About that atheism thing…

[One Ugly Christian]

Fair enough. Sick in what sense do you mean? If what you mean is that we are all capable of performing evil acts, of feeling resentment, anger and jealously towards others be it by acting out of ignorance, selfishness or some other reason; then such is indeed something we are prone to. But we are also such that we are capable of performing good acts, of feeling trust, kindness and love towards others. We are not perfect and so we don’t always excel in virtue as we should and we are not always as we should be with respect to our fellow humans; but this is not something that I see as a supernatural issue (flowing from something like the fall and Original Sin) needing an equally supernatural solution (the grace of God).




I used to think like this back as a teenager (I didn’t grow up religious) and I am aware that a lot of atheists and “free thinkers” tend to brush off Christians as weak minded sheep who can’t think for themselves. But I don’t personally hold that opinion.

Thanks for your message OUC


Evo

Good response and very clear reasoning. And good question on what is "sick." I guess it's just something I believe I see on a deeper level than emotions. Something spiritual inside a person that has chosen the "ugly" over the good. Hitler is always the "fall guy" for things like this. In his reasoning and in his "heart" he probably believed he was a good person doing righteous things. But there just has to be more to the entire history regarding the hatred and persecution of the Jews. Something darker, more sinister and something deeper in the soles of men.

Would depend on what you mean by “God”.... this is a being who is said to be active in the world, who loves, cares for and is involved in human affairs, who is said to be bringing about his divine plan, performing miracles, answering prayers, etc;.... Evo

I'm a big fan of Bob Enyart's who preaches that God is not active in the world today. His book "The Plot" gives Scriptural arguments for this belief. I'm actually split on the issue and just have to say I don't know. But one great point Enyart makes is that God is not our butler. He's not there to clean up our messes like when we raise our children with, for example, no discipline. When a parent has a really screwed up kid who's doing drugs or whatever and that parent then prays to God to "fix it" they should look in the mirror instead. It was that parent's responsibility to raise their child and this same kind of thing is true for all things in life. We as people, governments, churches and every institution under the sun hurt ourselves and each other on a daily bases and then cry like little girls because God doesn't snap His fingers and fix everything (myself included).

 

[Town Heretic]

Given I'm an OSASer I'm more disappointed than worried. Concerned because I think you're making a mistake that could be influencing younger Christians who might have looked to your example and might then be shaken by this portion of it... Disappointed for you and what you've missed and will continue to miss for a while.

When I hear anyone tell me about an accumulation of evidence or want that leads toward apostasy there is without exception a point of shifting trust from God to our own desires for Him and expectations of. I don't by that mean to imply that the former adherent lacked a love for God or that their profession of faith was in any part false.

That people involved in the struggle of life find stepping away from that restive and even liberating is no real surprise, nor should it be mistaken for ease or liberation. A well treated prisoner of war may find the experience preferable to combat, but it remains a captivity.

As for evidence about a particular God being present and loving, I experience that in relation on a daily basis and have since the day of my conversion. I also see it watching God move through those who love him...and when I note declared adherents being something else I understand what's at the root of it and what isn't. There are many forgiven of much who then go about shaking down others and we know what's waiting for them...a hard correction and unhappiness in the meantime. Because the dissonance in life on the point is always found between where our limited understanding and short sighted natures move us and where God and joy and peace are actually found.

You're probably familiar with Brother Lawrence. I think he had it about right. We only really get ourselves in trouble when we rest in ourselves instead of the cornerstone. I hope your apostasy is a breath before the plunge and I look forward to welcoming you back to the front lines within the context of this life.

 

[Repentance]

As a theist I too have a lot of problems and questions I would rather ask God. Why let animals kill each other off? Why create hell? Why put us to a test? Why allow Satan to be free? Why are you hiding? Why refuse scientific evidence? Why create disunity? Why create all this suffering? Do the rejectors really deserve hell? Why create pain? Why not a world where we all live with you in freewill and bliss? I don't pretend I cannot answer any of them but they do trouble me. So I ask myself - why believe in a God? Why not Zeus? Thor? Brahma?

Its because I've been brainwashed from a young child. Its because I'm scared of hell. And how society will react. Its because I feel that's its a safer bet, the safer side of the Pascal's Wager.

Its because God exists and He is not what we expect Him to be.

 

[Town Heretic]

...Its because I've been brainwashed from a young child. Its because I'm scared of hell. And how society will react. Its because I feel that's its a safer bet, the safer side of the Pascal's Wager.

Pascal was short sighted. The reality of God in the living and breathing working through of our walk, the invaluable uplifting of the very life we're about is reason enough, without a thought to the eternal, which is so much icing on an unfathomable cake.

Its because God exists and He is not what we expect Him to be.

Though in fairness He told us as much going in. Isaiah 55:8,9

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 

[Nang]

I'm a big fan of Bob Enyart's who preaches that God is not active in the world today.

I disagree with this view, of course, and cannot imagine how bad the world would be, if God were not active in it.

It is unimaginable to think how corrupted society would become, if it were not for He and His believers acting as salt, to hinder the rot.

In fact, I doubt very much this planet would still exist to this point in history, if God was not actively working all things according to His purposes.

Mankind, apart from God's sovereign hand, would more than likely have self-destructed long before now.

Nang

 

[Nang]

Hi Nang,
While some recent scholars seem to be pushing for the Mythical Jesus theory; I hold to the view that Jesus was a real person.


Evo

Then I assume you are rejecting Jesus' claims of Divinity.

 

[JosephR]

Then I assume you are rejecting Jesus' claims of Divinity.

does that have anything to do with salvation or the Gospel? if so please prove it.

 

[aikido7]

As some friends and fellow TOLers have noticed, some of whom have sent me messages asking about it (thanks! ), and for others who have yet to notice but who knew what I previously believed: I no longer consider myself a Catholic nor a theist.

As to what lead to this change, it had been some time in the making, reaching a tipping point about a year and a half ago. But the short of it is that I don’t see the hand of an all loving, knowing and powerful God at work in the world or what is said to be his Church; rather, I see a God who does his hardest to remain hidden and everything unfolding in a way that one would expect if such a God was not active in the world or simply didn’t exist. I find myself in an universe in which no process attests to God's activity within it.

As my faith in God, the supernatural and the Catholic Church waned, I came to a point where I realised that I was not being honest with myself if I continued on that path. The lack of evidence for God and for the supernatural reality entailed by the beliefs I was holding by faith lead to an internal conflict that kept piling up and by the end I came to realise that I was holding on to the faith due to an emotional attachment to it and not because I still believed in it. But there was no integrity to be found in that setup and I got nothing but cognitive dissonance out of it; so I let go.

While I am an atheist now, I do not consider myself a strong/militant atheist, that is, I don’t make the claim that I know for a fact that God does not exists. Nor do I have a penchant for bashing God or religion. Rather, my disbelief arises for the most part from a lack of evidence and this lack of evidence leads me to think the existence of God or the supernatural is unlikely and I thus live my life as if it doesn’t exists. But as new evidence can always emerge which can change one’s mind, I do not adopt the strong/militant stance as some atheists do.

I wasn’t sure at first what to write for this OP, my original idea was to write a longer post detailing everything but I opted instead for not writing an essay and for leaving things a bit less formal and open, letting the thread unfold by itself and then ride along with it.

The above is condensed for the sake of brevity but I’d be willing to expand on it. So, yeah, I’d be open to discuss things and answer any questions you may have about this change. Hopefully it can be done in a friendly, conversational and respectful manner :cheers:


Evo

Evo, I will start by quoting a part of a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to a close friend:

"The church's meddlings have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust."

This opinion surely does not reflect Jefferson's public (political) face. It is his actual, true feelings when it comes to the divide between the Jesus before Easter and the Jesus after Easter. Another example of Jefferson's beliefs about the pre-Easter Jesus is his famous "Jefferson Bible." The Founding Father took scissors and paper to the Bible and removed all references to Jesus that were metaphoric, interpretive references--and he left all of the literal statements and messages that were attributed to Jesus.

Evo, there are those who accept history as a normal and accepted way to view the Christian faith, and those who do not really believe that Christianity is a bottom line historical faith about which certain things really happened and can be historically verified.

Any believer like yourself who studies both FAITH AND HISTORY will sooner or later be confronted by what the pre-Easter historical Jesus was as well as be confronted by what later apostles (who wrote the four gospels) called the Christ of faith.

In other words, Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, Born of a Virgin, etc. is a statement of different faith beliefs. To say that Jesus was a man with a unique concept of God, is simply a statement of FACT.

The insults and the judgments which are being piled on you from many believers on this forum is proof that believing in Jesus as a figure of Palestinian history is actually seen as a threat by those who see Christianity as a religion that demands its members to give assent to a list of first-century beliefs and metaphors.

There is a clear difference between Christians who live life by picking up the cross, following Jesus, and recognizing Jesus as the distinctive revelation of God and see their faith as a relationship that is based on trust in God. And I would say the "other" way--the fundamentalist or the conservative Christianity--is all about preferencing "right belief" over and above "right action" and behavior.

 

[aikido7]

does that have anything to do with salvation or the Gospel? if so please prove it.

A careful reading of the New Testament shows that the gospel Jesus preached had to do with the Kingdom of God. In other words, what would the world be like if God sat on the throne of empire and Caesar did not.

The Kingdom of God and salvation within that world was all about the earth AS IT IS in Heaven.

The atonement theology of people born into sin can only be "saved" by a creator who demands torture and death from his son is contradicted by the many times Jesus offers and gives "salvation" to others long before he starts to turn his head to Jerusalem and Calvary.

In other words, Heaven was in good shape. It is this world that was important to Jesus--teaching the present arrival of the kingdom, freeing those in prison or those who have been shut out of the world, those who are diseased or marginalized.

 

[Nang]

does that have anything to do with salvation or the Gospel? if so please prove it.

The divinity of Jesus Christ has everything to do with the gospel of salvation . . . But I am not going to get into argument with you about this vital truth.

This is Evo's thread, not ours.

 

[JosephR]

A careful reading of the New Testament shows that the gospel Jesus preached had to do with the Kingdom of God. In other words, what would the world be like if God sat on the throne of empire and Caesar did not.

The Kingdom of God and salvation within that world was all about the earth AS IT IS in Heaven.

The atonement theology of people born into sin can only be "saved" by a creator who demands torture and death from his son is contradicted by the many times Jesus offers and gives "salvation" to others long before he starts to turn his head to Jerusalem and Calvary.

In other words, Heaven was in good shape. It is this world that was important to Jesus--teaching the present arrival of the kingdom, freeing those in prison or those who have been shut out of the world, those who are diseased or marginalized.

well I see no fault in that.

 

[JosephR]

The divinity of Jesus Christ has everything to do with the gospel of salvation . . . But I am not going to get into argument with you about this vital truth.

This is Evo's thread, not ours.

dont worry, truth is spoken if you move your lips "fingers" or not.

however I dont think you should lie to people about the Gospel or salvation, you keep going around asking people "Hath God said?" with a forked tongue.

 

[Evoken]

Good response and very clear reasoning. And good question on what is "sick." I guess it's just something I believe I see on a deeper level than emotions. Something spiritual inside a person that has chosen the "ugly" over the good. Hitler is always the "fall guy" for things like this. In his reasoning and in his "heart" he probably believed he was a good person doing righteous things. But there just has to be more to the entire history regarding the hatred and persecution of the Jews. Something darker, more sinister and something deeper in the soles of men.

Thanks, you too . Yes, what Hitler did was definitely sinister and ugly; one of the great examples of our capacity for performing evil acts. But as the phrase usually goes, “for every Hitler there is a Gandhi”; for every person in the scale of evil, there can be a corresponding person in the scale of goodness. Absolute power, as is said, also tends to corrupt absolutely. There are multiple factors such as education, upbringing, social pressure and the like which can lead someone acting one way or the other. A lot of mental states which were previously thought to be the result of demonic possession, as science has advanced and new knowledge has emerged, are now considered to be mental illness with a perfectly natural explanation of them instead of the product of demonic forces. The more we understand about human psychology, the better grasp we have about what can lead, for example, a woman to drown her five children because she believes God will take them (as I recall one such case).

I’m a big fan of Bob Enyart's who preaches that God is not active in the world today. His book "The Plot" gives Scriptural arguments for this belief. I'm actually split on the issue and just have to say I don't know. But one great point Enyart makes is that God is not our butler. He's not there to clean up our messes like when we raise our children with, for example, no discipline. When a parent has a really screwed up kid who's doing drugs or whatever and that parent then prays to God to "fix it" they should look in the mirror instead.

I haven’t read the book but I know that Enyart holds to both the open view and the dispensationalist view. I think he is a cessationist, as they are called, because he believes that the gifts like talking in tongues are no longer given to believers. But I take it that he does believes that God is involved in human affairs, that he answers prayers, that he seeks to have a personal relationship with humans and the like. Of course, the idea is not for God to do everything for us, absolving us of any kind of responsibility; rather that some indication that he is there and doing something in the world would be evident if he, as it is believed in the Christian faith, is an active God.


Evo

 

[Evoken]

Given I'm an OSASer I'm more disappointed than worried. Concerned because I think you're making a mistake that could be influencing younger Christians who might have looked to your example and might then be shaken by this portion of it... Disappointed for you and what you've missed and will continue to miss for a while.

I can understand your concern, such an influence is also something that can come from pastors and those who are placed in a position to be shepherds, charged as they are with feeding and taking care of the flock. They have an impact in both young and old who might have looked up to them for example and guidence. The state of the Catholic Church particularly involving the actions (or lack thereof) of those in position of authority had it’s influence on me and I’d say it has had it in many a Catholic.

When I hear anyone tell me about an accumulation of evidence or want that leads toward apostasy there is without exception a point of shifting trust from God to our own desires for Him and expectations of.

It is more, speaking for myself, a case of not being able to give that unconditional assent of faith in good conscience. That assent is not something made in a vacuum, there must exist some grounding for it, and such is the case I’d say even for the believer, unless a fideistic approach to faith is taken.

That people involved in the struggle of life find stepping away from that restive and even liberating is no real surprise, nor should it be mistaken for ease or liberation. A well treated prisoner of war may find the experience preferable to combat, but it remains a captivity.

I don’t think it is always as clear cut; some people find many aspects of religion, such as the idea of an afterlife, comforting and difficult to let go. While I have come to terms with it by now, I struggled for a while with the idea that this is it, that it will all end when I die. The same goes with finding meaning in life after faith. That illustration of the prisoner may be how you view things from your own framework; a different take on it would be that the prisoner realises he is in captivity and escapes, but then after emerging out of the tunnel, he ask: now what? A transition which speaks about me letting go of a Catholic identity which permeated every aspect of my life and which was the basis of a good number of beliefs. Reassessing and rediscovering has been part of the process of answering that question.

As for evidence about a particular God being present and loving, I experience that in relation on a daily basis and have since the day of my conversion. I also see it watching God move through those who love him...

Granted, believers do indeed find such evidence for God in their own personal experience and some even claim to have witnessed something which could be termed as miraculous at one point in their lives; which in turn lead them to place their trust in God or, if they already believed, reinforced that trust. But surely you understand that such personal experience, while it may be evidence for you, it is not necessarily evidence for me.

There are many forgiven of much who then go about shaking down others and we know what's waiting for them...a hard correction and unhappiness in the meantime.

Well, as I expressed in my OP; I don’t have a penchant for bashing religion or God nor for “shaking down others”. Just because I left the faith it doesn’t means I am against everything Christian. I may find issue with certain forms of religious fundamentalism, but not with religion in general.

You're probably familiar with Brother Lawrence. I think he had it about right. We only really get ourselves in trouble when we rest in ourselves instead of the cornerstone.

I am actually not familiar with Brother Lawrence, but the “cornerstone” you speak of is very much a premise. Sure, if you hold to that premise, you can hold to a great deal more. The question is, what do you get and what do you lose by holding to that premise? If you get more out of holding onto it, then by all means hold on to it. I got cognitive dissonance by holding onto it. So I let it go.

I hope your apostasy is a breath before the plunge and I look forward to welcoming you back to the front lines within the context of this life.

Fair enough and thanks for your message, TH


Evo

 

[Evoken]

Its because I've been brainwashed from a young child. Its because I'm scared of hell. And how society will react. Its because I feel that's its a safer bet, the safer side of the Pascal's Wager.

A lot of people believe because that is what they were raised in. A great deal of the time a person embraces the same religion of his parents or the most prevalent one in their country of origin. As far as Pascal's Wager goes, as TH pointed out, the argument is really not a good one. I mean, if you personally find it persuasive, then by all means hold to it but it may not prove too convincing for others.


Evo

 

[Evoken]

Evo, I will start by quoting a part of a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to a close friend:

"The church's meddlings have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust."

This opinion surely does not reflect Jefferson's public (political) face. It is his actual, true feelings when it comes to the divide between the Jesus before Easter and the Jesus after Easter. Another example of Jefferson's beliefs about the pre-Easter Jesus is his famous "Jefferson Bible." The Founding Father took scissors and paper to the Bible and removed all references to Jesus that were metaphoric, interpretive references--and he left all of the literal statements and messages that were attributed to Jesus.

Have to agree with Jefferson in that quote. I didn’t know about that little bit of history of the Founding Father cutting out parts of the Bible which you mentioned. Another good quote from Jefferson which I have seen in several places is the following:

”Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”

Indeed

Evo, there are those who accept history as a normal and accepted way to view the Christian faith, and those who do not really believe that Christianity is a bottom line historical faith about which certain things really happened and can be historically verified.

Well, of course, I accept that certain historical things which are said about Christianity did in fact occur. As I mentioned in a previous post, I accept that Jesus was a person who actually existed and that he did some of the things that are attributed to him; even tho there are a number of scholars who deny even the existence of Jesus but I am not really convinced.

In other words, Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, Born of a Virgin, etc. is a statement of different faith beliefs. To say that Jesus was a man with a unique concept of God, is simply a statement of FACT.

Ah, now your own view becomes a bit clearer. So you don’t accept the supernatural elements that are attributed to Jesus but rather see him as a man who was a teacher and lived and died just like all of us?

The insults and the judgments which are being piled on you from many believers on this forum is proof that believing in Jesus as a figure of Palestinian history is actually seen as a threat by those who see Christianity as a religion that demands its members to give assent to a list of first-century beliefs and metaphors.

I expected it to be a bumpy ride, all things considered They definitely see such as a threat because they see a professed Christian as denying the full account of Jesus, which they believe contains both the historical facts and what you consider a “list of first-century beliefs and metaphors”.

Do you accept all parts of the gospels and the epistles or do you only accept some? Do you hold to something akin to the Jefferson Bible to the exclusion of all else?

Thanks for your message aikido :cheers:


Evo

 

[Town Heretic]

For the sake of brevity I'll leave off the points where I think we simply understand one another and there's nothing worthwhile for me to offer.

...While I have come to terms with it by now, I struggled for a while with the idea that this is it, that it will all end when I die.

I think hope is a more worthy investment than futility and that given there is nothing in the measurable world to settle the question faith addresses it remains a superior context and choice both for settling value and purpose as well as the natural desire to continue. I suspect that the problem of dissonance is one of expectation which itself is rooted in the ego's desire to define God and encompass what cannot be instead of relying on that which we can know by invitation and experience.

The same goes with finding meaning in life after faith. That illustration of the prisoner may be how you view things from your own framework;

No, I only meant it as a way of illustrating how relief can be misleading, how the absence of battle can look very much like peace but needn't be.

I omit but appreciate your process. I'd say one of the reservations I have about intricate dogma is how it invites an intellectual appreciation of mechanism that can mimic love down to the letter but isn't and can stand in or and be over time confuse a proper attention to the object of our adoration.

Granted, believers do indeed find such evidence for God in their own personal experience and some even claim to have witnessed something which could be termed as miraculous at one point in their lives;

I'd say if a person doesn't find that true for themselves it would be time for them to seriously examine the root of their faith and walk and take significant measures to open themselves to the possibility that they've built their faith on religion instead of that surrender, however well intentioned, that their faith was misplaced for likely the best of reasons but to the worst of results, a nearly inevitable failure when the challenge or failures of the world, singularly or collectively, call.

...surely you understand that such personal experience, while it may be evidence for you, it is not necessarily evidence for me.

No, I think witness/testimony on the point should be evidence worth considering for anyone who doesn't consider the source untrustworthy, even while understanding that what determines is found in the one examining, that there is no shame in Thomas and his natural kinship with the modern sensibility.

When I was an atheist I had a few close friends who tried to bring me into the fold. I accepted that something remarkable was happening with them, believing them to be honest and earnest in their desire to share it with me, but I was (absent personal, subjective experience) unable to distinguish settle the matter resting on them.

Well, as I expressed in my OP; I don’t have a penchant for bashing religion or God nor for “shaking down others”.

I didn't think so, though in relating what you have with the knowledge that you could influence an admiring and uncertain soul I think you can't be entirely removed from it either...but I was speaking to Christians around here who, being forgiven much, being shown mercy and love by Christ make a habit of showing little that resembles either to those in need of it. It wasn't a criticism aimed at you.

Just because I left the faith it doesn’t means I am against everything Christian. I may find issue with certain forms of religious fundamentalism, but not with religion in general.

We differ here. That is, while you may not be hostile you are most definitely opposed because the premise here is the very thing, because whatever particulars you might retain a fondness for, they're unimportant absent the central truth that gives them real meaning for the faithful and as such can only be seen as being in opposition, if genially.

I am actually not familiar with Brother Lawrence,

I hope you consider looking up the slim and free Practice of the Presence of God online. It can be bought, but there are places where it can be read on site. Won't take any time at all. It's a very quick read with a great deal to say. I think it should be mandatory reading for the faithful, along with Boethius' The Consulation of Philosophy.

The question is, what do you get and what do you lose by holding to that premise? If you get more out of holding onto it, then by all means hold on to it. I got cognitive dissonance by holding onto it. So I let it go.

I think you may be conflating a great deal of dogma with what I'm talking about. And if you stand where Lawrence did I think the only thing you'll find is peace in relation to God.

Fair enough and thanks for your message, TH

You know, Evo, "and your neighbor as yourself."

:cheers:

 

[One Ugly Christian]

I haven’t read the book but I know that Enyart holds to both the open view and the dispensationalist view. I think he is a cessationist, as they are called, because he believes that the gifts like talking in tongues are no longer given to believers. But I take it that he does believes that God is involved in human affairs, that he answers prayers, that he seeks to have a personal relationship with humans and the like. Of course, the idea is not for God to do everything for us, absolving us of any kind of responsibility; rather that some indication that he is there and doing something in the world would be evident if he, as it is believed in the Christian faith, is an active God.


Evo

Quite correct, I overstated Enyart's position. He does believe that God will provide wisdom, guidance and such to those that seek.

Yes, what Hitler did was definitely sinister and ugly; one of the great examples of our capacity for performing evil acts.

Yeah, I liked him, too

 

[Repentance]

Well if you consider this life to be a test of faith at all fronts, then it becomes clear why God does not provide a scientific explanation or proof for His existence. He wants it to be a test of faith - to differentiate those who are capable of faith from those who don't. Its not a test of the application of logic. If it was so and if God could be proven through scientific observation and reasoning then the test is not one of faith.

 

[Repentance]

Why not become an "agnostic Christian"?