Near death experience of Howard Storm

[Mister Agenda]

I still find it very unlikely that they'd all be straight up lying. Just knowing you guys here and how hostile you are towards religions and the idea of God, I would think it was very strange for any of you to turn your backs on that for the sake of writing a book and hopefully making money.

And even stranger still what this guy did. Not only did he write books about it (he could have just done that and stopped there), but he went as far as to quit his job and go to seminary school, become a pastor, and dedicate his life to Christianity. Could a strong atheist put on this whole charade??

Honestly I'd believe it was a somehow extremely convincing hallucination before I believed it was all a lie.

How strange it would be for one of us to do that has more to do with what we're willing to do for money than our 'hostility' toward religions and the idea of God (depends on which idea of God, doesn't it?). All it takes to cash in your atheist street cred for big bucks in the religion game is sufficient cynicism.

You have no idea if this guy was really anything like us, but for some reason you find his claim of being so atheist much more plausible than that the alarm bells we hear going off about that claim have any legitimate basis.

It could well have been an extremely convincing hallucination, and he could still be lying about how anti-religious he was before having it. Or he could be reporting as accurately as possible without regard to his book sales or appearances on talk shows. I personally find his behavior consistent with the kind of embellishments story tellers often put into their tales to make them more interesting.

[Excited Penguin]

It's not as easy as you think to distinguish between a dream and reality, unless you're actively trying to do that. You don't just do it in auto-pilot, or else every dream would be a lucid dream. Usually, though, people only have about one or two lucid dreams during a lifetime without trying, if I remember it correctly. I never really had one before finding out about it and trying to have it.

[Ivan Denisovich]

 

If by atheist you understand someone who simply not believe and not is "angry on god" or something like that then yes.

But if not scam then I would guess hallucination or brain damage.


He claim that he was. But considering nonsense about controlling others with rage I think that he would not recognize atheism if it would kick him in the ass. It's part of atheist stereotype along with shit like not wanting to believe to escape punishment for sin or other similar nonsense.

By that, he just meant he was an angry, manipulative person. It has nothing to do with being an atheist or not, just a flaw like we all have. I did see an interview where his daughter backs up the claim about him having been an angry, scary person before the event, but haven't seen any testimonies of other people backing up his claim about being a strong atheist. Only his own.

Sure, atheist could be a jerk, there is no question about it. However his description smacks of silly stereotypes.

As for his atheism it looks like we have only his words and he does not struck me as particularly reliable source. Without claiming that he was atheist he would not be capable of making good business with his book.

[Mister Agenda]

How do you know he was led by emotions? It doesn't say anything about any sort of bad experience he has with religion that made him this way. He just sounds like a very skeptical person.

Of course, it's impossible to know for sure that he was led by emotions, but he doesn't sound like a very skeptical person to me, just a bully. It's one thing to get into arguments on a discussion board, that's what they're for, but walking around in RL insulting people's religion (and intelligence for being religious) takes a level of assholery to which most atheists don't rise.

Just like many of our religious visitors (present company excepted) are very likely much more argumentative with us here than they would be with atheists they ran into in RL.

[Excited Penguin]

Actually, if anything, I'm more aggressive in real life, but more subtle about it at the same time - but only when I want to be. I'm not actively looking to deconvert people from religion. There's certain things you can't render online, like tone for example, and this takes away a lot from a conversation. I've said a lot of things here that were misunderstood for that reason alone, whereas in real life the situation would be entirely different.

[Mister Agenda]

Lol, the no true skeptic fallacy? 

Well, he was kidding, as I'm sure you are too, but it brings up a point that probably needs to be addressed. When we doubt Storm's claims about what a big atheist he was, are we committing a NTS fallacy?

Obviously, assuming he's not faking his conversion, he's not an atheist now. Was he an atheist before? There's a pattern with many people who claim to be ex-atheists where they seem to base their notions about atheists on stereotypes of them. You would expect someone who really was an atheist to have a better understanding of atheism than Christians who were never knowingly atheists.

So what we have is doubt about his claim. I'm not so much doubtful that he was an atheist as doubtful that he was as big an asshole as he's making himself out to be, though he fits the profile of someone who attempting to spice up his previous sinner status by claiming to be an atheist. You're probably not familiar with this as a Catholic, but in evangelical circles it sometimes seems to be a competition between religious speakers as to who was the most awful before they were born again.

I think we're not making the fallacy because we're not saying he wasn't an atheist because he was an asshole. We're saying that him being an asshole has no bearing on whether he was actually an atheist. The NTS is usually invoked when a member of a group does something that doesn't reflect well on the group, like committing a murder. If he murdered someone and we said no true atheist would murder someone, we would be committing that fallacy. I don't regard converting to a theistic religion as something that needs to be excused or explained away, particularly since they stopped being an atheist the moment they converted. On the rare occasions when it's been someone I've known online, I've always been interested in finding out what convinced them, only to be disappointed to hear things that aren't particularly convincing. I'm always a little interested in hearing about it though, you never know when someone might have something fascinating to offer as their reasons.

[Excited Penguin]

Lol, the no true skeptic fallacy? 

Well, he was kidding, as I'm sure you are too, but it brings up a point that probably needs to be addressed. When we doubt Storm's claims about what a big atheist he was, are we committing a NTS fallacy?

Obviously, assuming he's not faking his conversion, he's not an atheist now. Was he an atheist before? There's a pattern with many people who claim to be ex-atheists where they seem to base their notions about atheists on stereotypes of them. You would expect someone who really was an atheist to have a better understanding of atheism than Christians who were never knowingly atheists.

So what we have is doubt about his claim. I'm not so much doubtful that he was an atheist as doubtful that he was as big an asshole as he's making himself out to be, though he fits the profile of someone who attempting to spice up his previous sinner status by claiming to be an atheist. You're probably not familiar with this as a Catholic, but in evangelical circles it sometimes seems to be a competition between religious speakers as to who was the most awful before they were born again.

I think we're not making the fallacy because we're not saying he wasn't an atheist because he was an asshole. We're saying that him being an asshole has no bearing on whether he was actually an atheist. The NTS is usually invoked when a member of a group does something that doesn't reflect well on the group, like committing a murder. If he murdered someone and we said no true atheist would murder someone, we would be committing that fallacy. I don't regard converting to a theistic religion as something that needs to be excused or explained away, particularly since they stopped being an atheist the moment they converted. On the rare occasions when it's been someone I've known online, I've always been interested in finding out what convinced them, only to be disappointed to hear things that aren't particularly convincing. I'm always a little interested in hearing about it though, you never know when someone might have something fascinating to offer as their reasons.

I was only kidding to the extent that saying no true atheist would believe in god sounds ridiculous, because of course he wouldn't - he's an atheist!-, but to say that no true skeptic would believe in God is neither a fallacy nor untrue. A true skeptic needs evidence to believe somethings as true or else very sound reasoning to consider it at least possible to be the case. A false skeptic simply won't fit in that category. That's what defines a skeptic. There's no TSF here. We're talking about definitions of words.

This is a fascinating topic actually. How would we really define a "real" atheist anyway?

[Excited Penguin]

It all depends on how much evidence you need before you accept something as true( or how reasonable an argument has to be before you consider it a possible description of the world). And I think this is different for everyone. We tend to make the mistake of thinking everyone is the same in a lot of regards, because of how inflexible language is, but this is merely an illusion.

[Mister Agenda]

From my experience, most Catholics here adore over-generalizing about atheists and frequently don't even realize how insulting they are being.

I don't mean to insult anyone, but what I'm saying is 100% true based on my own experience. From what I have seen here it does seem most of you are hostile to religion. And many of you (don't know if it's most) are hostile to religious people.

What I was saying about Catholics here was 100% true based on my own experience, too. If anything, I was being kind, considering that Ronedee is the only other Catholic here who comes to my mind. However, when not making a point about over-generalizing, I try to be careful not to over generalize. Some posters may be Catholics without me knowing about it. I may be misjudging the Catholics I encounter here because of bias or just the difficulty of knowing someone's heart over the internet. Or the simple fact that making bald statements in a medium devoid of body language and tone can feel like hostility.

At any rate, you know who is likely to be insulted by your generalization? The people who don't fit it. Even if it were actually a fair assessment. Not to mention that even bringing it up sounds like an insinuation that the people you are having a conversation with aren't having it in good faith because they are biased against your position. That's pretty useless isn't it? Especially if you're conversing with someone you know doesn't fit your description of the usual suspects.

By the way, I'm not as peeved as I may sound, I'm taking the opportunity to make a point that applies to everyone, no matter their position. I'm not peeved, I'm pedantic.

[Excited Penguin]

We might all be both atheist and theist at the same time(if anyone wants me to explain that statement, please ask for details). This would have to be established at the level of the brain. What exactly happens when one professes belief or non-belief? I think Sam Harris actually conducted an experiment on this very question and published a paper on the matter. I'll have to look that up.