(August 11, 2015 at 2:33 am)robvalue Wrote: Personally I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone has converted into a religion just by apologetics. I firmly believe that apologetics is the rationalization people use either to make themselves feel better, or to try and hide the real reasons that they don't feel they can logically defend.
I've heard people claim to have converted just based on this stuff, but I still don't believe them. It's a common ploy to say, "I used to be an atheist, and then..." Because apologetics is inherently dishonest, it's far more likely to be one more lie.
I've listened to many Steve Shives series where he critiques popular books, and my god... the things these people write make me cringe. They generally put on a show of appealing to sceptics, but then quickly descend into completely irrational bullshit than no one except a believer is going to take seriously.
If these arguments do somehow tip you over, I think you must have been pretty much there already. They are so easily destroyed by anyone without presupposition and a basic grounding in logic.
I agree. Every time I have spoken with a theist who uses that old "I used to be an atheist" claim, to get at what it was they previously believed, have turned out to be mistaken (or liars), as they had previously just not been as rabidly religious as they are at present. Remember, a lot of theists have trouble understanding what atheism is, and it shows in this, too. "Mad at god" and other theistic ideas are "atheism" in the minds of many theists.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.