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I hurt for you I was molested as well until I was 11 years old. The Catholic Church has many atrocities aginst it. Some going back as far as 400 yearsafter Jesus died. Among these are false religous teachings such as Trinity, Hellfire, Immortality of the soul and so on. The issue is many blame God not the imperfect men that put themselves on high. False religion will be exposed in these last days. it is the response ability to find wha the Biblereally teaches and fight corruption with godly wisdom
The True Story of an Agnostics deconversion
by: Steve *******
Greetings to you dear reader and i say unto you that i sincerely hope you are finding your days to be growing in happiness as you progress through time. In the further writings of this article I will attempt to explain how I became deconverted from Agnosticism through heavy and intense research with only a Bible, the internet, and a popular internet video posting website of which I will not name (that site should be an easy guess for anyone). In explaination of how this deconversion came to be, I would like to first start off with something that I don’t think any Christian apologist has ever successfully acheived the ability to demonstrate. When you are born (in the U.S.A), you do not know the language and you certainly are not aware of a “God” by any means. As you learn, growing up in a Christian family, the language of which your parents speak, you will at some point be told of this God. In some instances you may wind up in Church with further study of the Bible and it’s contents being read to you, and at some point you will readily admit the existence of God. If after you got older you: read the Bible stories, considered what is known of science basics you learned in school, thought about common sense, and maybe reflected on these things for a while, possibly prayed for guidance, you made the decision to leave the faith. In doing so you have taken three steps of which are this: Step # 1:ignorant of Christianity, Step # 2: learned of then accepted christianity, and finally Step # 3: you decided to leave Christianity. Many Christian Apologists today claiming to have once been “Atheist or Agnostic” fail horribly in demonstration of having gone through all these 3 steps and then having chose to complete Step # 4: discovering verifiable evidence for the Christian faith. All of these Apologists basically claim Step # 1 and Step # 2 in an attempt to appear to their followers that they were once, in fact, a “Legit Atheist or Agnostic” and equate themselves as such. This failure is one of the many of which they are guilty of, just one of the reasons why they cannot win converts back to the faith, and generally achieve nothing more than selling books to the loyal followers. People are simply walking away and that is apparent to anyone not living in a bubble these days. The tools once used on Christian behalf during the crusades, inquisition, and witch hunts are also no longer socially acceptable.
Today we live in a world that has changed in drastic ways from an easy “Step 1 and Step 2″ ability to keep children in the faith without the influence of the outside world. In this day and age Atheists/Agnostics, their websites, video series, and organizations are EVERYWHERE on and off the internet. Most of the information you will find in these locations is of that pertaining to the oppositions inibility to provide evidence to support their beliefs, and questions as to why that is so. In Apologetics, today, using arguments from authority is not having much of an affect on these people who may or may not understand the convictions of faith. When you say that “Pofessor/Pastor/Preacher X,Y, and Z” claim that something is true, therefore it has to be true, is not a very convincing way of demonstrating truth. Truth is not subject to the opinion of an authority figure nor any votes casted by many of them. The Statement that “if you don’t believe this you’ll burn in hell” is just no longer a convincing point, and never will be to someone who doesn’t believe such a thing exists. Many Apologists today can be shown to be dishonest and it is certainly not helping their cause.
This brings us to something that has to be said whether or not you agree with it. “Belief” is not a “Choice”, it is the result of a “Compulsion” that comes from examining evidence for a claim and deciding as to whether or not you agree with it. If you consider yourself to have the ability to be an honest juror in the court, you have a responsibility to the truth and to yourself. You are going to have to weigh the evidence of both sides. You have to view the evidence of both sides and you have to arm yourself with this information. You have a duty to see for yourself the things which your children, if given internet access, will be able to view and arm yourself with this information. Inability to do so, and/or an unwilling position to do this, will leave you unarmed and stripped of a chance to combat the information of which you do not know, may disagree with, and might not like that your child may come across, and view with a still partially open mind. Without risking copywright infringement or a violation of The Digital Millenium Copyright Act laws on my behalf, I would suggest you type the following things into a video search, review them immediatly, and brace yourself for some things that you might not like: # 1: excavating the empty tomb # 2: what genesis got wrong # 3: did god have a wife # 4: an atheist reads the bible # 5: the god who was’t there and # 6: proofs for god destroyed by a philosophical atheist. The forces you are up against, while physically harmless by nature, are not to be taken lightly, and have a powerful message.You should seriously consider reviewing all of the aforementioned video series. Getting back on point, it is almost certainly possible for someone to change his or her mind of a position with evidence contrary to their prior “Choice”. This, at least, can be said for anyone of reasonable intelligence and the cognative ability to contemplate truth from a sane perspective.
We have to at some point get into the mind of an Atheist/Agnostic and see just exaclty what it is that makes them tick. Being dishonest in the portrayal of these individuals is a technique which is guaranteed to have one of these people tune you out. It is often said of these people things like “they are God haters” or “they don’t want an afterlife” or “they claim that they can prove God doesn’t exist”. This is not the case and statements such as these will not help you to convert them to Christianity in most cases. Most of these Atheists/Agnostics merely stick to Bible contradictions, Bible vs common sense contradictions, and Bible vs Science contradictions as their method of operation. Also, sadly, these individuals as a whole tend to have an above average knowledge of the Bible and Religion (see the Pew research page on the web), Yet these people do have an agenda which is apparenlty not any “dirty little secret”. Some of them are very outspoken about why it is they are so outspoken. The typycal Atheist/Agnostic believes that the members of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) are doing their God a disservice. Theirs is a view of these religions something like this: They are tired of watching the ruling class of the world using the children of poverty as tools and reducing them essentially into cannon fodder for the monetary benefit and increased power of the elite by means of religion and politics, and having to see this on their television on a weekly basis. They have a seemingly radical view that the Judeo-Christian and Muslim volley of weapons and death are turning our youth into hamburger and somehow robbing the correct God of his right to judge these “infidels” after they die of natural causes (if such a God exists he can certainly handle this). They believe the wars between the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian countries are nothing more than a religion/government/industry sponsered attempt to say “MY God is better than YOUR God” and “How much money is the return on our investment”. Radical Huh? I agree that it is hard to hold the moral “high ground” for anyone attempting to combat such seeminly inoffensive positions. But getting back on track we must examine the way in which these folks read our Bible and these alleged contadictions. One can easily find on the internet entire websites commited to the concept that the bible has internal contridictions. I’ll just pick one alleged contradiction for an example and show how this works. Most people in the United States have heard of Judas Iscariot selling out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and these stories can be easily read in 13 verses in the Bible. The “Judas Iscariot Death” contridiction, if you will, and it goes something like this: If you read Acts 1 verses 11-18 and Matthew 27 verses 1-5 (New Testament) you come away with a series of questions namely;
1) Did Judas die before or after Jesus?
2) Who purchased the potters field cemetary, or was it the field of blood with the 30 pieces of silver?
3) Did the 30 pieces of silver leave the temple of the chief priests with Judas or get cast onto the floor of the temple and left behind by Judas?
4) Was the death of Judas an accident or a suicide?
5) Did the actions of Judas, after selling out Jesus, show remorse or not?
6) Does Holy scripture , in fact, contain contradictions?
In any event undertaken to attempt to answer these questions, we must always remember the tenets of Holy Scripture which forbid us to answer these things dishonestly (See Psalms 101:7 and Jeremiah 48:10). In any event where by you can answer these questions honestly, you can prove having the ability to rationally justify your belief as to why there is a God, and the intelligent means by which you can do so. Furthermore you will provide accurate and sound arguments for your side and it’s case. Keeping in mind that these 13 verses and the alleged contradictions of which they present, are just one example of perhaps hundreds of alleged contradictions that cannot be easily explained away to anyone who is not subintelligent or has a dishonest predisposition to side with a person attempting to explain such things. I mean this in the most sincere way possible, it isn’t as easy as you might think or would like for it to be. God wrote a book, why don’t people who believe read it? To hard? Lazy? I digress.
Finally my deconversion explained, and how it actually happened. First I would like to point out that the defininition of deconversion goes a little like: The loss of faith in a given religion and return to a previously held religion or non religion (typically atheism, agnosticism, or rationalism). I was at work one day and I come across a Christian fundamentalist who was explainig to a fellow co-worker (an apostate Catholic) that the Holy Bible had absolulely no internal contradictions cover to cover. Being an Agnostic at the time I lost my cool, became agry and berated this individual as to the mistake of which he had just made.We went through the typical low level talking points (assigning sources of morals, hell fire etc….) and afterward I left with an idea. At this time I was 42 years old and the conversation happened in the Fall season of the year 2012. Having left the faith (~ 20 years ago) because of the contradictions I found in scripture, long before I had access to the internet and having only a Bible for it’s reference to prove or disprove itself. After my admittedly unprofessional vent on this individual I decided to go to the internet and see if people of my conviction or opposition had anything new to say or add that may reinforce or change my position and found just that. Three months later after cross checking all the new stuff I found against my 1975 KJV Bible I walked away with a new position. The community of which I currently side with has done many great things on the video website of choice these days. They have also, in my opinion, graduated my position to the one that can only be acheived without dishonest intervention. Now, I believe I have aquired a remarkable ability to be almost the exact opposite of an ignorant, uneducated, scientifically illiterate bigot, and find myself also incapable of hatred towards any of the humans that exist on this planet of ours, regardless of how ridiculous they may be in their thoughts. It is my intention to never stop my education or my path away from bigotry, ignorance, hatred, and violence. It is my hope that all of you reading this find yourself one day without questionable doubt or any fear in your lives, and a profound sense of importance for the one life you know you have vs an afterlife there just isn’t any credible evidence for as I have.This concept is the polar opposite of nihilism. And yes, my new position still starts with the same letter. Many great papers and writings recieve the grade of an “A”, and an “A” begins many words, perhaps some of the greatest ones of all.
To put it into an even greater perspective, the recent laws passed to allow gay marriage sure seem a whole lot more tolerant than the loving God of Leviticus 18:22 or Leviticus 20:13. Once upon a time God rained fire and brimstone on cities, turned a woman into a pillar of salt, raised the dead, turned rivers into blood, turned sticks into serpents, rained frogs on Egypt, and stopped the sun in the sky. Today we get the occasional image of Jesus on a piece of toast. These are just a few more reasons why all religions will inevitably become mythology in the future, and I will be proven right.
Truth has to be greater than Faith for Faith to be the Truth.
Steve *******
Rootstown, Ohio (West Side)
Friday, February 15, 2013, 11:53 p.m.
P.S. As an afterthought I think it might be a good idea to show a small list of individuals, past and present, that just simply are not Christian/Muslim/Jewish as a reference to who it is that falls into my school of thought. It is by no coincidence that these individuals are if fact some of the greatest minds in their field. Fields that include Music, Film, Science, Politics, Philosophy, Journalism, and Comedy, or a combination of these fields: John Lennon, Paul Mcartney, Billy Joel, the members of Rush, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., Dave Matthews, Mozart, Ray Ramano, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Lee, Gwyneth Paltrow, Keanu Reeves, Samuel L. Jackson, James Cameron, George Clooney, Gene Roddenberry, Brad Pitt, Kevin Bacon, Morgan Freeman, Jodie Foster, Julianne Moore, Rodney Dangerfield, Robin Willams, George Carlin, Bill Maher, Larry King, Howard Stern, Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama still have time left to tell the truth of their convictions to the masses they needed for election. It would be a great step toward peace, and a small group already knows that truth. The United States sided with the Muslims under Clinton in the Serbian/Bosnian war to stop the Christian run “Rape Camps”, and rightly so. Barack Obama “picked” a Church out of necessity in 1988 after choosing politics as a profession, and being raised by Atheists (read “The Audacity of Hope” by him and you’ll have have your eyes fully opened).