We will be continuing with Jered’s criticism of the blog and my response to it. If you haven’t already you should read part 1. I’m going to warn you, this is a little long, but I decided that I’m going to try to keep this to three parts.

Do you see yourself as a missionary then, against a horrible lie?  It doesn’t matter, Dustin.  You aren’t ‘saving’ anyone in any sense of the word–with the exception of miserable Christians who are unhappy with their lifestyle and have donned the forms of morality, for whatever reason, without the power of an Endless Life within.  Yet even these, when ‘converted’ to Atheism, are still miserable, for they have once tasted, (if only a vestige) of the joys of Love, and now only enjoy the counterfeit derivatives of pleasures forevermore.  Perhaps these should leave and become atheists, if only for the sake that they are missing out on a whole lot of fun, to be sure.  (It would be of doubtless benefit to the Church, as you hinted at indirectly)

When I was a Christian I was miserable, not because I was unhappy with my lifestyle, but because I was suffering from intense cognitive dissonance as I gradually began to realize that everything I had believed in was wrong.

People don’t become atheists to be free to change their lifestyle, those people will just ignore those rules of their denomination and continue on with their lives. I know plenty of people who are that way. I’ve never understood how someone can do that, but enough do that it must be pretty easy.

People become atheists for a variety of reasons whether its because they demand evidence for claims and find that the evidence for a god is insufficiency to warrant belief, others are offended by the cruelty and injustice they see in the world and can’t comprehend a being that had the power to do something about it but refuses to, and still others study their religious tradition to its very core and find it to be illogical, unjust, and absurd (that was my path).

Regardless of whether someone believes in a god or not, there is no free choice involved. You either do or you don’t. I once did, then I didn’t. I still tried to, I begged a god that I hoped was there for faith, but it didn’t work. Besides, with the societal and often family pressures to believe why would anyone in their right mind choose to be an atheist?

I write for those who are on that same journey that I was on. I went through it alone and I don’t want anybody else to have to that. Of course, I also write for whoever cares to read, like minded people and interested people with opposing views alike. Although when it really comes down to it, I just write because I like to, the fact that anyone reads this is just icing on the cake.

As far as “the power of an Endless Life within” and the “joys of Love” I found in my own experience that those are nothing more than a delusion. What I now have instead is peace, happiness, and a life that is better in EVERY way. There is nothing miserable about the freedom of atheism.

But for the happy Christian, of which I am a member, it doesn’t matter to me.  If the Gospel is a lie, it is the sweetest lie ever told, and I am a better person for it.  I go to my grave and the end of my existence a content and satisfied human being.  Because the tenets of Christianity–the golden rule you mentioned, etc., bring a great deal of happiness to life here on Earth, and this is regardless of whether the ‘Man Upstairs’ or the ‘Hereafter’ exists or not.

Then you are not my target audience. That being said, if you’re interested in learning about another point of view and engaging in thoughtful and respectful dialogue you are more than welcome to keep reading and commenting.

If it’s the hypocrisy you’re angry about, that makes sense, because that boils my blood too.  My wife and I have significant issues with church and the way that many people treat others.  Little wonder that so many are leaving the denominations.

The only hypocrisy I have ever been angry about was my own. For far two long I lived a life that was incongruent with what I increasingly knew to be true (and I’m not talking about lifestyle here) and preaching a message I didn’t believe in. I hated myself for that.

Sure, I have some anger towards what the Religious Right is trying to do. I have a bit of a condescending attitude with people who refuse to even honestly consider the evidence of evolution and/or climate change. But in general, I’m not an angry person and not even an angry writer. Keep in mind that on Friday’s I usually post rants. To be honest I do have to sometimes fabricate some rage to get a good rant going.

The atheists I know haven’t left their former denomination because of hypocrisy, they did so because they saw it for what it is, an antiquated superstition.

The tenets of Christianity in its pure form are harmless.  If you look at the history of the early Christians–they were like sheep to the slaughter in the middle of an incredibly wicked world!  It was only later when corruption had crept in that the horrible stuff was done in the name of the church, like the Inquisition and the Crusades, which people in your persuasion love to cite to debunk Christianity as an evil thing.  That, however, was not Christianity in its pure form.  As a rule, the early Christians were pacifist.  Yet they knew they had the right to say what they wanted in the name of freedom.  So can you and I.

So my issue is not that you are attacking Christians and Christianity so vehemently, I am just asking why.  If God is a nonentity, He’s no threat to you!– and neither are His true followers, who do the world no harm.  (To espouse a belief is one of our most precious freedoms.  For a Christian to have a belief about the ‘wrongness’ of something, or EVEN to share that belief in no way curtails the liberty of another, since no force is involved in the expression of abstractions/ideas.

As I have already mentioned, there are many within Christianity who do wish to force their beliefs on others. I have a big problem with that.

Beyond that, I couldn’t care less about the specific tenets of any religion. They can all do good, but they can all also be used for great evil. What I care about is the danger of faith, namely people being blind to reality and evidence. If you can convince someone to give you a big chunk of their income, give their labor freely, and drastically change their lifestyle all based on a feeling and some persuasion from a charismatic speaker, then you have someone who could be convinced of anything.

The Crusaders honestly thought they were earning their salvation or the salvation of their loved ones. Those who burned witches and heretics during the Inquisition honestly thought they were saving their victims souls. And the 19 hijackers who committed the 9/11 attacks were intelligent men who thought that the next moment they would be greeted by Allah and 72 virgins.

None of them were evil people, they were duped. If they had merely asked for the evidence of this afterlife they strove for and realized their was none, then none of those atrocities would have ever happened.

That’s what I have a problem with. Besides, if Christianity really has any truth to it, it shouldn’t have any trouble standing up to the scrutiny.

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We will be continuing next week. As you are reading this I am on my way to Yellowstone for the weekend. I have blog posts lined up for the weekend, but I will have limited access to the web.