Is people being violent until they find Jesus a common occurance?

[ReptilianPeon]

Came across this curious video:
Another man who was apparently oh so violent until he found Jesus. Ben Carson reminds me of David Wood. To think I used to have some respect for David Wood (he is behind the Answering-Islam website). The video (linked below) is titled: "Psychopathic Atheist Turns to Jesus | Short Testimony of David Wood".

What I don't get is, David Wood was apparently a really studious Christian who, if I remember rightly, studied Christian apologetics at university. When he was at university, he managed to convert (the then) Ahmadi, Nabeel Quareshi to Christianity. Nabeel, by his own admission, spent a lot of time attacking Christianity, using all the arguments that he had been given by fellow believers, but was not prepared for how knowledgeable David was about the Bible. He even claims he had a dream with David in it and that dream is part of what convinced him to become a Christian (along with Quran 4:34, which he could not understand).

Yet David claims seems contrary to this (because he left jail around the time Nabeel said he become a Christian). He claims that he was sentenced to ten years in jail for 'malicious wounding' (since he attacked his father with a hammer). Does anyone know if this actually true, or whether he's just trying to reinforce confirmation bias in Christians? Even if he is telling the truth, I still consider his video to be dangerous as it's reinforcing negative stereotypes about Atheists (there are far fewer irreligious people in jails than Christians).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS8aUSygJM0

[abaris]

I stopped being violent after I stopped believing. Not that I attribute my youthful violent fits to religion anyway. It was just an uncontrolled temper.

[Chad32]

Good people will do good things, with or without religion. Bad people will do bad things, with or without religion. Few things make good people do bad things like religion, though.

Chances are if someone has a true story about being a bad person before they found religion, it's because they went to a help group that happened to use religion. Not that it was Jesus doing anything. Just people helping other people, and converting in the process.

[jenny1972]

God does have a transformative effect on people so i dont disbelieve its possible but there are other possibilities too he could have been paid to say these things so this could be used as recruitment propaganda for christianity but its sad that he is being brainwashed by a religion , if he is , and this is being used as a religious propaganda recruitment tool . whether he intended it to be or not it obviously is going to be used for that purpose . If it is genuine , and thats a big IF , i hope that he will have the courage to be vocal about the contradictions in christianity and not just turn into another mindless follower

[Athene]

If someone's truly sociopathic and unable to feel empathy for others, there's no amount of Jesus that could ever change that reality beyond a surface level.

Best of luck to the dumb bitch that married him.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

God does have a transformative effect on people so i dont disbelieve its possible but there are other possibilities too he could have been paid to say these things so this could be used as recruitment propaganda for christianity but its sad that he is being brainwashed by a religion , if he is , and this is being used as a religious propaganda recruitment tool . whether he intended it to be or not it obviously is going to be used for that purpose . If it is genuine i hope that he will have the courage to be vocal about the contradictions in christianity and not just turn into another mindless follower

Just remember:  There are more passages in the Bible where the God character tells people to kill and to hurt others than there are passages about being nice.

[jenny1972]

God does have a transformative effect on people so i dont disbelieve its possible but there are other possibilities too he could have been paid to say these things so this could be used as recruitment propaganda for christianity but its sad that he is being brainwashed by a religion , if he is , and this is being used as a religious propaganda recruitment tool . whether he intended it to be or not it obviously is going to be used for that purpose . If it is genuine i hope that he will have the courage to be vocal about the contradictions in christianity and not just turn into another mindless follower

Just remember:  There are more passages in the Bible where the God character tells people to kill and to hurt others than there are passages about being nice.

the god character in the bible is just a product of human imagination a myth he is really a contradictory psychotic unfair judge that was created religion is a product of the needs/desires of the culture and characters in the stories all serve a purpose and changes as human needs/desires change

[Chad32]

God does have a transformative effect on people so i dont disbelieve its possible but there are other possibilities too he could have been paid to say these things so this could be used as recruitment propaganda for christianity but its sad that he is being brainwashed by a religion , if he is , and this is being used as a religious propaganda recruitment tool . whether he intended it to be or not it obviously is going to be used for that purpose . If it is genuine i hope that he will have the courage to be vocal about the contradictions in christianity and not just turn into another mindless follower

Just remember:  There are more passages in the Bible where the God character tells people to kill and to hurt others than there are passages about being nice.

It doesn't help that the old testament is about twice as big as the new, and the OT does not portray god as kind to people who don't follow him. Sometimes he's even cruel to his followers.

[jenny1972]

Just remember:  There are more passages in the Bible where the God character tells people to kill and to hurt others than there are passages about being nice.

It doesn't help that the old testament is about twice as big as the new, and the OT does not portray god as kind to people who don't follow him. Sometimes he's even cruel to his followers.

what do you mean " sometimes " ?! lol

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Just remember:  There are more passages in the Bible where the God character tells people to kill and to hurt others than there are passages about being nice.

the god character in the bible is just a product of human imagination a myth

The biblical god character was simply the title of the series of men who ruled the dominant Middle Eastern empire during ancient times.   It's like writing American history and referring to all of the Presidents as POTUS instead of by their individual names.  So you would end up with centuries of history where POTUS founded America, conquered people in distant lands, freed the slaves, went to the moon, and so forth.  

The myth is to think of the God character as some invisible sky deity spirit.  Such entities don't exist.