His guest post at the Mu Sasha blog would fit right in with the series I’ve been posting here: he explains what it was like to be brought up in the Assembly of God church. It’s all homophobia, hellfire, and an oblivious monoculture of people who don’t even think about what they’re claiming.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Apologist parent:
Really says it all.
Glen Davidson
#1 Glen Davidson:
Sort of like how if you examine anything too much you won’t think it’s real! For example, when I learned how computers worked, it became clear to me that computers didn’t actually exist at all. In the same way, at various points in my life I learned that automobiles, houses, and food didn’t exist either.
See, God is totally just exactly like all those other things that are real — when you think about them, you stop believing in them.
There’s some jackass in the comments there trying to bring him back to the flock. Well, to a different flock, because, see, those crazies he was involved with weren’t doing Christianity right. Plus, atheism is just another religion, when you think about it.
Just awful, really.
The most pathetic con jobs are the ones where you’re not allowed to look at the merchandise before you buy.
Oh My Gumby, Damon was sent to The Ramp! Remember when PZ put up a nut job video talking about how becoming a Christian changes your DNA? That would be the Damon Thompson Damon Fowler mentioned.
Former Assembly of God victim here as well, sounds about right to me. Had the misfortune of being gay in their clutches too.
Damon got off easy. He was only sent to the xian fundie Gulag for a few days of brainwashing.
The Mormons have their own Gulag for apostate children which is huge. They keep kids for months and years. Conditions are about what you expect for a Gulag, pretty gruesome.
Very engaging writing, insightful and with charm, you’ve got talent Damon Fowler. keep it up!
I really like the expression
“Annoyed beyond belief”
:)
I even read the blog “Why I left Atheism” posted by “dylan”. Amazingly, it wasn’t until the 5th paragraph where I thought “here we go again…”
Apparently science isn’t the place to ask questions like “what is the origin of life/universe,” that’s a question only a philosopher/theologian can answer.
Oh and Atheism is a belief system apparently. All this time I’ve just been parroting what other atheists have been saying. Now my face is red…
Hey p0litik,
I don’t know what this person has written, but I’ll respond.
The point is that theism is an extremely elaborate assumption of something very complex. We have scientific theories which successfully explain how the universe works. These theories are testable and simple, they are the minimal thing you need to explain all experimental observations you can make about the world. They do not require God as an additional hypothesis. (Even worse: The God hypothesis brings more problems than it solves)
It is a completely arbitrary huge unknown, and, to add insult to injury, it is obviously modeled by us after the human idea of consciousness or intention, which, as a brief look at our origins suggests, are evolved features, not some fundamental universal principle that has to come from somewhere deep.
Now – why would you introduce the idea of God in the world? You have to justify that, since it is not necessary to explain anything, there is no evidence for it, and it is completely ill-defined concept. Why do you introduce God and not some different super-complex thing?
In light of these problems, I find that atheism is not a religious belief, but a matter of intellectual parsimony. Give it up, and (barring adherence to a fixed dogma for no reason) you drown in a sea of complicated arbitrary and untestable assumptions about the Universe that are just as good as any other.
Two more things:
– The God of the Gaps I discard likewise (scientific understanding has limits, so let us position God there). It was historically always wrong
– Questions like “what is the meaning of life”, or “if there is no god, what is the value of anything” are not a basis to argue for the existence of god(s), they are a sophisticated version of wishful thinking.
Cheers,
AToS
What dumb reasons must he have had to be an atheist in the first place, that they can be overtourned by those arguments.