deconversion

Hi All,
Just spent the last couple hours going through all the blogs and discussions. First I wanted to say I am glad to meet all of you. I really feel for some of the pain you are going through having gone through the deconversion process myself.

I am not going to get all sappy, angry, or what ever other emotion. I have done that a while ago. I have now come through the other side and am now in a very playful state. I hope you can join me in the fun to come in my upcoming posts.

I am new to this group but you can find out a lot more about me at:
You can find me at:
http://twitter.com/jackrussell8888
http://jackrussell8888.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/jackrussell8888
http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/JackRussell8888
http://www.atheistnexus.org/profile/JackRussell8888

Folks that know me, know that I am big into the process of deconverting christians. Many of you are familiar with Dawkins, PZ and the gang. They come at this process of trying to convert people by arguing or debating them. Problem is people did not get into their religion by debating, they are not going to be debated out of it either. My process is very different and very effective as you will see.

======Let me copy/paste my deconversion strategy from my blog====
Let me restate the concepts of deconversion again for new readers.

1. People did not get their religion by argument, you are not going to deconvert them by arguing with them either.
2. One of the most powerful words in the English language is the word AND.
3. You listen to what they have to say
4. You agree with them by saying "AND"
5. Then you mess with their mind. (see my other posts for more ideas)

KEY PHRASE
*Also, one critical part to this process is to understand an old saying
"If I say it, it might be true, BUT if they say it, it MUST be true"

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My blog is called "Atheist Mind Show" and it is all about messing with the christians minds. Their faith is built on the bible, not science. You can throw science at them all day, it will not make one bit of difference. You have probably already seen that.

No if you want to help someone deconvert, you need to talk in their language, the bible. I have so much fun messing with the minds of christians. You will have a lot of fun too.

I look forward to us playing together.

--Jack

It is fun for me to come in here and bark and wag my tail. I would like to drop a bone in here for you to play with before I go.

==How to win every argument with a theist===
I will give you one simple rule.
"They cannot use the English word for their major nouns"

Why is that rule so powerful?
Simple they are used to being able to get away with loose words like "god", "hell" and so on.
Instead they have to say stuff like "Elohim, Yahweh, El Shaddai" instead of god.
or "Hades, sheol or gehenna" instead of hell. They don't stand a chance

How does this win? Simple, think like chess or hockey,
a draw means they did not win.
Our objective is not to be right, but to weaken them.

So here is the fun part.
Them: Evolution is not true because "god" created the universe.
You: Well, according to the bible, Elohim seemed to be arguing with Yahweh on the order of building the universe in Genesis. Do you think that Elohim or Yahweh was right in creating the trees and grasses two whole days before they built the sun? I mean El Shaddai did not really get too involved in the argument, I wonder why?

See the fun here. We are scrambling their brains here talking about the 3 major gods listed in the bible. Best of all, you can totally make up your ideas and be totally confused. See, the idea is you get THEM to have to go to the bible and read this stuff closely. The bible is your ally and does all the hard work for you.

=====
Weeeee this is fun .... Arf arf arf, wag wag wag,
Is that a ball, gotta go ...

--Jack

This is bloody brilliant. My wife has realized, mostly because I keep telling her, that there's no way she's going to be able to logic me back into the kingdom... because let's face it, it's not based on logic. Much the same, I know I'm not going to be able to logic her OUT, because when it comes to faith, you forgo logic for supernatural.

The closest we've ever come to common ground is, like you said, when I stuck strictly to the Bible. After all, it wasn't for the most part anything external that made me deconvert. It was the Bible itself. In such sweet and sickening irony, when preachers told us to go to the word to strengthen our faith, my going to the word only served to weaken it. And there is more than enough material present in just the text of the Bible to make all but the most well-read apologist go, "huh, well I'll have to check on that."

I intend on spending a good deal of time on your blog. Welcome to the boards!