Daniel Mann is an Evangelical zealot. His goal in life, according to his blog, is: “Defending the Christian faith and promoting its wisdom against the secular and religious challenges of our day.”
Mann has a real John Holmes-sized hard-on for atheists. He frequently attacks, maligns, and lies about atheists But, he loves Jesus, so such behavior is ignored and forgiven (by God).
Mann is perplexed over why the number of atheists is increasing. With a straight face, Mann says: Atheists are growing in number, but it is not clear why. Oh, it’s very clear WHY American Christianity is dying on the vine, and why the fasting growing “religion” in America is the “nones.” Google is your friend, Daniel. But instead of acknowledging the real reasons for mass deconversions, Mann concocts a Trump-like false narrative:
Scientific findings are continually uncovering more examples of intricate design and functionality, which defy chance probability and, therefore, point to a Designer. Besides, atheists cannot offer any compelling proofs against the existence of God.
The “Problem of Evil” is perhaps the most prominent example of this. Atheists have long claimed that if God is perfectly good and powerful as the bible claims, there should not be suffering or, at least, so much suffering. However, this challenge depends upon their understanding of the Biblical concepts of goodness, love, and omnipotence.
It, therefore, can be argued that the atheists have mis-construed these concepts. For example, perhaps God is bringing forth the ultimate good through suffering. Besides, if eternal realities are at play in deciding this question, we would have to weigh their challenge in view of these realities. In other words, the denial of the existence of God is a big claim based upon a microcosm of mis-construed evidence regarding the ultimate and eternal “good.” Perhaps also they have left out of their understanding of “good” the concept of “justice.”
As a fallback position, atheists often claim that God is irrelevant to their lives and even to science. However, this claim lacks any evidential support. What evidence do they have that God doesn’t provide the air they breath [sic] or that He doesn’t hold together every molecule of their lungs and bodily functions? None! What evidence is there against the theistic claim that God undergirds all science by every atom He has created and sustains and by all the elegant and immutable laws of science? None!
Why then are there atheists?
Let me give Mann evidence for the increasing number of atheists: look in the mirror, dude. It’s dishonest Evangelicals like you that lead scores of Christians away from the faith, and keep doubters and questioners from sticking around. When you are known for lying about people you disagree with — namely atheists — you can’t be surprised when your behavior causes people to exit stage left. Instead of accepting at face value the reasons people leave Christianity and become atheists, you construct a false narrative and then say, “this is what atheist REALLY believe.”
Keep up the good work, Daniel.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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“atheists cannot offer any compelling proofs against the existence of God”
Why should an atheist offer compelling proof(s) against God’s existence?
I have no one to prove it to except myself, and I am convinced already.
I’m not concerned with making sure others believe my way. Should I be?
It seems to me that people like this guy should spend more time being concerned with what’s going on in his own life.
As for burden of proof… doesn’t it work that he has to show the existence of his god? He’s the one who wants me to believe it.
What a doorknob.
So bizarre. I’m not an atheist per se, but none of the atheists I know conform to any of his assertions about what they believe. Maybe talk to a few atheists before you start just making stuff up? 😀 Daniel, my friend, most people don’t CARE what you believe about God. They’re not bothering to offer “compelling proofs” against your beliefs because what you believe is your problem, not theirs. As a Unitarian Universalist, I’m perfectly willing to accept that your belief system works for you for your own personal reasons, and I don’t see any point in arguing with you about it… but quit pretending that you understand how the rest of us view your version of Christianity.
Daniel “Desperate” Mann – flinging mendacious, silly crap at the wall to see if any of it will stick.
I wonder if he’s a pastor who’s being hit hard in the pocketbook because the pews are empty, and is just having a whine because there won’t be as much Christmas bling under the tree this year.
I love the use of the “prove it/he/she doesn’t’ the…” argument. It’s such solid logic – Daniel can’t prove god exists, but atheists can’t prove god doesn’t exist, therefor god must exist.
I wonder what evidence Daniel has.that the bobcat that visits my back yard doesn’t provide the air we breath?
He starts with argument from design and proceeds to regurgitate the same tired apologetics. For people who have no interest in critical thinking (and I used to be one of those) I guess that’s enough.
Bless his heart. “I don’t understand science so it must be that my particular version of a deity is behind what I don’t feel like learning about.”
As expected, Dan isn’t very bright.
You know, I wonder how many ethical, loving people left the fundamentalist/evangelical movement due to 4 years of Trump? Seriously. Because for 4 years he did things the opposite of what these preachers (supposedly) teach Jesus is like. And yet, they also worshipped Trump. The stuff I’ve seen these nuts talk about, it’s like Trump walks on water. I wish this was an exaggeration but all you need to do is dip your toe into the QAnon movement. Everyone who believes in it are nuts and need some kind of reality check. Maybe, just maybe Trump losing will allow some of them to get back in touch with reality. MAYBE.
Although the first part of that just displayed the classic failure to understand evolution and deep time, some of the rest is not technically incorrect. Of course science can’t PROVE that ‘god’ isn’t behind the creation of the sub-atomic particles, the big bang, the creation of the universe – because science has yet to find out enough about all of these things to say for sure what was behind them. Maybe it will never be able to answer questions like that.
It’s the conclusions that then seem to then be drawn from this from people like from Mr Mann that just seem a bit nuts to me.
Going from that position (of not yet knowing the answers to everything) to saying – so surely that means you should believe in ‘god’! – or worse still, THEIR god – is just, well… insane. Why pick god as the answer for the gaps in our knowledge? Why not pixies? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Unicorns? My mate Keith?
The LACK of adequate current evidence to answer the question of what was/is behind some of the phenomena of the universe is about as far as you can get from actually HAVING evidence that a god was behind it all.
This sort of thing just seems so, so obvious from a rational perspective that I struggle massively to understand how the minds of these bizarre IBF/fundie types actually work. I just can’t put myself in their heads.
I guess that fascination is a part (though there is much more besides) of what keeps drawing me back to Bruce’s site.
It’s very odd. Intelligent propagandists usually try to learn as much as possible about the population to whom they want to spread their ideas, so as to figure out what kind of propaganda will be most effective. Religionists seem to have a pathological allergy to learning anything at all about atheists. If a general refused to learn anything at all about the enemy he had to fight, would anyone be surprised that he kept losing battles?
As frustrating as their arrogant refusal to listen can be, we can at least be thankful that they embrace such a weakness.
Infidel–Your comment makes me think of what happened when the Bush administration decided to purge gays from the military: They lost most of their intelligence officers who could speak Arabic.
You can guess what happened next: 9/11 and two decades’ worth of wars and occupations that are no closer to any discernible goal than they were on the day they began. In other words, we were drawn into quagmires because we didn’t understand whom or what we were fighting for or against.
I think I’ll give that Mann some in- depth details on why there is so much atheism lately, and his role in causing it, along with others of his stereotypical Christian tropes, lol
I think I’ll give that Mann some in- depth details on why there is so much atheism lately, and his role in causing it, along with others of his stereotypical Christian tropes, lol I’ve encountered the gamut over time ; Christian-to- atheist, atheist-to-Christian, and all varieties in-between, and I’m not threatened by this. It’s life.
Sorry about my phone just now ! It went crazy. No computer access until the CA.lockdown is up. I do apologize for that duplicate posting !