Many of these are a variation of the "Your prayer was not answered because you didn't have enough faith" logic.

The former Christian is now a non-believer because he was practicing the wrong version, or didn't understand its "true meaning".

One excuse after another.

Here we are, slowly throwing off the chains of slavery to a bronze age fairy tale, in the 21st Century.

uhmmmm.... a typical theist?

their logic is bad to you
your logic is bad to me

I'll take your quote of context and conclude that they are a Christian.

Their faith is being tested?

Pretty standard part of being a believer, far as i can gather.

other than that, i think things are too complex and do not really operate in the way we think they do, or the way your average christian thinks they do. I think the real spiritual substance in a lot of religions has been boiled away to leave mostly moronic dogma for the masses, it's no surprise that things don't always go to plan in this respect.

I'm trying to imagine how I would look at this vid if I were still a believer. I know I'd at least want to come up with satisfactory answers for myself to every one of the problems presented in the vid.

Since you are one of the more serious and informed Christians I get to hear from, can I assume that you've already dealt with things like the inconsistent accounts of Judas, etc., and satisfactorily answered them for yourself?

You clearly aren't an ignorant Christian (as I was), who simply never delved deep into questions about your faith/religion. It would be interesting to hear some of YOUR problematic questions and how you've reconciled them.

Obviously, I didn't delve anywhere near this deep as a Christian. For 19 years it never dawned on me to question the existence of god or my religion. I never would have even known about the inconsistent accounts of Judas. One day, sitting in a park by myself, I simply thought about the fringe inconsistencies and why I believed. I was an atheist within an hour.

Anyway, if you really are interested in helping Christians (or perhaps even an atheist here and there), you should create a post when you have time about YOUR own journey as a Christian. The things that have troubled you or given you pause and how you tackled them. I dismiss what most Christians have to say, simply because I don't believe that they've ever truly contemplated their faith/religion and feel they are either parroting others, or spewing unsubtantiated personal musings (IOW- are ignorant like I was). It really would be cool to hear a NotReady version of this video series. Of course, with a different conclusion.

I want to address in one post what many people have pointed out about the lack of understanding the many if not most christians have about theological issues. You are right that it is not a prerequisite to being a christian.

I think that you are right that and that this is probably a good generalization. And I think that many people are not even aware of the supposed contradictions and how to deal with them.

But this is the problem. Every time I see one of these videos or listen to a conversion to atheist story they all seem to be the same. Person A believes in X. Person A finds what appears to be an inconsistency with X typically pointed out by Person B (a well spoken atheist). Person A is then left with two choices. Either X is wrong or Person A's understanding of X is wrong. Now for some reason choice 2 never seems to cross their mind. So instead of looking into their own understanding of X they simply scrap it and move on.

Just as I believe that before accepting christianity a person should understand what they are accepting. Also, before rejecting christianity a person should understand what they are rejecting. Often times they are rejecting their own shoddily constructed version of christianity instead of rejecting what the bible actually claims.

This is what I don't understand. Why is one looking for his "touch" and then proceed to reject him on an intellectual basis?

Here's the problem with this: the majority of people who call these former-Christians not true Christians would never do the same to people who currently call themselves Christians. I mean sure, some of the fanatical religious people will, but mostly Christians who have misunderstandings about Christianity are completely accepted as true Christians.

Do you understand every belief system on earth you reject?

No one has to know anything about Christianity to reject it. If atheists had to use that rule for every belief system on earth it would take a lifetime of studying region and you would still not get through them all.

And anyway i could interpret the bible in the exact way you do. But still hold the belief no one on earth has ever talked to God.

Agree and disagree.

You can reject anything that it is in your free will to reject, but in order to have a valid opinion about it first, you must know what you're on about.

Yes, if you want to rubbish every belief system on earth and be taken seriously, you must first know what you are rubbishing. And yes, that is a lot of study.

If your saying to have valid opinions about a religion you should be knowledgeable about that religion, i agree. If your saying in order to be an atheist you need to study every belief system or your atheism is not valid, i disagree.

This can't be entirely true. You are forgetting about all the other Christian influences who he could also believe.

The decision to agree with the "one" atheist over all Christian peers and indeed, his very own beliefs, isn't simply a matter of believing one person and scrapping all else. It is BECAUSE of his own understanding why he concluded the one atheist must be right.

I agree with your over all point, but I feel you are missing the issue here. I all comes down to why someone is rejecting something.

If I told you right now that I rejected string theory and you ask me why and I said "because I don't believe that aliens live is giant strings in the sky" you would laugh at me and tell me I don't understand string theory at all, and that I am not actually rejecting string theory but my own misunderstanding of what string theory is.

Or here is another example. If I told you that I rejected evolution because I said "there has never been evidence that monkeys give birth to humans" you would once again laugh and tell me that I better read up as I don't understand evolution at all and my rejection of evolution is unjustified as I don't understand what I am even rejecting.

I understand what you are saying, but you are really just nitpicking my example. My point is that he does not go back and objectively look at whether or not his understanding was flawed, he assumes that his understanding was correct. That's the issue.

Why do you reject the Olmec Jaguar God, do you have a good reason? Does that reason have to do with the tenants of the Jaguar God. If not is your rejection invalid?

Some examples of claims the Bible makes that are easily rejected:

- People turned staffs into snakes.
- A man lived in the belly of a whale for three days.
- A woman got pregnant without the help of the opposite sex.
- The sun stopped in the sky.

Rejecting stories like these and the many others like them in the Bible is exactly what you're asking for, rejecting what the Bible actually claims. I would love to hear an argument for why you don't think these claims should be rejected off-hand, I really would.

Jibninjas obviously didn't actually listen to the posted link, and hasn't actually refuted any of the points made in it.

Why are these claims any different from the virgin birth or resurrection?

Well, we must have gotten two very different perceptions from the same video. It appeared to me that he examined and re-examined his understanding repeatedly to determine whether his orginal understanding was flawed. It took the guy many years of grappling before he lost his faith entirely. Unlike myself, who lost faith almost immediately after I forced myself to think objectively about it.

I mentioned the virgin birth, and they're no different from the resurrection, it's just that Christians seem to have stronger blinders on when it comes to that particular issue so I leave it out and just discuss ones that are not central to their faith.

i agree

Oh, I didn't actually watch the video. I was just talking in a general sense.

I know nothing about the Olmec Jaguar god, so I don't know that I do reject said god.

please respond to my analogies, if I reject evolution based on the fact that I believe a monkey could not and does not give birth to humans, do believe that I have justifiably rejected evolution? that seems to be what you are saying.

Also, I want to point out that even if you reason to believe that the bible is false and is just a product of man, that should not lead you to atheism, but deism. So many people skip a step.

Why should it lead to Diesm? Is there any reason to believe a non religious God exists? Just like you ask where did Universe came from, you can ask where would that God spring up from?