Our spring break is almost over. I hope none of our students wasted their time fishing for souls for Jesus. Follow that link; it’s a story on Salon.com of a young man who goes undercover at Liberty University and goes on a Spring Break proselytizing trip to Florida. It’s depressing — mindless zealots on fire for the Lord wander the streets, asking people if they’ve found Jesus, and almost always getting turned down. Even the few who say “Hallelujah!” are unlikely to join the church. This is truly desperate angling.
The issue of post-salvation behavior is an interesting one. I thought, when Scott was teaching us to evangelize, that we’d be told to do some sort of follow-up with successful converts, if we had any — guide them to a local church, maybe, or at least take their contact information. But there’s no such procedure. If Jason had decided to get saved (he didn’t), Martina would have led him through the Sinner’s Prayer (“Jesus, I am a sinner, come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior” or some variant thereof), she would have let him know he was saved, perhaps given him some Bible verses to read, and they never would have seen each other again. Cold-turkey evangelism provides the shortest, most non-committal conversion offer of any Western religion — which, I suspect, is part of the appeal.
If the new believer backslides, though, like Jason was suggesting he might, Christians are likely to believe that he wasn’t really saved. False conversions are a glaring wart on the face of Christian evangelism. In the book that accompanies our Way of the Master program, I found several sobering statistics about the percentage of apparent converts who stay involved with the church in the long term, including one from Peter Wagner, a seminary professor in California who estimated that only 3 to 16 percent of the converts at Christian crusades stay involved.
Coincidentally, I received an account of a similar attempt at hooking a Pharyngula reader, EH. It didn’t work.
Dear PZ,
So here I am walking on campus during finals week. I hadn’t slept much and was crashing off my study drugs, yet I had about an half an hour to spare before my next final. A girl approached me asking if I wanted to take a survey, which was not an uncommon occurrence on campus, as many students collect data for class studies this way. I asked her what it was about, so that I could refuse if it was something commercial. She said it was about beliefs, so I assumed it was for a sociological or psychological class project. I told her sure, but when she turned her clipboard to take down my answers as she asked them to me rather than let me answer them in private, I realized I had been tricked!
First question: “Are you going to heaven when you die?” Possible answers: “yes” “no” “I hope so”
I responded with a bewildered stare. I was so taken aback by the situation, but immediately responded “I don’t believe in heaven.”
She turned the clipboard away and marked “no” (which was hardly my answer!)
Then she asked me what did I believe (not from script). I said “I don’t believe in anything.” She looked a little bewildered herself, but more as a sort of incredulity at my brash straightforwardness than an “I’m gonna win a soul for Jesus!” way.
I called her out on her disgusting deception: “I thought this was a survey.” She said that it was, but that if I answer “no” to the first question (or any question presumably), then “we stop there” and discuss. She continued, off script, to ask me what I thought would happened to me when I died, especially if I died tomorrow, not understanding my statement that “I don’t believe in anything.”
I laughed and said, “uh…my body will stop functioning and then some people will come and take away my remains and put them in the ground and have a funeral, I suppose.”
In her airy high-pitched saccharine voice, she said, “Oh…okay, and how do you feel about that?”
I looked around, trying to grasp onto some sanity. I said “I feel okay.”
This poor miseducated girl could absolutely not understand my answers. How could I feel okay when she knew that I was going to burn in hell if I rejected her specific box o’ creed? She pushed further, “Really? So you don’t have a problem with that or anything?”
My eyes went as wide as an antebellum minstrel actor in blackface (is that racist to say? I just took a class on black film…), but all the while I remained composed. I responded, “No, do you?” (which apparently she did.) Her glaring eyes became wider than mine and her voice became twice as saccharine and half an octave higher. “Okay…” she circumvented my remark with “so do you want me to help you get to heaven?”
After I picked myself up off the ground and dusted off from being smacked with a gigantic paddle of stupid, I calmly and deliberately explained, “No. I do not need help getting to heaven, because there. is. no. heaven. to. go. to.”
Becoming more convinced that I was a minion of Satan, but giving it her last shot, she said “Oh okay…so have you always kinda felt that way?”
Me: “Yeah, pretty much.”
The encounter thoroughly disrupted my concentration for my subsequent final….I felt victimized and violated! How dare someone come up to me on a UC campus and pose as someone conducting class research, then after luring them in, interrogates them on a list of items until she strikes upon any point that the victim differs with her stubborn and restricted beliefs, and then tells them that their beliefs are not valid, that they need the spiritual guidance of some holier-than-thou douchebag stranger to “get to heaven”? Had I been in my right mind and not caught off guard, I would have explained to her that, if heaven was real place, why would I want to go there and be with a bunch of Christians assholes (or whatever it may be), holding hands and singing songs with Jesus, being forced to worship some petty, incompetent god? To me, that is unthinkable torture. I would definitely be rooting for Satan in the End Times. Speaking of End Times, The End, and thank you for listening to my story. (The nerve of some people!)
This is one of the virtues of the New Atheism, that loud and vigorous movement that says it is OK to laugh at religion. It makes it that much harder for evangelicals to set the hook — we are moving towards a culture that does not take it for granted that being “saved” or “born again” are good states to be in.
None of these stories get to the next stage, though — what happens once introductions are made and they’ve brought you into the vestibule of the church: the love bomb. They make you feel intensely welcome, shower you with praise and affection, and strain themselves silly to make you feel part of the group, to build those social bonds that make you a committed and appreciative member.
I’ve been there. It was also a spring break, 33 years ago. I was going to school at DePauw University in Indiana, and too poor to go anywhere exciting or to fly back home to Seattle, so I was resigned to spending a week in the quaint small town of Greencastle, when a group of evangelical Christians asked if I’d like to go on a trip with them. They were going to paint and clean up a church camp in the woods of southern Indiana, and it would mean a week of camping and hiking for the cost of a little manual labor. I jumped at the opportunity.
I was deeply loved (in a chaste and non-physical way, of course) for a whole week.
It was great! I enthusiastically slapped paint on that old remodeled barn, and I cheerfully helped make smores, and I happily joined in the cleanup afterwards. I was there for a week in the woods. And when they told me how much Jesus loved me, I shrugged and said I don’t believe in a Jesus. When they told me they loved me too and there was a great place in the church for such a helpful young man, I said thank you and explained that I wasn’t a church-goer at all. And when they sang hymns in the car, I just quietly read my book. I enjoyed myself, but the other members of the group seemed completely baffled by me — their evangelizing tactics just seemed to bounce off. If their goal was to win a soul for Jesus, they were robbed; if they wanted willing help to get their camp refurbished, they got it. But I can now say that a confident atheism can also make one resistant to even those tried-and-true brainwashing tactics of the evangelical church.
This is what religion is: they angle for fresh prey, and once they snag you, they swallow you up. You are embraced in the rugae and crypts of the gut of the church, all warm and pink and soft and wet and intimate, and each of the members is like a little villus — a multitude of villi brush adoringly against you, each telling you how wonderful and delicious you are, and each leeching away a little of yourself, your individuality, your independence. It feels good as you are slowly absorbed. Then at last, when your will is gone and your dependence is complete, you are digested by the body of Christ, and there you will be for all of your productive years. Eventually, when you are old and no longer active, you’ll take residence in the colon of the church, serviced by occasional visits from a priest or a volunteer, in hopes of one final ka-ching from your will…and then your empty husk will be shat out into the church graveyard, with the leavings of other past meals. The churches of your community all ought to be viewed as predatory animals, some lazy and sated, others restless and hungry, but all eyeing you as potential fodder to keep the beast alive.
Don’t fall for it. A robust atheism can make you immune to their lures, though, and it can even make you indigestible. It’s no wonder that the religious hate and fear us — we diminish their success at hunting, and of late, we’ve even begun to target them. The tables will be turned, and we will be pawing at the dismembered, empty carcasses of their churches soon enough.
Wow, I feel all invigorated after reading that!
Same percentile as the abstinence only crowd sticking to their ‘vows’?
Whoa! Saturday morning creative non-fiction class! I love it, PZ. Not only will a church go after the final ka-ching from the ailing, old, and dying, they consider a funeral to be an opportunity to bring ’em to the Lord. At my father’s funeral, the preacher veered from talking about the dead man to encouraging the attendees to join the church, get saved, and so forth. Thanks to my having shown up at my own father’s funeral I was visited by the Lord’s minions for years (yes, years). They’d show up at my door and invite me to Sunday services, offer Thanksgiving dinner, etc. They left tracts replete with grammatical and spelling errors. I don’t like being forced to be rude, but I guess that’s how you get them to stop.
the Amway of religions.
I hope EH passed his exam.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. That’s exactly what the churches do.
That was such a good story. I have had two similar experiences one with Christian Evangelicals and once with Bahai. Both were weirdly seductive in their tactics, and both involved carting a group of teens out and showing them just how well they could fit in and be loved. The honest truth was I didn’t mind them at all, but nothing they did was going to make me believe them. I’m not that insecure.
It occurred to me at one point that if I wanted to pretend to be some one else I could be that accepted anywhere so long as no one got to know me too well. Then I got pretty depressed.
I’ll pass, thank you.
Brilliant piece. The quote-miners are gonna love “we will be pawing at the dismembered, empty carcasses of their churches soon enough,” but I just can’t seem to care about them as much anymore. When Bill Donohue is the public face of our critics…
No wonder Spring Breakers are now flocking (and just why is that the favored verb for what they do?) to Jamaica, Cancun, & the Bahamas…
Nice metaphor “Digested for Jebus!”
Should I feel guilty about lightly proselytizing against religion and mystical belief? I try to justify it by telling myself there is no greater good I can do for the world than lessen the religiousness of whoever I can.
I live in Utah, where we have some kind of church that regularly sends kids out all over the world in their, sadly, attempts to garner new and greater numbers, The Moomans or something like that, op perhaps it’s the More Mans, as in what they need. Anyway, I have traveled all over the world, well mostly the northern hemisphere, and I run into these poor deluded kids everywhere I’ve been.
What do you say to these kids?
I know some of them just do it to please their parents, or other reasons, my best friend once went on a “mission” as they call it, to Asia. Ten years later we went back as teachers, and his second experience involved a lot less preachin’, and a lot more, um, fun. So I ‘saved’ one soul.
I think traveling is one of the best ways to open the minds of the young, too bad they lived such a shrouded life when on their missions.
What amazes me about this is both the apparent devotion of these people, and an almost simultaneous feeling of just going through the motions. In their own minds, they are doing the most important thing any human being could ever hope to do – win souls for God. On the other hand, there’s almost an assembly line mentality where they’re just supposed to “plant the seed” to as many people as possible, and then they can just dust off their hands and move along.
On one hand they claim to deeply care about people avoiding hell, and on the other insist that it’s really God’s job to make the message stick – or else blame the recipient if it never does.
It makes them feel better internally that they can “care” so much about complete strangers, and also lets them feel a sense of accomplishment with – in the grand scheme of things – a very limited amount of work. The “caring” about the people they’re proselytizing to just ain’t real deep.
So they take a little abuse from people? Big deal. Guys who used to sell vacuum cleaners and encyclopedias could easily claim the same.
Remember, Religion is the number 1 cause of Atheism :):)
Joe the Peacock: How to Actually Talk to Atheists considers some of these points:
When I was eight, the brigade from a large church came to our neighborhood to speak to our mothers. The church agreed to save our children souls without the parent’s having to leave the house. Every Sunday we would pile into a school bus and be driven 45 minutes away to attend Sunday School. For the life of me, I can’t remember what I was taught there. But, I do have the everlasting memory of the giant bowl of candy they provided us both to and from the church.
– perhaps it’s the More Mans, as in what they need
Huh! If they’re fundy Mormons, they need fewer mans and more wimmans, right?
I particularly enjoyed the “love bomb” bit. That is exactly what Christians do when they detect that someone has even the slightest bullshit-detector. They do it to kids especially….taking advantage of the human condition.
We are in a war of ideas.
Except for Tarvu. Really, it’s so easy to join!
for Kingasaurus at #13
From what I understand, the apocalypse can’t happen until every person in the world has heard the name of Jebus.
It’s another example of how these people have no ability whatsoever to apply logic to any situation…I guess we are shit-out-of-luck to be witnesses of the apocalypse.
From the article: “I was just sitting there on the curb, and I started thinking about how sad this all is. How sad it is that billions and billions of people are just dying without Christ. I hate that Hell is a real place, and I hate that sin came into the world through Adam, and most of all, I hate thinking about how all we can do — all anyone can do — is try to tell these people that there’s hope out there. They might not want to listen, but we have to keep telling them. For the rest of our lives, guys, we have to keep telling them.”
I hate that this girl’s been lied to, probably since she was a toddler, given a watered-down version of the Bible to get her hooked. The only way to combat this is to continue to push the message that it’s ok not to believe in this shit. By wearing scarlet A’s and reading atheist books in public and when asked questions about religion to deny all gods. Loudly.
Yesterday a woman I volunteer with said to me, with a sigh, that she should probably go to church, as she hadn’t been in a while. She asked which church I go to. I said I don’t go to church, I’m an atheist. She asked me what I believed in. I said I don’t believe in any gods. She asked me, I kid you not, “Oh, are you a Scientologist?” She had no idea what atheism meant. How can you not believe in something? It boggled her mind.
We talked about it at length and she told me that her church (she’s a Roman Catholic, I had a LOT to say about that) did nothing for her, that it only caused trouble, as she’s dating a Muslim, that their priest gives her the creeps and that she doesn’t feel anything when she kneels in church, no “Holy Spirit” entering into her or anything. Yet she had no clue that there is this wonderful option to Just Quit Religion.
Later in the day, I had to play a board game with the kids (I volunteer with autistic children). The board game teaches them how to deal with life situations and also to recognise various symbols, such as “flammable”, “poisonous”, “fire extinguisher”, etc. One of the cards had the Islamic moon and star. The children were 6 and 7 years old, but the board game was age appropriate, so I kept the card and tried to talk them through it to the best of my ability (“You know in your church there is a big cross? Well, other religions have other symbols…”). The next card was a star of David. Turns out we’d reached the ‘religions of the world’ section. The teacher came to me and asked me what that was. She grew agitated when I showed her the cards and asked me to remove all religious references from the board game except the Christian cards. From now on, the children will only be allowed to discuss Easter, Christmas and the cross. Icky.
Last anecdote: I gave my boyfriend “Misquoting Jesus” to read. He read it at university and a girl approached him to ask what he was reading. He told her and she grew quite upset and ended the short conversation by declaring how tired she was of “you people” always forcing [your] godless opinions down everyone’s throat.
So I guess we should keep it up. I’m ordering more Dawkins merchandise soon. I’m considering gaining weight so that my ‘A’ will be even bigger.
@12 and @15 They speak for themselves…and show their true stripes. This is the text from a handout given to Mormon missionaries:
HOW BADLY DO YOU WANT TO TEACH A SECOND DISCUSSION?
You haven’t done all you can and your duty is not complete until you do the following:
Sometimes, even after a beautifully spiritual First Discussion and an effective “I Care About You” call-back, we find people who refuse to hear the Second Discussion. This is because the Spirit has left them and they probably have been confronted by someone who has challenged their interest in hearing more. First of all, set the appointment no more than 48 hours after the First Discussion and sandwich your “I Care About You” call-back inbetween.
Nothing is more persuasive than genuine love and caring. We will not really be successful as missionaries nor as ministers of the Gospel in general until we learn to truly love people and love the Work of the Lord. And, when we truly love, we are vulnerable, vulnerable to rejection and having our feelings hurt – they go together. It takes courage and dedication to something higher than self to be willing to chance hurt feelings or embarrassment so that someone else may be blessed. There will be no dialogue more persuasive to someone than a genuine, loving, caring pleading with them to allow you to teach them more of the Gospel.
If someone rejects you at the door with a comment like, “I have thought about it and decided that I have my own religion and I don’t really want to hear more,” say to them the following (adapting the dialogue to your own personality without losing the main points):
“We are truly sorry you feel that way. We felt so good when we left your home after our first visit. We have looked forward so much to seeing you again. We are excited about the message we have prepared to give you today and know that it can really bless your life. If what we have to tell you is true, it could be the most important few minutes of yourlife. If it isn’t, then you will at least have learned a little more of what we believe. So, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. And we promise you, if after you have heard the message about Jesus Christ that we have for you today, and you still don’t want to learn more, we will honor that and not come back. Surely that sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Please let us have just a few more minutes. May we come in?” Then move forward as if to enter the home. When you enter the home, show forth great love and warmth and concern for them.
Now, this is not going to get you into every home, but it will get you into more homes than you otherwise would. If every team in the mission were to do this it would add at least one more second per week per team. That would add up to at least 60 additional Seconds which equates to 5 more baptisms. Now, I ask you, is that worth putting your heart on the line; is it worth a little courage and putting your own personal comforts behind. There is not valid excuse for not pleading with all your heart and soul to be allowed one more chance to teach someone the Gospel. Do it! Every day!
I’m rather surprised that nobody has tried to reason with them as to how rude they are behaving.
Kay:
Sounds fine, the only problem is I guarantee you everybody they harassed at spring break had heard of Jesus. If they really want to speed they apocalypse, they should be flying to the Amazon to witness to indigenous tribes who would say “Jesus who?” Otherwise, they aren’t impressing me.
All this nonsense is just to make themselves feel better. Did their good deed for Jesus, and all that. Final results aren’t up to them, nor psychologically important to them in the final analysis.
The real purpose of such evangelism trips is not really the conversion of others, as witnessed by the absence of follow-up. It is sucking the evangelizers into thinking of themselves as superior individuals with the “true” sacred knowledge who will be persecuted for their beliefs by ‘outsiders’ without the “truth”. IOW, it is about reinforcing the cohesion and superior “otherness” of the faithful.
Kingasaurus:
Thus, the complete lack of logic. Nor will they be able to get all the hindis, muslim, buddhists, etc to hear the name of Jesus.
There’s a crazy-lady at my school (big into conspiracy theories and wild stories) who has gone on missionary work for her Church down into Mexico. Don’t you love how much time Christians spend trying to convert each other to their own brand?
I had never really considered the evangelism-predation link before. What a great concept!
A few weeks ago an entourage of Jehovah’s Witness members came knocking at my door. I answered and they told me about their new church location, etc. I said, “Oh, is that where pastor PZ Myers leads the morning service?” They just looked at me with a puzzled yet eager expression. I continued, “PZ is a fine and upstanding pastor who has changed my life for the better, for this I thank you.” The door was closed and I could see them muttering the words PZ Myers to one another. Job done.
They can’t save all souls, not without help from their lazy god who doesn’t seem to care anyway. Also, does it never occur to them that since they take it all on faith, there’s an infinite of alternative possibilities, making it extremely unlikely that their religion is the right one?
PZ – can you please try to make at least one post without bragging about what school you went to?
Sheesh.
All I got was some banana bread from a couple of church ladies. It had bits of eggshell in it. I feel robbed.
The alimentary metaphor made this physiology teacher smile (even though there’s only one ‘g’ in ‘rugae’). Now I’m all trying to figure out the metaphorical equivalents of the common bile duct and Peyer’s patches and the pyloric sphincter.
I fell hook, line and sinker for the love-bomb as a young adolescent. One of my swim-team buddies (one of the smartest kids in our nondescript, nonfamous, and uncelebrated high school, now a minister, I believe) convinced me to go with him to a meeting of a group called Young Life. It was fun! There were funny skits, cool kids, goofy games, attractive girls from older grades, singing of Dylan tunes with guitars, and then an entertaining monologue (read evangelical proselytizing) by a very charismatic leader. And nobody made fun of me, even the attractive girls from older grades. I kept going back, and eventually begged my parents to send me to Young Life summer camp in the heart of the Adirondacks. There the girls were even prettier, the leaders even more charismatic, the fun even funner, and the proselytizing intense and constant. As a somewhat unhappy 15-year-old nerd, I bought it, gave my life to Jesus etc., started reading and making marginal notations in my Bible, had a private “quiet time” of prayer and Bible study every evening…all nine yards. Within a year my rational side had reasserted itself within, I backslid, and was soon introduced to our friend the Cannabis plant.
Long story but the point is that sometimes their angle works…for a while.
Hey, it is a good school. Dan Quayle graduated from it.
A local evangelical church used “The Love Bomb” on basic trainees at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, when I was there. Take a bunch of recruits who haven’t been allowed a moment’s comfort for almost two months, truck ’em out to a church, stuff ’em full of candy and home-cooking, let them go bowling, watch movies, play basketball, call home, nap, etc., and then at the end of the day stuff ’em into pews and preach at them until they give their souls to Jesus.
The tactic was enormously successful. In my company of about two hundred recruits, maybe ten still refused to be saved by the end of service, and about half of those ten only refused out of loyalty to their individual faiths. I was one of the other half, though after two hours of being told I was going to hell, I was almost willing to fake a conversion just to get Pastor Porky to shut the fuck up.
ooops, I read “ruggae” as “reggae” and was all set to convert to the Most High Church of Marley and Tosh. At least I have the “incense”.
Hell, when I was going through the same drill at Fort Benning, GA, they brought the Jebus freaks to us (without nearly so many trimmings).
Badger3k
“There’s a crazy-lady at my school (big into conspiracy theories and wild stories) who has gone on missionary work for her Church down into Mexico. Don’t you love how much time Christians spend trying to convert each other to their own brand?”
ROTFLMAO! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Here in the Philippines, Mormon missionaries are trying to convert the predominantly Catholics. They are helped by a lot of born-again Protestants. The Catholics are responding with their own ‘charismatic’ movements. Notwithstanding, mudslingings are common on both sides. Same god indeed! Go figure!
Two points:
#1: I love getting all the great vocabulary here. Biology isn’t my subject, so all the words for all the body parts etc. are wonderful new words. I just wish they were spelled correctly! It’s “rugae” not “ruggae” (source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rugae )
#2: On “love bombing”: When selling anything, it helps to show what’s best about what you are selling. The best thing about organized religion is the community of people you join. (That is also often the worst thing as well.) The defense here is not to reject the concept, but to have our own free thinking groups (Camp Quest, Secular Student Union, etc.). Wouldn’t it be great to “love bomb” a missionary and bring her over to our side?
. . . pawing at the dismembered, empty carcasses . . .”
Gawd you’re beautiful when you’re angry!
Just the other day I was approached by two Mormon women who were looking to save my soul. They got quite excited when I inquired as to how they could be sure they had the right religion and gleefully explained to me that they knew The Book of Mormon was true because in it God makes a promise. The promise – that if I read the book of mormon, I would know in my heart that it was true. I can’t say I was overly impressed but at least it was a shade better than saying that the book is true because the book says so. So I reasoned that if the Book of Mormon is the word of God, then according to the book itself I should feel the truth of it when I’ve read it and presumably if it doesn’t feel true… One of the women must have caught on to where I was going with this sort of thinking and in a brave attempt to save her faith from the cruel lashings of a testable hypothesis told me that, of course, I couldn’t expect it to happen right away…like just as soon as you have read it you are not going to necessarily believe straight away….
*sigh*
This was definitely one of your better-written posts, PZ. :D
My experience of this kind of evangelism in the UK is pretty much identical i.e.Christians pretending to do surveys. At my university the group was called the ‘Christian Union’ (which ironically doesn’t unite Christians).
I express more views about this group and my experiences with them here if anyone is interested:
http://fatpie42.livejournal.com/6538.html
I had the same thing as happened to EH done to me when I was hurrying to a final exam; nice, pretty girl approaches, asks me to answer a few questions about religious beliefs for a “study,” leads off with “So, do you believe in God?” and proceeds to reveal that she’s just trying to get butts in the seats at some local church.
I like to think I stood my ground politely and articulated my religious position quite well to someone who probably doesn’t even entertain the thought that atheists can be happy and well-adjusted in life.
As a former fundy, I’m familiar with most of the evangelical tricks people use to suck you in to their churches. They’re all disingenuous, they’re all condescending, and they’re all guaranteed to put one in some awkward social situations. Just say no, kids.
PZ
“This is one of the virtues of the New Atheism, that loud and vigorous movement that says it is OK to laugh at religion. It makes it that much harder for evangelicals to set the hook”
Exactly!! I am so glad that atheists nowadays are more open to confronting religionists. But I am much happier that one of the most effective weapon of choice that atheists do employ is RIDICULE. It catches the believers out-of-balance when they are told that what they believe in is downright comical!
A similar thing happened to me as EH, twice. The first time I was in a hurry, but they said it would only take minute. The first question was whether I believed in Jesus Christ died for our sins. I said ‘no’ and left. I was angry that they misrepresented themselves.
The second time I was in a better mood. This one, while seeking converts, was much more interested in a discussion. He told me why he converted. I told him my reasons for not believing in Christianity, or religion in general. While misguided I though he was actually quite pleasant.
I still get a few idiots knocking on our door. If they are wearing a jebus lapel pin, I just stare at the pin for a moment, and then send them off without even listening to them.
Best. Metaphor. Ever.
and ‘villi’, that’s the plural of ‘villian’, right?
There is a famous incident in the history of the Mexican missions in the American Southwest in which the presiding missionary, writing to his bosses back in Spain, discussed the high levels of young children who were dying from disease and starvation since the arrival of the missionaries. He points out that this is a sad thing but that this particular cloud had a silver lining since he was able to baptize many of the children before they died, thus reaping a considerable harvest of souls for the church. And, even better, since these children were dying right after ‘conversion’ they didn’t evn run the risk of becoming sinners! Sounds like an evangelical’s dream.
You’ve captured the workings of proselytisers perfectly, PZ. I watched in horror as these methods sucked in friends of mine who extremely intelligent and, before their conversions, independent minded. I tried to point out to my friends the tactics being deployed against them but to no avail. It was heart breaking. In turn, they have now taken up the cause of recruiting new souls for Jesus. They tried for several years to recruit me but eventually gave up once they realised I was god proof.
NiroZ | March 21, 2009 11:48 AM
Because they don’t think they are being rude. The “saving” of souls is they greatest work true believers can undertake so any means are justified. Have you ever tried reasoning with a fully inculcated faith-head?
Years ago when my father got turned into a born again Christian (he got better), I went to church with him. It was a happy church, and they were nice people who liked to sing lots of songs at the beginning of the service, so I helped to hold the hymnal and sang along. The preacher was keen about everyone feeling happy and full of joy, so he did a fine cheerleader impression and before long everyone was hugging each other (well, mainly men with men, and women with women, for propriety you understand) and feeling good about praising the Lord. It was obvious that this was their thing. They really liked getting together and doing this.
Then came the praying to god and thanking him for saving our souls. I wasn’t much interested in this so I just sat there noncommittally, with my eyes unclosed, respectfully watching it all. Dad’s wife’s parents, seeing me sitting there uninvolved with it all, were distracted from their thankfulness and leaned over and whispered, “Would you like to know the Lord?” I merely replied, “No, thank you.” They were horrified! They actually gasped!
Turning away, they put their heads together and began praying really energetically for salvation for me (and I suspect, protection from me). I could understand it; it was very disconcerting for them to have an unbeliever amongst them, but there was a certain point that I was not going to go beyond even out of politeness. They were rather cool toward me after that.
I’ve had other similar encounters with preachers and such. Situations where it is obvious that they have been warned of my apostasy, and when they can’t find the right words to get me “SAVED!” they become rather thoughtful, sometimes almost moody. Why would someone reject the lord and go to hell when salvation is right there before him?!
As for me, I always feel like I’m in a big damn insane asylum.
Pope condemns sorcery, urges Angolans to convert
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090321/ap_on_re_af/af_pope_africa
because i know you love the catholic church soooo much.
I had an interesting thought about this tactic of ‘surveying for Jebus’. Wouldnt this fall under the fraudulent practice of ‘bait and switch’ and therefore illegal?
Also, I always thought that the Scientologists were the first ever to use this approach. I got mugged by one of their automaton one time in Sydney. Back then, I was still young and inexperienced to the ways of the world but thankfully I also had a morbid fear of strangers asking me to follow them to their place so that they can talk to me even more. Hell, these guys are creepy. I mean, really really Tom Cruise creepy!
The article about spring break evangelism reminded me of the people who come to protest/evangelize here in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. I can feel nothing but contempt for these people who clearly understand NOTHING about what it is they are protesting. Here is a more reasonable analysis of Mardi Gras, as told by a more reasonable local: http://higherthings.org/myht/articles/life_issues/mardigras.html
or there’s this entertaining story of confrontation: http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0802/letters-from-new-orleans-jesus-pulls-a-right-cross.html
Are you sure shat is the past tense of shit?
I feel really sorry for that Valentina girl from the article who had the breakdown and was was crying and saying “I hate that Hell is a real place, and I hate that sin came into the world through Adam”. All I could think of was how much less miserable she’d be if someone was able to get through to her that hell isn’t a real place, and that there isn’t such a thing as sin!
Yah, I’ve had the old “so… you believe in nothing?” asked of me before.
I think my favourite answer to this is to say “Well no, technically speaking I don’t believe in anything. It sounds like you’re the one that’s managing to believe in nothing. There’s a difference.”
I love that metaphor at the end PZ. But if the churches are large predatory beasts what does that make us? Cyanide pellets?
Maybe we’re like wasps, landing on the backs of the Churches and laying out eggs in their bodies. Eggs made of doubt and skepticism, which as we know is anathema to religion.
PZ, you should consider featuring a “Saturday Morning Sermon “ for atheists on your website. If you do, I promise to shave, comb my hair and don my finest raiment each Saturday before reading it.
Now that made my day…no, my week.
PZ’s commentary churned up some mental creativity. Imagine if you will a bus (with appropriate advertising) full of atheists stopping at populated community churches with a guided tour elaborating on how the religious beast lures and feeds upon the weak only to expel them into earthen pits with nothing more than a slab of marble and etching to mark the duration of each meal. All to the horror and shock of the minister and his flock. It would be like the creation museum in reverse. Priceless. Onion?
I’ve never been approached by people like these but if this happens, I’ll try to convert them to pastafarianism.
Prazzie #21
That was what struck me most from the article, too. There she is, balling her eyes out because she’s been brainwashed into believing that an all powerful being will torture people forever if they doesn’t do whatever it wants. She clearly hates her religion, but she’s too terrified to let herself doubt.
ok, three more things to add
when I was in cologne for Karneval last month, there were a handful of Jesus-booths. they were pretty much abandoned, as opposed to the bratwurst and gluhwein stand, which required great physical effort to get to without getting squished or trampled :-p
damn that blockquote fail… ah well, it’s still readable :-p
I *loved* the “gut of the church” image. Marvelous!
The evangelizing trip as described in Salon sounds familiar. It’s one of those humiliating initiation events for the kids who went on it. They will now stay in the church forever, as getting out would require admitting just how stupid they once were. I do pity the kids, though.
When the one girl says, “I hate that Hell is a real place, and I hate that sin came into the world through Adam”, she is getting really close to hating Christianity, for the reasons I hate it. How anyone can justify the invention of Hell is just beyond me. And, “For the rest of our lives, guys, we have to keep telling them.” It’s the least she can do, really. If her religion has invented Hell, she’d best be working her butt off, 24/7, to try to make up for it. But leave me alone, thanks.
Oh, yes, Campus Crusade for Christ. I used to tear down their posters all over my university’s campus. That was my crusade.
Speaking of campus, the school paper once published two stories on the same front page. One was about some Christian group’s missionary activities on campus. The other story was about drug dealers on campus. I wrote a letter to the editor, “denouncing” the cruel juxtaposition of the two, and decrying the similarities that had been most foully played-up. The editor caught the sarcasm, published the letter, then caught shit from all sides. Ah, happy college days.
There are some good strategies to make the evangelist parasites leave you alone. #1, ask them out. Really! “Whatcha doin’ for lunch tomorrow, I’ve gotta run right now, but let’s get to know each other!”
Worst case scenario is that they’ll say yes, confident that their chastity problem will keep them safe with some amorous stranger while they evangelize. Don’t show. Stand ’em up. Problem solved.
Best case scenario, they’re the same sex as you. Not only will they avoid you, they’ll tell their evangelist friends to avoid you too. Problem solved.
BTW, never, ever, give these people any contact information or your last name. They WILL hunt you down. It’s really annoying.
My neighborhood suffers from occasional missionaries. Odd, that, since it’s a mixed-race middle class outlier of a major city, with no discernible nonchristian component. (Even the folks who run the Chinese restaurant are Christians.) Except me, of course.
It’s mostly JW’s and nondisclosed Protestants. We never seem to get Mormons, though. I think they don’t come to places where too many of ‘those people’ live. Incidentally, all of the missionaries are African-American.
I enjoy talking to them, pointing out the weaknesses in their talking points and showing a greater Biblical literacy than they possess. JW’s particularly, since they disapprove of education, have trouble dealing with me and must invariably bring in an older supervisor, who is no better at it. I back them into a corner, they realize that they have no more time and promise to return next week.
I never see them again. I like to think some of those young men might have a chance at thinking for themselves because of it.
I hung out in Greencastle, Indiana in the early eighties. It’s remarkably isolated and insular, just like most of Indiana that isn’t Indianapolis.
Badger3k:
Hey, it’s better than having them knock on my door.
Now if I could just get the Jehovah’s Witnesses to stay away…
I’ve had more than one encounter with this type of incident, most recently from a co-worker (who left the agency and is now a campus for christ missionary, who had been home-schooled, christian college, whole spiel). We actually got along fairly well–she was a decent social worker, we both had a set of clients that had the same issues so we’d vent about that, but we’d also have these semi-regular sushi meetings, where she’d try to comprehend the strangeness of my beliefs.
She really couldn’t get past the fact that my father is a minister (who supports evolution and opposes evangelism), and I’m not christian.
“But, how does your father handle that?”
“Uhh…he’s my *father.* He loves me and accepts that we have different beliefs. And I’m his daughter, so I love him and accept that he has different beliefs. End of story.”
What really hit me was the conversation we had about her experiences in college, where she ‘battled demons’ and ‘saved souls’ as a warrior for christ. She tried to explain to me, using a similar analogy to the cure for cancer bit. “If I see someone about to fall off a cliff, and I do nothing to save them, and they die? Then it’s my responsibility. Their life is on my hands because I did nothing to save them.”
It’s difficult to argue logically with someone who truly believes that they are saving someone’s life, that they are a hero, the same as a fireman or lifeguard. Particularly when you’re battling years of indoctrination, from birth to high school to college. It’s a hell of an uphill fight.
Most of your points, minus your personal account (duh), are here in this video called:
Start a cult – A howto
There’s almost something evolutionary about it, isn’t there?
I hear the Catholics have an exciting new service: If your son or daughter is at spring break, call 1-800-POPE-ASS. A designated celibate will sneak into their hotel room and steal their condoms. (Though, being catholics, sometimes they don’t know what a condom looks like.)
Those spring break kids? They actually DE-converted me.
I was raised by my parents to be a devout, unthinking, dogma-embracing Catholic. And it worked, until my first collegiate spring break. I mean, up until that point I had never, ever missed a Sunday of church.
Then, on Spring Break in Panama City, Florida, a good friend of mine and I were approached by a bunch of those jeebus freaks who offered us free rides to the bars in exchange for “hearing the word”
Until they found out my friend was Muslim.
At that point, they went into this tirade about how she would burn in hell for worshiping a false god and all that. Being Christian myself, I didn’t shut them down the way I should have, but I still told them the old “judge not” bit and stormed off.
That day, I realized what my superstitions looked like to the rest of the world. And I vowed from that day on I would never again refer to myself as a Christian, lest I be mistaken for those kinds of assholes.
Once my eyes had been opened that far, it wasn’t long before reason had won me over. Today I am an atheist, and proud to be free of religion for good.
So I guess I should thank those spring break christers for being so completely disgusting that they managed to deconvert a previously devout Christian
@22 (Lynna): I just wanted to clarify that that material you posted about is neither current in Mormonism, nor churchwide.
Back when I served my Mormon mission some 15 years ago, they still taught “discussions”. Since then, they revised the teaching system, consolidating the missionary teaching material into one manual (titled something like “Preach My Gospel”) and ditching the rote memorized discussions.
The material you referenced is a handout posted by makurosu on the exmormon message board. To the best of my knowledge, that handout was specific to his mission. We never got anything like that in the Missionary Training Center.
This being said, the materials individual mission presidents used with their missionaries were all rather similar back then. Some of the stateside missions and mission presidents were very gung-ho on sales techniques. Those of us who served outside the Americas found such techniques to be less effective and so we saw less of the cold-calling crap.
Having been a proselyting Mormon, let me say that there are few things that can challenge a Mormon’s faith more than serving two years trying to convince the French to give up wine, cigarettes, coffee, and extramarital sex.
Trust me, it doesn’t work. :)
And yeah, they scored some strong points which allowed me to eventually embrace atheism.
The last time this happened, I let them talk me through the whole thing including accepting their JC. Afterward I told them those words were meaningless to me, so I had no problem saying it.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen them as speechless as then. Apparently there’s nothing in their playbook to counteract following through on the conversion and then dismissing it as meaningless drivel.
This post seems a little out there.
Probably the best piece of writing I’ve seen on a blog in a long time. Thanks PZ.
Also, the Salon article is great. I sure hope that person doesn’t get their cover blown by his spring break article… I’m sure there will be even more to tell if he completes the semester at Loony Uni.
I have another story, tangentally related.
25 years ago, in college, going through a rough time and lacking coping skills, I made an effort to blow my own brains out.
Honestly, there’s nothing like almost dying to get your head together.
Just previous to that event, I had had a roommate who was a pentacostal youth minister, and if that creates a picture in your mind, be assured that it is perfectly accurate. I got the Hell out of that room as soon as possible, telling him off in the process. I wasn’t clever about it, and barely remember it, since it wasn’t high on the list of things causing me emotional trauma at the time. Point of fact, I erased him from my memory. Maybe he was in some of the destroyed brain cells.
About ten years after, as a customer service agent for a pager company, I received a service call, which turned out to be from him (he was employed in some capacity at a corporate funeral home).
To what became my horror, he recognized me, and told me the story of how, while I was in a drug-induced coma in intensive care, he used his clergy credentials to come in and pray over me. He avoided my parents and skipped out when I started to make a habit of being conscious again.
I never knew. But he had treasured this his whole life because he, that bastard who knew I despised him, took fucking credit for my continued survival, thanks to his prayers. And he was so very glad to have saved my life for Jesus that he had to tell me.
Needless to say, I did not renew the acquaintance, and I hope his pager caught fire while in his pants.
I did that once, and it didn’t work. Down at the university of Arizona, some preacher was just screaming at everyone who walked by about salvation and hellfire and Jesus. So I approached him and suggested that maybe his behavior was counterproductive, and perhaps he ought to just talk to people, or better yet, let everyone decide for themselves, without the annoying screeching.
Once he found out I was just a well meaning atheist, he turned his back on me, ignored me and continued to scream at passerby.
Then his assistant came over to try to convert me, suggested that my parents abused me, ‘otherwise how could you hate god this much?’, and generally behaved like an ass.
The worst part was when I actually argued his points with him, and he stopped responding, instead saying, “I love you” as a response to everything I said. Finally, when a crowd gathered and started laughing at his responses, he ‘had to go’.
Excellent piece. I recognise the story, I got loved into the church back in the day, and it took me about 4 years to realise I’d been conned, and another year to extricate myself.
It’s amazing how they are able to commoditize what they think is that the most important thing in their lives. Of course, hucksters like Comfort are only the latest in a long time of soap sellers, but in America this approach has been especially successful (at least in the shorter term), from the 19th century onward. I’ve seen a lot of this from the inside, and it have never ceased to be amazed how willing the vendors are to deceive, humiliate, & coerce susceptible individuals. … anything short of physical torture to “make the sale.” [Well maybe they “waterboard” prospects in secret–think of it as enhanced evangelization techniques … ]
And for all the good that Jimmy Carter has done in the world, he is also the American president that let these proselytizers in the front door of our culture as a by-product of exploiting the “born again” label for political purposes. It has taken 30 plus years to fully expose the shallowness of the evangelical culture (with Haggard et al. providing the most recent assist).
I have to say that I’m a little surprised that in the Salon story that our intrepid reporter was not singled out as the scapegoat for their lack of success. This is usually par for the course, especially for those that see the devil everywhere. They have to find the Judas that betrayed them.
@Heatherly
Interestingly, this means that she holds God 100% culpable for the evil in the world. Maybe you should point that out to her, if you see her again.
The Problem of Evil: delivering two thousand years of Fail to Christianity.
#44As a former fundy, I’m familiar with most of the evangelical tricks people use to suck you in to their churches. They’re all disingenuous, they’re all condescending, and they’re all guaranteed to put one in some awkward social situations. Just say no, kids.
At my campus there’s a particularly sick group that uses (no other word for it) a horribly burned man in a wheelchair as an evangelism tool. I was eating lunch one day and this guy wheeled the burn victim up to me and asked me if I would take a survey. I asked what about and he said “spiritual views”. I said no and they left. I’m convinced they attack at lunch to put you off your food and make you feel bad so the pitch will be more effective. A few weeks ago I saw the burn victim again but this time being wheeled around by a different dude. I guess they draw straws or something to decide who gets to take wheelchair guy out each time. Twisted.
Craig @ 74, Thanks for the correction regarding the Mormon missionary training. I’m not one, so I didn’t know it wasn’t current info. It struck me as right because the “Elders” that came to my door a couple of weeks ago actually tried walking into my house after basically inviting themselves in (and this on their second visit, too). I had to quickly body-block them, which I think shocked them — but no more than I was shocked by their taking my generally polite conversation to be an invitation. They’re just misguided young guys, often just out of high school. I find it difficult to be rude to them. Just before the almost-forced-entry, the eldest of the two man-boy elders got a glazed look in his eye and started quoting from what sounded like a memorized spiel to me. He lost his individuality and started for the door. Very strange, and disturbing.
I was in Seoul a couple of years ago, waiting interminably for the signal to change at a pedestrian crossing, when a young Korean woman walked up to me and started a conversation. Being a single, middle-aged male, I am not immune to the charms of being chatted to by young asian females, but it soon became clear that she was recruiting for some religion or other when she asked me if I wanted to live forever or some such.
Feeling a little contrary at having been suckered into the situation, and because a friend of mine had recently died from cancer after a long struggle (part of the reason I was in Korea, in fact), I suggested that it might actually be a very good thing to die.
The look of confusion on the young woman’s face was a joy to behold, as she tried to grapple with this alien concept and get back on script. Fortunately for both of us, the lights finally changed, and I was able to cross the road. I like to think that my statement burrowed into her brain, keeping her awake at night, questioning her faith… but it probably didn’t.
I’m always surprised when proselytizers fail to notice the serious conflict with proselytization: if their efforts make a real difference, then that means that salvation is sometimes nothing but a matter of luck.
Let’s say that there is a person, Joe, who would eagerly respond to their message if he heard it, but that morning, they are sick — and they never run across Joe. Is Joe therefore damned?
The usual answer is no. If Joe is receptive, then God will make sure that Joe will run into another evangelist, or somehow get another opportunity to hear and accept the gospel. And yet, if that is true, then it follows that every ‘Joe’ who would indeed respond to their evangelizing doesn’t need them. God would never allow anyone who is the sort of person who would want to love Him and accept Jesus to be lost simply because of anything they did. They can quit right now — and not a single soul would be lost. It’s not possible.
What they do makes no difference.
This throws them into cognitive dissonance and they go into damage control mode. They’re not used to looking at the situation as a Big Picture. Instead, they try to tell you about themselves or other missionaries who have had an effect, made a difference, won a soul for Jesus, whatever.
But they can’t do this anymore, because they saw the Big Picture. If people who are saved by missionaries would be damned if they hadn’t run into the missionaries, then God allows salvation to rest on the whims, foibles, and abilities of the missionaries. In other words, from the point of view of the damned, it’s a matter of luck. Get a sick missionary, get a bad missionary, and too bad. No salvation.
The missionaries hold a power as great as God. They can decide who gets saved, and who does not.
That bothers the heck out of them. The alternative bothers the heck out of them.
The “third way” lies in making the claim that the missionaries do make a difference — but only to themselves. They are not spreading the gospel to convert people (such people will be saved or damned no matter what they do). Instead, they are spreading the gospel as a sort of performance art for God, and a way of testing themselves and performing The Great Commission. What they do is like following the orders of a drill sergeant: dig a hole, and fill it up. The hole means nothing. Nothing at all. It’s a total waste of time — which is the point. The point is to display obedience, and make themselves obedient. Missionary work is wasting time, for God.
That, too, bothers them. As well it should.
My sister will graduate from Liberty in May, and I’m pretty sure she went on a similar trip to Chicago during part of her Spring Break.
I can’t believe my parents tried to get me to go transfer to Liberty. ::facepalm::
@No.1 I definitely agree! It felt like a nice shower. Cold but invigorating.
Very good indeed.
And about the reader’s tale of failed conversion attempt, I suffered something similar in similar circumstances. Although it was in Spain and the evangelist was an Opus Dei member (my wife, then my fiancée, thought, at first, that he was a gay guy trying to seduce me due to his weird insistance and behaviour…).
But the setting, circumstances and such were identical despite the other glaring differences: just before a crucial test when my only focus was to study, study and more study. And, of course, my logical “don’t you have a better moment for that?” question was answered by the typical “there is nothing more important” crap.
But now that I thought about it, it was my fault. Because then I tried to be too civil, too politically correct, too hippy really (that was the time…). Now that the rough biker has substituted the loving hippy attitude, I get almost no sollicitation (pun intented) at all. If I had read this piece then, I would not have been bugged and lost precious time at such a crucial time to the bugger.
Ah, and he tried the “love bomb” thingy too. Although, at an Opus Dei residence, it was creepy as hell and felt like the kind of “love” one can get from Slaanesh or such ;-) Brrrrr…
Sastra,
I’ve decided that most religious folk love being somewhat confused about such things. It makes them seem more like soldiers following the orders of an infinitely wise general whom they can’t possibly hope to understand. They don’t have to think so much that way.
it seems the Muslim Fundies I work with have not received the “Love Bomb” memo.
If not for workplace anti-harassement rules it would be hard for this infidel to work in peace.
I was in San Francisco about 25 years ago waiting at the light. A young man came up to me, Bible in hand, and asked me if I had the time. I looked at him, crankily and said “NO!” He walked away, rather confused. Later, as I replayed the event, I realized that he had looked at my wristwatch before asking me.
Oddly enough, I have never been since been approached by any street evangelists. I must give off some sort of atheist “aura” or something.
I would like to be approached, though, just so I could say that I think that Heaven and Hell both seem like eternal torture for me. Agony, after a hundred years or so would eventually just be more and more and more and more of the same. Similarly, an eternity of bliss would drive me just as nuts.
Give me an end, I say, and that is why I am not so upset that neither Heaven nor Hell are real. In fact, I am rather happy about it.
The really sad thing is, the evangelicals shouldn’t even bother, because the bo-hunks and spoiled bimbos who bullied the nerds in school and slept with anything with a haircut are always the first to become self-righteous, shallow “born-agains” bullying the intellectuals in life. Just give it time. The party animals in my school joined the bible brigade and now go to Republican rallies and Rotary club meetings to rid our society of people like us.
Whereas I had a waitressing job during spring break. (There were no “waitrons” back then.)
Last time I remember being approached was several years ago while riding my horse. I had to ride along a busy road for a short way to get access to trails, and as we went along I noticed the horse swinging his head side to side looking behind him and low and behold there were to morman missionaries walking behind us.
They went into their spiel and I said ‘No!” and cued the horse and trotted away. My best get away ever!
Can`t be much of a god ,if you have to peddle it door to door.
OT, but I was struck by EH’s casual reference to crashing off his study drugs. Is it really that prevalent now? I feel old….
What does this remind me of… what…
hmm….
what…. could it be…
huuuuhhhh……
OH YES! I know!
CULTS!!!!!!!
The tale of attempted seduction is a scary one. I had no real idea how nasty this could get until I say the film ‘Ticket to Heaven’.
It struck me that no-one unaware in advance could have withstood the onslaught directed at the unsuspecting young man in the film: no sleep, constant ‘exercise’, no time to be alone or quiet or collect one’s thoughts – a blizzard of subtle message. Accept, capitulate and we stop. If you don’t start swinging fists at that point, you’re sunk.
If only true believers would intuit the “do unto others” message and be as demure in their proselytizing as they’d like all those other cults to be.
For example, if you wouldn’t want a Scientologist inflicting their “truth” on you, don’t inflict your “truth” on others.
I usually enjoy talking religion with the proselytizers I run across, possibly because I don’t feel vulnerable at this stage in my life. As long as they’re polite, I don’t see them as any more predatory than people handing out pamphlets on “Save the Whales” or “Save Tibet” or what have you. There’s a kind of cultural taboo on religion which you don’t find in politics or other areas, It says ‘don’t try to persuade anyone to change their mind, because that’s automatically an attack on their private beliefs.’ Attack? Not necessarily. I say place arguments over religion where they belong: out in the open, same as anything else. The arguments are where our strength lies. We don’t have to rationalize being wrong ;)
I’m much more bothered by the people who sneer and scowl and roll their eyes at atheism, but refuse to engage in any kind of dialogue or discussion on the subject, because they want us pushed under the table. Atheism as a minority viewpoint automatically loses, if it’s treated as unthinkable, and so far outside decent discourse that it neither deserves or gets any hearing at all.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky. Most of the proselytizers I run into seem to be pretty bored with the usual “sorry, I have my own religion” responses, and are rather pleased, curious, and happy to run into someone who actually wants to argue with them. In my experience, it usually ends with smiles all around (though their smiles seem a bit forced and too bright I think.)
They are thrown by atheism, though. I remember the Jehovah’s Witness who, upon being told that I was an atheist and secular humanist, said a cheery “okay then. First, you believe the Bible is the word of God, right?” I had to lead her gently back further than her mind had hitherto considered. Not clear on the meaning of the word “atheist.”
Seeds of doubt were sown in me at seven, when I asked my mother why there were no dinosaurs in the bible and why the science I knew didn’t agree with genesis. Yes, at seven. She mumbled something about the bible being symbolic and teaching lessons, but I KNEW it was a verboten topic – I was a daughter of the parish priest. At eight, I was sent to one of those vacation bible schools – many of you know what is coming next. After a puppet show about Pilgrim’s progress, which I didn’t understand at all, there was a break. We were given the option of going out to play or staying for a very special lesson. I felt duty-bound to be one of the goody-two-shoes, and stayed – for a hell fire and brimstone sermon, and a passionate exhortation to come to Jesus, all calculated to terrify us and get us tearfully to confess our sins. We were ordered to kneel on the floor with our elbows on the pew seats. I must have been the only one not sobbing his heart out. My point? I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong; I can remember the event vividly to this day. I was EIGHT, for fuck’s sake, and did not have the vocabulary to describe what was going on, which was of course, naked child abuse, evil manipulation of unformed psyches. Richard Dawkins was absolutely dead on. I did not even know the word atheist at the time, but that was one of the many events that led to it. That pastor is long dead of course, but how I wish I could thank him for helping me on the road to atheism.
This is a fascinating thread.
One could, I suppose, witness for one’s non-faith.
“What is your name, dear? John? John, do you realize that you could sleeping in right now? Yes, or simply strolling around, enjoying this lovely weather, without feeling obliged to give some ridiculous spiel to passing strangers who think you’re a drip? Oh, don’t say that, you know they all find this sort of thing utterly rude. No, you’re not saving them from sin, they’re perfectly nice people–what sort of sin do you think they’re up to? Sex, they’re having sex? Well, you could be having sex too. Do you have a girlfriend? No? That’s too bad, but I’m sure a nice young man like you could find someone suitable if he stopped hanging out with the sort of people who waste their spring breaks actively avoiding a good time. Liberty University? Good Lord, what are your parents paying for you to go there? $24,300 a year, plus books? Where are you from? Here in Florida? You know, FSU costs something under $20,000 for residents, and a lot less than that if you’re living at home, and it’s academically superior–well, so’s every state college in the country, and they’re all ‘way cheaper for residents than Liberty. How on earth did you end up there? Really? So you’re paying thousands a year just to avoid being exposed to other beliefs? What would you have to do to transfer? . . . “
as a former Catholic I must say that line just does NOT sound right… what flavor of christianity has priests (as opposed to pastors) that can officially have daughters?
The Challenge
When every a pair of teenage Mormon boys would approach my home, dressed alike in their black on black with a blindingly white shirt and a large black placard affixed to their jacket; I would say “no thanks” and close the door as soon the bell sounded. Just once I decided to pursue the issue is bit.
This time the bell rang and the first and introduced himself and his companion as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – the Mormons. I said” I’m glad to meet you”. “I am a stone atheist”. “I am sure of my position. “I’m not an agnostic but an actual atheist”. “Have you ever met an actual atheist”? The first looked kinda startled and said something like “I don’t believe there is such a thing as actual atheists”.
I went on. “Not only am I an actual, hard over, atheist but I am an apostate from your church”. “I have been ordained (which is true), fell away (I like to think I “saw the light”) and actively preach AGAINST your church”. “Now that you know this you are obligated, by your church and by your sacred books to attempt to kill me (true)”. I then offered to ‘throw down’ right now and fight it out with both at once or one at a time.
They both turned to leave saying “Have a nice day” which was fine with me because I’m about 50 pounds and 50 years over my fighting condition and would not have made much of show of the ‘throw down’ I’m afraid.
New batches of them turn up from time to time but they never seem to know about my challenge to that first pair.
Just as well.
I got approached by a Mormon mishie on the street a couple years back, I think because I was wearing two-tone hair, a black t-shirt with some band logo on it, a pair of black jeans rolled up, and long red-and-black striped socks, and he’d likely not seen a mutant like me before. Before he could get going on talking about religion, he made the mistake of asking me what I was listening to, so I started talking to him about Hebrew hip-hop. I think I confused the snot out of him. Good. He needed his mind expanded a little bit.
Russian Orthodox?
Some Catholic men who already have families can petition to be allowed to become priests. I knew someone in grade school whose dad did this, and succeeded.
About the Salon article, I wondered too if the writer would be outed and harrassed by it. However, since he already has a book deal I’m not too worried. I’m consumed with envy, but not worried.
Also, the best line:
“Lord, I pray for the old man who spit on me.”
teehee!
I mean, of course, “outed by and confused about it”. If I can’t be King of Typos, I will still aim to be Queen of Non-Agreeing Clauses.
When I was about ten years old, a pair of Witnesses came to my house during the peak of an Alabama summer day. I asked them whether God could make the internal angles of a triangle add up to anything other than 180 degrees.
I didn’t get much of an answer.
When religious zombies (name your brand) knock on my door to “save me”, I always tell them I’m glad that they are coming to me “to be saved” and that so far I have succeeded converting everyone who enters my house. When I then tell them “please come in” they run away from my house as fast as they can like devils with their tails between their legs (could not resist this religious metaphor).
I did the same thing with telemarketers (before the “do not call registry” took the joy out of my dinner time): “Hi, thanks for calling. I’ve been waiting for your call. I have a wonderful potion of snake oil to sell to you. It’s only $9.95. Can I have your credit card …” and they then hang up on me.
You have to fight these idiots with their own weapons.
For those of you wondering, pastors in the Episcopal church are indeed given the title of priest, same as the Anglican communion in the UK. I can’t say the life of a PK, though a little strange, was all that bad. There was no religious indoctrination at home – it was all confined to church services. But then daddy was an atheist too, a condition he mentioned about a year before he died. It explained a lot.
On another topic, the Pope is reported to be saying:
(Source: http://tinyurl.com/cv2njf)
Isn’t he really saying “our myths are better than your’s” ?
Yeah, YAY! for the New Atheism.
Most of my life I was extremely shy, and when people would ask me about church or Jesus or whatever, I would try to avoid the subject. If evasiveness didn’t work I’d make some kind of noncommittal statement about not really being into religion. That would give them hope, and they’d bug the shit out of me. I often walked away as angry and frustrated with myself as with them.
Within the last few years I’ve gotten so fed up that I’ve become a firm believer in retaliatory rudeness; I don’t owe anyone any more tolerance than what they show to me. And just last year I got an “A” tattooed on one shoulder and a Darwin Fish on the other. I highly recommend coming out in the most blatant way; it’s like being able to breathe freely for the first time ever.
People almost never confront me about religion anymore, except from a safe distance on the internet. And the exceptions are extra-special crazy–they must be crazier than I am!–so their opinions are irrelevant to me.
Long ago on a Monday morning walking in to lectures, an evangelist asked me “What do you think makes a good christian?”
I said I’d let him know when I’d met one…
I’ve only come across the Mormon’s once here in Canada, when I was 15. There were two of them standing on the sidewalk and I had no choice but to walk through them to get where I was going, but I think I made a mistake in stopping when they tried to hand me a pamphlet rather than just blowing right on by. As soon as I did so, one of them then stepped in front of me to block my way while the other stood to the side and they began alternating rapid-fire questions about whether I knew the word of God and quoting (what I imagine was) verse to back up the previous question. 30 seconds later, sputtering and disoriented, I stumbled away from the conversation clutching a pamphlet. My brain shut off seconds into their performance, and the pamphlet was a decidedly fifth-rate production, poorly xerox-ed and plastered with images of what a pre-schooler would imagine heaven to look like, but I don’t think they really cared. As many of the above posts show, the goal of these people is to expose people to their message and “let God do the rest” (He’s taking His time with me, apparently). I still have the pamphlet, lest anyone try to claim that I would be turned if only I looked at their arguments. I have looked at the arguments, and have found them wanting.
This reminds me of last semester, I was in a hurry because I was late to class. Two guys dressed in really nice clothes were on the walkway to my class, and asked me for a moment of my time. Since I was in a hurry, I just said, “Sorry, I’m satisfied with my current religion.”
To which one responded, “Oh, we don’t want to talk to you about religion. We just want to talk to you about Jesus.”
…I really wish I’d had the time to stop and chat with them, because I’d have loved to hold a conversation about how good of a carpenter Jesus was, and how nice and caring he must have been, all while completely avoiding any attempt by them to link it to the Church of the Latter Day Saints (which I was told by a co-worker they were from).
Though my favorite method of dealing with those types is to treat switching religion like shopping for car insurance. “Well, sure, you’re offering me eternity in Heaven, but Islam is offering that and some nice bonuses on top of it. But then, Buddhism has that no-risk deal, which sounds really nice too in this dangerous world…. Though Hinduism and Taoism both have those very flexible optional packages….”
John @#66- “There are some good strategies to make the evangelist parasites leave you alone. #1, ask them out. Really! “Whatcha doin’ for lunch tomorrow, I’ve gotta run right now, but let’s get to know each other!”
Best case scenario, they’re the same sex as you. Not only will they avoid you, they’ll tell their evangelist friends to avoid you too. Problem solved.”
This is two tons of weapons grade awesome!
Put your own sexual leanings aside, and hit on every same gendered missionary you can find, just to watch their heads explode. Better yet, go out in pairs and try to recruit goddists for a threesome.
If it’s a Mormon, you’ve hit the trifecta.
When I was about ten years old, a pair of Witnesses came to my house during the peak of an Alabama summer day. I asked them whether God could make the internal angles of a triangle add up to anything other than 180 degrees.
I didn’t get much of an answer.
Tsk. Don’t they teach these Witnesses any non-Euclidean geometry these days?
The last time the Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door, two middle-aged ladies were their minions. I sussed out their identity at once, so I greeted them with, “Usually, the agency sends the same two strippers, but you’ll do.”
cpsmith #41
I’ve read the Book of Mormon. It’s written in a bad imitation of the King James Version (KJV) Bible. Unfortunately, Joseph Smith wasn’t familiar enough with Jacobian English or the KJV to imitate it properly. This website describes some of the problems of the Book of Mormon.
I have never known “in my heart” that the Book of Mormon was right. I know that it’s one of the sillier pieces of fiction I’ve ever read.
After centuries of westerners’ evangelical missionary programs to the ‘brown countries’ of Asia, their program of revenge has been launched. Late last year I was approached by a young asian woman who explained she was part of a missionary group from S.Korea sent to Australia to witness. I was a bit gobsmacked.
An easy riposte to JWs, especially if you’re short on time:
‘I work for the blood transfusion service’ (or whatever it’s called in your neck of the woods).
I agree with you PZ! Evangelism goes far beyond freedom of religion, it it intellectual assault and should be banned.
#124: Uh, no. Freedom of speech. Ring a bell?
If I have the time I usually try to out-crazy them. If they ask if they can talk to me about Jesus I tell them ok, but only if I can tell them about the Immortal God Emperor of Mankind who sits upon his Golden Throne. I’ve got a good spiel but they hardly ever want to listen.
An easy riposte to JWs, especially if you’re short on time:
Apparently, an even easier riposte, that will really freak them out, is:
“I am an apostate.”
“Okay…” she circumvented my remark with “so do you want me to help you get to heaven?”
Oh, would I have had an erotic and anatomically-detailed response to that question…
The evangelizing trip as described in Salon sounds familiar. It’s one of those humiliating initiation events for the kids who went on it. They will now stay in the church forever, as getting out would require admitting just how stupid they once were. I do pity the kids, though.
Nah, not necessarily. I was one of those; I was even involved in planning the trips. I got better. What I do feel regret about now, though, is all the people who had to deal with us.
My son just returned from Panama City, Fl. where he said the proselytizers were on the beach trying to save the co-eds. They were offering rides to those too inebriated to drive themselves. He said HE questioned THEM for over an hour until they gave up when they couldn’t answer.
Carlie, cool! Glad to hear it.
I’ve heard that in some Spanish-speaking countries, Mormon missionaries are referred to as “huevos”, because there’s always two of them.
For those of you that only went to high school, “huevos” properly means “eggs”, but it’s slang for “testicles”.
I had a Christian fellow come to my door one time, trying to tell me God’s truth about the evils of astrology. It took me a second to figure out what he meant, then I gave him a big smile and said, “No, thanks, I’m not superstitious.” He gave me a big smile back, said, “Glad to hear that,” and went away happy.
I think I understand what the new atheim is about now that I read this post. I was always wondering what people found in it that was so compelling. I get it now
Knockgoats:
If they had, I would have turned around and asked whether God could make a triangle in Riemannian geometry whose internal angles did add up to 180 degrees. (-:
Two months ago a car came up my long driveway, an elderly couple in front and what appeared to be several people in back. The lady got out and walked across the yard through 12-18 inches of snow, against a strong snowy wind. When she came up to me, she smiled and sweetly said she would like to talk about Jesus with me.
I responded: “Are you with the INS? Jesus Cardenas did work here, but when he couldn’t show a green card I fired him. The little shit stole some equipment too. When you catch him let me know!”
I think she forgot about the cold and snow for a minute.
Facilis SP #132 wrote:
How would you define “the new atheism” — and what makes it different than just ‘atheism?’
(and ok, what is the SP for? Survivor P-something?)
Yeah, Freedom of Speech allows the reigitards to bug me. But it also permits me to tell them to piss off when they bother me.
Welcome to America.
I have to admire your attitude. But then, it coincides with mine.
Facilis,
You recently mentioned you are reading a book by Vox Day. I was wondering if you agree with the following of post of his:
Why women shouldn’t vote: Reason 345 & 346
A story of non-Christian conversion attempts, just to balance the comments a little.
When I was in college in the mid-1970s, the Krishna types would trawl Penn Central Station, carrying their tomes of Krishna’s wit and wisdom with those colorful book jackets. One earnest fellow intercepted me as I crossed the gallery toward the LIRR lines, stuck the book in my hands, and started his sales speech: for a small donation, I could have this wonderful book, blah, blah …
At the time, I had just enough cash in my pocket for train fare and a Coke, so I told the guy, sorry, I have no money, but I like the book. Could I keep it anyway?
With that, he ripped the book from my hands, and stormed away, looking for someone of better financial means.
Earnest fellow, but a complete stooge for his brand of religion.
Newfie #4
the Amway of religions.
Evangelical churches and MLMs like Amway have a lot of similarities. I’ve been to a couple of MLM meetings with friends; it’s like going to a fundie church to worship making more money. Creepy.
I know of that, but I thought that wasn’t done anymore. silly me, for thinking the RCC has changed much since medieval times ;-)
thanks. not knowing would have bugged me all evening, and the picture of someone having a catholic priest for a dad was jarring.
I recall how, in my youth, I took the Scientology “survey”. I only understood what was going on towards the end.
—
I’m kinda sad the proselytisers have stopped coming to my place. The Jehovah’s Witnesses were the nicest, a couple of polite elder ladies.
But then, I quite enjoy an argument.
I’ve had similar experiences to both of those shown in this post. The community college I’m currently attending has tons of these people going around trying to win souls for jesus. Even more amusingly some friends and I were able to get the school to allow us to set up tables right next to their ones, oh which we labled happily, “be happy about being alive without believing in invisable friends” of course they filed a complaint against us which got zero recognition of which I am aware. So since then they have taken to using this “survey” tactic. I’ve found an amusing meathod of dealing with them though. I give them the answers they want for a few minutes, then inform them that I was testing it and would like to change a few of the answersm, but I still tell them I’m going to heaven. But the heaven I am going to was created when I giant space tortise did battle with Mars (the god) to which they regularly remark that I’m not taking them seriously but have no come back when I tell them that they just aren’t taking me seriously when they think any possible religion could be right and more likely wrong then anything.
Use that new atheism, lets flat out laugh in their faces!
I cruised the seawall from 71st to East Beach in Galveston Friday afternoon. Water was warm but air was a little cool at night. Fundies were hitting East Beach hard. Ran into one while I was trying to harvest anenomies at End of the Island for my native saltwater tank. I got some cool macroalgae.
Galveston is the spring break destination for poorer students from Dallas or Little Rock who have to get there in their cars in a hard day’s drive. Hotel rates are cheap post Ike.
For the next three months plenty of sargassum will be washing up on shore. You can find critters from all over the world by shaking the seaweed out in a bucket. I put the octopodes back into the water. Only the crabs seem to survive in my tanks. They seem to enjoy living in my soon to be illegal calupera plants.
EH’s account makes me wonder which UC he was at. As a graduate from the Irvine campus (probably the most religious among the lot, living as it does in Orange County) it sounds quite a familiar occurence. My mind automatically filled in the square in front of Langson Library as the location and picked out one of the faces of the evangelists who accosted me. Of course, it probably wasn’t UCI, or else EH is a freshman, because otherwise “evangelist” would have been his first thought.
I got used to not even acknowledging the presence of these people after a few encounters, some of them pretty disquieting (if the “love” hook doesn’t get you, they have no compunction about falling back on the “fear of damnation” hook, and suddenly this smiling face is literally threatening you with torture). You could always spot them, some tone of voice or subliminal cue.
In four years I only ended up having one pleasant conversation with somebody who wanted me to take up religion. I told him I was a nonbeliever, he didn’t get weird, I never got threatened, we had a little chat and I went on my way. I still have the [i]Bhagavad Ghita[/i] he handed me.
Lynna@#22 : http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/evangelism_predation.php#comment-1492016
That is straight out of a standard sales manual. I sold home security systems for a sleazy fly-by-night place for a couple months and it is obvious their techniques are identical.
Whorin’ for the Lord, just like all the other evangelists.
I’ve had the survey trick used on me 3 times. The first 2 I just ended up arguing with the questioner, but the third time I was ready for it:
Them – If you die tomorrow do you think you’ll go to heaven?
Me – Yes
Them – How do you know?
Me – Well, you see, I am God
Them – Huh? What makes you say that?
Me – Well, it was simple really. I used to believe the Bible when I was younger. I knew praying was talking to God. But then I realised I was talking to myself, and therefore I must be God!
StealthDonkey,
Thanks, you just reminded me of Spider Robinson:
You could always spot them, some tone of voice or subliminal cue.
It’s the eyes. A little vacant (robotic, even), and a little not right in the head. Sort of like the look in the eyes of that guy who used to watch little girls playing in the park that my mother wouldn’t let me go to without her.
Sometimes, there’s the sensation of the kid who likes to pull wings off flies.
Either way, I’m figuring out ways to avoid them.
Think I will use that stripper line #120 mentioned upthread. Added bonus, being a chick, that line will really freak out the female bonded pairs. And it’s usually women, unless it’s the Mormons. Then that could be fun, too. Although I know from experience that you have to be careful with hitting on guys that young. They sometimes take you up on it.
Don’t ask!
First question: “Are you going to heaven when you die?” Possible answers: “yes” “no” “I hope so”
My answer would have been, “You don’t have my reply on there.”
Religitard: Huh?
Me: My answer would be, that if the Eternal Wonderland really exist, I certainly hope I don’t go. What a horrible idea–eternal life with a punch of smug morons singing the praises (probably off-key) of a megalomaniacal sadist! It’s all awful! Every bit of it!”
I read “little villus” as little virus.
Excellent description, PZ. I will save it for future use.
The spawn had returned from the firing range and was cleaning his .357 magnum on the dining room table. The gun was oily, his hands were oily, and the doorbell rang. He could see through the door that it was JWs (or similar). He put the gun behind his back and answered the door. They started the spiel and he brought the gun out from behind his back and said, “Hey, come on in! I’d love to discuss things with you.” They beat a hasty retreat, practically triping over themselves to get away. Toooooo funny.
When we lived in the boonies for a while, my stepfather intentionally put his .45 to their heads when they came to the door.
Normally, this wouldn’t be acceptable, but my stepfather’s thinking was that where we lived was so isolated and difficult to get to that anyone who showed up at the house uninvited (and who ignored the no trespassing signs at the main gate, and at the house) was up to no good.}
I have fun with soul predators these days, because they are wimps. The first time, I caught a couple of predators outside our high school who were doing the good cop-bad cop routine, distributing tracts from the back of a van. I caught the bad cop and lit into him with some hard questions, “How old do u think this book is?” 2000 yrs? No it’s just a few centuries old – it’s the KJV right? And so on, and pretty soon he was all riled up, then came the “don’t u want to go to heaven?” when even that didn’t work out came the hell part. Since I was unmoved, the guy pretty soon gave up!
That’s a tough question to answer… there are so many pickup lines that could be used in response.
“soul predators”…
:)
Nice turn of phrase there.
I like doing the Mark Twain thing to them when they ask me this. I tell them I get the concept of heaven, but I’m kinda curious about what you’ll do all day. And of course they talk about singing the praises of the Lord–to the Lord.
So I ask them why they aren’t singing, right at this second? No, don’t say it’s because you’d look silly. What do you care about what other people think. You have the Lord on your side. So sing, dang it. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. And don’t stop singing. No, you can’t sleep. Or eat. Sing! Sing–don’t do anything else. Sing! You don’t get to be tired of it, either. You have to do it all the time.
Forever.
Funny, they can’t get away from me fast enough when I’m demanding that they sing. For pure meanness once, I followed a pair when they walked away, and kept asking them why they weren’t singing. That’s what they want to do, forever, right? Why not get a start on it now?
I have a No Solicitors sticker on my front door. Yesterday, a well-dressed older fellow with a large satchel came up to my door, and rang the doorbell. *ding ding* I ignored him. He did it again. *ding ding* I still refused to answer the door. I thought: Could he see me through the picture window? Why did he think he had the right to ignore the No Solicitors sticker I had on my door. A minute later, I hear a rustling sound, and he was stuffing a tiny little pamphlet through the crack between the front door and its frame.
Jehovah’s Witness.
That’s a tough question to answer… there are so many pickup lines that could be used in response.
hmm, that could be a fun direction for this thread to take…
“so do you want me to help you get to heaven?”
crude:
“Sure!”
*Zip*
“You can start right now!”
next…
Predators indeed.
I’m of those the “love bomb” doesn’t work to well on. The reason for this is that I have a deep aversion to people who invade my personal space uninvited, whether physically or psychologically. Being pushy is a 100% guaranteed no-sale with me.
Hard sale of anything from insurance to seduction to religion, feels like an attack to me. And the problem is that I have a very hard time being rude enough for them to leave me alone. And being stressed for long streches of time gives me migraine. However I have found that this combination neatly solves problems in the end. For some reason these people don’t come back after you’ve vomited on their shoes.
Aquaria, that’s hilarious. “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” filled me with glee. It should be required reading for everyone who believes in heaven.
We have a jubus saves church on main street, and they are rampant. It’s nice to hear how other people deal with this plague.
Not merely robust atheism, I think that any robust sense of self will provide some vaccination. Evangelism thrives on finding needy people; anybody who is not needy can choose to walk away. I’ve been in the potential convert situation too and what kept me from wanting to join was the simple thought that I couldn’t willfully close my eyes to knowledge of how the world works… at that point, I had come to trust what I knew about science and I did not feel that their explanations about reality could offer anything to the accuracy of my world view without actually diminishing my grasp on reality.
12th Monkey @84
Much like the burn wheelchair burn victim I watched a couple comprised of a spry young lady and a withered old lady (75ish) with a bad case of arthritis making the rounds on the cul-de-sac where I live. This poor old lady took a whole minute to make it up the 3 steps to my door and clearly in a lot of agony. Perhaps the old lady had personal drive….perhaps she was being pushed to do her share of saving before she expires…I don’t know but I can’t help but think her pain was trivial to the younger woman. When the knock came, the door answered, the introductions and purpose laid bare I simply told them “Thank you but I don’t subscribe to superstition”. Like the wheelchair burn victim a clear case of abusing one’s empathy for another to get the foot in the door. Disgusting.
@163
Some of them use young children, like the JWs in my place or the kids you see in Jesus Camp (If you’ve not seen that you should. It’s deeply disturbing). Sometimes when I see them I feel like whacking the adults in charge around the head, screaming “How dare you ?” the loudest I can.
Religion is a dangerous infection that manipulates its host into doing the most despicable things. The infected are like the zombies you see in movies, except worse because they eat your brains in a much more subtler way.
Once,in the San Francisco airport on my way back to the east coast,I was approached by two religious soliciters.Being in a hurry at the time,I got completely annoyed and told them to “Go fuck off!”.
As I walked away,I heard them yell after me,”You must be from New York!”.
I felt proud,but at the same time I wondered,”How did they know?”.
@Sastra
You should read Vox Day’s “The Irrational Atheist”. He talks about “The New Atheism” and distinguishes betweeen the high church and the low church atheists.
The new atheism is a new movement. Usually the adherents are fans of Dawkins or Harris or Hitchens. They accuse religious people of suffering from delusions, irrationality and/or mental illnesses and impairments.They also accuse religion of being evil. They wear that big red “A” and try to be offensive and controversial too.
It was just about my performance in “Survivor :Pharyngula”. PZ should come up with some award for the people who survived.
@Feymaniac
I do not agree with everything Vox Day says. I just enjoyed how he shredded those atheist arguments in his book with “Occam’s chainsaw”.
It is really good.
Facilis the Fallacious Fool. The fact that you recommend Vox Day says a lot about both your lack of intelligence and basic fact checking. We consider Vox Day and his inane opinions to be a huge joke. Recommending his brand of inanity coats you with the same tar and feather brush. Another case of you needing to shut up about a topic.
Your reward for surviving is that you can, at the pleasure of PZ, continue to post here for the moment. You are in hostile territory, and the natives are much, much smarter than you. Post wisely cricket.
Another deep thought from late last night, thinking about this article and the tree-analogy thread:
These spring-break-evangelizing religious chappies are mounting expeditions to travel far, do hard work and accomplish almost nothing. The same can be said for other missionaries, perhaps–travel, travail, travesty.
That is their mindset, that is acceptable behavior to them, that is what people do. The trick is that they generalize to other folks doing the same kind of thing. They think that scientific folks also set out for faraway lands to waste time and money at futile efforts.
I’m talking about fossil-hunting expeditions, and the creationist idea that fossil discoveries prove nothing. Creationists think that fossil-hunting expeditions are the equivalent of spring-break evangelizing.
See, I’d been wondering what the hell creationists think that fossil hunters are doing. Do they think that the Leakey’s went to Africa, lived in tents, dug in the dirt and cleaned up rocks, just for the heck of it? Yes, yes they do think exactly that.
Every dollar raised, every grant justified, every goal set, every hope, every thing, is not done to advance knowledge, nor to learn about humanity, nor to discover truth. In the creationist mind, it’s just footling around bothering people, for no damn reason at all. Like they do.
May I suggest that this be a CT? Standing, of course, for Cocky Twat.
What a shame the experience hasn’t improved you in any way. Same vapid, inane arguments, same would-be provocative “thoughts”, same dull, stilted style, same miserable, almost penitential glumness. What a fool.
“New Atheists” you burble, “High Church Atheists” you drip..I do apologize, but I really can’t see that the style in which I don’t worship a god who doesn’t exist constitutes other than the normal process I call living.
What utter shite you write facilis. When god dealt you that hand of cards, there was nothing in there higher than a 3, was there?
Facilis, people have been saying this for centuries. The more famous of these tend to gain the admiration of those less famous.
I neither own nor want the red A t-shirt. As for being offensive and controversial, that just comes with the territory. In this country you still cannot question the existence of god without being accused of being an offensive controversy monger regardless of intention or style. You are simply engaging in petty stereotyping.
So Sastra’s point stands. You have failed to point out any meaningful differences between atheists of the past and today.
This reminded me of being waylaid as I exited the rail station on Hollywood Boulevard one fine evening back in ’00 by a pair of very cute girls. They approached lil ol’ me all smiles and giggly wanting to ‘ask me something.’ A virile young lad, how could I resist the charms of some such as those? I stopped to talk, imagining an evening on the town about to be spent, and mentally waved at my bus as it passed.
And then wished I had hailed it, instead.
“We wanted to ask you something, do you have a minute to talk to us?”…
“Sure! Are you guys lost or on vacation here?”
[Bus passes here]
“We ARE on vacation! We’re spreading the good word about God! Do you believe in Jesus?”
[My mind begins screaming obscenities at me for being fooled yet again by a cute smile and round woman bumps]
I proceeded to spend the next half hour amicably answering their questions by describing my personal belief system, roughly based on christian ideas which hooked them, yet grounded in the idea that early apostles, clerics, and medicine men were actually trying to get people to understand that ‘god’ is metaphor for human intelligence; hence we’re all ‘ made in god’s image’ as we all are thinking creatures. Stories, myths, legends and written words in holy books are purely methods to try to convey these ideas to a generally uneducated population. Unfortunately, the uneducated population took the stories at face value as truth.
Apparently my ideas were dangerous enough that, as these two gals began making comments like “wow… I never thought of it that way” and “that makes sense…”, an older man that had been standing nearby stepped up, dismissed them, thanked me for my time, and led them away. I hadn’t noticed him before, but he was basically their ‘handler.’
I realized, then, that he was the evangelical equivalent of a pimp, they were his holy tricks, and I was basically a john….
No wonder no one on Hollywood Blvd paid a bit of attention to us.
Actually Facilis I take that back. You did not in fact say anything wrong. Vox Day on the other other hand, did. You only parroted it.
So full credit for being an insufferable twit must go to Vox. Though you do get a dishonorable mention.
Critique of traditional supernaturalist religions – what I consider to be symptoms of pandemic of irrationalism – is no laughing matter. The way I remain immune to the dialogue of such religions is to remember their adherents genuinely suffer from a serious delay in their intellectual and emotional development. When it comes to asking and answering certain complex questions, they have hit a wall beyond which they cannot pass of their own accord and therefore settle for poor-quality cookie-cutter solutions whose inaccuracies and illogical, brought to the level of a culture, create the many destructive social phenomena we so frequently observe. For many, there is no likelihood of cure through education or other therapies; for some there perhaps is cure if they have the will or can be helped to find the will. I think of theists as children because, indeed, that is what they are to a great extent – lacking the maturity to adequately understand the questions they ask and certainly lacking the maturity to find genuine answers.
Facilis, many of us have read or tried to read “The Irrational Atheist”. It’s bloody hilarious. However, if you want to learn about atheists or atheism, maybe you should try asking atheists. The only thing Vox Day knows about atheists is that engaging them online ends in extreme humiliation.
New atheism is actually old atheism, just louder. Because, you know, back in the day, loud atheists got burnt alive and stuff. Hence our current habit of pointing out that religion is evil. We just call it as we see it.
The optional big red ‘A’ (they make tiny “A” pins, too) is not an attempt to be offensive or controversial. It’s a declaration that we exist and that we will no longer be quiet about the insane rules imposed upon ALL by religions adhered to by some.
Translation: you have neither been paying attention nor thought about that book at all.
What next? Will you tell us to read Paley, 1802?
facilis, FFOTI (Fortunate Fool On Thin Ice)
I do not agree with everything Vox Day says. I just
enjoyedkiss his ass because I’m ignorant and gullible enough to believe thathow he shredded those atheistshredding the strawman arguments he fabricated in his bookwith “Occam’s chainsaw”.while completely misunderstanding the concept of Occam’s Razor is an achievementFixed. I’m starting a tab for you, too.
Here’s an idea facilis, how about you learn about atheism from an actual atheist? Learning atheism from Vox Day would be like learning theism from Sam Harris. Whether or not he makes any good points (everything I’ve read of Vox Day’s has been really poorly argued, but that might be selection bias on the account of Silver Fox) the simple fact is that you aren’t going to understand anothers point of view by solely reading people being dismissive of it.
Actually try to understand “the other side” as opposed to just reading why the other side is wrong. Without understanding where atheists are coming from, how can you understand whether a criticism is valid or not?
Like I’ve said before, Vox Day is just a more aggressive version of Ray Comfort. He keeps repeating the same old non-arguments against points that no atheist makes and touting himself as some sort of indestructible atheist-slayer. But nothing he’s said cannot be applied to any and all other religions – which, in the face of a lack of evidence to support the supernatural, is all I’ve got to go on.
I guess he sells a few books – which is why he’s doing it – and if people are dumb enough to swallow his tripe then that’s their loss.
I guess it’s no surprise that facilis is attracted to Vox Day, after all he thinks that Expelled was fair and balanced.
facilis, if you want to be considered an intellectual force in the battle against atheism then you not only need to read atheist literature, but you also need to get yourself into the atheist headspace. You need to not only read the arguments for atheism, but you need to understand why such arguments appeal to atheists. It’s only then that you can make an effective counter-argument towards atheism. Instead you approach it from your presuppositional-theist perspective and any argument you make fails badly.
facilis, it’s painful to read your posts because you simply don’t get what it means to be an atheist. You have your own worldview and you are expecting any and all arguments to fall into that category, which means that anything you say is not going to be persuasive in the slightest – after all, the only one who thinks that your worldview is the standard by which to judge a proposition is you. If you understood what it means to be an atheist, then you would be able to communicate as such.
Facilis, SP #166 wrote:
Daniel Dennet (who is usually included in the group of so-called ‘New Atheists’) once wrote:
“The uniting feature of the New Atheists is that we have all decided that the traditional atheist policy of diplomatic reticence should be discarded.”
I’ve read the books he refers to, so I don’t think I’d learn anything from Vox Day’s explanation of what they’re all saying — other than what Vox Day thinks they’re all saying. Not all the writers agree — but all of them advocate a scientific approach to studying and understanding religion, faith — and God, considered as a hypothesis.
No, I don’t think any of the so-called new atheists would agree with that description, though they do think that the supernatural claims of religion are unsupported, and faith a dangerous and irrational method which entrenches dogma. Richard Dawkins points out that religion may not be the root of all evil, but it is the easiest way to divide people in an intractable way.
I have one of those big red “A” t-shirts. They’re not supposed to be offensive or controversial. That’s the point of wearing them: to make identifying as an atheist no more startling or bothersome than wearing a cross, or Muslim scarf, or what have you. I also have a little gold necklace with a humanist symbol on it.
Ah, Rooke has something similar, so I thought after I asked that it probably stood for “Survivor, Pharyngula.” But I was secretly hoping it stood for “Sweetie Pie.” Maybe it could be both.
As to the atheists I’ve read , I’ve only read Dawkins (and a bit of Harris).
I think some also misunderstand the purpose of Vox Day’s book. Day said his book was not written to argue for Christanity , religion or God. He just wrote it to show the factual and logical errors made by the “New Atheist” writers.
I think one of the great examples in the book is where Dawkins says “as horrible as sexual abuse no doubt ..[is].., the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing up the child Catholic in the first place.”
Dawkins cites no evidence from psychological studies for his assertion (is evidence too much to ask for).
Vox Day cites psychological studies on people who have been abused under 16 (noting things such as depression ,suicide rates…). He compares it with psychological data from studies on people who were raised Catholic and finds a negative correlation in most cases.
I thought this was a great example of thorough pwnage.
From what I saw I think there are really only 2 options
1)Dawkins is genuinely ignorant and they were just honest mistakes
2)Dawkins does not care about the psychological facts. He only wants to be as controversial as possible and inflammatory towards Christians with such assertions.He knows his readers will not try to consult any psychological journals to see if they support his assertions.
I think that is one of the big problems with the writings. They rely too much on flaming rhethoric against religion and dispense with the facts.
As to the “new” atheist versus the “old”. What I see is a lot more rhethoric and attempts to be deliberately offensive. I’ll confess the only “old ” atheists I can think of are people like Bertrand Russel and J.L. Mackie. But I think the big dfference is that they never went out of their way to call religious people deluded.
As opposed to arguments for religion? Few of those are weighed down by the use of ‘facts’. If there were facts to support religions there wouldn’t be atheists.
Facilis the Fallacious Fool, you couldn’t find facts with a map and compass. People are atheists because they look at the bible and the concept of god, and find it irrational. I found the bible irrational when I read it cover to cover when I was a teenager. Later, the whole concept of god became irrational since there was no physical evidence for one. Once I saw the facts, everything else was easy.
Why did your proof for god fail? No evidence. Why does any claim that the bible is inerrant fail? No evidence. If you want reason and logic, you have to let you of your stupidsticion, and that includes god and religion.
That is like saying “If there were facts to support evolution, then creationists would not exist”.
Some people already make up their minds before looking at facts.
And I’m not saying that there are no arguments against God that make use of facts. I’m just saying Dawkins wasn’t very forthcoming with them.
The argument about child abuse has nothing to do with the question of is there a god. The “New Atheist” books are partly about the philosophical question of the existence of a higher power and partly about the effects that religion has on society.
If you want a high-brow book that looks at the effects of religion on society, read Dan Dennett – Breaking The Spell.
Facilis the Fallacious Fool. Dawkins sees no evidence for your imaginary god. What part of that do you have trouble with? He acknowledges, that given the proper scientific evidence, he would believe in god. Why is there no evidence to convince him? Either there is none, which is what we have been trying to tell your for months, or it is insufficient to be conclusive, which amounts to the same thing. What part of that do you have trouble with?
God is not the presupposition, but rather the endpoint when no other explanation is available. And there is always an alternative.
Facilis. The one thing you fail to accept and understand is that religion is bullshit. It’s irrational nonsense. To argue that atheism’s argument against religion is irrational is like arguing the case against unicorns and dragons is irrational.
Vox is a intellectual dwarf compared to Harris and Dawkins. But you really have to read Dennet. Vox wouldn’t even dream of taking on him.
Facilis, SP #182 wrote:
I agree that many of the so-called New Atheist writers tend towards hyperbole, especially when they get into political areas. Atheist reviewers who are sympathetic to their overall arguments and messages have pointed out problems or factual errors in their reviews (and there are things I disagreed with as I read them.) But many of the hostile reviews go beyond the legitimate mistakes, and either quote out of context, or fail to quote more moderate or mitigating statements often made in the very same book, or even later in the paragraph.
In our culture, people commonly see religion as a good and benign influence, and argue that examples of violence or harm caused by religion are simply ‘perversions’ of genuine faith.
“But how can there be a perversion of faith, if faith, lacking objective justification, doesn’t have any demonstrable standard to pervert?” –Richard Dawkins, p. 306 of The God Delusion
I think this is an important point, and picking at lesser points allows people to ignore it. If Vox Day’s arguments against the book hold up whether or not God exists, then Vox is defending a system built on the desire to believe in indemonstrable facts, and saying only “it need not always be so bad.”
True. But then when it is bad, from this standpoint, there’s no ground for criticism on the basis that it isn’t true.
You cite one instance where Dawkins is talking about the societal effects of religious beliefs, and you are equating that with his scholarship in the arguments against God?
Facilis,
I don’t think that Dawkins was saying what you say Vox says Dawkins was saying.
Dawkins was making the point that religion does damage by requiring people to submit to an authority laid down by men who are intermediaries for a god which there is no proof of existence.
The irrational stuff that Catholics are required to believe is nothing short of delusional. That is outright damage, and you don’t need a study to show that 100% of Catholics have been brought up in a delusional framework. This delusion is so pervasive among Christians, that you, and others like you, don’t even see it. If you want to see evidence of damage, read what Luther wrote about the Jews. Totally warped, because he was trying to make sense out of the anti-semitic rhetoric in the bible, and it can’t be done without falling off a cliff.
If you want to talk about what Dawkins says, read his works and then talk about him. Don’t talk about Dawkins as seen through Vox’s filter.
It’s nothing of the sort; creationists believe that scientists are lying because they hate the gods or that the gods deliberately made it look like scientific evidence because the gods want to test our fath, or that beings like Satan exist and have manufactured the evidence.
What are the similar arguments atheists use to dismiss the ‘evidence’ religions provide?
Some Christians believe in the Christian god but don’t believe in creationism – can you provide me with any atheists who believe there is evidence for the gods’ existence but who are atheists anyway?
Such as? I’ve never heard any fact-based evidence for the existence of any gods that couldn’t be dismissed as arguments from ignorance and/or personal incredulity.
Facilis, SP #183 wrote:
Actually, the rhetoric during what’s been called “the Golden Age of Atheism” — late Victorian thru the 1930’s (?) — was much nastier than anything written by academics like Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett. There was a lot of outspoken religion-bashing written by and for the common man, and at that time the religious folks had successfully banned alcohol and were preaching fire and brimstone, so popular sentiment against them ran bitter. HL Mencken the newspaperman wrote some stuff that is positively virulent by today’s standards, calling religious people “asses” and “morons” with reckless abandon — and in the newspapers, too.
Facilis, SP #186 wrote:
Richard Dawkins’ main argument against the existence of God was a scientific one: given that we now understand how complicated things which looked designed arise from simple processes which have no intent or mind behind them, then claiming that a complicated thing (with a mind) started it all out is not only unnecessary, but contrary to the evidence. This was perhaps the primary focus of the book.
‘God is a failed scientific hypothesis.’
I would say that this perspective identifies the so-called new atheists every bit as much as their shared belief that faith is not a wonderful, character-building method of finding things out, nor religion the necessary foundation for good societies.
Facilis, you must be talking about this piece by Dawkins:
How fitting for this thread.
Dawkins probably was wrong with regard to how well adjusted non-molested Catholics are compared to molested Catholics. But his larger point that all the lies about sin, hell, god, and everything else forced down children’s throats by religions is a form of abuse remains. You probably can’t compare the mental damage caused by molestation to the mental damage caused by evangelism/indoctrination because the latter is something a majority of humans have to contend with and thus has been normalized in our societies.
Facilis,
One important thing you apparently don’t understand is that atheists don’t have a need to believe in a god or gods. We live rich, rewarding, fulfilling, moral lives without the urge to fall on our knees and worship an imaginary sky pixie. We don’t need to perform arcane rituals or obey picky laws because otherwise the sky pixie will get in a snit and punish us for wearing cotton-polyester blend clothes. And we especially don’t need self-appointed priests or ministers to “interpret” the laws and tell us what the sky pixie wants (which is usually to give large amounts of money to the minister).
I always thought Dawkins should have amended the term “child abuse” with the word “psychological.”
I don’t agree that teaching children to believe in supernatural dogma is child abuse. That’s too flat, too harsh, too loaded. But, I might agree that it’s a form of psychological child abuse. That’s a much broader area.
Emphasis mine.
I’ve never understood how the religious can rationalise the concept of an all-powerful, loving deity that needed to be worshipped. Why would something that could create the universe require its creations to fawn and grovel at its feet? That’s the sick desire of a flawed, insecure human – not one of a benevolent superbeing.
The Christian god (as they define it) is just too contradictory to be believed in.
Well sure but then what would be the term used when they have sex with children for jesus?
The christians certainly terrorize the children by making the children fear being burned alive forever. So then they have a situation where the child will submit to abuse of any kind.
Isn’t the psychological abuse really the worst part of most any abuse anyway? The physical wounds heal with time, its the damage to the mind that might never heal.
Facilis, a reminder that TIA has been critiqued by a different kind of theist.
Here is the first of a number of posts for Chapter 14: TIA Tuesday: Occam’s Chainsaw.
follow up to @24 :
“If they really want to speed they apocalypse, they should be flying to the Amazon to witness to indigenous tribes who would say “Jesus who?” Otherwise, they aren’t impressing me.”
worst idea you could spread :
1) the evangelist are already doing it, on the idea that when everyody has heard of Christ the apocalypse will happen
2) When contacted, amazon tribes get “crowd diseases” (such as measles) for which they have little or no immunity and die of it (typically 50-90% death rates depending on the isolation of the tribe and plain luck). This does not stop these evangelists since to them it is more important to be saved that to be alive.
3) it is illegal in Brazil to contact these tribes, since contacting them is roughly equivalent to kill them. This does not stop missionaries (and illegal gold miners), so these tribes will soon be gone.
It’s got to be said though…I would LOVE to see how Hookers for Jesus would interpret a Love Bomb!!
It must be difficult for them to find people to convert, considering that over 75% of all Americans are already Christian. I was in a Christian club in high school, and the teacher expected all of us to bring non-Christians to the club to convert them, but the problem was that there simply weren’t many non-Christians in our school. And even if I wanted to convert someone (I didn’t; I was respectful of other religions), I wouldn’t bring them to some silly school club to do it.
facilis, I’m having trouble finding that particular quote in The God Delusion. I found similar sentiments, but it was worded very differently. Can you provide a page source please?
I would call myself agnostic as to the concept of a god or gods in the abstract, but atheist as to certain specific conceptions of God or gods.
I am atheist, for example, as to a God who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them in 4004 BC. That god demonstrably does not exist, as there is a significant amount of empirical evidence demonstrating that the earth is far older than this and that it developed over time into its current form. Similarly, I am atheist as to the Mormon conception of God; since the Book of Mormon conflicts directly with the archaeological record, we can be fairly confident that its claims are untrue. In exactly the same way, I am atheist as to the existence of Thor, Loki, Zeus, and so on. The existence of these deities is rendered very unlikely by the empirical evidence.
I am agnostic, on the other hand, as to a more liberal idea of God as “Divine Providence” or the “First Cause”. Such a god (or gods) might exist or might not; there is no evidence either way, and so one should keep an open mind as to the possibility of their existence.
Kel, Facilis didn’t type the quote right. A copy and paste from Dawkins’ article Religion’s Real Child Abuse goes like this:
Gee, Facilis or Vox Day quotemining. What were the odds?
I have had a few run-ins with evangelical types, Witnesses mostly. In addition to being a forthright atheist I have an exceedingly low threshold for people bothering me on the street.
One day I was walking out of the train station and lighting a cigarette, just then a Witness cuts me off and tries to give me a few pamphlets.
I managed to speak pleasantly and hold eye contact with the sonofabitch long enough that I was two steps away before he noticed that the pamphlets he was holding were on fire.
Walton, it is interesting that you rightly point out the fiction within the mormonic faith but not the christianics. Do you not find similar fiction within the bible?
Do you have any rational basis to hold a god idea as possible? You haven’t even given recognition to a “First Cause” that is at least as feasible as any god idea. Even if there were some actual “god”, the following events would apply there as well.
In the beginning there was Cow. Cow was in the beginning and there was nothing but Cow. As cows do, Cow shit a LOT. As there was Cow and nothing else, the shit, over time, accumulated in and also very tightly compacted around Cow. Cow was perfect in every way and, as cows do, Cow eventually farted, which caused a massive bang. It was very unfortunate for Cow but the event did create the universe so Cow certainly would have been happy about that.
Now lets hear nothing more about the possibility of some holy god shit.
There are two little old ladies who should forever be grateful that I would be ashamed at myself for yelling at them.
Walking up to me and my boys, they said “Oh, you’ve got young children – have you heard about the new plan?” and handed me a brochure.
I’ll give them credit for totally throwing me with their opening line. It wasn’t until I was further down the street that I realized that they had done a beautiful bait-and-switch, giving me their religious pamphlet and getting me to actually read half-way through it.
There’s always the possibility, but atheism is not closing your mind to that. atheism is simply in the absence of any reason to believe in a deity that one doesn’t do so. It’s not saying that no god can possibly exist, it’s a question of belief and not knowledge.
He talks about “The New Atheism” and distinguishes betweeen the high church and the low church atheists.
Not “distinguish”, what he really does is construct ridiculous strawmen of atheists to knock down with his blowhard rants.
yeah.
It’s telling that you find the toppling of strawmen to be impressive, imbecillis.
…but hardly surprising.