Apetivist: A former Southern Baptist minister turned atheist and free thinker due to research in Theology and Apologetics.

I was raised in a Southern Baptist household. My family was rather typical in most respects but I was introduced to the Gospel at 6 years old being told that Jesus died for me because I was born a sinner and that one day if I did not accept him I would go to Hell and not be with my loved ones in the afterlife. This filled me with some dread as I surely didn't want to go to Hell and I also didn't want to be separated from my loved ones in the afterlife. Oddly my family weren't big church goers but I was constantly reminded that I was nothing without Jesus. This also effected my personal outlook on life. I found myself at 11 years old being scared by a sermon on Hell that I walked down the aisle and said the Sinner's Prayer and asked Jesus to come into my heart and later got baptized. I read my Bible regularly but lived a rather normal life thinking I was safe.

But then at 17 years old I was conflicted whether or not I was truly saved and rededicated my life to Jesus. I was baptized this time in a Charismatic Church. This was all due to the influence of one of my Martial Art teachers who was also the pastor of this Charismatic Church and who convinced me that I had to be born again. One of the ways that the pastor convinced me of this was giving me the book “More Than A Carpenter” written by Josh McDowell and later “Evidences That Demand A Verdict”. I was so influenced by the books that I decided that I would dedicate my life to becoming an Apologist and doing ministry. I was involved in Street Preaching, Youth Ministry, and Homeless Ministry and devoted every spare minute I had to becoming as educated as I could in the field of Theology and Apologetics. I eventually moved away from the Charismatic beliefs and returned to my Southern Baptist roots and ended up enrolling in Liberty University(LU) Correspondence Courses in Theology and Apologetics.

I tried to speak with other ministers and even wrote my Professors at LU. All I got were stock answers and not one of them convinced me that they were anywhere near correct or logically sound.Everything seemed to make sense until I encountered the Problem of Evil(PoE). After much thinking and researching I found that the Free Will Defense that I previously held regarding the PoE had some major problems. How could I square the reality of suffering/evil in the world with an omnibenevolent, omnipotent god? It took me several years to think things over but eventually I came to see that the omni-characteristics of the Christian god didn't square up with the PoE. I was deeply affected by this information and although I continued ministry I so desired to answer this problem that I even began to read non-christian sources. I eventually began to see that the PoE was an insurmountable problem and that it had not been sufficiently addressed by Christian apologists and philosophers. I began to doubt whether I had sufficient reasons to believe in the Gospels. I also wrestled with what has popularly been called the Problem of Divine Hiddenness. I soon discovered the writings of Robert G. Ingersoll, George H. Smith, Thomas Paine, Jean Meslier, and Bertrand Russell . I tried to wrestle against their reason but eventually had come to see that they were in fact correct regarding their summations about Christianity.

During this time I tried to speak with other ministers and even wrote my Professors at LU. All I got were stock answers and not one of them convinced me that they were anywhere near correct or logically sound. I really tried to hold on to Christianity and didn't want to depart from doing the good things I did in the ministry such as taking care of the homeless and visiting the sick and elderly. But I also could no longer live a lie. I no longer believed in the supernatural claims of Christianity and after much heartbreak and rejection from almost all my friends, and some family members, I left the ministry and told my church that I was no longer a believer. I joined the Army (6 years) and took college courses and spent much of my time reading and discovering who I truly was as a person.

I tried to hold to a weak version of Deism until I read Michael Martin's book “Atheism: A Philosophical Justification” in 1991. It was then I admitted that I was an atheist. I remained rather quiet about my unbelief until after 9/11. I was then introduced to the work of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. However due to work I was not afforded a lot of time to pursue my interests. This changed when in 2010 I became 100% physically disabled by a rare neurological disease that left me bedridden and I spent that time reading and watching videos and documentaries. Eventually in 2011 I found The Atheist Experience on Youtube and continued to build up my knowledge and methodology in 2013 and onward. I decided to openly discuss atheism and also my love for Science, Humanism, Critical Thinking, and Skepticism on my personal Facebook largely to the discussions I had with Dr David Madison and John W. Loftus. I was met with great displeasure by some friends and family members but I decided this was who I was and I was going to continue despite their displeasure. In 2017 I decided to start a Twitter account @apetivist as well as a blog at https://www.apetivist.com and quickly became well received and attained thousands of followers and readers. I dedicate a few hours daily to maintaining my Twitter account and keeping up with the latest theistic arguments. Feel free to follow me on Twitter and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

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Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~ S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden – Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~ A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins Accepting Christ as Savior Frequently reading the Bible Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules) Attending church services Partaking of the Lord’s Supper Tithing Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc. Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

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