What They Didn’t Ask at the Megachurch

What can we say/do to a “non-believer” in 10-20 words or less to show them Christian love?

Treat them like decent human beings, act like decent human beings yourself. Act more, talk less.

No kings,

Robert

Speaking of odd things Christians think about atheists, I was told a couple weeks ago (and I’ve heard it before) that there is no such thing as a “true atheist” because “whatever is most important in your life, that is your god.”

Sigh. . .

Those questions were all so predictable; there was nary a one that didn’t conform to the stereotype. You could have written them out beforehand, sealed them in a jar, then taken them out while there and compared them. I wish they had asked them, Hemant.

To me, this demonstrates the impossibility of dialogue. This is what surfaces when there isn’t a babysitter there to filter what gets through.

Aside from the questions about science (“From a scientific standpoint, all evidence points to an Intelligent Creator (God)…”), about which they should be prohibited legally from speaking, my favorite was,

Have you ever considered giving Jesus a chance?

They always assume that you haven’t. Always. Because they need to believe that it always works. And when you tell them, “I have tried; it didn’t work”, the response is equally predictable: “You didn’t really try.” The idea that it may not work 100% of the time terrifies them – because if it fails to work for you, it could fail to work for them. They’ll never forgive you for making them confront that possibility.

You are a much, much better man than I am.

Those questions were all so predictable; there was nary a one that didn’t conform to the stereotype. You could have written them out beforehand, sealed them in a jar, then taken them out while there and compared them. I wish they had asked them, Hemant.

To me, this demonstrates the impossibility of dialogue. This is what surfaces when there isn’t a babysitter there to filter what gets through.

I think what this demonstrates is that yes, the stereotypical questions are the first that Christians think to ask. Many of these Christians probably had never had those questions answered. They honestly don’t know what an atheist would answer.

I think they’re stereotypical because of the way Christians are taught to think about their faith and about non-believers. If we make it a priority to be patient and keep answering these questions (and over time, our answers will become more succinct and understandable from practice) the Christians who’ve gotten answers will start thinking about new questions – maybe deeper, more accepting questions.

Sure, there’ll be some who stay incredulous and insulting, but I think it’s always worth the chance to crack someone’s mind open a bit.

(also: I love the picture! It’s true, Hemant’s not that short, but to be fair, he’s almost that short. I’m also 5’10″ so that may be a contributing factor, lol).

Here are some magic words for showing love to an atheist (or anyone, really). “I’m interested in understanding what you have to say.” No ulterior motives, just understanding. That spells love to me.

i’m hoping that “pray in jesus’ name question’ was for me!

About the “Christian love” question: I was taken aback at what seemed like looking for a shortcut, slogan-based, limited approach to speaking with your fellow human beings, like you can’t waste more than 10 to 20 words on them if they don’t share your worldview. There are no magic words for displaying God’s love or for converting people. Don’t say anything, just listen with as open a mind as you can manage when you’re having a conversation. I learned that much when I was still a practicing Christian. Granted, the attitude I perceived in this question might not have been intended; I can only hope that is the case.

What can we say/do to a “non-believer” in 10-20 words or less to show them Christian love?

How’s about, “I love you”? That was only 3. You could then add, “even if I don’t agree with your beliefs.”

Troy is an extremely Christian community (if you can judge an areas religiosity by the number of churches it has). It’s likely that most of the people in that church have never engaged in a religious conversation with an “open” atheist. My girlfriend has lived there her whole life and has been brought up to believe unquestioningly. I’ve known her sister since she was 6 (now 12) and she has always gone to church every Sunday and a meeting or 2 during the week so I think its fair to say she’s fairly indoctrinated (as are a high percentage of her peers). Those questions don’t surprise me in the least.

My GF has seen me reading Atheist sites numerous times and sometimes gives me this worried look. One day I talked to her about her faith (she’s one of those “spiritual people” and is currently church shopping). I started by asking her to define her beliefs and got one of those vague “god is everything” type of answers. I tried explaining that with such a vague “god” it’s basically the same as not having a god at all and that she doesn’t have to believe. She’s extremely intelligent so sometimes I get upset that her brain turns off when it comes to religion. This conversation lasted about 20 minutes and ended with her crying and telling me that she would “die without God.” I say that to say this: religious indoctrination leads to insulation from other points of view and when those other ideas come in the wall goes up. So much so that any breach leads to worries of total destruction. It’s no wonder people ask questions that have answers that seem so obvious.

Sorry for the ramblings lol.

Also I’m disappointed there was no after party. PZ would’ve done it!

Luckily a friend informed me of this event and I was able to attend. Following Mr. Mehta’s format:

The Good:

Hermant did extremely well in two regards:

1) He did not look or act what they expected for an atheist; and
2) He kept reminding him he was one!

On the first, he was clean-cut, short hair, appropriately dressed. No meth-induced creepy look about the eyes. He laughed and joked and smiled and looked…comfortable. Atheists aren’t supposed to look comfortable in a church. We are supposed to be “the dark” and shun “the light.” For many it was like watching a vampire sunbath—not supposed to happen. Not right.

In fact, he was SO comfortable the audience warmed up to him. He seemed like the type of guy you could laugh away an afternoon of cards with. Or even…dare I say?…let date your daughter. Or…(how could this be possible?)…even not think twice about dropping your kids with at a day care.

And every time they started to think, “what a neat guy!” he would hit them in the face with a board. (Figuratively.) “Oh, I am an atheist.” “As an atheist…” “No such things as god…” The people around me were letting out their breath when they started to relate, and then sucked it in when they heard that word. Like being seated with a pack of bellows.

The question, “Fill in the Blank, ‘God is ___’” and without hesitation he replied “Make-believe.” The people stiffened around me. “Did he just say…uh…but he seems like such a nice boy?!”

The Bad

I found it interesting how the questions, whether worded that way, or phrased by the Pastor, kept implying he (and all of us atheists as well) thinks Christians are unreasonable, irrational and deluded. I don’t remember the exact wording, but there were prefaces or additional clauses like, “…since we are not rationale.”

Clearly the impression atheists have given (deserved or not) is that we think all Christians are not very intelligent. Something to think about… (And yes, I know, “Have you tried Jesus?” has been asked 1000’s of times, and we tire of saying the same thing over and over and over, only to hear the next day, “Have you tried Jesus?” But remember, often to the person asking the question—it is their first time asking it. We may have answered it numerous times; they have never heard the answer. A flippant response, “Yes, and he was delicious” born out of frustration has given us a not-so-welcome reputation. If that is what you want—fine with me. Just don’t be surprised if that is what we get.)

The Ugly

Nothing will change. As it coincidentally turns out, I attended Kensington for a period of time. I explained I was an atheist, and wondered if there was any way I could fit in. (Long story.) After being shuffled around a bit—it became evident there is not.

Understand—I think this is correct. There is no place for an atheist of my stripe in a church. Like roller-skating. Fun activity, but no way to do it in a bowling alley. About the same fit.

I discussed the situation with a friend, and he eloquently pointed out, “Church must cater to the lowest common emotional denominator.”

People met an atheist. Found him fun and personable. (A bit too comfortable with the “a” word.) And figure he was a rare anomaly, unlike all those other atheists.

In answer to the question, “What can we do to show Christian love to a non-believer?” I would respond as follows:

“You could start with the Golden Rule. You know the one: ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated.’ And once you have that Christian love mastered, you could possibly graduate on to Human love and try the Platinum Rule: ‘Treat others as THEY want to be treated.’”

He had some interesting ideas but he was a fraud.

The connotations of “fraud” are too strong, I think. We don’t know that the historical Jesus didn’t personally believe what he taught. We don’t know who – Jesus himself, the Gospel writers, the canons who chose books to go in the Bible – really believed (or even said) what we’ve got today.

Instead, I would say, “The Biblical Jesus had some interesting ideas – and some of them were good- but ultimately I think he was deluded at best and a fraud at worst.”

Hemant was also brave (IMO) to take shots at Jesus’ ethics in the Bible. He pointed out that Jesus had a temper, that he certainly didn’t seem to treat his family well, etc. I was kind of hoping he’d point out that he wasn’t strong on animal rights either and mention those poor pigs, but you can’t have everything.

Jeff E. said:

Aside from the questions about science (”From a scientific standpoint, all evidence points to an Intelligent Creator (God)…”), about which they should be prohibited legally from speaking, my favorite was,

You know we can’t prohibit speech, right? I just want to check, ’cause I feel we should be careful even about jokes like this. We need to hold ourselves to a high standard.

I found it interesting how the questions, whether worded that way, or phrased by the Pastor, kept implying he (and all of us atheists as well) thinks Christians are unreasonable, irrational and deluded.

I do think that, actually.

And yes, I know, “Have you tried Jesus?” has been asked 1000’s of times, and we tire of saying the same thing over and over and over, only to hear the next day, “Have you tried Jesus?”

The problem is that they don’t ask, “Have you tried Jesus?”; they ask “Why don’t you try Jesus?” – the implication being that it’s impossible for someone to try to “accept” Jesus and come away empty-handed. It’s the presumptive arrogance I can’t stand.

Nothing will change.

Agreed.

Sarah, it seems OK to me to kill pigs to save possessed humans. I just wish the guy hadn’t been so harsh on that poor, innocent, fig tree.

* What can we say/do to a “non-believer” in 10-20 words or less to show them Christian love?

I’m always here for you. Errrrrm, how ’bout those niners?

There. Ten words. Of course, the other half to this answer is that christian love shouldn’t be any different than atheist love. I’m not so sure why there needs to be an adjective.

* What can we say/do to a “non-believer” in 10-20 words or less to show them Christian love?

In 20 words or less? They don’t even have to talk. All you have to do is have a sincere attitude of caring and show you think of the person in front of you as an individual not “lost sould X to save”. If you care about a person as an individual that will shine through. What IS true is that I won’t associate it with Christian love necessarily. I don’t even know how you would distinguish regular love from Christian love. In fact, I suspect that the more I could distinguish one from the other, the less I would trust the sincerity of the specifically Christian love.

Very happy to hear the report. Would love to hear the audio when it’s ready.

And very good to hear how respectful most were. It sounds like if someone is going to attend any church, one like the Kensington church would be one to at least consider.

And we figured everyone out here does exist to some degree. Sarah is a cutie.

Those questions are rather stupid.

And that girl is rather cute!

How do I get your job?

In general, I think they did a pretty good job weeding the questions. Answering many of those would obviously be unproductive, because they aren’t really curious about your world view. They are just looking for some chink in your armor so they can jump up and shout, “Ah ha!”

* From a scientific standpoint, all evidence points to an Intelligent Creator (God)… Do you have presuppositions that influence your choices how to interpret this huge amount of evidence? P.S. Do you think we are fools?

* Do you not question the validity of a master designer when you see the change of seasons, the complexity of the human body… do you believe you evolved from an ape?

* How do you apply Laws of thermodynamics, conservation of energy, & creation of man from a non-God perspective?

Wheee! ID proponents are fun.

* How do you explain the concept of love without belief in God?

Interesting story: my high school psychology teacher asked us to all write down a definition of “love”, then she read them all out loud. It was interesting. There were a few “God is love” type things thrown in, but in general the definitions were scattered all over the board. Personally, I wrote down a couple lines from a song. Mine kind of stuck out from the rest, and the teacher asked (with a smile) if I would be willing to explain why I wrote it. I said something to the effect that love is a highly subjective experience, and there is no correct definition, so I didn’t see the point in trying to do better than some random poet or songwriter. I got an A in that class.

* As an atheist, would you allow your children to make their own decisions about Christianity?

This is an interesting one for me, because I already have a young child. I actually intend to educate my son about religion, and I very much hope that he does make up his own mind about it. Of course, I also intend to educate him about science, skepticism, and critical thinking, so I will be very surprised if he decides to become a theist.

Where do you find joy when there is such sorrow and pain — either in the world or in your life?

Agreed, there is plenty of joy to be found in friends and loved ones. I guess the key is in understanding that we can’t really do much about most of the sorrow and pain in the world. And when it comes to the sorrow and pain in our own lives, I actually find it much more comforting to think that there’s no “plan” involved in my suffering, that crap just happens and we have to deal with it. The alternative is that God is a real d***.

* What can we say/do to a “non-believer” in 10-20 words or less to show them Christian love?

Here’s what you can do:
Say “I care about you as a person even though you don’t believe as I do.”
Say “I respect your right to not believe.”
Stop talking and listen from time to time.
Be a good person without making it seem like you’re only doing so because you’re trying to score points with God.

Things you shouldn’t do:
Try to convince me that my life is amoral or without purpose.
Try to convince me that science has it all wrong.
Make assumptions about me because I don’t believe in God. If you want to know my thoughts on a subject, just ask.
Tell me that Jesus/God/etc loves me. If I don’t believe in them, then that’s just your opinion. I’m much more interested in how you feel about me.

Right. Way to take my comments out of context. You’ve combined my comments from two posts into one paragraph. What I actually said was,

As far as the assertions go – you can choose to believe, the “scientific” evidence proves creationism/ID overwhelmingly, etc. – most of them will never, ever change their minds, because they have too much invested in being right.

The difference between what I said and what you are implying I said is obvious.

I think both sides need to make sure that we are staying away from stereotyping one another. After reading the book, I did have to reflect on my preconceived notions of what I think atheists are. I feel atheists think Hemant went into a church and fielded questions with a bunch of boxed up Christians who have never truly engaged with another atheist or spent a significant amount of time with them. The truth is most of my friends who are Christian, if not all, have a number of atheist friends and seek out and challenge themselves if they feel like they are living in a “Christian bubble.” Being a college graduate from a large university, you can’t help but be exposed to different areas of thought that don’t line up right with your beliefs. I am willing to look at my stereotypes and try to adjust them to make sure I am showing the Christian Love we like to talk about. I just want to challenge others to make sure they are doing the same. And by the way, I do have much love for the brown man. Being one myself I have to respect a good brown man one liner Hemant. “You have to be brown.”

What can we say/do to a “non-believer” in 10-20 words or less to show them Christian love?

How about “I respect your right to be wrong, just as you respect my right to be wrong.”

@ML:

I saw this as an add up on top of this page, what is that about?? Are we now promoting Christian bussiness???

Google places ads there based on keywords used on this site. Guess I write a lot about Christianity…

@ Hermant, thanks, I get it now. Capitalism at it’s best

To answer the last question, I like to borrow the language of Ethical Culture. To show me Christian love, treat me as an end, not a means. My best friend is hardcore evangelical, but bends over backwards to demonstrate that she takes me on my terms, and is in no way trying to proselytize. I think she views her “testimony” to me to be constancy, friendship, helpfulness, and support, no preaching required.

What can we say/do to a “non-believer” in 10-20 words or less to show them Christian love?

To show “Christian” love, you have to make it obvious that the love is Christian in nature… at that point it becomes more about the person giving the love than the person receiving it… and that’s not really love at all, now, is it?

So I guess my answer would be to say/do whatever humbly shows your genuine appreciation for a fellow human being. As long as I think it’s a random act of kindness rather than PR stunt to engender goodwill towards a larger group, then you have succeeded.

Re: “Are you still practicing non-violence”

I wonder what they expected you to say? “No! In fact, I beat up an old lady on the way here and I eat babies for dinner.”

In any case, I think this is awesome. I empathize with the story of the girl who came to you in tears, as that reflects so much of my fundamentalist upbringing. It wasn’t until college that I was really able to explore, learn, and find answers to so many of my questions. I was disowned after college for getting engaged to someone who was (at the time) Catholic–since Catholics aren’t “real Christians.”

Now I live a very happy, very fulfilled, godless life. I’ve since reconciled with my parents, but they still try to guilt me back to the church.

It’s refreshing to see a church so open to dialogue. I wish more were like this.

Love has been usurped by religion to give it legitimacy … love needs no words to reflect its intent … people have been trying to capture love with words for thousands of years … someone asking what they can say to convince another of their love, for a non believer, with words … is asking how they hide their guilt for feeling pity … in my opinion

“I’m an agnostic and most of the atheists I know are angry, bitter, self-righteous, and arrogant.”

I don’t think you know what “agnostic” really means. And if that is your experience of atheists, I have a question. Could it be that such a response is justified in specific cases? After all, you know what it’s like to be driven crazy by others’ arguments. It may even be that you are projecting your own anger, bitterness, self-righteousness, and arrogance onto their remarks. Perhaps instead of being driven crazy you should calmly consider their arguments: they are most likely valid.

The best thing a Christian can say to a “non-believer” to spread the love would be: You accept my beliefs, and I will accept yours. Cooperation and common acceptance are the best things that can happen between Atheists/Agnostics and Religious people.

Alright you ignorant atheists… if there is no god, then HOW DOES THE SUN KEEP ORBITING THE EARTH? BAM!

You see people, that’s how you deal with atheist skum. With LOGIC! Hit that bullseye and the rest of the dominoes will come down like a house of cards… CHECKMATE!

And on that note…

Dunt dun duuh DAAAAHHHH!

!!!!!!!!!MY ATHEIST STORE!!!!!!!!!

Aristotle’s Muse

This is my store. Maybe wearing an atheist T-shirt won’t change the world, but enough of them just might.