Please don’t bury me down in the cold cold ground,
I’d rather have them cut me up and pass me all around,
Throw my brain in a hurrican and the blind can have my eyes,
Send my mouth way down south and kiss my ass good bye.

Looks like I get around to writing on this site about once per month. Good to run into people that are patient and interested in discussion!

Reiterating the statement that I take exception to:

It is a lack of morals that leads a person to reject belief in God. People do not reject the idea of there being a Creator Being. Rather, people reject the idea of there being a Creator Being who demands morality from His creation. In order to clear their consciences and relieve themselves of guilt, people reject the idea of God as the only source of absolute morality. Doing so allows atheists to live however they choose—as morally or immorally as they desire—with no feelings of guilt for their refusal to be accountable to God.

This is what I find to be a gross misrepresentation. I find it particularly pernicious due to the way half-truth seems blended into it. The point that makes me confident in stating “that is wrong” in particular is the fact that it is a generalisation that thereby inherently claims “this applies to all people that reject belief in God”, which I’m sure you’ll agree would be a false statement. Probably your statement was intended more as a claim of a “common theme in many cases” rather than a claim of “always the case”. Even in the latter I’m not happy accepting the statement though.

I’ll start with where I can recognise some truth: Some forms of Christianity insist on certain things being “bad”, being sin. Permit me to use an example from Orthodox Judaism for illustration. I was walking with a friend-of-a-friend in the rain. I was carrying the umbrella, after I opened it, because it was the Sabbath and this friend-of-a-friend wasn’t allowed to open it or carry it herself. And wasn’t allowed to use public transport.

The conversation that we had was most fascinating. I wondered if she ever tried not following the requirements of Orthodox Judaism. She actually did, for a little while, but she found herself very uncomfortable with it. She was accustomed to following these requirements and felt guilty and uncomfortable when she didn’t. Not to mention experiencing societal pressure, since everyone is watching everyone else and then talking about it if anyone fails to observe.

Now someone going through a deconversion process might have thoughts provoked by these requirements. “Why can’t I wear linen and wool at the same time? What is so offensive about having dairy and meat in the same meal?” Such thoughts might be one of the key koans in a former Jew’s conversion apostasy, or perhaps conversion to Christianity.

If they eventually convert to Christianity, they would have many reason for doing so. In discussing their conversion and their history of doubt within Judaism, they might mention that they were bothered by the requirements surrounding meat and dairy or wool and linen.

Now someone hearing this could characterise their conversion as follows, permit me to adapt your words into another scenario:

It is not intelligence, or a lack thereof, that leads a Jew to convert to Christianity. It is a lack of morals that leads a person to stop following the Purity code required by Yahweh. People reject the idea of the Creator Being demanding purity from His creation. In order to clear their consciences and relieve themselves of guilt, people reject the idea of Yahweh’s commandments as the only source of absolute morality. Doing so allows them to live however they choose—as pure or impure as they desire—with no feelings of guilt for their refusal to be accountable to Yahweh.

This, I argue, would be a blatant misrepresentation of why they chose to convert to Christianity. Do you agree on this particular example? Even if you don’t agree to this example being a good representation of the deconversion to atheism examples you are referring to, I think it serves well to illustrate how I’m thinking about this and why I take exception to your claims. I’m hoping this helps you understand my point of view even if you don’t agree with my point of view?

As to the last sentence:

Many famous atheists have agreed to that…

I’d like to point out this is anecdotal, argument from authority, but most importantly probably quote mining and misrepresentation of those famous individuals’ full views. Given a citation or two we could examine some of them to be used for an illustration of what I mean regarding the bigger picture, or the framing and tweaking of an individual’s story of deconversion. It would still be anecdotal, but my expectations are that most of those stories could be used for such an illustration.

If you’re interested in why people really leave the faith, we can continue discussing this, or I can even try to get some of the old-timers on this blog’s comment thread to chip in with a story or two. But you can also head over to http://de-conversion.com/ for plenty on that. They even have a pair of posts, linked to from the side-bar on all pages, to try to clear up the misrepresentations and false claims other people make about their de-conversion:

http://de-conversion.com/2008/03/27/convenient-categories/
http://de-conversion.com/2008/04/07/inconvenient-categories-the-really-real-reasons-de-cons-left-the-faith/

Are you still with me? Again apologies for taking so long to respond, you know how life sometimes gets…

But (obviously) I’m still here and I’m happy to read your rebuttal!

All caps comes across as quite offensive. Lucky for you, it’s Google to the rescue: http://translate.google.com/

Have you ever tried that?

The person that says there is no God…
…is a morally deficient person, and
The person who is morally deficient…
…has a heart that says there is no God

There is a difference, but there is a sequence. The passage clearly states both.

Also, passage is quoted in Romans 3 where the sequence is made clear and supports what I am suggesting. The passage refers to God’s people and non-God’s people.

So

The person who says that there is no God is a fool (fool = thinks or acts like they know more than God)

And a person who thinks (or acts like) they know more than God (believer or non-believer) is morally corrupt.

Moral corruption is defined as living and acting like there is no God. It is not defined in the Bible in 20th century terms.

All, I mean all ancient peoples had this idea of immoral because ALL ancient people thought morality was from the gods.

Fred May actually read it. I know this because I put myself in the ‘warzone’ again on the Sunday of the ‘conference’.

I was humbled, and much of my fears about Shofar disappeared. The man on the stage was not the same man as the Friday, something in him changed over that weekend. And something in me. And they accepted that they have made huge mistakes… but the message they had was so powerful, it touched everyone.

For the first time I could accept and appreciate how they’re using commercial (and rock concert) tools at their disposal to spread a message. I thought: What if. What if the first ‘rock concert’ I went to, was one where the bands sang about the Bible? And alcohol was replaced by debate? … It felt like the world is waking up to a message… I was overcome with more than mere emotion.

And I thought about your post… and I thought, if they’re listening to even me – an outsider, a nobody to them… not even saying good things about them… where does that put your claim?

These guys’ heart are in the right place. They don’t offend me as much anymore, they are seekers like every Christian should be… I’m not expecting them to be my cup of tea… but I have realized that they can be.

Anyways, even the NG kerk has that clause about: onderwerp aan kerklike opsig en tug. Never agreed with it either… But I’m sure they have a long track record of its application for good…?

Regardless… as you point out, the Word makes it totally redundant. I see it simply as their acknowledgement of the world… their reflection of things worldly. I’m sure the truth will prevail… and set us all free.

It does seem more positive to observe the day someone was born, which has so many good memories tied to it, rather than the day they died. Although I’m sure July 24/25 (he died at 1am in the morning) will have significance to me as well, that will be a much sadder occasion.