RE: To those who were once believers and are now atheists, some advice?
March 18, 2014 at 8:27 pm
(This post was last modified: March 18, 2014 at 8:31 pm by Simon Moon.)
This must be hard to deal with on a personal level.
Since I was never a very strong theist, I didn't have too many friends that I would have had this problem with. To this day, I have several Christian friends I go surfing with on a weekly basis, and usually a once a year 1-2 week surfing trip to another country. We have no problems.
As Teresa McBain, ex-pastor, now atheist (and member of the Clergy Project), put it (I'm paraphrasing), "the loss almost feels like several friends and family members were in the same plane that crashed. I had to deal with the loss of many people that were close to me at once". Before I heard her say this, I didn't really take your plight too seriously, but after, it really hit home what the loss would feel like.
Since I was never a very strong theist, I didn't have too many friends that I would have had this problem with. To this day, I have several Christian friends I go surfing with on a weekly basis, and usually a once a year 1-2 week surfing trip to another country. We have no problems.
As Teresa McBain, ex-pastor, now atheist (and member of the Clergy Project), put it (I'm paraphrasing), "the loss almost feels like several friends and family members were in the same plane that crashed. I had to deal with the loss of many people that were close to me at once". Before I heard her say this, I didn't really take your plight too seriously, but after, it really hit home what the loss would feel like.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
