Common theist argument: "You know, I used to be an atheist myself..."

[skepticalbip]

Absolutely... Scum bags come in all flavors. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that all atheists are moral paragons though I have heard such claims about Christians from some Christians - but the number of Christian scum bags that have been exposed certainly demonstrates that not all Christians are moral paragons either.

OK
So the tally of arguments against Lee Strobel continues to grow.
Tu Quoque
No True Scotsman
False Flag

You are too into absolutes. If you actually read for comprehension what I have written, you will see that I don't have a clue what he is and believes. It is only that his claim to have been an atheist who 'found god' doesn't ring true. His characterization of atheism is the same strawman nonsense as the strawman characterization of atheism offered by Jack Chick. If he had actually once been an atheist then he certainly should have a much better understanding of what atheism is. A couple reasonable possibilities is that he seems to either be a Christian that is faking having been an atheist for financial gain or an atheist faking being a Christian for financial gain.

You can't deny that there is a lot of financial gain happening here so that part is a given. Not that I have any problem with financial gain. It is just his schtick that is a mystery to me.

 

[Lion IRC]

Yeah, you know, possible mercenary, financial motive of the author was NOT on my list of criticisms of The God Delusion or A Universe From Nothing or God Is Not Great or....etc etc.

 

[skepticalbip]

Yeah, you know, possible mercenary, financial motive of the author was NOT on my list of criticisms of The God Delusion or A Universe From Nothing or God Is Not Great or....etc etc.

Financial reward was certainly one of, if not the major, reasons Krauss and Dawkins would expend the time and effort of writing books and making speaking tours even though their message is sincerely held. But aside from them, there are a lot of people writing books and giving speeches that financial reward is only reason - people like Von Daniken or those writing books on alien abduction, etc. that sell because they pander to what people want to believe. And then there are those who are sorta in between these extremes that believe but greatly exaggerate for the sake of marketability.

Question:
Do you think Strobel's strawman characterization of atheist thought is believable? You may since you don't seem to be an atheist that 'found god' but rather have always been a Christian.

 

[Lion IRC]

Of course it's believable.
And it's only a straw argument to the extent that there can always someone who says... well I'm an atheist and I don't resemble the type of atheist in Strobel's example.

I don't think Lee Strobel is deliberately constructing something he knows is a strawman argument. And to accuse him of doing so is lame. Just have done with and take the atrib option. Why bother with the pretence of debating his arguments if you simply think he's a brute liar/troll.

Civil discourse? Contest of ideas? The noble enlightenment ideals of coercive logic and reasoning?
...and the best you can do is call Strobel a disingenuous liar only in it for the money?

 

[Rhea]

Of course it's believable.

But that’s all I had ever really given the evidence: a cursory look. I had read just enough philosophy and history to find support for my skepticism – a fact here, a scientific theory there, a pithy quote, a clever argument. Sure, I could see some gaps and inconsistencies, but I had a strong motivation to ignore them: a self-serving and immoral lifestyle that I would be compelled to abandon if I were ever to change my views and become a follower of Jesus.

And look, he changed his views, followed Jesus and STILL lives a self-serving and immoral lifestyle squeezing dollars from evryday folks who can’t afford it and is worth almost $10Million dollars which he may use to do research on widening the eyes of needles.

 

[lpetrich]

Which is not to say that I object to those believers who claim to have once been an atheist. It means I can ask them what argument or arguments convinced them that there *is* a god. In my experience no one ever offers a logical argument, only emotional ones.

Like CEM Joad, humiliated by the scandal of his fare-beating, I think.

I haven't been able to find out what caused Annie Besant to convert to Theosophy.

Antony Flew is sometimes cited as a reconvert, but he seems to have converted to a variety of deism because someone convinced him that it was too hard to produce the complexity of even the simplest organism by abiogenesis mechanisms. However, his beliefs were still far from orthodox Xianity.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Which is not to say that I object to those believers who claim to have once been an atheist. It means I can ask them what argument or arguments convinced them that there *is* a god. In my experience no one ever offers a logical argument, only emotional ones.

Like CEM Joad, humiliated by the scandal of his fare-beating, I think.

I haven't been able to find out what caused Annie Besant to convert to Theosophy.

Antony Flew is sometimes cited as a reconvert, but he seems to have converted to a variety of deism because someone convinced him that it was too hard to produce the complexity of even the simplest organism by abiogenesis mechanisms. However, his beliefs were still far from orthodox Xianity.

Here's a long article from the NYT on Flew's "deconversion" : https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html

The upshot is that a good case can be made for Flew's dementia.

[Flew] said this with a laugh. When we began the interview, he warned me, with merry self-deprecation, that he suffers from “nominal aphasia,” or the inability to reproduce names. But he forgot more than names. He didn’t remember talking with Paul Kurtz about his introduction to “God and Philosophy” just two years ago. There were words in his book, like “abiogenesis,” that now he could not define. When I asked about Gary Habermas, who told me that he and Flew had been friends for 22 years and exchanged “dozens” of letters, Flew said, “He and I met at a debate, I think.” I pointed out to him that in his earlier philosophical work he argued that the mere concept of God was incoherent, so if he was now a theist, he must reject huge chunks of his old philosophy. “Yes, maybe there’s a major inconsistency there,” he said, seeming grateful for my insight. And he seemed generally uninterested in the content of his book — he spent far more time talking about the dangers of unchecked Muslim immigration and his embrace of the anti-E.U. United Kingdom Independence Party.

As he himself conceded, he had not written his book.

“This is really Roy’s doing,” he said, before I had even figured out a polite way to ask. “He showed it to me, and I said O.K. I’m too old for this kind of work!”

{Emphasis added; and Flew}

 

[Lion IRC]

- not really a former atheist
- only doing it for the money
- a liar
- only uses straw arguments
- real atheists who reconvert have dementia
- "smells like" a fake
- is a scumbag

Sooner or later you guys are gonna run out of ammo and you won't have ever addressed
(former atheist) Lee Strobel's actual Case For Christ.

 

[James Brown]

I need to apologize. It was not Lee Strobel's book The Case for Christ where I thought Strobel's claims of hard skepticism were disingenuous. It was his book The Case for Faith that gave me that impression. I've not read The Case for Christ.

 

[lpetrich]

Secular Web Kiosk: Antony Flew Considers God...Sort Of

I asked him point blank what he would mean if he ever asserted that "probably God exists," to which he responded (in a letter in his own hand, dated 19 October 2004):

I do not think I will ever make that assertion, precisely because any assertion which I am prepared to make about God would not be about a God in that sense ... I think we need here a fundamental distinction between the God of Aristotle or Spinoza and the Gods of the Christian and the Islamic Revelations.

Rather, he would only have in mind "the non-interfering God of the people called Deists--such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin."

Richard Carrier Blogs: Antony Flew's Bogus Book

But I was certain another author was to blame, and not lunacy. And now my suspicions have been confirmed. This book is being promoted as "former atheist" Antony Flew's "long awaited" explanation of why he converted, but it is now known that Flew did not write any of it, and in fact recalls almost none of its contents. Indeed, Flew openly confessed to Oppenheimer that he didn't write a word of it. Oppenheimer also confirmed that Flew apparently knows (or remembers) little of its contents and almost none of the authors or works cited in it, despite the publisher's assurance that he signed off on it (though as Oppenheimer reports, even his publisher confesses doubts about Flew's ability to remember essential details, and it seems evident now that Flew's failing memory is clinically serious).

In my opinion the book's arguments are so fallacious and cheaply composed I doubt Flew would have signed off on it in sound mind, and Oppenheimer comes to much the same conclusion. It seems Flew simply trusted Varghese and didn't even read the book being published in his name. And even if he had, he is clearly incapable now of even remembering what it said. The book's actual author turns out to be an evangelical preacher named Bob Hostetler (who has also written several books with Josh McDowell), with considerable assistance from this book's co-author, evangelical promoter and businessman Roy Abraham Varghese.

The Exploitation of Antony Flew | Adam Lee

... We are not atheists because we follow Antony Flew (or Richard Dawkins, or Sam Harris). We follow these people because we are atheists and find their positions in agreement with our own. Even if Antony Flew had converted in his prime, that would have no persuasive effect on me unless he could show the facts and evidence that led to this decision. The Times article mentions “what others have at stake”, but in fact there is nothing at stake other than the sad story of a worthy philosopher’s legacy being coopted late in life by confidence tricksters.

On the other hand, the Christian evangelists who are trumpeting this as a great victory are truly reprehensible. These people congratulate themselves for every soul “saved” – regardless of whether that conversion took place through coercion, indoctrination or trickery – as if people’s lives were goals in a game and the only objective was to score the most points. Like predators who hunt the sick and the weak, they target the people who are least able to resist them – those who are bereaved and emotionally vulnerable, who are suffering from dementia or cognitive decline, or even those who are dead and unable to defend themselves, as with the invented deathbed conversion stories of Charles Darwin and Thomas Paine. Against an informed atheist in possession of his own mind, their flimsy and irrational assertions easily splinter, so it’s small surprise they pick on the stragglers instead.

 

[Lion IRC]

I need to apologize. It was not Lee Strobel's book The Case for Christ where I thought Strobel's claims of hard skepticism were disingenuous. It was his book The Case for Faith that gave me that impression. I've not read The Case for Christ.

I have read both books. (Bought them for $1.99 each)

The Case For Faith is not written from the perspective of a hard ass (former atheist) journalist.
Its context is not Atheism versus Theism.
He covers theological topics which even vex many bible-believing Christians.
Problem of Pain. Divine Command Theory. Doctrine of Hell. Soteriology. etc. etc. (The Big 8)

And you won't find him referencing his "hard skeptic" former self very often and certainly not as a means of ingratiating himself to atheists.

 

[bilby]

I need to apologize. It was not Lee Strobel's book The Case for Christ where I thought Strobel's claims of hard skepticism were disingenuous. It was his book The Case for Faith that gave me that impression. I've not read The Case for Christ.

I have read both books. (Bought them for $1.99 each)

You were robbed.

 

[Lion IRC]

The money went to charity

 

[skepticalbip]

Of course it's believable.
And it's only a straw argument to the extent that there can always someone who says... well I'm an atheist and I don't resemble the type of atheist in Strobel's example.

I don't think Lee Strobel is deliberately constructing something he knows is a strawman argument. And to accuse him of doing so is lame. Just have done with and take the atrib option. Why bother with the pretence of debating his arguments if you simply think he's a brute liar/troll.

Civil discourse? Contest of ideas? The noble enlightenment ideals of coercive logic and reasoning?
...and the best you can do is call Strobel a disingenuous liar only in it for the money?

The kind of 'atheist' he describes that he claims he was is the description of a theist that is rebelling against submitting to god because if he had accepted at the time that he was a Christian then he would have had to stop his 'sinning, hedonistic ways' that he was enjoying so much. This is pretty much how many Christians believe atheists think but I have never heard anything close to that from any atheist, likely because that description has nothing to do with atheism. His characterization is that atheists know there is a god but they are having too much fun to worry about it and 'follow the rules'.

But maybe including that helps sell books.

 

[Rhea]

- not really a former atheist
- only doing it for the money
- a liar
- only uses straw arguments
- real atheists who reconvert have dementia
- "smells like" a fake
- is a scumbag

Sooner or later you guys are gonna run out of ammo and you won't have ever addressed
(former atheist) Lee Strobel's actual Case For Christ.

But I did. Why did you ignore it. I quoted Strobel himself saying that his atheism consistested of the state of rebelling against his god; that he didn’t disbelieve, he merely didn’t follow.

But that’s all I had ever really given the evidence [for atheism]: a cursory look. I had read just enough philosophy and history to find support for my skepticism – a fact here, a scientific theory there, a pithy quote, a clever argument. Sure, I could see some gaps and inconsistencies, but I had a strong motivation to ignore them: a self-serving and immoral lifestyle that I would be compelled to abandon if I were ever to change my views and become a follower of Jesus.

If his “case for Christ” amounts to the same unsupported drivel as his “case” for himself being an atheist, why would anyone choose to spend their time reading it, let alone arguing it?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Sooner or later you guys are gonna run out of ammo and you won't have ever addressed
(former atheist) Lee Strobel's actual Case For Christ.

You know, if you scan your peepers up to the top of the page, this thread is not about The Case For Christ. You're the one who regularly bitches about people ignoring the subject at hand.

THIS one is about liars claiming to have been atheists. Strobel came up. Maybe you should, how did you put it, piss off if you want to demand that we talk about something else? If you want to claim we are somehow at fault for not talking about what you want to talk about?

 

[lpetrich]

Another reconvert was devnet / emotional / Heathen Dawn. He was raised a strict Orthodox Jew and he deconverted and became an atheist. But he had a lot of fear of death, so he invented a sort of new age religion for himself so he would not fear death so much.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Mike Wernke talks about meeting an atheist in the military. He ran into the guy in Viet Nam, after both had seen combat, where he was now sporting a cross, a Star of David, a pentacle, i forget what all.


Mike asked, 'What's all this?'
Former: I BELIEVE!
Mike: Believe what? I can't tell from all this.
Former: I can't afford to piss anyone off.

Of course, Wernke claimed to have been a Satanist before being saved in boot camp. Both claims have been at least disputed, if not discredited.

 

[Lion IRC]

Sooner or later you guys are gonna run out of ammo and you won't have ever addressed
(former atheist) Lee Strobel's actual Case For Christ.

You know, if you scan your peepers up to the top of the page, this thread is not about The Case For Christ. You're the one who regularly bitches about people ignoring the subject at hand.

THIS one is about liars claiming to have been atheists. Strobel came up. Maybe you should, how did you put it, piss off if you want to demand that we talk about something else? If you want to claim we are somehow at fault for not talking about what you want to talk about?

Considering that I wasn't the one who brought up Lee Strobel along with a plethora of ad hominem arguments, and considering that I actually started a new thread to discuss his book, I think you should back off with the accusations that I'm responsible for a derail here.

 

[Learner]

It would be interesting if an atheist on the forum, who was also originally from a religious background, would be classed in the same way as a fake atheists (so to speak) like Strobel, if he or she went back to religion?

So the criteria for the method is: religion > atheist > religion again > fake atheist.

Quote Originally Posted by Strobel himself
But that’s all I had ever really given the evidence [for atheism]: a cursory look. I had read just enough philosophy and history to find support for my skepticism – a fact here, a scientific theory there, a pithy quote, a clever argument. Sure, I could see some gaps and inconsistencies, but I had a strong motivation to ignore them: a self-serving and immoral lifestyle that I would be compelled to abandon if I were ever to change my views and become a follower of Jesus.

He does sound a little more agnostic if not atheist then. (Atheists have been known to say agnostics are atheists too)