{"id":32141,"date":"2019-04-27T18:21:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-27T22:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/?p=32141"},"modified":"2019-04-28T10:11:37","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T14:11:37","slug":"dialogues-w-two-atheists-on-my-critiques-of-deconversions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2019\/04\/dialogues-w-two-atheists-on-my-critiques-of-deconversions.html","title":{"rendered":"Dialogues w Two Atheists on My Critiques of Deconversions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

From the combox of the post: A Conversation About Deconversion, And Why People Share Their Stories<\/a> (Luciano Gonzalez, 7-23-17).<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Bravo Sierra:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The question that matters to me with regard to Dave Armstrong is: Why would a person go to such trouble to pick apart a deconversion story if they know that a deconversion story is a personal narrative which is not meant to apply to all followers of Christianity \u2122 and will convince no one who is not already in your camp?<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer, I suspect, is to ingratiate oneself with one\u2019s fans. As motives go, it\u2019s selfish and unkind.<\/span><\/p>\n

I made quite clear what my perspective and motivation was, in the Introduction to two of my critiques (if you saw or read those at all):<\/p>\n

Since these are public (else I wouldn\u2019t know about them in the first place), it\u2019s reasonable to assume that they are more than merely subjective \/ personal matters, that have no bearing on anyone else. No; it is assumed (it seems to me) that these stories are thought to offer rationales of various sorts for others to also become atheists or to be more confirmed in their own atheism. This being the case, since they are public critiques of Christianity (hence, fair game for public criticism), as a Christian (Catholic) apologist, I have a few thoughts in counter-reply.<\/p>\n

I am not questioning the sincerity of these persons or the truthfulness of their self-reports, or any anguish that they went through. I accept their words at face value. I\u2019m not arguing that they are terrible, evil people (that\u2019s a child\u2019s game). My sole interest is in showing if and where certain portions of these deconversion stories contain fallacious or non-factual elements: where they fail to make a point against Christianity (what Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls \u201cdefeating the defeaters\u201d), or misrepresent (usually unwittingly) Christianity as a whole, or the Bible, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Agree or disagree, that is my motivation. But rather than address that, you choose to second-guess my motives and make unfounded accusations:\u00a0\u201cThe answer, I suspect, is to ingratiate oneself with one\u2019s fans. As motives go, it\u2019s selfish and unkind.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As to my fans, very few Christians have any interest at all in my critiques of deconversions. This is shown by how few likes and comments these articles get when cross-posted to Facebook. They care very little about it. Thus, that makes no sense as any kind of motive. There is huge interest in the atheist community (as witnessed by this very post and several others), but of course they are not my \u201cfans.\u201d So that is dead-wrong.<\/p>\n

As for \u201cunkind\u201d, somehow, all the main atheist figures that I have interacted with have been perfectly gracious, and have not indicated at all that I shouldn\u2019t have done what I did. Jonathan MS Pearce just put up a post saying that he hoped I would continue. He challenged me to interact with his extensive material on the infancy narratives of the Bible, and I agreed to do so.<\/p>\n

Dr. Daniel Fincke seemed almost ecstatic that I came around. He called my critique \u201cvery genial\u201d and said that it was \u201cserendipitous\u201d that a Catholic apologist showed up at an opportune time; that this caused him to come out of a blogging hiatus. Hardly offense or antipathy or \u201churt\u201d there, as to whether I should do it at all . . . Quite the contrary!<\/p>\n

Anthony Toohey, whose story I critiqued, has also been very friendly and we are in ongoing discussions.<\/p>\n

So if they<\/em>\u00a0don\u2019t care and don\u2019t make these accusations, why should you<\/em>? And why couldn\u2019t you simply make your point without the attack on my motives and character? Luciano didn\u2019t have to do that. He stated that he thought I was \u201chonest\u201d and felt no compulsion to attack me for merely doing some critiques.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Jon Morgan:<\/strong><\/p>\n

For me it always felt wrong that the standard of evidence for leaving Christianity would be higher than the standard of evidence for accepting Christianity (in my case, being brought up with it would be the biggest factor). And yet there is a feel that no matter what reasons you give someone will say \u201cYou should have investigated this other thing\u201d or \u201cI accept that and I\u2019m still Christian, so you should accept my rationalisation and return to Christianity\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

No deconversion story is going to be complete, and it\u2019s certainly not going to contain the years of doubts and questions and explorations that some (including me) have followed before reaching our current point.<\/span><\/p>\n

Likewise, nothing we ever say convinces the atheist that we have warrant for our beliefs. Works both ways.<\/p>\n

Instead, we are constantly accused (by many but not all atheists) of being gullible, infantile, stupid, anti-science, anti-reason, etc.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re confident in your beliefs, you will welcome challenges to these stories (just as I absolutely love to be challenged), and in fact, so far that has been precisely the response from two of the three that I critiqued. The third hasn\u2019t commented on it.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

[more from the Facebook cross-posting]<\/p>\n

Jon Curry:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you think the standard you have for deconversions matches the standard you have for conversions? Every conversion story I\u2019ve heard from someone personally is not rational. In fact they have admitted as much to me. Very depressed or emotional, people turn to faith and find comfort, community, friendships. Later they might become convinced of evidence, but it\u2019s rarely if ever an actual reason for joining.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes. I do what I do every day because of the lack of knowledge of the \u201cwhys\u201d of Catholicism and Christianity, Ignorance is a scourge in every class of people.<\/p>\n

Rejecting something and accepting something are different, however. If someone says that \u201cx is untrue\u201d then they need to offer serious reasons for such a claim. I analyze those, and I have found them wanting in the case of deconversions.<\/p>\n

But the basis of the warrant or justification for accepting Christianity is vastly different than the reasoning (real or imagined) used to reject same.<\/p>\n

You and other atheists are free to critique our reasons for being Christians. Likewise, we are free to critique yours for splitting.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

(originally 7-23-17)<\/p>\n

Photo credit:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>paulsbarlow7<\/a>\u00a0(5-19-15)<\/span> [Pixabay<\/a> \/\u00a0Pixabay License<\/a>]<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the combox of the post: A Conversation About Deconversion, And Why People Share Their Stories (Luciano Gonzalez, 7-23-17). ***** Bravo Sierra: The question that matters to me with regard to Dave Armstrong is: Why would a person go to such trouble to pick apart a deconversion story if they know that a deconversion story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":32144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[151,258,645,335,8465,744,254,742,743,6135,1456,2032],"class_list":["post-32141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism-agnosticism","tag-apostasy","tag-atheism","tag-atheist-deconversion-stories","tag-atheists","tag-deconversions","tag-ex-christians","tag-faith-and-reason","tag-falling-away-from-faith","tag-former-christians","tag-freethinker","tag-science-christianity","tag-theological-education"],"yoast_head":"\nDialogues w Two Atheists on My Critiques of Deconversions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The deconversions I have critiqued are public (else I wouldn\u2019t know about them in the first place). 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Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \"This Rock\" (now called \"Catholic Answers Magazine\"), \"Envoy Magazine\" (Patrick Madrid), \"The Catholic Answer,\" \"The Coming Home Journal,\" \"Gilbert Magazine\" (American Chesterton Society), and \"The Latin Mass.\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \"The Michigan Catholic\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \"Envoy Magazine.\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \"Catholic Answers Live\" (twice), \"Faith and Family Live\" (Steve Wood), \"Kresta in the Afternoon,\" \"Son Rise Morning Show,\" \"Catholic Connection\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \"The Catholics Next Door.\" His large and popular website, \"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \"Envoy Magazine.\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \"index\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \"Surprised by Truth\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \"The Catholic Verses\" (2004), \"The One-Minute Apologist\" (2007), \"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\" (2009), \"The Quotable Newman\" (editor: 2012), and \"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \"The New Catholic Answer Bible\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \"Quotable Wesley\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).","sameAs":["https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}