"Lord, Liar, or Lunatic"? Or, I dunno, something in between.

A famous apologetic, popularized by C.S. Lewis, the "lord, liar, or lunatic" argument may inevitably weasel itself into discussions about the veracity of Christianity (though it is more often used as leverage against those who claim that Jesus was a decent person while not necessarily believing that he was the "Son of God"). But, luckily, it is rarely brought up by those who are more familiar with the subject matter. Because, the thing is just sloppy, despite how popular it is (who knows...maybe because of it).

First, for Lewis' rendition of it:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

Now, there are a few good objections to this already presented in the wikipedia article itself. Namely, that Jesus could be fictional, that the Gospel could be inaccurate, that Jesus did not necessarily refer to himself as the "Son of God" and he was only claimed to be after the fact by followers, and that the argument isn't logically sound (hence, the previous alternatives to the "trilemma").

But, really, the argument he makes, even barring that fact, is completely and purposefully ignorant of human behavior. A "lunatic" is hardly crazy about everything. People who have such a delusion can still have insight. Hell, if you have the right kind of delusions, you might not even be called "crazy". It is not as if someone can hold one bizarre, counterfactual idea and suddenly anything that comes out of their mouth is suspect. Think about it for a brief moment. Is it impossible for a Christian, even if they KNOW their worldview is true, to acknowledge Buddha as a good moral teacher, even though he believed in reincarnation? If David Berkowitz said that you shouldn't punch schoolchildren in the kidneys, can we not judge that idea on its own merits, or should we automatically dismiss it on the basis that it was said by a mad serial killer who thought that his neighbor's dog was talking to him? Even those with questionable beliefs, or who actually have severe psychological problems that would cause one to be called a "lunatic" can say things that make sense. And, considering that there are very few people who are completely insane, I feel that this particular line of thought was a bit of a shell game. I'll clarify in a bit.

As for saying that he was a fiend (or, I assume, a malicious liar), I can't offer anymore of a rebuttal than to say that he was perhaps just an innocuous liar whose believers took the bluff a little too far. I don't understand what about his potential lies would cause him to be seen as utterly depraved and demonic, especially if he was human enough to not see any negative implications.

Now, a brief look at the formalized version of the argument:
The premises are as follows.

(P): Jesus claimed to be God.

(Q): One of the following must be true.

1. Lunatic: Jesus was not God, but he mistakenly believed that he was.
2. Liar: Jesus was not God, and he knew it, but he said so anyway.
3. Lord: Jesus is God.

From these premises it follows logically that,

(C): If not God, Jesus is either not great or not moral

As mentioned above, Premise P is suspect, and Q should probably have other options. The typical method of getting to the Conclusion as by ruling out option 1 by claiming that an insane person would not have his kind of insight. Funny, though. Because the definition used simply says that "he mistakenly believed that he was [God]". That isn't so much "insane" as, I dunno, "mistaken". A guy with human fallibility, grasping for a big purpose by playing around with the tales his mother told him about his "virgin" birth in his head for a while.

He is typically proven to not be a liar because he would be evil otherwise, and he is not shown to be evil in the Bible. But, of course, humans are anything but consistent. And we all have our vices of choice. Might just be that Jesus had a taste for being a charlatan with a penchant for rhetoric, rather than being a sex maniac, petty thief, or axe murderer. Maybe different kinds of "evil" don't exactly translate over. Or, maybe it was all just a metaphor...

Bottom line: You can be good and still lie. You can lie, and still look good. You can look crazy to some, and seem profound to others. And even a nutcase when it comes to one subject can be right when it comes to another.
This argument ignores that entirely, changing a "bluff" into a "malevolent scheme" and "delusions" into "complete and utter madness seldom seen in actual human beings outside of fiction" in order to disprove the much stronger, much more pronounced distortion of the original idea, rather than the more accurate, less refutable possibilities. That, in addition to the other shortcomings that have been amply covered elsewhere, makes it very weak in terms of anything short of adding to the confidence to those who do not wish to see the argument's faults.

The Persecution....it never stops!!!!1!!

Teehee. Thanks to PZ for this gold mine!

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission (CADC) has prepared a Top Ten list of the most egregious acts of Christian Bashing in American in 2008. Every day in America serious Christians face increasing hostility at work, school, and in the culture because they stand for their faith and values.

How sad. How foul. How wrong. But, what exactly is this bashing? What "values" are you standing up for? And why do I have a feeling that I already know?

INSTANCE #10: Jack Black Musical Video

In a short video posted on FunnyorDie.com entitled, "Prop 8 The Musical," an all star cast of Hollywood celebrities perform a low budget musical farce that defames Christ, mocks Christians and distorts the teaching of the Bible.

Ahahahahaha. It would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic and disgusting. You are being persecuted by a 3 minute internet comedy video, that is actually mildly tame, and doesn't mock your faith as much as what people do when they are using your religion as an excuse (namely, strip away the rights of others in order to make the law better conform to their belief system). When you get Prop 8 passed, and everyone else just gets a video and a few protests, it's kinda hard to play victim. But you pull off. Kudos for that.

INSTANCE #9: Bill Maher Gratuitously Attacks Pope

Bill Maher, host of the HBO program Real Time, made light of the Pope during his recent visit and the tragic sexual abuse scandal.

The same Pope who is almost universally mocked, even by other Christians? The same sexual abuse scandal that has been a joke for at least 3 years now; a generous amount of time after the original revelation of it, and even longer after the Church, that noble institution, was aware of it? You people need to get out more.

"But really, what tripped up the little cult on the prairie was that they only abused hundreds of kids, not thousands all over the world. Cults get raided; religions get parades... If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you Pope."

Heh heh. Come on. Bill's got to get bonus points for speaking the truth, and making it funny at the same time!

INSTANCE #8: ESPN Anchor Dana Jacobson's "F--- Jesus" Remark

Speaking at an ESPN corporate event in Atlantic City, N.J., to honor ESPN Radio personalities Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, Dana Jacobson let go with a steam of vulgar remarks; "F--- Notre Dame," "F--- Touchdown Jesus" and finally "F--- Jesus." Jacobson

Wow. Does that really count as Christian bashing as much as just drunken shouts in the form of stream of consciousness? I mean...does the phrase "fuck Jesus" inherently constitute Christian bashing? If you were to replace "Jesus" with the name of any other religion's deity of choice, would it count as a "bashing" of that religion? I don't really know, since "Christian bashing" thus far has been 1. parodying Christians who used their religion as an excuse to take away gay marriage, 2. making fun of the Pope, and 3. showing disdain for their figure of worship. Is it bashing of your beliefs, your actions, or your leadership that qualifies as "Christian bashing"? Or is it anyone of the three, meaning that an insult directed at a Christian, an action by a Christian, any form of Christian beliefs, or any Christian institution counts as "bashing"? Well...I guess we'll see...

INSTANCE #7: Minnesota University Professor Desecrates Communion

A Biology Professor from the University of Minnesota, Paul Zachary Myers, recently desecrated a consecrated communion wafer from a Catholic Mass. Meyer's has also asked people to steal the Eucharist for him in order that he might desecrate it and display it on his blog.

Way to spell his name two different ways from one sentence to the next. And to also, as per usual, ignore that the desecration was in protest to the reactions against another "desecrator". I guess that this could be any of the above forms of "bashing" mentioned above, though. Didn't help me narrow it down a bit!

INSTANCE #6: Religulous the Movie

Bill Maher released a very shallow, pseudo-intellectual documentary entitled Religulous. The movie did not cover any new intellectual ground. It simply raised the old attacks on the faith. Maher studiously avoided being fair and did not allow for legitimate Christian answers from any leading Christian intellectuals.

Never occurs to these people that the religion being questioned is its popular manifestation, and not the strange, contradictory and compact theologies that Christian intellectuals have whittled their own individual interpretations of the faith down to. Oh, and that those "old attacks" are rarely ever dealt with satisfactorily. It was never intended to be anything but "shallow" and claiming otherwise is just....well, odd. It was supposed to be a comedy, afterall. (And how is this movie "Christian bashing", when it is critical of religion in general, rather than, you know, "Christians"?).

INSTANCE #5: Chaplains Fired for Praying in Jesus' Name

Chaplains for the State of Virginia are being denied their right to pray in Jesus' name. Six chaplains were fired for continuing to pray in Jesus' name. Earlier this year in Virginia, Rev. Hashmel Turner, a city councilman in Fredericksburg, was told by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that his prayers during city council meetings that ended in Jesus' name will continue to be banned.

Separation of church and state, bitches. That isn't "Christian bashing". It is removal of Christian privilege that you never should have to begin with (as far as can tell...not sure about why there are "chaplains for the State of Virginia" in the first place).

INSTANCE #4: Colorado Law Criminalizes the Bible

SB200, a Colorado state bill recently signed into law, criminalizes the Bible. Section 8 of the bill entitled "Publishing of discriminative matter forbidden" makes publishing the Bible illegal because it contains anti-homosexual passages.

Ahahahahaha. That is hilarious. Probably an unintended consequence though. Hardly sounds like they were explicitly setting out to ban the Bible, and just so happened to incidentally ban it in an overzealous ban on hate literature (which, in all honesty, I don't actually support. Free speech, even for douchebags). Hardly "Christian bashing" due to that.

INSTANCE #3: Barack Obama Defames Christianity

According to research into President Elect Obama's own statements about faith, and an examination of Obama's position on moral issues, CADC has determined that by any biblical and historic Christian standard, Barack Obama is not a Christian, although he claims he is a "devout Christian."

How in the name of refurbished FUCK does any of that count as "defaming Christianity" or "bashing" of any form? Just because he isn't a fundamentalist, that counts as Christian bashing? This seems like it is just a retarded potshot at Obama "teh sekrit Muslem!1!", nothing more.

INSTANCE #2: Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin Is Attacked

Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, came under sharp attack by some in the mainstream media because she self-identifies as a Christian. The Washington Post published a cartoon by Pat Oliphant mocking Palin because she has a background as a Pentecostal/Charismatic Christian.

Sorry, but Pentecostals and Charismatic are ridiculous, and most Christians would say so too. If that makes half of Christendom "Christian bashers", then maybe you should reconsider what the hell you are talking about.

INSTANCE #1: Radical Homosexuals Assault Prop 8 Marriage Supporters in California

During and after the November campaign stories flooded in of pro-Prop 8 signs being taken, people verbally and physically assaulted, church property and private automobiles vandalized, and person's jobs and pastor's lives threatened simply for exercising their right to campaign and vote in support of traditional marriage.

So, your number one and number ten instances of "Christian bashing" is entirely "bashing" that you received in the backlash of taking away the right to marry from gay couples in the name of Jesus? A single tear rolls down my cheek for you. I don't agree with the vandalization, threats, or violence. But, you also can't say that these organizations and the people in them were just innocently going down to the polling place and are beyond rebuke. They voted to take other people's rights away. The people who supported such a thing are not free from, at very least, a wagging finger and a raised voice or two (as long as their own, yet to be voted away rights, are not infringed upon in that scolding).

BONUS INSTANCE: Senator Grassley's Abuse of Power

US Senator Grassley, a member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, has demanded the financial records of a number of very prominent conservative, evangelical broadcast ministries.

Okay. That tears it. I have no fucking idea what "Christian bashing" means.

Liberal Christianity, and a side-dish of bizarre hopefulness

Old news, but it has just come to my attention. Apparently it is true when they say that fundamentalists are not as prolific as they seem. Because 65% to 70% of Christians in America believe that people of other religions can go to Heaven, including the nonreligious and atheists (more the former than the latter, for whatever reason). Man... are they becoming divorced from traditional beliefs in these times, or what? It's kinda nice! Makes you wonder how long it will be until we finally get a majority in support of gay rights. It's looking even more possible all of a sudden.

Oh, but apparently there was either some sort of error in this chart, or we are really despised by the black people. See for yourself (well...if you can read through the blur).



Heartening news, overall. Even if I am still a little curious about why some of them even bother to call themselves Christian given how little of the religion they actually believe. I might not have needed to hear this kind of statistic in order to go on living in this country if they were brave enough to more accurately label themselves (though I guess it is hard to come up with a name for someone who is Christian but doesn't think Jesus was a divine entity. "Judaism with New Testament supplement" doesn't have a good ring to it).

On the Threshold of faith, certainty, and complete unawareness

I'm sure you've heard it before: God can't make his existence known to us because then we could not have faith. It makes sense at face value. But, there are many interesting factors involved that are often left unexplored. Most of them undermine this argument when left unaccounted for. Others are just of casual interest.

The claim made most often is that God making his existence known clearly to us takes away our free will to decide whether or not He exists (though the linked webpage asserts that we still have free will even with proof, because we are biased for or against Him anyway.) So, God can't make his existence too clear, otherwise we would all have faith in him by default, and obliged to worship him, rather than doing so without knowing about his existence. The strange thing, though, is that God supposedly takes satisfaction out of being worshipped with faith that he exists, rather than being worshipped with faith that he is good and worthy of worship (this also being presumed in the latter form of worship). That seems a bit arbitrary, and it remains unclear why He would expect people to make both of those leaps of faith, when one is big enough (given what we know).

Now, the most obvious problem is that God needs to make his existence known in at least some respect, or make us aware of him in some vague manner, because if he did not, we would have no grounds at all to even imagine such a thing, much less believe it to be true. A "God" (the Christian God and whatever hypothetical others that might be relevant to a discussion of "faith") that gives absolutely no signs is a God that will never be thought of in the slightest. If we were to come to the conclusion that he exists, there would be no exerted pressure to stick with that particular imagined construct, and no reason, among all things the human mind could conceive of in order to explain the things that God is really supposed to explain, why we would come up with the right answer. But, this much doesn't matter, because that form of God, not interacting with us in anyway (and not interfering with our supposed free wills) just isn't consistent with the Biblical God.

Divine revelations, miracles, and existence itself are all touted about as proof of God's existence (with the latter two being claimed to have happened clearly and undeniably in, well, Biblical times). "Divine revelations" and "prophecy" today, however, are mostly dismissed as insanity (save by those who really want to believe them). They are deemed to be hallucinations and dreams, as the linked article tells us. Of course, considering the incredibly subjective nature of these events, and how they seem to be entirely internal experiences, it is hard to conceive of a time when such things weren't dismissed outside of circumstances in which people wanted to believe them, because their delusions confirmed the worldview of the listeners. It becomes hard to imagine how men distinguished between those who were "divinely guided" and those who were "stark raving mad" aside from such preconceptions. And it is even harder to imagine, if this confusion is God's desire to keep himself hidden, why He spoke to several people simultaneously, according to some Old Testament stories. It seems that he appeared to several of them individually and subjectively, but he spoke to Noah and his sons together (thus making it a little harder for them to have the free will to doubt his existence), and he actually appeared to Moses and 70 other people in order to tell Moses to go to Mount Sinai for the more personal, possibly hallucinatory encounter. He seems to be good at keeping us in the dark now, though. Guess it took Him a while to catch on.

Then there are miracles, of which "God revealing himself" might count as a subset (or perhaps miracles are subset of God revealing himself...who knows?). Miracles have seemed to have gotten staler over time. That said, it would be possible to dismiss even the Biblical "miracles", in the form of cities being wiped off the face of the Earth by magic, women turning into salt, people being spontaneously forced to speak different languages, parting oceans, raining frogs, and all those marvelous events associated with the End times. Those are not necessarily indicative of a God existing, and does not force belief, but it is enough to make you question the way that the world works. We, unfortunately, do not seem to see much of that kind of thing anymore. Nothing that is clear and unexplainable violation of everything we know, and witnessed by many. We do not even have the privilege of seeing how we would deal with explaining these things because they do not happen. Miracles today involve a single flower standing in the middle of scorched forest, missing a taxicab that wound up in a pileup, or White Jesus showing up on a grapefruit somewhere. No rain of fire, or cities decimated by clearly supernatural forces (in lieu of, say, hurricanes). It's another case of God being a non-interventionist only outside of holy books. But, in those books, there was one alleged source of miracles that would have been far harder to deny: Jesus. He supposedly churned out miracles like he was some sort of miracle factory. The guy walked on water, turned water to wine, casted out demons, multiplied food products, revived the dead, cured blindness and disease by touch, and claimed that God is real, and he was Him. If he actually did those things, it would be rather hard to doubt that he was telling the truth if you were paying attention to him. And that also doesn't look good for free will. A God that manifests itself and showed off his tricks 2,000 years ago doesn't exactly sound like the kind of God that wants us to rely on almost zero evidence, for fear of disrupting our ability to choose. But, unfortunately for us, all we get is old accounts of how those miracles happened by biased observers written decades after the fact. At least he appreciates our "free will"!

And, then there is the muddy matter of asserting that existence itself is proof of God's existence. This is a common argument independent of this one, and it is clear that if existence is all that we had to go by in order to decide whether or not a God exists, God is really expecting too much with too little guidance. Mostly because, unless one conceives of God a priori (tampering with free will again), one would never come to the conclusion that God is responsible for existence, because, without knowledge of that God to begin with, it is just an arbitrary guess. It is the equivalent of me saying that I associate Gremlins with star formation. Stars exist, and therefore Gremlins exist. I might get lucky, and Gremlins might be responsible, and my acknowledging that might appease them. But, more likely than not, it is just something incredibly random that I have come up with to explain what I see before me by speculating about something that might possibly be responsible, but is beyond disproof due to an intentionally slippery definition of Gremlin (anywhere from goblins, to spiritual craftsmen, to a metaphor for gravitational and nuclear forces). Existence is definitely a highly subjective proof of God's existence and doesn't guarantee belief. Mostly because it isn't proof at all.

Jack Chick is incapable of learning

Newsflash, huh?
Jack Chick, famous for rivaling the Phelps family in level of fundamentalism, and for churning out conversion-aimed comic book tracts for two decades, plus change, is now spewing forth another book from his website: Hot Topics. Surprisingly, it isn't just him ranting about the clothes store franchise of the same name. Nope, it's just him treading old territory in the great wide world of crazy.

Tackling 6 of the hottest issues of our time

Over the years, Jack Chick has written some stories that were so hot, that touched such “politically incorrect” issues, that often people were afraid to pass them out on the streets

Jack Chick: proud to have authored comics that were too embarassing to use for proselytizing to people.

But what makes this book unique is what is added. The book contains interviews with Jack Chick and David Daniels, in which the reader will learn the facts behind the writing of these stories. There are facts and statistics that will absolutely astound the reader.

I am sure that those statistics will be amazing. But, seriously, this book is just old tracts, stats, and interviews? I hope that you were at least drunk during the interviews or something, or that you will recount the tale about how you were inspired to write the tract after punching Satan himself in the throat. Because otherwise I am just plain underwhelmed.

This book also contains one new story that is not being released in tract form: HOME ALONE. It is an emotional message against homosexuality and child abuse.

Ugggh. You're a real son of a bitch, Jack. This ground has already been covered by others.

show the shocking plans of the homosexual activists who are determined to have your children.

At this point, you would swear that you were on Landover Baptist. But no. He actually believes this stuff!

The chart showing the current age of consent in many major nations is proof that these people are making real progress to get our children, and will stop at nothing.

That....that doesn't even make sense! The age of consent is something that is relevant to heterosexuals too, and the age of consent in other nations (still well into the teens for those outside the 3rd world countries) hardly has anything to do with them trying to "get our children" here.

The real purpose of “hate crime” laws
With example after example, you will see how “hate crime” laws are being used to silence Christians.

Maybe you should try to stop talking with your fists. "Hate crimes" are crimes directed against a minority because of the fact that they are a minority, and serves to intimidate that group as well as harming the individual involved. It isn't a "hate crime" without fulfilling the "crime" part first. If you are talking about "hate speech", it shouldn't be illegal unless you are inciting violence. Otherwise, you have a legitimate gripe that could be made without crying about unfair application of the law, since it is unconstitutional regardless of whether or not there are double standards.

What about when non-Christians are hateful against Christians? The police look the other way.

Poor, persecuted 85% of the American population. We cry for you.

They’re gay – and they want your kids!
The gay rights movement says they want “tolerance.” But you will be shocked as you see how their public relations campaign has resulted in lowering of the age of sexual consent in many countries, so that they can legally go after children!

There is a false correlation in there somewhere. But I just can't spot where....

Leaders tell us that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Do you know how to answer them? The section about “The little Bedouin idol who would be God” gives you specific quotations out of the Qur’an in which it clearly shows that Allah is not God.

Quotations that show that the God of the Qur'an is of a different character than that of the Bible? Try comparing the actions of the God of the New Testament and the Old Testament. Hell, try comparing the God of individual books within the Old Testament to one another. I'm sure that you could similarly prove that they are not the same deity. That is to say: the contradictions are either minimal in some cases, or able to be handwaved away by interpretation, which you can decide to do depending on what conclusion you wish to reach.

See the proof from U.S. Senate hearings that shows that adult pornography goes hand in hand with child sexual abuse (pedophilia).

Ooooo, the Senate! Why exactly is proof coming from them? I thought they were legislators, not social scientists. I think this is another "correlation is not equal to causation", "cart before the horse", "everybody watches porn, and pedophiles are a subset of everybody" type thing.

Jack Chick is not afraid to say it . . . “Pornography triggers sexual perversion.”

Or those with sexual perversion have an increased tendency to be obsessed with porn. Either or. When your definition of "sexual perversion" is "desire to have sex in non-missionary positions", then it becomes harder to pinpoint the problem. [Note: That is not Chick's actual definition of sexual perversion, but it pretty much sums up all of the things that would qualify for his "naughty list". Tee hee].

Is D&D a doorway to the occult?

Oooooo! My favorite! After all these years, he still hasn't given up on this one!
To answer the question: no. Is it reflective of a casual interest in the things that you label "occult"? Yes. Is that important to anyone but you guys? Doesn't seem to be.

They claim it is harmless. Read the interview with former witch Bill Schnoebelen, as he tells how playing the game led young people to seek out Schnoebelen and his wife, real witches, to learn how to make their magical spells “authentic” in the game.

Wow. An anecdote from a guy who claims that he was a major member of like 7 different pagan groups that practiced real magic. And I think one of those groups was the Stonemasons. Consider me convinced!

Israel: friend or liability?
More and more American leaders are beginning to push for Israel to give up its land. They feel that America will have better access to Arab oil if they take the side of the Palestinians. But God calls this “My land.”

Who are these leaders pushing for giving up on Israel, and why have I never heard of them? And, you've got to love religion-guided politics! And, by "love", I mean "frightened to the very core by".

The Roots of Non-religion

Lack of indoctrination: A large part of how religion functions is by introducing you to religious ideas when you are young and using social pressure (positive for acceptance and negative for rejection) to facilitate belief and adherence. Obviously, this only works in a society that is predominantly one religion. It is incredibly less effective otherwise, due to the social pressure involved being dependent on many people around you expecting you to believe, and holding you with esteem for complying. Without people with those expectations, indoctrination is weaker. The exception is when religion is offered by authority figures, especially at a young age. This can be especially strong, and can carry on even in the absence of that authority figure if they were sufficiently respected.
Being nonreligious due to lack of indoctrination is only a temporary condition if not supported by other "roots". If there is not something else backing it up, it is just nonreligion via ignorance of religious teachings.
Contrarianism: This is a more entertaining influence that acts as an immediate counter to indoctrination by authority or by peers. It is effectively a desire to be a rebel, and oppose both social pressure and authority, which will manifest as a rejection of their lessons by default.

Exposure to multiple religions: Indoctrination is most effective when you are being given an excessive amount of information about one religion in contrast to what you know about others (and the positive spin doesn't help). When, however, you are actually aware of what other religions are, what they believe, and how they affected the societies they existed in, it is suddenly harder to introduce any single religion as obviously superior, and undeniably true. This is far from surefire, however, and may actually be a recipe for someone delving into New Age belief systems, or minority religions that have none of the social pressure that helps to facilitate conversions.

Passionate reprisal: This is what happens when indoctrination does occur, but it is by authority figures that you despise, or cause you to enter a religious social group filled with people you dislike. This leads to distancing yourself from those hated people, by either outright rejecting the relevant religion, religion as an institution, or religion in of itself. This is a very simple form of nonreligion, and if it causes them to adopt actual atheism (rather than just simply refraining from the social interactions that religious institutions entail), a very fragile one.

Reasonable doubt/Critical thinking: The most commonly cited cause for atheism, though far from perfect and rarely the sole influence. Criticizing religious beliefs, and having doubts about them as a result is incredibly helpful in facilitating a nonreligious attitude. The more doubts, and the stronger your critical thinking abilities (and the arguments you are familar with against religious ideology), the more stable you will be in your nonreligious position. The exception is when passionate reprisal is also a factor. When that is the case, the emotional and interpersonal factors that are involved can help to push you in either direction, regardless of the rational strength of either position.

Irreverence: Similar to contrarianism, but not quite. It is a willingness to defy authority and convention. In particular, it is a willingness to disregard traditions and rules that have no rational purpose and to be disrespectful to people or things that do not earn respect. This quality can lead to being nonreligious in of itself. It can also be a product of being nonreligious. But, since it is not as based in stubbornness as contrarianism, a person who becomes nonreligious just because they do not feel the desire to be loyal and respectful by default is not in that position firmly.

Scientific literacy: Basic familiarity with science helps a lot. It not only introduces you to the scientific method, a reliable philosophical process of learning the most that we can about reality under the mild assumption that physical reality actually exists, and the obvious one that we cannot say anything reliable about anything else. In addition, our ever increasing base of scientific knowledge is increasingly coming up with explanations for things that were formerly unexplained, and is even beginning to contradict literal readings of religious texts, to the extent that the incidence of reasonable doubts in even the generally uncritical are increased.

Common sense: This is why one is nonreligious prior to indoctrination and when one is exposed to more than one religion with equal intensity: because we are intuitively nonreligious and nonreligious by default. We are intuitvely aware that there aren't any invisible entities controlling us that we can actually know about, and that it would be nearly impossible to verify the existence of such creatures. But, that is what indoctriation is for: telling us that fairies exist, are serious business, have a laundry list of exploits and demands, and must exist because, if controlling invisible entities didn't exist, there would be no control. And look around you. The world doesn't look like unbridled chaos. Common sense is what makes us hear that and realize that they haven't proved anything, but are just talking in circles. Intuitive logic, as compared to formal logical abilities, are incredibly helpful in fending off the clutch of religious idiocy. (It might not fair so well against claims that are not obviously illogical or pointless, however, and thus is usually only a potential lubricant for reaching other roots, and need not even do that).

[Addendum: the terms here, and the ideas they describe, are by no means exhaustive, and are all, in certainty, speculative bullshit. Just thought it needed mention]

Lee Strobel's brief offering of failure

Hemant is so friendly.  I am not.  And so it begins.

I had a vested interest in the non-existence of God because I was living a rather immoral lifestyle and did not want to be held accountable for my behavior. To me, atheism opened up a world of hedonism that I knew wouldn’t be acceptable to God if he existed.

Then I believe you are in the minority.  Very few atheists are atheists for the sex life. Some of us are in it because we were never taught to be anything else.  Others are in it because religion doesn't hold water.  The rest of us are in it for the nachos.  And a good Christian wouldn't judge us for it!

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that all atheists are hedonists. I’m just saying that, for me, atheism cleared the way for me to live a self-indulgent, me-first, narcissistic life. And to be honest, to this day I can’t figure out why atheists would choose any other path, although I know many do.

I can't figure out why Christians would behave differently.  I mean, to an extent, you need to be "self-indulgent" and "narcissistic" in order to just function properly.  And, of course, if you go too far, it is social suicide.  Albeit, appeasing the wishes of others seems less appealing when you don't have a ghostly policeman menacingly glaring at you from behind a cloud.  But, some of us do it anyway.

While a lot of the issues they raise are the same ones that vexed me, I was not on a mission to wipe all faith from the face of the planet. 

Hoping that people collectively abandon religion over time =/= "wiping faith from the face of the planet."

My wife’s conversion to Christianity (which deeply troubled me at first) resulted in a lot of positive changes in her attitudes and behavior, which I found winsome and intriguing.

This is an incredibly common claim.  Christianity is a miraculous behavioral therapy due to the magic of Jesus.  Or, it could just be the acceptance into a new social group that is solely devoted to saying "yay us!" ad infinitum.   Either one.

In light of the scientific evidence that points toward a Creator and the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, I came to the conclusion that it would have required more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian.

Ugggh.  Let me guess:  your scientific evidence pointing to a Creator is all anthropic principle crap, and your historical evidence for the Resurrection all comes from the contradictory accounts given in the Bible?  Correct me if I am wrong.

Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason.

Did you really think that that would slide?  Did you?  Point by point.

• How does God producing everything rather it arising spontaneously resolve anything at all?  Given that God himself either needed to be produced or needed to have always been, meaning that you either believe, in contrast, that "something produces something produces something....produces everything" or that "something that is always existed produces everything", your case is really not a whole lot more convincing, and does not necessarily need to involve God as you conceive of him.
• Life-forms are composed of elements that are found in non-living matter, become non-living matter, and is, in of itself, not alive.  It is an almost trivial distinction.
• Suffice it to say, your definition of "random" is intentionally askew.  Random processes follow predictable patterns.  Randomly moving particles reach a dynamic equilibrium.  Random sample means are distributed Normally.  Random chance determines whether a mutation occurs, and random chance dictates whether the situation makes it a positive or negative mutation, but its success in regards to yielding offspring will be determined by those facts, and the population will be directed (fine-tuned) based upon whether, by "random" chance, certain traits will be favored due to being beneficial.  Sometimes, randomness isn't so random.
• Both of those terms are essentially meaningless to me.   Too subjective, and often used to describe any variety of things.
• I am not even sure if that counts as English.  But, you are reifying consciousness.  It is not something out in the aether that needs to be produced.  It is a subjective product of internal biology, not something external imposed onto us by a bigger version of the same thing (which, inexplicably, also needed to be produced by consciousness...more of the same problems).
• Pretty much the same thing as consciousness, above.

Jesus’ resurrection (and, hence, his divinity).

Really?  Jesus [supposedly] came back from the dead, therefore he is the Christian God?  Could it not be that:

Jesus has clones.

Jesus was raised as a zombie by a Voodoo sorcerer.

Jesus was a humble magician, not an embodiment of God.

Jesus was an avatar of Vishnu.

Jesus had the ability to regenerate from fatal wounds (and later became Wolverine, of X-Men fame).

Jesus's evil brother Jaysoos was the one crucified, not Jesus.

Jesus was brought back from the dead by alien technology in order to throw them off the scent of Xenu.

Jesus won against the Grim Reaper in a game of checkers and got his life back.

Jesus was raised from the dead by a 15th level Cleric.

Jesus sold his soul to a demon in order to attain immortality.

Jesus was secretly a cat, and was actually "resurrected" on 7 other occassions.

Jesus was kicked out of the land of the Dead for being a pretentious prick, charlatan, and all around douche.

I think that any of the above are just as likely.

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Having said all of this, I do believe strongly that despite our fundamental disagreements, it should be possible for atheists and theists to engage in constructive discussions instead of resorting to name-calling or the imputation of bad motives.

I agree.  It is just more entertaining when we do the latter.

I now believe atheists are wrong in their conclusions, I’m confident that they still matter to God and therefore deserve respect.

Well, it's good to know that you are only willing to give respect when your deity of choice gives the go-ahead.  Considering his level of tolerance, I am not quite sure I am comfortable with that, though.  Oh yeah, and just because you changed your opinion does not give you increased credibility.  I am sick of this "former atheist" crock.  They pull the same thing with political ideologies; using the fact that they were once into a different brand politics as a form of implicit evidence that the abandoned ideology was flawed and the new one is that much better, in lieu of actually presenting an argument of any merit.  It sickens me.   But, what else is new.

The Birth of the True Scotsman

Some of my earliest memories of Christianity, before I knew much about its teachings, or knew anyone who explicitly considered themselves Christian, involve wondering why the term  "Christian" is used as if it were synonym for the word "good".   I think I understand more clearly why it is done today.  Despite not being rooted in the arrogance that I originally assumed it to be when I first heard a religious affiliation being used as a term of merit, the implications of that particular usage of the word still are quite entertaining (and frustrating....really the same thing for me).

I present the definitions of the word "Christian" here for reference:

1.  Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus.
2. Relating to or derived from Jesus or Jesus's teachings.
3. Manifesting the qualities or spirit of Jesus; Christlike.
4. Relating to or characteristic of Christianity or its adherents.
5. Showing a loving concern for others; humane.

Now, for all practical intents, definition 1 is the only that can serve to accurately define a group. And definition 4 is simply "person who is like a person who fits one of the other definitions".  Definition 3, and the related definition 5, are those that are relevant to the usage of the term as a form of acknowledging merit; as a word that is used in a similar to manner to "good".  Of course, this isn't because of any assumptions that the Christians represented by definition 1 are inherently better people than others, but because it is entirely different usage of the word "Christian", in that it is referring to those who act "Christlike", and are being compared to Jesus, rather than simply being among the adherents of the religion Christianity.  But, unfortunately, this distinction is rarely made clear, especially by those who like to equivocate in order to gain a false veneer of credibility.

And what fertile grounds for such equivocation!  The only term describing a member of your religion is also the same term used to describe one who behaves like the idealized man-god that the religion worships, and all of the virtues that go along with that.  You would have to be Jesus himself to be able to resist using that fact to your advantage when trying to claim that those who are not "Christlike" are not "Christian" [*cough* by one definition of the word *cough*].  And therefore, Hitler was a Scientologist.  Completely disregard the fact that your entire religion is based upon the idea that even the most heartless and wicked human being alive can attain salvation by calling upon Jesus for help.  Completely ignore that all humans are imperfect and inherently NOT "Christian" [by that same definition] according to your religion, hence the need for Jesus in the first place.   Anything to win an argument.