{"id":2819,"date":"2012-03-16T12:57:32","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T17:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2819"},"modified":"2012-03-16T12:57:32","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T17:57:32","slug":"christian-testimonials-for-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2819","title":{"rendered":"Christian Testimonials For Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you ever go into a Christian bookstore or read a Christian newspaper (yes, they do exist), it is generally filled with testimonial stories about how great their God is. But don\u2019t Christians already know how great their God is? If they didn\u2019t, they probably wouldn\u2019t be Christians, right? So what\u2019s the point of these testimonials?<\/p>\n<p>I know when atheists have testimonials of this sort about how we became atheists it is because we want to understand the process of how people de-converted so we can replicate that. But for Christians, God does all the work. So there is no need for such an understanding. Besides, it doesn\u2019t really seem like that is the reason why Christians do it anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Atheists also have started doing testimonials to inspire closeted atheists to come out of the closet. Christians don\u2019t have those concerns. So what is the point of a Christian testimonial to other Christians?<\/p>\n<p>The only thing I can think of is that it is a way to reinforce their belief. They have to keep reminding themselves how great their deity and their faith is because it is pretty hard to see otherwise. I see it as a form of brainwashing, but I am open to alternative explanations. I just can\u2019t see any practical reason for it otherwise.<\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2812\" target=\"_blank\">Fundamentalists in Disguise<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2783\" target=\"_blank\">All Christians are Dogmatic!<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2729\" target=\"_blank\">&#8216;Self-Professed Atheist&#8217;<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2665\" target=\"_blank\">Christianity: The Religion of Peace<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2714\" target=\"_blank\">I Could Be Wrong&#8230; And So Could You!<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=2ba65727-4fa1-495d-b679-6eb7c4be5c3c\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2819\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you ever go into a Christian bookstore or read a Christian newspaper (yes, they do exist), it is generally filled with testimonial stories about how great their God is. But don\u2019t Christians already know how great their God is? If they didn\u2019t, they probably wouldn\u2019t be Christians, right? So what\u2019s the point of these [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1039,44,9,702],"tags":[2215,84,37,11,2216,2214,1325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2820,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions\/2820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}