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<\/a><\/p>\nJenifer Fulwiler of Conversion Diary<\/a> wrote a piece for the National Catholic Register (\u201c5 Catholic Teachings That Make Sense to Atheists<\/a>\u201c) that has sparked a fusillade of atheist<\/a> criticism<\/a>. \u00a0For the record, although I disagree with a number of her examples, I think her goal of demonstrating that Catholicism is an internally consistent system is a reasonable one, and an important part of cross-religious dialogue. \u00a0I\u2019ll get back to the substance of that<\/em> argument tomorrow.<\/p>\n For now, I want to talk about one specific genre of criticism she\u2019s getting: that she was never a real<\/em> atheist to begin with. \u00a0One commenter wrote:<\/p>\n I read your original article, and as an atheist I did not agree with a single point (none of the teachings made \u201csense\u201d to me\u201d, and as PZ suggested, I am not convinced you had arrived at your previous atheism from an intellectual standpoint. It sounds as if you were just a theist in denial or in \u201cthenial\u201d \u2013 it happens all the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n People who cross over, in either direction, tend to slammed for flying under false flags. \u00a0Jen gets accused of always being a closet theist, while John Loftus of Debunking Christianity<\/a> is constantly being told he must not have really <\/em>been a Christian, even though he used to be a committed and passionate pastor. \u00a0Although the critics disagree about religion, they agree on the proof of perfidy: the mere fact of leaving.<\/p>\n Both sides think that one<\/em> of the transition directions is right and reasonable, so we need to come up with a better metric for detecting intellectual lightweights than the act of switching sides. \u00a0What could a convert do to demonstrate that they had truly been a strong and reasonable atheist? \u00a0How could an apostate convince their old parishoners that, until they\u00a0discovered\u00a0some crucial fact, they had been sincere in their faith? \u00a0Would passing an Intellectual Turing Test<\/a> help? \u00a0Is this the kind of thing that could only be proven through long personal experience?<\/p>\n As I mentioned in the Handy Dandy Guide to Converting Me<\/a>, I have friends who are intellectually rigorous atheists whose conversions would make a big impression on me, but I\u2019ve had years to get acquainted with their\u00a0skepticism\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s hard to know someone else\u2019s heart, especially on the basis of blog posts. \u00a0I follow Jen\u2019s blog, and I\u2019ll admit the most frustrating aspect of the archives is that she started blogging after she had already tilted very strongly toward the theist side. \u00a0I don\u2019t get a strong sense of what kind of atheist she was before the blog, and some of what I have to go on (her take on biology and design<\/a>) doesn\u2019t bolster my confidence.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t have a very good standard to go on, and plenty of what informs my gut is hard to put into words, so I\u2019d love feedback from the commenters.<\/p>\n How do you gauge the validity of someone\u2019s abandoned beliefs? <\/em><\/p>\n How could they convince you that they really used to agree with you?<\/em><\/p>\n How does this answer vary on either side of the Christian\/Atheist divide?<\/em><\/p>\n Jenifer Fulwiler of Conversion Diary wrote a piece for the National Catholic Register (\u201c5 Catholic Teachings That Make Sense to Atheists\u201c) that has sparked a fusillade of atheist criticism. \u00a0For the record, although I disagree with a number of her examples, I think her goal of demonstrating that Catholicism is an internally consistent system is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-atheism","category-conversion-2"],"yoast_head":"\n