(Part 2) Top products from r/exchristian

ME

Hey! Funny, I had tacos for dinner last night. Now that I'm not working in [city], it's a lot harder to get out there for taco tuesday, but you're right, we do need to meet up, and doing so with tacos would be great! I just looked at my calendar...I don't have an open tuesday until freaking NOVEMBER. We'll have to plan something different....how do your weekends usually look? Maybe we can meet up for a Saturday morning breakfast or something.

>How about this, how can the solution to so many problems that people have and have had for years not be real?

Are there not a countless number of other solutions that people have attempted and been successful at? Are there not mental tricks that work in pulling people out of personal slumps? Is the placebo effect not real? Is the "God" solution really that special of a solution?

>I know you say you haven't had much personal experience with God working in your life but I know I have and I know rooms full of people who share their experiences and testimonies reversing the course of their lives through God when nothing else worked.

Have you looked into testimonials or experiences of people who have made significant changes without God? If not, then this is simply confirmation bias. If you continually go to rooms full of Christians claiming God changed their life and you don't go to the rooms where the Buddhist says Buddha changed his life, then OF COURSE all you're going to see is God changing lives.

>I really feel the evidence is in the transformation of these people's lives and my own and comes through the spiritual plane that you referenced. I know you would say it's a combination of chemical factors in brain activity but it still took introducing God into the equation that triggered those reactions changes that are very real.

Is the feeling that something is evidence good enough to lead to there actually being evidence? Again, people have had transformations for plenty of reasons, God being one of them, but it's not the only reason. What if I had a life changing transformation because I chose to accept that Krishna was the ultimate creator? If I accept that sure, my life sucks now, but if I strive to be good, ultimately I'll be reincarnated into a better situation? Say I've sat in rooms full of people talking about how they've been reincarnated into better people, or people describing how their life changed once they accepted that they will be reincarnated, and I feel that those transformations are the evidence for that being true, does that make it actually true? Furthermore, now that I've witnessed transformation accounts from the Christian, the Hindu, and the Buddhist, how do I make a determination on which one is actually true? Are they all true? Is one of them true? Maybe none are true? How would I know? Because they all access this "spiritual plane" as their source of divine improvement...obviously, they can't all be right, but how do we figure out which one is?

>The second thought I had was what about prophecy? I know you have talked about the history of the Bible being unreliable in some ways but like how do you reconcile Daniel and his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream and then Alexander the Great coming in dividing that Kingdom and then it being divided again into the four kingdoms Daniel spoke about. Obviously that's one example of hundreds but has been historically proven.

This is actually a very interesting topic to look into. So, what ABOUT prophecy? With Daniel, there is more literary evidence leading us to believe that it was written much, much later than the events being written about than there is evidence for it being actually prophetic in nature. The Wikipedia article on Daniel does a decently thorough job of summarizing the scholarly consensus and the reasons why it's a literary construct of a much later time. There is a ton devoted to Daniel within Biblical scholarship, so if you want some reading recommendations beyond the wiki page, I can pull together some material for you. On prophecies in general, there is an entire RationalWiki page dedicated to that as well. I personally went through the Matthean prophecies of the birth account and cited OT sources with my own commentary on why they don't hold. This was a project I started probably a year or two ago, which ultimately died as I got pulled into other interests, but if you'd like that spreadsheet I can dig it up as well. As far as prophecies being "historically proven"...you might want to dig a bit deeper into that statement. For every christian source describing the fulfillment of a prophecy, look up the scholarly commentary as well and compare the two. I guarantee that as you do that, each prophecy will look more and more suspicious.

Really, to look into this more broadly, you'd want to look into the dating of the biblical books and why we think they're dated as such. You'll find yourself pulled into the Documentary Hypothesis, Dueternomistic History, etc. Actually, I was listening to a lecture series on Audible, "The World of Biblical Israel", which goes into some detail on why scholars on the whole believe the Bible didn't really begin it's composition until after the Israelites were captured by the Babylonians.

On somewhat of a related note, a book I just finished that I found very interesting/enlightening was Avigdor Shinan's "From gods to God". This book gives a very thorough scholarly treatment to a lot of the hmmmm moments of the OT, tying out passages to potential sources. If you're interested in reading it, send me your address and I'll buy you a copy :)

As usual, it's great talking with you. Let me know if you want to do a Saturday breakfast or something, I have a greater chance of getting that to happen than I do making Taco Tuesday happen.
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>[We met up for a Saturday breakfast and I passed off a book by John Loftus, "Why I Became an Atheist"
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ME

Thought I'd forward along where [preacher] and I are currently at. It's the same document as before, just longer now. It picks up on page 9 with his response. I'm left ultimately disappointed in his arguments, for various reasons I'm sure you'll pick up on. Anyways, how's the book?? (If you've cracked it yet, that is).
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FRIEND

Thanks Bud, honestly it's hard for me to read this stuff and not get a headache but I'm glad to have some insight into your brain working things out. As I said I'm not much of a reader but I am working to do a little more of it. Sorry that [preacher]'s answers aren't satisfying. Did you ever finish the video I sent you? I found another one that I've had to listen to a few times to wrap my head around and thought you might like it if you want I'll send it to you. Not sure what your schedule is looking like for October but we should try for breakfast again in the next 3 or 4 weeks. Hope you guys are in good health . Talk to you soon.

P.s what are your thoughts on subatomic particles? They're supposed to make up the entire universe but nobody's ever seen one so do they exist?
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ME

I will say: if my conversations with [preacher] make your head hurt...boy, you’re in for a treat with that book lol Listen, if there’s anything I’ve said that you want clarification on, please let me know. I don’t want you to come away thinking I said one thing when I meant something different, you know? Did it at least make sense WHY his arguments were unsatisfying?

As to finishing the video, are you talking about the Ravi Zacharius one? If so, yes, and I’ve watched a handful more of his talks as well. I will say that he is a very entertaining speaker and I get some enjoyment from listening to him, however his arguments are the same old ones simply rehashed and elongated to fit his speaking style. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before, which means it’s still unconvincing. When it comes to apologetics, there is never really any new way of saying anything, it’s simply said a different way in hopes that it may sneak by someone’s suspicions.

As far as meeting up, I’d love to at some point. Let me look at my schedule and get back to you.
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>[This is where the email exchange ends. We've exchanged a few messages via text and we've met up for another Saturday breakfast, but at that point he hadn't cracked the book yet. As of today, we haven't connected for about 6 months.

I went through almost the exact same thing. After leaving our main church, my wife and I stopped going all together. Several years later, after we moved because of jobs, we started going again. Needless to say, that didn't last long.

My wife and I both come from very strong Christian backgrounds; my wife's father was a Southern-Baptist minister for decades, and my dad went to Dallas Theological Seminary and taught church classes most of his life. So let's just say that leaving wasn't an easy thing.

However, my own search led me to realize the truth. Since my wife and I are very close, I talked with her about these things but was very careful about what I said. I'm still careful. I approach the discussions from the standpoint of "searching for answers" rather than declaring that I've already decided.

My mantra over the last few years has been "If it were possible to know the truth, and one of the possibilities was that God didn't exist, would you really want to know?" Well, my answer is yes. I don't want to be a blind-follower Christian. If God is real, then I want to know for sure!

I recommend approaching it like that. It let's your spouse see that you are truly searching for answers. The truth is all we really want, and we can't use a 3000 year-old book to do it. We need real answers, not mythology.

Be sure to talk about it a lot, and be open minded to your spouse's point of view. Let them know you still care for them deeply.

This sub-reddit has been so helpful and caring, so good job starting here. Also grab some books or find some web-sites that discus these things. Here are a few I recommend:

Sites

• http://new.exchristian.net/
  
  
• http://www.patheos.com/ (you'll find many opinions here. great site)
  
  
• https://richarddawkins.net/
  
  Books
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446697966/
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Undeniable-Evolution-Creation-Bill-Nye/dp/1250074223
  
  Cheers
  ~Nate

Indoctrination of children is one of the things that annoys me the most. Not only because it happened to me, but because it's part of evangelists' strategy to stop the decline of Christianity: the 4/14 window.

If it's not your own kids, there's not much you can do, unfortunately. But here are some thoughts:

• Spend time with them and build trust
  
• Avoid telling them outright what or what not to believe.
  
• Get them interested in science as much as possible. Maybe steer away from evolution for the moment (but nothing stops you talking about it if they bring it up). Nurture their curiosity about the sun, the stars, animals... Basic astronomy and basic biology.
  
• This is trickier, but let them realize that some people aren't Christian and that's OK too. For example, in October, you could talk to them about Diwali : "You know, at this time of year in India, people put out rows of candles outside!" If the kids ask why, you can give them a reply, like: "To celebrate the victory of good over evil." You don't need to go any further, but they'll know that people of other faiths (and no faiths) also have rituals, celebrations to celebrate similar concepts.
  
• For great practical ideas (conversation starters, easy to do science experiments, etc) I found the book Raising Freethinkers really helpful.
  
  Good luck! :)

It was a long series for me. I thank Christian apologists and theologians for teaching me the value of evidence, reason and logic. Seriously.

1. Started learning apologetics and theology as a hobby and to better "give a defense of the faith".
   
2. Learned about the importance of only believing things supported by evidence, reason and logic... but only applied them within Christianity. For example, I could see why Arminianism was wrong according to a Calvinistic worldview, but it never occurred to me to question Christianity itself until later.
   
3. Learned about skepticism and how to question everything. This lead to me giving up a lot of other bullshit beliefs and refusing to accept any extraordinary claims without good evidence... but it still never occurred to me to apply it to Christianity.
   
4. Between 2. and 3. I was wrestling with the fact that the best scientists in the world, for a long time now, have insisted that all the evidence points to an old earth and evolution as the origin of species. I tried to reason my way around the Bible's contradicting claims by supposing that God created the universe with the appearance of age and with the current species we have today, but evolution still couldn't be true. It didn't occur to me just how deceptive this would make God.
   
5. I noticed that the way Christians described evolution was completely different to the way scientists described evolution. I realised I probably didn't know as much about it as I thought I did, so I bought 'The Greatest Show On Earth' by Richard Dawkins. By Chapter 2 I was convinced evolution is the only explanation of the origin of species that is supported by evidence - and well supported it is.
   
6. I started wrestling with the biblical account of Creation again, trying to figure out how there can be original sin if Adam isn't a historical figure (because of evolution).
   
7. I can't remember where I originally read this, but it's also covered in The Bible Unearthed. I read about the true history of the Israelites, according to modern archaeological findings. It turns out that the first five books of the Bible are almost completely fabricated. No good evidence of Israelites in Egypt, no good evidence of an Exodus, no good evidence of the Israelites invading Canaan and sacking cities. In fact the Israelites were Canaanites and worshiped Canaanite gods. It wasn't until around 700 BC that the Biblical narrative (or an early form of it) was concocted to unite the divided nations of Judah and Israel.
   
   With the Biblical account of history and Creation revealed to be a complete fabrication, there was no good reason to believe the rest of it. I've been an Atheist for a few months now.

Thanks for the feedback and thoughtful reply! "Condemns most" refers to several indications that the (currently) 2/3rds of the world that does not believe in Jesus will be lost.

 

I do think it's a position reasonably supported by the text. Not that I agree -- I find it morally reprehensible that any "good pagans" and/or the vast billions raised without much exposure to Christianity would be lost due to being born in the wrong place/time. William Lane Craig, a leading apologist, has written a thoroughly repulsive response on the topic: God already knew they'd be lost, so he put them in those places -- and, he says, for all we know, the ratio of saved-to-lost is is perfectly optimal. Ugh!

 

To your point, I'd have a hard time agreeing that Mk 9:40 and Lk 9:50 "whoever is not against us is for us" indicates Jesus believed people could be saved without him. For starters, he contradicts this in Mt 12:30 and Lk 11:23 "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." In context though, both seem to refer to doing miraculous works (casting out demons) and aren't discussing how to be saved at all.

 

In addition, there are ample NT verses saying Jesus saw himself as the only way to be saved:

• Jn 3:18 and Mk 16:16 "whoever believes in Him will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned"
  
• Jn 14:4 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
  
• Jn 3:36 "whoever does not obey Him does not have life; the wrath of God remains on him"
  
• Mt 7:21-23 "And they will say 'Lord, did we not do many mighty works in your name?' And I will declare 'Depart from me; I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness'"
  
• Mt 7:13-14 "the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
  
• Acts 4:12 "there is salvation in no one else; there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved"
  
• Jn 17:3 "and this is eternal life: that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent"
  
• Rm 3:22-23 "The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus"
  
   
  
  Many contradictory religions claim exclusivity. If Christianity let go of the idea of needing Jesus to be saved, it's a slippery slope to not needing him for anything -- just be a decent person and live your life. But in holding onto the need for Jesus, it ran headlong into another huge problem: if it's all about "accepting God's free gift of love", then a serial rapist can accept Jesus and be fully saved on death row, while a lifelong moral non-theist will go to hell for not accepting the gift. This completely devalues any of our actions and puts all the emphasis on "believing on bad evidence" instead of what you actually do with your life.
  
   
  
  It's all a moot point, however -- as it's likely "Jesus", if he existed, never said most of the things attributed to him, and some epistles attributed to Paul were written pseudonymously also. The whole idea of a "final judgment" wasn't from the Old Testament (which focused largely on earthly kings and national victories); rather, it was borrowed from Zoroastrianism eschatology during Babylonian/Persian captivity, which is around the time the Jews rewrote their national history to better fit their unfortunate circumstances, leading to inclusion in Jewish inter-testamental scripture such as the Book of Enoch, which was accepted as scripture for hundreds of years and was quoted by and influenced the thinking of New Testament writers who were making all this stuff up at the time.
  
   
  
  So, yeah -- who cares what Jesus said anyway, it's a lousy plan that wasn't even original! :-)

So, first, and I realize this isn't exactly comforting, but there will be a freak out time no matter what. There will be some time where you feel like the world is ending, and no matter what you do, it will still feel that way. It was that way for me (though we aren't the same, so maybe your experience will differ): every night, up late, praying and sweating and crying. Is there someone in the real world you can talk to? Having a meat body to grab onto for comfort is huge. Also, I wish I'd known about Reddit (not sure if it existed yet) when I went through my biz. This subreddit would have been amazing.

Ironically, part of what pushed me out of Christianity was learning more about it: being really on fire for it. When you learn church history from the church, it's very skewed and specialized, but when you step out of that and examine it from an objective historical point of view, things get crazy. And more calming.

In case you missed it elsewhere in this thread, John Shelby Spong was very comforting for me.

I think A History of God gets mentioned on this sub at least once a day. It's not an easy read, but immensely illuminating as it shows that, essentially, the guy we call god with a capital G is really just a lesser Canaanite deity worshiped by an insane shepherd. But because of Abraham's weird life, all of western history plays out.

It's been awhile since I read Jesus Interrupted, but if I remember correctly, it's about how what the historical Jesus probably said (because we can't possibly know) has been manipulated by history to satisfy different political goals.

Zealot tries to recreate to the best of the author's ability Jesus' world, the philosophies he grew up with, and the philosophies he most likely would have taught. Some parts of this read like an amazing novel, and it has some crazy historical stuff. It really blew my mind.

I read Pagan Christianity right at the start of my dark night. I've mentioned it before, and it confirmed a lot of my suspicions about Christianity actually being fancied up paganism (Zealot discusses that a little as well). It's written from very much a contemporary Christian perspective, so it has some errors that drive me nuts: i.e. Jesus almost certainly wouldn't have ever meant he and god were literally the same, because no half-serious Jewish person of any era would assert that.

It's stupid late where I am (and my toddler already makes sure I'm constantly sleep deprived), so the last thing I'll leave you with:

When I was going through my "dark night of the soul," I still considered myself Christian afterward for quite awhile. It's just that the kind of Christian I felt I had become was so radically different from what I had been that it warranted night sweats and crying. Since then, each progressive deconversion has been less and less painful by magnitudes. But while I was going through it, I kept thinking about a quote in some book I'd read about how, "God made you with the brain you have, the talents you have, the interests you have, and the curiosity you have: pursue that and glorify god." I reasoned (and I feel this is pretty solid) that if god were real, he'd have to be so outside our everyday experience that no one is getting it right; because if he weren't that alien to us, if he was even slightly comprehensible, he couldn't be god. And if god were real, he'd (it?) know how incomprehensible he is, and unless he were insane or evil, he couldn't possibly be just in punishing us for doing whatever we thought was best and in good conscience. The process was still painful, but it definitely made me feel better about ripping off that hairy band-aid.

If you don't already, I'd recommend writing as you go through all this. If you can stomach it, put it some place public, like a blog, so people can bear witness.

Dammit. I said I was going to bed 20 minutes ago.

Sorry-but-not-sorry for the wall of text.

WARNING: Long post ahead!

I admire your desire to avoid confirmation bias and develop a stronger and more reasoned system of beliefs. I also appreciate your honesty in admitting that in some sense, you wish that Christianity could still be true. The pain you are experiencing from questioning long-held beliefs is very familiar to many folks on this sub.

You're not alone. And you should definitely not give up. :)

However:

>>I will follow the evidence wherever it leads.

I'll warn you up front that if you do this, you will probably be led away from any sort of belief in Christianity. Christianity is a religion whose truth or falsehood hinges upon specific historical claims. If Jesus either (1) did not exist, or (2) existed but was not divine and did not resurrect from the dead, then Christianity literally cannot be true. And having walked the same path you're on, I found that the evidence led me to abandoning Christianity. I'm an engineer myself, and eventually I had to accept that the historical evidence just doesn't support Christianity.

With that being said, I've been reading the other posts and discussions here thus far, and it sounds to me like you're stuck between two difficult options: (1) a genuine desire to be intellectually honest, no matter the cost, and (2) facing the difficulty of abandoning a belief system which has been a major part of your marriage and your family. If you want to walk the line between the two, I would recommend that you adopt a rationalistic form of classical Deism or Theism. Accepting a "minimalistic theism," as you put it, might be pragmatically very useful. It could help smooth out any potential conflicts you might have with your spouse and children. At this emotionally difficult time, that could be very beneficial to both you and them. It could also help your family start to look at religious belief in a more rational light, just as you do.

If you haven't already, take a look at some of the best Christian apologists out there --- John Lennox, William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, Alvin Plantinga, and the like. I didn't find them convincing, but reading their arguments could probably help you develop a more intellectually rigorous belief system.

Also, take a look at some books written by theistic evolutionists, such as Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution by Denis Lamoureux, and The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton. These scholars have had no difficult reconciling science with theism, and they might help you in your quest to develop a minimalist theistic belief system.

Finally, this process can be long and painful, and you shouldn't rush yourself through it. Take your time.

And as always, please use this sub for questions and support when you need. If you have more questions, or want to discuss this further, let me know.

I definitely recommend that you start reading /r/exmormon/ if you aren't already. And here is the recommended reading list for that sub.

I also recommend the following:

• God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens; especially the Audible version, which is read by the author and he has a great reading voice.
  
• Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman; really anything by Dr. Ehrman is great, but this one is a good place to start. He also has an interesting back story that he shares in just about every book.
  
• The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein. Finkelstein is one of the top archaeologists living in Israel today, and what he has to say casts a lot of doubt on some of the most important Bible stories. (There's a 90 minute video here, if you would prefer)
  
• A History of God by Karen Armstrong. Where did the idea of the Jewish deity come from, and how did it develop? (There's a 15 minute summary video here if you prefer)
  
  Should be plenty to get you started. :)

I highly recommend reading Greta Christina's book Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why. She's compiled many coming out stories and has a lot of advice about how to come out to people. There's a chapter on how to come out to your spouse.

I also recommend reading Dale McGowan's In Faith and In Doubt: How Religious Believers and Nonbelievers Can Create Strong Marriages and Loving Families. As the title implies, it has advice on how a religiously mixed couple (one religious and the other not) can have a wonderful relationship and raise kid together without seeing eye-to-eye on the supernatural. Like Christina did in her book, McGowan interviewed a lot of people and the book is a compilation of the tips and tricks people have learned.

Yeah I’ve been to that site. A great resource! For me, it started with 2 things.

1. Clicked on a tweet from Dawkins and Gervais that said something interesting. I was really curious to listen to the “other side”. I thought about the fact that that there are people out there who believe the exact opposite as me. They said, “how lucky for you to be born in the right place to believe in the right thing”. That affected me. I thought about people born in the west. Their beliefs. We’re they wrong? Could they change my mind? Should I change theirs?
   
   
2. A couple of recent tragedies. A suicide of the son of a close friend and a young 21 year old girl dying in the hospital. I heard that her family were circled around her praying and singing How Great Is Our God. She died that night. I thought, if the whole point is converting people, wasn’t that a missed opportunity? And just life, you know? The access to information and science. I could no longer believe in a creation story or miracles.
   
   I started reading Why I Became An Atheist , researching and taking the blinders off. Really explored questions in the past I would just shrug off. It would eventually lead me to being an atheist during Easter! I had to preach what I no longer believed. That struggle was tearing me apart. You got to realize, my whole life, paycheck, everything was wrapped in my faith.
   
   It was recently that I resigned my position to pursue a business I started. It’s scary and I no longer have the certainty, which as you know is comforting. Especially in tragedy.
   
   I have found peace in a different kind of faith. One that is fully inclusive, celebrates humanism, love and life. I don’t hate the Bible or Christians. I see it all very differently. I’m in a better place now. Thanks for asking! There’s so much more, over a years worth of journeying.

Since you know about Richard Carrier I would assume you already have read some of the well known Anti-religionists like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Dennet, Stenger, etc. If you are talking about secular biblical scholarship and historical analysis there isn't anyone who keeps me interested as much as Carrier, but I haven't read much in that subject. Some others include Robert Price and Bart Erhman.

There are several good essay compilations by John Loftus which are more generally directed at Christianity. They include essays by Carrier and Robert Price and a number of other secular thinkers. The Christian Delusion I think is the first in that series. Hitchens's The Portable Atheist is another good collection which includes older writing aimed at all religion. Bertrand Russell is a great, too.

A resource to check out would be the clergy project: http://clergyproject.org/

It's for pastors and ministers that lose their faith. You might not be a pastor, but it sounds like you are similarly an ex-christian employed by a church, and face essentially all of the same challenges.

I don't know where you live, so I can't recommend local places to meet people in a similar position, but it's worth doing some googling to see if there are any atheist or ex-christian groups in your area. You might be surprised how many closet atheists there are in the bible belt.

All I can say is be careful. You don't want to get accidentally outed before you're ready. However, when you are ready, I highly recommend the book Coming out Atheist: https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Out-Atheist-Help-Other/dp/1939578191

Edit: and if you just want someone to talk to, PM me and I'll give my contact info.

I agree, to an extent. OP is going about it the wrong way. I don't know if I'd say there's no value in trying to get friends and family to see reason, though.

To OP (/u/VirusMaster3072), I'd recommend reading A Manual for Creating Atheists. It's not perfect, but the strategies it lays out make for a better foundation for discussing religious topics with people of faith. Going back and forth each saying "I'm right" isn't all that productive. The best approach, though the hardest, is through patience and carefully constructed questions. This book lays out very practical strategies for achieving that.

The alternative is nothing more than digging yourselves further into your own ditches until you're so entrenched you can no longer see eye-to-eye.

To take a step back, how do you see this dialogue going? If you give them resources or make arguments, do you expect them to listen, say "good point," and accept that your position is valid?

Said another way, stuff that's convincing to you won't be convincing to them, and vice versa. After a few long conversations, I couldn't even get my family to admit the possibility that they may be wrong about their faith, or even that believers of other religions feel their religion to be true in the same way they do (and aren't deluded by Satan). Might be useful to start there rather than diving into the deep end with God Doesn't Exist.

It's a tough road ahead. Getting that first crack in the "the bible is 100% perfect" armor is a huge deal. For me it came in OT history (specifically the nonexistence of the Exodus and the book of Daniel, for which even N.T. Wright accepts a late date), which is easier to debunk than the NT stuff. Good luck.

Here's one though: check out works by former pastors and missionaries, like this book or this blog (the author of which has unfortunately passed away). When I was still on my journey I was basically immune to arguments from atheists, but these guys could get through.

It's not so much progression as it is that monotheistic religions like Christianity are intolerant of other gods and other beliefs (whereas polytheistic belief systems are more welcoming of additional gods). If you're interested I highly recommend reading The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World to see how Christians squeezed out polytheistic religions through the destruction of temples and statues, book burning, persecution of apostates, executions and more.

Funny that you have to force people to embrace the word of an almighty loving god at swordpoint.

His league is pretty much normal academic Biblical scholarship. He just condenses the issues for layman audience.

Check out r/AcademicBiblical

u/brojangles always has good responses.

Elaine Pagels has good books on Gnosticism and early Christianity.

The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom, Candida Moss is a good one.

to be sure, the bible wasn't written by anyone with any 'power'. guys like Paul, or the gospel authors, or the OT authors, were all more than likely devout, and - let's be real - crazy AF.

also, powerful people did come to use christianity to try and institute unity across the empire - but that in itself wasn't actually an ignoble goal. the empire was in a bad way by the time Constantine got to the throne, and several emperors before him had attempted to use religion to create social unity. to be sure, Constantine didn't need Christianity for power - he had an army for that.

what's important here is what christians DID when they got power through him - that should tell you everything you need to know. a good book you can read is called "The Darkening Age" by Catherine Nixey - you might even be able to find it at your local library, as i did.

the truth is: sometimes people are awful, and the bible doesn't help them be better.

I've been exactly where you are. I went through years of struggle, questioning, hiding from my doubts, and questioning some more. Finally, I decided to face the possibility that perhaps everything I knew wasn't true. I started out by reading through the Bible with a truly open mind after praying, "God, I'm not sure if you're real. I'm going to read through your word one more time here. Please help me understand it the way you intended for it to be understood."

By the time I got through Judges, I realized I was no longer religious in any way. I could no longer believe something so unbelievable.

I then spent months reading, researching, and learning things I didn't even know were possible. My favorite was learning about the origins of the Bible: Check out The Bible Unearthed and Who Wrote the Bible if you're interested. And the science of evolution - something I'd never allowed myself to learn about in the past, for fear of weakening my already weak faith - is mindblowing!

The struggle you're going through is terrifying, but you will get through it - on one side or the other. For me, the result was the realization that everything I'd been taught from childhood was not true. It stunned me to see how truly ignorant I had been of the truth, history, science, morality, etc.

Good luck to you!

Great stuff, if you don't already know about it you may like the Awkward Moments Children's Bible

I know of a couple of books written by ex-evangelicals that might be useful to you at this time in your life:

godless

or Why I Believed

Why I believed is also free here

I'm in a similar situation, stuck in the midst of huge discussions about your faith with the parents. Fortunately I've been able to get mine to do it over e-mail so I have time to think. I'd be totally overwhelmed doing this in person. I feel for you.

I would avoid tackling each individual issue. You will lose these battles even if you make the better case. Instead, ask questions. Specifically, "how do you know?" Every time they make a truth claim about anything, get them to explain how they know it's true. If it comes back to faith, you know they're out of ideas.

Grab a copy of this (though I can't recommend you hand it directly to your folks unless you want to start a fight!)

Try a rock concert. You'll feel the same euphoria, no wonder it's considered evil. Also might try r/frission. Or just a video game soundtrack, those work the same way.

Problem with your feelings is not that nobody else felt them, but that we can recreate them without the religion, even with just drugs. And there's also the problem where we know for certain, that religious events are carefully organized, using well known methods, same as any worldly event, to induce those feelings. Much like Moses with the snake, religion's tricks can be recreated by worldly means. It's just carefully applied psychology.

Speaking of psychology. Try reading Why Does He Do That, it has zero mention of religion, but it might give you some insight into how it works, and why people here reacted so angrily at your (for all you knew) innocent questions.

my advice is to buy your mother-in-law one or all of these books:

• jason rosenhouse's among the creationists

• richard dawkin's the greatest show on earth

• jerry a. coyne's why evolution is true

• bill nye's undeniable: evolution and the science of creation

edit: a word.

Thank you!

Not sure if Judaism is any better than Christianity tho lol.

I suppose I can think of some tips. Number one is just know your stuff well, before you try to talk about it. Read a lot of material. Read about what you believe. Read an apologetics book -- maybe read the one I mentioned, or watch this atheist's deconstruction of those arguments. That video series in particular was very helpful to me.

2. Practice online in a low-risk environment before you try it out loud. The downside of talking about faith online is nobody listens to you and you're likely to get called nasty names. The upside is that you don't give a shit what these people think about you, and you have time to think about your responses, and you don't have to contend with body language. In an in-person discussion it can be hard to think on your feet; if you've already thought through these arguments, you can recognize them and know what to say. And when humans speak in person, a large percentage of our total communication comes from body language, not just words. If this person you talk to is very confident, strong-willed, forceful, that comes across in his body language. You can feel intimidated or unsure even if you are very sure of yourself intellectually, just because of that fact.

3. Maybe write a blog. It doesn't have to be a really good one. I wrote a blog for a while; maybe 20 people read it, and I didn't keep up with it later. But it was so helpful for me to get my ideas down on paper, in coherent form, to see how they work.

4. Read Greta Christina's Coming Out Atheist. This has a lot of tips for people like us. One of those is...

5. Know why you are having this conversation. Are you doing it to explain your position to a person you care about? Then remember that the relationship is important to you, not just scoring rhetorical points. Also remember to remind the other person that the relationship is important. Before I said, "I don't believe in God," this pastor was asking me about myself and trying to get to know me. After I said those evil words, he switched to Apologetics Mode, just listing off arguments he'd heard before. So think about why you want to do this. Are you doing it to prove yourself? Are you doing it to normalize your beliefs? Are you doing this for the benefit of other people who will hear?

6. I'm not sure whether or not "taking him down a peg" is a good goal or not. If you mean, just to show that not everybody agrees with him, then sure. But if you think you'll make him look foolish or see that his beliefs are wrong, don't bother. People have remarkable strength when it comes to defending their core beliefs, no matter how irrational they may seem to us.

I see others on this forum agree with me, that the pastor's "Sunriss prove God" argument was a bad argument--but he didn't see it as a bad argument. In fact, he may have thought he 'won' that discussion. Likewise, when he threatened me with hell, I tried to point out to him how that made no sense but he literally just didn't get it. I see Pascal's Wager as a bad argument; but after he used it on me, he thought he had made a great point.

And from the way he smiled, I feel like he thought he was winning. I wasn't able to hold his gaze; he would make eye contact with me with this intense stare where I eventually felt like I had to look down; and when he saw me do that he smiled, as if I was showing weakness and he was defeating the evil atheist with his JesusPowers.

So I think I made some good points in what I said to him, I think I answered some of his questions, but I don't know how he sees the interaction; I suspect he thinks he 'destroyed' me.

Keep reading, keep writing; read arguments, argue yourself, journal and blog. Argue with people when you want to, and shake the dust off your feet and leave them alone when you want to. Good luck!

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Why Evolution Is True

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible

Why There Is No God

Jesus, Interrupted

The God Argument

Deconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason

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Get yourself a moral compass with some secular moral science. https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X

You'll be happier, I guarantee it.

Anything by Robert Price or Bart Ehrman for a secular academic understanding of the Bible. Great if you're into history and ancient cultures or want to understand how Christianity came about.

I've become rather obsessed with deconversion narratives recently

Why I became an Atheist

Deconverted FYI I recommend the audiobook

Godless

Farewell to God

If anyone is interested in reading into this, I’d recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885

It’s all about how Christianity destroyed Ancient Rome and conquered Europe, it’s a great read.

I read the book Raising Freethinkers and it helped me feel more comfortable about how to raise kids in a secular manner. My experience was fundamentalist indoctrination. It talks about how to talk to kids about religion without telling them what to think.

I didn't leave God. I just slowly came to the realization that the bible wasn't true. About two years ago, I went to a series of talks led by Tim Keller (yes, that famous Christian pastor with NY Times bestselling books) discussing reasons for believing. I went with a friend fully intending on bolstering my faith. I think I went to most of the talks and it had the opposite effect. I realized that what Keller was using as evidence of the divine was nonexistent and flimsy at best. I also made the realization here that just because someone has a PhD. and is a so-called expert on a subject doesn't mean he is right about it.

Anyway some seekers groups spun off these talks and I joined one. Every week we would gather together and discuss all of the questions people have when it comes to God: the problem of evil, the problem of suffering, science and the bible, etc., etc. The group was led by Christians and, of course, the intent was to convert. (I just want to note here that I met some great people through this. I didn't have any traumatic experiences with other Christians unlike other people in this sub). Anyway, these discussions just raised more issues with the bible and got me thinking more and more about it. I just began to realize how absurd the claims of the bible were.

Finally, I started reading Bart Ehrman. He is a professor at UNC and a former bible-believing Christian, who went to seminary. I read one of his books [How Jesus Became God] (https://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778192/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1502669542&sr=8-6&keywords=bart+ehrman) and it was eye-opening. I also started reading material from other skeptics. From that I learned that the Gospels do not agree with one another. In fact, they differ in the details of their stories. For instance, the Gospels disagree on how Judas died. Second, the stories in the Gospels were transmitted orally for years until they were finally written down in Greek. They were not written by eyewitnesses! As someone who's played the telephone game you know that stories change as they are relayed from one person to the next. I finally made the realization that the idea of Jesus grew until we have what we have today in the Christian church.

There are a lot of other things I am leaving out, but that's the gist. I urge you to do more research on this topic and read what non-Christians have to say about the bible. You might be surprised by what you learn. I know I was.

I see two options here:

He's already admitted that he's unwilling to change his mind and that his faith is more important than truth. He could be telling the truth, which would mean you're wasting your time, or, it's just his mental conditioning coming out and subconsciously some of the stuff is getting through and making him uncomfortable. You need to determine which is the case.

If you want to try to get through to him then I would suggest getting this book. I would also suggest subscribing to a YouTube user called Anthony Magnabosco who puts the books techniques into practice on the street. The book focuses more on epistemology, so you won't have to teach anyone science or formal logic. The book show you how to make people cast doubt on what they think they know (when they actually don't). Once people have doubts then it's usually the beginning of the end for faith.

Mark S Smith - The Early History of God
(warning - a bit more scholarly than the other more populist books below)

https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X

Avigdor Shinan - From Gods to God

https://www.amazon.com/Gods-God-Debunked-Suppressed-Changed/dp/0827609086

The Bible Unearthed - Israel Finkelstein

https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869136

Who Wrote the Bible, and The Exodus - Richard Friedman

https://www.amazon.com/Wrote-Bible-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060630353

https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0062565249

Strobel's a joke. I read The Case For Christ when I was in a phase of desperately trying to keep my faith. Every point he brought up was terribly disappointing and when the people he interviewed brought some reason for believing, his challenges (if challenged them at all) were mediocre. He was never a staunch atheist as he claims. At most, he was probably someone indifferent to Christianity looking for a reason to believe.

I recently read Price's The Case Against The Case For Christ and it was hilarious and fun to read. I recommend it.

Read this book, and keep it hidden from him

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/0425191656

if he is a narcissist by the way no counseling in the world is going to have an affect. Especially if he is malignant. Silent treatments are a sign of emotional abuse and the manipulation too.

Buying the guns worry me too. Also the suicide thing is disturbing too. Please do not leave in a way that he knows or tell him you are leaving. This is a guy you need to start hiding the money and planning a way to vanish without him knowing it, like when he is at work. That is some advice Lundy gives. I can see him beating you or hurting you if you tried to leave. Religion to be frank to this guy is just a control mechanism over you, to guilt you. He may not even really believe in it himself, it is about CONTROL and the church systems back up the support and control of the little women. When my marriage had trouble around 10 years qgo--he lost his career and we were under severe economic pressures, the churches treated me like utter shit. we were near splitting up, we were able to get counseling, and have things work out, but in my case there was freedom of belief and 15 years of otherwise happy marriage, the marriage survived and grew stronger. I am not sure you have much to work with here. If he doesn't respect your beliefs and who you are, that is missing a core foundation.

Here is the mobile version of your link

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Christ-Testament-Reverend/dp/1578840058

https://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/strobel.html


https://celsus.blog/2013/08/24/another-case-of-apologetic-dishonesty-in-lee-strobels-the-case-for-christ/

https://valerietarico.com/2019/03/20/how-case-for-christ-author-lee-strobel-fabricated-his-best-selling-story-an-interview-with-religion-critic-david-fitzgerald/

You should really give this book a read:

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/143917122X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499307509&sr=8-1&keywords=sam+harris+the+moral+landscape

> You know there's this book?

This book?

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

Apologies for being vague. It was an interview I heard years ago, and I couldn't recall the details. I managed to find it again. It's The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb.

I went to Alpha when I was still a Christian, but when doubts were starting to form. They invite you in by sharing a meal together, watching Gumbel's presentation, and having discussion. The video segments are made up of the same old arguments stating that people are basically bad and need to be made right by the blood of Jesus. It's an effective tool on those who aren't able to or aren't trained in logical/cognitive fallacies.

> I've tried to respectfully challenge her on a couple of things, but she feels that I'm attacking her new found faith.

IMO this is a red flag. Being defensive usually doesn't allow for an open mind. Be wary.

> Are there any good books which help explain non-literalist Christian beliefs to someone who came from a literalist background?

I wouldn't keep pointing in the direction of belief, but rather point in the direction of truth (Plus, we were taught to hate Rob Bell in church):

• Why Evolution is True By Jerry Coyne
  
• Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation by Bill Nye
  
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
  
• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
  
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
  
  Pointing in the direction of religion, yields more bad philosophy.

Fight fire with fire: https://www.amazon.com/Awkward-Moments-Childrens-Bible-Vol/dp/149217744X

This was what first made me start the process of deconversion. I had for a long time held that some form of theistic evolution must be true. I had read Francis Collins, and John Walton books, and thought my reasoning was logical.

The tiny seeds of my eventual deconversion were planted however in a discussion/debate with my mother-in-law. She is a staunch creationist, doesn't think anyone who believes in evolution can possibly be a christian. We had a long discussion about the issue, and she kind of came around to my point of view--or at least didn't think I was going straight to hell anymore. But in the course of this conversation, she off-handedly made some comment about evolution meaning there was always death. We didn't really talk about the subject any more than that.

But it kept popping into my mind over the coming days. And for some reason, I had never considered this idea before. Months later, after much research, reading and considering, I came to realize that I could find no acceptable explanation for what "the fall" was, if it was a merely symbolic event. If there was always sickness and pain and death from day one, then the world was always "fallen". And without a fall, my understanding of who Jesus was and what he did was on VERY shaky ground. So it was the beginning of the end for me.

There was a question asked about this very movie over at r/AcademicBiblical. u/brojangles gave an excellent point by point rebuttal of some of the claims made:


>500 eyewitnesses in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 dates within 3 years of jesus' death according to Gerd Ludemann and a few months after the cross according to Gary Habermas

We have no dating for when Paul thinks this happened. 1 Corinthians 15 was written at least 17 years after Pal's conversion by Paul's own reckoning. This alleged "creed" is usually claimed to pre-date Paul, but that's conjecture based on style. Paul himself denied that he learned anything about Jesus from other people. There is also reason to believe that the Corinthians creed was tampered with or added to later, but assuming Paul is reciting a pre-Pauline creed (and this is not actually proved, even though it is generally accepted even by critical scholars), all it says is that Jesus was "seen" by people after his death. Nothing is said about exactly what they saw or where or when or what is meant by "seen." That could include a number of things, including dreams. Paul names none of these 500 people or says where to find them. It's also not an incident that appears to be known by the Gospels. so either it wasn't very important or (as I suspect) the 500 is a later interpolation. It doesn't mean much. A Fatima type even is possible or what is meant by "seen" could mean manifestations of the spirit or something. Paul gives some reason to think this when he says things like "God revealed his son in me" or says in Galatians 3:1 that Jesus was "portrayed as crucified before your eyes."

Paul also never says how he knows what these people saw or how he verified it, so this is an absolutely valueless claim. It certainly does not prove a dead body came back to life or even that anybody had thought a dead body came back to life. It's (at best) a second hand and completely uncorroborated claim that some people "saw" Jesus after his death, but doesn't say what that means, and it could men a lot of things. There is reason to believe that people first thought they had seen Jesus in Heaven, so a bunch of people staring at the sun until they thought they saw something would not be extraordinary. How did they even know it was Jesus?

>- 9 sources for post-mortem appearances (1 was a jewish persecutor called paul of tarsus with a very early report)

There is only one source. Paul (and he never actually says he was from Tarsus. That's only in Acts).

>- All we have to show for the resurrection is that Jesus died and was seen afterwards.

No. People see Elvis. People still see Jesus now. They have to prove that a dead body came back to life.

>The apostles were in a position to know whether or not their religion was made-up false hood or truth so they would not willingly die for a lie. Moreover, the disciples had no motivation to lie

There is no evidence that they died for their beliefs. This is 2nd and 3rd century Christian folklore. See Candida Moss' The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom.

We also don't actually know what the disciples claimed. There is no actual evidence that they ever claimed Jesus' dead body had come back to life and walked out of a tomb.

>- 5843 Greek manuscripts for the new testament which is in better shape than most historical documents that we would be lucky to find 5 manuscripts for.

Irrelevant. For hundreds of years, Christians were in charge of of what books got copied and preserved. The fact that Christians mostly copied Christian writings does not prove a dead body came back to life. A book having lots of copies also does not make it true. There are millions of perfect copies of Harry Potter novels. So what?

>P52 dates to 125 based on paleography so it is within 30 years of the autographs


The dating of P52 is contentious and it could be as late as 175. Even if the 125 date is accurate (which is really just an optimistic low end) it doesn't prove anything except that there was already a Gospel of John in the 2nd Century. It doesn't prove that a dead body came back to life.

>- No evidence that the Romans threw crucified bodies to the dogs.

Who says they were? The Romans either left bodies on the cross for scavengers (including dogs) or put them in shallow common pits, where they could also be gotten to by scavengers. Nobody says they were "thrown to dogs."

>The Romans did allow proper burial for some crucifixion victims

Asserted without evidence.

>- The 4 gospels and 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 ar all early sources that attest that jesus had a proper burial.

1 Corinthians does not say that. It says Jesus was "buried," not that he was given an honorable burial, which is the issue. Even Jewish law required that executed criminals be buried without honor, at night and without an audience. Jesus could well have been buried in a criminals' pit, but the odds are none of he disciples even knew what had happened to his body. If they fled when he was arrested, he would have been disposed of in an unmarked grave with other criminals, at night, without an audience and no one would have known where.

The Gospels are not independent. The empty tomb story originates with Mark and the other gospels got it from Mark. Mark himself says that nobody was ever told about it.

>The empty tomb eyewitnesses were all women and the testimony of women was deemed unreliable by jewish custom so why would the gospel writers make this up? Why would they make up unreliable eyewitnesses as the chief eyewitnesses to the resurrection?

First, it's not true that women could not be called as witnesses, they could in some circumstances, but it's not even necessary to talk about that because the women are not presented as witnesses. In Mark, they run away without telling anybody. This is Mark's explanation for why nobody knew about the tomb. Those stupid women were too afraid to tell anybody. The other Gospels all have the women running to the disciples and then the disciples go to the tomb, so the audience is not expected to take the women's word for anything. The legal restraints on women's testimony also does not mean that nobody ever believed anything a woman said in day to day life. That is a very stupid and tendentious inference to draw.

> Internal inconsistencies in the secondary details among the 4 gospels actually makes the accounts credible because it shows a lack of collusion and supports the notion of independent testimony.

No, because they are all fairly consistent when they have Mark as a guideline, then they fly off in totally different directions where Mark leaves off. Once they lose Mark, their appearance stories are all completely contradictory with no overlap. It's not different versions of the same story, it's three different stories, all of which contradict their original source text, Mark, which says that the women never old anybody about the tomb. The Gospels are not personal testimonies. None of them were written by witnesses or anybody who knew witnesses. The Gospels also all contradict the Corinthians creed, by the way.

>Shroud of turin may be authentic

Ridiculous

>Roberta waters, president of the american association of psychoanalysists who is an agnostic professor at indiana university states that A mass hallucination of 500 people is completely impossible

Fatima.

There is no actual reason to even discuss the 500 until we now exactly what it is they claimed to have seen, what the circumstances were, etc.

>- Even if the disciples and the 500 had a psychological hallucination, why was the tomb found empty?

There is no good evidence that there ever was a tomb at all, but a missing body proves nothing more than a missing body. There are some perfectly plausible explanations for how a body could go missing from a tomb besides magical reanimation. King Herod's tomb was found a few years ago. The body was missing from the sarcophagus. According to Habermas, this means that Herod was resurrected from the dead and Herod is lord?

>The swoon theory is "rubbish" according to Alexander Metherell

This is not even a real theory. This is an apologist strawman. I have never heard any critical scholar even suggest this. Everybody agrees that Jesus was dead. He just stayed dead, that's all.

Just for the record, though. Josephus said he saw a guy survive a crucifixion after being taken down.

>The crucifixion is one of the best attested events in the ancient world.

No it isn't. There isn't a single eyewitness report or bit of contemporary documentation. Why are they so comfortable just making shit up like this? Having said that, yes, we all agree that Jesus was crucified. So were thousands of other people. They are really proud of how easily they can knock down this non-existent "swoon theory" aren't they?

>- It takes a leap of faith to deny the resurrection as equal as the leap of faith required to accept it.

Does this even require a response. This is nothing but a a statement of personal faith.