I listen to a lot of Theist vs. Atheist conversations and debates and the same themes come up time and time again. One thing that a lot of Theists don’t understand is that many of use were former born again Christians and that studying his word is what made us Atheists.
One of the only ways Christians can wrap their head around that is to declare that we were never true Christians and we were never truly saved. They declare once you believe you cannot stop believing so therefore we must have been deceived.
They can use a multitude of verses to back this up. Things like.
Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.
There are a lot of verses like this and it has led to a doctrine of Once Saved, Always Saved in many Christian sects. In other words, someone filled with the power of the Holy Spirit remains saved by grace forever.
So if it’s not true then God, how would we know until it’s too late?
I remember when I accepted Christ. I remember standing in front of the congregation in my church tears streaming down my face with everyone’s hands on me. I render absolutely believing I was feeling the power of the Holy Spirit of a living God inside me.
I remember all the other times I felt that presence. I would have sworn it was real. I even believed, truly believed I had spoken in tongues.
I believed so much I wanted to become a preacher and started really studying the bible. I’ll save my deconversion story for later, however, I was not angry at God and I didn’t want to go sin or do evil. I wanted to follow God and I wanted to spread his word.
So there I was honestly believing that the holy spirit was in me and I was ready to dedicate my life to spreading the word of God. I absolutely 100% believed this.
And yet, apparently, I was deceived. Apparently, my conversion was not real. No matter how much I felt it was true it was obviously false. Of course, as an atheist, I think all conversions are false, but at that time I was a true believer.
So if the theist is right then I have to wonder…
- Why did God allow me to be deceived in his Church?
- How could I have not been deceived after all I prayed and thought it was real?
- Did God know in advance, even before my birth that I was going to be deceived?
- How can anyone justify a God who would allow his followers to be damned for a lie they couldn’t help but believe?
- If you’re a theist and believe that God would allow me to be deceived how can you possibly know that your own experience is real?
How can a Christian trust any of this? What about your friends and your family? If you serve a God that would allow fake conversions to happen in his holy sanctuary how can you possibly know you, your friends or your family are actually saved? How would you feel if you got into his Heaven and those you knew were doomed to hell because they only thought they were saved?
How in the Hell could you trust anything?
