Christian evangelists don't just tell people off-the-cuff stories to convert others to Christianity. Evangelism is a carefully honed skill that is developed through extensive practice and effort. Indeed, much of that effort is invested in not sounding like one is telling a prepared tale that has been deliberately crafted to elicit the best possible reaction. In other circumstances one might call such behavior lying, but for evangelists it's what's expected.
At my job, which does not concern me being involved in religious activity (which I just couldn't do), I often overhear conversion lessons. We will call the converter Mr. C. and the girl in the story Ms. G.
Mr. C. said the following to Ms. G: So here we have a calendar and it states that the year is 5769. But what does that mean and how can that be? We know by science that the earth is much older than that, millions of years old (he rambled a little here and didn't seem to know the generally stated 14 billion years). Well, I have an orthodox friend who is also a paleontologist. One time I asked him how he can reconcile his job as a paleontologist with the religious stance that the earth is only about 6,000 years old. Well, he told me that thousands of years ago, perhaps one day was a million years and so on, and in this way he makes sense of it and there is really no contradiction. He also went on to say that there are people who will argue this but they look to argue everything. [END]
Interestingly, I have heard Mr. C. tell this story other times where it was he who told his orthodox friend how to reconcile his job with his religious belief (the reverse of what I just illustrated). Of course, I highly doubt that this paleo-orthodox man even exists. It's just part of Mr. C's spiel.
Lying is supposed to be a sin, but do you think evangelists even see their behavior as "lying" anymore, when their false stories are being told in the service of a "higher," religious cause? Just how many other sins do you suppose evangelists are willing to rationalize when their religion is at stake? Add your thoughts to the comments here or join the ongoing discussion in the forum.
As an almost daily visitor to *FSTDT.net I can tell you that lying is part and parcel of what they profess to be “truth”. Many of the fundie types will say anything to distort reality for their “cause”. It’s called by some non-fundies as “lying for Jesus”. The fundies are very prolific at this, and see nothing wrong with it.
(*Fundies Say the Darndest Things)
I get the “I used to be an atheist” stories often. There are a few I’ve seen where the person telling the story probably was an atheist and converted. Stranger things have happened, I guess. Still, I would wonder several things about their time as an atheist. For example, they may not have believed in a god but did they accept other propositions like ghosts or magic? Did they lack belief in a god because they just never really thought about it?
Most that I hear I have to say that their claims to prior atheism are in actuality false but they aren’t lying either. Instead they usually have a mistaken operational definition of what an atheist is in my experience. When I was 16 I claimed to be an atheist until, about a year later, I realized I was really a theist that had serious moral issues with what my religion was teaching but was not receiving any serious answers. I have forgiveness for these types, however, if they continue telling the story after they’ve been corrected then they’re treading the grounds of dishonesty.
Then there are the ones that have never been an atheist at all and they very well know it. They may have been like those I describe above at one time but continued making the claim long after they’ve been corrected, which is bad enough. On the other hand, there are those that make the claim simply as an emotional appeal to both believers and non- believers alike. There was a rather popular eveangelist some time ago that was like this. I can’t remember his name but I think he was from Texas, though he had a national following. At any rate, he claimed he was once an atheist and engaged in all manner of immoral actions. It was later revealed that it was pretty much a huge lie.
Regardless of what the reality is behind such claims, it still seems like a useless claim to make. I understand that they are trying to build a rapport with their target but have they ever stopped to think how they would consider the reverse claim? Would find an atheist making an “I used to be theist” claim to be credible and start questioning their god’s existence? If instead they would find it worthless and unconvincing, then why do they seem to think it would work on us?
Granted this claim appears to have a good deal of effect on believers, definitely far more than it does on atheists. I wonder though if there is an underlying agenda behind it as well; one that allows the theist to avoid re- evaluating their own beliefs when their conversion attempts fail. Is it a way to simply dismiss the arguments of the non- believer out of hand without having to address them, especially in their own heads? Could this be applied to all conversion strategies?
You know, that reminds me of a show I saw once about weight-loss counselors. These women had been instructed to tell all their members that they used to be fat and lost weight with The Plan, even though they were never fat and had never used The Plan.
That said, if somebody tried to tell me “thousands of years ago, perhaps one day was a million years and so on” I’m not sure whether I would laugh, or ask them if they were on drugs.
I see three elements in the fundamentalist tales I’m most often exposed to: 1) Anything said by another church member is accepted without question, regardless of how outlandish it may sound. 2) Errors accumulate during transmission, as the story gets passed around. 3) Sooner or later it passes through the filter of a natural storyteller who embellishes with relish and without shame.
Another conversion strategy, sad but true..
http://shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=80745
Liars For Jesus are part of the phenomenon of the “end justifying the means”.
They have the gall to claim they possess “absolute morality, yet they have no problem being moral relativists when lying for their religion is involved.