(March 2, 2011 at 10:57 am)OnlyNatural Wrote: I have so many Christian friends on Facebook, left over from those few years when I was a teenage Jesus lover. I often wish I could call their beliefs into question like you did.
You can and quite confidently, if you choose. You have all the evidence on your side. I was once a bit squeamish about debating believers, but their position is indefensible. And once you realize that and study some apologetics, it gets easier.
As a side note, my former worship pastor posted a few days ago that his "life group" (kind of like a small study group ... an offshoot of all those "The Purpose Driven Life" seminars) was studying apologetics, which is just a fancy word for all the synthesized arguments that believers come up with to try to "prove" their beliefs to the rest of us or to themselves. He said something to the effect that it was important for Christians to know precisely why they believe. I thought about replying with something cute like, "Yes ... apologetics" or "Been there done that." But I demurred.
(March 2, 2011 at 10:57 am)OnlyNatural Wrote: I guess I'm afraid of appearing rude, so for the most part I don't talk to them at all. I wouldn't be able to resist trying to enlighten them
Yes, as I mentioned, in the few times that I do speak up to my believing friends, I sometimes regret it because my comments weren't asked for and unwelcome. I do show restraint more times than not though.
Our Daily Train blog at jeremystyron.com
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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