by VorJack
I’ve heard of fundamentalists claiming to be former atheists. I’ve heard of fundamentalists claiming to be former satanists. Given the current climate, it shouldn’t be surprising that there’s a fundamentalist claiming to be a former Muslim. Via RightWingWatch:
Dr. Ergun Caner, the president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, has been a rising star on the Religious Right, entertaining audiences at major Religious Right gatherings with his hip, irreverent stories about his upbringing as a radical Muslim and his conversion to Christianity. Just this week, his story was featured on Focus on the Family’s broadcast, “From Jihad to Jesus.”
But like many of the others, Dr. Caner’s story is threadbare, and many of his fellow Christians are starting to pick it apart:
Turns out, according to a growing chorus of critics – many of them Southern Baptists and other Christians – Caner has apparently been lying for years about his childhood and his life story. It’s hard to even summarize the extent of the deceptions being described by his critics, but they include his claims to have grown up in Turkey and to have personally involved in Islamic Jihad, when court records from his parents’ divorce place him in Columbus, Ohio when he was just a few years old.
Check out the original story for a host of links.
This is pretty common in Christian circles, where personal testimony was (until the internet age) viewed quite positively and uncritically:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Warnke#Investigation.2C_debunking_and_disgrace
Although I guess this stuff still happens with fair frequency.
Aw, you beat me to it … ! Warnke leapt to mind when I read this.
I only learned about Warnke very recently (despite it being ancient news). When I was still a fundie, we listened to his recordings over and over. All of them but one (I think it was “Alive”) were on 8-track. I’m not that old, but it is kinda weird.
People like Warnke are extremely talented orators (if memory serves, which it may not in this case). Too bad they are charlatans. If only they could put their talents to good use. Like narrating godless orgies!
Lying for jesus. I’m not surprised.
Well, I’m shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you! I may have to retire to my fainting couch and have smelling salts brought to me.
Sadly, that is all the rage in some Christian circles; the more “depraved” your testimony, the more insipid sheep you can have flock to you. It’s not enough to be a fairly nice person before your “conversion;” no, you have to be the Worst of the Really Awful (satan worshipper, homosexual who went to gay pride parades and had had sex with a few people–inflated to “a lot of people”) and then, one day, God knocks you on your buttocks of you have some sort of traumatic break with reality and POOF! You’re SAVED!
This guy is quite the fraud! It’s evident he would say or do just about anything to snatch another dollar for his pocket and another idiot for Christ. Now that he’s been exposed it seems he’ll say or do just about anything in order to preserve his job and what remains of his reputation. Bottom line: Ergun Michael Caner (who was born with the middle name of Michael but uses Mehmet for effect) is a self-aggrandized liar, and he’s just as slimy as Jerry Falwell was (and still is in his grave).
Teh commandment says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor.” There’s nothing in it against lying about yourself.
No, see, you’re just misunderstanding the commandment. You need to look at it in a cultural context that no longer applies.
Lying about being a Muslim? Odd…
My favorite is still my neighbor.
“I used to be an atheist before I found Jesus.”
Me “Ya? What evidence turned you?”
“I just got tired of all the drugs, fights, loose sex and immoral behavior. I was compelled to be a better person”
Me ‘….”
I keep hearing about the drug fueled orgies atheists are having but no one ever invites me to any. I feel left out.
If Unreasonable Faith ever has a convention, we should all bring certain vices to the event.
I got dibs on orgies.
Those are two ideas to work on ;-)
Anyone was in the event in Australia?
There was an even in Australia??? Aw! I feel left out! :P (Not that I can drop everything and go to Australia!)
But seriously, there should be an event some time in the future…I vote for somewhere in North America, more specifically North Eastern NA…
Well, there’s another atheist convention in Copenhagen in June. Don’t know if there’ll be orgies.
Yup. They couldn’t find a place farther from Europe.
http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/
I’d just like to let everyone know that an Unreasonable Faith convention was definitely my idea first. So therefore I deserve praise. BIBLICAL LEVELS OF PRAISE.
Sorry, Yoav, I guess your invitation got lost in the mail again.
From Cheech and Chong:
“One day I dropped acid and listened to Black Sabbath on 78 speed…”
“Oh, and then what happened?”
“I SAW GOD!”
whups wrong reply
We’re talking about a group of people who are conditioned from birth to believe absolute, utter bullshit and to actually *get angry and defensive* when people question it. I’m amazed that any of them batted an eyelid.
You unrepentant fools!!! It is clearly that Satan manufactured all the court documents and paper work and traveled back in time to file them with the County Recorders to smear this good Christian. Just like Satan made up all the dino fossils and buried them deep in the sedimentary rocks to fool the modern paleontologists to question God.
Praise the Lord God damn it.
Satan does seem a lot more pro-active than this god fellow.
Actually, Satan gets more and more awesome all the time.
Um… Satan’s the GOOD guy, right?
At least, he seems to be the intelligent and competent guy.
Cheers to the Christians who are outing and denouncing this man!
Evolutionists are annoyed (rightly so) that the examples of archaeoraptor and piltdown man are so often used to proclaim the dishonesty of science when these frauds were found out by the very scientific process critics are denouncing. I understand the feeling that such frauds are more common in religious circles, but it appears that it is often Christian investigators debunking and denouncing men like this. (The same goes for Mike Warmke.) Reputation markets are not dead, even in Christianity. If we want a leg up when debating piltdown man, we need to recognize the good will and effort of Christians exposing this fraud.
The difference is that scientific frauds are exposed because of the scientific method. Religious frauds are exposed in spite of them being religious.
Besides, scientists neither claim to be morally superior nor use they this alleged superiority to get money.
O, Francese! Wrong you are, grievously wrong. If a man or a woman makes a living from something that requires deception to continue making that living, the deception will almost always happen. (The same is true with reputation for many people.)
A scientist who is alleged or proven to have followed a wrong lead will be just as intransigent as any Swaggart, Haggard, or Falwell. Remember the clone man?
And scientists don’t claim to be morally superior? Give me a break! Of course many of them do, in a socially acceptable “self deprecating” way, fraught with false humility sometimes. After all, scientists are better educated.
The beauty of science is that it supplies tools to make assertions (hypotheses) self-destructive. Religion supplies no such tools. That is the only reason that I know of to speak well of science vis-à-vis religion. The moral quality of both scientists and religionists is wide-ranging and can often be quite repulsive.
I’m all for the orgies. But it seems it’s mostly the males who show up (not that there is anythng wrong with that). Where are the immoral, sleasy, satan worshiping atheist women? (not that there is anything wrong with that, either)
Little late on the thread…but missed all the orgies too….