OK. Enough with the buttering.

I actually have become a more balanced person since leaving the faith. Calmer too. (Yeah, OK. I still hit pretty hard in on line debate at times. And I’m still fighting the tendency to yell at all the “morons” in traffic.) Even my wife, who is still a believer admits that I’m calmer and more internally secure.

And I’ll give Christianity credit for forming part of who I am. In the faith, I always loved a message of grace a lot, and truly disliked the ungracious stuff spewed by so many.

About “mission”, I wasn’t clear. I do NOT seek to talk people out of their faith. For those who are “on their way out of or away from” the faith, I try to help them along an often difficult path. But I don’t go after theists to wrest them from the church. If theists come into the atheist/agnostic sites I hang around, then and only then will I challenge them head on. (If someone came up to me face to face and started “preaching” at me, I would probably ask them hard questions and challenge them head on too.) But I will not go on any theistic site, or get into an email exchange in order to try to talk people out of their faith.

Hope that makes things a bit clearer.

I can tell you with complete sincerity that I have never met the person who truly understood, and experienced the gospel of grace, knowing the love of God in Christ, who actually became a better, and more caring, and balanced person through atheistic philosophy.

In all sincerity, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around someone who has basically made it their life’s mission to try, and undermine the spirituality of others, and feels they are being helpful, and positive.

What more can I say, Leo? If we knew each other in real life, and time, we could be friends, and possibly sort this out. But, of course, that’s not possible.

I can only let this go, and commend both of us to God.

I think I take something of a martial arts approach to debate/discussion topics.
-When you’re on the mat, go at it.
-If you don’t want to go at it, get off the mat.
-Keep mat activity strictly on the mat.

I have the same sort of reaction when people tell me about the “natural medicine” they found that is going to cure all known diseases.

Yes. I need to read Carnegie again. Yes. I need to try to be more gracious. No. I don’t find it at all easy. And yes. I can see that such is a “fundamentalist” way of viewing things.

I’ve been through too much and seen more than enough to know there is no personal deity. [There. Now I've made an equal and opposite assertion. It must be just as true as yours eh?]

Look Michelle, you want to believe so you choose to do so. It’s as simple as that. There is nothing to keep you from seeing the truth except your own upbringing and decisions. I know. I was there. Now I’m free.

If God does exsist, then Christianity would be the most logical explanation for God.

You must learn to discern the difference between your opinions and what you’ve been taught, and actual facts. I’ve met Muslims, Mormons, and Hindus who said the same thing about their faith. Just because you have “Christian” blinders on and see the world through Reformed-colored glasses, does NOT mean that is how the world really is. Try, try, try to get outside of your very limited world. It’s a marvelous, diverse world in reality. Don’t miss it or spoil it.

*Sermon deleted* Michelle, I can put together a better one. Please don’t bother preaching. I’ve heard it more than you know. Heck I’ve preached it.

I assure you, anyone who is absolutely grounded in the faith is unshakable. Now, some of my doctrine is shakable, but my foundational belief, Jesus Christ as the Son of God, with His atonement for my sins, and the sins of the world, is unshakable.

Do you imagine in your small world view that I, and Laura, and pretty much ALL the folks over at de-conversion.com did not all say that very sort of drivel when we were in the faith? I, and others, did. I, and others, believed it as heartily as anyone ever did. And not too many years ago, I was the one telling unbelievers and apostates the very sort of drivel you are now spewing. Guess what. It was drivel then, it’s drivel now and most importantly it ain’t true.

Come see the TRUTH Michelle. Free yourself from the shackles of fantasy. Enjoy the real world. [And now, as my breath hisses through my respirator mask, "Come over to the dark side. Let us complete your training."]

Oh no. The “you’re not a real atheist” argument is leveled at me again. Fear not all. I bear you my testimony that there is no personal deity, and Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna, etc are just nut jobs or legends or vague, historical characters.
Funny, it seems the only thing I consistently manage to be is a true heretic.

Anyway, as I see it right now, my mission (such as it is) is to help people to become free of the lies they bind their lives up in and to help them to find ways through life without imaginary friends. As such it is necessary to discuss deities. I do look forward to a time (though it will be long after I am dead) when humanity does not perpetuate such fantasies and the harm, self-deception, etc that so often come with religious fantasies.