I found quite a recruiting attempt by christians toward atheists.
Here’s a snippet:
“Really though, if you’re an atheist you need church as much as believers do! Behold, all the benefits of churchgoing—singing, making friends, potlucks, social service, moral guidance, coming of age rituals (e.g., confirmation, graduation), social intensification rituals (e.g., births, baptisms, weddings, funerals). You may find a loving, accountability group (e.g., Christian AA) that offers hope instead of despair. You will find a good job-seeker network. A support group for life crises. A place to get married or buried. A place that offers meaning to your life. You might even find free babysitting! You can have all these things without abandoning atheism because so much of church life does not demand any belief in the supernatural”
and my response to the whole thing:
Happily, I don’t need any religion for moral guidance, especially christianity with its supposed god that commits and commands genocide, that kills people for things they didn’t do and had no control over, and who supports slavery.
And no one needs your religion to have hope. Us atheists do quite fine without it.
“You might get free travel. Church people take “mission trips” to U.S. and foreign destinations and the congregation sometimes springs for the cost. There are often no explicit belief requirements or litmus tests for these trips (although there may be some behavioral requirements)”
wow, travel to try to convert people who have their own religion or who don’t want religion. Yep, my former church sends people to countries with plenty of christians in them, just to try to convert them to their version.
“You’ll learn about charitable causes to support. You’ll learn how to better deal with needy people, the poor or mentally challenged. You will become part of a fellowship that will support you in your dire need: health, family or marriage breakdown, social conflicts, economic collapse.”
Don’t need the religion for this either. Having been a christian, I know that your claims aren’t always true about churches.
it really is amusing how desperate you seem to be to fill the pews no matter who is there.
“But we haven’t mentioned the greatest threat. You might like church. The food, camaraderie, physical and emotional support, entertainment, uplift and inspiration may tempt you to question your most deeply-held non-beliefs. As C.S. Lewis warns, you can’t be too careful. You run into these temptations at every turn.
Be strong. Resist. If not, you, like C.S. Lewis, might get sucked kicking and screaming into that 2,000-year-old fellowship of diverse, broken, hurting, annoying and amazing people who are on the road to a Christ encounter.”
Oh yes, C.S. Lewis, who said to lie to potenial converts about the splintering of Christianity since that would not convince them that joining the cult was a good idea. ” And secondly, I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we write and talk about them we are much more likely to deter him from entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own. Our divisions should never be discussed except in the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God and that Jesus Christ is His only Son. ” – Mere Christianity, preface.
I do wonder if my post will be allowed to be seen, or if as usual, the christian will try to hide that atheists aren’t interested in their claims and can see how false they are.
My post did appear. I’m going to guess it won’t be there very long but I might be wrong.
Club Schadenfreude 
If I want all the church stuff, I can join the Unitarian Universalists. They have all the community and music and potlucks and service projects and stuff, but they won’t tell you what to believe. Or Ethical societies or Sunday Assembly, or local humanist meetup groups; there’s many choices if that’s what I want. I have no need to join a cult that tells me I’m broken, just to get a few social benefits.
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Going to church to meet people is a good idea. Maybe I should do this sometime
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I’ve met those people Mak, don’t do it! 😉
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I hear you. I will not doit
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Wow, they really are getting desperate to get those bums into the pews, aren’t they?
– I can sing in the shower or in a karaoke bar.
– I can make friends just about anywhere.
– I already do all the social service that I have time to do.
– But most significantly, I don’t like the idea of getting “moral guidance” from a group, particularly not a group with a large theistic demographic, and definitely not from people who think that substitutionary atonement is moral. Seriously, folks, if you think it’s A-OK to have Jesus die in your place, you have *nothing* to teach me about morality.
Hard nope.
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They left out that it is great place to meet girls (I’ve no idea about boys. But probably.)
Anyways, this is what they are supposed to do. I wonder why specifically atheists? I bet they think atheism is our first rodeo. 🙂
However, it is true that when peeps leave a church environ all that social and tribe stuff is missed (I did not). That is why Austin Atheists have a social “thingy” on Sunday mornings.
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You said, “Oh yes, C.S. Lewis, who said to lie to potenial converts about the splintering of Christianity since that would not convince them that joining the cult was a good idea.”
Do you have a reference for this C.S. Lewis quote? I would like to read it.
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Sure, Jon. It’s in the preface of Mere Christianity.
“And secondly, I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we write and talk about them we are much more likely to deter him from entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own. Our divisions should never be discussed except in the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God and that Jesus Christ is His only Son.”
Many christians have tried to claim that this isn’t a lie. It is since any attempt to prevent someone from making an informed decision about something for your benefit is indeed a lie. If I didn’t reveal the problems with a car I sold someone, I would be guilt of lying.
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Jon, I’m curious about what you think about C.S. Lewis’ advice to lie.
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I’m not convinced Lewis is suggesting we lie. I do disagree with his proposal that we avoid discussing differences. However most of the differences of denominations just don’t matter and are a matter of preferences like red or blue being my favorite color. These we do not need to discuss. If you are selling a car to me it does not make any difference to me if you prefer your air conditioner set at 75° or 67°.
My Muslim friends and I normally discuss general differences between Islam and Christianity and do not discuss differences between different Muslim sects and different Christian denominations because our other differences are so vast. Even the important differences between denominations are not relevant at that point.
If my Muslim friend decided to become a Christian, that would be the time to discuss differences between the denominations so that he could choose the church he would like to attend.
I find discussing differences quite interesting just for my own information. I am friends with Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Mennonites, Methodists, Mormons, and atheists and discuss differences with them. Perhaps you and I will meet someday and we can become friends.
I want to know as much as possible before I make changes to my world view. Why would I expect someone to make changes without all the relevant information?
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Jon, what is a lie of omission? You can define that, right? It’s hilarious when christians lie and claim tht the differences make no difference since you all claim that they do make a difference and those who are “heretics” aren’t christians at all, as as such will not be “saved”. The dishonesty that you and so many christians demonstate with this outright lie isn’t surprising.
It is also no surprise taht Muslims also dont’ like to admit their differences, since it shows that their claims of unity and having the truth fail as soon as they admit that.
Why would you need to wait until after someone wants to become a christian to mention all of the different and contradictory versions? That seems to indicate you need to hide something.
Christians had no problem murdering people who were different from them. That you don’t shows how effective secular law is in keeping the hate between these groups in check.
Why would I be a friend to someone who lies to people in order to get them to join their cult? And it’s notable that *you* want to know as much as possible before you make changes to your worldview but you don’t want others to have the same information. Indeed, why would you tell someone *after* they decided to pursue christianity about how contradictory the versions are rather than before? You are directly keeping relevant information from people so they cannot make an informed decision.
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nice. thanks.
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