(June 19, 2013 at 1:39 am)ronedee Wrote:I would just like to pile on here. What max says about deconversion is absolutely correct. No disrespect, but when I figured out I should reject the stuff that jesus freaks were trying to pack into my head, it was at once liberating and terrifying and awe-inspiring. They'd been telling me what a great experience it was to be 'saved', the irony is I only experienced the kind of thing they were talking about by thoroughly rejecting their mythology.(June 19, 2013 at 12:19 am)max-greece Wrote: In response to which question? The defining moment question? Possibly.WoW! Is there any one aspect that makes you feel that way? Or is it several aspects? Why the Jesus revulsion? Is it His weakness, love or humility?
Did you always have faith or did you suddenly get it. So many people in America seem to suddenly get faith and are "born again." For them this appears to be a magnificent awakening.
It can be exactly the same for an atheist. The best analogy I can come up with would be the feeling I imagine a slave got when his chains were finally broken. I called that moment conciousness.
I know its probably totally alien to you but for many Atheists the idea of God is an anathema. The concept is actually repugnant. In some ways more for Jesus than for any other aspect.
I don't want to belabour that point as it is obviously the very things you believe in that horrify me. Difficult to communicate such things without someone getting really upset.
I just would like to understand it.
As far as the whys, for me, Hitchens sums it up best with his 'celestial dictatorship' analogy. I don't want to believe in that. Fortunately, I don't have to believe in that, because I don't think it's likely, because the many logical absurdities and clear signs of man's handiwork tell me it's fiction.
