear, and that pretty much was that. To the ‘tone it down’ crowd, I say, no thanks, I’d rather ‘tone it up’.

Meow! 🙂

I like you

They put Bible verses on their cups! I thought for sure they’d be boycotted in these woods!

and I don’t mean just their ridiculousness. I’d like to hear more about their motivations. About what keeps them in the Bubble. What keeps the Bubble going. How the Bubble affects their worldview. You know?

As an addendum to my above comment, I think what Ewan is pointing out is that you have already made decisions about what is true, thus “closing the door” on all other claims (eg. naturalism, Hinduism, etc). However, if you are indeed wanting to keep your “doors open”, then that means being open to things other than Christianity being true (i.e. moving towards a more agnostic position). The only question is, which door do you then go through? You chose the Christian door before, but if you are willing to genuinely examine your beliefs and the reasons behind them, you might eventually find that another door is the better choice.

Mary, I should have said “hello” first of all. You seem like a very loving, tolerant person based on your patient answers to so many questions. I hope everyone is treating you politely and with as much respect as you deserve. Since in this intial post you are also willing to let us know a little bit about you, i’d like to ask you another question related to this topic. Are there any teachings of Jesus that you could not or would not have figured out on your own? ie, are there any teachings that, when you looked at them you thought “yes, I wouldn’t actually have done this had Jesus not taught it”. What are those teachings? 

I commend you for being able to criticize the parts of your religion you don’t like or find offensive. There’s certainly a lot to find offensive in the way Christianity is generally practiced in our culture.

But there’s a huge misunderstanding here. Most of the people here aren’t atheists because we’re offended. We’re atheists because it’s true. We’re atheists because believing the Christian god is necessarily inconsistent with what we know to be true about the world.

You sound like a smart person. You sound like a nice person. I commend you for your politics, which seem factually based. But that doesn’t mean I respect your religious beliefs, because those are still wrong. They don’t get to be special and exempt because they’re religious claims, which I think you understand. What you don’t understand is that an “I’m not like *those* Christians” attitude doesn’t make your beliefs immune to criticism either.

Also, not that I’m a psychologist but it appears you already know your beliefs are inaccurate, based on saying you “know it sounds insane”. I don’t think it sounds insane at all. It sounds like that’s what people have been telling you since before your earliest memories and now you’re realizing you have to fundamentally change your understanding of the world and that’s scary. The probable nonexistence of a deity doesn’t change though.

You know that guy or girl who says or believes something that totally makes them look or sound silly, but when confronted they just laugh at how odd they sounded, instead of recanting?

“I’m so crazy! You know me, crazy so-and-so!”

At first it’s kinda funny, but then it starts to dawn on you…”Oh, they’re one of those kinda people.”

Unless they are ridiculously hot and your intentions are not pure. Then it’s ok.

Speaking of ridiculously hot, like Nebraska upper midwest?

Now that would be an interesting read.

Well, in the non-typical and vague, “God/Jesus keeps me going” and “God/Jesus affects the eyes of my soul and how I view His creation”, kinda way, it totally would.

Whimen 🙂

I always find that sentiment quite sad – that a person doesn’t know how to be a good person without a 2,000 year old book telling them what to do. I had quite the opposite experience – I know that I became a more moral, ethical, caring, loving person precisely because I gave up those beliefs that are helping you. Funny, don’t you think? 

Thanks. 🙂

I agree and wasn’t defending the position. The problem is when children are taught this kind of love from a early age, taught that true love wants only the best for others, which means that true love encourages people to get “right with God.” I was taught that, I had a pretty leather book written by God that said so, and that was all I needed to believe it. I was not taught critical thinking until college. You bet my daughter will not be growing up the same way!

If you were to tell my old Christian self that this kind of love was offensive, I would not have understood you at all. It is unfortunate that no atheist ever got very far with me in any discussion. A few tried, but I think my Biblical quotations and total certainty combined with genuine caring just left them speechless and shaking their heads in frustration. It never even occurred to me that they might have valid points to make. I thought that human logic was worthless without the light of God’s truth (everyone’s logic, including my own).

Mary – 

I  can give you an example of one of mine.  This is a question that was better answered outside of religion than with religion; as I think about it, I find it interesting because this is supposed to be one of the biggies that religion is for. 

What is the purpose of my life? 

When I was a person of faith, the purpose of my life was to glorify God.  As I got older, the purpose was to fulfill God’s plan for me.  So, I had to figure out what that was.  I prayed and looked for clues.  I would try to figure out if I was just doing what I wanted or if it was really a call from God.  Was I on the right track?   What if I was wrong and this wasn’t what God wanted from me?  

After I lost belief, I realized that there was no fixed, outside pre-assigned purpose to my life.  There was no one out there judging if I did Life right or not.   There is absolutely a purpose to my life – it is whatever I say it is.  I generate it.  It is the “right” purpose because I say so.   No wondering, no angst, no feeling like a failure because of normal human emotions, reactions and feelings.  

The purpose of my one and only life in this universe is to make the most of my life and my abilities, and to make the world a better place for others.   I actually have a philosophy and morality worked out consistent with this that I live by.  All without the need of a deity or promise of reward or punishment – but just because it is the right thing to do, it is how I would like others to act, and because I want the quality of life that comes with being a decent person.   

While this post is not my style, you do have a point, especially this one, “the fact that ANY of your decisions can include the consideration of a magical disembodied brain’s take on the issue makes you a loose cannon, and the rest of us never know what’s going to set you off in a way that harms our civilization.”

I’m not sure I would have even seen how important this point is when I was a Christian, but I do now. In many societies, the majority of people make rules for everyone. If the majority believe that the god zeus wants people not to drink lemonade on Tuesdays, then a Tuesday lemonade law pops up. If only the majority’s gods wanted such harmless things as lemonade laws. Unfortunately, they tend to condone everything from bombing innocent people to having slaves, to taking away vital personal freedoms, indoctrinating children, limiting the roles of women in society, etc. Religious belief systems matter very much in society. The fact that world leaders can justify their actions based on whatever religious books or invisible beings they choose to value is…well, all we have to do is take a look at the world’s most religious governments to see how it plays out.

After the article and her comments, I’m definitely a Mary fan. Keep it up, Mary. Cause you know what they say…

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.urlesque.com/media/2010/05/hatereagle.jpg 

” …unless they are ridiculously hot and your intentions are not pure. Then it’s ok.”
” Mary DeJesus is a life-long church mouse (with the exception of a few years) in her thirties who lives in the upper midwest”

I was just being a male…

 “I take “rejection of god” and “rejecting the assertion of god” as they were the same.”

I understand you see them as being the same in terms of consequences, but there is a huge difference in terms of implications. If god’s existence was unambiguous and he was “rejected” by someone (meaning, I suppose, a lack of worship or fidelity), and if the consequences were well-established and verifiable, then the rejector would at least be going into that situation as an informed actor.

However, if (as is the actual case) the existence of god was not unambiguous…OR if a person simply believed in the wrong thing due to accident of birth, then the non-believer is not actually rejecting the deity as such. Rather, she either has no good reason to believe or thinks there is good reason to believe otherwise. In such a case, the responsibility for the consequences lies fully with the deity because he has made it so that the individual cannot make an informed decision. If the consequence for lacking correct belief due to a lack of unambiguous, reliable information is eternal torture, that makes the god of the New Testament evil.

“The classical theist position holds an idea of God as unchangeable, but I don’t fully accept that.”

Fair enough. But that still doesn’t let god off the hook for being evil enough to create hell in the first place or for making up the arbitrary rule about needing to believe in him to avoid it. But if god is indeed changeable, then how can one hold to any belief at all about what that god wants or requires of us? How do you know he hasn’t changed his mind about faith and now gives eternal reward to those who reject his existence based on reason? But how would that then make faith worthy of torture? It wouldn’t, of course, especially in the context of inadequate information. Either way, a loving god (or one otherwise worth worshiping) wouldn’t be setting up these kinds of conditions one way or the other. As the original poster above pointed out, it’s a catch-22.

 I think most of the commenters here (eh, 80%?) do a fair job of explaining everything for me and bridging the language gap…so…if you still have questions after perusing the conversation, let me know.

 Thanks 🙂 I’m not easily scared. Annoyed, yes. Scared, no. 🙂

 Upper midwest people…upper. It snows here, yo. Nebraska is a tropical paradise.

 the parenthetical I thought may have given it away, but I took into consideration the Bible’s view on sex. I know. Shocking! But that is the value system I’ve chosen for my life.

I suspect anyone who has the insight and moral integrity to analyize and identify those things would find that they are not in the bubble.

Fair enough. But are there any teachings of Jesus that you don’t want to follow – or don’t agree with?

For example, Jesus does preach that divorce is acceptable, provided that your partner was unfaithful. Jesus makes it quite clear that he is talking about sexual faithfulness. In other words, if your ex-husband slept with another woman while you were married, then Jesus is perfectly fine with your divorce.

However, Jesus also makes it quite clear that this is the ONLY acceptable reason for a divorce.

Imagine that you married once again. This time, unfortunately, you discover that your new husband physically beats you. Would you believe in getting a divorce for that reason? Jesus says, emphatically, NO! Do you agree or disagree? And why?

“but in the end I think this ultimately leads the whole debate to Theodicy (a quite complicated and annoying subject)”

It’s not complicated or annoying *for atheists*. It makes perfect sense if there’s no benevolent god, that there would be pain and suffering. (Pain is easily explained via evolution, for example, as an adaptive trait, naturally selected.)

In fact, the concept of a benevolent god *introduces* a problem that simply does not exist for atheists. And you are correct; that problem is theodicy, the problem of evil and/or suffering. This problem *only* exists for theists. And yes, indeed, it should be rather ‘annoying’ to them. That is indeed the entire point.

“I don’t believe in double predestination. …  having set their fate
from the very begining. That’s not the kind of God I believe in.”

Important: Not ‘setting’ their fate **knowing** their fate.

Is your god concept not omniscient? Does it not know everything that has ever happened and **will** ever happen?

[BTW: If it doesn’t know everything that will ever happen, how can you be at all confident that heaven will be eternal bliss (or whatever you believe)? What if your god concept is simply mistaken that you’ll get rewarded for believing?]

Please note: The scenario I described is perfectly compatible with the Christian conception of ‘free will’, and I have explicitly and intentionally constructed it that way.

Your god’s *knowing* the future does not violate free will. My scenario only depends on god *knowing* the future, not ‘setting’ it.

“but I don’t worship someone who has decreed from the
very begining who will be saved and who will burn forever in hell.”

I’m confused. Earlier you said:
“but I tend to side with annihilationism here. As the other Mary pointed,
I see it as the consequences of freely and consciusly rejecting God.”

Surely, your god must *know* who is going to eventually “freely and consciously reject” him, right? Or are you saying that your god doesn’t know this ahead of time?

Can a mere mortal human, a creation of an omniscient god, actually *surprise* your god?

God: Nuts! I thought for sure Billy was going to stay a Christian his whole life, but was I ever in for a shock when he read the God Delusion. Never saw *that* one coming. How could I have been so stupid?! My whole master plan for the universe is going to sh’t. I never should have signed that damned non-omniscience waiver. Me damn me!

Earlier God: Noooo! Not Jeffrey Dahmer! How could that sicko convert to Christianity before he died?! He’s a serial killer and cannibal, he’s not supposed to accept me. This is the worst mistake I made since that whole Hitler thing. Why couldn’t that little Jewish girl Anne Frank accept me as her Lord and Saviour; while that assclown Hitler never bothered to go atheist. It just doesn’t make sense! When I created this universe way back, and worked out that whole Adam and Eve, Heaven/Hell, Jesus self-sacrifice thing, I thought it was fool proof. These damn humans with their free will are fucking up the whole thing. I sure do love that free will, though! Man, that’s cool.

Why didn’t your god just *not create* Anne Frank?

“i don’t know. Maybe for the delight of God, or some other non-sensical
answer, or because many Ys in history have led the fight against nutjobs
(something I’m thankful for).”

Are you really saying that your god created Anne Frank to delight in her suffering under the Nazis? Or that her suffering was worth it, just so you can be ‘thankful’? What about Anne? What does she get out of the deal? Annihilation?

Sounds a tad worse than ‘non-sensical’ to me. Sounds f’d right up.

I asked the question because I see a lot of conjecture on the purpose of this post, but I don’t really see any answers from you.  I appreciate that you are able to put yourself out there in hostile, for lack of a better word, territory.  I’m just confused on what you want us to get from this, as I think many (eh, 80%) of us are, and I’d rather hear it from the horse’s mouth rather than from a bunch of commenters’ analyses.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is everything I wanted to say!

I agree. Though I appreciate Mary taking the time to write this post, this isn’t the sort of thing I stop by Friendly Atheist for, and in the future I’ll just skip posts of this nature.

I think it’s safe to say your first post is a huge success. Almost 200 comments just for your introduction. And the way you’ve been in the comments teasing everyone with tidbits of info. Well done. 

I think you’ve got just about everyone hooked now. The easily aggravated, the converting specialists, the lurkers, the been there done thats, and the straight up Mary fans. Everyone will click the link for your next post.  Mary knows the blog business.

On the free will stuff, there’s a wide range of positions: predestinationism (God set the future), God doesn’t set the future, but knows it (close to arminianism, but accepted by more denominations), middle knowledge (molinism), and in the other side: open theism and process theology. Most christians side with the 2 first positions.

” This problem *only* exists for theists. And yes, indeed, it should be rather ‘annoying’ to them. That is indeed the entire point.”

Agreed. And I don’t even think we theists will ever find an answer; not even agreement. It seems that other part of the problem is wether salvation is only through faith, works, both, etc.

“Are you really saying that your god created Anne Frank to delight in her suffering under the Nazis? Or that her suffering was worth it, just so you can be ‘thankful’? What about Anne? What does she get out of the deal? Annihilation?Sounds a tad worse than ‘non-sensical’ to me. Sounds f’d right up.”

Not me, but many christians beleive this, even to the point of pointing that anything happens because god wants itm and everytime he is delighted about the results (holocaust, famine, the world cup). I find it objectable. Heck, I’d even worship a weak god, or one who accepts he can do wrong. I accept my answers are flawed, or that I might be a heretic, or a lazy thinker, but given how messed up is everything down here, I’m not satisfied with simple intelectual asesment of doctrinal points (no matter how important they might be for christianity).

“[After some sleep(!): I realize I said I wasn’t intending to debate. Ah, well. Bit of a rant, then. I won’t pursue it.] ”

Don’t worry. I answered mostly to be polite (then I ask if should I shut my mouth/keyboard)

“Jesus was giving the sermon here and this was Matthew’s account of it.”

. . .

Yes. The Sermon on the Mount. We’ve heard of it. My unidentified “he” was the same as your unidentified “he”.

Question: do Christians really think atheists who live in an overwhelmingly Christian-chauvinist culture are simply ignorant of the Bible’s contents? I always thought starting off with “have you heard the good news?” was traditional rhetoric.

Anyway, onward to relevant points.

“only . . . (The Scribes and Pharisees) were considered to have access to God.”

Perhaps only the professional religious complex, consisting of the Scribes and Pharisess (and Sadducces, son’t forget them), considered the Scribes and Pharisees to have that access, but if there weren’t a place in society for itinerant miracle-workers who operated outside the system, Jesus would never have gotten off the ground. Famous roughly-contemporary examples include Simon Magus (who conveniently plays the repentant pretender in Acts 8) and John the Baptist. (Apollonius of Tyana is usually mentioned in the same breath as these two, but though contemporary, he was a good deal further north.)

Question: do the Christians you congregate with generally have any idea that people like Simon and Apollonius existed?

“Wiki actually has a pretty decent account on this”

Wikipedia’s reliability is inconsistent, religious entries moreso by orders of magnitude. I will, however, investigate the cited sources on that page. While we’re suggesting research, I recommend the bibliographies of Bart Ehrman and Robert M. Price.

Question: what is your opinion of educated professional theologians who deconvert from Christianity and write books debunking their former religion?

“After Jesus died, the veil in the temple . . . was torn . . .”

This is something I really want Christians to understand: it doesn’t matter if your claim is as mundane as “a piece of fabric was torn”, if the source you’re citing also claims that the dead walked out of their tombs, reasonable people are going to want a corroborating source for the historicity of that torn fabric.

Question: “After drawing the Sword from the Stone, Arthur became king in Caerleon. While he was there, he had a large round table built. After many trials, Arthur was ferried away to Tir Na nOg.” Do you believe a large round table was built for the warlords of  ancient Caerleon?

This ended up longer than I intended. I’m not necessarily expecting a response, but I hope you at least have some idea of how many assumptions you expect us to give a pass to with every faith claim you make. “Jesus was pretty sarcastic . . .”–sure, as a literary character, we’ll accept that, but to get away with stronger claims requires more backing than you have. There are lots of reasons why we don’t believe, but this is why we aren’t *persuaded*.

Cheers.

As a former Christian I can tell you that this story is quite normal throughout the deconversion process. Where it will lead you I don´t know. I would like to know more from you to see what happens.

I’m not trying to continue this discussion/rant/debate, just sum it up, primarily for the lurkers (who support me in email 😉 )

mountainguy said: “I don’t even think we theists will ever find an answer; not even agreement.” and ” I accept my answers are flawed, or that I might be a heretic, or a lazy
thinker, but given how messed up is everything down here, I’m not
satisfied with simple intelectual asesment of doctrinal points”

That’s not an answer.  And it’s not that many theists haven’t found an answer to the question; they have — it’s called atheism. Rather than seriously consider this possible answer to what he agrees is a legitimate question, he simply insists that, even though the question is legitimate, and even though he disagrees with some proposed answers, it’s just “impossible” to find an answer. 

Now I’m speaking to all who make the claim that there’s “no answer” to these questions. This claim of “impossibility” is simply, flagrantly false.  An answer exists.  It’s staring you in the face.  If you have a problem, and refuse a plainly available solution in favor of insisting the solution doesn’t exist… I don’t know how best to characterize that, but it ain’t right, that’s for sure.

So who was this Mormon girl? I’ve been reading FA for several years now, but I seem to have overlooked all the hubbub.

You seem like a really nice person and I’ve no doubt that your ovaries are made of titanium to even post here, I’m just not that into you/your writing.  Good luck with it though! 🙂

Alright, something went wrong with the formatting of my comment, I apologize.

Yet another voice agrees with you, Alexa Joy. I second everything you said, and I’ll add one more: a few of Mary’s responses to comments have had a rather snarky tone. I would recommend that she turn that down a notch in her future replies, so as not to be seen as lacking the “Christian humility” so many of her co-religionists (ironically) like to proclaim.