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Did you ever want to mass-deconvert a Church?

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I have wanted to destroy the faith of many members in a Church I had to attend.

Did any of you?

If so, how were you planning to do it?
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
I have wanted to destroy the faith of many members in a Church I had to attend.

Did any of you?

If so, how were you planning to do it?

I don't think you deconvert people. You convert them to something else. Kind of rude to take something away without offering a replacement.

No one is going to thank you for ruining their belief.
 

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I don't think you deconvert people. You convert them to something else. Kind of rude to take something away without offering a replacement.

No one is going to thank you for ruining their belief.
Can't you cross-convert them to believing in themselves?
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
I don't think you deconvert people. You convert them to something else. Kind of rude to take something away without offering a replacement.

No one is going to thank you for ruining their belief.
Wow, that's truth personified.

I have had so many people come at me with the intent of ruining my faith, but without giving me a place to go afterward. It's SOP for so many 'counter-cult' movements...

I'm glad that you 'get' that.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I have wanted to destroy the faith of many members in a Church I had to attend.

Did any of you?

If so, how were you planning to do it?
Well I wouldn't want to destroy a faith, but I would want people to wake up to what's factual and what's not to wear such a faith could eventually be hung up in the annals of Mythology.

Anyways any faith or religion is going to be temporary. All religions are empty and will one day fade away Into obscurity.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
I don't think you deconvert people. You convert them to something else. Kind of rude to take something away without offering a replacement.

Interesting statement.

Makes me think of ex-JW's. I've never known any to 'offer a replacement', as you said.

Have any EX-JW'S gone back to believing Hell-fire, for instance?

They may have 'thrown out the baby', but I bet they haven't 'thrown out the bathwater', as the saying goes.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
This is...and robocop, you should know this...a very clear illustration of how to proselytize. The right way. So many people go off, pamphlets in hand, rants in memory, attacking the beliefs of those with whom they disagree. In fact, many of them know more about their target religion (at least, more misinformation) than they do about their own. I have to think that, because after dealing with all the (same/same) attacks, when I ask them what THEIR beliefs are about this or that, I get, basically, "well, Mormons believe this and we don't."

The RIGHT way, no matter which religion one represents, is to figure two things:

first, that the people you are talking to know more about their beliefs than you do. That means that if you are trying to destroy their faith, and get even the tiniest thing wrong, you've lost em.'

second, nobody is happy to leave a belief because it is false. That only causes misery and depression, unhappiness and family conflict. People who change their minds and hearts do so because they find something BETTER, which makes them happier, answers questions they had, and actually promotes peace.

So, if you want to 'destroy the faith' of an entire congregation because you think they are majorly wrong about something, the best way to do that is to show them a better truth.

People are a lot happier to learn that the world is round than they are to learn that it's not flat. Don't leave them hanging. ;)
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
No, but I would like Christianity to be a minority religion for a number of reasons, including because I don't think Christianity is suitable as a mass religion at all.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
Not really. I would like it if Christianity dumped the trinity, Jesus, and the New Testament though.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
I don't think you deconvert people. You convert them to something else. Kind of rude to take something away without offering a replacement.

No one is going to thank you for ruining their belief.

In India the Arya Samaj have a program called ghar wapsi that deconverts Hindus. When they went to Christianity by bribes or deception, and than found out the promises weren't coming, they can return peacefully to Hinduism. Sometimes it's done in mass.
 

Goodman John

Active Member
The hardest part to overcome is people's pride: even if you lay your cards on the table, show them your evidence, make a good case for whatever alternative (if any) you offer, you still have those who simply can't admit to themselves that they might have been wrong. You may have 100% conclusive evidence that what they believe is 100% false, but you can bet your last dollar that some True Believers won't admit they're wrong no matter what you do or say.
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
The hardest part to overcome is people's pride: even if you lay your cards on the table, show them your evidence, make a good case for whatever alternative (if any) you offer, you still have those who simply can't admit to themselves that they might have been wrong. You may have 100% conclusive evidence that what they believe is 100% false, but you can bet your last dollar that some True Believers won't admit they're wrong no matter what you do or say.

Not acquainted with "Cathar". I tend to do what seems right to me according to what I read from variou scripture. Micah 6:8 covers it all for me.
 

Goodman John

Active Member
Not acquainted with "Cathar". I tend to do what seems right to me according to what I read from variou scripture. Micah 6:8 covers it all for me.

I, too, read and ponder and digest thoughts and practices from a number of sources, not all of them explicitly Christian (and I do still count myself a Christian, despite my doubt and misgivings aired elsewhere on the forum). If I feel it helps me move closer to my goal of getting off this rock and closer to God, I may very well incorporate it. If not, kick it to the curb. I never say anyone else is flat-out 'wrong', though- for all I know *I* may be the one who is totally off course, but I do the best I can.

(Here's the Wiki on the Cathars- a quick and dirty overview of them. I'm doing my best to reconstruct this faith and adapt it to modern life.)
 
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