Crashfrog, question for you.

Hi All,I've been absent for a while (although still lurking) but this topic has hit close to home with regards to my current interests.I was raised in a Fundamental Christian, full gospel environment. In fact my whole family except for me are still staunch believers. For me it took a period of 10 years to fully de-convert, from the age of 16 when I became avidly interested in science, til 26 when I first declared myself an atheist. For the first 16 years of my life I believed in God as strongly as the next Fundie. I argued against evolution and cosmology using all the well know YEC arguments.What began the process was the search for miracles. Every one appeared, on closer inspection, to have natural causes. This fostered an interest in Physics, to find mechanisms for divine influence. The best that I could come up with were the apparently random actions of quantum mechanics. But this left God equivalent to chaos, and we all know how Einstein felt about that.My next step was to examine Biblical accuracy. I was floored to learn that the bible in it’s current state was assembled in the 4th century by the council of Nicea. That was never taught in Sunday school. Neither was the fact that the Gospels are anonymous documents and that none of the Epistles mentioned any of Jesus’ miracles.The final step was overcoming the conditioning that blasphemy is wrong. That was a hard one because it was deeply ingrained. My mind reeled every time I acknowledged that God might not exist. I think that’s the hardest part for anyone who’s de-converting.Regards

When you assume, you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me".Unless you're talking about somebody else's university, you're way off the mark here. SPU is a conservative Christian school where chapel attendance is mandatory on a roughly bi-weekly basis and all classes include at least some prayer. Everyone I knew there was a believer. I had all the support in my faith that anyone could ever ask for.When I mention my occasional doubts about believing in the first place, I mean on an unconscious level. I did not consciously doubt that everything I was taught was correct and true. I most assuredly took steps of faith, and some were rewarded in a sense - but just as often things went the other way. On the whole, my story leads me to conclude that only confirmation bias maintained my faith for so long. Watching my family claim divine intervention every time something mundane happens in their favor - though I love them dearly - only strengthens that conclusion.I know what it is like to be a believer and think condescending presumptuous thoughts about apostates. Those times are recent enough for me to recall the feelings and thoughts involved, and I have to say that it only confirms that the faith experience was a product of conditioning.As far as prophecy and history, I sucked up all of that for years, attended classes and analyzed and really got excited about it, until I tired of the linguistic games and guesswork involved. Every generation of Christians has thought it was the last, and every set of current events has been shoehorned into the prophetic mold, only to be discarded as time and new events passed. You should know this better than anyone. I, only a quarter of a century old, should not be the one trying to impart this perspective to you.

I could be off for a week or so too. Moving!

Suggest one as a reply to this message, and one of the admins can change it.Adminnemooseus

Crashfrog quote:
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Did you know that I had faith at the time I made those prayers? No you didn't, but you would have known, if you'd been paying attention
______________________________________________________________________Paying attention to what ? Prior posts have you saying nothing about faith, only that God did not answer your prayers. I simply point out the conditions required to get prayer answered and you jump defensive.Maybe you presented yourself defensive to God, with a "You are on trial with me attitude", this assuredly will get a cold shoulder from God.I won't bother you anymore in this topic - I will do like God and leave you alone.

My repeated statements in this and other threads that I had faith at the time I prayed. Conditions that I met, as I've stated about a hundred times on this forum. The fact that you didn't know that suggests that you haven't been paying attention to those posts - instead, you just presumed the worst about my religious life without bothering to aquaint yourself with the details I've already presented. Nope. Right, because naturally it can't be that God doesn't exist - it must have been something I did.

Would you care to list those conditions which you met? Btw, I never said you never ever believed or didn't have faith as you implied in your post.

Because the young impressive minds are bombarded with one sided theories on origins etc along with the peer pressure from classmates.

Why do you equate theories of origin with a loss of faith?I was taught the Theory of Evolution at a Christian School. In fact, most Christians don't question the TOE or find that it in anyway conflicts with faith.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Jar, certainly not at Biblical fundamental schools. Were you at Catholic school?This message has been edited by buzsaw, 05-21-2004 08:30 PM

Whiskeypalian.edited to fix spellingThis message has been edited by jar, 05-21-2004 08:34 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You know, I went to a Lutheran liberal arts college, and it was certainly liberal in every sense of the word, but there were maybe two classes that non-bio majors took that involved any mention of evolution. One was Intro to Biology. The other was Science and Religion (the research paper for which led me to search google and find this forum) which certainly gave a student plenty of opportunity to be exposed to creationism.I wouldn't exactly describe that as "bombardment." When was the last time you were at college, Buz?

I don't consider yours an adequate refutation of my post, CF. By and large, my statement is correct. I wasn't born yesterday.

You're free to hold that position, though I wasn't aware I was required to refute statements that were themselves unsupported.All I can do is what others have done - describe one university's situation from the perspective of an alumnus. In my time at that school, and in my briefer experience with other colleges (like the one my dad teaches at), nobody was ever "bombarded" with evolution. It was only ever presented in classes to whose subjects it was relevant; and in those cases, it was presented as what it is - the scientifically accepted and supported model of the diversity and history of life on Earth. You do this a lot - qualify a statement with "by and large" or "mostly", as though it excuses you from having to support that assertion.It doesn't.

I guess my story is. I have always been a science person.... for A while I attempted to keep the 2 separate... (it didn't work well)
I was afraid of my Doubt so I talked to people. Everyone told me to read the Bible and it "would help me find understanding." They where right I did find it. Reading that thing turned me away from Christianity.... (this is a 15 year old!)there are MANY other things that lead to my feelings also....This message has been edited by DC85, 05-21-2004 11:13 PM

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