I have been a vocal atheist for almost twenty years now and have been an active member of the greater atheistic community for about half that time. Over the years, I have discussed and argued with people from many different religions and many different sects of the varying religions. A few years back, I even […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, discussion, humanism, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Today, I am continuing this series with an e-mail using the carpet bombing strategy on the Christians for a change. My bet is that most Christians won’t even attempt to address these issues and will simply reply with a “Jesus loves you” or a “I’m praying for you” type of response. Dear Christian, I am […]
Filed under: conversation, culture war, discussion, ignorance, Preaching, Religion | No Comments »
Yesterday, I talked about how Christians sometimes carpet bomb with arguments praying that at least one of them sticks. Today, I want to make a preemptive strike that can be used when a Christian starts their carpet bombing of piss poor arguments. Of course there are many more arguments than I can put into one […]
Filed under: Argument by Design, Car Bomb Argument, conversation, culture war, discussion, First Cause Argument, Preaching, Religion | 1,200 Comments »
A popular Christian strategy for winning converts is basically to see how any arguments they can bombard you with in as little time as possible. The idea is to carpet bomb their mark with lots of arguments with the hope that at least one of them will resonate with their mark. On the off chance […]
Filed under: Argument by Design, atheism, conversation, culture war, discussion, First Cause Argument, god of the gaps, ignorance, Ontological Argument, prophecies, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »
Usually I discuss religion with Christians since Christianity is the majority religion in America however from time to time I get drawn into a conversation/debate with someone from one of the other Abrahamic religions. Interestingly enough, the arguments aren’t any different. Last year for example, I got into a pretty lengthy religious conversation with my […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, islam, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
A common theme that I run into when discussing religion with Christians (particularly fundamentalist Christians), is that they will often bring up old arguments which have long since been refuted as if they are some new revelation. These Christians often boast about how knowledgeable and thoughtful they are and yet they don’t seem to realize […]
Filed under: Argument by Design, conversation, discussion, First Cause Argument, God-Shaped Hole, ignorance, Judge God, Lord-Liar-Lunatic, Preaching, Religion | 1 Comment »
It is pretty common for Christians to claim that God is Truth. What they mean by this isn’t that God is simply a true, but rather that God is actually a synonym for Truth. In other words, to say that God is false would be like saying that the Bachelor is a married man. It […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Disproving God, god, Religion, truth | 1 Comment »
I love when Christians ask atheists questions that they should fucking know the answers to. I know they are all about their bronze-aged story book, but we live in the information age now. Now the one true God is Google. Seriously, before Christians try to ask an atheist a question that he or she thinks […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, discussion, education, Religion | 5 Comments »
A University of Texas San Antonio student group called The Atheist Agenda has created a program on their campus called “Smut for Smut.” The atheist group is giving away pornography in exchange for Bibles. This apparently has caused quite a stir both among Christians and surprisingly among other atheists. I get why Christians are up […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, billboards, culture war, discussion, free speech | 22 Comments »
It seems to me that Christians who proselytize are actually making a case against their position. Their claim is that their deity of choice is all-powerful and wants everyone to worship him but can’t seem to convince people on his own. God seems to need the Christian to proselytize. Why would such an all-powerful deity […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Disproving God, god, Preaching, Religion | 29 Comments »
Over the weekend, I was driving in the Washington DC area and came across two interesting billboards. On the surface, I thought these billboards were put up by religious groups because of what there message appeared to be. I was wrong and the messages were much better than I assumed they were. Here are the […]
Filed under: billboards, culture war, discussion, family values, Parenting, Religion, responsibility | No Comments »
I have noticed that often times when I am discussing and/or debating Christians they assume the worst about me and my arguments. This I think is a symptom of their belief that humans are all evil sinners. It is hard to have a friendly conversation with someone who won’t give you the benefit of the […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Evils of Christianity, morality, Religion, responsibility, sin | 6 Comments »
Ever since I was in college I have had evangelical Christians coming to my door to “witness” to me. Many of these evangelicals like to tell me about how they became “saved,” “Born again,” or whatever other cult-term they come up with. I like when they tell me about their story. It is a perfect […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, delusion, discussion, missionaries, Preaching, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »
I often get into prolonged conversations with fundamentalists. Usually after a little while our conversation changes from antagonism to a genuine exchange of ideas. The fundamentalist then starts to see where I am coming from and begins to reason on his or her own through the theological bullshit that has been drilled into their head. […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Every Knee, free will, god, Religion | 3 Comments »
My father used to tell me this old Jewish joke about a Jew praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. There was this Jew who came to the Wailing Wall every day for ten years to pray. One day, someone asked him if any of his prayers were every answered. He responded by saying, “No, […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, evolution, Religion | 8 Comments »
Whenever someone is in a difficult time in life or is dealing with difficult circumstances, religious people are quick to push their religious beliefs. They often say something like, “God only gives us what we can handle.” While I understand that the believer has the best of intentions and I understand that the message they […]
Filed under: discussion, god, People of Reason, Religion, responsibility, Self-Help | 2 Comments »
Many times when I am engaged in a conversation with a fundamentalist Christian, he or she will ask me to read one of their apologists. They convince themselves that if only I read this other book, the Bible will make perfect sense. If only I read this other book all the immoral, unscientific, false history, […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, discussion, morality, Religion | 7 Comments »
There have been quite a few people who have told me that valued friends and family members have defriended them on one of the many social networking sites like facebook or myspace because they posted atheistic opinions. While I am pretty open about my lack of belief in ancient superstitions, I do have some theistic […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, facebook, People of Reason, Religion, responsibility | 16 Comments »
Yesterday I talked about a double standard between religious and non-religious. Today, I have another double standard that goes beyond claims of belief or lack of belief in deities and is more about general disagreements. Nevertheless, since people tend to disagree about religion a lot, this double standard comes up a lot in religious conversations. […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Hasty Generalization, logic, Religion | No Comments »
Why is it that religious people feel the need to insert their religious views into seemingly every conversation? If an atheist inserting his or her lack of belief into seemingly every conversation we are criticized by the religious for “pushing our atheism.” Yesterday, I was out with my 8 mouth old son and a woman […]
Filed under: conversation, culture war, discussion, miracles, People of Reason, Religion | 8 Comments »
It has become ridiculously obvious to me that every time it becomes apparent that I am not a religious believer one of the very first things that happens is that some believer (usually a Christian) will insult me. When this happened over the weekend, I called the particular person out on the insult and proceeded […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Projection, Religion | 14 Comments »
During the first week of my freshman year at college, I noticed a newspaper of campus called “The Rampage.” My university’s mascot was the Ram, so I figured that it must be the campus newspaper. It certainly looked like the campus newspaper. The front page had a typical story which one would expect to find […]
Filed under: discussion, Preaching, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 10 Comments »
Theists always ask me why I don’t believe in God. I usually rattle off any number of reasons why I think that the whole idea of God is ridiculous, silly, and illogical. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to convince them since they tend to ask me the same question again at a later time. I guess […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, god, missionaries, Religion | 14 Comments »
Just like all cults, fundamentalist Christianity seems to have its own vocabulary. There are certain terms that seem to have pretty standard meanings, but when used in the fundamentalist Christian context they tend to mean almost the exact opposite. The most overused term I hear is “Truth” with a capital “T.” To most people, something […]
Filed under: 1984, conversation, discussion, Religion | 3 Comments »
We live in a world that is dominated by religious belief. Often times, well meaning people insert their religious belief into casual conversation. This is socially acceptable behavior in our society. When this happens, an atheist is put in an awkward position. We don’t want to send the message that it is acceptable for religious […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Preaching, Religion | 11 Comments »
Recently I have gotten into conversations with multiple Christians who claim to be liberal and progressive. These are the Christians who mistakenly think that Jesus was this peace and love hippy. These are the Christian who are always telling me that the fundamentalists are not real Christians, but are “misusing” the Bible (despite no solid […]
Filed under: conversation, culture war, discussion, Religion | 13 Comments »
I was talking with an atheist friend of mine last week and he asked a fantasy question. What I mean by a fantasy question is that the questioner is reasonably certain that the question will never come up in reality. It is like asking who you would pick for your all star football team or […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, discussion, god, god the father, Religion | 24 Comments »
Why is it that so many Christians assume incorrectly that Christianity has the monopoly on family values? We live in a pluralistic society, and as such, people’s values will clash. Fundamental Christianity in particular has to learn that they cannot censor someone else’s values or culture because those values offend the rigid fundamentalist Christian value […]
Filed under: atheism, discussion, education, morality, Parenting, People of Reason, Religion | 48 Comments »
Often times when I am discussing religion with “people of faith,” they take a few seconds to make multiple assertions about the implications or consequences of non-belief in the same breath. Each assertion of course takes more time to address than the believer takes to assert. For example, it is not unusual to hear an […]
Filed under: atheism, discussion, People of Reason, Religion | 6 Comments »
