Some Christians I know have used what to me sounded like reasonable arguments in the recent past to argue for belief, knowing that I’m the kind of person who puts serious time and thought into wanting to know what really is and what really isn’t. Now, just a few months down the road, discerning what points/arguments are solid has become much easier for me, having read a good number of articles and comment section discussions on this site.

I truly think trying to grasp onto Christianity, and the resulting cognitive dissonance, significantly hindered my critical thinking. I’m sure I’m not close to being the first nor the last person to experience this. In more recent months, I’ve been able to let go of the fear that caused that grasping largely because of sound arguments dismissing the source of those fears.

It’s discouraging to know that reason will not change the thinking of a large percent of the population, but this tiny fraction is grateful for not just your stories, but for your arguments. They are empowering and have helped me get my ability to think back. Keep on being logical and articulate and patient; people like me are better for it.

I find myself having to reject this ‘divine revelation’ possibility due to the fact that no one wakes up on a Tuesday morning in Mongolia, having never heard of Jesus or the bible, suddenly accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior due to his resurrection on the third day etc etc.

My grandparents on my mom’s side were Christian missionaries in Afghanistan. My grandma would always tell stories of children who spoke to Jesus in their dreams and became Christians despite having no contact with the Bible or Christianity.

For me, that’s simultaneously a hard pill to swallow, and hard to reject totally because for god’s sakes they’re both medical doctors and both are *extremely* intelligent people.

Of course, all the “irrefutable” claims of that type are also totally unrepeatable and unverifiable, so it’s like, there’s your circumstantial evidence if you want it but if you want something a little more direct, you pretty much aren’t going to get it, shy of interpreting a religious experience a certain way.

Of course, they are trying to sell you something. In this case it is ignorance and Jesus.

Furthermore, I’m surprised at how little attention is given to Bible-taught techniques for converting. Ideas like “you can’t convert someone, only God can” – is extremely true. You can but introduce them to ideas, and whatever happens inside them (consider God as something inside someone, be it an idea or a concept implanted at birth or a sense of curiousity or whatnot… ah, whatever).

I believe, in a memetic sense, breaking down and removing someone’s memes is near impossible. It creates a void that doesn’t want to exist. I believe much more effective is providing replacement memes that then displace the other memes. These beliefs have not been rigorously tested, but I’m working on that. If it were possible to quantify and objectively compare the success rate of converting someone from one religion to another with the success rate of directly removing religious belief, it would provide some insight.

So what then, where to then? I’ve been doing a lot of reading of liberal Christian material. The idea is to not bash and break down the memes and stories that they build their worldviews on, but to understand and develop them instead. It is a lot more work, because it requires understanding more context and history than merely thinking rationally, but I enjoy it. I consider it to be “memetic engineering”, and the direction it is headed is “religionless Christianity”. It connects with emerging church literature and ideas as well, and I consider every conversion from fundamentalism to emerging-church style tolerance and cross-cultural understanding and appreciation to be a success in its own right.

Heaven and hell then? Yes, they are certainly realities, here in this life. An idea, a concept of an ideal way of living (expressed in the metaphor of being “with God”) -> heaven. Removal from love and compassion and empathy, fighting for Darwinian survival in a life of poverty and oppressed by political regimes: hell. The afterlife? Well, does that really matter, when there is a heaven and hell to worry about here and now? In the end whether there is a belief in an afterlife or not should make no difference to the way you live this life. The best way to accomplish that kind of consistency is to forget about the afterlife, simply not care about it, and focusing on the heaven and hell here on earth.

Must have faith? Well… must not give up on having a positive attitude. Must maintain hope and focus and aim for the best. A positive attitude towards life, deciding life is worth living, is not a scientific impartial thing – it is a “leap of faith”, a decision, followed by the application of confirmation bias. We decide life is worth living, then we prove it by recognising the pleasures of a good glass of wine, a hike in the mountains, the experience of a marvelous movie or piece of art, etc. *That* then is the kind of faith that is important.

Etc.

Of course the problem with this approach is it requires *demonstrating* the approach as well. It is a way of not fighting *their* worldview, but rather explaining and defending your own in a way that they can understand and potentially embrace. Inviting them to attack my worldview, and then explaining and defending the value of it in the words that they are used (but then *also* explaining the differences in how the words are used, only after emphasizing the similarities though), that is my style of “evangelising”.

It requires a long journey for people doing the converting, it isn’t a “hit-and-run and on to the next person” approach. It requires building friendships and taking a long term view. It is *my* Christianity, then, *my* “WWILJTD”, and my Jesus would think for himself and use his rational mind…

In the end… many supplementary paths? And we all contribute to help “let the kingdom of heaven come” – or rephrased in contemporary terminology and promoted by Pullman iirc, “the republic of heaven”? I have yet to read Pullman, but I look forward to doing so, critically. I’m an aspiring bridge builder, so I look for similarities as well as differences, and try to find the problems and dangers as well as the benefits of any particular viewpoint.

I also like to use these arguements mentioned in the post in talking with people who believe an absolute morality is needed. I use them to show how people can never have an absolute morality, because they will always interpret it reletively, especially in line with society’s influence. It really negates their assertions that their moral compass is somehow superior to mine.

You may find that the religious will get bound up in the “challenge” found in my last post. It is a “tongue in cheek” approach designed to get the religious “going”, but oh so logical answer to the religious argument. Enjoy.

That said, what you’re doing may spark some latent skepticism in people who would not admit it openly (at least not where they are presently in their thinking/faith). In my case, I had always been a strong skeptic about all sorts of things other than Christianity – I just never opened up religion to the scrutiny of the rational.

It wasn’t until I read some articles like this one that the wall came down protecting my Christian beliefs from my natural skepticism – and that, of course, was the beginning of the end. Let me add that I was a lurker – the online conversations I read weren’t directed at me specifically but they sure affected me personally.

That’s how it definitely was for me. I can probably trace the first real cracks in my faith back to the James Randi Education Foundation’s website. Eventually I realized that I found myself in agreement with the views on everything mentioned there except when it went against my faith.

I doubt any Christian will ever de-convert due to a rational argument, but that doesn’t mean those rational arguments have no impact.

My take on it is that religious individuals have to be ready to deconvert (or at least consider it) themselves, from their own self-motivation. The interest in logic and reason has to come from within, not from hearing someone argue or bring up objections to religion. We all know that those objections are swiftly and firmly papered over by “interpretation.”

That said, what you’re doing may spark some latent skepticism in people who would not admit it openly (at least not where they are presently in their thinking/faith). In my case, I had always been a strong skeptic about all sorts of things other than Christianity – I just never opened up religion to the scrutiny of the rational.

It wasn’t until I read some articles like this one that the wall came down protecting my Christian beliefs from my natural skepticism – and that, of course, was the beginning of the end. Let me add that I was a lurker – the online conversations I read weren’t directed at me specifically but they sure affected me personally.

So, keep up the good work but don’t expect to be “making deconverts” left and right. It doesn’t really work that way.

Whether it’s for being gay or hating gays; promoting gender equality or opposing it; enslaving people or stopping enslavement; being happy-clappy in church or being silent and reverent, creationism or evolutionism whatever your moral and lifestyle choices, there’s a Jesus interpretation for you.

So send in your $12.95 (plus shipping and handling) to “Jesus-Just-For-You”; a division of Ronco Inc. and receive your WWILJTD (“What would I like Jesus to do”) bracelet.

And this bit from your article sounded very much like something from a hypnotism tape:

‘god is calling you… just open your heart…deep down you know its true… just reach out and accept the gift that Jesus is trying to give you…can’t you hear him?.. open your heart’

Now when I count to three and snap my fingers, you will wake up and feel “peace like a river in your soul”.