Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Patty has an excellent post on the Bright™ meme. She said some of what I have still been thinking, but couldn’t figure out how to articulate.

Christians can be damned annoying. Their belief in God and what happens to you in the after-life compels them to convince you that you don’t want to spend eternity in hell and should believe in God. Atheists and agnostics and people who really just don’t give a s**t want to be left alone. However, it would be a pretty poor Christian who cared so little about you and their own beliefs if they didn’t try to convert you at all.

For an atheist or agnostic, convincing someone to believe as they do is an argument to be won by intellect, it’s a matter of pride, of showing an ignorant supernaturalist why their beliefs are just so much vapor. Convincing the Christian to become a non-believer has no consequences except to make one less person in the world that doesn’t believe “in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny - or God.” (Dennett’s article)

For the Christian, to convert a soul to God is to bring the person to their completion. The Christian belief is that a convert becomes united with God for all time, and they become complete. Now, believe that or not, that’s what a proselytizing Christian thinks, believes and is acting upon. If you get someone trying to convert you that says they are elect, better than you, more moral, etc., etc. they aren’t a good Christian. A good Christian is always, first and foremost, humble.

I subscribe more to the St. Francis school of conversion: Preach the gospel, use words if necessary.