Thank you everyone for your replies...I agree with both sides that have been presented, I can see good points in every answer to one degree or another. As an atheist I have always tried not to push my views onto others, not wanting to do exactly what I hate about religion...this time I am seriously worried about someone I love, and most of the time I just get on with it and let him go through whatever it is he is going through, hoping that I will get him back at sometime in the future. If I had met a Christian I would have firstly not pursued it, but if I did I wouldn't have tried to change their world view...I would have known it was a futile endeavour.
I absolutely do love him for who he is, I just know that this new part ISN'T who he is...due to my serious illness he has looked for comfort in the easiest place which just happened to be the only church his friends went to...if he had Buddhist friends, or goddess worshipping friends he would have gone to seek comfort from them instead.
I know that he has questions that he can't find answers for, he is a very open minded and sensitive person and so he doesn't understand why the bible talks of such things as homosexuality and transgenderism as abominations and why god allows so much suffering. But he just says he doesn't know the answers and unfortunately he's talked to Christian elders who say that it's ok to be gay etc because it's applicable to our times...oh the hipocrisy! So these picky bible followers are making him feel that it's ok to just choose which parts of the bible you can believe, giving him free license to be an unquestioning Christian...
He has agreed to watch a documentary made by an ex evangelical minister about his conversion to atheism which I've seen and it is very respectful...I've also got an arsenal of verses that highlight bible contradictions and the evils in the New Testament, which he's willing to look at in his own bible...
I guess de-convert was a bad choice of words, and of course I don't actually want to use mind techniques on him...!
Thank you all for your replies, it has helped bring clarity to the situation...
God bless (HA!!!)
I absolutely do love him for who he is, I just know that this new part ISN'T who he is...due to my serious illness he has looked for comfort in the easiest place which just happened to be the only church his friends went to...if he had Buddhist friends, or goddess worshipping friends he would have gone to seek comfort from them instead.
I know that he has questions that he can't find answers for, he is a very open minded and sensitive person and so he doesn't understand why the bible talks of such things as homosexuality and transgenderism as abominations and why god allows so much suffering. But he just says he doesn't know the answers and unfortunately he's talked to Christian elders who say that it's ok to be gay etc because it's applicable to our times...oh the hipocrisy! So these picky bible followers are making him feel that it's ok to just choose which parts of the bible you can believe, giving him free license to be an unquestioning Christian...
He has agreed to watch a documentary made by an ex evangelical minister about his conversion to atheism which I've seen and it is very respectful...I've also got an arsenal of verses that highlight bible contradictions and the evils in the New Testament, which he's willing to look at in his own bible...
I guess de-convert was a bad choice of words, and of course I don't actually want to use mind techniques on him...!
Thank you all for your replies, it has helped bring clarity to the situation...
God bless (HA!!!)
