I was born into a Christian home, and sent to a fundamentalist Christian church. I never even thought to question Christianity until I was about 14, I just accepted every Christian premise I heard without question. When I was about 14, a deacon at the Southern Baptist church I was a member of, filled in for the youth pastor who was out sick. He asserted that the world was only 6000 years old, and that dinosaur bones were planted in the ground by Satan to trick scientists into leading people away from Yahweh. The first thing that shook me up, was the fact that he was not some random guy who just attended church sometimes. He was a deacon and a pretty high ranking guy in the church. I quickly turned the same rational eye that I had on his arguments onto my own beliefs and realized that they were just as silly. I told the regular youth pastor that when he got back. He challenged me to read the Bible cover-to-cover. I read it over the course of about ten days.
One day, I was taking a shower after returning home from a church service. While I was cleaning myself, I formed sort of a mental Venn Diagram of everything I had read in the Bible. I realized that almost everything in the Bible fit into a set of things which were horrible, or a set of things which were nonsense, and that most of it fit into the intersection of those sets. When I got out of the shower, I came to the conclusion that Yahweh did not exist, the Bible was a useless book of nonsense and that every Christian premise or argument I had ever heard was false.
A little later, I encountered Kent Hovind videos and a now famous Youtuber named VenomFangX. This was back when he only had about a thousand subscribers, and would respond to people’s private messages to him. I pointed out some of the flaws in one of his videos to him, and he replied with something to the effect of “Nu-uh, magic”. I refuted that argument, and he blocked me. While reading through the comments on another one of his videos (or maybe a Kent Hovind video), I found a link to the Skeptics Annotated Bible. The SAB (Wonderful resource when debating Christians) helped to solidify my conclusions about Christianity.
My explicit rejection of all other religions came after reading The Iliad. I enjoyed the book, and realized that it was pretty much the same thing as the Bible. A chain of events, some probably based in history, others completely fabricated with arbitrary deities from the region it was written inserted throughout. Reading it caused me to view religion on a more global scale and realize that every religion I knew of was pretty much isomorphic to Christianity, which I had already established a solid basis for rejecting.
I don’t think I have to justify my rejection of the sort of “New age” spirituality stuff. Anybody who has been exposed to it, and not immediately seen it as meritless garbage is a mental deficient.
tl;dr: Some Christian beliefs crazier than the Christian beliefs I held, got me to look at religion rationally.
Matthew Donica
United States
Donica makes just one point and one sub-point:
1. EvilBible; therefore No God.A subpoint is that because the Iliad demonstrates the possibility of fiction, then:
2. Fiction exists; therefore No God.He was driven to it by a YEC literalist. He apparently remains a literalist.
But he does not address actual theism, its propositions or logic. He merely makes his assertion and declares it “rational”. Assertions are not known to be rational until they are fully examined for flaws. His assertions, if they really reduce in the manner they seem to, are non sequitur as can be demonstrated by restating them thus:
1. IF [the Bible is obnoxious to my sensibilities], THEN, [there is no first cause agency].These conclusions were made at an inauspicious time in the intellectual life of humans: adolescence. For example, Donica, as a teenager, assumed for himself both (a) the moral authority to derive a personal ethic by which to judge God – and then judged God; and he (b) assumed the rational ability to reject portions of the texts as irrational.
2. IF [the Iliad demonstrates fictional gods in literature], THEN, [there is no first cause agency].
There is likely no living creature less rational than teenagers. It appears that Atheism is adopted during the human rebellion years in a great many cases, and it is presumed rational without any subsequent examination as an adult. That is why I recommend that every adult learn classical logic, its application to rational thought, the philosophy of science, and the First Principles of Thought, and then reassess all the components of their worldviews using these tools of rationality.
Donica’s rejection is a normal reaction in teen years. That doesn’t lend it credibility as an adult worldview. If truth is desired in one’s worldview, then education in the processes of actual rationality must be learned and used with rigor.
Summary: Rejected the Bible and Christianity as a teen, with God as a subsidiary casualty.
4 comments:
"Donica makes just one point and one sub-point:
1. EvilBible; therefore No God.
Reading the Bible and examining Christian assertions convinced him that Yahweh did not exist. It did not make him an atheist. That came after examining other religions.
(If you are using the word God to refer to the god named Yahweh (YHWH) of the Christian religion then you should use this god's name if you want other people to know what you are talking about.)
"2. Fiction exists; therefore No God."
Fiction? You mean holy books exist. The Bible is one holy book and some
people still believe its claims.
"1. IF [the Bible is obnoxious to my sensibilities], THEN, [there is no first cause agency]."
You can divide his objections to the Bible into two categories: morals and facts.
If the Bible promotes morality that is evil then it is horrible.
And if the Bible contains claims about truth that are untrue then it is nonsense.
"Horrible" and "nonsense" are his own words.
The claims of Christianity rely on the Bible. If the Bible is horrible and nonsense then why be a Christian?
2. IF [the Iliad demonstrates fictional gods in literature], THEN, [there is no first cause agency].
A closer rendering of his claims would be that the Bible seems like just other holy book. I don't think the people who wrote the Iliad thought it was just fiction. Many people through out time thought the Iliad was not just fiction.
"That is why I recommend that every adult learn classical logic, its application to rational thought, the philosophy of science, and the First Principles of Thought, and then reassess all the components of their worldviews using these tools of rationality."
And do try and learn these things from a good qualified teacher.
Nats said,
”You can divide his objections to the Bible into two categories: morals and facts.
If the Bible promotes morality that is evil then it is horrible.
And if the Bible contains claims about truth that are untrue then it is nonsense.
"Horrible" and "nonsense" are his own words.
This falsifies what I said, how? It doesn’t.
” The claims of Christianity rely on the Bible. If the Bible is horrible and nonsense then why be a Christian?”
If the claims are false, then why believe them? Claims made under the personal assumption of moral authority and juvenile logic are no reason to not question them as an adult.
” A closer rendering of his claims would be that the Bible seems like just other holy book. I don't think the people who wrote the Iliad thought it was just fiction. Many people through out time thought the Iliad was not just fiction.”
But of course that is what he thought. His comparison was based on the fictional content:
” A chain of events, some probably based in history, others completely fabricated with arbitrary deities from the region it was written inserted throughout. Reading it caused me to view religion on a more global scale and realize that every religion I knew of was pretty much isomorphic to Christianity, which I had already established a solid basis for rejecting.
As I said, the Iliad was a secondary issue, with rejection based on the fiction of the Iliad. It was a categorical rejection based on Guilt by Association.
” And do try and learn these things from a good qualified teacher.”
Especially if you cannot learn things on your own, or if you are easily swamped by complex ideas or those which look complex; otherwise, get a good textbook and read it yourself just as you would if you were in a college class with 90 other students. I did learn formal logic in college engineering classes; it is not difficult but it contains math that is not necessary for analyzing textual arguments. But informal logic which is taught in philosophy departments is straightforward and easy to understand. There is no reason that informal logic should not be taught in 5th grade.
Any of the Copi books are good, so is Gensler's, “Introduction to Logic”, and I just acquired a 1950 book by Ruby which is quite good: “Logic, an Introduction”. Do stick to logic text books specifically, and avoid silly references to “Critical Thinking” until later, because some of those are actually ideological promotions of “how to be an annoying critical person”, not how to analyze arguments for validity.
There are a number of books of fallacies, but the on-line source, Fallacy Files is actually better than any of the fallacy book that I have.
Oops that’s probably too much information for the Atheists; sorry for Gishing you, guys. Just skip the last three paragraphs.
"get a good textbook and read it yourself"
I still think a good qualified teacher is best. If a person misunderstand some of the basics this person could compound the misunderstanding by practicing incorrectly. If you've spent years practicing incorrectly, it is very difficult to stop. Especially if you've practiced publicly.
Yes, a teacher is a good thing, up until his ideology gets involved. Since Logic classes are the the Department of Philosophy, I would be wary. Still, if one takes that into account, and thinks independently, then yes.
Taking a logic class under the likes of Massimo Piggliucci would not be advised, nor is his concept of critical thinking as demonstrated in his recommended text, "Intellectual Self-Defense" by Baillargeon, which is actually a text on skepticism as a path to knowledge.
I started with a Logic text by Copi from a long time ago, before the capture by Atheist Materialist ideologists. Back when Logic was a discipline, with grounding.
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