My Experience in an Atheist Community

Bob, I think you remember that we stated a number of times that this is a site for ex Christians who are trying to support others who have left Christianity.  We are not saying Christians should not come on the site, but you should respect our right to discuss the topics we feel are appropriate to us.  If you want to learn about what non-Christians think and believe, I thing you had ample opportunity to do that.  We would be glad to debate you on any issue, but you should adhere to the rules of debate.  I know this is hard for you to believe, but you come across to some of the members as arrogant and a know it all.  That sets them off.  I think if you want to debate a subject then you should tell us what it is and we will debate it with you.  Because some of our members are not as polite as others, that doesn’t mean we are all like that.  We have had many Christians come on our site and they have been very rude.  So that’s what most of us expect from new raiders.  I think you will find us reasonable and willing to discuss any subject if you and we follow the rules of debate and have polite discussions.  I think you will find that many of the ex-Christian members know a considerable amount about Christianity.  Many of us have spent decades studying religion, so we know as much as most Christians about theology, doctrine and beliefs of many Christian sects.  Again I would invite you to come back and list some discussion topics you want to talk about.  One against many sometimes gets one sided, but all of us are eager to get our two cents in the discussion.  We can come to your web site and get more Christian input to these discussions if you would like.

Let me simply state that we are not out to deconvert Christians.  But Christians are deconverting in droves.  The Bible was not written by Neanderthals.  It was written by Bronze Age goat herders.  Christianity is an abusive concept in that people are born as worthless sinners, filthy rags, unworthy of life on this planet.  That’s foolishness.  Then, we are told that if we don’t believe correctly based on a book of fairy tales, we are going to roast in hell forever and ever and ever and ever.  You get my drift.

The people at exC are not all atheists.  Your article showed a complete lack of empathy towards us.  And that makes me sad that I live in a nation filled with Christians that do not know how to connect on a basic human level with their fellow citizens.  

I cannot tell you in one short paragraph the extent of the damage that has been done emotionally to your fellow humans by Christianity.  And you would add to that with your absurd assertions that we allow you to preach to us about your God.

I will make another comment here in general response in addition to my previous comment specifically addressing your five points. It is unfortunate when people lose patience in discussions and resort to name calling etc. In discussions with Christians I have at various times been called a wanker, an idiot, evil, immoral, homosexual, and had my life threatened. So in my experience the things you experiences in your discussions, while less than ideal and not condonable, are probably less intentionally hurtful than a lot of what is said by people throughout the religious spectrum.

Though ex-Christian is not an atheist site, the general common theme among those of us on the site is one of accepting that Christianity is not true. This is not a belief system but rather an acceptance, often taken reluctantly over many years of thought and study, that the Bible and Christianity are not true. For myself, one of the main reasons I am an atheist is because there is no evidence to support the notion of deities. Once I started to look at the world objectively, once I started to really understand science and nature, and once I formed my conclusions based on the evidence rather than trying to make the evidence fit my conclusions, I had no alternative but to accept that there is no god. I understand firsthand the difficulty in accepting this. It involves, initially, stepping outside of one’s comfort zone (particularly with respect to death) and taking what seems like a large risk. Once done so, of course, one realizes that there is no risk at all. It is simply a process of accepting reality, no matter how harsh and unfair it might seem at first.

In any case, when your point of view is that you are right no matter what, and when you are by definition unable to provide evidence to support any of the claims of Christianity, people who have had to go through the process of examining the evidence in order to get to their current position, which is an evidence-based  position, are likely to become frustrated when they perceive stubbornness or an unwillingness on your part to step outside your comfort zone and examine the evidence.

If you really want to understand how an atheist feels in conversation with a Christian, you have to first think of something that you do not believe because the evidence does not support it (say a flat earth, the Easter Bunny, or unicorns).  Then, picture someone coming along and making the claim that you don’t believe. When you offer to examine the evidence, they brush aside the bits that are inconvenient to their belief, and force other bits to fit their preconceived belief. Then, to top it all off, they accuse you of being close minded despite the fact that your lack of belief in, say, unicorns is based on the fact that there is no evidence for unicorns. No matter what you say, you know for a fact that they will never give up their belief in unicorns. You, on the other hand, since your position is evidence based, would accept unicorns as real if some evidence were presented in support of them.

For added fun, toss in statements that if you don’t force yourself to believe in unicorns despite the lack of evidence, you will spend an eternity in torture. Also imagine that the country you live in has in its government only one politician who openly accepts that unicorns do not exist, and many of the rest of the politicians think that the way of the unicorn should be taught in schools, and should be the basis for the country’s laws.

If you truly visualize and understand this scenario, then you’ll have
some idea of how atheists feel when they engage in conversations with Christians.