RagingRev

Foreward

About two months ago I was browsing through my normal routine of atheist sites and blogs when I happened upon an advertisement for Mormon.org’s chat service which allows anyone to log onto the website and chat with a missionary from the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter Day Saints (also known as Mormons or LDS).  I decided to log on and chat with the kind folks there to see why they believed what they did and so on,  being an individual that is not entirely unfamiliar with LDS beliefs I came in with a foreknowledge of the basic LDS doctrine and simply wanted to challenge these kind people to think about the origin of their belief – something I had to do for myself once upon a time.

Missionary One: Initial encounter

The first missionary I talked to was a very kind young man, if I remember correctly he was 19 and in training to go to South America to present their version of the gospel to the people there, you see, the chat center is located in Provo, UT at the Missionary Training Academy where all the LDS missionaries go for a time prior to being sent out. (Most LDS members go on mission at some point in their life usually in their early 20’s, the mission generally lasts two years and is part of being a holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood). I explained to him that I was an atheist and that I was at one time a Christian, he spoke to me about  his “relationship with god” and how he knew god was real because he felt him so strongly in his life and because he had seen god’s many blessings on him and his family. I explained to him a little about my past and how I too had a relationship with my own deity and that at one point I came to realize that this deity was merely my own mental and emotional interpretation of the god of the Bible and the god that I most wanted to serve. (aka, an imaginary friend that I molded after my own view of god). Eventually I gave this missionary my phone number and he and I talked about this subject on two different nights, he would also give me some verses from the Book of Mormon to read. I read what he asked each time that he did. During our last conversation he let me know that he was leaving to go on his mission and would therefore be unable to call again and asked permission to give my number to another missionary named Stephen, I agreed and issued one final challenge to him: I simply asked that he ask himself if he would be comfortable with even the idea of there not being a god and that if he could find a way to cope with that if he would then begin to challenge the idea of god that he had. He agreed.

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I and many of my Atheist cohorts have been accused over and over of being “Angry at God”. Ray Comfort even recently used our supposed hatred as evidence that we each know that God exists intuitively….seriously, read it here. Since this is occurring with some frequency right now I feel the need to try to deal with the assertion as effectively as possible. The initial reaction of most Atheists is that the assertion is silly, “How can I be mad at a God that does not exist”. I, of course, agree entirely with this but the fact does remain that myself and many of my peers are mad at something…It just isn’t quite what Ray Comfort and other Christians may think.

God the being does not exist, I think I have made that understanding abundantly clear here, however God does exist in another way. God is an idea, a concept, and an institution – three intangible things in one, the true Holy Trinity. These things make me angry, these are the things at which my aggression is truly directed. I am mad at God  because the idea of God makes me sick, the concept of his requirements for man are intolerable, and the institutions that represent him are dangerous.

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As I was making my daily rounds the other day on Facebook the status of one of my friends caught my eye. Because Facebook and especially statuses are incredibly bad places to hold sensible debates I have decided to post the comments that occured after that. If it is hard to follow I am sorry, but I truly hope that the participants might join in and begin commenting here in order to continue hashing this out…now that we have Intense Debate installed at RagingRev these sorts of things should be MUCH easier to facilitate. 

note!: I am changing the names of anyone that may not want to be identified…Just stuff I am making up

as you can see, it’s long, but I hope it will be worth it and I truly hope those involved will join in on the comments. Note also that I did remove a small side conversation and one other part but they were not important…we are at over 5000 words here.

Here is what it said:

Erich’s Status:  It’s Atheist Day! (The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”)

Bill says:

I am an atheist, but I am not a fool. Your statement is exactly backwards, because who is the bigger fool? One who uses logic and reason to define their way, or one who blindly believes in superstition, (faith)? Now, I don’t go around calling all of my religious friends “fools,” but you seem to have no problem dishing out such an insult.

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My ole budy Guy Vestal over at HeresyToday.org has decided to start an old fashioned mailing list for Religious discussion. I am going to be helping him moderate it and we want people from every religious background to join up…so please…do so…it should be lot’s of fun!

To join just go HERE and fill out the info. We are looking for anyone from any background…Wiccans, Christians, Zebras, Atheists, Theosophists, Raelians, etc etc etc…

Save Me From Myself - courtesy Amazon

About two years ago Brian “Head” Welch , former guitarist of Korn, made headlines when he turned from the “Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll” lifestyle to accepting Jesus and becoming a Christian. Since then Head has released a Christian album  and book called Save Me From Myself.

More recently Korn’s bassist Reggie “Fieldy” Arvizu has given his life to Christ as well. He, like Head,  has a book that just released on March 10th called Got The Life to tell about the kind of person he used to be before he made the decision to follow his own understanding of God.

Got The Life~courtesy Amazon

These types of conversions, from a life of extremes and drugs, happen every day among peoplethat are not nearly as well known. In fact there are multiple nation wide ministries dedicated to inducing this sort of addiction intervention – you’ve probably seen the guys from Teen Challenge at your local Wal-Mart asking for donations. The question regarding these events for me though is whether or not accepting the drug of Jesus  (or insert religion here) is an improvement on an addiction to methamphetamine (or insert drug here).

Is it?

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Defending the God of the Bible was once a passion of mine, I studied apologia in order to defend my “True Faith”. Talking with young Atheists and dissenters was something I spent a lot of time doing at one point, though I could understand their arguments and reasons for disliking YHWH, I always felt in my heart that the only reason they didn’t “get it” was because they didn’t have the Holy Spirit in them to show them this truth or to help them “understand it” the way that I did.

In retrospect I find that this “Holy Spirit” that was silently giving me “Knowledge of God” and “evidence” was merely my own understanding and desire for the Gospel to be the Truth. My need for God was providing me with all the evidence I required at the time…which for me then was nothing more than a “fuzzy feeling” and a burning in the bosom (As the LDS Church conveniently puts it). That small self contained and self created feeling allowed me to ignore a magnitude of flaws in the character of YHWH…because I had a Personal relationship with Christ I was able to look past the bad parts and only see the good parts, justifying the evils of YHWH as justice and fatherly love… something my Christian counterparts are able to do still.

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Bill Maher’s Religulous recently came out on DVD, I rushed to get it as soon as it came out just in case one of our freedom loving local fundies decided to buy them all out so no one would be exposed to it’s deceptions (please read into this a ton of sarcasm). I wanted to see it in theaters but I couldn’t find a theater with the balls to show it within 100 miles and for some reason the Torrent sites were empty until just recently.

The film was good, I think my favorite part was when Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) stated (in response to a question about the talking snake in Eden) “You don’t have to pass an IQ test to be in the US Senate”.  The look on Maher’s face, and the corresponding look on Pryor’s face was priceless…silence was the only necessary response. Probably the most honest thing any politician outside of Ron Paul has said in a very long time.

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I think I have dealt with this before on this blog, but things seem to have escalated around here at my small Georgia town. My wife and I seem to increasingly be the subject of random conversation with people that we don’t even really know.

To be completely honest, one of the things that prompted me to start RagingRev and move my blog from Livejournal was that the rumor mill was running wild around these parts. My former Pastor approached me at the gas station one day telling me that he heard I was in to “Satanism” and things like that, at the time I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the title of Atheist but once I settled into those shoes I felt the need to dispell some of the ludicrous things that were being falsely derived from my Livejournal at the time. Quite simply put, someone (I don’t know whom) read a few of my entries wherein I express an interest in the Occult, and decided that I must be a Satanist…how silly!

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As promised, I am going to attempt to respond to Guy from Heresy Today ’s egregiously long response to my “Dormant Christian” post. So after much hesitation, mainly due to the fact that because of the schedule I am on at my job is screwing with my head (No one else is seeing the pink elephants?) and making it incredibly difficult for me to even sit down and read a comment very well, much less respond to it coherently.  So I will do my best here…at 4:30 in the morning.

Regarding the podcast mentioned below, I am listening to that finally now as I write this, I may make responses to bits and pieces of it here, but we might have to save it for later…another debate perhaps. Guy really should consider manuscripting his podcasts! 72 minutes!

Keep reading for more:

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Pastor Guy recently responded to my request for some inspiration, his original topic starter was the inability to prove that emotions exist in the human race. I have to say that guy may be confused as to just what human emotions are other than chemical reactions in the body/brain but they seem to be pretty well set in stone to me- so that’s one worm I won’t bite. However, when I asked Guy in a private email to explain his contention a little more clearly he left a little quip at the end of the email that made my knee jerk just a bit. Pastor Guy knows how to get a rise out of me (Which is why he might just be the resident smart ass here at RagingRev- a title I think he may gladly accept).

So, what did Guy say?

…could my statement of “Dormant Christian” to describe you be a worthy topic?

What an interesting position…”Dormant Christian”! Guy is proposing that because I was at one time a devoted Christian (Saved, if you will) then technically I am still a Christian. Guy evidently ascribes to the doctrine of “Once Saved , Always Saved”…if you aren’t familiar with that, its one of those small controversial doctrines that Christians like to debate and argue over. When I was a Christian my position was strangely similar to Guy’s, however I was not very solid on it…it wasn’t considered cardinal in my life but I always WANTED to believe something like that. Now though, I have to look at it from the outside…and it’s just one of those things that you don’t think about until you hear it or read it like I did when Guy said that…it kind of…caught me off guard.

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