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

[James Brown]

It's been a long while since I read Strobel's The Case for Christ, and I don't care to read it again. But I found his opening chapter, where he explained why he wrote the book, to be disingenuous. It smelled fake to me, as fake as a Professor easily humiliated by the True Believer in a Jack Chick tract.

Throughout the book, whenever Strobel inserted his own persona, such as interviewing other apologists, it felt as fictional as the interviewers on John Stewart's show.

 

[Lion IRC]

Kinda like when Lion pretends ignorance of the implications people infer from his posts...

How would I know why or whether people misinterpret the "implications"?
Of course I'm ignorant as to what goes on in the head of some random dude on the internet.

 

[skepticalbip]

But malice requires intent. If you're going to claim that Strobel is deliberately lying to his customers in order to scam money out of them with a fake story, that's a higher bar required to demonstrate your claim since showing affirmative action on his part would be needed for it.

I haven't seen anything which clears that higher bar or isn't just as easily explained by the much lower bar of "Strobel is an unintelligent person who finds dumb arguments convincing due to a lack of ability to properly analyze things".

Maybe my suspicion that he is sharper than he presents himself is that his bio includes that he had been the legal editor for The Chicago Tribune. I assumed that such a position would require someone with a bit on the ball... but maybe not. And then there is the fact that he has written over twenty best selling books with apparently (I haven't read them but I have seen a bit of his talks) a spiel similar to Jack Chic's. The two together makes a lot of sense if he was sharp enough to see the potential and had no qualms of doing whatever it takes to enrich himself (sorta like many televangelists).

 

[Jobar]

Why is it so hard to conceive of a thinker who can go from atheism to theism? I've done it many times. I swing back and forth, like a pendulum, between belief and non-belief.

I was raised without religion. I found religion in my own heart and mind later on, through intense reading and study, music, art. Then I found reason to abandon belief.

I don't know where I am now. Perhaps God knows.

These are not offered as arguments, but merely as sentences, from a conflicted mind.

For many years I kept up the list of Internet Infidels Deconverts, on the old II board. While there were lots and lots of people who had gone from believer to unbeliever, there were precious few going in the opposite direction. So just as a matter of statistics, atheist-to-theist conversions are relatively rare.

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.

 

[Rhea]

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.

Indeed. Their believability depends on their answer. I am curious, and wonder, why did you not believe? If their answer is, “I didn’t want to behave,” then that is not really disbelief. If their answer is, “it didn’t make any fucking sense,” that is very atheistic.

It’s interesting to contemplate here, whether someone is just too gullible to be lying. An interesting and plausible theory. But likewise interesting to ponder someone whose bias always flows only one way, that even if they are lying to themselves, they clearly, “believe .”

 

[WAB]

Why is it so hard to conceive of a thinker who can go from atheism to theism? I've done it many times. I swing back and forth, like a pendulum, between belief and non-belief.

I was raised without religion. I found religion in my own heart and mind later on, through intense reading and study, music, art. Then I found reason to abandon belief.

I don't know where I am now. Perhaps God knows.

These are not offered as arguments, but merely as sentences, from a conflicted mind.

For many years I kept up the list of Internet Infidels Deconverts, on the old II board. While there were lots and lots of people who had gone from believer to unbeliever, there were precious few going in the opposite direction. So just as a matter of statistics, atheist-to-theist conversions are relatively rare.

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.

Spinoza.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/

Proposition 1: A substance is prior in nature to its affections.

Proposition 2: Two substances having different attributes have nothing in common with one another. (In other words, if two substances differ in nature, then they have nothing in common).

Proposition 3: If things have nothing in common with one another, one of them cannot be the cause of the other.

Proposition 4: Two or more distinct things are distinguished from one another, either by a difference in the attributes [i.e., the natures or essences] of the substances or by a difference in their affections [i.e., their accidental properties].

Proposition 5: In nature, there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute.

Proposition 6: One substance cannot be produced by another substance.

Proposition 7: It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist.

Proposition 8: Every substance is necessarily infinite.

Proposition 9: The more reality or being each thing has, the more attributes belong to it.

Proposition 10: Each attribute of a substance must be conceived through itself.

Proposition 11: God, or a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists. (The proof of this proposition consists simply in the classic “ontological proof for God’s existence”. Spinoza writes that “if you deny this, conceive, if you can, that God does not exist. Therefore, by axiom 7 [‘If a thing can be conceived as not existing, its essence does not involve existence’], his essence does not involve existence. But this, by proposition 7, is absurd. Therefore, God necessarily exists, q.e.d.”)

Proposition 12: No attribute of a substance can be truly conceived from which it follows that the substance can be divided.

Proposition 13: A substance which is absolutely infinite is indivisible.

Proposition 14: Except God, no substance can be or be conceived.

 

[Copernicus]

It seems to be in our nature to constantly jump to conclusions about what others believe, how trustworthy they are, and how they view the world. I couldn't begin to assess Strobel's qualities in those areas right now, but I enjoyed reading some of the different interpretations in this thread.

Being able to see both sides of a contradiction and make a choice about which is most plausible is essential to the survival of any thinking being. Our brains are evolved to rationalize contradictory evidence. So each of us carries around a little atheist and theist in our heads, one of which is always winning the debate. Both atheists and theists like to recall times in their past where the wrong side was winning the debate rather more often than not. When we meet people who we think fall into one category or the other, we tend to impute the characteristics of our imaginary model to those people. So it may be easy to see Strobel as an insincere chalatan, when, in fact, he sees us as the real charlatans.

Lion does this kind of stereotyping as much to us atheists as we do it to him. So he sees atheists as strongly motivated by hedonism--giving in to religiously proscribed forms of behavior--perhaps because that prospect is an aspect of atheism that he finds attractive, were there not other more compelling (to him) arguments to resolve the atheist/theist contradiction. Speaking as an atheist, that reasoning sounds bizarre to me, since it leaves me feeling that I have never taken full advantage of my hedonistic tendencies despite my atheistic convictions.

ETA: And why is it that fundamentalist Christian areas of the country always seem to be the major consumers for the pornography industry? Frustrated wannabe atheists?

 

[ronburgundy]

Stupidity is random. Intellectual dishonesty and emotionally biased faith is not. A person sincerely considering evidence and arguments can make errors, but they will be non-systematic and as likely to favor one conclusion as the other.
Strobel's irrationality is systematically biased to favor the conclusion of theism. That means he already had an a priori bias in favor of theism that was the cause of those "errors". By definition, an atheist does not have a bias in favor of theism, thus no atheist would should such non-random systematic biases that favor theist arguments, consistently against the evidence.

Well, having a bias is also very different from being dishonest. For instance, there were a number of disputed penalty calls (or non-calls) in the NFL games last weekend. How clear or unclear pass interference or keeping control of the ball was to various viewers was heavily correlated to which of the teams they were cheering for. They focus on the aspects which would be in their team's favour and discount the aspects which would not. This does not mean that one group of fans is lying about whether a call was good or bad, it's just that their biases subconsciously sway how they look at the data.

But if you have a bias in favor of theism that makes you interpret everything in favor of it, then you are a theist to some degree and certainly not an atheist. It doesn't mean you are lying about your interpretation in favor of theism. But it does mean you are lying if you also claim that you were an atheist when you were making those interpretations.
A valid analogy to the NFL would be a person who interprets every call against their team as unfair and ignores every call against the other team, but then claims they are not a fan of either team in order to make their analysis of fairness seem more objective.
They may not be lying about the what calls were made and what they find fair, but they are lying about having a bias (i.e., being a fan or in this case a theist) when they made those interpretations.

Plus, there are way more people who were raised and always been theists who use Strobel's same arguments than there are atheists in the world. Thus, from a simple probability standpoint, it is far more likely that Strobel was always a theist and is using the arguments as pseudo intellectual cover than that he was an ever an atheists (in itself unlikely) and then only became theist after encountering the arguments.

Probabilities apply to groups, not individuals. This is like saying "Well, you're from Alabama so clearly you're lying about being a Democrat".

Probabilities are determined by group level aggregates but apply to individuals. That is the entire point of calculating probabilities. If 99% of group A are X, then you don't say that group A has a 99% probability of being X. It is known fact (not a probability) that group A is 99% X. The probability is what applies to each individual person based upon the % of people in the group who are X. So, as a current known extreme theist, a group in which 99% were theists since childhood, the a priori probability that he has been a theist since childhood is 99%. That means we must have very strong evidence about him in particular having been a theist to conclude that he is the rare 1% case (an extreme theist that was an atheist).

So, then we consider what specific information we know about him personally. The only evidence we know that is even consistent with him having been an atheist is that he uttered the words "I used to be an atheist." But that doesn't mean much because people can and do say things about themselves that are incorrect all the time (whether an honest error or deliberate falsehood). So, then we must use what else we know about him to decide the probability that he was speaking both honestly and accurately when he made . We have no evidence that he was doing either and lots of evidence that he was not. Every incorrect or irrational thing he has claimed in regards to the topic of theism is evidence that what he has said about his own atheism is incorrect or irrational. Thus, the one piece of evidence that he was ever an atheist (his current claim he was) is very weak and certainly not near enough to override the strong 99% a priori probability that was a theist since childhood.

You seem to be under the impression that when a person utters a phrase, the default assumption should be that the utterance is true and accurate. That is incorrect. There is no dispute that he uttered the phrase. The question is whether that utterance means anything regarding his actual prior state of theism and whether it is sufficient evidence to outweigh the 99% a prior probability that he has been a theist since his youth. To claim that his utterence is accurate and strong evidence of actual theism carries a burden of proof and presume that not only is he attempting to be honest and accurate but that his is in fact accurate and not making errors in his self evaluations. We don't need to prove he lying, only to show that there is insufficient basis to conclude that his statement is accurate.

 

[Lion IRC]

It's been a long while since I read Strobel's The Case for Christ...[//]
...I found his opening chapter, where he explained why he wrote the book, to be disingenuous. It smelled fake to me, , it felt as fictional as the interviewers on John Stewart's show.

It "smelled" fake?
It "felt" fictional?

Oh well, I guess that critique is no worse than...he was never a true atheist in the first place.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It remains the impression.

You know how YOU make wsweeping statements about atheists, and what they believe, or want, or why they're atheists, and actual atheists point out that your statements are full of shit? Those statements would be no less bullshit if you claimed you had been an atheist, and once felt that way...

 

[ronburgundy]

It's been a long while since I read Strobel's The Case for Christ...[//]
...I found his opening chapter, where he explained why he wrote the book, to be disingenuous. It smelled fake to me, , it felt as fictional as the interviewers on John Stewart's show.

It "smelled" fake?
It "felt" fictional?

Oh well, I guess that critique is no worse than...he was never a true atheist in the first place.

Imagine you know a person who consistently says absurd and objectively incorrect things, especially on the topic of NFL football. One day during and argument where he is trying to prove he knows what he's talking about, he proclaims "I used to coach in the NFL."

By your "reasoning", you should just accept this assertion as true and any claims that he probably was not an NFL coach are just "No true NFL coach" fallacies.

But rationally, one should doubt that this guy was an NFL coach and all the same reasons for doubting this apply to doubting that Strobel was an atheist.

 

[skepticalbip]

It's been a long while since I read Strobel's The Case for Christ...[//]
...I found his opening chapter, where he explained why he wrote the book, to be disingenuous. It smelled fake to me, , it felt as fictional as the interviewers on John Stewart's show.

It "smelled" fake?
It "felt" fictional?

Oh well, I guess that critique is no worse than...he was never a true atheist in the first place.

Imagine you know a person who consistently says absurd and objectively incorrect things, especially on the topic of NFL football. One day during and argument where he is trying to prove he knows what he's talking about, he proclaims "I used to coach in the NFL."

By your "reasoning", you should just accept this assertion as true and any claims that he probably was not an NFL coach are just "No true NFL coach" fallacies.

But rationally, one should doubt that this guy was an NFL coach and all the same reasons for doubting this apply to doubting that Strobel was an atheist.

I still hold that he could even be an atheist (or a Christian) who has found that repeating in books and speeches to theists what they believe and want to hear is a dandy way to make a lot of money. His strawman depiction of atheism (believed by many theists) gives little reason to believe he actually was once an atheist but 'found god'.

I do think that Jack Chick is a sincere Christian and he uses the same strawman depiction of atheism but I haven't seen him claim to have once been an atheist. He may have made such a claim but I haven't seen it.

 

[ronburgundy]

Imagine you know a person who consistently says absurd and objectively incorrect things, especially on the topic of NFL football. One day during and argument where he is trying to prove he knows what he's talking about, he proclaims "I used to coach in the NFL."

By your "reasoning", you should just accept this assertion as true and any claims that he probably was not an NFL coach are just "No true NFL coach" fallacies.

But rationally, one should doubt that this guy was an NFL coach and all the same reasons for doubting this apply to doubting that Strobel was an atheist.

I still hold that he could even be an atheist (or a Christian) who has found that repeating in books and speeches to theists what they believe and want to hear is a dandy way to make a lot of money. His strawman depiction of atheism (believed by many theists) gives little reason to believe he actually was once an atheist but 'found god'.

I do think that Jack Chick is a sincere Christian and he uses the same strawman depiction of atheism but I haven't seen him claim to have once been an atheist. He may have made such a claim but I haven't seen it.

That's possible. It's more probable that he is a total conman who doesn't believe anything he is saying than that he was a sincere atheist turned sincere Christian. But that's still less probable than that he was some level of theist since childhood (like most Americans), even if he is now opportunistically inflating his religiosity to insincere levels.

 

[Atheos]

But rationally, one should doubt that this guy was an NFL coach and all the same reasons for doubting this apply to doubting that Strobel was an atheist.

That's just not a valid comparison at all. It is possible to check the claim that someone was an NFL coach, especially today. Any former NFL coach would be able to name the team(s) for which he coached, the dates, etc., and these claims could be verified (or shown to be bullshit) with little else than a Google search. Being an NFL coach leaves tangible evidence of a very specific coaching history.

One does not have to do anything in order to be an atheist, especially anything that leaves tangible atheist evidence. I'm about as atheist as they get but I live in the bible belt where "probability" is that you're a Jesus ass-kisser. Most of my casual acquaintances just assume I'm a christian, in large part because they're conditioned to think that without Jesus people would be a bunch of depraved self-serving misanthropes with Satan tattoos on their foreheads.

 

[Rhea]

I give them the benefit of the doubt, until they demonstrate that “without god(dess)(es)” isn’t what they are. If they start talking about god being unfair, or they say they are angry with god, then you can realize they don’t lack a belief in gods, they lack obedience. Now, to be fair, some of them think that’s what atheism means, and you can hear them say I am “just angry with god” when I say I’m atheist. So in that case they aren’t atheists, but they’re lying to themselves, not me.

 

[Wiploc]

But rationally, one should doubt that this guy was an NFL coach and all the same reasons for doubting this apply to doubting that Strobel was an atheist.

That's just not a valid comparison at all.

I liked it. I thought it was clear.

It is possible to check the claim that someone was an NFL coach, especially today. Any former NFL coach would be able to name the team(s) for which he coached, the dates, etc., and these claims could be verified (or shown to be bullshit) with little else than a Google search. Being an NFL coach leaves tangible evidence of a very specific coaching history.

And being an atheist doesn't. But the analogy is still clear.

Even without that history, if somebody in a bar tells you he is a coach, and demonstrates an unfamiliarity with the job, "I put everybody in the line, no quarterback, no hiker, no nothing. My boys were all blockers, and they just drove the other team off the field, and then I walked out myself, picked up the ball, and carried it over the goal line. That was a great day," you get to confidently assume he is lying.

We never hear an atheist say, "I'm an atheist because I hate god and don't want to obey him." But we frequently hear Christians claim they used to be atheists for that reason. It sounds like a lie. It sounds as much like a lie as the "NFL coach's" stories.

A reasonable person can conclude that it is a lie.

 

[Lion IRC]

... I still hold that he could even be an atheist (or a Christian) who has found that repeating in books and speeches to theists what they believe and want to hear is a dandy way to make a lot of money.

WAIT! You mean...
An atheist pretending to be a Christian just to make money

 

[skepticalbip]

... I still hold that he could even be an atheist (or a Christian) who has found that repeating in books and speeches to theists what they believe and want to hear is a dandy way to make a lot of money.

WAIT! You mean...
An atheist pretending to be a Christian just to make money

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.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

... I still hold that he could even be an atheist (or a Christian) who has found that repeating in books and speeches to theists what they believe and want to hear is a dandy way to make a lot of money.

WAIT! You mean...
An atheist pretending to be a Christian just to make money

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.

It's ALMOST like religion has no effect one way or the other on moral behaviour and is actually just a complete waste of time.

 

[Lion IRC]

... I still hold that he could even be an atheist (or a Christian) who has found that repeating in books and speeches to theists what they believe and want to hear is a dandy way to make a lot of money.

WAIT! You mean...
An atheist pretending to be a Christian just to make money

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