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    It occurred to me that this idea was too close, in scope, to the concurrent False Sense of Security thread. I will save the topic for another day.
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  4. Standard memberSecondSon
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    19 Jul '20 09:53
    But I want to know, just what is an "atheist in a foxhole"?

    And what is he doing in there? Reading Darwin's On The Origin of Species?
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    19 Jul '20 09:57
    @secondson said
    But I want to know, just what is an "atheist in a foxhole"?

    And what is he doing in there? Reading Darwin's On The Origin of Species?
    Here you go...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_no_atheists_in_foxholes
  6. Standard memberSecondSon
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    @divegeester said
    Here you go...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_no_atheists_in_foxholes
    I was being facetious.
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    @secondson said
    But I want to know, just what is an "atheist in a foxhole"?
    I started the thread to air a personal anecdote - and canvas those of others - as they relate to the saying "There are no atheists in foxholes" but then had second thoughts when the False Sense Of Security thread got knee-deep in 'deathbed conversions'. With that thread now receding, I will soon kick this one off as originally intended.
  8. Joined
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    20 Jul '20 05:49
    There are no atheists in foxholes, apparently. So the saying goes. sonship brandished it frequently; it was a go-to "debating point" he used when he found my lack of belief an affront.

    [He would even sometimes claim that I really wasn't an atheist but that I just claimed to not be a believer because I was "angry" at Jesus for making me accountable for my "wickedness".]

    Anyway, it's one of those adages that's difficult to prove or disprove except on a case by case personal level about which there are no empirical data.

    There are atheists who become theists in foxholes. This is undoubtedly true. Deathbed conversions etc. etc. Maybe they were never "true" atheists, to coin petewxyz's term.

    "There are no atheists in foxholes" is certainly not true. I 'proved' this to my own satisfaction a couple of months ago during what may be described as a dark night of the soul.

    I have often wondered over the last 15 or so years, if I ever found myself between a rock and a hard place, whether I would start praying in the way I used to.

    Well, the sincerity and reality of my post-Christian beliefs were put to the test one night early in June as I sat alone, sleepless in the dark, in a hospital room coming to terms with the fact that the relative I was watching over was possibly going to die.

    And yet I did not pray to the deity I used to believe in.

    There are atheists in foxholes. I have no idea how many, but the conventional wisdom that there are none to be found in the proverbial foxholes is not true.

    I have proved it to myself at least. No need to inform the mass media. sonship, if you're reading this between chess moves, you're wrong: I am not lying about no longer believing in Jesus.
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    20 Jul '20 06:21
    To be perfectly honest, what a momentous thing ~ what a game changer ~ it would have been, in light of all the views I have espoused and propagated sincerely here over the last decade and a half, if I had prayed that night.
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    @secondson said
    I was being facetious.
    Well now you are not ignorant and facetious.
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    @fmf said
    To be perfectly honest, what a momentous thing ~ what a game changer ~ it would have been, in light of all the views I have espoused and propagated sincerely here over the last decade and a half, if I had prayed that night.
    At the risk of appearing to detract from your experience and honesty of it, even if you had prayed on that night (and I know it was a dark night), it would have not meant that your years of posting about your journey from theist to agnostic theist was either in vain nor false in some way. In desperate moments people despair and do desperate things.
  12. R
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    @secondson said
    But I want to know, just what is an "atheist in a foxhole"?

    And what is he doing in there? Reading Darwin's On The Origin of Species?
    if the concept is that when in peril one starts to believe in a God,it didnt work with my father who on his death bed refused to see a vicar, nor did I pray before or after my heart op.
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    @badradger said
    if the concept is that when in peril one starts to believe in a God,it didnt work with my father who on his death bed refused to see a vicar, nor did I pray before or after my heart op.
    Atheism indeed doesn't work that way. I would be more likely to turn to my uncle Fred at a time of crisis than God, and my uncle Fred is convinced he's Napoleon.

    Belief is not something an atheist can chose to do at moments of crisis.
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    @divegeester said
    At the risk of appearing to detract from your experience and honesty of it, even if you had prayed on that night (and I know it was a dark night), it would have not meant that your years of posting about your journey from theist to agnostic theist was either in vain nor false in some way. In desperate moments people despair and do desperate things.
    What I meant, I suppose, is that it would have been very interesting to confess to it happening here and then perhaps reassembling the faith in public in front of a group of people that includes some pretty ugly Christians. It would have been quite a turnaround.
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    @ghost-of-a-duke said
    Atheism indeed doesn't work that way. I would be more likely to turn to my uncle Fred at a time of crisis than God, and my uncle Fred is convinced he's Napoleon.

    Belief is not something an atheist can chose to do at moments of crisis.
    You talk about atheism as if its a monolithic block. Deathbed conversions and ex-atheists in foxholes illustrate that atheism is a spectrum running from the hard, explicit kind all the way over to a softer, implicit type of atheism or even things like atheistic agnosticism.
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