Consciencebound

Posts Tagged ‘Atheist’

This is an article by a guy who lost his Christian faith as a result of studying Islam. I can relate to his questions as I ran up against many of the same problems. When you are committed to a certain religious belief system (in my case it was Evangelical Christianity), you are not looking for ways to debunk it. You know it is true already and almost everything you see in the world is CONFIRMING evidence to you. You see answers to your prayers, you see and hear of miracles, you see how your worldview makes the most sense of the world compared to other worldviews. Sure, you know about other religions that have similar claims that yours does but you KNOW they are false. THOSE people are deceived but of course I know the one true God. And it seems so obvious too. Miracle stories in another religion sound like superstitious nonsense or wishful thinking, but they are anything but confirming evidence for this other religion. Miracle stories in My religion are solid evidence that it is true.

But then one day you look at things a little differently. You take a second look at your own beliefs from the perspective of someone who is OUTSIDE of your faith and it looks… well, different. This is what John Luftus calls the Outside Test for Faith and is a good exercise for anyone to do, even atheists.

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Below is a conversation that I had via email with a friend of mine from the past that i have not talked to in a long time. He had just heard that I had left the faith and I believe him to be a very sincere man. I wanted to try and point out how easy it is to be blinded by our own beliefs that we do not listen to people who are opposing us. I know that I have done this myself and am probably guilty of still doing it but I want to try and be as open as possible to what the truth is and that means truly listening to people’s questions and thinking them through. This can be a hard thing to do especially when you have Read the rest of this entry »