Oakspear

How we communicate is a personal decision. I choose to (at least attempt to) communicate in a way that doesn't assume that the other person is a complete idiot. I'm also influenced by the way I communicated my faith while in TWI, and how I see many evangelicals/fundamentalists speak now -- it can be arrogant and condescending. I also figure that I'm not responsible for what other people believe as long as they're not trying to enshrine it in law, or are assuming that I'm an idiot for not believing what they believe. I think that Gervais, at least in that interview is pretty low-key about it. He presents why he thinks the way he does, but doesn't attack Colbert or imply that he is stupid. Regarding the second phrase you highlighted. My family members have built up an immunity to my opinions on religion stemming from my obnoxious "witnessing" during my TWI days and get very defensive when I express an opinion about religion. My point was not I wasn't trying to convince her that her god didn't exist, but that maybe her understanding about said god wasn't in line with reality...within the context of stipulating that God exists. By the way, I'm not an atheist, although I may sound like one sometimes. I allow for the existence of spiritual entities in a kind of agnostic way, but don't base any life decisions on their existence. If there is a God, then there are gods also, with their existence all being of similar probability. I recall a quote that was attributed to The Buddha (probably apocryphal) where he acknowledged that gods existed, but that they were rather silly! I have moved away from religion in multiple steps, starting with my rejection of TWO dogma, moving through skepticism about the Bible all the way to where I am now.

I once told a family member who was complaining about not receiving the answer to her prayers that maybe God wasn't what she thought he was. I wasn't proselytizing atheism, just suggesting that maybe she had expectations of her God that didn't line up with what he was prepared to deliver. I'm of the opinion that if there's an entity upon which the God of the Bible is based (a big "if" in my view), the description of him in the Bible might not be accurate. Not to mention the theological and cultural accretions that have accumulated over the centuries. I like Terry Pratchett's description of how gods became gods in his Discworld books: they start out as little voiceless, mindless spirits that gain awareness and power as they gain believers, becoming stronger as belief grows. Pratchett was an atheist, so he didn't really believe this, but I sometimes picture the God of the Bible as a tribal god who hired a good public relations firm.

Probably it would be freeing. By the time I started raising children I was already involved with TWI, so all my adopted and biological children grew up with TWI doctrine. However, despite being mostly Waybrained, I tried to encourage my children to think and come to logical conclusions. It took with some of them, but not with others! By the time I remarried and was raising a stepdaughter, my wife and I didn't attempt to indoctrinate her in anything. She still managed to catch the Christianity bug through friends, got baptized while she was in Air Force basic training, and still considers herself a nondenominational, generic Christian, although I doubt she cares about doctrinal specifics. Of my children with my first wife, none have stayed with TWI. One son is an atheist, another might be, but doesn't claim the label. My daughter considers herself Catholic, but doesn't really participate. The others never talk about it. My granddaughters are raised by parents who would probably not identify as atheists, but are not involved in any church and to my knowledge never talk about religion. One of the girls told my wife that she doesn't believe in any gods. They're probably the closest in my extended family who I would consider having been raised atheist -- more like raised doctrinally neutral

I like Gervais' approach. He doesn't try to beat people over the head with atheism, or even try to convince anyone, he just states that it's the conclusion that he came to.

I hear similar things frequently. I often wonder whether people who claim to consistently receive answers to prayer would be as convinced if they kept a detailed log of every prayer and every time they received what they prayed for. I disagree though, that unanswered prayers is a "bad" reason to become an atheist. I can see that it might be a first step to realizing that, at the very least, God isn't what we think he is. Lack of results from praying might cause one to question their faith, leading eventually to atheism.

According to Wikipedia, the word was used rarest in classical Greek, but was used in various ways: (as a verb) -- to greet with affection to show affection for the dead love for spouse or family I'm not sure the writers of the New Testament meant it in any way other than just "love". If I remember correctly, virtually every use of the word "love" in English is translated from "agape". (In TWI some "teacher" would breathlessly reveal that some instance of love was ...the word agape...as if it was some cosmic truth). I believe that it was retroactively assigned the meaning or interpretation of love from or for God. Biblical writers and theologians needed to present love that proceeded from God, or manifested by Christians, was somehow different than love manifested by disbelievers. I doubt you could subjectively see any difference between Christians and non-Christians in how they love. Of course any attempt to meaningfully define what God's love entails runs into the problem of any possible unloving action by God spurring a redefinition of love that includes that action.

Off the top of my head, a "bad" reason would be deciding to become an atheist because you're mad at God Another might be because of perceived hypocrisy of religious people or organizations

Didn't he take it one metaphorical step further and claim that not only did the trees in Genesis represent people, but they represented their genitals, making the original sin masturbation?

Almost thou persuadest me to be an atheist

Do you know enough atheists to come to a statistically valid conclusion that they are without joy? But extremely without joy...

Wierwille frequently quoted Bullinger without understanding him. Bullinger explains how the Greek word translated "interpretation" basically means "to loose", and gives the example of dogs loosed upon the game. The misunderstanding is that Bullinger was emphasizing the act of "loosing", or releasing, Wierwille thought the emphasis should be on the viciousness or wildness or the dogs as they attacked the game. I don't know how many times over the years that I heard people teach the misunderstanding of the example, rather than the verse itself

A few years before I was kicked out of TWI there was a big push for us to increase our proportion of giving. My wife at the time, who was usually much more waybrained than I was, vetoed that, pointing out reasonably that we had a lot of bills and just couldn't afford it, so we kept it at 10% (which in reality, was also too much for us). We were also saving up to replace our car. When we were able to scrape together enough to pay cash for a used vehicle (no debt ya know) our twig coordinator, who assumed that we had fallen in line and increased our "abundant sharing" percentage, praised us for "putting the principles of giving and receiving practice" by coughing up more money. I kept my mouth shut. A few weeks later he somehow found out (I forget how) that we were only giving 10% and chastised us for "merely budgeting and saving" in order to achieve our financial goals

I'd be against enforcing such a society, but if one had evolved, would it necessarily have been much different? People behave the way the do, good or bad, because they choose to. My own observation is that if someone follows a religion that commands or expects "love thy neighbor" or some version of that, they will find a rationale to behave against those strictures if they feel strongly that their neighbor shouldn't be loved. On the other side, one who has religious beliefs can very easily choose to live a life indistinguishable from what a religion might teach.

I always thought Bullinger had to really stretch things to make any of his position make sense. I do have a vivid memory of Wierwille saying, in reference to this book that "there were no stars in the North", when there obviously are. Then Martindale trying to "clarify" that statement by saying that it was in "the gap" between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (near Polaris the North Star) that contained no stars. I was on a camping trip away from city lights one summer and noticed that there were most certainly were stars in that "gap". When I questioned leadership about it I was told that they didn't have telescopes in Biblical times.

Dress for Success The book that had all the men wearing three piece suits to job interviews at Burger King! To be fair, the information Molloy imparted was probably true at one time, but dress standards have gotten progressively more casual in the intervening decades