deconversion

I've never been able to leave well enough alone whenever I hear somebody spouting ignorant garbage. In politics, in religion, in anything controversial really, even if I AGREE with their conclusions, bad logic and sloppy arguments bug the everloving crap out of me. But after I de-converted, I have made a strong commitment to just let certain things go with certain people. Which hasn't been easy. Whether because of, in spite of, or just plain coincidental to my de-conversion, certain family members have started "upping" their witnessing tool testimonial garbage. Mind you, none of this witnessing is ever directed AT ME. It's always just stuff that happens to come up "while I'm within earshot." And of course there's all the stuff they post to Facebook which I seriously have to force myself to close the computer and walk away lest I say something that will tarnish our face-to-face conversations.

But good lord, the other day my father-in-law posted two videos by Ken Ham where the bearded loon explains how the earth was created in 6 literal days a few thousand years ago. (sigh) My father in law is a very VERY smart man. He is patently NOT crazy. Honestly, he, and people like him, are the reason I clung to my faith for as long as I did. I would never in a million years have fathomed that he could buy into garbage like this. I dont' know whether to laugh, cry, or be afraid that he's on a slippery slope to a scarier kind of fundamentalism than I've ever experienced in his presence.

This is the video he posted. Incidentally, almost everything he posts gets at least 5 or 6 "likes" and comments of "praise god" and whatnot, yet this one has yet to get a single response. Which says to me that even the people in his circle and congregation are going, "Whoa, dude, hang on a second."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn3cw9yEGms

I didn't watch the video. I have a feeling I know what it's like and dont' want to waste my time. LOL

Is it possible that your father-in-law has not studied much about evolution and is just following the church on this issue? I'll be honest, I avoided studying evolution as much as possible most of my life, because I bought what the church was teaching and didn't see the point in it, as I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination. That didn't make me stupid or a fanatic, just ignorant about this particular topic. I am hoping that's all this is with your father-in-law, and not a sign that he is heading for complete craziness.

The posts you mention on Facebook are the very reason I've been considering disappearing from facebook. I get non-stop faith stuff from people all over the place. The problem for me is that I use it for charity networking, so if I leave I abandon a cause of thousands of people I've built up. ARGH. Lately I've just been avoiding reading what a lot of people write and removing a ton of them from my feed. Why should we use time reading people's opinions on every topic under the sun? That is NOT friendship and it's not even socializing most of the time, unless we are willing to start a conflict. Why bother? That's just where I am though....

See, I can understand and appreciate not believing in evolution. Because honestly, evolution DOESN'T make sense if you haven't read anything on it. The idea of it is ludicrous when you don't know how it actually works. But you don't need to know a whole lot about how the world works to know that it's older than 6000 years.

As far as Facebook, I said on another post, that I am (blessed, cursed?) with the inability to leave well enough alone. As much as some people's thoughts and ideas infuriate me, I am fascinated by the exchange of ideas, even (especially) the crazy ones. So I personally love the whole Facebook thing... even though it occassionally makes me go off on rants like this. :-)

Yeah I never took a strong position on how old the earth was, so I don't understand why a smart father-in-law would. No comprendo.

So do you find that you can really exchange ideas with people who are talking about how wonderful God is and asking for prayer and all of that on Facebook? They don't seem to want to exchange ideas at all unless they are Christian ideas. Since I am not out of the closet yet, I am forced to be silent. But even if I could, how would I respond? How do you respond? Do you just question them and what they post, do you try to reason with them, what? I don't have any desire to de-convert people if their faith is working for them.

Actually, I'm talking more political stuff. With religious stuff, I tend to just keep my mouth shut unless somebody engages me directly. Though I will post random status updates of a religious nature if something strikes me as weird. Like the other day, somebody handed me a tract in the park and I mused that I didn't think people still "did tracts." That prompted my FIL and anotehr former church member to start a discussion on my page at which point I answered and questioned as I normally would. But like when my sister in law posts some video of that "23 minutes in hell" guy and says she just doesn't understand how non-believers manage to get through the day, I honestly just let it go. Mostly because commenting would only bring about 20 of her Christian friends out of the woodwork to defend her and I'd have to come off looking like an insane blowhard just to answer all the bad arguments they'd bring up. When stuff REALLY gets me worked up... I just vent to you guys over here. :-)

Aren't you guys so glad that we threw off those blinders of faith? It's amazing to me how many Christians are completely unable to wrap their heads around anything as simple as the atheist/agnostic viewpoint, and are unwilling to crack open a basic science textbook. I don't know why they fear science so much. If God is God, he is so despite what scientists have to say. Scientists just observe the observable world. Maybe that includes God, maybe it doesn't. Either way, it's nothing to fear.

Speaking of Ken Ham, when I was back home about a month ago I was visiting with my mom and her parents. I was telling them about my banjo, and how I learned Abraham Lincoln's campaign song. That got them talking about slavery, and my grandma said she didn't understand how anyone could have justified it. I don't know what inspiried me to speak, but I mentioned how Christians believed that Africans were descended from the cursed son of Noah. My mom then started talking about a Ken Ham book she had read, where he "scientifically" traced all races back to only THREE individuals, Japheth gave rise to the caucasians, Shem to the arabs, and Ham to the africans. Then I guess Ham also "proved" how after only 3-4 generations of inbreeding, the different races could have developed such different characteristics. They dispursed when they started fighting among themselves, with the stronger tribes (or races?) pushed the weaker ones further and further from the near east. What really struck me about this whole concept, aside from how blatantly wrong it was, was how simplistic is was. A four year old could understand it. Does it really make sense to them that the entire population of the earth, including the development of racial characteristics, could be explained so simply? That's it? Really? That's how you explain it? Bah!

Amazing how Occam's Razor isn't ALWAYS right isn't it. :-)

I don't know Dover - for me it wasn't just fear of science. I was so wrapped up in God that I didn't think I needed anything else and could study the Bible forever and never get enough. I took a geology class at a top school freshman year, and I know I learned a lot of evolutionary material in there, but somehow it never challenged my faith at all. It was so easy to dismiss anything that wasn't biblical as "man's ways" verses God's ways. It was really impossible for me to see the unbeliever's point of view, because I had never been one and couldn't imagine being one. It sounded so hollow and empty to me, and I just felt sorry for those people.

I think there are a lot of Christians who are quite happy with their faith. Why would they need to try and understand the atheist's point of view or learn man's science when they have God's Word? I guess I can understand their choices and don't think I'm all that much better than they are. The only difference is it stopped working for me. Once it did, I realized how much I had missed and how much I don't know. If Christianity had continued working for me I guess I would have never known another point of view and wouldn't have cared either. Kinda sad.

Ken Ham and the whole YECS movement has become increasingly marginalized over time. The IDers hold center stage now, and are frankly a helluvalot more reasonable. At least they don't think the earth is only 6000 years old.

LOL -- "the bearded loon". I'll pass on the video... I wish Ray Comfort would grow a beard like that too...

Amazing how Occam's Razor isn't ALWAYS right isn't it. :-)

Occam's razor is a wonderful tool :) I'm not very well versed in evolution, but I accept it as fact. I'm a little more comfortable with geology, especially plate tectonics. A plate moves approximately an inch a year, which is a blazing rate when you think about everything involved in that. There's about twenty or so plates on the planet floating on a mass of magma, constantly bumping and grinding against each other kinda like a overcrowded nightclub full of horny people.

There's no way that the world went from Pangea to the current continental/plate configuration in even 600 million years, let alone 6,000. Ken Ham's explaination is 'The Flood' put so much weight on the earth that it rapidly busted up Pangea and left us with a more or less static plate configuration. Mr. Ham, facts just don't match up to a 6,000 year old planet.

..the other day my father-in-law posted two videos by Ken Ham where the bearded loon explains how the earth was created in 6 literal days a few thousand years ago. (sigh) My father in law is a very VERY smart man. He is patently NOT crazy. Honestly, he, and people like him, are the reason I clung to my faith for as long as I did. I would never in a million years have fathomed that he could buy into garbage like this

*He was interviewed by PBS's 'NewsHour' and I found it outright humorous when he was placing a riding 'saddle' on life~sized 'triceratop' . . .


brokenlink ::
newshour/images/science/jan-june05/0328_creation_saddle.jpg