8 Ways Christian Fundamentalists Make People Convert -- to Agnosticism or Atheism

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http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/155553/8_ways_christian_fundamentalists_make_people_convert_--_to_agnosticism_or_atheism/

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Testimonials at sites like ExChristian.net show that people leave religion for a number of reasons, many of which religious leaders have very little control over. Sometimes, for example, people take one too many science classes. Sometimes they find their faith shattered by the suffering in the world – either because of a devastating injury or loss in their own lives or because they experience the realities of another person’s pain in a new way. Sometimes a believer gets intrigued by archaeology or symbology or the study of religion itself. Sometimes a believer simply picks up a copy of the Bible or the Koran and discovers faith-shaking contradictions or immoralities there.


***SNIP

1. Gay Baiting. Because of sheer demographics, many gay people are born into religious families. The condemnation (and self-condemnation) they face if their families see homosexuality as an abomination can be excruciating, as we all know from the suicide rate. Some emotionally battered gays spend their lives fighting or denying who they are, but many eventually find their way to open and affirming congregations or non-religious communities.

2. Prooftexting. People who think of the Bible as the literally perfect word of God love to quote excerpts to argue their points. They often start with a verse in 1 Timothy: All scripture is given by inspiration of God (as if this circular argument would convince anyone but a true believer). They proceed to quote whatever authoritarian, anti-gay or anti-woman verse makes their point, like, Whoever spares the rod hates their children...Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being or Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. In doing so, they call into question biblical authority, because the Bible writers so obviously got these issues wrong. Literalists who prooftext are a tremendous asset to those who would like to see Bible worship fade away – because prooftexting on one side of an argument invites the same in return, and it is easy to find quotes from the Bible that are either scientifically absurd or morally repugnant.

***SNIP

3. Misogyny. For psychological and social reasons females are more inclined toward religious belief than males. They are more likely to attend church services and to insist on raising their children in a faith community. They also appear more indifferent than males to rational critique of religion, like debates about theology or evolutionary biology. I was interested to notice recently that my YouTube channel, Life After Christianity, which focuses on the psychology of religion gets about 80 percent male viewers. Women are the church’s base constituency, but fortunately for atheists, this fact hasn’t caused conservative Christians to back off of sexism that is justified by – you got it – prooftexting from the Old and New Testaments.

[daaron]

1. Beat me to it! nt

[Harry Monroe]

2. It can all be boiled down to 1 reason why people give up religion

Hypocrisy

[longship]

3. 9. Smarmy con men and frauds

Like Bennie Hinn, Peter Popoff, and their fraudulent faith healing ilk.

The Crouch's Trinity Broadcasting Network, an out-and-out fraud to enrichen themselves at the cost of their much poorer parishioners. Put Robert Tilton in this category, too.

Many many more, all of whom use their (in)fame to promote yet more (in)fame.

Disgusting people, all of them.

[dimbear]

9. Could we make that smarmy con persons? Since the days of Aimee Semple McPherson

right down to the day of Barbie Bridges, the women have done their fair share of grifting.

[MountainLaurel]

4. So much of this is familiar to me

I can identify with most of them.

[coldbeer]

5. There is history in the bible

That lewd graphic of Adam and Eve has a story behind it.

The Book of Jubilees 03:06 “This one will be called my wife because she was taken from her husband."

So and so always took a wife after he killed her husband.

[undeterred]

6. How about their own stupid advertising--

I just heard an ad for a religious show and the preacher was saying "We don't have to worry about the planet earth - If Jesus is going to reign on earth, there's always going to be an earth".

Yeah, so don't recycle, all ye faithful.

[citizen blues]

7. Pretty much describes my journey.....

Got really fed up with ALL of the things listed in this article. I just couldn't do it anymore. Now I consider myself a humanist.

I got to attend the FFRF convention a couple years ago and heard William Lobdell speak. His story really touched me. He was the religious beat reporter for the LA Times, but lost his faith while covering the Catholic church's sexual abuse of children. For him it wasn't just that it happened, but that the church knew about it, covered it up, shuffled pedophile priests from parish to parish, and then hired lawyers to attack their victims.

He interviewed many victims and their families and conveyed one story. A woman took her 13 year old daughter to the church for catechism classes. Once she left, her daughter was then taken to a hotel room where she was forced to have sex with three priests. Not only was the girl's life shattered, but so was the mother's.

I'm not completely anti-faith, anti-religion. But with the rampant abuses on many fronts I most certainly have gotten to the point where I think churches need to get their wings clipped. First, any church that delves into politics like the Catholics should have their 501(c)3 status stripped from them. Second, it is not the government's business to determine what is a "religion" and what is not, so all should be treated the same and pay the same taxes.

[freshwest]

8. It was many things with me. After a while I saw that it didn't effect their choices in anything that

Effected their lives in a material or social way, except in a negative way. It was also perceiving the 'team' spirit they were pushing more and more and the corporate nature of churches. And just flat failure to practice what was said in the Bible, the good stuff, the faith, hope and charity.

The lack of carry through was stunning, the insults and exclusion of the poor and needy from the wealthy members increased. They began to echo right wing radio, and turned a blind eye to the suffering in their area. It was that silence that spoke more than anything that was said. They were defending class, not Christ.

I saw the right wingers take over and the division between the men and the women. They started this Stepford wife thing going and it was more than I could stand. The words Democrat, liberal and government became curse words. And this from a group that had many advantages given to them by the same forces and saw nothing wrong with what the GOP did, ever.

Thus I began a progression away from half a century of something that I'd let hold sway in my life and determine my personal choices. I have not given up the spirit of love and forgiveness, but I could have found it elsewhere. As far as the freedom of repentance and getting a new lease on life as many enjoy, it is now up to me. Which is liberating and frightening at the same time.

[dmallind]

10. None of these SHOULD make people doubt the church and religion

The only thing that should is the utter lack of evidence or reasoned arguments for their absurd claims.

If Christianity taught that all people should have equal rights, it would not make its fundamental claims a single atom less false.

Hitler loved dogs. Gandhi beat his wife.

[Silent3]

13. It's a sad but true fact that most people respond far more to emotion...

...than to reason.

Even if you'd prefer to change people's minds by reason, you have to simultaneously appeal to emotions to have much hope of getting through the emotional defenses and rationalizations which protect irrational belief.

[Omniscientone]

11. What ticks me off is

the Fundamentalists who preach the fire and brimstone stuff give the rest of us a bad name.

[daaron]

12. My journey to an agnostic stance RE Christianity -->

was certainly the textual inconsistencies, combined with older myths that almost certainly informed if not preceded the myths of the OT and NT.

That is: the Bible is obviously fiction. That doesn't have anything to do with whether or not God exists - and by extension, whether or not Christ exists.