Did anyone else get deconverted by a single sentence?

[Chad32]

Yeah, I can agree with that.

I'm glad there's so many variations on irrational beliefs that we can make these fine distinctions.

Christianity really can bring people together for the greater good. By giving us reasons to gawk at them.

[Astonished]

I'm glad there's so many variations on irrational beliefs that we can make these fine distinctions.

Christianity really can bring people together for the greater good. By giving us reasons to gawk at them.

I'd rather not have to, I mean, it's only different from mental illness in that it's self-inflicted and doesn't require medication to alleviate. But there's no magic bullet solution to destroy someone's illusions, so you have to play to your strengths.

[camlov2019]

My deconversion was gradual... but if I was to pick a single sentence, it would probably be a quote from a friend of mine. "Being gay is against God's will, so they should die."

[Astonished]

My deconversion was gradual... but if I was to pick a single sentence, it would probably be a quote from a friend of mine. "Being gay is against God's will, so they should die."

Shocking! They went with the death penalty right out of the gate? Man, usually you have to ease someone into the condemnation before you get to the execution stage.

[camlov2019]

My deconversion was gradual... but if I was to pick a single sentence, it would probably be a quote from a friend of mine. "Being gay is against God's will, so they should die."

Shocking! They went with the death penalty right out of the gate? Man, usually you have to ease someone into the condemnation before you get to the execution stage.

Yep. They went right to the idea of eternal damnation. It was quite surprisingly actually.

[Astonished]

Shocking! They went with the death penalty right out of the gate? Man, usually you have to ease someone into the condemnation before you get to the execution stage.

Yep. They went right to the idea of eternal damnation. It was quite surprisingly actually.

No, no, I was talking about taking action to cause someone's physical death. I meant condemnation by saying homosexuality was a sin or abomination or whatever flavor of insult that was fashionable at the time, and execution as in delivering the sentence for that offense against their god. Anything happening beyond that is just peanuts compared to the first two things.

[Redoubtable]

Not by one sentence, but something that stuck with me for a while was Christopher Hitchens imagery of the "celestial North Korea" referring to the world of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim God. At the time I first heard it as a believer, "I thought: wow, that really puts things in a new perspective."

[Astonished]

Not by one sentence, but something that stuck with me for a while was Christopher Hitchens imagery of the "celestial North Korea" referring to the world of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim God. At the time I first heard it as a believer, "I thought: wow, that really puts things in a new perspective."

He's definitely good for forming ways to use these against theists.

[Redoubtable]

Not by one sentence, but something that stuck with me for a while was Christopher Hitchens imagery of the "celestial North Korea" referring to the world of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim God. At the time I first heard it as a believer, "I thought: wow, that really puts things in a new perspective."

He's definitely good for forming ways to use these against theists.

In a similar vein, I think an even more meaningful point he made was that the game is rigged from the beginning when it comes to religious morality. Coming from a traditional Catholic morality (which I believe is the most rigid of any major religion) this was extremely eye opening to me. I had never thought that I was supposed to fail by design when it came to Catholic conceptions of sin. The bar is set so high and so rigid that you are supposed to fail, and this initiates a cycle of guilt, confession, humiliation, return to obedience, and then the inevitable 'rebellion' of sin, and then you start the process over again. It's like a morality ponzi scheme, the debt of sin just keeps racking up and you can't escape from under it because the very system is designed to keep you indebted to the Church.

[vorlon13]

My deconversion was gradual... but if I was to pick a single sentence, it would probably be a quote from a friend of mine. "Being gay is against God's will, so they should die."

My  genesis of hostility to Christianity started in college back in the mid 70s.

Campus Crusade for Christ was sufficiently odious about homosexuality (then and now) as to attract my attention.  The Methodists I grew up with, in hindsight, seemed unwilling to raise the idea of homosexuality very often so as to not put ideas in our little brains. In the mid 70s the gay rights movement hit the Midwest and CCfC jumped into the fray.