This is a bit of a long story, but I think it's an interesting one if you're game, and I really need some help on this.
I was an atheist for many years. Raised by a recovered Catholic, a woman who once wanted to be a Nun and ended up spending much of my childhood as a radical feminist, I have always despised certain things about the church. In my youth, this dislike led me to believe that there was no God. I woke many a night in a cold sweat, terrified at the idea that one day, I would no longer exist. No thought has ever filled me with more dread.
15 years ago, my Grandfather died. A somewhat devout Catholic, married to an extremely devout Catholic, his funeral of course took place at the local Catholic church. I served as a pallbearer (as I then did, in the same church, last year for my grandmother), and as I sat in the front pew, a boy of 14, upset and terrified by his first encoutner with the spectre of Death that haunted my nights so, I gave at the Christ upon the cross, and a feeling of peace came over me, a peace I had seldom if ever known prior. I don't remember a single word of the funeral sermon - all I remember is the face of the Christ.
Later that week I made my first attempt at reading the bible. I didn't get very far - other things were on my mind, but that feeling of peace stuck with me, and I began to become fairly convinced that something was out there.
During highschool, I made a cursory exploration of several faiths. I never liked the Christian kids in the school- they came across as judgmental and biggotted, and it didn't help that they loudly and repeatedly told my gay and lesbian friends that they were going to hell, and my Lebanese first girlfriend (a very brief affair) that she was a devil-worshipper and a harlot. Despite my dislike for the Christian kids though, Christ was the only thing that rang true to me, although much of Buddhist philosophy made sense as well. The issue I had was my abject terror at non-existance, whereas I understood that to be the very goal of Budhism- release from the cycle. I get now that it's not that cut-and-dry, but at the time I just could not bridge that gap. I had some Wiccan friends, but I got the impression that it was more becuase "being a witch is cool" than any real faith, an impression that, though I keep it to myself, I still have of most (but not all) Wiccans I know.
At some point, I gave another shot at the Bible, and managed to get through the entire new testament and a fair bit of the old. I don't recall now what parts of the Old I managed - I'm sure Leviticus wasn't one of them as I find that book abhorrent and would not have ended up on the same path. gradually, I became a Christian. I began to believe that the peace I had known at Grandpa's funeral was God reaching out to me.
I was a fairly passive Christian for many years. My faith just wasn't that imporant to me- I still disagreed with the Church on many points of ethics, and I didn't really think of it as mattering. "One day, I'll go to Heaven" was about as much thought as I tended to give my beliefs, and that was good enough for me. I didn;t go to church, didn't engage in serious theological thought or debate. I focused on other things, like my family (I married, had two children, and ultimately divorced, working very hard to maintain a friendship in spite of the divorce, and mostly succeeding), and my career (of which I've done a thoroghly buggered-up job so far, though I do have a good, stable job, I'm not at all where I'm supposed to be, but that's another story), and my hobbies (MtG, and some other stuff that's supposed to be my career, not a hobby, but working on fixing that).
When I divorced, I became very introspective. Though I did not have an affair, part of what led to my divorce had to do with some aspects of my character that had been questionable at best. I felt lost, both morally and personally, and turned to the peace of Christ again.
It just so happened that at this time my father, who I had not spoken to in several years, came back into my life. We asked me to attend church with him on sunday mornings at an evangelical, pentecostal church in a nearby city. I agreed, mostly out of a desire to rebuild my relationship with my father, but also out of a nagging feeling that I ought to be paying more attention to my supposed belief in God.
To be clear, I have always been mostly a intellectual person. I believe in logic and reasoned thought, and my belief in God was partially a rational one- an attempt to explain with reasoned thought an apparently supernatural experience.
The preacher at the church I attended for the better part of a year with my Dad was astoundingly gifted. The first 5 sermons I heard seemed to speak directly to me. I became a rather zealous "born-again" Christian. I had several experiences in this church I could only describe as spiritual, including one with a faith healer that I still ponder. Some of my longest-held personal beliefs started to change- I had always believed in the validity of all religions, or no religion, but now I became convinced that only Christianity was right, and all other Gods were either myth or demonic in nature. I had always beleived in subjective morality - that for the most part moral truths depend on context and are not objective - now I began to believe that in fact there was a single, objective morality. I even questioned my stance on the more controversial moral issues in the Bible- Abortion, Homosexuality, etc... For quite some time, i would only consider Biblically-based arguements on these sorts of subjects.
My life improved. A couple personal dilemmas I had for a long time rapidly got solved, including one that I felt was so hopeless I had (not seriously, but not completely in passing either) contemplated suicide over. Most of my personal relationships improved (not all, and a couple gradually worsened). My singing ability, something which is extraordinarilly important to me, experienced several breakthroughs despite not being in training at all. These were all things I had spent many many hours on both prior to my "rebirth" in study and contemplation, and post-rebirth in prayer. I found it remarkable that prayer had succeeded where in some cases years of contemplation had failed to produce a solution. This observation and these experiences only served to re-enforce my faith.
I began to study the Bible, looking for answers to the moral and ethical dilemmas I now faced due to my faith- Abortion, Homosexuality, etc...If I'm being honest with myself, I was looking for ways to reconcile my personal views with the views espoused by my faith. in the course of this study, I came to this debate forum, I read both conservative and liberal writings, writings by Atheists and writings by Christians, and even some Jewish philosophy on the subejcts. where available.
Now I have a problem. My rational mind, the logician in me, is at serious odds of late with both my experience and my "faith". I do not believe that, if Jesus Christ and His Father exist, they are omnipotent. It doesn't make any sense to me. Questioning basic tennets of my "faith" leeds me to question the intellectual honesty of accepting any of them. Yet my experiences in church lead me to wonder if I'm missing something. Additionally, as my faith has become less sure, as I have begun to reject certain points of Christian philsophy, some of the things that improved intially are becoming worse again. This leads me to "doubt my doubt" as it were, but the complete Christian framework doesn't feel intellectually honest to me anymore, and most of the people who make the most sense to me on issues of ethics are atheist, not Christian.
Neither my rational mind nor my instinct accept existance without a creation. I don;t like the existing scientific explanations of how the universe came into being, they don't make much sense to me. I'm concerned though that my primal fear of nonexistance is coloring my thought process beyond my ability to recognize internal bias.
I'm having a real issue here. My rational mind is essentially atheist at this point, or at least espousing the view that if there is/was a God he is either dead or completely alien and uncaring. However, my gut instinct tells me I'm wrong, and my experiences re-inforce the idea that God, or speciically Christ, is infact there and able to produce positive change in people's lives.
I've reached a few actual conclusions:
- I do not believe in an omnipotent, omniscient God. The concepts don't really make rational sense, and the world doesn't make much sense in light of such a being.
- I feel there is something more to Jesus than just a crazy preacher who died 2,000 years ago, but my rational mind and my gut are completely at odds over what more there is.
- I believe in a soul. I think there is something more to human existance than fleeting electrochemical impluses.
- I think Christianity has been a net negative for the human race. How this reconciles with my second point I have no idea.
Apart from that, I'm feeling pretty lost. I'm interested in hearing from anyone on these thoughts, but particularly people who would at least loosely fit one of the following descriptions:
- current atheist, former devoutly religious person
- current believer, former atheist
- "intellectual" believer - someone who would state that their faith is guided by reason
- Hardcore Christian - am I being sopalistic or hyprocritical in my beliefs?
- Hardcore Atheist- same question
hopefully this can sprout some interesting discussion in addition to maybe helping me sort this out. I'm loosing sleep over it.
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"A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men."
- Willy Wonka
The Quote function doesn't work for me on this forum. Sorry for any confusion created.
I went through something similar and came out a Deist.
And this is what advice I have to give: No one has it figured out, no one.
Anyone that tells you they've got all the answers and that their worldview must be 100% True is likely deranged. You don't need to swallow every bit of any moral philosophy or worldview. You can still be Catholic, but think that gays should be able to marry. You can be Christian, but still doubt that Jesus was literally God. This isn't a black-and-white all-or-nothing Hard Atheist or Fundamentalist choice.
I still remember the first time I started to question my own faith and someone told me he was an "Agnostic," and what that meant to him. Never liked the guy, but the idea that there was a third path--that the choice I was debating was a False Dilemma--shook me to my core. So, I became an Agnostic for a while. It did not ring true for me later in life, so I switched to Agnostic Deist.
That's the message you should be taking away. You don't have to abandon reason for faith or vice versa. You can simply use them in conjunction. You don't have to take some path someone else laid out for you, swallowing whole everything they spoon feed you. You can pick and choose, take the parts of something that ring true and discard those parts that don't. We're all mortal; we all get somethings right and other things wrong. So, find the right parts from others and discard the wrong. Augment your beliefs with reason.
Don't let yourself get locked into something that's probably wrong (or at least not all right). Stay mentally agile and able to accept new truths as they arise.
__________________
"When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?"
I'm an agnostic but I very much believe in the power of the spirit, and by extension, the power of faith
It's hard for me to truly empathize because I have never been "religious": I've never accepted the various religious establishments. I do consider myself spiritual in a way so I value what religion brings to the table, I just don't buy into the dogmas that accompany them.
You seem to feel strongly about your life turning around once you started paying more attention to Christian Teachings but I'd argue you did that on your own: Church, the Good Book, the Priest all helped you along but all they did was set you up, you are the engine of the change (I hope I'm not coming accross as high & mighty because I have no clue what kind of things you had to overcome at that point in your life)
But it's not a "take it or leave it" kind of thing: just because you find yourself questionning certain tenets doesn't invalidate the entirety of the teachings nor does it taint your experience of it.
There are plenty of things that I find agreeable in all religions and plenty of others I find absolutely reprehensible; I take the good and leave the bad. Religious practices and teachings have been shaped by men and women throughout the ages: they have been used by bad people and good people to try and achieve something; you don't have to agree with everything.
Nonexistence isn't so bad. Did it bother you for the billions of years you didn't exist before being born? Me neither.
My advice is to avoid believing things just because they make you feel better. If you don't know the answer, you don't know the answer. Big deal.
On the issue of personal experiences, many people point to ways prayer has helped them resolve problems. The problem is that people who pray to anything from the Christian God to Hindu deities to their ancestors to nature spirits report the same thing. I would be careful about concluding that the important point is what you prayed to, since the evidence suggests the opposite.
I have to say that like you, I have a rational side of me which has my doubts, even now.
But I have another side of me which has faith enough to call himself a believer.
There is some tension in my perspective, but overall the two are pretty well reconciled.
I'm not going to offer you rational arguments for God. I think you are plenty capable of pursuing that on your own. What I can do is offer some of my own experiences with a similar duality.
In my experience as a Christian, the power of Christ is not effected by debates as to its existence. Really, debating whether something exists has been in my experience, a largely futile exercise. It robs the power of Christ in a spiritual sense in the name of intellectual pursuit. There is power and positivity which come from faith--not arguments, but faith.
As far as I'm concerned, Christ does not perform miracles which affect objective reality anymore. He does not part oceans or seas, cause locusts to come down, turn rivers into blood, or raise the dead. Instead the way I see Christ working now is changing people's hearts in ways so gentle and mild, you can't even be sure it happened.
In my walk, I've seen the following happen:
-Siblings who have fought bitterly their entire lives, turn it all around in a matter of months since accepting God.
-Cynical, Jaded, dark people turn happy.
-People who felt like they were at their breaking point with life's troubles, enjoy a renewed sense of hope, and with it, strength to endure.
-People who are so strong that nothing gets them down, allowing them to be a source of strength and encouragement to others.
-Sons who swore they would never eat at the same table again with their father, sit down and enjoy time again as a healed family.
-Broken hearts healed and encouraged; Hearts in chaos with peace restored.
I have seen bad people turn good consistently because of Christ. I've seen communities come together in solidarity in times of trial.
That is the power of Christ. Those are where his miracles lay.
There is nothing scientific about telling someone to turn the other cheek when he is slapped on the one cheek. There is no historical or archaeological debate about telling people their words to each other should be edifying and encouraging, rather than tearing the other person down.
There is no rational debate concerning existence when hearing the words:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
There is nothing that can be tested in a laboratory concerning the lesson of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples
There is no scientific consensus about telling people to "love thy neighbor as thyself."
I try to avoid debates on the existence of God, because it almost always ends up being a distraction to the actual messages of the bible, some of which I wrote above. I'd even say that it completely misses the point of the central message of the bible.
It takes work to be alive in the spirit. The bible says that faith without works is dead. Any Christian faith that is nothing more than contending with debaters in an intellectual forum will struggle.
But faith that is alive is faith that is active, in which we seek to give out kindness and encouragement to others in greater measure than our hearts will let us bear. It is when you see your faith in action in helping others, that the power of the words and lessons of encouragement in the bible can really be seen.
"Thy words are a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."
As an Anti-Theist, I can perhaps give my advice on what you're going through.
I was a Roman Catholic for the majority of my life so far. Throughout childhood and up until about two years ago I believed in God, Jesus, miracles, Heaven, Hell, you name it. To me it really wasn't a question, it was so ingrained in who I was that I never really contemplated what to believe.
Then I began to question my beliefs. Did miracles actually take place? Does the afterlife exist? Does a soul exist? I looked in to both sides of the argument, reading in to opinions of people like Bertrand Russel, Richard Dawkins, James Randi, and Christopher Hitchens, while conversely looking at opinions from popular theists like John Lennox and William Lane Craig. After all of this reading, I came to the realization that I didn't believe in God, at least, not how Roman Catholicism described God. So, I labeled myself an Agnostic. It seemed less extreme that way. I could comfortably say that I couldn't know that were was a God, and sit comfortably in the middle of two extremes.
But, even then, that wasn't enough. I kept looking in to Atheism and it became more apparent to me that I didn't believe in a higher being at all. Now, I'm not saying Atheism doesn't have it's issues, it definitely does (Causality arguments abound) but with the evidence I, as a human being living in 2013 have, to me it's the most plausible response. I can't tell you how the universe was created. Nobody can. One day will we be able to? Maybe. Will I be long dead? Probably. So right now, with the evidence I have I can't have faith in a God. There is no evidence for a God. (You can go in to Francis Collins can create an argument in regards to the Human Genome project, but there has been a fair amount of criticism in relation to The Language of God)
Do I think you are being hypocritical? Absolutely not. But before you label yourself as a Christian, you should ask yourself, why do you need to be a part of a religious organization? You believe in God, that much is apparent in your post, but I feel like you struggle with the stances that the Church has taken in regards to current issues (Homosexuality, Abortion, etc.). You can believe in a higher being and not have to subscribe to an organization. Now, do you believe in the Old Testament? Do you believe that God told Moses the Ten Commandments? You have stated that you believe in Jesus Christ, but do you believe in the modern interpretations of his philosophies? A lot Christians today pick and choose their beliefs, barely following the text of the Bible, not following it literally. In fact, there are probably a lot of Roman Catholics out there that, if actually questioned on their beliefs in relation to the Church, would identify as Lutheran. A lot of these "issues" regarding the Church did not actually appear in the Bible. Homosexuality? Arguably, no. Jesus, the proclaimed son of God, didn't have a stance on gay marriage, didn't have a stance on condom use, didn't have a stance on abortion, didn't have a stance on female priests, married priests, etc.
Also, you have stated that Christ and Religion have given you a sense of comfort. I agree, yes, it would be very comforting for me to believe in a soul, an afterlife, black and white morality, but honestly do you think it could also be a false sense of comfort? I toyed with the concept of believing in Heaven and all of the wonderful things Christianity has to offer, but I had to get down to it and realize that while those things may provide me with comfort, in truth I don't believe in them. This is what a lot of the shock from switching to Agnosticism/Atheism came from. When all of these wonderful, comforting beliefs are gone, yes you lose a sense of comfort. But, you also, in my opinion, gain a sense of self-realization. I think Penn Jillette put it beautifully when he compared death to before birth, there is no sense of loss because there is no sense at all. Not comforting, but not frightening either. Do you remember the year 1856? Were you alive? No. To me, that's what death will be. It's not scary because I had no sense.
In all honesty, you might be a Deist. You feel like there is something more to Jesus, but you aren't sure. That's fine. Maybe there was. But maybe there wasn't. Maybe God has never told anyone to build an Ark, hasn't told anyone what morality is. Maybe this higher being just created the Universe and left it be. Maybe, as Collins puts it, God acted as a guiding hand, guiding humanity through life and evolution, but not directly influencing humanity through speech or any other conduit.
It's good to question faith. If you never question what you believe in, what's the point in believing in it?
Like Luck up there, I am also an anti-theist atheist, although I was not raised in a religious family, and was introduced to religion at an age in which I was able to choose.
The image of the Christ (although that is almost certainly in no way an accurate representation of the (Middle-Eastern) man who may have espoused being the son of God) being soothing makes sense from a rational perspective - because they let you feel that you are not responsible, that your father is still alive somewhere.
But the fact is, rationally, it does not make sense that that is the case.
I do not believe in a soul - and the recent cloning technology has reinforced my nonbelief. Really, a soul is merely the amalgamation of thought processes that are crafted in the womb and developed in beautifully complex ways during life. To me, the beauty of life would be merely cheapened if fashioned by some sort of divine Creator.
Along with my rational disagreement with the concept of God, I also have philosophical disagreements with the concept too.
But if you really believe that God exists, or that there is some element of the divine that exists, there's nothing wrong or hypocritical of that belief. Approximately one third of scientists believe in some sort of creator figure, be it a Deist god or a more active Christian God.
I respectfully disagree with it, but, then again, I wasn't raised religious.
But if you believe in God, there is nothing wrong with that.
Hell, you could be right all along. And wouldn't the joke be on me?
But the answers to your questions cannot come from without. They must come from within your own mind. Your 'soul' as you call it.
Hope you find answers for your questions, and that my paltry experience has helped at all.
You're allowed to disagree with some parts of the Bible, though some people will say that you are "disagreeing with God", because most people believe that the Bible is the Word of God. I believe that the Bible was inspired by God, written by men. I really don't agree with Paul, who said that homosexuals can't inherit the kingdom of God and that believers should not associate with unbelievers.
Even though I'm a Christian, I have many atheist friends and they don't judge me for having a faith. I also don't judge them and it all works out fine. I think the Christians who picket funerals and hate gay people, are not real Christians because they aren't following the most important commandments of Jesus, one of which is "Love your neighbor as you love yourself". There are also who judge people by Leviticus, who are also hypocrites because they will eat shrimp, wear mixed fabric clothing, cut their hair, etc. Many Christians don't even know that they're not supposed to follow the OT, because they are Gentiles, and Jesus fulfilled the law and established a new covenant.
I really don't like the Old Testament, so I choose not to believe in most of it. There's so much bad stuff in it. Like if you divorce your wife, she has to be stoned. If a man rapes a woman he has to marry her? That's really messed up. Not to mention that it's normal for Christian couples to get a divorce, but they don't hate any one of them, but they still hate gay people. Like really, why are you okay with one thing but not another when the Bible says they are equally bad?
Another problem I have is believing in the part where Christians are supposed to perform miracles in this day and age just as Jesus did in his age. We are called on to do greater things, but I have not witnessed any. I have prayed, and have other people prayed, several times, for God to heal my back. But it never happened. This old lady at this church with one blind eye said that she saw shadows coming from inside me when she was praying for me. So she thought I either didn't really have faith, or I was hanging around bad people. That's a problem I have with some Christians. Whenever something bad happens, it's always "It's part of God's plan" or "You don't have enough faith". Jesus said that if you had enough faith to equal the size of a mustard seed, you could tell a mountain to jump into the sea. I have not seen anyone do this. So what if the problem is that no one has enough faith? Another thing I disagree with Paul is the "thorn of the flesh" thing. He had bad eyesight and was never cured, but this goes against what Jesus taught because faith is supposed to make you better.
I have heard of miracles being performed, but what bothers me is that they're all anecdotes. This one church claimed that they made a blind girl see, but why didn't they call the media? Surely this is significant enough to warrant coverage. I may have had miracles in my own life but how do I know I just didn't get really lucky? Like this one time I had testicular torsion in the middle of the night, and I knew by instinct which way to turn it so it wouldn't hurt anymore. Did God give me the knowledge to do this? If I had turned it the wrong way, I very well could have lost my testicle. I was in so much pain that I had to do something.
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I was an atheist for many years. Raised by a recovered Catholic, a woman who once wanted to be a Nun and ended up spending much of my childhood as a radical feminist, I have always despised certain things about the church. In my youth, this dislike led me to believe that there was no God. I woke many a night in a cold sweat, terrified at the idea that one day, I would no longer exist. No thought has ever filled me with more dread.
15 years ago, my Grandfather died. A somewhat devout Catholic, married to an extremely devout Catholic, his funeral of course took place at the local Catholic church. I served as a pallbearer (as I then did, in the same church, last year for my grandmother), and as I sat in the front pew, a boy of 14, upset and terrified by his first encoutner with the spectre of Death that haunted my nights so, I gave at the Christ upon the cross, and a feeling of peace came over me, a peace I had seldom if ever known prior. I don't remember a single word of the funeral sermon - all I remember is the face of the Christ.
Later that week I made my first attempt at reading the bible. I didn't get very far - other things were on my mind, but that feeling of peace stuck with me, and I began to become fairly convinced that something was out there.
During highschool, I made a cursory exploration of several faiths. I never liked the Christian kids in the school- they came across as judgmental and biggotted, and it didn't help that they loudly and repeatedly told my gay and lesbian friends that they were going to hell, and my Lebanese first girlfriend (a very brief affair) that she was a devil-worshipper and a harlot. Despite my dislike for the Christian kids though, Christ was the only thing that rang true to me, although much of Buddhist philosophy made sense as well. The issue I had was my abject terror at non-existance, whereas I understood that to be the very goal of Budhism- release from the cycle. I get now that it's not that cut-and-dry, but at the time I just could not bridge that gap. I had some Wiccan friends, but I got the impression that it was more becuase "being a witch is cool" than any real faith, an impression that, though I keep it to myself, I still have of most (but not all) Wiccans I know.
At some point, I gave another shot at the Bible, and managed to get through the entire new testament and a fair bit of the old. I don't recall now what parts of the Old I managed - I'm sure Leviticus wasn't one of them as I find that book abhorrent and would not have ended up on the same path. gradually, I became a Christian. I began to believe that the peace I had known at Grandpa's funeral was God reaching out to me.
I was a fairly passive Christian for many years. My faith just wasn't that imporant to me- I still disagreed with the Church on many points of ethics, and I didn't really think of it as mattering. "One day, I'll go to Heaven" was about as much thought as I tended to give my beliefs, and that was good enough for me. I didn;t go to church, didn't engage in serious theological thought or debate. I focused on other things, like my family (I married, had two children, and ultimately divorced, working very hard to maintain a friendship in spite of the divorce, and mostly succeeding), and my career (of which I've done a thoroghly buggered-up job so far, though I do have a good, stable job, I'm not at all where I'm supposed to be, but that's another story), and my hobbies (MtG, and some other stuff that's supposed to be my career, not a hobby, but working on fixing that).
When I divorced, I became very introspective. Though I did not have an affair, part of what led to my divorce had to do with some aspects of my character that had been questionable at best. I felt lost, both morally and personally, and turned to the peace of Christ again.
It just so happened that at this time my father, who I had not spoken to in several years, came back into my life. We asked me to attend church with him on sunday mornings at an evangelical, pentecostal church in a nearby city. I agreed, mostly out of a desire to rebuild my relationship with my father, but also out of a nagging feeling that I ought to be paying more attention to my supposed belief in God.
To be clear, I have always been mostly a intellectual person. I believe in logic and reasoned thought, and my belief in God was partially a rational one- an attempt to explain with reasoned thought an apparently supernatural experience.
The preacher at the church I attended for the better part of a year with my Dad was astoundingly gifted. The first 5 sermons I heard seemed to speak directly to me. I became a rather zealous "born-again" Christian. I had several experiences in this church I could only describe as spiritual, including one with a faith healer that I still ponder. Some of my longest-held personal beliefs started to change- I had always believed in the validity of all religions, or no religion, but now I became convinced that only Christianity was right, and all other Gods were either myth or demonic in nature. I had always beleived in subjective morality - that for the most part moral truths depend on context and are not objective - now I began to believe that in fact there was a single, objective morality. I even questioned my stance on the more controversial moral issues in the Bible- Abortion, Homosexuality, etc... For quite some time, i would only consider Biblically-based arguements on these sorts of subjects.
My life improved. A couple personal dilemmas I had for a long time rapidly got solved, including one that I felt was so hopeless I had (not seriously, but not completely in passing either) contemplated suicide over. Most of my personal relationships improved (not all, and a couple gradually worsened). My singing ability, something which is extraordinarilly important to me, experienced several breakthroughs despite not being in training at all. These were all things I had spent many many hours on both prior to my "rebirth" in study and contemplation, and post-rebirth in prayer. I found it remarkable that prayer had succeeded where in some cases years of contemplation had failed to produce a solution. This observation and these experiences only served to re-enforce my faith.
I began to study the Bible, looking for answers to the moral and ethical dilemmas I now faced due to my faith- Abortion, Homosexuality, etc...If I'm being honest with myself, I was looking for ways to reconcile my personal views with the views espoused by my faith. in the course of this study, I came to this debate forum, I read both conservative and liberal writings, writings by Atheists and writings by Christians, and even some Jewish philosophy on the subejcts. where available.
Now I have a problem. My rational mind, the logician in me, is at serious odds of late with both my experience and my "faith". I do not believe that, if Jesus Christ and His Father exist, they are omnipotent. It doesn't make any sense to me. Questioning basic tennets of my "faith" leeds me to question the intellectual honesty of accepting any of them. Yet my experiences in church lead me to wonder if I'm missing something. Additionally, as my faith has become less sure, as I have begun to reject certain points of Christian philsophy, some of the things that improved intially are becoming worse again. This leads me to "doubt my doubt" as it were, but the complete Christian framework doesn't feel intellectually honest to me anymore, and most of the people who make the most sense to me on issues of ethics are atheist, not Christian.
Neither my rational mind nor my instinct accept existance without a creation. I don;t like the existing scientific explanations of how the universe came into being, they don't make much sense to me. I'm concerned though that my primal fear of nonexistance is coloring my thought process beyond my ability to recognize internal bias.
I'm having a real issue here. My rational mind is essentially atheist at this point, or at least espousing the view that if there is/was a God he is either dead or completely alien and uncaring. However, my gut instinct tells me I'm wrong, and my experiences re-inforce the idea that God, or speciically Christ, is infact there and able to produce positive change in people's lives.
I've reached a few actual conclusions:
- I do not believe in an omnipotent, omniscient God. The concepts don't really make rational sense, and the world doesn't make much sense in light of such a being.
- I feel there is something more to Jesus than just a crazy preacher who died 2,000 years ago, but my rational mind and my gut are completely at odds over what more there is.
- I believe in a soul. I think there is something more to human existance than fleeting electrochemical impluses.
- I think Christianity has been a net negative for the human race. How this reconciles with my second point I have no idea.
Apart from that, I'm feeling pretty lost. I'm interested in hearing from anyone on these thoughts, but particularly people who would at least loosely fit one of the following descriptions:
- current atheist, former devoutly religious person
- current believer, former atheist
- "intellectual" believer - someone who would state that their faith is guided by reason
- Hardcore Christian - am I being sopalistic or hyprocritical in my beliefs?
- Hardcore Atheist- same question
hopefully this can sprout some interesting discussion in addition to maybe helping me sort this out. I'm loosing sleep over it.
- Willy Wonka
The Quote function doesn't work for me on this forum. Sorry for any confusion created.
And this is what advice I have to give: No one has it figured out, no one.
Anyone that tells you they've got all the answers and that their worldview must be 100% True is likely deranged. You don't need to swallow every bit of any moral philosophy or worldview. You can still be Catholic, but think that gays should be able to marry. You can be Christian, but still doubt that Jesus was literally God. This isn't a black-and-white all-or-nothing Hard Atheist or Fundamentalist choice.
I still remember the first time I started to question my own faith and someone told me he was an "Agnostic," and what that meant to him. Never liked the guy, but the idea that there was a third path--that the choice I was debating was a False Dilemma--shook me to my core. So, I became an Agnostic for a while. It did not ring true for me later in life, so I switched to Agnostic Deist.
That's the message you should be taking away. You don't have to abandon reason for faith or vice versa. You can simply use them in conjunction. You don't have to take some path someone else laid out for you, swallowing whole everything they spoon feed you. You can pick and choose, take the parts of something that ring true and discard those parts that don't. We're all mortal; we all get somethings right and other things wrong. So, find the right parts from others and discard the wrong. Augment your beliefs with reason.
Don't let yourself get locked into something that's probably wrong (or at least not all right). Stay mentally agile and able to accept new truths as they arise.
__________________
-John Maynard Keynes
It's hard for me to truly empathize because I have never been "religious": I've never accepted the various religious establishments. I do consider myself spiritual in a way so I value what religion brings to the table, I just don't buy into the dogmas that accompany them.
You seem to feel strongly about your life turning around once you started paying more attention to Christian Teachings but I'd argue you did that on your own: Church, the Good Book, the Priest all helped you along but all they did was set you up, you are the engine of the change (I hope I'm not coming accross as high & mighty because I have no clue what kind of things you had to overcome at that point in your life)
But it's not a "take it or leave it" kind of thing: just because you find yourself questionning certain tenets doesn't invalidate the entirety of the teachings nor does it taint your experience of it.
There are plenty of things that I find agreeable in all religions and plenty of others I find absolutely reprehensible; I take the good and leave the bad. Religious practices and teachings have been shaped by men and women throughout the ages: they have been used by bad people and good people to try and achieve something; you don't have to agree with everything.
My advice is to avoid believing things just because they make you feel better. If you don't know the answer, you don't know the answer. Big deal.
On the issue of personal experiences, many people point to ways prayer has helped them resolve problems. The problem is that people who pray to anything from the Christian God to Hindu deities to their ancestors to nature spirits report the same thing. I would be careful about concluding that the important point is what you prayed to, since the evidence suggests the opposite.
I have to say that like you, I have a rational side of me which has my doubts, even now.
But I have another side of me which has faith enough to call himself a believer.
There is some tension in my perspective, but overall the two are pretty well reconciled.
I'm not going to offer you rational arguments for God. I think you are plenty capable of pursuing that on your own. What I can do is offer some of my own experiences with a similar duality.
In my experience as a Christian, the power of Christ is not effected by debates as to its existence. Really, debating whether something exists has been in my experience, a largely futile exercise. It robs the power of Christ in a spiritual sense in the name of intellectual pursuit. There is power and positivity which come from faith--not arguments, but faith.
As far as I'm concerned, Christ does not perform miracles which affect objective reality anymore. He does not part oceans or seas, cause locusts to come down, turn rivers into blood, or raise the dead. Instead the way I see Christ working now is changing people's hearts in ways so gentle and mild, you can't even be sure it happened.
In my walk, I've seen the following happen:
-Siblings who have fought bitterly their entire lives, turn it all around in a matter of months since accepting God.
-Cynical, Jaded, dark people turn happy.
-People who felt like they were at their breaking point with life's troubles, enjoy a renewed sense of hope, and with it, strength to endure.
-People who are so strong that nothing gets them down, allowing them to be a source of strength and encouragement to others.
-Sons who swore they would never eat at the same table again with their father, sit down and enjoy time again as a healed family.
-Broken hearts healed and encouraged; Hearts in chaos with peace restored.
I have seen bad people turn good consistently because of Christ. I've seen communities come together in solidarity in times of trial.
That is the power of Christ. Those are where his miracles lay.
There is nothing scientific about telling someone to turn the other cheek when he is slapped on the one cheek. There is no historical or archaeological debate about telling people their words to each other should be edifying and encouraging, rather than tearing the other person down.
There is no rational debate concerning existence when hearing the words:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
There is nothing that can be tested in a laboratory concerning the lesson of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples
There is no scientific consensus about telling people to "love thy neighbor as thyself."
I try to avoid debates on the existence of God, because it almost always ends up being a distraction to the actual messages of the bible, some of which I wrote above. I'd even say that it completely misses the point of the central message of the bible.
It takes work to be alive in the spirit. The bible says that faith without works is dead. Any Christian faith that is nothing more than contending with debaters in an intellectual forum will struggle.
But faith that is alive is faith that is active, in which we seek to give out kindness and encouragement to others in greater measure than our hearts will let us bear. It is when you see your faith in action in helping others, that the power of the words and lessons of encouragement in the bible can really be seen.
"Thy words are a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."
I was a Roman Catholic for the majority of my life so far. Throughout childhood and up until about two years ago I believed in God, Jesus, miracles, Heaven, Hell, you name it. To me it really wasn't a question, it was so ingrained in who I was that I never really contemplated what to believe.
Then I began to question my beliefs. Did miracles actually take place? Does the afterlife exist? Does a soul exist? I looked in to both sides of the argument, reading in to opinions of people like Bertrand Russel, Richard Dawkins, James Randi, and Christopher Hitchens, while conversely looking at opinions from popular theists like John Lennox and William Lane Craig. After all of this reading, I came to the realization that I didn't believe in God, at least, not how Roman Catholicism described God. So, I labeled myself an Agnostic. It seemed less extreme that way. I could comfortably say that I couldn't know that were was a God, and sit comfortably in the middle of two extremes.
But, even then, that wasn't enough. I kept looking in to Atheism and it became more apparent to me that I didn't believe in a higher being at all. Now, I'm not saying Atheism doesn't have it's issues, it definitely does (Causality arguments abound) but with the evidence I, as a human being living in 2013 have, to me it's the most plausible response. I can't tell you how the universe was created. Nobody can. One day will we be able to? Maybe. Will I be long dead? Probably. So right now, with the evidence I have I can't have faith in a God. There is no evidence for a God. (You can go in to Francis Collins can create an argument in regards to the Human Genome project, but there has been a fair amount of criticism in relation to The Language of God)
Do I think you are being hypocritical? Absolutely not. But before you label yourself as a Christian, you should ask yourself, why do you need to be a part of a religious organization? You believe in God, that much is apparent in your post, but I feel like you struggle with the stances that the Church has taken in regards to current issues (Homosexuality, Abortion, etc.). You can believe in a higher being and not have to subscribe to an organization. Now, do you believe in the Old Testament? Do you believe that God told Moses the Ten Commandments? You have stated that you believe in Jesus Christ, but do you believe in the modern interpretations of his philosophies? A lot Christians today pick and choose their beliefs, barely following the text of the Bible, not following it literally. In fact, there are probably a lot of Roman Catholics out there that, if actually questioned on their beliefs in relation to the Church, would identify as Lutheran. A lot of these "issues" regarding the Church did not actually appear in the Bible. Homosexuality? Arguably, no. Jesus, the proclaimed son of God, didn't have a stance on gay marriage, didn't have a stance on condom use, didn't have a stance on abortion, didn't have a stance on female priests, married priests, etc.
Also, you have stated that Christ and Religion have given you a sense of comfort. I agree, yes, it would be very comforting for me to believe in a soul, an afterlife, black and white morality, but honestly do you think it could also be a false sense of comfort? I toyed with the concept of believing in Heaven and all of the wonderful things Christianity has to offer, but I had to get down to it and realize that while those things may provide me with comfort, in truth I don't believe in them. This is what a lot of the shock from switching to Agnosticism/Atheism came from. When all of these wonderful, comforting beliefs are gone, yes you lose a sense of comfort. But, you also, in my opinion, gain a sense of self-realization. I think Penn Jillette put it beautifully when he compared death to before birth, there is no sense of loss because there is no sense at all. Not comforting, but not frightening either. Do you remember the year 1856? Were you alive? No. To me, that's what death will be. It's not scary because I had no sense.
In all honesty, you might be a Deist. You feel like there is something more to Jesus, but you aren't sure. That's fine. Maybe there was. But maybe there wasn't. Maybe God has never told anyone to build an Ark, hasn't told anyone what morality is. Maybe this higher being just created the Universe and left it be. Maybe, as Collins puts it, God acted as a guiding hand, guiding humanity through life and evolution, but not directly influencing humanity through speech or any other conduit.
It's good to question faith. If you never question what you believe in, what's the point in believing in it?
Hope you find your answers, I really do.
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The image of the Christ (although that is almost certainly in no way an accurate representation of the (Middle-Eastern) man who may have espoused being the son of God) being soothing makes sense from a rational perspective - because they let you feel that you are not responsible, that your father is still alive somewhere.
But the fact is, rationally, it does not make sense that that is the case.
I do not believe in a soul - and the recent cloning technology has reinforced my nonbelief. Really, a soul is merely the amalgamation of thought processes that are crafted in the womb and developed in beautifully complex ways during life. To me, the beauty of life would be merely cheapened if fashioned by some sort of divine Creator.
Along with my rational disagreement with the concept of God, I also have philosophical disagreements with the concept too.
But if you really believe that God exists, or that there is some element of the divine that exists, there's nothing wrong or hypocritical of that belief. Approximately one third of scientists believe in some sort of creator figure, be it a Deist god or a more active Christian God.
I respectfully disagree with it, but, then again, I wasn't raised religious.
But if you believe in God, there is nothing wrong with that.
Hell, you could be right all along. And wouldn't the joke be on me?
But the answers to your questions cannot come from without. They must come from within your own mind. Your 'soul' as you call it.
Hope you find answers for your questions, and that my paltry experience has helped at all.
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Even though I'm a Christian, I have many atheist friends and they don't judge me for having a faith. I also don't judge them and it all works out fine. I think the Christians who picket funerals and hate gay people, are not real Christians because they aren't following the most important commandments of Jesus, one of which is "Love your neighbor as you love yourself". There are also who judge people by Leviticus, who are also hypocrites because they will eat shrimp, wear mixed fabric clothing, cut their hair, etc. Many Christians don't even know that they're not supposed to follow the OT, because they are Gentiles, and Jesus fulfilled the law and established a new covenant.
I really don't like the Old Testament, so I choose not to believe in most of it. There's so much bad stuff in it. Like if you divorce your wife, she has to be stoned. If a man rapes a woman he has to marry her? That's really messed up. Not to mention that it's normal for Christian couples to get a divorce, but they don't hate any one of them, but they still hate gay people. Like really, why are you okay with one thing but not another when the Bible says they are equally bad?
Another problem I have is believing in the part where Christians are supposed to perform miracles in this day and age just as Jesus did in his age. We are called on to do greater things, but I have not witnessed any. I have prayed, and have other people prayed, several times, for God to heal my back. But it never happened. This old lady at this church with one blind eye said that she saw shadows coming from inside me when she was praying for me. So she thought I either didn't really have faith, or I was hanging around bad people. That's a problem I have with some Christians. Whenever something bad happens, it's always "It's part of God's plan" or "You don't have enough faith". Jesus said that if you had enough faith to equal the size of a mustard seed, you could tell a mountain to jump into the sea. I have not seen anyone do this. So what if the problem is that no one has enough faith? Another thing I disagree with Paul is the "thorn of the flesh" thing. He had bad eyesight and was never cured, but this goes against what Jesus taught because faith is supposed to make you better.
I have heard of miracles being performed, but what bothers me is that they're all anecdotes. This one church claimed that they made a blind girl see, but why didn't they call the media? Surely this is significant enough to warrant coverage. I may have had miracles in my own life but how do I know I just didn't get really lucky? Like this one time I had testicular torsion in the middle of the night, and I knew by instinct which way to turn it so it wouldn't hurt anymore. Did God give me the knowledge to do this? If I had turned it the wrong way, I very well could have lost my testicle. I was in so much pain that I had to do something.