That's courtesy of a former evangelical and creationist. Here's how he discovered that equation:The New Atheists + modern biblical scholarship = infidel.
Welcome to the fold, my dear anonymous atheist! When you're ready for your coming-out party, please do consider the cantina. Place hasn't seen a good celebration in too long!I tried to rebuild my faith in the Bible by reading all the Christian apologetics I could get my hands on, by heavyweight evangelicals like Michael Licona, William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, and popular writers like Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel.
While I was doing this, I was also reading the New Atheists. Some friends and I had been discussing atheism, when one of them said to me, “You’re very intelligent, and you always want evidence for everything. Why aren’t you an atheist?” So I decided for the first time to let the atheists state their case. Dawkins was rather disappointing, but Harris’s End of Faith was devastating. I tried burying myself in apologetics as an antidote, but then I came across critical biblical scholar Bart Ehrman. I started reading about the Bible instead of just reading the Bible. I read scholars’ explanations for the contradictions and discrepancies filling the Bible. Soon my faith was all but destroyed. The New Atheists + modern biblical scholarship = infidel.
He's got me thinking deconversion stories. My equation was rather different, as there were no New Atheists rattling round at the time. But the day a woman stood up in our church to testify that God healed her radio was the day I lost my faith. I couldn't comprehend an all-knowing, all-loving God choosing to fix some nitwit's radio while war, famine, and other such horrors raged through the world. Then I went on to study comparative religion, and realized none of them had a monopoly on the Truth, so I started calling myself agnostic. I studied science, which showed me we don't need gods to make the world go round, and everything makes perfect sense without them. Then I took a quiz about my God Delusion Index, and had to admit I was an atheist.
So: (Crazy Radio Lady + Comparative Religion) x Science + GDI Quiz = Total Fucking Infidel. And how.
No wonder so many religions don't want you learning about the world, eh?
1 comment:
Bart Ehrman lives down the street from me.
No, really -- I mean right down the street, at the other end of the block. I sometimes see him walking his dog. And yeah, I know he works at UNC, not Duke (we're less than a mile from Duke); go figure.
I don't know if he comes to the annual block party, because Josh/energy issues have prevented us from going for the past few years... but if anyone has any really good questions I should ask him (or other good relevant conversational starters) if I should happen to bump into him, fire away ;-)
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