Devout Atheist invited to Alpha course.

[ThePosieParker]

I'm pretty offended really. I am 'devout', yes I know I'm not really, but I have never EVER believed in God. I wouldn't invite a Christian to a God is a load of crap course. I did say that I am an atheist, she replied (a Friend) that Alpha talks about the historical Christ, I agreed that there probably was one but having a Theology degree from Leeds meant I had looked at this before!!

I don't know how to stop this, yet another, attempt at converting me. (the other included the dedication at the Evangelical Church that I now realise was more about conversion than friendship and another an early breakfast where they talked about finding God later in life) It's really creeped me out. Another Evangelical invited me to bread church, make bread and talk about God.

FFs.

The only Alpha courses I've come across are open to both sexes.

I've never been on one, but understood that the roots were in the HTB type evangelism, which is one of the least sexist emanations of that denomonation. And other churches use the same source material, which is probably a good thing in terms of chipping away at gendered assumptions.

Is there some other gender problem with the Alpha course?

No, I posted it in here because I didn't want to post it elsewhere on MN, I wasn't looking for a free for all.

Oh.

I don't see the problem. They literally think you will burn in hell if they don't save you, so the very least they can do is ask you to their meeting.

Some Alpha courses are great theological debates & a good time can be had by all chasing different opinions around. (I am told)

However in my limited but painful experience it seems that when you get into a group that is really puritanical there is a lot of homophobia & so I personally will have nothing to do with them.

Your friend needs to understand you are a lost cause, in conversion terms, but it sounds like she looks on you as a challenge which I would find insulting!!!

Haha! As another atheist with a theology degree, I think I would smile and firmly decline, all the time thinking deeply snobby thoughts about how could they invite me to something as pseudo-intellectual as the flippin' Alpha course.

At the risk of sounding very 80's . . .

Just Say No! :)

I've been invited on three separate Alpha courses, precisely because I'm an atheist and can talk about it - one leader said they like to have someone with different beliefs and also invite Muslims sometimes if they can find a willing one. She also witnesses in the street and thinks of it as 'just a friendly chat! so I was wary of anything she said, to be frank.

I felt I was probably being set up to look like an idiot (you know how smarmy some people can be about their faith - the 'oh it's just laughable to consider a world without God, let's move on from the silly lady' brigade) or they were hoping for a miraculous conversion I didn't want to be a foil for whatever agenda there was - plus, and this is key - I am not interested in sitting in a room watching a bunch of possibly vulnerable people being persuaded that Jesus is the bee's knees. So obviously it was a no from me.

Incidentally one of the people who invited me was a young woman who told me that Quakers had abandoned Jesus to the point that they were clearly being influenced by Satan. This is the sort of person who is allowed to lead Alpha courses!

YANBU.

Lol @ Quakers being infulenced by Satan.

I know, I did lol. She was rather nutty and not at all endearing.

I am tempted to go just to laugh myself, but I know that I would end being very very offensive....

tis not unusual!!

I went on a similar course and was later accused of "mocking" when I asked; If Jesus had a DNA test, (JK style) who would it determine as his parents?.... Identical DNA to Mary, apparently.

Well, she could have been a chimera, i.e. the product of fusion between two fertilized eggs. In that way we could account for her passing on a Y chromosome. AFAIK the degree to which this necessarily produces intersexuality if one zygote is male and the other female varies greatly, so the ability to produce live offspring is not necessarily out. :o

There, I've proposed an explanation for parthenogenesis of male offspring and probably mortally offended every single believer in the virgin birth in one single big sweep!

I am tempted to go just to laugh myself, but I know that I would end being very very offensive....

I actually wanted to take an Alpha course at one stage because I really enjoy debating with believers. DH and my mum both said it was a horrible thing to do because asking questions of the religious would make them feel uncomfortable and offended. I still don't get it.

'Don't be fucking ridiculous, I have better things to do with my time' is a perfectly adequate answer.

Thats so nice of her to invite you. Why not offer your 'friend' a lovely book in return - "the god delusion". She'll love it!

If you take this through the looking-glass, and stand in The Believer's shoes...

They obviously feel that there is a very strong argument for God's existence, and if only you could hear them put their case, God would open your eyes and you would see. So you can kind of understand their persistence. Not sure how they square it with your theology degree though!

But remember, "Hahahahahahaha, that is really not going to happen" is a complete sentence.

They obviously feel that there is a very strong argument for God's existence, and if only you could hear them put their case, God would open your eyes and you would see. So you can kind of understand their persistence.

Some believers I know are actually pretty upfront about their faith being only partially rational. My DH is a theist (identifies as muslim, doesn't practise but believes there is a god). He openly admits that there is a point in religion where you can't really get rational answers and you just have to accept it or remain unconvinced.

That having been said: It's IMHO a problematic stance. His relaxed attitude towards rationality in religion basically means that the poor sod loses every single religious argument in this household due to his best defence against a logical objection being "I believe it's just like that".

Faith is a belief in something unseen and unprovable in a modern context which nevertheless is at the centre of my life. It's not rational at all and if it was it wouldn't be faith.

I didn't mean that every religious person thinks their faith is rational (DH being COfE along the lines of NotADude's DH's Islam), just that the Alpha-course-badgering believer in the OP probably does.

Someone who thinks an atheist can be converted by a chat in a draughty church hall, is surely not one for The Mystery Of Faith and all that?

Someone who thinks an atheist can be converted by a chat in a draughty church hall, is surely not one for The Mystery Of Faith and all that?

Would have to agree with you completely on that one.

I also rather suspect that they might just be the sort of person who underestimates massively the degree to which some atheists actually enjoy arguing.

why is this a problem? Just say no thanks

I got married and stay married because my Christian DH worked out by our second day together that I did not believe in God and wasn't likely ever to do so!
I have a couple of far more evangelical friends, who are my friends for exactly the same reason.