The Deconversion Biography Genre





I posted a vid on my TektonTV channel today that illustrates one of my favorite themes, which is  that some things never change.




I've probably read a couple of couple of dozen "deconversion biographies" by people like John Loftus, Gary Lenaire, Valerie Tarico, and so on. I even wrote about the genre for the Christian Research Journal. It doesn't matter who writes them, they're always the same story in different words. As Nick says in the vid, "They're SOOOOO formulaic!"




Sure, some of that has to do with the natural chronology of a person's life. But when you have so many of these pretending to have claimed the high ground, it's just an annoyance, not a truism. E.g., Gary Lenaire calling his book a "eye opener" when it's filled with garbage like, "The Council of Nicaea voted  on the New Testament in 324 AD."


Despite his hot air, John Loftus, the dean of the genre, isn't any better. He's still using arguments that earned him a laugh track on TheologyWeb back in 2006 or so before I caught him with that "fake blog trick." (Don't know that story? Maybe I'll write a blog entry about it.)


Frankly, you could switch the covers on these in the bookstore and I doubt anyone would know the difference. Which is funny, because I'm sure they say that about "conversion" stories.

Comments

nice article man, the decon can n ever do what the conversion story does, you can't sense the lack of God. The most you can do is realize you accept someone's idea of God.
im-skeptical said…
You left out the MAIN INGREDIENT in the formula, and this is what apologists don't include in their own recipe. It's something called REASON.
im-skeptical said…
For a more realistic view of conversion stories (based on actually reading many of them), see this.
I know you have to mouth the BS bromide that atheists ration a but there being no God but you don't, you do not use reason, you haven not come to that conclusion based upon reason.

anyone who reads my conversion story on Doxa will see that reason was obviously an integral part of the process.

I don't believe that when a person gives up truth and begins to moth the brides of atheism that even counts as conversation," Brainwashing i not conversion,
im-skeptical said…
anyone who reads my conversion story on Doxa will see that reason was obviously an integral part of the process

Are there any Christian bloggers who do not claim to be converted ex-atheists? Your childhood indoctrination was stronger than you know. You were never an atheist. You never had a clue what it means to think like one. This is your real conversion story.
that's pathetic. You are just talking like a fumndie now. Yopu've heard of religious attitudes of "holyer than thou?" you are "More blasphemous than thou."

I was every bit as atheistic as you are or more sol I a true intellectual atheist and y brother even more so, i had Ray Hiunman to guide e in ny thinking. He was a literary genus so I had a from a form of atheism you know nothing about,lit;s gone now but because literature is dying. That's civilization is dying.

you are makimng assumptions abouit something you know nothing of. That fundie mentality realty spurs rebellion for those who see though it. I would never been a Christian if the Lord had arranged for me to meet someone who exhibited a rare form of christianity that is little known, Spirit filled, intellectual, mystic.
im-skeptical said…
I was every bit as atheistic as you are or more sol I a true intellectual atheist

Like I said, you never had a clue what it means. If you did, you would at least have a reasonable understanding of science. You don't just lose all that understanding by changing your belief system. No, you never had it to begin with.
I knw a mot more a out science than you do simpleton. you don't even know that teh history of the neutrino constitutes scientific knowledge, you hwavne[t any newton or Boyle

why did Boyle call it:the Srping in the air?.": what is the spring in the air?

you don't know the basic difference in Popper and Kuhn
im-skeptical said…
what is the spring in the air?

I can't believe you're even asking a question like this. Is this my physics exam? Well, let's see. When spring is in the air, we feel an awakening of the spirit - a renewal of life. But wait - this is supposed to be a physics exam, isn't it? Perhaps you're thinking of the "spring OF the air" that Boyle examined. Or perhaps more to the point, it was the springiness of the air. The relationship between pressure and volume. When you squeeze it down to a smaller volume, the pressure increases. That is to say, it pushes back at you, rather like a spring. I think that's what Boyle was talking about. Not that you'd understand any of the details. Here's a question for you: According to Boyle's law, what happens if you remove the cap from a container of pressurized gas?
J. P Holding said…
>>> It's something called REASON.

Too bad when they go to the store, they always forget to buy it.
im-skeptical said…
I would never buy what you're selling.
im-skeptical said…
Looks like Joe is busy searching google for an answer.
J. P Holding said…
It's too meaty for you anyway, dessert boy.

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